NBA's Byron Scott on Leadership On and Off The Court

apply it to a variety of different business techniques. And here to help us understand sort of the convergence of what you learn on the court and what you can learn in the office is Byron Scott. Thank you very

much for being here. He is an NBC studio analyst, but of course he is known as h. Yes, I was gonna was gonna give the whole record, you know, I was gonna tell everybody about his what three NBA champions, uh NBA All Rookie first Team, also coach to the l A. I mean, just you're thank you for being here. Thank you guys for having me all right. And in the in the other corner is Charles Norris. He is the chairman of Fresh Pet and he is the former

chief executive of McKesson Water and deer Park Spring Water. Charles, thanks for being here. Okay, so this is the obvious question, what do you two gentlemen have in common? We were just talking about that, even though we don't look alike, we have a lot in common. We're separated by at least a couple inches, a little page, a little bit of hair, but uh, we have a lot in common. And uh it was remarkable as we got to know each other and spend time together how much we had

in common. And we learned it because Byron invited me to work out with him at the Laker facility when he was coaching, and he invited me to go into coaches meetings, film sessions with players, watch practices. And I in turn invited Byron to come to bank meetings and board meetings and really get involved in the businesses I was in. And we then started talking about the techniques we used in leadership, and lo and behold we found

that they were very similar. Well and Byron, so you coached the Sacramento Kings, New Jersey Nets, New Orleans Hornets. I could go on and on what one skill do you think sort of connects both the corporate world and the bull Well, I think Lisa, from a leadership standpoint in Charlie's taught me this, you know, in various ways, and I was doing it and really didn't know I

was doing it. But you really got to get to the heads and hearts of the people that you're that you're that you're dealing with and basketball that is the players you know in the business world. In the corporate world, he's deal with his employees. So it just taught me that, you know, you have to ask that second and that third question because one thing that you want them to know is that you're very interested in the things that

they want to bring to the table. And we both believe that you have to be able to get delegate authority you know two people. In my case it was assistant coaches um to give them the right to go out and do their job to the best of their ability and if they failed, you know, then you kind of jump in. But you want to have them have that sense of knowing that you know everything they do counts as well. And I think that's something that Charlie and I both had in common coming from our backgrounds.

So you co authored a book that was just really slam dunk success. Uh. Was published by Center Street on April's yesterday. Correct, I just came out what was the process of writing it? Like? I mean, Byron, you were telling me about the death death like workouts that you guys engaged on, and but what was the process of writing the book? Like? It was great to be honest with.

I mean, once we decided that this is something that we could really do, and a lot of that was because of Charlie's wife, Peggy, who said who used to be an editor herself, and said she really thought we had something here. Uh. Then we started taking a little bit more serious and we contacted her friend of Charlie's name, Todd Smith, who took it to a totally different level.

But in the process of doing it, our writer John Work, who was a great writer who did a great job of really capturing I think the essence of what this book is all about. Uh, And we both speak in the first person, and he was really able to kind of capture everything that we wanted to really apply to to the to the leadership roles and the and the other chapters that we have in the book that we thought would be very interesting to a lot of our readers.

If I can add something to that. Byron and I sat down and we listed about fifteen leadership qualities that we had in common. And when John Worke uh interviewed us, he interviewed us thinking specifically about each of those leadership qualities as a separate chapter. Now, Charles, I want to just put it to you that you know and it's your success at McKesson water, Uh, also do your park

and also fresh Pet. How do you contrast that with what perhaps goes on in the court, which is, if you don't perform on the court or as a coach, your time there is pretty limited. But there are many cases in which we see companies run by chief executives who get huge pay packets, Uh, and their measurement is, well, let's just put it subjective because they might be tied to stock performance and that doesn't necessarily I mean, just because the stock goes up doesn't mean you're a great CEO.

How do you sort of have the same incentives for figures on the court and figures in the boardroom. Well, Uh, we both have to win. And how you define winning obviously, Uh, in sport, it's who who gets as points. In business, it who gains market share. And uh, it's a very easy scorecard if if you're every year you have a budget, and that budget is around sales profit, but it's also around how you're growing versus your competition in the market.

And it's honestly surprisingly as competitive in business as it is in sport. To that end, Byron, you talked about how each chapter in the book is a different leadership quality. Is there one leadership quality that stands out to you is the most counterintuitive? Well, for me, again on a basketball court, I've always been a guy is believe that if you're going to lead her, if you're gonna be a leader, you got to lead by example. You know.

So if if I'm going to lead by example, I want to be at the gym early, you know, I want to I want the players to come in and see me on the trap me you'll see me in the weight room and be able to also go on the floor and be able to show them certain things that I want to be done. Because it's it's kind of hard as a coach when you say I want you to do it this way, but you can't show them how to do it. You know, you can tell them,

but you can't show them. So I still really believe that's one of the most important things, especially in my field, is being able to go out there and participate and to show the guys exactly what you mean, uh. And I think a lot of guys really enjoy that when a coach can get out there and kind of play around a little bit with them as well. Charlie, what about in the corporate boardroom, Well, what I find counter

intuitive is celebrating risk and learning from failure. Uh. To be successful in business and to be successful in life, you've got to get outside your box. And I look for people uh to surround me who are willing to take risk. And if we don't encourage that, ultimately, people are going to get nervous if they're um uh, they take a risk, and then they're punished for having failed in the risk they take. So the counterintuitive aspect of that is to celebrate the fact that you're willing to

go out and take calculated risk. Thank you so much both of you for joining us today. Truly a pleasure. Byron Scott is NBA studio analyst for ESPN and longtime NBA champion and coach of a number of the top NBA teams, as well as Charlie Norris, who is the chairman of Fresh Pet also the former head of McKesson Water and deer Park Spring Water. Their book is currently on the bookstand Slam Dunk Success. Loneliness is a killer.

As Pim was saying, a lot of older people are increasingly living alone and this is an increasing problem for many. Doors Schooler might have the answer Door School or as chief executive Officer of Intuition Robotics, which is an Israeli start up focused on creating electronic companions for people who perhaps live alone. Door thank you so much for joining us. Uh. First of all, just let's start with what is ellie q Hi Lisa, thanks for having me on. Yeah. Eli

Que is an active aging companion. She's a social robot that actually um lives in the home of the older adult, usually in the living room, and it helps them be more connected and engage. It helps them to simplify the way to communicate with their family by bridging the digital to five, and it helps them meet their own goal towards an active aging lifestyle by helping them implotting them to go for a walk or take their medication on time, learn new things every day and so on. Okay, and

and the door. Just in the interest of full disclosure, I just want to say that you've raised what a total of six million dollars from investors that include the Rumba maker, I Robot, as well as Terra Venture partners, uh man, Ive Mobility, and Bloomberg Beta. Just in terms of fair disclosure there uh and also on the crowdfunding platform our crowd. What are you using the money for?

What's the next step? Yeah, the next step is really funding research and development and also manufacturing UM and user trials as we plan to bring this product to market UM hopefully within the next twelve months. Because I was watching your video that you have online in which you have an example of this device and it's paired with some kind of tablet. I guess that's where the software runs. Maybe you could describe, how did you It almost looks like a I don't know, I don't know how to

describe it, Almost like a multi stacked flower vase. That's one way of putting it. Yeah, there are two components to the solution. One part is a screen or removable tablet that we provide to our users. UM. And the main part is l Q, which is the the social robot. And she does look kind of like, UM, I don't know, a new uh physical presence in the home. She's very beautifully designed by eve Bihar. But it's it sits on a table. I mean, this is not something This is

not a life size thing. This is something that's that sits on a table. Correct, she sits on the table. But she does have automatronic capability, so she we use body language essentially, which we are humans are kind of programmed to understand. So she will look to the side, you look up, she'd lean forward to make a point. UM. When we connect with families and lets they send a picture over a we make it super simple for them to do that and for the older adults do it,

but they also elak. You will turn look at the picture, have a comment about it after understanding what's in it, and then try to solicit the older adult to respond and be part of the conversation on Facebook messenger. Is this um? Have you done psychological studies to see whether a robotic presence is equal or nearly equal to really having another person there A right, it's definitely not the same.

I mean, look, we would all like to be closer to our parents, and we'd all like to visit them all the time, but the fact of life is that we live further and further away from them, and even if we live close, we can't be with them all the time. So we're not trying to replace a meaningful interaction between humans UM with some kind of a robot.

What we are trying to do is bring to better technology that will help bring people closer together, overcome the digital divide, help older and all UM consume music and ted talks and other interesting things on the on that are available to them, and also be somewhat of a nudge or an assistance or coach if you will, UM to help convince them to go for walks and to take their medications and time and so on. So it's not replacements, for sure, but it is better than being alone.

And let's remember that of older adults live at home, about sixty of themselves professed that they're lonely and socially isolated, about fifty percent the TVs their main companion, and about for percent talk to one person or less week. So so it is what it is, and we're trying to do what we can UM to make the situation better and help people listful or live. Have you started selling l a Q We have not started, telling an she's

now starting trials in the San Francisco Bay area. UM, and you're right said they're good demonstrations and we're starting a pilot program, but we still need to learn how people react to the product if if it's you know, the usabilities the way we hope it will be, and we have to do those things before we start selling the product. So are you are a serial entrepreneur? Correct? Correct? Maybe just give people a little bit of your background

and why did you choose this as your next project? Sure? Yes, I did my first startup straight after leaving military intelligence in the Israeli Army at aged three, and this is

now my fifth venture venture. The last one was actually inside a large company UM which is Office Alucan now part of Nokia, and my co founders and I decided if we really want to do something with high social impact this time around and touch people's lives, and you know that they are now the rec result proven by the Center of Disease Control of loneliness and social isolation where um it actually creates accelerated dimensiona depression and even mortality.

But the good news is that there are other studies that show that when older guls practice active aging, when they're actually more active and engaged, they push out they mentioned for seven percent of the time, they heal faster from illness and disease twenty of the time, and they're just happier. So we really are trying to to harness the latest technology in artificial intelligence and machine learning and voice platforms and robotics to try and bring as many

older adults with that check in category as possible. I want to thank you very much for joining us and sharing your thoughts and telling us about this invention. Door Schooler is the chief executive officer of Intuition Robotics. They're based in Israel. You can follow him on Twitter at door d O R school or s k U L e E R. We want to take a moment to

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with you. It's pretty amazing. Download our i O s app or search for the Bloomberg extension on the Chrome Store to try it out. Learn more at Bloomberg dot com, slash lens. Well more people are struggling to pay their

credit card bills. That is what we learned yesterday after Capital One Financial and Discover Financial Services reported earnings, showing that there were a larger number of credit card charge offs in their card units, capital One in particular seeing a twenty nine percent increase in the provisions for losses in the credit card unit. To make some sense of this and to figure out what the broader implications are, I want to bring in Ryan O'Connell, senior analysts focusing

on financials for Bloomberg Intelligence. Thank you so much for joining us, Ryan, So what was your biggest takeaway from these results, which were really quite disappointing. Well, good morning list, Good morning Pim. This is really a pretty ugly earnings report, and I think at least with regard to Capital One, we've kind of hit a bit of an inflection point several reasons. First of all, it just the magnitude of

the jump in provisions. If you look at their US credit card business, which their biggest business, their provisions actually went up about sev seven. Oh that's over here, just to give some sort of perspective of the dollar amount, about one point seven billion dollars. So that means the amount of money that they're sitting aside to cover potential losses in their card unit has now gone to one point seven billion dollars. Right, And that's so that's your year.

You're absolutely right about the that's it's the quarter, so you're a bear. And the other thing is their charge off ring went from about four percent to five percent. And what they also said is folks, you should expect five percent for the rest of the year. So this isn't just a one quarter of blip. This is a change. Is did they give any details as to what is behind this? Right? So what I thought was also very interesting about this is that cap one is basically changing

its tune up until now. The reason for you know, more bad loans, more chargeots is a lot of loan growth, which is true, and the loans are getting older this time. What they said is we've changed our view and the way consumers are behaving. What does that mean cons change

their view? I mean it's just because, uh, you know, because I mean, if someone doesn't repay a loan, it can be because there's something wrong with the way the loan was put together in the first place, or the person should not have been allowed other company was not should have been allowed to actually take out the loan. They given credit cards to people that they shouldn't be giving them too. Well, that's a great question, I guess. Let's let's let's refer to it this way. They are

referring to higher levels of consumer debt. And again we have to bear in mind that they're really talking about their subprime customers, right, because that's about a third of their business. As to whether or not they made bad loans, let's just look at the results. Well, I think though, it's important to note if they're saying now, if they're changing their tune and they're now saying that there's a

change in consumer behavior, this is pretty fuzzy. Does this mean they really don't have a handle on why there has been such an unexpectedly big increase in charge offs. Well, what I would say is that they sounded a lot more cautious on this call than they have in the last several calls, and I think they just see higher levels and debtedness. Uh. In hindsight, perhaps they got a little bit aggressive on the loan growth, but they've been

tamping that down. So is Capital One alone in an isolated case in this pretty substantial increase in net charge offs? I mean, yes, Discover also saw a larger amount of charge offs and expected, but still way below Capital One. Or does this sort of point to some kind of broader weakness in the consumer. Well, uh, we'll have to see a Synchronique, which also has a large subprime credit card business. They were going to report their earnings on Friday, and we'll just have to see how that goes out.

I'm not judging that to your point, Lisa discovers, Yeah, their charge also went up a bit, but it wasn't a big deal. And Discover still says that things are going pretty much as I expected. Now, again, the big difference is Capital One's got about a third of their customers and credit cards and subprime and Discover doesn't. Was the subprime market a strategic you know position for the bank?

I mean they say, we want to go after these people because this is where we can make the most money, even if we do have to do charge offs later on. I mean, this can't be something that just happened, right, I mean, you don't. It's not like a multi week event. This is something that's taken a happen. Capital One has been in the subprime credit card business and in the

subprime auto business for a long time now. To be fair to Capital One, they are still expecting seven to eleven percent earning his growth this year, but frankly a lot of us from cost cuts, and also they're doing better in their commercial bank because the energy loan crisis is sort of passing. So um, first, I've got two questions. First, did we see weakness also among some prime credit card

customers or is the pain entirely isolated to the subprime customer? Well, I think basically we're really talking about the subprime customer here, Lisa, because again, if we use Discover or JP Morgan Bank of America, they've all had some increases in charge offs, but nothing like a hundred basis points okay, and then the next point is what about auto loans. Did we see the increase in charge offs there too? Actually no uh net charge us for the outer loans were flat.

Your here. You know. One of the things we've also trying to track is the correlation between this and what happens in the larger economy. Obviously, any prospect of the bank say anything about wages or about people being able to make more money. Well, again, the tone of the commentary was very different. So discover they still see a growing economy again they're dealing with and they're still making

money as you just as you just describe. So maybe they're saying, all right, you know, we're willing to take this hit. I mean, even though the stock is down I think about four percent percent right for three point eight percent right now, it's more down more than three three dollars a share, they're willing to take that hit because they believe that this will you know, they're you gonna be able to take this hit and not have an effect the bottom line. Uh well, it's certainly infect

to the bottom line in this quarter. I think their expectation is they've been in this businesses for a long time, they're gonna ride through different cycles, and again they are they are tightening up. Just be clear, they were tightening up a loan growth now so they're responding. They are responding because I mean down five percent, so it's five and a half sense so far this year it's stock

and just paying at one point nine percent dividend. And just to put this into perspective, the total amount of credit card debt in the US has exceeded a trillion dollars for the first time since the financial crisis, So there's a lot of money at stakecare clearly. Well. One other thing is that this is the highest level of net charge justin about six years for a cup one. Alright,

Ryan O'Connell, thank you so much for joining us. Ryan O'Connell is senior analysts focusing on financials for Bloomberg Intelligence, and he joins us in our Bloomberg eleven three oh studio. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa

abramoids one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio