Ex-McKinsey CEO Dominic Barton: What Actually Builds a Leader

Genius Born or Made? — Episode 1 Ex-McKinsey CEO Dominic Barton: What Actually Builds a Leader Guest: Dominic Barton · Host: Himanshu Gupta

This is a lightly corrected transcript of the conversation. Auto-transcription errors (names, proper nouns) have been fixed; the speakers' words have not been rewritten.

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Himanshu Gupta: We have an exciting guest with us today — Dominic Barton. He is well known for being the global leader of McKinsey, is currently the Chair of Rio Tinto, one of the largest mining companies in the world, and Chair of LeapFrog Investments. But few people know that he is also a very passionate, purpose-driven leader. Today we are going to explore the influence of environment and exposure, as well as the internal operating system that allowed him to become who he is today. Great to have you with us, Dom.

Dominic Barton: It's great to be in this conversation with you, Himanshu. I'm looking forward to it.

Himanshu Gupta: I'll start with the basic question I ask all guests. When you think of "genius born or made," especially applied to your life, what's your opinion?

Dominic Barton: I'm very much in the made camp. I think there's obviously intrinsics and so forth, but I think there's much, much that is done by the individual or the environment or luck to create the individual and the person.

Himanshu Gupta: Why is that the case? Can you break it into three or four components of your operating system that put you in the "made" category?

Dominic Barton: I don't know if I can synthesize it into three or four things, but there are some elements. One is ambition. I think there has to be some ambition of what you want to do. Not necessarily selfish ambition, but selfless — what is it you want to try and achieve, to make a difference, to shift. If you're not ambitious, it's difficult to make a difference or drive things. Second is discipline. There needs to be an ability to hunker down, work things through, have a model of how you get things done — whether it's writing, arguing, convincing, selling, buying — there's discipline. Third, resilience. It's probably an overused word right now, but it's quite important, because by definition, if you're being ambitious, you're going to take risk and you're going to fail. The key is to just pick yourself back up and move forward. And I think there has to be something — maybe it's related to resilience — that at the end of the day makes you go, I'm happy. Something small that makes you feel proud. Because when you lead — and maybe I'm defining too much about genius in terms of leadership — you don't lead if you don't make mistakes and push the envelope. That would be my gut reaction.

Himanshu Gupta: So leadership with purpose, and something that gets you out of bed every day. Ambition, resilience, purpose, and the fourth — discipline.

Dominic Barton: Discipline, and something you can be proud of, which can be very small. That's the fourth element.

Himanshu Gupta: If we went back to a 10-year-old Dominic Barton, would he have all four elements?

Dominic Barton: No. I think I had ambition — nothing like what my ambition is now, it evolves because you don't know what you don't know — but there was some kernel of it in the system. I would describe myself as very shy, very shy and insecure. I kind of believed I had some things to contribute, though I wasn't sure people understood what that was. But I felt I had a discipline — I could do things, I knew I could get from A to B. I've always had a kind of drive. That's probably the only thing I'd recognize in the 10-year-old.

Himanshu Gupta: That's interesting — from a shy boy to advising prime ministers, presidents, and Fortune 500 CEOs. Help us understand your mindset as a 10-year-old. How would you define ambition for a 10-year-old, and how did you set goals?

Dominic Barton: I don't really remember what I looked like at 10. But I discovered in grade seven — that's when there were actually marks in school — that, wow, okay, there are marks. My parents were very laissez-faire. They wanted me to do well and believed in me, but they didn't put any pressure on me whatsoever. And I realized: if I do homework, I can actually do better. That was an insight in a strange way. It wasn't about the material. It was: if you apply yourself in a disciplined way, you can get results. And that was the only thing I could control. I couldn't control anything except my marks. So I learned how to learn. I became disciplined about homework. I actually liked homework. This was before computers, so a lot of it was writing, and how nice your writing was — I'd often rewrite my homework two or three times before handing it in, because it had to look good. My dad once told me, sometimes if you don't know it, if you write it down three times you can remember it. That stuck. Doing things regularly, not last minute, was important — again, something I felt I could control.

Himanshu Gupta: You mentioned teachers being a big influence. What did that look like?

Dominic Barton: It wasn't a daily thing — it was an incident. That's all it took. I really wanted to play basketball and was actually quite good, but a PE teacher I admired looked at my knees, decided I wouldn't grow, and told me I was wasting my time and should pick a different sport. By grade 12 he came up to about my belly button, because I grew. Teachers can have a lot of influence, good and bad. I've been very fortunate to have had some amazing teachers who raised my ambition, believed in me, and gave me ideas. In high school, my PE coach Barry Lyons said, I think you'd be a good cross-country runner — you've got the build and you're determined — and put me on the team. I wasn't a very good runner; the highest I came was about 30th. But I was so excited, and to this day running is my favourite exercise. Then a grade 10 English teacher, Carol Stubson, formed a debating team and told us we could beat any team in Canada — and we did really well. She just unfortunately died a couple of weeks ago, and I want to do something to recognize her, because it's teachers like that who unlock you. I didn't even know what I didn't know; she's the one who suggested it.

Himanshu Gupta: What's your playbook for kids to find those teachers and become visible to them?

Dominic Barton: Part of it is you need to reach out. If you're just quiet, it's difficult to get noticed — but if you overdo it, you can be an irritant, and that doesn't work either. More like listening, asking for advice, seeking help. You'll find there are teachers you click with. There were some who did the reverse — there was a physics teacher who always told us we were several levels below where a British student would be at the equivalent age. That guy really irritated me, and it's not a helpful thing. But many teachers genuinely want to help, and if you ask for it, they will. And that's like mentorship, which is a big part of life in the long term. He or she who has the most mentors does well. But mentors don't typically come to you and say, I'd like to be your mentor. You, the mentee, find your mentor. That's 90 % of the cases. So you need to take the initiative.

Himanshu Gupta: In one interview you said you've had 100-plus mentors. What's your two or three step playbook for young people to find mentors?

Dominic Barton: The first is just having a mindset that you can learn from anyone. This really accelerated for me at McKinsey, working with clients who, especially when I was starting out, were mid-management, not the CEO. I found them incredibly helpful, because I would ask them: if you re-looked at your career, what would you do differently? Who inspired you? How did you learn the most? You've seen me — what could I do better? I learned so much from middle-management people. When I was younger and junior, the CEO wasn't expecting much from me, but you watch — you see how conflict is managed, how emotions are managed, how failure and success are met. And many of those people became mentors. Mentorship isn't a one-hour-every-Friday thing; it may be one hour in six months. Those moments accumulate over time. I can literally stack them up on my shoulders, and for different situations I can dial them in — what would this person say about this situation? Some of my mentors are junior, some are peers, some are old and retired, some are dead, but their voice is still there.

Himanshu Gupta: Anything else you'd suggest to find mentors?

Dominic Barton: This may seem strange, but you can find mentors from books. If there's someone you admire, read about them. A mentor for me — you may laugh — is Nehru. I've never met him, obviously. He wrote Glimpses of World History to his daughter from jail — a letter a day. I love it because it's an Asian perspective of the world from a highly educated person at a particular time. So you can also look for it in different ways. Deng Xiaoping — I wouldn't say is a mentor, but I'm fascinated; I have a couple of his books, written all over, because it's about change management and how someone drives something. So reading is quite important too.

Himanshu Gupta: A lot of people read books, but the question is how much they absorb. What's your playbook for reading a book?

Dominic Barton: Let me show you one. This is the one on Deng Xiaoping — Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra Vogel. When I read it, I'm writing in it. I'm making notes of what I took from it — dealing with resistance, the brain trust, personal ambition, the long-term view, vision. I write in the books. Maybe people don't like that, but I do it for all the books I read. I don't have a photographic memory, but if I write it down, I can get themes from it. There are some books that really matter to me, but I find I have to write in them. I love books. Half the books in my office I haven't read, but I like the ideas — there's a Japanese phrase for buying books you don't read. But I do read; over a holiday break I'll read two books.

Himanshu Gupta: When did you first realize you liked reading, and how did it come about?

Dominic Barton: It came about growing up. We weren't a wealthy background — it was quite basic — so reading was a lot of the entertainment. My parents, particularly my dad, were avid readers. He's 95 and still always reading, sending me things. There was a culture of reading, which I was very lucky to have. And I find reading is like learning — I can't wait to read. The problem is there's so much to read that you get paralyzed.

Himanshu Gupta: Your dad was clearly a big influence on your love of books. What's your advice to parents to get kids into the habit of reading, especially in the age of social media?

Dominic Barton: I hope I'm not sounding like an old dinosaur about social media — it's part of life. But there's something about the discipline of having to read, understand an argument, follow the arc of a story. It's got to become a habit. One of the people I learned the most from is Peter Nolan, a professor at Cambridge and a deep expert on China. I was late for a breakfast, and he was so engrossed in a book about the French Revolution that I had to shake him. I said, you're almost eating this book. He looked at me and said, Dom, we eat three times a day, I read three times a day. That's his discipline. So read your kids stories at night, read a book — not just a story book like Cinderella; read a Roald Dahl book, a chapter book. I loved the Hardy Boys — I couldn't put them down. Get people excited about a book that's going to grab them so it doesn't become a chore. And just try and read a chapter a day, that's all. To get into the habit, it's a good thing. I also read the New York Review of Books because it's the most efficient way of being broad — you get a synthesis of a bunch of books on a topic in 15 to 20 minutes, on art, biology, astronomy, manufacturing.

Himanshu Gupta: What does your learning method look like for any new thing?

Dominic Barton: I'm pretty structured — I have to have a structure. When I was 16 or 17, I got interested in philosophy, mainly because my dad had books on John Stuart Mill. We didn't have ChatGPT to structure it, so I just asked, who were the key thinkers? I wrote a list, found the books, and said, I'm going to go through 20 books on philosophy and read them. I actually did a lot of that reading working on a salmon trawler off the coast of British Columbia — I brought a pile of these books. So having a structure — this is how I want to do it — and then following it. It's self-learning. The area I wish I'd learned more was computer science — the technology side. I'm very interested in AI, and one reason I got involved with Radical Ventures was to keep abreast of what's going on. But there I think I need a lot of help. Learning to learn is really important. The biggest learning I would have pushed earlier in my childhood: I grew up with the notion that you had to learn it yourself, and that asking too many questions wasn't good. In business it's completely the opposite — if you have a problem, ask for help, raise your hand. The acceleration of learning went way up.

Himanshu Gupta: How did you make that mindset transition from learning solo to asking for help?

Dominic Barton: That came from McKinsey, when I had to learn about an industry extremely quickly — oil and gas, to the level where you're advising clients. There's no way to do that without asking for help. It's talking to customers, suppliers — the whole thing was questions. One of the first methodologies I learned was how to write an interview note. It may sound ridiculous, but it was a very structured way, because the notes were full of gems. I wish I'd had that earlier, but I didn't know what I didn't know.

Himanshu Gupta: You've mentioned discipline several times. How did it come about in your life?

Dominic Barton: It was a way of control — it made me feel good. After school I'd have a snack and get right into my homework. I'd structure what I needed to get done that night — read this, write this — and work until it was done. My reward was dinner, or a snack, or a TV show. I was lucky to have my own room and a desk, and I liked quiet time. It just became a discipline from about that grade seven period. Even in university, I learned this from math, which I loved: if I didn't practice what I'd learned the day I learned it, it would decay quickly. So I had a methodology for how to remember it, and I was very disciplined about that study approach.

Himanshu Gupta: Did you see your parents setting up short-term rewards?

Dominic Barton: Not really. My parents were very encouraging and let me do what I wanted — they weren't pressuring me. They focused more on values: life, what's important, health. But there were always books, newspapers, lots of material around, and lots of discussions at the dinner table about the geography of the world. There was zero punishment or pressure about marks. It was up to you.

Himanshu Gupta: A lot of kids are ambitious, but few convert ambition into a goal and then actually achieve it. Your discipline was clearly key. Now that you're a father, how do you try to instill discipline in your kids?

Dominic Barton: I'm trying. It's funny — even if you think you've figured yourself out, it's hard to pass on. But habits are important, and children watch what you do; it's difficult to be one thing and not the other. I work hard and will probably work hard till I die, so I think they see that. With my two young kids, a seven-year-old and a five-year-old, what they're passionate about right now is soccer, not school. They practice endlessly. I'd love it if they became professional footballers — very low probability — but it doesn't matter, because they're learning a discipline, going all in on something they love. That's the thing: something they love, whatever it is. My daughter loved dance and performing arts. It's about finding something they're passionate about and then helping them go deep into it. Don't push it into any particular thing.

Himanshu Gupta: Did you or your partner do anything specific to help them discover that passion?

Dominic Barton: It's basically trying to open up as many avenues as possible, because none of us know what we want to be at 10 years old. I wanted to be a radio announcer, then a 747 pilot — I literally had the cockpit of a 747 on my wall and memorized where the dials were. My parents just let me do that. But I had maybe a 1 % view of what was out there. That's why I think there's something about our system that needs to unlock more opportunity — how do we know what we want to do if we don't experience it or see it? So give kids as much range as possible: look at art, look at music, try things, and see what ignites them.

Himanshu Gupta: Let's transition to your career. Many listeners won't know you're also a Rhodes Scholar. What did your first week at McKinsey look like?

Dominic Barton: I had no idea what McKinsey was — I didn't even know it existed. We had a mini-MBA: my first month was training, because our group held graduate degrees but no MBA, so we were given one month to crunch an MBA, taught by professors from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and McKinsey partners. Then I actually didn't get staffed on a study for a long time — people were nervous, like, who is this guy? My first project was Greyhound bus lines — not my image of McKinsey, but I loved it, because I got access to middle management as a junior person, and they helped me learn how organizations actually worked. What I loved about McKinsey was it focused on output, not input — no time clock. So I'd do my analysis but spend a lot of time talking to people in the organization. I was drinking from a fire hydrant. The feedback was very strong, blunt, every six months and every year — they'd video you and rip your presentation to pieces. I liked it; it didn't bother me. The challenge, all the way to the end, was that you're never done — you can always do one more analysis, talk to one more person.

Himanshu Gupta: Why was middle management more valuable than the CEOs?

Dominic Barton: Because middle management are leaders. They're also on a curve, trying to learn, trying to do things — maybe two or three steps ahead of where you are, so you can relate to them more. The CEO, when you're 21 and they're 55, can feel like some old person you don't relate to. I was lucky to have a very good first CEO, John Teets, who ran Dial Corporation, which had Greyhound. He teased me about how young I looked, but he told me: I may be 55 and you're 21, but inside we're the same — I just look older. The middle managers were closer, had more time, were more open about what they were struggling with, and not many people would talk to them. My view is you can learn from everyone, so just ask for help or ideas. The other important part of the McKinsey period was failure.

Himanshu Gupta: Not everyone is comfortable with setbacks. Go back to your first big setback at McKinsey, when you doubted whether it was the right career. What was that like, and what was your playbook?

Dominic Barton: I had quite a number. One: I was given feedback as an associate that there was a concern about my problem solving capability. At McKinsey, that's about the most serious thing you can hear besides a values issue — basically, are you smart enough? No one had ever told me that. This person believed only in negative feedback, not positive. It was like being tested, and it confronted me — it felt like, I don't think you're very intelligent. That was pretty hard. My team members helped me through it. The other was that it took me a long time to get elected partner — I barely got elected; I think I've still got slivers in my back from the bars I went over. My father-in-law, whom I deeply respect, said, Dom, maybe this isn't the career for you. That was challenging. But I really liked what I was doing and thought I could do it. That's where the drive came in — this is going to happen come hell or high water. I'll get help, I'll ask for help, I'll work very hard. Those experiences, which I did not enjoy, were incredible growth periods. Every time I took risk, my learning curve spiked, even though I knew it would be a pain.

Himanshu Gupta: You've hired and mentored a lot of smart people. What do top leaders do differently? Who becomes great?

Dominic Barton: There's a minimum bar on talent — can this person figure things out? But then it's their mindset, their approach to other people, teamwork, self-awareness. There are many very bright people I rejected because they just wouldn't fit. It's not about being the smartest person in the room. It's whether you can work with other people, help other people, motivate other people, figure out how to unlock someone's capability. So it really is the character of the individual, not their marks. There's a bar, but then it's character — resilience, breadth, judgment, real selflessness, the ability to absorb issues rather than spin them back out at people. You can get a good sense of someone's character in a conversation. I did a lot of recruiting at McKinsey — I recruited thousands of people — and in an hour you have to make a decision. I made mistakes both ways, but it makes you better at reading character.

Himanshu Gupta: That's a good way to cap this — character mattering more than marks. Thank you so much, Dom. I'm sure many parents and young professionals will find it incredibly motivating.

Dominic Barton: Well, thank you. Thanks for your time, and I really enjoyed the discussion.