hello everyone out there in Eagles talent land my name is Sheldon Senek and
today I'm here with Terry Jones Terry Jones is the founder of Travelocity so
with that tell me the story about Travelocity how did it how did you get
involved how did they begin well I was chief information officer at American
Airlines one of our divisions was the Sabre division that automated travel
agents so we put all the computers in travel agents around the world we a
little online experiment that was going on on the copy sir and I went then I
said that's gonna be big phone I said guys can I run that and they said but
your CIO I said no I think that'll be big and the first thing I did was put it
on the internet and a lot of hard work but that was CEO there for six years we
took it public for 1.2 billion dollars it's a great Buy
at what point did you realize that the system to work because I imagine at the
beginning there's a little bit of hesitation I wasn't it was hesitation in
people's coming even into our department because there wasn't on the fast track
this is weird but you know I knew enough about technology and things were
starting to explode but you know Wall Street didn't believe it we went public
we played ante rooms they thought etoys was going to work and all these are
writings and travel is now the largest part of online commerce its larger than
the next three categories combined so they bent wrong and I bet right some
would beYOU know it's better to be lucky than would be good and I was lucky and
good we're on an elevator okay and the elevator is going down we hit the button
and you have one minute to tell me everything every day the most important
things before I get off the elevator that I should know before I get off in
the floor and start my work for the day because I'm a leader of a company and I
better have a couple of important things in mind what would you what would you
leave me with I say then as a leader your wake is larger than you imagined
what you say in do really affects your company so you support and amplify and
endorse or do you disagree minimize and play devil's advocate if you want to
change you better I'm a culture of and instead of cultural what because we're
talking about a new idea we're going to learn the room whatever it is and and if
somebody says well I'm not sure let's play devil's the ideas gone so that
could be a real word killer it is it's a killer of ideas or colors and so you
really have to think about that and then you know I'd also say think about
failure analyze results and kill projects not people you know if people
think that they're a bad project they'll never get promoted then they'll never be
any bad projects there won't be any projects so just be everybody be playing
it safe ever since singles nobody's hitting home runs and that isn't how you
want a season right good and the Olympics should get one chance right in
baseball you're awesome if you fail 70% of the time so so you know you don't
have chances so you gotta take have a lot of advanced and understand you're
gonna strike out sometimes but you know case let's swing for the fences take
risk that's my advice so I have a question it's thinking about today's
leaders some may feel they don't really have maybe the know-how the resources to
innovate to maybe take that risk what advice do you have for them because
they're probably a lot of leaders out there you think gosh you know I really
want to be innovative and how do whatever these are the beginning steps
you know I have speeches on both innovation in this eruption and the
thing I see in corporations is they don't take any risk right you have to
take huge risk to be innovative look Travelocity only changed one thing we
were a registered travel age and we had people write tickets but we were online
with a kayak you know another company I was chairman
there for eight years we sold it for a billion eight all I did was offer choice
you know you don't have to change the world to cause disruption or I could
just change one or two things and you've just got to build a culture of
experimentation you know Edison said I never failed I
just found a thousand things that right you've got to try and you're gonna
fail but a lot of companies just never fail right you know the CEO Panera Bread
says our discovery muscle is pretty weak and our delivery muscle is pretty strong
and you've got to work out both muscles so you've got to have a culture where
it's okay to experiment and you'll accept occasional failure because look
how to startups one right eighties or something fail right right but they're
out experimenting all the time and so I'd encourage people to become
innovative start experiment start looking at these and focus on the
customer what does the customer want right if you focus on the customer it
works look at look at Tesla remember the last great Tesla head you saw on TV no
you never have never had an atom they don't have to because their user
experience is so good it's all word of mouth you never saw a goober ad till
this year you ever saw an airbnb a it's all word of mouth if you're a products
good enough if you're focused enough on the customer you had to advertise the
customers will talk about your other thing they tell all their friends that's
the kind of product you want my point is that look disruption and innovation are
two sides of the same coin right you only call it a disruption because you
didn't do it if you did it would be an innovation but you did so it's a
disruption so get an innovate you think about it's the connectedness of the
world that's changing how fast were being disrupted so the Telegraph took 75
years to reach 100 million users pokemons go to 15 days right so it's
happening wrong with the Telegraph Authority the old world and now we're
all connected so it happens overnight and you can rise or fall you know on a
tweet so you've got to open yourself to sing I'm not going to be perfectly
question to ask yourself is would my company improve the idea that founded my
company and if not why not cuz whoever found your company was a risk-taker you
know they probably had a few bucks yeah let's do it
and you going I wouldn't do that we have to have a committee meeting let's
discuss that was it once the CFO say right can't do that Terry I really
appreciate you stop thank you to see you and to learn more
about Terry Jones you can connect with us eagles talent come on our website
look at his speaker profile page and connect with us here we're here in the
office ready okay take care everyone