Flint & Steel speaker George Mulhern was handed the reins of Cradlepoint when the company was on the brink of bankruptcy in late 2011. A decade later, his leadership enabled Cradlepoint to be acquired by Ericsson for $1.1 billion.

For a tech expert, Mulhern leans heavily on the importance of character and team chemistry.

He started his career at Hewlett Packard before heading up Cradlepoint, a pioneer in Wireless Wide Area Networking. To follow the arc further, Cradlepoint was eventually acquired by the Swedish multinational telecom giant, Ericsson. So it’s noteworthy that with his complete immersion in the worlds of tech,  the very successful Mulhern chose to speak almost entirely about human interaction and management style.

George played tennis in college, so it’s not surprising that he drew some motivational wisdom from tennis legend Arthur Ashe, who once advised, “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.”

Within this notion is a tacit admission that even a great leader can’t change everything.

Mulhern suggests not trying to change too many things at once.

He also underscored the importance of spending time with customers and partners, finding out what their challenges and desires are, and then acting as quickly as you can on that information. He likened the process to points in a tennis match, which may seem insignificant if counted one at a time, but are everything when taken in aggregate.

Every single customer interaction is like a point for your company, and those points can either help you or hurt you.

Mulhern pivoted to discuss the concept of “informal leaders” within an organization. Though not leaders in title, these employees are problem solvers and conduits for a lot of the better ideas, and they should be included in meetings.

Mulhern’s team, which doubled the sales of the HP LaserJet printer during his tenure, was once assessed by a business psychologist, who deemed them “not overly excited.” Ironically, this response thrilled the team, who took it as a sign of courage and grace under pressure.

Mulhern stresses the importance of finding the right people and aligning them around a common mission.

He believes in interviewing sales reps in person to make certain they will align with the company’s culture, and he looks for – in this order of priority – Character, Competence and Commitment.

Mulhern is also a strong advocate for meeting together in person and notes that during Covid, when everyone was working remotely, his company’s behavioral health costs went up fourfold.

Speaking of the pandemic, Mulhern oversaw the creation of a sort of triage for his company, in which they wrote plans for getting through the pandemic that ranged from “bad” to “doomed,” but in the end, they managed to avoid layoffs.

He closed with several nuggets of advice, including:

• Stay humble and hungry.
• Take risks necessary to succeed, balance short term needs with long term goals.
• Always be a white belt at something, ie: always be learning.

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