Meet the Leader Behind the Next Iconic Car Company

[Transcript]

[00:00:00] Jan Griffiths: Welcome to the Automotive Leaders Podcast, where we help you prepare for the future by sharing stories, insights, and skills from leading voices in the automotive world with a mission to transform this industry together. I'm your host, Jan Griffiths, that passionate, rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales, with over 35 years of experience in our beloved auto industry and a commitment to empowering fellow leaders to be their best authentic selves. Stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership. Let's dive in.

This episode is brought to you by Lockton. Lockton redefines business insurance and people solutions with a personal touch. Their global team of 11,000 is driven by independence, not quarters, to tailor success for your business. Discover the Lockton difference where your goals become their mission. Independence, it's not just how you think, but how you act.

How would you like to meet the leader of what is quite possibly the next great iconic car company? You would, wouldn't you? Well, I already met him. I met him last year at a Reuters conference in Detroit, and we immediately made a connection. It turns out that he likes to break the mold, too. He refuses to conform to the idea of command and control leadership. He is an authentic leader. He's comfortable in his own skin and he leads in line with his values. He was often underestimated throughout his career, discounted when he walked into a room, yet he dared to dream of things that seemed unattainable and far from reality, and I know exactly what that feels like. He's a graduate of the prestigious North Carolina A&T State University, the largest historically black college in the US. He spent 12 years in engineering and management roles in Detroit. Yeah, he's done his time in Detroit, all right, including time at Chrysler. Before venturing westward, carrying with him a bold vision that he first voiced back in 1997 in Detroit; to design a car and lead his own car company. A dream that was met with skepticism then, but it's a striking reality today as he leads Karma Automotive. His story is not just about achieving dreams, but about persistently challenging the status quo and driving innovation. And that's the kind of leader that we need in this industry. He is Marques McCammon, president of Karma Automotive. Marques, welcome to the show.

[00:03:22] Marques McCammon: Thank you, Jan. I'm so excited to be here and you know you're one of my favorite people in the industry.

[00:03:28] Jan Griffiths: Thank you. Thank you. We made that immediate connection. You know, there's some people you meet them and you just feel it. Well, it's great to have you on the show and I have to go right in and ask you that very first question. Who are you as a leader, Marques McCammon?

[00:03:42] Marques McCammon: Oh my goodness. That is a fantastic question. And it's not one that people often ask you, right? So, for me, I think that as a leader, my job is to serve my team. And by that, what I mean is there's always a greater number of employees than there is leaders, and we often, as leaders or people in the leadership roles, get preoccupied with our notion of the authority that we carry or the title that we carry and we're supposed to drive the day. But the reality is the work gets done by the team. And our job is to connect with that team, help them to find their potential, and their overlap with the other team members so that the organization can see its fullest potential. And so, in that regard, I spend most of my time trying to be a good listener, trying to make sure that I make myself available and vulnerable to the team. I'm honest with them when I see things both inside of myself and inside of the company where we need to make changes or improvements, and then I do my best to support them. If I had to characterize how I view leadership for me, that's how I'd summarize it.

[00:04:43] Jan Griffiths: But that is not the leadership model that you grew up in with your career in Detroit, now is it?

[00:04:48] Marques McCammon: Not at all.

[00:04:50] Jan Griffiths: So, what on earth, how did you give yourself permission to lead that way? Tell me about that thought process.

[00:04:57] Marques McCammon: Well, it's funny, there were a couple of people in my career that kind of opened my eyes. I was always in a situation where when I walked into the room or into the job, I was the youngest, or I was always unique in the room. Clearly, there were not a lot of graduates from North Carolina A&T in the room. There were not a lot of young engineers in the room, especially in the circles that I was in. I was really fortunate that I got exposed to a lot of executive decisions very early in my career at Chrysler. So, I was always almost apologetic when I wanted to voice an opinion, I entered the discussions from a very humble position. I would always say, 'Excuse me, sir. I know I'm young, I'm inexperienced, and I'm overly opinionated, but." And that became my kind of entry Salvo. But there were a couple of people in my career early who really helped me to understand that it was okay, right? And that we were the same. I remember Tom Gale, who was the COO of Chrysler at the time. We were in Detroit and we were getting ready to go to the LA auto show. And we were having a conversation about product and how we make the right decisions. I said, "Thank you so much for making time for me. I really appreciate you listening to me." he said, "Marques, I put my pants on one leg at a time same as you do." I remember that clearly. There was another time, a vice president, a guy named Larry Akram. Larry Akram worked his way up to, when I met him, he was a vice president. He worked his way up to being a VP. He started off with a night job as a janitor and went to U of D Mercy and worked his way through school. By the time I met him, he had a master's in engineering, a master's of business degree, and he was running our advanced concepts group. His comment to me was, "You will learn something from everyone in this building, even the janitor." Again, I remember that. And then the last one that really stuck with me was Dr. Dieter Zetsche. So, Dr. Dieter Zetsche was the CEO of Chrysler when we did the Daimler-Chrysler merger. And I'm sitting in the cafeteria. We have two big cafeterias at the Chrysler World headquarters. One is under the marketing tower. And I'm sitting there, and there's a table, it's a big round table, 20 people sitting at the table, I'm eating my lunch by myself, and this guy sits beside me with his jacket draped over his shoulders wearing a three piece suit, and I turned over and it was Dr. Zetsche, and he says, "Hey, I come to work just like you. I just like to have conversation." And so, those three points, I remember those like they're yesterday. Because we're in this massive corporation, these guys had so much power and so much influence. Oh, I mean, literally, over economies, right? They could make a decision and it could change an entire community. And for them to say those things, you know, you're going to learn from everyone, I put my pants on same as you, or just to sit down next to me and have a conversation over lunch as though I was supposed to be someone important; it changed my perspective.

[00:07:40] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, and the first point that you made, you take me back to the early days in my career and I would open a conversation or I would contribute to a meeting with an apology or a I'm-not-worthy kind of approach. I would say things like, "I'd just like to add." There's no just like to add, you have an opinion, state it clearly. And I haven't thought about that Marques in a long time, but you are exactly right. And we can't apologize. It's like, Well, I, you know, I'm sorry, but I, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, you have a voice, you're in that room, use it. You will get a lot more respect than if you apologize or weaken your position before you even open.

[00:08:26] Marques McCammon: But you know what, as a business community, we've created that notion that somehow because I'm the president, chief executive, my workload is more important than the next person. It has different implications, but it's just as important as yours. Even in my own building, I go around and I sit down and talk to guys. One of the guys said to me earlier today, "You know, it's a surprise. It's easy to talk to you." I said, "Well, I hope so because you and I, we're just people, right? We're here trying to get a job done and we should be here trying to support each other." I've been fortunate in my career. I've done three full turnarounds. This one is, I would classify this one as my fourth. And in each instance, I've been able to walk away from teams and they say, "God, we're really sorry to see you go wish you the best in everything you do." When I put something out into the world, I put a post on LinkedIn or something, the response that I get back from mostly what used to be former employees is always so it just fills my heart, right? So, it just me, it helps me feel like I'm at least pointing in the right direction.

[00:09:25] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. You remind me of a quote that Stephen Covey in his book, Trust and Inspire, he talks about, and he said that moving from command and control to authentic leadership is a lot like moving from position and power to people and purpose. It's a complete mindset switch. We have some command and control leaders still in this industry, as you well know, but there are people starting to feel their feet, if you will, Marques, to feel comfortable in their own skin, to lead in line with what they believe to be true, and to connect with people as human beings. And that's the leadership that we need. We are never going to attract Gen Z and Gen A, because they're coming, if we persist with command and control. And that's why I love to shine a spotlight on leaders like yourself and others who get it and practice it so that people can listen to this and go, "Wow, he's the president of Karma Automotive and he says it's okay to be nice to people and be like a normal human.

[00:10:26] Marques McCammon: And I think the other side of it is you shine a light on this notion of leadership. So, again, it's great to be a great operator. It's great to have a good technical mind. But at the end of the day, we're all called to lead at some level. And I love the fact that you've taken your experience and your platform, and you're reminding us constantly that it's okay because I think the net income is going to be a better industry, right? I'm inspired by everything that you do. And I do have the book by the way.

[00:10:51] Jan Griffiths: Oh, Thank you. Good. Good. The first question I asked is who are you as a leader? And I changed the podcast format about two months ago to do that. And let me tell you why I read a book by Doug Conant and I've interviewed Doug Conant, the former CEO of Campbell Soup. He turned around Campbell Soup. He had the highest employee engagement numbers Gallup has ever seen 77 to one. He runs his own leadership company now. He has a book out the Blueprint for Success, Blueprint for Leadership. And he talks about declaring yourself as a leader and really going deep on understanding who you are as a leader and making sure that you declare that. He uses this term "declare yourself as a leader." And I've been taking that into my workshops with clients. And I was in Germany last week with a client and she's a global CFO of a Tier One and she did this. She worked with me. We have a leadership statement. She declared herself in front of her team. Marques, you could have heard a pin drop in that room because she explained it. It wasn't a PowerPoint with a bunch of fancy words on it. It was hers and she could speak from the heart. It was very authentic and very real. And to see the reaction in that room was unbelievable. So, we need to do more of that, Marques, to encourage people to understand who they are as leaders.

[00:12:14] Marques McCammon: I did a really great training. And so, you know, I've done lots of leadership training, right? As most executives have. I did one with a guy, Dr. Michael Brainerd out here in California that I really like. He runs a program that he calls EXCELerate. And in his presentation, he was the first leader coach and leadership training I had ever gone to where he said, "You should have a plan for your leadership development the same way you have a plan for your career development." It was so baffling because, you know, like I said, I've gone to multiple seminars, large conferences, small one to one sessions. He was the first person that ever said that to me. And the notion of laying out, here are my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. How do I want to lead differently by the end of this year? We do that when we think about how much money we want to make? What title do we want? What position do we want? But to take the same perspective around leadership, I just fell in love with it. And now, I push that same concept into my teams.

[00:13:06] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, that's right. So, let's talk about Karma. When I first met you, I thought, "Oh, is that Fisker?" Because everybody thinks, I'm like, wait a minute, I thought that was Henrik Fisker. You're not Henrik Fisker. What's up with that? So, would you, for our audience, please explain?

[00:13:22] Marques McCammon: Yeah. So, in 2014, Henrik Fisker's first OEM excursion, you know, Fisker Automotive Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And my primary investor bought those assets out of bankruptcy, recapitalized the company, on shored everything about the business, and created Karma Automotive. We've been Karma Automotive LLC since 2014. So, 10 years. I'm happy to say that earlier this year, we became Karma Automotive Inc. And we have been positioned as an ultra luxury vehicle manufacturer. And everything that we do is designed, engineered, manufactured here in Southern California. So, we have absolutely no relationship to Henrik and his business. So, like everyone in the industry, I wish him well, but we have no affiliation with his business whatsoever. We have a completely different charter. We're really in a position to be an ultra luxury brand, and we're not, we have no intentions to try and compete in a drive for mass market vehicles at all.

[00:14:20] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, because there's a lot of players out there right now, and you would not want to be in that sandpit.

[00:14:25] Marques McCammon: Well, look, I think that the market allowed one or two unicorns to come through because we were looking for transformation disruption in the industry, but it's a very, very hard business to be in. And it takes quite a bit of capital. I mean, the whole auto industry requires a very special breed of skill and knowledge, focus, creativity, all that. But no, I don't want to try and be in all the same places where everyone else is.

[00:14:48] Jan Griffiths: Why are you different? What will enable or drive your success?

[00:14:53] Marques McCammon: Oh, wow. That's a great question. I think for me, I'm kind of born of the industry. My grandfather was a car mechanic and the only thing I ever wanted to do was work in the auto industry. You know, coming from the East Coast, I had no idea how to get into the auto industry. When I finally got to Detroit, I fell in love with the whole creation of vehicles. When I left Detroit, most of the jobs that I had was servicing the conventional industry, right? Helping with innovation, powertrain design at Ricardo, software design at Wind River and Intel. So, I come to the disruption of the industry or the change of the industry from the perspective of, I want to be a contributor to the next generation. I don't need to prove that I'm smarter or try to be better or beat someone else out. I definitely don't need to stand up on a stage and pound on my chest. What I want to do is I want to figure out how do we help the industry transition into the next generation in a way that more people, frankly, like myself who admire the industry but don't know their role in it, can see themselves and can be positive contributors to it.

[00:15:56] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. Well, and I know the feeling, I know what it's like.

[00:15:59] Marques McCammon: A daughter of a farmer.

[00:16:01] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, that's right. Being a farmer's daughter from Wales with a feisty personality. Yeah, there weren't too many, there weren't too many people looked and sounded like me or acted like me in the room. But you know what, Marques, I think you just believe in yourself, right? That's what I've done. All my life is you believe in yourself. And then, I put myself out there. And just as we said in the intro, you had a dream that you would design and build and be in charge of a large car company.

[00:16:30] Marques McCammon: Yeah. Well, when I interviewed for my job at Chrysler, I told that. The guy says, "Well, what's your five year plan?" And I told him that, and he literally laughed, and he said, "Well, bud, I'm sorry, that's not the way that works." And I have shaped my career to try to get to the spot that I'm sitting in right now. You know, there's more times that people tell you that you're not going to do it than there are other people that tell you that you can. And you just have to make the decision to listen to that voice inside of you and not everyone else's, so.

[00:16:55] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. When I started my own business, when I started the podcast. People said to me, "But you don't know anything about that." I know. I'll figure it out. I'll learn. Countless hours of YouTube videos later and a lot of trial and error and here we are.

[00:17:12] Marques McCammon: Like, first time I ran a business unit and I said, I don't, they said, "Well, you don't know what you're doing." I said, "All right, well, I'll tell you what, you take a third of my salary. And then when I prove to you that I can figure it out, then you give it back to me." And, like I said, countless hours, a lot of blood, sweat and tears, some really hard evenings and hard nights, hard discussions, a lot of self reflection, but you know, here we are.

[00:17:33] Jan Griffiths: Here we are. Here we are. You've taken a look at the 21 traits of authentic leadership. And I know without even asking you the question that they all resonate with you, I know. But here's the tough thing, if you have to narrow that down, what truly resonates with you the most and why?

[00:17:53] Marques McCammon: Authenticity and vulnerability. I think those are probably the two. So, authenticity, when you work with people, it's like going to battle, right? Especially when you're in a situation where you're going to try and disrupt the space or do something that people think you can't do. And you gotta be able to trust. And trust is one of the hardest things for two humans to do with one another. And it's very difficult to trust when you're always talking to a facade. And you know as well as I do that in executive ranks, you often, that's usually what you get. You get a facade of a person and they don't want to expose themselves and their true motivations, what's driving them. You have people say, I know who Marques is, right? I know what Marques believes in. And every time that I talk it to him, the things that he says he believes in are the same and his behavior reflects what he said. That's number one. And then I think it goes right along with that is the ability to be vulnerable. I tell people, I know because of my position, I think before I speak. And when I speak, sometimes my tone has authority to it. But I want to be challenged. I want to debate. I want you to tell me that I'm wrong. I'm going to ask you to prove it to me. But I want that because that's how I grow. That's how I learn. And that's how I can give more back to another person. So, those two things, I think are, they're so under appreciated. I feel like in earlier days, you'd have executives or leaders who would mention you not to be authentic or to cover yourself, right? And I found that as the higher I've gone, that's the worst piece of advice you could give someone.

[00:19:29] Jan Griffiths: I was told many times in my career, no, when you're the boss, do not show weakness and do not show your personal side.

[00:19:39] Marques McCammon: Exactly.

[00:19:39] Jan Griffiths: Do not. Two separate. And I remember being told what somebody said to me. "Don't get too close cause you might have to fire these people." And I'm like, okay, but I want to keep a lot of these people and I want them to work with me and I want them to take the hill with me. So, I think I need to get a little bit closer because that's just part of my personality and what I like to do anyway, but I was told not to do that. And that's a very hard mold to break when you've been told that this is what leadership is. And now, we're saying that leadership is something vastly different.

[00:20:17] Marques McCammon: You know, I'll tell you a story. I had a lady who worked for me in the UK, her name's Terry, and we came to a position where I had to sever our relationship. I had lots of respect for Terry, but it came down to, it was an operational discussion and it was a painful decision to make, but Terry and I had built enough of a rapport with each other where we could talk openly about this is where we are, this is the decision we have to make, and here's why. And frankly, because we did that, she understood and she helped me to do it, right? I made sure that I did my best to take care of her and supported her in whatever came next. But even as she exited the business, she still supported and advocated for me. And so, I think there's a model, but business is difficult, okay? And there's sometimes the decisions, the operational things we have to do don't always align with our emotional desires. But I think as we mature. If we really approach leadership in an authentic way, then you can have these conversations from a very mature base. We can understand each other and we can find ways to make changes, the hard ones and the easy ones, more amicable.

[00:21:26] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, and I think it's how you view those situations. When you're in a situation that's difficult and confrontation might be an outcome of the meeting, and that's the last thing you want. So often, we have a visual of people the opposite size of the table, and I learned this from Kate Vitasek who is the leader in collaborative negotiations and agreements out of the University of Tennessee. And she said, "You know what? You have to put both people on the same side of the table and the problem on the other side of the table." And I think that's so powerful. Just the visual in itself will change your mindset and your perspective of how you go into that discussion.

[00:22:12] Marques McCammon: Like I said, I keep going back, I go back to that example of my friend, Terry. And I say that I feel uncomfortable I can call her a friend as well as a colleague. I have immense respect for her as a leader even before, but even more so for what we were able to do on the backside of it. I think the way we were originally coached, right? You don't show and you keep a distance from everyone and you don't let them see your real self. I think that construct makes for adversarial connection. And I get frustrated when you see in the media, we celebrate these people who come through with these kind of draconian, heartless views on how you drive leadership. You could be a great operator. You can be someone who's driving for results and still have the understanding and the perspective that the other person sitting across the room from you is a human, that they're important, that they can be a part of your solution, even as you're changing, it doesn't have to be one or the other.

[00:23:06] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, and I find that sometimes it's hard for people to focus on people and process. That's where the energy needs to be. Not so much on the output. We tend to focus so much on the metrics, and the metrics are important, of course they are, we have businesses to run But don't just focus, they're lag measures.

[00:23:28] Marques McCammon: Looking in the rear view mirror.

[00:23:30] Jan Griffiths: They're an output. They're done. You can't do anything about it. You can do something about the things that contribute to those metrics. And what are those things? People and process. And if you can get that dialed in and right, the numbers will come, but you got to trust yourself, your leadership. You got to trust your team and you've got to trust in that way of thinking. And I think that's where a lot of people have difficulty.

[00:23:55] Marques McCammon: I believe you hear people say things like, you know, I believed in people before and I was always let down or no good deed goes unpunished and all this other kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, we all show up as humans wanting to have a positive impact. That is who we are fundamentally as humans. Now, what that positive impact is different for each one of us as individual, and it's shaped by our own experiences and our background and our circumstance. But if we can tie into that as leaders, if we can reach into that desire, that's innate in every person and then link it back to the center, then you have the ability to really create momentum and create change. And it's whether you're doing, whether you're doing a restructuring or you're building a startup, it doesn't matter. It's the same concept, right? Again, I just literally had this conversation earlier today. If I build a Venn diagram, I take two small circles and I bring them together. The net outcome is an overlay in the middle. Where the strength of one is combined with the strength of the other, but also the diagram itself just got bigger. And if you think of that diagram as our influence into the world, every time that I add a circle to the Venn diagram, the impact grows. And so, that's the way that I try and approach my team, and I try and approach leadership.

[00:25:05] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. And as leaders, the first question is simple: do you believe that people are inherently good or inherently bad? And most of the systems and processes that we have in place in traditional legacy automotive, based on the fact that we believe that people are going to screw up, that they're inherently bad, that something horrible is going to happen, right? And we lead with compliance. And from my interview with Stefan Krause, he says, "We got to stop this leading for compliance and lead with conviction." It's a very different mindset.

[00:25:36] Marques McCammon: Look, at the end of the day, the conviction you're solving for the lowest portion of a person, right? Where is it? Well, compliance, right? You're solving for the lowest portion of a person. If I lead with conviction, if I lead with passion, I'm solving for the strongest portion of a person. That is the momentum. That is the ability to create velocity and create strength and power. And even in the hardest situations, the brains of the many are always stronger than that of the one. So the guy who has the solution to my problem might be the one that I'm discounting because he might get affected by the change, but he might actually have the answer to the problem. So, sometimes just helping people to understand, "Hey, this is the hard call I have to make" or "this is the growth trajectory we're going to take" or "these are the things we have to do, here's why." One of the things that always frustrated me, but when I wasn't running the organization was, I would always say, just tell me what it is you're solving for. Okay. What, what is the challenge you're solving for? Like you're giving me a portion of the equation, but you won't tell me all the variables. If you tell me what you're solving for, I will try to help. That's what, that's all I want to do. I, when I show up at a job, I want to walk away feeling like I was productive. Even if I'm not an employee there on the next day. And I think that many people feel that way.

[00:26:49] Jan Griffiths: And you talk about the power of the many, power of the team. How do you keep your team rallied around the mission? The product is sexy. It's gorgeous. I mean, that car is absolutely gorgeous. It's a top of the line luxury vehicle, right? It's pretty easy to get behind that. But as you scale and grow, you've got to continue to keep people sharp and keep that edge and keep that mission in front of them. How do you rally them around that mission?

[00:27:23] Marques McCammon: Well, the first thing is I remind them of the mission often. Okay, so we talk a lot. I do all hands with the team every month. I do sessions with my leadership team weekly. Everyone carries around a card in their pocket that says, here's our principles. Here's our way of doing business. And we visit them weekly. I'll say, guys, pull out your card. Show me. You'd get the merits if you don't have a card, I make a joke about it. And then I posted on the wall. So there's a Bible verse that my mother used to say when I was a young. And it basically says, "Take the vision, write it, make it plain so everyone will see it and we'll run." And so, my philosophy is that if I want the people to go with me, they got to know where they're going. I had a boss who said, "Tell me once. If you wanted me to hear it, tell me 10 times if you want me to own it." Yeah. And so, you just keep communicating and keep reminding them. And the reality is sometimes business has to pivot, when you have to pivot, say that too. I saw an article and it was so frustrating and I won't name the leader. But, he got to a point where his organization was falling on hard times and he went to his team and he said, "You know what, we're going to have to make changes in the organization. Some of you guys are not going to be here tomorrow." And he literally blamed the other guy. And it's like, God, are we still at that place? No, we hope the business is always going up into the right, but there's going to be some times where we have to change or we have to pivot or we have to pull back. We should own it. As a leader, we should be the first one in line to own it. And then also help the team to understand what am I doing differently today and tomorrow to ensure that the next change will be stronger and better than the one from the last.

[00:29:00] Jan Griffiths: You're right. As we look at our beloved auto industry and we see the level of transformation that's taking place, what is the biggest challenge you think the industry is facing right now?

[00:29:13] Marques McCammon: If I had to summarize it into one word, it's software, and this cascades into every element, right? Into culture, leadership, organizational structure, everything. But the role that software plays and will play in the defining of the value of vehicles going into the future is something different than we've seen in the past 130 years of the industry we've had. And because it has a very different pace. And a very different standard of quality, for lack of a better way of saying it, it's difficult for us to wrap our arms around it. Every OEM has humongous teams and focused initiatives, and they're making big statements in the marketplace about everything they're doing with software. But it is a fundamentally different business than what we have ever done. I didn't realize it until I moved from Detroit. And I ended up working at the time I was at wind river systems. We were owned by Intel and the philosophy, the approach to innovation was so very different than everything I had ever learned.

Even today, as the industry has improved, there's still a huge gap. And you still have a situation where the market, wall Street in particular, is giving so much value to those who they believe to be the most innovative, even to the point of discounting fundamental value and fundamental performance and those that have been the legacy, that is a gap that we have to address. Because the financial performance of a GM or a Ford or a Toyota give it a similar weighting to the value that's being created at a Tesla, but it is not. And there's a fundamental shift that's happening, and we are, we're fighting with it in real time. Huge investments, then those investments get orphaned, then they come back, and then they get pulled back. That's not sustainable for us as an industry. And the reality is, I think the only way for us to solve it is together. And that is a very, very different paradigm for us than the industry seen in many, many years.

[00:31:11] Jan Griffiths: Yes, and the software side of it, I've interviewed a couple of people with software backgrounds and you're right. The way that they lead the culture, the way that they do things is completely different. And that's not to say that they got it all right and traditional auto has it all wrong. The leader that will, for the future in the auto industry is one that is able to marry the two together because let's face it, traditional auto, we know how to scale. We know how to produce vehicles. We got that. We got a hundred years of history. We know how to do that. We often hear of startups floundering and failing because they don't get that. They try to launch on a spreadsheet or something and they don't understand an ERP system. Yeah. But the leader for the future will understand both and then be able to bring them together. And be able to put their own leadership stamp on it and create the culture that's right for the business, right for the future and drive it forward. It's not either, or it's about bringing it all together. And I fear with traditional OEMs that sometimes they'll hire somebody from Apple or they'll hire somebody from Intel and they'll go, Hey, we got this guy. So we're good, you know, well, no, but it's much more than hiring a few people from software.

[00:32:32] Marques McCammon: I have a saying, I say that Detroit conventional automotive, we are experts at process to perfection. We are experts at it. I don't think there's anybody in the world, the automobile is the most complicated consumer good on the planet, okay? And, and we do it really, really well. The software side of the tech industry is really good at fast to fail, right? They innovate with a very, very rapid cycle. The future is both and is a balance between the two. And to be honest, most people who come from one or the other don't respect the other side, because the approach is so fundamentally different and it was so baffling to me when I experienced it firsthand, but again, it goes back to our how we view leadership. If you view leadership like you're walking in the door command and control, I'm the guy I've got the answer, then you're never going to see it. But if you walk into it with a little bit more of a kind of like you and I had to walk into the room a little bit self effacing, you start from a humble position. So it forces you to listen more and pay attention to details more. So I know you can relate to this. I had to learn how to read a room very early in my career, because if I couldn't read the room, I would be completely incapable of having my voice heard. I had to know who was going to be my ally and who was going to be my enemy with the first five minutes that I walked into a room. So, I applied that when I got to Silicon Valley, and I was like, hold on, what you're saying actually makes sense from a different perspective. But let me tell you the part about Detroit that you don't get. And I think you're right. The future is the person that can translate between the two that can speak both languages. I hope that's what I'm bringing to the table here at Karma.

[00:34:07] Jan Griffiths: Well, you've got the background and so far so good. So, I expect nothing but great things.

[00:34:11] Marques McCammon: Well, thank you. I appreciate having at least one in my camp. I'll take it.

[00:34:16] Jan Griffiths: No, no, no, no, no. But I'm going to test you on your vulnerability. Okay. So you want to show some vulnerability and transparency and show your personal side. You ready? All right. What's your favorite show to binge watch?

[00:34:31] Marques McCammon: Oh my goodness. I like history. I am a fan of Asian culture. So there is a show that was brought up on HBO called Warrior. And Warrior, the original script of Warrior was actually written by Bruce Lee. But it tells the narrative of a fighter who comes to the US via San Francisco in the time of the gold rush and the build of the railroads, and how he dealt with both cultural dynamics inside of the Chinese community, as well as the prejudices and the interrelations, racial relations between them. So it's a little raw, if I'm honest, a little risque in some of the scenes, but the representation of culture and the time from the perspective of a Chinese immigrant, I find fascinating. As an African-American, it was interesting for me to look at. Race relations from an angle that wasn't inherently black. It gave me a different perspective of, you know, how others face struggles in the US I love the show. I love it. I think I've watched every season twice.

[00:35:36] Jan Griffiths: What's the last book you read?

[00:35:38] Marques McCammon: So, the last book I read was Steve Jobs biography, again. And I did that because I wanted to go back. Steve Jobs was really interesting. I mean, he was a quirky personality. I read it before and I guess it didn't resonate with me as much as it does now sitting in the seat, but he had this notion of one, I'm going to change the lives of everybody that my product touches. And two, building the product is more important than the profits. If I do the product right, everything else is going to take care of itself.

[00:36:07] Jan Griffiths: Is that belief again?

[00:36:08] Marques McCammon: Exactly. And so, you know, for all of the noise that people say about how crazy he was and how harsh he was as a person, which was really interesting because he had this, the juxtaposition because he was very harsh, but he was also very sensitive and very emotional. It was interesting. I did a TEDx Detroit talk and I talked about the product and purpose. And that's kind of the way that I've approached karma. And it's kind of ironic. That's the name of our company. Product and purposes is kind of what I want to bring to the table. We're gonna bring together a fantastic product, but we're gonna do it. My goal is that the company, and it's not about Marques, so the company makes an impact that makes the industry and the communities that the industry serves better.

[00:36:47] Jan Griffiths: And you are certainly going to do that. And you and I are going to transform this automotive industry, no matter what. We're going to make it happen.

[00:36:53] Marques McCammon: Yes, ma'am. It's good. We are dedicated. Can't stop us.

[00:36:58] Jan Griffiths: I'm all in.

[00:36:59] Marques McCammon: Excellent. You and me both.

[00:37:01] Jan Griffiths: Well, Marques, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. It's been a pleasure.

[00:37:04] Marques McCammon: Thank you so much, Jan. I always enjoy the times we have to talk.

[00:37:11] Jan Griffiths: Thank you for listening to the Automotive Leaders Podcast. Click the listen link in the show notes to subscribe for free on your platform of choice. And don't forget to download the 21 Traits of Authentic Leadership PDF by clicking on the link below. And remember, stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership.