Ever since taking over his family’s business at age 25, Charles Koch has been guided by one singular mantra: Success is one of the biggest enemies of success. Those powerful words have inspired the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries to keep pushing, keep experimenting, keep improving—a state he likes to call “continual transformation.” Koch’s ironclad belief that there is always a way to do it better has helped grow the company into a $100 billion enterprise—one that prides itself, first and foremost, on creating unparalleled value for its customers. And that’s something any business, regardless of size, can aspire to. Join us to hear Charles explain why complacency is never an option and what you need to do to outpace your competition.
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Learn more about Koch Industries
- Free tool: Leadership Growth Assessment
- The Small Business Owner’s Guide to Millennial Marketing from Infusionsoft
Great to hear “common sense” applied to business and coupled with the human factor, and finding means to promote internal growth within the most valued assets – people. Using the Guiding Principles and the common sense approach, it shows positive growth is achieved if truly one looks deep into their selves and apply it as how you lead your life – it works!
You talk about creating value for customers. Thanks for addressing the important topic of voice of the customer. And, thank you in particular, for your comments on how good ideas can come from many places in companies. How do you define “customers”? Do you also include internal customers as well as external customers? There seems to be some
big segmentation differences between publicly traded versus private sector companies. (Wall Street seems to focus only on value to shareholders. And, as Matthew Kelly says, Wall Street used to wait for your quarterly results. These days, the focus is on short term metrics. Don’t our Asian counter-parts take a longer term perspective? Some publicly traded US companies seem to pick what they want the customers to buy instead of truly focusing on the customers’ choices. And, their employees do not seem to be on their radar screen.) I liked your books; I read two of them. I really like your focus on values, life long learning and your free market approach. (I felt like I got a review of my MBA studies with value-added improvements with your books. Thanks!) Please advise on how employees fit into the value equation and how private sector companies differ from the publicly traded in terms of value creation for customers. (I hope your technology is reliable. Technology these days is not. AI seems to be where our high tech companies are focused. I like your words on using AI to make people’s lives better. Unfortunately in India, AI appears to be moving full steam ahead to replace people’s jobs. Yet, where is the AI industry on concern for the people that are being replaced? How will they survive? We are called to treat people with dignity. AI would be great if it was used to replace tedious jobs while allowing for new jobs for people to use their skills and talents more fully.)
Koch Industries remains current with other mainstream companies by employing the tenets of industry leader Charles Koch, such as those listed above. Continual transformation can be applied to every change that takes place in an individual’s life and work, leading to continual advancement due to that change.. Without these changes anyone can become stagnant, relying only upon what they have known in the past and not continuing to seek further and dig deeper for new experience, new life, and to keep improving your current situation.
Thank you Mr. Charles Koch for your keen insight and continued pursuit of continual transformation.
Great podcast by a brilliant leader. This podcast can be helpful to everyone not just those who are business oriented.
We need more industry leaders like Charles Koch. He has a wonderful approach to work and life.