Interview to Juan Pablo Manzuoli
My third interview was with one of my marketing professors from college. Juan Pablo Manzuoli was not just another professor for me. He was the one that introduced me to Marketing, he chose me and three other students to make a trip together to represent our college in an International business competition and he also gave me a scholarship for a marketing specialization when he was already heading that certification. He and I have stayed close ever since I graduated for different reasons and what may look like a coincidence, maybe it is not. I enjoy our conversations and I think he really gets the Linchpin concept. That is why the interview, which was more like a conversation, went so well.
Before I get into the details of the interview, let me share something that happened over the last couple of weeks. I shared back in January or February that I discovered Audible and that it was an amazing discovery for me since I am very bad at focusing and finding time to read books so Audible now gives me the option to listen while exercising, driving, etc. This is how I already read two and a half books this year which may be nothing for many people but means a lot to me. My current goal is to get to 6 books by the end of the year. But as I as writing my interviews and posts on social media, I realized that I wanted to go back to specific paragraphs in the book and there is not a way to do that in audible or at least I haven’t found an option to mark the minute and the second you hear something interesting that you want to save for later. So, I decided that once I finish a book on Audible, I will go ahead and buy the paper copy, way to contribute with the writer! Now that I have “Linchpin” with me, I can go back to the book anytime I want to refresh a concept and interesting enough I found out that the book has a very brief summary of the topics I am using for the interview in the contents section: “Thinking about the choice”, “The Resistance”, “The Powerful Culture of Gifts”, “There is no Map”. There is no section for the “superpower” but I was able to make my own summary from the chapter where Seth Godin touches on it. Moving forward, every time I post a story with an interview I will add the definition that the books offer for each section.
As I said, Juan Pablo was one of my Marketing Professors in College, but his career is very rich in many ways. After working for Arcor and AC Nielsen in Argentina, he decided to dedicate his career to the Academic world. He is currently the Director of the MBA as well as of the undergraduate Marketing career at UCA (Universidad Catolica Argentina), a Vistage speaker and the TEDxUCA manager.
Thinking about the choice
From the book: It is a choice. A choice to buy into the fear and the system or to chart your own path and create value as you do. It is your job to figure out how to chart the path, because charting the path is the point.
We had a rich conversation with Juan about his choices. He was able to identify 3 along his career and some interesting concepts with them.
1. The first one happened at Arcor, a leading multinational group from Argentina that specializes in three business divisions: Consumer Food Products (Food, Confectionery, Chocolates, Ice-creams, Cookies & Crackers, Baked Goods and Functional Products), Agribusiness and Packaging (www.arcor.com) Juan was working in the Marketing department and he was already a College professor. He realized that some of the things that were happening in the organization were not taught in class and also that things that people would learn in class were not applied in the corporate world. Nobody was trying to bridge the two worlds and that gave him some dissatisfaction and even frustration with his current role in the organization. That feeling led to a strategic choice. After talking several times to senior leaders, he sat down and created a new role for him in the organization that was far more motivating and were he was able to leverage the best of the corporate world combined with the best of the academic world. Juan believes that it was the combination of the dissatisfaction and some good intuition what led to the strategic choice. He also believes specifically for intuition that it is not an Eureka moment but something you can also train.
2. The second choice that Juan talked about was the decision to move from Arcor (client) to AC Nielsen (Global Marketing research agency). That choice allowed Juan to move to the other side of the desk, completing his profile in a unique way.
3. His constant desire and strong vision to bridge the corporate world with the academic world pushed Juan to leave the corporate world as an employee to work in college preparing and training the people in the corporate world for their own development. He likes to talk about the “professionals”, those people that train to get ready for the game. And that is where his latest choice took him. As the head of the UCA MBA, Juan believes that his mission is to train people to achieve their ambitions.
As part of the choice discussion, Juan touched upon a couple of interesting topics:
- He agrees that we should try to be our best selves, but he believes that it is also as important to be different. We should ask ourselves “What do I have that others don’t?” “What can I do that others are not thinking about?”
- Passion does not always come through as intensity or enthusiasm. As an introvert when something is of interest to him it awakens his curiosity. Most of the people are passionate about something but we must find the time to listen to our inner voices or to talk to other people to find those interests that we feel passionate about. It is all about actively listening to ourselves or finding somebody that is open to give us the gift of active listening.
- Sometimes, people think that there is only one viable option. The benefit of growing and developing is that we can see different viable options that are positive for our paths. And we always win because even when we fail after choosing an option, we learn from the experience and we can apply those learnings to keep growing.
My personal note: I enjoyed so much going over the interview again and writing about “The choice” from my conversation with Juan. There are two things that strongly resonated with me:
1. I love the fact that he fought for what he wanted when he was in Arcor. This goes back to my first interview where my father in law said: “Do whatever you want but do it right”. When you are working for a company, make the most of it. Fight for what you believe in. Be a change agent to make the company a better place to work. And if you don’t feel you have any more energy to do that, if you feel you are not motivated to contribute, it may be time to change.
2. As somebody that has done many roles within the organization like local operations in LATAM, global and local roles in the US with responsibilities over different brands, categories and even industries, I am a huge fan of moving and trying different things. I like that Juan worked for a company, then switch to an agency and ended up in Education. It is always a journey in search of that one place we really love. And the search can be messy, I feel the messier sometimes the better and the richer. I was having a talent discussion some days ago and I was surprised to hear senior leaders talking only about promotions and trying to promote people within their teams. I feel we need to do a better job at explaining to people that careers are like a marathon, not a sprint. We must show people the amount of value in lateral moves, cross functional and cross businesses experiences. It is not all about a ladder and going up, sometimes you can move laterally and even down to then grow stronger. In all my talent / coaching conversations, I encourage people to think about those lateral moves and consider them as a viable option, a really good one.
The Resistance
From the book: So, why is this so hard? It turns out that it is biological. Deep within your brain lies the amygdala, the lizard brain. It sets out to sabotage anything that feels threatening, risky or generous. Until you name, recognize, and deal with the resistance, you will stay frustrated.
When I brought up this topic, Juan immediately started talking about emotions and the fact that there is little training about them in business school and along business careers. And he uses a creative metaphor to express how sad he feels about this “When we reach to the island, we forget about the anguish that we felt when we were in the middle of the ocean” And he added “It is like brushing the emotions under the carpet”. Juan suggested that we should ask ourselves What are we good at? What do we know to do well? This type of introspection exercise is what will help people later on when they are in the midst of a storm.
Some years ago, Juan felt that he was doing spiral movements, but he couldn’t find what he really liked or wanted to do. It felt close but not quite there. That made him feel frustrated and stressed to the point that he couldn’t sleep well. One day, he decided to calm down. He woke up in the middle of the night and he decided to start writing everything that was not going well. As he was writing, he realized that everything that he wrote was connected to a different person and never to him. It was at that point when he realized that he could find himself through others, that by improving others, he was improving himself. He realized that he had a strength in finding other people’s potential but something was still not right, he thought it was unfair that he was able to find everybody’s potential but not his own potential. And as he was evolving in his own thinking, he finally realized that finding other people’s paths means to him finding his own path. When he was able to process all of these, he swapped emptiness for plenitude. As a key takeaway, Juan shared that there will always be negative emotions in our journeys. It is important to acknowledge them and to continue to progress with them.
My personal note: I can’t agree more about the need to teach emotions in early stages of life, kindergarten, elementary school and all the way up to college. Once you learn about the lizard brain, the inner saboteurs and related topics, it is so much easier to understand how our brain works and how to avoid being trapped in frustration. I see this daily with me and with other people. The difference is that when people don’t know about it, they are just stuck, unable to move. When you know about it, it may catch you in the beginning but sooner or later, you will be able to break through. And this is what Juan meant when he talked about acknowledging the negative emotions and keep going. They will be there, make them conscious and find a way to overcome them. Seth Godin talks about being artists, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the genius we all have inside of us, Juan invites us to ask ourselves a simple question, what are we good at.
The powerful culture of gifts
From the book: Art is a gift. A real gift, not part of a deal, not a transaction entered into with reciprocity in mind. The culture of gifts has a long history on this planet and understanding how it brings people together is a critical step in becoming indispensable.
Juan fully agrees with the concept of the gift that “Linchpin” offers. He believes that when the focus is only to monetize a specific outcome, it could often lead to frustration. The fact that you may not be able to monetize something does not necessarily mean that you are not good at it. Today, good work is valued but sometimes does not monetized. But the value goes beyond the money. He said “If it gives you twice the satisfaction for half the money, it is probably a wining option. Money does not offer the plenitude of the joy you experience when you are doing something that you really like. The point is to find what you really like, to find your gift.” Listening to people and to ourselves, exchanging perspectives and reading can help.
My personal note: We discussed about “The gift” very briefly but I feel Juan was able to quickly connect the key elements: Find something that gives you joy + don’t be obsesses about monetizing it + transform your joy in a gift that provides value to others. And to close the loop, by doing that, sooner or later, the money side of it will come along.
There is no map
From the book: Indispensable Linchpins are not waiting for instructions, but instead, figuring out what to do next. If you have a job where someone tells you what to do next, you’ve just given up the chance to create value
Given his current role and where he finds passion and joy, Juan often feels that he is better at drawing other people’s map than his own map. He feels that it is important to know that it is a map, a journey where you should feel good and with peace of mind about not having all the details. An interesting piece of advice he gives is that we shouldn’t forget the compass, it is not just the journey in the map but bringing the compass along the way. And we must own our own compass, it is unique to us, it does not sets the same coordinates to everyone, in other words, the north may be different for me than it is for you. Have your map, be open and ready to update the map along the journey and don’t forget the compass. And when you feel the compass needs some calibration, you may benefit from some coaching. Those were Juan final words about this topic.
My personal comments: Another brief discussion but so rich in terms of the takeaway. I would like to talk about Juan and his passion about drawing other people’s maps. I don’t think he meant that but what he is really good at is at helping people draw their own maps and calibrate their compass. It is highly probable that we will face a storm in the journey, that we will have to overcome obstacles of different kinds and that we will deal with personal crisis at certain points in time. Having someone that can help us calibrate the compass and put our journey back on track is essential. And it reminds me of the concept of humility that I wrote about already, staying humble in the face of challenge and being curious about what others can bring.
Possessing a unique talent.
From the book: When you meet someone, you need to have a superpower. If you don’t, you’re just another handshake. It’s ot about touting yourself or coming on too strong. It’s about making the introduction meaningful. If I don’t know your superpower, I don’t know how you can help me (or I can help you). If you want to be a Linchpin, the power you bring to the table has to be very difficult to replace. Be bolder and think bigger.
Juan believes that his superpower is around Education. He realized about it in High school and reinforced that perspective in college when he listened to a definition of Education that marked him for his entire life: “Education is when you put your potential in action”. It is like taking your potential to the maximum level. In his role as an educator, he feels that he fails if somebody that wants to be a musician, ends up with a business degree. His superpower is around his ability to see people’s potential and to take it to new heights. But it is not only about the potential. Most importantly is to allow people to realize that potential. That is what Juan knows to do well. And as long as he is able to see other people’s potential and have that potential realized, he will achieve his own highest potential. Without knowing it, Juan said something that Seth Godin would agree with. The superpower is something we need to work on continuously. As we grow in our personal and professional lives, we can fine tune the superpower so that we can enjoy it more and more.
My personal comment: It is very interesting to see Juan’s choice and compared it to what my father and my father in law chose as a superpower. I feel Juan has been spot on with the concept of the superpower that Seth Godin describes in his book. Juan has chosen something that is probably unique to him, the art of identifying people’s potential and helping them realize it. Sounds unique, makes him an artist and allows him to share his gift with anybody that is open and curious about what Juan can bring to them.
I would like to close with something else from the book about the superpower. Juan’s choice inspired me to go back and read it and I would like to share for more inspiration: You want your pretty safe skill to be enough. Enough to make you valued, enough to make you fairly paid, enough to make your life stable. But it’s not. It’s not enough because in a very connected, very competitive marketplace, there are plenty of people with your pretty safe skill. The “super” part and the “power” part come not from something you are born with but from something you choose to do and, more important, from something you choose to give. If you are not the best in the world at your unique talent, then it’s not a unique talent, is it? It is possible that no one ever pushed you to be brave enough to go this far out of a limb. Consider yourself pushed.
