Zak Brown, the CEO of Formula 1 McLaren Racing, has been on a wild ride. As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, California, he attended car races with his family. Brown immediately fell in love with the sport.
A friend turned him onto karting, which started his journey. He began his racing career in the 1980s, winning 22 races in five seasons. Along the way, Brown honed his skills in marketing, business development and cultivating advertisers and sponsors. He built one of the largest and most successful marketing agencies in the racing space.
Brown leveraged his experiences to ultimately become the chief executive of McLaren Racing. In this capacity, he has overall responsibility for the racing business, strategic directions, operational performance, marketing and commercial development projects.
On the Happy at Work podcast, Brown shared his leadership style and offered career advice to both young people starting out and experienced professionals seeking out new directions.
As a man who clearly loves what he does for a living, and is very successful, the race car CEO makes a compelling case for pursuing your passion. Critics point out that your passion may not pay the bills or what you love at 22 won’t last in your 50s. In his case, it seems to have worked out very well. He recently had an audience with Prince Charles, showing him the new McLaren Extreme-E electric race cars.
Finding a job or career that you love—as opposed to going after a “status” company or only being in it for the money—could end up winning in the long run. It’s a cliché, but if you like what you do, it’s not work. Well, to be fair, it is, but you’ll enjoy it more—compared to toiling away at a job that you hate, even though it pays well.
If you have fun at work, which Brown seems to do, you’ll be in the flow. Time flies as you’re enjoying what you do for a living. People will gravitate toward you because they like and admire your enthusiasm. It’s likely that recruiters will try to poach you away and internal managers target you for promotions.
To build camaraderie, Brown said that he’d drink champagne out of race car driver Daniel Ricciardo’s shoe if he won the race. McLaren’s Ricciardo did indeed win and chugged champagne from his shoe, then Brown took a big swig as well.
When events take a turn for the worse, like when Brown needed to furlough employees during the pandemic, the belief and love for what you do will carry you through the dark days. He learned, as a manager, to be open and honest with his team about what was happening.
When asked about achieving success in your career, he said no one is going to hand you anything. You will need to work hard to achieve your goals. We live in a country with unlimited opportunities, and he’s a living example. There will be setbacks, dead ends and hurdles, but you will need to keep going. If you love what you do, it will help you be resilient during tough times.
In racing, it’s binary—you either win or lose. It’s important for Brown to keep everyone’s heads in the game, as the stakes are literally life or death. You need to hire the best talent, do what it takes to retain them and get out of the way.
Reward people for a job well done, Brown says. This doesn’t have to always be about money. It could be a congratulations to the person in front of their peers. Be open, honest and genuine with everyone.
Brown says, if you have an open-door policy, honor it. Word will get around that you are approachable and will take you up on your offer. It’s important to listen to people. You want to know what they are thinking and going through. The feedback enables leaders to enact positive changes. The workers feel appreciated, as management cares about them, their ideas and feelings.
When asked about burnout, as related to one of the major catalysts prompting millions of Americans to quit their jobs in the Great Resignation, Brown shared that he takes the mental health of his team very seriously. From an outside perspective, racing looks like fun and games.
Behind the scenes, we don’t see the extensive travel around the world, missing out on the important life events of spouses, partners, parents, children and friends. With high stakes involved in racing, emotions run hot under the pressure. It’s important to ensure that he and the organization is attentive to their mental health and well-being.
Brown offers his 900 employees “psychological safety.” This means that if a person makes a mistake, you must be understanding. There’s no berating or punishment. A lesson is learned and everyone moves on. This makes all of the other employees feel supported. They’ll feel comfortable and confident to take risks, knowing that it’s okay if they fail, as long as they give it their best effort.
Source: Forbes
