Introduction  

You need to make a decision but don’t want to make a mistake. For decades, Dr. Constance Dierickx has helped leaders make wise decisions. Now, she’s sharing how to see what others don’t and make great decisions when it matters most. So come on in and have a seat. It’s time for your appointment with The Decision Doctor.

Constance Dierickx

On this episode of the Decision Doctor, I speak with Rob Hanson, Senior Vice President for Strategic Sales and Marketing at BD, a global medical technology company. Rob talks about his career and some pivotal moments along the way. Like any successful executive, Rob has had many successes as well as a few mistakes. Anyone can learn by listening to him as he talks about how he makes hiring decisions, and how assumptions, even well-reasoned assumptions, can lead us into very tricky territory. One of Rob’s enduring characteristics that I am very fond of is his curiosity and willingness to follow paths just because they intrigue him. Some, quite literally, and others through reading and thinking and formal education. Rob is an example of what I like to call a synthesizer– a leader who pursues breadth of knowledge in multiple ways uses emotion rather than denying that it affects them at all, and who consciously builds habits that lead to success while shedding those that do not.

Rob, it is really good to see you and thank you so much for joining me for this episode. I really can’t wait to talk to you about several things.

Rob Hanson

Same, same, same. Good to see you.

Constance Dierickx

Good. Thanks so much. I know it’s been a while. It’s probably been a year. One of the things that I always like to ask people is how did you wind your way to the position that you currently have? For example, when you decided what you were going to major in college, what were some of the things that you were thinking about? And then how did that launch you?

Rob Hanson

I’d love to say that there was a grand plan, but  I had a line of accountants in my family when I was growing up and I really liked accounting in high school, and I thought I wanted to be a CPA when I went to college. And then the lure of Wall Street happened when I was in college. And so I thought, and I really wanted to have a finance degree and probably not really even a great understanding of what a finance degree would probably do for me to be on a Wall Street type career, but that was the depth of my thinking at the time. But, I have an undergrad in finance and love investing and that was a little bit of the thinking. But, a wonderful thing called Black Monday happened right in my late part of my college career, and those types of things weren’t really happening, and so I ended up on the commercial selling side of the business world when I graduated from school, and the rest was history.

Constance Dierickx

How did that knowledge of finance impact some of those early decisions you made in your career? I mean, it’s obvious to me how it would now, but was it useful from the get go?

Rob Hanson

Well, wires you to thinking about how you make money. Early in my career, I was in the capital equipment sales business and most of that is leased. You end up counseling a lot of companies on lease decisions, and obviously, people that don’t understand a lot about money and interest rates and fair market values and operating leases and things like that. So, I think it really helped that they actually trusted and understood the language after you could explain it to them in common sense terms. So I think as a very young person counseling an older person on purchasing something relatively expensive, it helped.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah. I think showing breadth of knowledge and sharing that is always a credibility booster for sure. When people think about sales, that stereotypical image that might not be so flattering, I’m sure you shattered that with what you were able to talk about with financing?

Rob Hanson

Yeah. I’ve always struggled with that stereotypical part of sales because I have never hired many, if any, dummies. I’m sure there are dummies in sales or parts of sales, but I haven’t really been around many in my career.

Constance Dierickx

So Rob, how did you get your start in medical technology?

Rob Hanson

After leaving the capital equipment business, my first job in Med Tech was selling surgical devices for pelvic floor reconstruction in females. You have some relatively significant anatomy/physiology, technical knowledge, and then you have to counsel many people on the utilization of your products, a relatively large bag, including diagnosis. We sold urodynamics to be able to diagnose female incontinence and the procedures to be able to fix incontinence. That’s why I got into it because it was so intriguing and challenging and, honestly, fun for somebody that knows nothing about medicine per se, right?

Constance Dierickx

So, you went from the equipment to a completely different kind of equipment used on human beings. I love that you said it was intriguing and it sounded challenging. Is that a theme that runs through your career that you take on things that just look interesting?

Rob Hanson

Yeah, probably. I have never looked at it that way, but I’ve had a new role probably every three or four years for 35 years. So, it probably happened that way. I’m insatiably curious and surrounded by books like you are.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah.

Rob Hanson

I’m always curious.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah. I was going to point out for the listener that I’m looking at two bookcases, and not only are the shelves full, but some of the books are actually stacked horizontally. So, they go up to the bottom of the shelf above it, which is really familiar to me. You are a very curious guy. What’s the best book you’ve read lately that you’d like to talk a little bit about?

Rob Hanson

Well, the book I’m reading right now is called A History of the World in 12 Shipwrecks. It’s about an archaeologist who is a scuba diver, and it is fascinating. He goes back to prehistoric times and digs out old vessels. They’re finding oils from like 300 BC buried in the Mediterranean all the way up to World War 2, to everything in between. Norse, Viking ships off the coast of Iceland and finding coins and the wrecks off of the South Coast of England. It’s amazing, the history and the things that they find because the scuba gear has really only evolved in the last decades. Jacques Cousteau was the first guy who figured out how to do that. What we’ve discovered in the last couple of decades, it’s extraordinary. It’s just a neat book.

Constance Dierickx

You mentioned a minute ago about this stereotype of salespeople. I’ve been in sales, and I really didn’t like that stereotype. I was a stockbroker, which is a sales job. I sold computers. But you talked about how you haven’t hired any dumb salespeople. So I’m curious for you to talk a bit about your hiring practices, especially, maybe a couple of really great ones, and then maybe one that wasn’t so great.

Rob Hanson

Yeah, I have pretty finite hiring practices. I’m not sure I can describe them really well. I think a lot of people I interview would probably describe it as a difficult hiring practice. Interviewing with me is not necessarily a pleasurable thing. I’m really curious about people, and I want people to be able to explain themselves through how they question me. I don’t have lots of questions, often. I’m really curious, if you’re a salesperson, can you sell me? I believe that salespeople have to use their ears in proportion to their mouth. And can they listen to truly understand, not just to respond and to truly get to the core of a problem and understand somebody. My hiring practices are truly to understand some really simple things. How curious are they? How deep is their intellectual horsepower? You and I have talked about this before, but what about your history? I asked a person this week in an interview, I said tell me about between the ages of 6 and 13 because I’m gonna understand some level of hardship, maybe, that I can learn that they went through, that was formative in their life. I want to know about what they do when they were not in school. I want to know what they do when they’re not at work. The formative experiences that make them tick. Those are the types of things that I’m really more looking for, things that form their character and what forms their work ethic and red flags more than I am expertise in Med device. I would rather you didn’t sell med devices before because if you’re coming from somebody else’s med device company, you probably are bad news.

Constance Dierickx

Really. Why?

Rob Hanson

Why would you be leaving them? We’re all kind of good companies, right? If you’re leaving as a salesperson from one med device company and going to another, unless they are a burning ship, maybe you’re the burning ship.

Constance Dierickx

That could well be. So you’re really looking for who is this person.

Rob Hanson

Yes.

Constance Dierickx

At a certain level, conversation tells you a lot about intellect because verbal ability is the biggest floating factor on unintelligence. So you’ve interviewed a lot of people. You can probably distinguish between somebody who’s more concrete and somebody who has that abstract thinking ability, and that’s interesting because a lot of times hiring practices are very technically oriented. Do you just assume that if they’re smart enough and motivated, they can learn it?

Rob Hanson

In my role, let’s say I’m the head of the organization, I have two roles. I’m vetting the human in front of me, but I’m setting the condition for the whole organization underneath me. I’m setting an incredibly high bar for my management team of the type of human that you have to put in front of me. And that’s actually more important than the human that is sitting in front of me during the interview process, because then every single manager in your organization understands the level of humans that you want to have in your organization, and that is what makes an incredible culture of a commercial organization that wins.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned what you do now and what you do now is really interesting. It’s strategic sales and marketing. Do I have that correct?

Rob Hanson

So I’m the Senior Vice President of Strategic Sales and Marketing, but, basically, Becton Dickinson, we’re a $20 billion medical device company. We have multiple business units around the world, and basically, I am the corporate central function for global sales and marketing that brings those businesses and regions together for sales and marketing. What we do is set the standards for how we sell, how we market, how we measure sales, our BD brand, how we represent ourselves to our customers. In that team also, our website reports to me and things like that, but many things related to sales and how we establish the standards of how we drive sales and marketing in this company.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, I was curious about what that meant. That’s a lot. That’s a big, big span. So I asked you a few minutes ago about hiring and good examples and bad. What comes to mind that you think would be interesting and useful for the listener to hear about? Something specific that you’re willing to share.

Rob Hanson

I’ve had many, many good hires and and I’ve had bad hires. I would tell you that, as a leader, I have a cognitive bias on those that I’ve hired. Sometimes, you’re blind to seeing the weakness in that person. And I don’t know if that’s common in many people that hire. But sometimes you may miss it, right? And maybe you hang on longer than you should. I’ve had that happen.

Constance Dierickx

Sure. Yes, it’s quite common, because when you’ve interviewed someone and selected them, you quite rightly have an investment in them, right? You want them to succeed. We don’t like to make mistakes. They’re not fun. And so sometimes we delay. I tell my clients that I’ve never ever worked with an executive that told me, I wish I’d waited longer to fire someone. They’re describing exactly what you just said.

Rob Hanson

Yeah. They always say, hire slow and fire fast, and I don’t know that I’ve ever fired fast. And I wonder how much that is a weakness of mine that I have never really done, and is that a management courage problem? But, that’s the self-reflection, a management place of improvement that I’ve always had to have because we always make mistakes. I always believe you can improve somebody or you see the best in somebody. But sometimes, you make some mistakes and you’re completely blind. I’ve shared with you in the past, people that I’ve hired that I literally did not see it and had to have others see it for me to my own detriment. And that’s when it’s dangerous.

Constance Dierickx

That really calls out the importance of having strong relationships with the people around you, people on your team, or an advisor who can look someone like yourself, who’s got a big job, who’s had a lot of success in his career, look you in the eye, and say, “I think you’re wrong about this.” I think you’re mistaken and here’s why I think that, and here’s why I see it. It’s very easy to think that someone is really smart when they have experience and a good vocabulary, and they speak with confidence. That can be impressive for all good reasons. But I’ve seen that happen, and it has happened to me, also, by the way. I’m not just talking about those other people. It’s happened to me because I really like people with good verbal ability.

Rob Hanson

And I don’t even know if you know much about this, but I grew up in a town of 1800 people in the middle of the forest in northern Wisconsin. I’m the only person in my direct family to have gone to college.

Constance Dierickx

I did know that, but I’m glad you shared it because I think it’s very inspiring.

Rob Hanson

I am somewhat blind to bigger cities. I mean, I’ve lived in the city for a long time now, right? But I’m also impressed by very intelligent people, often. So when you meet them, you’re like, wow. So you can be entranced by that, right? I mean, I was very fortunate to go to college. I’m very proud that I went to Kansas State University and graduated with a degree in Finance. But, when you meet somebody that went to Harvard, you’re like, wow, you must be really smart. 

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, that’s really funny. I like to joke with some of my friends who went to Princeton or one of my friends went to Exeter and then to Princeton, friends that have gone to Stanford. I just say, I went to two public universities.

Rob Hanson

Considering they went to Exeter and then to Princeton, I just say, well, your parents were really wealthy.

Constance Dierickx

Well, that’s actually true of this person who is my friend. That was not my experience growing up. I went to public high school like a lot of us did. But later you went to Emory to Goizueta and got an MBA.

Rob Hanson

I did.

Constance Dierickx

What did that add to your ability as a leader?

Rob Hanson

At the time, I couldn’t see it because I don’t think you really learn enough in the MBA program that transforms your business leadership skills to feel like, oh my gosh, I just actually learned how to be a president of a company. Because at the time, I was the head of our company. I was the head of the business unit of our company. I would try to apply principles that I was learning in class and my boss, who was the Chief Operating Officer of our company at the time, he’d be like, “Stop being academic and knock that stuff off.” You don’t bring this stuff to – I’d bring classroom stuff into the company, and he’d be like, oh my God. But I think the one thing that did happen to me is the slowing down and thinking about constraints. My Chief Operating Officer would always say, “Rob, I need you to tell me about the challenges that are around the corner.” And I’d be like, “I don’t know what you are talking about. What do you mean see around the corner? I can’t see around corners.” And later on, I read this many years later, I read a book called Great CEOs Are Lazy. It’s a little teeny book and it finally explained it to me. It’s like why great CEOs are lazy is because they’re looking for all the signals that nobody else is seeing, these things around the corner, the things they’re going to come up and bite the company that nobody else is seeing. It goes back to the machine, the original constraint book. But it’s keeping your feelers out there to look at what your team is not seeing. I think that’s what the master’s gave me, to see the world maybe in a different place, to just program my mind to look for constraints instead of just doing work. Now, I’m just programmed to look for challenges.

Constance Dierickx

That’s the best answer I think I’ve heard from somebody who went and got an MBA. We know that when leaders are so busy doing the work, they don’t have the bandwidth or the energy to be quiet enough to hear the drum beats, to detect the faint signals. They’re out in the future, but if they get closer and more of them show up, like you said, this can really bite you. I just love that.

Rob Hanson

Well, it might help that I was 40 when I got my master’s, too.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, I think it’s a big help to be older. And I say that to justify my not going to graduate school till I was older.

Rob Hanson

When I got done, I was like, I want to get my PhD. I love going to school so much.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah. Yeah. Well, come on, jump in the pool. It’s fine. But there is a tendency, I know when I was in grad school, and of course the listeners already know this, but my doctorate is in clinical psychology, and we were in class for five years and we had to do clinic hours. I was with a patient one day and I was saying something to her. She just looked at me and she tilted her head and she said, “Did someone learn that in school today?” I thought, okay, and I just looked at her and I said, “Yeah, yeah, I did.” It’s like your COO saying, “Hey, Rob, knock the academic stuff off.” But it really highlights the fact that learning is not an event, it’s a process. And so your reflection and saying, “Oh, looking back on my experience getting the MBA, I realize these things,” that consolidation of knowledge, practicing it, even though we might look a little less than smooth when we’re first practicing it, that’s really important, and I find people are really impatient with themselves a lot about that. I’m impatient with myself. I think if you show me something once, I ought to be able to do it. And that’s ridiculous, you know? 

Rob Hanson

Yeah, exactly. I wish.

Constance Dierickx

Yeah, I know. I wish. I wish, too, because I’m a pretty impatient person. What’s the best business decision you’ve ever made?

Rob Hanson

Marrying my wife.

Constance Dierickx

How is that a business decision?

Rob Hanson

Because I couldn’t do what I do without her. But the best business decision beyond that, maybe just because it makes good podcast fodder, because it’s a tale of two sides of the knife, when I was the head of Bard Medical Division, we as a business purchased a company called Medivance, which was a cooling technology to treat patients that have had a cardiac arrest to prevent brain injury. So, what happens after cardiac arrest is you typically have a brain injury because you suffer lack of oxygen to your brain. It’s a cooling technology that basically puts you into a state that prevents that brain injury, and it was the largest acquisition in our company’s history at the time. It’s been a massive success, with great gross margins. The company has been really, really successful. We purchased the company back in 2011, so it’s 2024 now. But about 18 months after the acquisition, we had missed our model significantly. I had made some assumptions about the commercial model and how we were going to scale with the call point and how we were going to put the commercial organization together that we missed the model by $13 million. While there are probably other reasons why I got asked to step into a different role, it was life changing. I got demoted. And so while it was the best business decision I ever made, it also had a dark side.

Constance Dierickx

That’s big. I think it also really highlights what you’re talking about, about assumptions, etcetera. I mean it is so classic in those situations. It’s so easy for optimism to have a lot more influence over us than we realize it’s having, or, the information you’ve gathered that we take to heart and things like that. These deals tend to be complicated. I certainly have noticed in a number of the acquisitions that I’ve worked on with clients that the models and the investment thesis can quite unwittingly be very influenced by optimism without very smart people, executives, and their BD team and their analysts to be more affected by it than we realize. Once again, humanity strikes. We are human and we do make mistakes. So, Rob, I want to thank you so much for sharing the story about that very challenging acquisition because it translates for so many leaders and it exemplifies what we’re talking about on this podcast. Decisions. So, thank you very much.

Outro 

The Decision Doctor will be back with more advice soon. Hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app and check out TheDecisionDoctor.com to receive the Meta-Leadership self-assessment and other no-cost resources. We’ll see you next time.