Gary Burnison: ‘Listen, learn and then lead’
The gig: Chief executive of Korn/Ferry International, a global executive-search firm based in Century City with 2,400 employees in 40 countries.
Background: Born in Inglewood in 1961. Moved with his father to McPherson, Kan., at age 7 after his parents’ divorce. Being raised in a small town taught him basic values, he says. “It’s real America. It’s a place where people cut their own grass. They paint their own houses. It’s a hardworking part of America. . . . The world that I live in today couldn’t be further away in so many respects from McPherson.”
Dad’s bankruptcy: When his father’s court-reporting business went bankrupt, Burnison, then 10, saw many of the family’s belongings, including desks and couches, repossessed from his home. The episode spurred his work ethic and drive to succeed. “My dad’s company going bankrupt and seeing people come in and take away stuff, I’ll never forget that.”
Fast track: After graduating from USC with a business degree, Burnison joined accounting giant Peat Marwick (now part of KPMG) in 1984. Toiling long hours and many holidays, he became a partner at age 32. The job required regular pestering of clients for data to ensure that their bookkeeping was accurate. “It was a great environment, ironically enough, for developing people skills. . . . To get the right kind of information out of people you’ve got to be able to ask the right questions.”
Real money: Burnison left KPMG in 1995 to join investment bank Jefferies & Co., where his jobs included treasurer and head of strategic planning. He quickly saw how he could make a lot of money in a short amount of time. “I go into investment banking, I start in November, and my first bonus, in February, was like $200,000. Literally after a few months.”
Boom and bust: Burnison caught dot-com fever in 1999 after raising $50 million for a Jefferies client, technology-incubation company Guidance Solutions. He quit Jefferies, bought a stake in Guidance and became its chief financial officer. Guidance bought stakes in technology start-ups with the goal of turning them into successful companies. But the tech bust interfered, and Burnison left the firm in 2000. “The only thing that got incubated was me. I took a roll of the dice and it came up snake eyes.”
Cold call: Without a job for the first time in his career, Burnison and his wife took long walks together on the beach contemplating his next step. In 2002, after learning that Korn/Ferry’s finance chief had left the company, Burnison cold-called the CEO, a KPMG alumnus, to request a meeting. He got the job and became CEO in 2007.
Managing by traveling: Burnison spends three-quarters of his time on the road, meeting with employees and clients. “You have to listen, learn and then lead. Every conversation that you have with an employee, they [have to] feel better after that conversation than when it began, no matter what the topic is. If you’re firing them. If you’re hiring them. If their husband has cancer. If they just did a phenomenal job. If they
did a poor job. No matter what the circumstance is, that person needs to feel better.”
On getting (and keeping) a job in a tough economy: “Be flexible. Be willing to take a pay cut. Be willing to go to work for free. Be willing to differentiate yourself.”
On handling job interviews: Be honest, especially if you’ve been laid off, Burnison says. “When I interview people I’m looking for real people, and the reality is people do fail. People looking for a job today are reluctant to admit failure. The question is: What do you take away from that failure and what do you learn from it?”
On coming through with
the goods: Once you’re
hired, deliver. Burnison employs a “do-say ratio” to measure whether new employees make good on their interview promises.
“People should do everything they say they’re going to do. That’s really big to me.”
walter.hamilton@
latimes.com
