Ray Zinn
The Essential Journey
In the summer of 2015, I was looking back at how far we had come at Micrel Semiconductor over the 37 years since I founded the company. We had a good run with consistent profitability in good times and bad. Just two negative quarters. By any measure, that was incredible. 2015 was the year I sold Micrel to Microchip for $900 million. It was not the end of Micrel, but it was the end of an era. One that was punctuated by more than profits, but also by human capital in a consistent culture. As CEO, I could have been a farmer of sorts. Planting, growing, and harvesting. Herding cattle, feeding, and letting them do what they do without micromanaging. I could have treated Micrel's employees as commodities to buy, sell, and trade as needed. Livestock, for the most part, are loyal to the herd, but not necessarily to the farmer. These are terms I have been familiar with since I first learned to retain thoughts and exercise simple logic as a little boy. Between the days on the farm and the day I signed the paperwork approving my end of the sale agreement for Micrel, I was in a constant state of change. Physical and biological growing was one kind of change. Emotional growth was another kind of change. Intellectual and knowledge-based change, still another. Part natural circumstance, part self-will, part ambition, and part learning to do the tough things first. These are a few of the ingredients that conspired together to make Micrel possible. I did not know, when I was on the farm, as a boy, that such things could happen. I also did not know that to lead a company to profitability for 37 years as CEO would require everything I could learn and come to know about people. I grew up on a farm. I knew that life. But I became a leader in life, by leaving the farm mentality behind and approaching business not as a rancher might, but rather as a conductor of a symphony. I learned to find the right musicians to play the right instruments. Even though I did not know how to play all the instruments myself, I learned and worked to guide the music so that notes were in tune and all playing the same song. I learned to show gratitude for the music players and nurture their success. I found that approach led to mutual loyalty and common respect. In four decades, the songs changed, and sometimes musicians changed, but the orchestra played on and in tune. It is wholly remarkable that it all started with a farm boy who felt a pull so strong and undeniable that it infused an intuitive adaptability in his soul. When I was exhausted, hot, sundried, and beaten down, I had just one thought: I had to get away from the farm and never come back. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. If you have ever felt it was time to take matters into your own hands, determine your own path, and to abandon something that seemed to hold you in a kind of bondage, you may be feeling what I believe drives the entrepreneur and favors the would-be Essential Leader.
California's Imperial Valley, east of San Diego, just miles from the Mexican border, was nothing if it was not hot and dry. I have German ancestry, so my skin was very fair. Consistent 100-degree days working in the hot sun was particularly harsh. It was not just rough on me, but the cows had to be specially bred to withstand the conditions. The cows were a necessity on Imperial Valley ranches in part because our agriculture was robust. Among our harvests were sugar beets and carrots. We had to bring in cows to make sure the green leafy leftovers from those harvests could be used for something and not go to waste. The cows ate the leftovers, turned it into manure, and then it went back into the soil. The circle of life. Our ranch employed laborers from Mexico. They were sturdy men, whose ancestry in the region had adapted to the environment so they were far more productive than I could be. People like me on the farm were soft, comparatively speaking, and we shriveled under the sun. I worked closely with my Mexican counterparts and was fluent in Spanish almost from the time I could walk. Most people in the Imperial Valley spoke two languages. Not always perfectly or fluently, but some level of bilingual skill came naturally. In The Essential Leader , we will discuss the importance of communication. Depending on who we are talking to and the circumstances, our approach is bound to adapt so that the outcome is positive. I learned a lot about communications on the ranch.
But at that age everything is a learning experience. Even my own interactions with my family. Boys are not leaders, any more than little girls. On the ranch there were obligations, like school, and chores like tending to the cattle. That is what I did before and after school. I did what I was told to do. When I was outside, I thought about being inside. In the air conditioning. We ran the air conditioning nine months out of the year. That is how hot it was in the valley. When I was inside, I dreaded going outside. I was not afraid of hard work, but I did not have to like it. Whether I liked it or not, I was called upon to do it. I remember the smell in the air. It was a combination of cows and cow manure and the earthy but sweet agriculture of sugar beets and carrots. I recall the dust-how it would sometimes accumulate around the edges of my nostrils. It was a testimony to how much dust I was inhaling each dry windy day, or when the tractors were actively kicking up clouds. Looking back, I can honestly say I have no fond memories of my time on the ranch in Imperial Valley. When other kids fantasized about what they wanted to be when they grew up, I only had one overriding desire: to leave. That feeling only grew stronger as the years went by. Owing to just how far away I wanted to go, a distant second to the desire to leave the valley, I felt that I wanted to be an astronaut. There were no astronauts back then, only speculation that one day it would be possible. I decided to study rocket engineering and finally left the ranch to attend Brigham Young University in Utah. I had no choice but to return to the ranch and work during extended breaks.
These were the years before the USSR launched Sputnik to orbit the earth and transmit a radio signal back. The signal, not by coincidence, was the Anthem of the USSR played over and over again. It was thrilling and scary at the same time. Russia had emerged from World War II reborn as an American adversary. Nobody knew what it would mean if Russia could dominate us in space. In January 1961, John F. Kennedy Jr. gave his inaugural address where he made that famous quote: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Two months later, Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, was the first person on a manned spaceflight. The space race was on, and I watched with great interest. Soon, the United States would lead the way. In the process dozens of rockets would explode or burn up on the launchpad. I saw this as persistence and trying again and again, until success was achieved. In The Essential Leader , we will explore the dynamics of "try, try again," but with a twist. You will find in the pages ahead that the Essential Leader approaches that concept sensibly and not without limits and to a fault. Failure is something to be embraced, so that greater things can come along. The Essential Leader will show you how to learn from it without getting discouraged. The space race is a prime example. The inspired entrepreneur, in pursuit of success, sees innovation, leadership in business, overcoming obstacles and resiliency with a purpose. That's what makes the Essential Leader. If this sounds like you, then you have come to the right place. In the space race, failure led to rockets exploding, but those experiments were followed by advancements in knowledge and technology. In business and in life, things are bound to explode, or even implode in some cases. Thankfully, most often things will not literally explode. But this text will help you be ready and know what to do in the face of failure.
The Essential Leader is called upon to make critical decisions. Those decisions can take a little time or be quick. The Essential Leader is both thoughtful and fast. That's the concept of second-nature decisions, because time is money. The Essential Leader is prepared to reach into a well-stocked toolbox to get it right. That toolbox contains knowledge and experience. You may recall an airline pilot named "Sully" Sullenberger, a one-time fighter pilot turned airline pilot. He skillfully ditched U.S. Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River in 2009. The aircraft suffered what is known as a bird strike. Which disabled the plane. Everyone aboard the flight survived, and history recorded the people deplaning as the plane floated on the surface of the bay. They literally congregated on the wings. It is an iconic image. Sullenberger had knowledge and experience on his side. The list of people in the entire world who could have pulled that off must be short. He also had a cool head to make critical split-second decisions with all that was on the line. All the lives that hung in the balance; Sullenberger's own life, and the lives of his crew, included. That miracle, if you can call it that, was years in the making. Make no mistake, he was prepared. The Essential Leader is prepared. The Essential Leader is about the natural pursuit of knowledge and experience. But there is more. Sullenberger was a next-level talent in the cockpit, not just for his knowledge and experience but for an abundance of passion in his chosen profession. Passion affects the level at which you will succeed or...
