Love What You Do: Interview with John Maier, CEO of Bose Professional

I recently went one on one with John Maier, CEO of Bose Professional.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here?

John: Thank you for having me, and I appreciate the opportunity to connect. I find people’s journeys so interesting because they can be so different and yet still lead to success in all its different definitions.

I am very much an optimist so naturally followed my interests. I started as a musician and was interested in all aspects of music and sound — from how music was recorded to how it was amplified or projected during concerts. As a musician, you’re buying and using gear which naturally exposes you to the world of professional audio/video (pro AV). But this also gave me a peek inside the business and allowed me to learn all the different elements of the pro-audio industry.

During the first part of my music career, I started working at a music store and saw manufacturers come in with new products. That piqued my curiosity about the process, from conceptualization of a product to designing it, and then marketing and selling it around the world.

This intrigued me, so at an early age I was following my passion with music, but I was also very interested in working for a manufacturer who creates these devices that allow musicians to do what they love. This curiosity led to conversations that ultimately resulted in me being recruited from an in-store sales position to a manufacturer’s rep firm, which then led to working directly for manufacturers. Once on the manufacturing side, I held numerous leadership roles that eventually led me to CEO positions at Blue Microphones and TC Group Americas (known for brands like Tannoy, LabGruppen, TC Electronic and Lake).

What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

I was lucky that following my interests led to different roles and opportunities within the pro-AV industry. I joke about being ‘chief cook and bottle washer’ but it captures how I’ve been the customer, integrator, dealer, sales rep, and manufacturer, so I have a very clear understanding how the process works, who the stakeholders are and what their needs are.

Regarding setbacks and challenges, I really focus on businesses around me, not just to learn how to grow a business but also to identify the challenges others are dealing with so I’m aware and can plan for. A great example is succession planning. Early in my career I made a significant move to a company, then shortly after the owner and leader fell ill. Because there wasn’t a clear succession plan in place it caused a lot of concern within the rank and file, and a loss of focus for the company. This taught me the importance of having clear plans in place, whether you’re training your replacement or building out a leadership team.

I also likely have a different view on mentors than most. During my career there were people that I admired and thought how much I would love to work with them and have the opportunity to have them as mentors — and I had the great fortune to work for a few of them. This was exciting since I had envisioned I would have this great mentor who would guide and direct me to success, but I was ultimately disappointed with the experience. This wasn’t any fault of these people, but I realized that I shouldn’t be looking to others for the answer of how to develop and go after what I wanted. I needed to trust myself that I knew more than I was giving myself credit for.

Like many kids growing up, I wanted to be a rockstar, which created such an interesting start for my journey. Working in the professional music industry — whether it’s with musicians at concerts or setting up networked audio system across a business campus — the pro-AV industry has such varied opportunities that many people don’t realize. This is exactly the understanding we try to do through PAMA: educate younger generations on the interesting and diverse opportunities there are with the professional AV industry.

Throughout my journey I always gravitated to people who were passionate about what they do, which naturally directed me to roles where I’ve been able to gather and hire people who were passionate and amazing at what they do. I see being CEO as being Chief Vision Officer and Chief Recruiting Officer and Chief Sales Officer. Understanding these roles help you to develop a clear vision and building a great team, then together pitch the world on how cool your product is.

Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?

John: There’s two main parts. First, it starts with people. In order to build a strong team, you need to start with strong leadership. If I can bring in a truly stellar head of finance and head of engineering, then I know I’ll be able to rely on them to continue and build out the teams we need to grow and scale our business.  

Also having a mix of experience and backgrounds lays the foundation for everything from culture to strategy to planning, and ensures the business is not working with blinders on. Bringing together people for whom problem solving is second nature plus those with experience in the different stages a business goes through adds a critical level of diversity that ensures we have the depth of experience to draw on for potential scenarios we will face.

The other half of this equation is what you’re offering. It’s listening to the market and understanding how our offering meets the current and future needs of our customers, where we’re doing a great job, and where there is opportunity for improvement. Knowing this enables us to fill out these opportunities better than our competitors, which allows us to grow and scale up.

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?

John: For me, it’s having true empathy. Being able to put yourself in other people’s shoes and understanding what they are doing or dealing with and what they are trying to accomplish, provides the perspective needed to identify solutions. This approach has helped me across everything — with customers, with team members, with stakeholders, even the reporting structures within board of directors.

I think leaders who don’t have empathy may have strong ideas and powerful personalities, but ultimately will have a lot of blind spots because they don’t know or spend time to figure out what is going on around them. This creates a disadvantage since they could miss out on getting the most out of their team and market opportunities.

Communication and the ability to connect with people to get them inspired and excited is also important. If you’re passionate about what you’re doing and you have the communication skills to share this, you will quickly attract people who are also excited and share that passion.

Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

John: There is nothing like real-world experience — learn something every chance you can. I recall reaching my goal of moving from musician to retail to manufacture rep to working for a key manufacturing brand in digital audio recording. As the head of marketing communications, I assumed that moving forward under my direction would be natural behavior because I thought my direction and plans were sound.

I learned very quickly that you need to understand where everyone is at and what they’re dealing with, and clearly indicate you have this understanding, before you make and communicate a decision. This shows people that you are aware of what they are trying to accomplish and the difficulties they are dealing with, which lays the context for your decision. It communicates that people are being heard and understood, and decisions are not being made in a vacuum. You earn people’s respect by actively listening.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?

John: This is such a great question, and a lot of it ties back to things I touched on earlier.

Ask a lot of questions with the goal of learning the full situation and context — this ties back to the empathy I mentioned was important for successful leaders to have.

Then through listening, strive to first understand what is happening around you and why. If you make assumptions, you’ll find yourself slapped in the face with the reality of what is really happening. If you truly listen to what is going on and what the situation is that you are leading through, you have a lot more information to work with and you are set up to make better decisions.

Part of this is keeping an open mind to other ideas and perspectives, not just your own. The job of a leader isn’t to be the genius who thinks of all the new ideas. Your job is to build a team of exceptional people where everyone feels that they have a place to bring ideas and your job is to make that happen and help those ideas get executed. This is where ego gets pushed aside and real collaboration is realized. This is where true leaders are found.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?

John: I like how you break down success with teams into the three key areas. It’s so important to look at a team’s success at its different layers.

Building the team is the starting point since it’s the only way you can get to the other steps that lead to success. Understanding clearly your company’s culture and ensuring there’s a clear fit when hiring talented people is more important than a skill set. For me there are three things I focus on when hiring: hire for talent, give them super clear goals we are all working towards, and give them a cultural framework to work in.

I’m a huge proponent of life-long learning but I also don’t want to limit access to talented people by simply requiring a bachelor’s degree. I understand the logic in some instances, but I don’t want to put limitations on myself or my team who could miss out on talented people who may have incredible life experience but not a formal education.

Leading really goes back to what I shared earlier. Listening and collaboration, and reinforcing that people are here because of their ideas and problem solving skills. We’re not looking for problem finders, you hire talented people who can identify and execute on the solutions. And of course, I’m going to tie back to empathy. When it becomes a natural part of your listening and communication, it reinforces your ability to lead effectively. 

Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing, and branding?

John: You really must love what you do. I know a lot of people say this, but it is so true. If you love what you do and you’re passionate about what your company offers, it will be so much easier to sell and inspire others. If you don’t enjoy what you do or you are not convinced in the value of the product, then you’ll have a harder time working towards success.

Remember that job one is making sure the thing you’re selling is great. Ask yourself, are you building the right things that people want and need? And if you’re not quite there today, have you identified a clear path and are you building towards this?

Then job two is sharing that passion with your team and customers. Leaders should be the most excited about what the company is doing. How many businesses have started in someone’s garage as a spark from their passion? If you’re not passionate and talking about what you do all the time, then your team won’t be either and your customers won’t be convinced.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

John: Maybe cliché, but the best advice I received early on in my career was about listening — the whole idea of ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood’ from the Covey’s 7 Habits book. It’s easy to get ahead of yourself and make assumptions that will get you into trouble if you don’t slow down and get as full a picture as you can. This doesn’t mean grind everything to a halt and make every decision take forever. It does mean spending a little bit of time asking the right questions to get a more complete picture so the decisions that do get made are closer to the right ones than otherwise.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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