Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Dexcom CEO Kevin Sayer

I recently interviewed Kevin Sayer on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is the leader of a $47 billion business. Kevin Sayer is the CEO of Dexcom, one of the largest medical technology companies in the world. Kevin, thank you for joining us.

Kevin: Well, thank you for having me.

Adam: Kevin, you grew up in Idaho, and went to BYU where you earned your Bachelor's and Master's in Accounting and Information Systems. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What experiences and lessons were most instrumental to shaping the trajectory of your success?

Kevin: Growing up in Idaho, I grew up in the car business. My father was a car dealer. My father's father actually bought the Jeep dealership in my hometown in 1938. And my father had to come home from college early to run it because my grandfather got sick. And I grew up in business. Some guys grew up to be trained athletes, I grew up, and my dad was a business guy. And I learned all about that at a very young age. And I got to actually go work with my dad, as a teenager, I go out there and learn things, I would wash cars, I worked in the parts room if they were in a bind, I'd even sit in the showroom and sell cars if I had to. But that was how I grew up. And then as I went to college, I was originally going to be an attorney. And I took one law class and said, yeah, I'm not going to be good at that. Much better at numbers and math, hence accounting and then information systems. I spent a lot of time in a computer lab and learned a lot about coding and how computers and such work. And all that technology is very helpful. I moved to California to work at Ernst and Young now Ernst and Whinney, and then migrated over to medical technology through my clients and through a long journey got to hear a Dexcom.

Adam: What were the keys to rising within your career? And what can anyone do to rise within their career?

Kevin: Well, I think one of the things that you've got to not be afraid of new opportunities and trying new things. I took on pretty much every difficult assignment I could at my accounting firm and learned a lot there, had great mentors that I worked with. And then the companies where I worked, we all had incredible opportunities and also a lot of unknowns. So we took those on as well. I think one thing is you look at a company or a career path to embark on one of the questions you have to ask yourself is, what problem are you solving with this technology? I've been in a high-growth world, in all fairness, most of my career, and index come with a continuous glucose monitor, we saw a very serious problem in diabetes. I took those things on. I've had wonderful mentors that I've learned who have not been afraid to tell me what I can be better. And I've been smart enough to listen to him. And so that has been really good. And surrounding yourself with good people, as you take on these complicated problems is really important. We can talk more about some of those things individually if you'd like to.

Adam: Well, those are two key themes, not only of this podcast but two key themes to succeeding in business and succeeding in life. And I would love to dive deeper into both of those topics. We'll start off with mentorship. What can anyone do to optimize a mentor-mentee relationship? How can you find a great mentor? And how can you be a great mentor?

Kevin: Well, let's talk about finding one. I think one of the keys to finding a great mentor as you're building a career is to look at people's track records of success. If somebody has been wildly successful, chances are they'll be successful again. And I've had great mentors in that respect. Even the accounting firm the managing partner, my office, when I was up in Orange County was just as wonderful a man and who was honorable and bright, yet stoic, and had a great business mind. And he went out of his way to teach me individually very young, about love and the things I needed to know. And just the way he conducted himself when there would be issues. It just gave me somebody to watch. So I think one thing about mentors particularly in your own watch successful and people you'd want to emulate, learn from that. I would tell you when I was at mini-med diabetes, a stop a while ago, our CEO and Under was a gentleman named Alfred. And as mine went a gazillion miles an hour and being around somebody that bright was just tremendous, but also watching how hard it was for us to control somebody that bright, was also a great learning experience, but to see somebody with no fear of their ambitions. But you know, as a great thing to learn, my mentor here at Dexcom was somebody I'd worked with before, Terry Graying our former CEO. And one of the things about being good mentor, having a mentor is knowing that a mentor wants nothing but success for you. And we'll support you and my relationship with Terry goes back many, many years. But there are many times when Terry had to say something to me, you might want to do this differently. And he wasn't always that nice. But I knew fundamentally, he wanted nothing but for me to be successful, and for the company to be successful. And as a mentor, if the people you mentor believe that, you can be very effective. And so my relationship with him was just wonderful. That way, if he told me to change something, or do something different, I would at the same time, a good mentor will let somebody go figure things out. When I came here to Dexcom, my skills were largely business-related and deal-related and things of that nature. I wasn't an engineer, and this is a very engineering-driven company. And I came here and he said to me, you got to go fix this system and do this finance-wise and everything. And after spending two weeks here, I went back, I said, yeah, I'm not gonna do any of that. I said we've got to get a better product at it. And I threw myself into the product. And he rather than stop me said, go do it. And we ended up making an advancement or technology with that focus that really changed our company. I made the engineers meet with me every day, for a half hour, one of them said to me, why are we meeting with you and I said, I don't care. We're just going to fix this. And we're going to do this right. And literally, that focus by all those people changed the trajectory of Dexcom. But my mentor was willing to let me do that. Even though he had other plans in mind, it ended up being very successful. So I think good mentors do give people enough rope, to let them go do what they think is important, but guide them and support them along the way. So it's a fine balance. It really is. But it's very important to have people like that in your life.

Adam: I love it, you shared so much wisdom there, and to highlight a couple of things that you shared, the importance of feedback. And feedback is really only as powerful as the person delivering it. Feedback starts, not when you're giving feedback, but well before it ultimately comes down to your credibility. And to your point. Even if you're delivering feedback that might be tough. If you're receiving it from someone who you know, is giving you feedback in your best interest. And as someone who you respect, who you trust, is a person who you want to listen to, you're going to listen, and you're going to act on it. Another thing you said, which I think is really important, great mentors let their mentees figure things out. They don't tell them what to do. They teach them how to think they give them room to operate. They give them rope, they give them the tools to flourish. And that's really where the magic happens.

Kevin: Yeah, and as a mentor, you have to make sure you follow up with the tools. And you follow up with feedback as well. Both those things are very important. If you just say go but you don't offer support or anything that doesn't work. You have to be actively involved with that. But I do think knowing somebody cares enough about him that you can listen and take that feedback and go I think is just critical. I really do. Those relationships are priceless.

Adam: You also brought up the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. What do you look for in the people who you surround yourself with? Whether that's people who you hire, whether that's people who you look to as advisors, what are you looking for?

Kevin: That's a great question. I once had a discussion with somebody I worked with, and he was really good man. But I developed this theory, which is still under development. We all develop theories, right? But I said, you know, there are two kinds of smarts, there's scientific, smart people who are good at methodologies and thinking and thinking and thinking. And then there are quick smarts, people who can think through things quickly. And once you get information can come to pretty quick decisions. And I told that individual I said, I know I'm that one. So I surround myself with people who can do all this work and All this scientific stuff so I can make the best decision I can possibly make. And I think one of the keys to surrounding yourself with good people is first to find out what you're good at, and what you're not good at. And if you can surround yourself with those who complement your strengths with strengths that they have that are different than yours, I think that is very important to success. But you got to be very honest about what you're good at. I finish that discussion with this individual the most dangerous person in the world is the one who thinks they're good at all types of thinking, and may not be good at any of them, or may not be great in any of them. It wasn't a great day. But if you can understand those weaknesses of your own, and surround yourself with those strengths, that's a really good thing. Personally, the integrity factor is huge, I need somebody who's going to communicate with me and understand not to be afraid of the consequences of when things aren't where you want them to be. I can't handle it in our company, if you talk to anybody, that'll secrecy thing doesn't work for me, we can handle bad news as long as you tell us, but we can only fix problems that we know about. We can't. And so I look for that. Really, energy is important to me, need energetic people around. And people who put the business first I heard an investor say you got to make those decisions and put that business first rather than your own ego. And on top of that index calm. If you put the customer first even ahead of business, we're even more successful because we do what's right for the customer and ultimately get what's right for the business as well. So those are some of the things, you've really got to have those skills that complement you.

Adam: It's a great list. Find people who are team-oriented, who are customer-oriented, who are passionate, who are bringing energy every day, in an authentic way. I've done interviews with hundreds of America's top leaders. And through these conversations, I've identified the characteristics that I believe are essential to great leadership. And you mentioned integrity, morality that's on that list. Self-awareness is right in the middle, everything you said, really speaks to the power of self-awareness. What are the key characteristics of a great leader and what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Kevin: So one of my fundamental leadership rules is you don't ask anybody to do anything you won't do yourself. And I think one part of being a great leader is being willing to do that, you lead by your example, you don't lead by sending everybody else to fight the battle, you show that you're in it with them. And if they know you're in it with him, emotionally and physically and mentally, which has been very hard during the pandemic. By the way, you know, and we weren't all together all the time, it created a new set of challenges for me because I live to manage by walking around and I didn't have anybody to walk around by. But when they know you're in as much as they are encouraged, much as they do, they're willing to do that. But you can't just issue commands from on high. I think in business, people have to know that you're engaged and involved. I think self-awareness, I love the term use self-awareness or a lot of behavior, scientists use emotional IQ, and you've really got to understand who you are, what you're good at, and what you're not. And surround yourself with people that can help you out that way. You can't do everything as a leader. And we tend, a lot of us tend to want to do that a lot of us tend to want to jump in and do absolutely everything. You can't. But you have to trust them, you have to get feedback from them and give it to them. Self-awareness is absolutely critical energy, you can be as aware as you want. But if you don't have an energy level that inspires people, it doesn't work. And so you got to have energy, and presence to be a good leader, I believe all those things are critical. And the integrity piece goes without saying if you don't have integrity as a leader, forget it.

Adam: You mentioned that you found it to be a little bit challenging, leading in this new environment where not all types of interactions take place in person. So many leaders are leading companies in a completely virtual setting or in a hybrid setting. What advice do you have on how to lead virtual teams or how to lead hybrid teams?

Kevin: Well, for one thing, try and get them back together even if they're not all coming in all the time. For example, we just had our entire sales force in our U.S. Sales Team in for sales meetings. We brought them to San Diego. And I jokingly said to more than half of you who have been here less than two years I'm pretty much an app the tour. So welcome. And here I am getting them together some is a good thing, I think you've got to be present if you're leading remotely on Zoom calls and such, you absolutely have to be present during those calls. And if you're not going to be present, you're almost better off not being on them. I also think one of the things I've done and what I did during these times, and what I still do a little bit, there are some individual calls that you might make that are normally not within normal reporting lines or such, just to check in on people and see how they're doing. Like next-level down conversations, I actually have some leaders in my organization who have had me schedule conversations with their next-level down just to let them know that we know that they're there. And as a leader, you learn a tremendous amount about the business, when you have a conversation of that nature, particularly when it's blessed by the direct supervisor, those people. So there, for example, there are a couple of engineers I speak with on a regular basis, even though I have a chief technology officer and a chief operating officer. A couple of these guys are the brains behind the technology from way back when talking with them, I will always learn something that I don't know. And it keeps him very engaged with their leadership as well. So I think during these times, having some more direct conversations with important individuals is really a good idea.

Adam: Kevin, what's interesting about the advice that you're sharing is, you're really giving leadership best practices that are applicable, regardless of the team you're leading. Regardless of the setting in which you're leading. Be present. And you should be present, whether you're present on Zoom, or whether you're present face-to-face. Be as communicative as possible. Focus on communicating with all of your stakeholders, whether you're communicating in a virtual world or whether you're communicating in an impersonal world. These are critical principles that should be applied period.

Kevin: No, I agree completely.

Adam: You've led Dexcom through enormous growth. What are the best lessons that you've learned on how to lead a business through growth? And what advice do you have for anyone listening on how to grow and scale their business?

Kevin: You know, we often take for granted what we've achieved here with the scale that we have achieved. It's one thing to grow from 15 million to 30 million we doubled our revenues. It's another thing over the past three or four years to go from a billion dollars to almost $3 billion. That may be a four-year timeframe and do it successfully. The one thing is you can't take things for granted, these little things matter. When you scale this fast, there will be bumps along the way. You just have to solve them and not overreact. I think one thing for scale that we've learned and I've learned individually is this area of really being accountable. It's really important. And it's important to your customers as well. We had an issue several years back where our servers went down where the data was shared. And they went down over the Thanksgiving weekend, which is the worst time imaginable. And we fixed it. We worked really hard. We had calls about it all weekend. But when it got all fixed, and we took time, I recorded a message on our website and also on all our social media. And I actually spoke with Jim Cramer about it where I said, we messed up, we had a problem, and we fixed it. And we've put these actions in place to mitigate it. And Jim literally said so you're taking full accountability. I said yes. And scale, you have to take accountability for what goes wrong. And you don't have to take credit for what goes right, because there's enough teams that work on that, that that they can do that. So accountability is very important during scale. I also think during scale, you got to understand what exactly your goals and ambitions are and yet set the bar high. I was asked by a salesperson to describe our culture. Then a couple of words at a meeting and I said I got to high expectations. We come to work with high expectations here every day. We don't come to work saying gee, I hope we do a little better than we did yesterday, our bar is high. And there are times when we missed that bar, but we still get a lot higher than we would if that bar were low. So if you're going to scale as fast as we are, you got to be used to high expectations and set those goals and try and attain them. You know, I think the last one is you can also learn a lot from those mistakes. You know, I talked a bit about my mentors earlier. Let's be clear, I've learned as much from their bad decisions as I have, they're good ones. You take those bad decisions, and you okay, I'm just not going to do that. And I'll make sure I do that better. And I hope people learn from my decisions that aren't great, as well. And we talk about them regularly. But for scale, you set that bar high, and you go and don't look back, and you do the best you can. And there will always be regrets or always be, you know if we would have done this one thing a little bit better. You can't regret that stuff all the time. I guess the last one. One of my board members gave me some very sage advice for high-growth companies that I will share with you. I asked him, and I said, why do you think companies fail? And he goes, oh, I can tell you very simply why high- growth companies fail. They hold on to what they have for too long. They don't move to the next level. And one of our challenges here, and one of the things we are very much addressing and hope to do going forward. Glucose measurement is very important for people on insulin, but we think the technology we have is very applicable in the future, to type two diabetes, health and wellness, possibly weight loss, and things of that nature. And we need to not be afraid to go after these other markets, we'll always be the best at what we do, and we will never ignore this group of customers that we serve, who are so faithful and loyal to us at the same time. You've got to go do some different things, you can't just hold on to what you have forever.

Adam: So many great pieces of advice there. And to dive into a couple of them. First and foremost, accountability. Essential to great leadership and essential to success period. No one wants to be around someone who's going to deflect responsibility. The first job of a leader is to stand up and step up to the plate. You shared that you've had so many moments over the course of your career, that have been incredible learning experiences, where you've learned from those around you and have learned from what you didn't like about what they did, mistakes that they made, mistakes that you made. Can you share one, whether it's something that someone around you, someone you looked up to did that you said, man, why did they do this this way? I'm never gonna do it this way, or something that you did a certain way and you were able to reflect upon it and say, I'm going to change my style because of this. Is there a specific moment? What really stands out to you?

Kevin: Yeah, there is. And it goes way back. It wasn't this company. But I watched how my leadership was dealing with strategic relationships with other companies. And while we had an upper hand in the relationship because they needed us more than them, or at least we thought we did. Reading a partner that way was not good. And we adjusted our approach there. And so that was one thing that I learned that style doesn't work. Another thing I've learned in watching leaders and a mistake that I've made, in all fairness, you can't imitate somebody else's style and be really successful at it. You've got to figure out what your style is. I'm not a football coach, yell or scream, or type leader. And a couple of times I've reverted to that in my career where I've gotten really angry with somebody and, and it went off the rails. And the outcome of that was just awful. It didn't work at all copying somebody's style that's not yours. That's a bad move. Those are a couple of other tactical decisions that somebody made without enough information, that is what I've seen happen, I guess the last one because I look at my own mistakes over time. While you have to listen to everybody and do everything. Through processes. There are times when you as the leader, you got to make the call. And I think my decisions if I look back at decisions over time, where I would say I've not made the right call, it's because I've taken too much time. And when I knew the answer, but I've taken too much time and I think sometimes we view decisions as hasty when in reality, the reason you feel a sense of angst on making a decision is that your instincts are telling you is the right one, but you're looking for some other reason for it to be the right one. And I've learned from that as well. As far as my own mistakes.

Adam: Do you have an example there that you could share?

Kevin: Just with people in general, there are times when your instincts will tell you somebody needs more responsibility. And you might be too late and give it to him. Or conversely, there comes a time when you see you need to make a change in leadership, not because somebody is a good leader, but because the job may have just passed them by or just need a different skill set. And you'll try and fight and fight and fight to not make that decision. When in reality, most of the time the person knows that's the decision that shouldn't be made anyway. So I think trusting those instincts is very important. It has been for me.

Adam: Truly your gut, trust your instincts, trust yourself. Yeah. You also shared something which is so important, you can't copy someone else's style. Never try to be the second-best version of someone else. Focus on being the best version of yourself.

Kevin: Absolutely.

Adam: You also shared that in order to get to that next level as a company. It's really about creating a culture around high expectations. And you've obviously been able to create a highly successful culture at Dexcom, where there have been high expectations, and the expectations have been met and exceeded and new expectations have been set and set again. And to that end, I want to know if you could share with listeners, how can leaders foster cultures that fuel innovation, and that ultimately do what Dexcom has been so successful in doing in bringing innovative products to life? 

Kevin: I think a lot of that, in our case is related to the magnitude of the solution. And I'll give you a perfect example. Because I think a lot of our innovation has been spurred by the relationship we have with our users with respect to this information. We launched a product way back in 2014, or 2015. It was the first product we ever launched that went to the phone. And this product had been out three days, mind you three days, and I got an email from a young man in Kansas, who was going to law school. And he'd spent all nights having type one diabetes, he'd spent all night studying for finals. And he took his finals and he went home and he was gonna mow his lawn and he said, I'm gonna take a nap. Before I do that. And he looked at his next comment, it says glucose values were safe, and he was good. So he laid down to take a nap. And several hours later, paramedics broke through his door with an axe, because his glucose values had gone down very low. And he'd exerted himself too much. And he hadn't eaten any carbohydrates. And he said, my cousin died of hypoglycemia like this last year, your device just saved my life. But when you can tell that story, it's easy to innovate, it's easy to get people fired up and say, Man, I have got to do better. So then you find these solutions that solve these problems that can change people's lives. It really creates an energy that you can't replicate. It just makes coming to work every day an absolute joy.

Adam: You know, Kevin, I've asked that question to a lot of different leaders. And you're the first person who's answered it in that way, which is to bring real innovation to life, it ultimately comes down to meaning everyone finding real meaning in what they're doing every single day.

Kevin: That's absolutely correct. And as we try to innovate in other fields and other uses of our technology, we have to create an environment where that mission for a different type of customer is going to be as clear and concise as this one has been so clear and concise for us. It's really easy to push and drive innovation. And so our customer really, culture has driven a lot of that. And I think over time, we'll be able to do that. But that's one of the things we're working on now.

Adam: Kevin, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful, personally and professionally?

Kevin: Wow. That is a great question. One of the things I did when I was young, I will share, I would look at situations and if things weren't going the way I wanted them to. I would make lists. I'm a big list person I make to-do lists all the time. But I would make lists and I would ask myself, what can I get out of this situation that is going to make me better? So for example, when I was in public accounting, what kind of yes, we you know, I need to learn more about SEC reporting rules. I'm going to go find myself some jobs where I can learn about SEO reporting, or for example, index com. I know some of our leaders do this, what can I do to be better? And one of the things I often tell him is, let's make you a better presenter because presenting is really important. To enhance your presentation skills, ask yourself the question, what can I do to make myself better or what opportunities are right within the job that I have, that will enable me to improve myself? And again, get a better position within the company that I'm working at. You know, companies offer training programs all the time, to their leaders into their employees. And oftentimes, people sign up for him and they never go because they end up getting too busy. We're never too good to be trained. I take feedback from all of our people on a regular basis when I have to speak somewhere. If I'm meeting with somebody, I sit and I listen, we afterward always ask, tell me what we can do differently. Tell me what I can do better next time. But if you can take advantage of those opportunities, and figure out what you can get out of the group that you work with, I promise you, you'll be a better leader and you'll have a better career.

Adam: Kevin, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being apart of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Kevin: Hey, thank you.


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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