Managing Teams Starts With Empathy: Interview with Omar Asali, CEO of Ranpak

I recently went one-on-one with Omar Asali, CEO of Ranpak.

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

Omar: I’ve counted myself lucky to experience multiple periods of growth that have led to where I am today. I lost my father at the age of nine. After he passed, my mother took on the roles of parent, mentor, and breadwinner—In a word, she became my biggest role model. Growing up in Jordan was challenging, but she taught me the importance of dignity and resilience, particularly when doors are closed to you for reasons outside of your control.

Our experiences instilled in me both a passion to improve the world for those around me and a drive to secure my own future. They led to my pursuit of an education in the United States, which has allowed me to spend my entire professional life here in the US. They led to my founding of One Madison Group, which has empowered me to fulfill my commitment to myself to do my best work, where the opportunity is greatest. In other words—I would not be who and where I am today without my parents, nor would I be able to deliver a better world through our work.

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

Omar: There are a variety of skill sets required through the various chapters and stages in the evolution of a business. If leading a business is akin to flying a plane, taking said plane from the ground to 5,000 feet is a “creating” skill set, whereas taking the plane from 5,000 to 30,000 feet is a “scaling” skill set. Getting the plane up into the air is a different operating muscle than scaling the plane’s path consistently and steadily even higher. Scaling a business is a repetitive muscle and is a recurring rhythm that allows you to make frequent incremental improvements over time – it is rinse and repeat. And different teams will require different yet coordinated efforts to grow any company.

Strength in different key areas of expertise is crucial, but the even more important skill is connecting the dots across the various functions and facilitating productive communication between these areas. Scaling a business is more similar to a sprinting team relay rather than an individual sprint, and as we all witness every Olympic games, the handoffs need to be seamless for individual talent to yield team success.

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

Omar: An effective leader is able to communicate simply and concisely, but more importantly, they’re also excellent listeners. The ability to listen is critical to motivating teams, informing business decisions, and inspiring creativity. The more you listen, the more you can connect seemingly separate ideas and start to understand what is truly relevant.

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

Omar: In my mind, there are two things that great leaders offer: The first is empathy. If your team knows and believes that you are genuine, authentic, and appreciative of them and their work, they will reciprocate and go above and beyond. This is half the battle in motivating your team.

The second quality is the ability to listen and distill. People tend to only picture leaders as the ones in front of the room talking and presenting, but the most amazing leaders listen to what others have to say and then hone in on what’s really important. They are open to different perspectives and are very good at figuring out what information is most relevant. It’s unfortunate that listening isn’t a skill that you’re actively taught in school or that you can read a book about and quickly figure out. It’s hard to measure and is often looked at as a “passive” style of leadership. I personally don’t think that’s true. If more people invested the same amount of energy into listening as they do into determining the best words to use, I think that could produce amazing results.

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

Omar: First and foremost, prioritize. There are only 24 hours in a day, and we cannot do everything. We all need to be disciplined with what we do with our time because time is probably the scarcest commodity. It’s finite. You can’t compound or extend it. Prioritization allows us to live within those constraints in the most efficient way possible.

Secondly, always look to simplify things and communicate clearly. It’s so important to clearly and concisely articulate your mission, vision, goals, objectives, etc. Getting things done is about leveraging the skills of the people you work with and giving them the tools to optimize their output and value. If they don’t understand the vision and their role in achieving it, they won’t be able to execute as efficiently.

Finally, take chances. Scaling might be a lot of rinse and repeat, but creating requires experimentation and new ideas. You need enough of that in your thinking as a leader to not get trapped in your own comfort zone. Injecting creativity is an imperative part of leadership.

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

Omar: Managing teams starts with empathy. Being genuine and authentic at work and letting people know that you care about them is the first step to motivating a team. The next step is to be able to clearly and concisely communicate the organization’s mission, vision, etc. so that team members understand what we’re working towards. Every one of your employees has the potential to revolutionize your operations and your products, but they need to fully understand the mission and vision that are driving the business to make that valuable.

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

Omar: When I was starting One Madison, I had a conversation with my daughter—she was probably 18 at the time—and she said something that forever altered my ethos. She told me that I should “do something that you think will help society and make the world better.” I have been trying to pursue that lofty goal ever since. Because of that conversation, I have come to recognize that doing well in business and doing good for the planet are fully compatible strategies. It is a recognition that underpins every decision and investment I make—and a way of thinking that I hope leaders elsewhere will adopt.


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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