A highly sought-after business executive and entrepreneur with more than three decades of global experience working with corporations and startups, Linda Yates has served as CEO, board member, and advisor to organizations across many industries including technology, healthcare, finance, consumer, energy, telecommunications, aerospace, industrial, automotive, and more. Linda Yates’s work focuses on helping companies drive exponential growth through innovation, strategy, operations, and execution.
In addition to her leadership work, Ms. Yates is the author of “The Unicorn Within — How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), which explores how established firms can pursue venture-based growth and innovation more effectively. Globally acclaimed and recently added to the Harvard Business Review Press list of “Top 40 Essential Business Books” as a New Classic, the book has also been listed as “One of 7 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read” by the Big Idea Club run by Malcolm Gladwell and Dan Pink.
Beyond her corporate pursuits, she is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute; co-founder of the Creekside Learning Lab, an educational initiative focused on experiential learning; and serves on the board of Conservation Ambassadors, an organization devoted to wildlife care and conservation education. Ms. Yates has lived, worked, or traveled to over 70 countries and has served as a bridge between Silicon Valley and the global community her entire professional career. She earned a bachelor’s degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in international relations and comparative politics from Stanford University.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
Contemplation/prayer/reading, exercise, responding to text and email. Meetings usually back to back so there’s time to respond or do follow-up activities after. I keep very detailed to-do lists and check things off the list as I go. Surround yourself with amazing team members!
How do you bring ideas to life?
Draw them on a napkin, interview a lot of people, gather a team together, do any necessary research, launch. Rapidly build and iterate as we go. Fundamentally, understand customer pain, marry it with the art of the possible (the latest in innovation and technology), and place a series of small bets, removing the greatest amount of risk on the least amount of capital.
What’s one trend that excites you?
The quiet revolution focused on contemplation and action and the need for unconditional love of everyone and everything. So many groups now quietly banding together in service of others and the message of love and gratitude.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
I use notebooks and keep different notebooks for different activities, and I keep detailed to-do lists.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Make time for spiritual pursuits and service to others that add meaning to your life from day one. Find balance early, versus working 24/7/365. Realize that you are not in control—try to be present.
Tell us something you believe that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Maybe my belief that you have to try to be kind to others even if they aren’t kind to you. Or I believe that 20 years from now, we will consider football the way ultimately people viewed the gladiators, wondering how we could be so inhumane as to let that kind of activity and injury persist for our viewing pleasure.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Express gratitude to God, to your team, to those providing you service, to your friends, to your family, to clients, to your animals, to everyone. Be humble—humility is a grace, give credit to others.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
Pray, go to church, walk the labyrinth, talk to my husband (who is my best friend), go to church, hike in the forest.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
Helping to grow team members and being generous with your time when others need you. Caring about their families and their personal situations, especially when they are having challenges. Giving people a second chance and being empathetic and compassionate. Being genuine and authentic.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
Being overly trusting, I haven’t learned—I will always be trusting and hope I always believe in the fundamental goodness of others.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
Goodnotes. I keep different digital notebooks so I can stay organized and not be looking for notes from past meetings or articles I have written.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
Giving oversized/unexpected gratuities that make the people who have helped you smile and feel good about the service they have provided.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast you’ve gotten a ton of value from and why?
Everything produced by Richard Rohr’s Center for Contemplation and Action and by Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire Institute. Incredibly current, deep learning on scripture and the teachings of Christ and the message of love and our need to give back to the world through contemplation and action. Also, Father Gallagher’s Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, Father Mike Schmitz homilies, and Father Dave Pivonka’s Daily Holy Spirit (all available on Hallow App). Finally have time to be focused and go deeper on my lifelong spiritual journey. So many amazing people to learn from and be inspired by.
Key learnings
- Incorporating spirituality into your life is important—taking time to be grateful and to have a sense of awe and wonder will yield a deeper, more meaningful life.
- Authenticity matters.
- Truly caring for and about others is a key to success.
- Staying organized, getting things done, and checking things off your list, not procrastinating, are how you free up time for fun stuff, community service, personal growth, and time to spend with the people you love in your life.