Michael Bailey:
Secretary Bob McDonald, thank you for participating in my interview today. I’m thrilled to have this conversation with you. For those who are watching and listening, I’ll give just a brief overview of who you are. You’re a United States Army veteran who rose through the ranks at one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world, Procter & Gamble, ultimately serving as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman. You later served as the eighth United States Secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
To this day, you’re still involved in a variety of boards and nonprofits in areas you’re passionate about, so you truly live an exemplary life of service – to people and to country. I’d love to start by hearing what fuels your call to public service.
Secretary McDonald:
It’s changed over time. First, Michael, I’m thrilled to be with you. When I was young, I first applied to go to West Point in sixth grade. The country, in my opinion at that time, was falling apart, and I was worried about it.
If you think about what occurred in 1968 – Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Robert Kennedy’s assassination, riots everywhere, race riots, and protests about the war in Vietnam – I felt the need to serve. I felt the need to get involved.
Over time, that need to serve has become more acute. Particularly through my military service, it’s turned into something I think about every single day. You’ve heard me say before that I think about that last scene in Saving Private Ryan, where Matt Damon’s character stands over Captain Miller’s grave in the Omaha Cemetery and says to his family, “Tell me that I’ve earned it.” That mindset is in my mind every single day – tell me that I’ve earned it.
The real heroes are not those who served or who received medals or were in combat – it’s those who lost their lives at a young age because they served. I’m trying to earn it every single day, and that’s what animates me.
Michael Bailey:
It’s safe to say that throughout your career, your goal has been service to people and helping others. How did that experience look different, or similar, in your time at Procter & Gamble versus your time in public service at the VA?
Secretary McDonald:
When I left the military, I was looking for a company whose purpose aligned with my own. Procter & Gamble’s purpose is to improve the lives of the world’s consumers.
On any given day, about 5.5 billion people on the planet use at least one P&G product. That’s quite a large canvas to paint on. While our products might seem pedestrian – laundry detergent, shampoo, and so on – they really do make a difference in people’s lives.
If you go into the most rural areas of the world, the first thing people are worried about is food and water. Water is a real scarcity. The average woman in a developing country walks 14 kilometers a day for water. We invented chemistry that would clean that water, because she might not realize it’s contaminated when collecting it from a pipe or a lake. She spends hours carrying it home and then boils it for her family.
We created chemistry to clean that water in 20 minutes. As a result, we’ve saved lives. About 2,500 children die every day from drinking unclean water. You might ask – do we sell that product? No, we give it away. On average 2.5 thousand children die a day from drinking contaminated water. Is it philanthropy or good business? It’s both philanthropy and good business, because people need clean water for economic growth, and economic growth creates more people who can buy our products.
So, improving lives was very real to me. Then, of course, at the VA, I arrived at a time of crisis – veterans in Phoenix were complaining they weren’t getting care. We had to institute the same kind of human-centered design: putting the veteran at the center of everything we do at the VA. How do we improve the lives of those who have most earned it? It was the same thread of continuity across my life – a desire to serve.
When I was nominated, Senator Richard Burr from North Carolina said to me, “You’re a retired CEO. You’ve got money. You’re probably tired. You probably want to relax. Why would you want this job?”
I said what I think anyone who’s served in the military would say: “If not me, who?” God had prepared me for that role through the experiences I’d had.
Michael Bailey:
Service is core to our democracy. For someone interested in a role in public service – or just in finding their broader purpose—what advice would you give to anyone trying to find their role in society?
Secretary McDonald:
My biggest belief is that everyone needs to live a life of purpose. What is your purpose? If you’re a young person watching this, figure out what your purpose in life is. It would be a tragedy to meander through life without direction.
All of us have cell phones and other things constantly pulling our attention. Don’t let them distract you – create a purpose, a North Star, and go after it. When you know your purpose, the decisions in life become much easier.
In government service, you can paint on a very large canvas and affect countless lives. At P&G, I could impact 5.5 billion lives daily. At the VA, we had about 300,000 employees serving 17 million veterans, with a $300 billion budget—a massive canvas to paint on. Imagine the effect you can have doing that.
It’s both a privilege and an obligation. It’s a privilege to affect other people’s lives, but it’s also an obligation to do something positive in doing so. Again, it comes back to that idea—tell me that I’ve earned it, or at least that I’m working toward it.
Michael Bailey:
My final question: this series is called Democracy is a Verb. Now, we know democracy isn’t literally a verb, but at the Bush Institute, we believe a healthy democracy needs active, engaged citizens. When you hear “democracy is a verb,” what does that mean to you, and how can all of us be better engaged citizens?
Secretary McDonald:
This is a path I’ve been on as well – democracy is a verb. Let me share two stories that animate that.
The first is that in a democracy, the military needs to be intrinsically connected with the government and the people. Our military should represent the population of the country. If we have left-handed people in the citizenry, we need left-handed people in the military. We also need people who want to serve, so we don’t end up with a small cohort doing all the work.
Today, only about 1% of the population is connected to the military – that’s not ideal in a democracy. Our military fights for ideals, not for the palaces of kings.
When we fought in the American Revolution, it was an unpopular war for the British. King George, who was of German descent, hired Hessian mercenaries to fight. At times, they made up a third or more of the British forces. When Washington crossed the Delaware and surprised the British in Trenton that Christmas, those soldiers were Hessians – not British.
You have to wonder how motivated those soldiers were, fighting for a paycheck rather than an ideal. Washington’s troops were fighting for freedom and a new country. That’s what we need to remember – if we’re going to make democracy a verb, we need more people willing to serve and to act.
Secretary McDonald (continued):
The second story goes back to when you and I were in Dallas together. I was supposed to give remarks to inspire veterans in the Veteran Leadership Program. I wanted to reference Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech often called The Man in the Arena, but I never liked that title because many of our cohort were women.
Roosevelt gave that speech in 1910 at the Sorbonne in Paris. He talked about the importance of being the person in the arena – someone who gets knocked down, gets dirty, maybe even fails, but keeps getting back up. Some failure is necessary to win big.
Roosevelt asked what leads to a more fulfilling life: being the person in the arena, or being the “cold and timid critic” outside of it? Having spent much of my life in public positions and being criticized from all sides, I can tell you it’s better to be the person in the arena.
I discovered that Roosevelt didn’t actually call that speech The Man in the Arena—he called it Citizenship in a Republic. To me, that’s exactly what “democracy is a verb” means. Roosevelt is agreeing with you and with President Bush that to have a democracy, you need citizens willing to get into the arena, willing to be knocked down, willing to fail, — not cold and timid critics on the sidelines.
So I would say to everyone watching: don’t be the cold and timid critic. Climb into the arena and help us make this democracy robust. Democracy is a verb—certainly.
Michael Bailey:
Secretary McDonald, thank you again for doing this with me.
Secretary McDonald:
Thank you, Michael. Great to be with you, as always.
Michael Bailey:
Thank you for the impact you’ve made in the world. We appreciate your time.
Secretary McDonald:
Thank you. There’s still a lot more work to do.
This conversation has been edited for clarity.
