Future Forward: Leadership Lessons from Patrick McGovern, the Visionary Who Circled the Globe and Built a Technology Media Empire

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LESSON TEN

Love Your Employees, Adore Your Customers

To succeed in business, you need to be original, but you also need to understand what your customers want.

—RICHARD BRANSON

If Pat McGovern had to narrow his leadership lessons to a single one, it would have been his deep belief in staying close to the customer. Indeed, the very motivation for founding IDG was based on his effort to find out what technology customers wanted and needed. His vision of a global technology revolution required a knowledgeable and informed user base that was well equipped to change the world. Everything flowed from that initial premise, and it became his muse and his guide for the next 50 years.

“We thought the most important thing to do would be to listen to ...