Personal Creativity Reflection

Barry Salzberg of Deloitte

With over 210,000 employees, a presence in over 150 countries, and
revenue of over $34 billion in 2014, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Limited (DTTL) is a one of the largest companies in the world.
DTTL is a world-renown, multifaceted company that deals in
consulting, accounting, financial advisory, risk management, tax
and more on an international basis. The company is structured
geographically; each one of the forty-seven member firms retains
control of a cluster of nearby countries all across the globe. As a
global leader, DTTL is a very multicultural business, and as such,
it is important for it to maintain proper ethical, cultural, and
leadership behavior. Barry Salzberg has always had a commitment to fostering diversity in the
workplace. Salzberg currently serves as the global chief executive officer of DTTL, and has been
serving in the position for the past four years. He believes that diversity is key to a productive and
collaborative environment. To help support this collaborative environment, Salzberg founded Deloitte
University, a company leadership center located in Texas. DTTLs website reassures viewers that
Deloitte remains a place where leaders thrive and ideas prosper.12 Deloitte University, or DU, was
founded because when Salzberg became CEO in 2011, he noticed that something was fundamentally
wrong with the company. Like IDEOs design thinking sessions, Salzberg did a deep dive into each
department to fundamentally understand how every department operated. During a session in the HR
department, he realized that employee training was profoundly broken. The cost was far too high for
the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of the training that Deloitte employees were receiving. Starting
from the ground up, Deloitte started to do what they did best process optimization and tackling
complex problems with efficient solutions.
In less than four months after assuming the position of CEO, Barry Salzberg taken a brilliant concept,
and had turned it into a reality. It takes a brilliant and determined mind to accomplish such an

http://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/life-at-deloitte-deloitte-
university.html

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Personal Creativity Reflection

amazing feat, but Salzberg did not take all of the credit, instead he said that he had learned a lot of keys
for success from the people that came before him. He shared a few of his keys to success during the
speech at Smith. He stressed that a sense of integrity and ethical behavior was important to maintain
above all. As long as you do that, nothing can go wrong, he assured us. Salzberg also noted the
importance of being in the moment.

The best leaders exhibit behavior to let the person feel like they are the only person
that matters and they are the only person in the room.
Listening skills are important to a career, but true leaders know how to focus in on the information
they are being given in a way that makes the speaker feel important and feel like they are being heard.
Salzberg also advised to put a naysayer in every group making a big decision. The naysayer will be
cautious and make sure that the overall objective of the decision is reached without spending too many
resources to get to the end goal. Finally, Salzberg ended with an important message: listen to newer
generations. Every year Deloitte releases a survey to the millennials to see what younger generations
want to see out of a prominent company. Deloitte has shaped its projection over the years to cater to
these values.

Millennials want to see a company that is committed to a purpose, a passion, an

identity.
Over the years, younger generations have come to view large corporations as antiquated. The surveys
sent out revealed that millennials believe that corporations arent innovative, but that the corporations
think they are. Additionally, millennials want to see that the company follows its purpose daily. One of
Salzbergs objectives as CEO is to fix that view, and to turn Deloitte into a more millennial-friendly
company. Deloitte has about $60-70 million not for profit accounts, and has started to allow for more
flexibility in the work place. Surveys show that millennials want to be able to experience a multitude of
experiences and they want to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Deloitte has responded with mass
career customization. A large part to staying current and not being out-innovated is remaining
responsive to younger generations; Deloitte most definitely will endure as a top company if it
continues to do so. Check out a video of the talk on my webpage! Ter.ps/dttlinnovate

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