McLaren's Culture Shift: Transparency, AI, and Talent Drive Racing Success

Key Quotes

"it's about getting everyone to understand how they contribute to a common mission you took over mclaren racing during what was a pretty tough chapter in its history struggling financially low morale you know the team wasn't performing there wasn't a lot of sponsorship money when you think back to those early days yourself what you know what were one or two of the hardest decisions you had to make and you know what did you learn about kind of leading through a turbulent period"

Zac Brown explains that the difficulty in leading McLaren Racing through a turbulent period was not in making decisions, but in gaining buy-in from everyone. He learned that building trust through transparency and communication, and removing fear from the culture, were crucial steps to reversing negative momentum in a large organization.

"i think you can almost break the organizations down into three groups and not necessarily 33 33 33 33 but you have those that want change embrace change recognize change is needed that's a pretty easy group because they're willing then you have another group that's kind of on the fence they're not so sure they've seen it before and in our instance we had about five different leaders in seven years so you know you know i remember when i started it was you know how long's that going to last because the last guy was here wasn't here very long so you have a group on the fence but they need to be kind of buy in which they they want to there's just a kind of skepticism and then you have another group which needs to be changed out and they're the ones that probably created uh the the issue that you're dealing with the naysayers the the what we call a loser's mindset instead of a positive mindset a winner's mindset and those people need to uh change now"

Zac Brown categorizes employees into three groups when implementing change: those who embrace it, those who are hesitant but open, and those who resist it. He highlights that the resistant group, often characterized by a "loser's mindset," needs to be addressed or changed out for the organization to move forward successfully.

"so we pull down uh one and a half terabytes of data which is about 10 million documents because i never knew what a terabyte was i was like well put that in english for me and that's 10 million documents 400 movies uh just to give you know the the kind of size and scope we have 300 sensors on the car and you're exactly right you get all that and you're not going to have someone kind of picking through one and a half terabytes of data ai plays a role in that and then our technology partners play a big role in that"

Zac Brown illustrates the immense volume of data generated by a Formula 1 car, equating 1.5 terabytes to 10 million documents or 400 movies. He explains that artificial intelligence and technology partners are essential for processing this vast amount of information, which is collected from 300 sensors on the car, to extract meaningful insights.

"well i think it's data first and then you ultimately it's just like a business right you get all this data in you still need to make a decision because data can be misleading you can look at data different ways you've got to kind of know what data you want to look at to help solve decisions so all of our decisions are data driven decisions some of them are very black and white and the you know the data makes it very clear what you should do others you're piecing together different pieces of data it's not just one piece of data but you know you take uh pit stop strategy which is a big part i want tire data i want weather data i want competitive data i want insight from the driver on what they're feeling so you get all this data in and then you need to use what we call racer instinct which would be no different than business instinct and go right based on all these dynamics and all this data that's coming in here's what i think we should do"

Zac Brown emphasizes that while data is paramount in decision-making, it is not a substitute for human judgment. He explains that leaders must understand which data points are relevant to specific problems and then combine this information with "racer instinct," or business instinct, to make the final call, especially when dealing with complex scenarios like pit stop strategy.

"i've always had bigger ambitions than uh resources so but i've always kind of followed the ambition as opposed to the resource i want to do this therefore i got to figure out how to do it as opposed to well can i afford to do uh because i i could never really afford to do what i did so i always kind of put myself out there and it put some pressure on myself"

Zac Brown describes his personal approach to growth, which is driven by ambition rather than immediate resources. He explains that he consistently sets goals beyond his current means, forcing him to find creative solutions and apply pressure to himself to achieve them, a strategy that has defined his career.

"i think one of the advantages that that we have as do a couple of other teams is we're a mega brand right so you know i'm a baseball guy so forgive me for all my baseball comparisons you know when you grew up did you want to play for the new york yankees or i don't want to pick on another team uh but you get you know where i'm going with that right we're a big brand we're an iconic team so we're fortunate that when people want to get involved in racing if you kind of made a list of who are the teams you want to work for mclaren and ferrari are always going to be kind of at the top of the list so that allows us to attract awesome talent"

Zac Brown identifies McLaren's status as a "mega brand" as a significant advantage in attracting top talent. He likens it to iconic sports teams like the New York Yankees, explaining that their historical success and brand recognition place them at the top of lists for potential employees and partners, giving them a competitive edge in recruitment.

"i say in the factory mistakes are okay just don't make the same one twice because then you're not learning i think some of the higher profile ones probably the worst moment in my racing career was we didn't qualify for the 8500 in 2019 with fernando alonso two time world champion so here i am bringing the mclaren brand and a two time world champion to the indy 500 and we don't qualify i mean that that's a total car crash for a pun um and and i made a lot of mistakes along the way i didn't put the right people in place that's my fault i didn't trust my instinct i i knew early on i'd made some wrong decisions put and i got talked out of it"

Zac Brown shares a profound leadership lesson learned from the failure to qualify for the Indy 500 in 2019, despite having a renowned