J&J's CEO made 12 internal job moves on his way to the top. He's learned the one thing that gets people to stay and take risks

Joaquin Duato might be the world’s biggest proponent of internal mobility. Now the CEO of Johnson & Johnson , which for 10 years has been Fortune's Most Admired Company in the pharmaceutical industry, Joaquin has built his entire career by moves around the company: 12 different roles, three of which were lateral moves, and three country jumps.

He has one guiding principle when it comes to making decisions about what to do next: Always Say Yes. “Every single time [I said yes], it opened a window that I was not thinking about, because you don't know what you don't know.”

I was eager to talk to Joaquin because getting lessons from his experience is going to be critical for managers this year. The data tells us that workers are restless: A recent LinkedIn survey found that a whopping 85% of employees are thinking of switching jobs this year, a 27% increase from last year. The reasons range from better work-life balance to higher salary and career advancement. 

Granted, wanting to move and being able to move are two separate things (i.e. with 2 candidates for every 1 opening in the U.S., it’s no longer the buyer’s market it once was), but the takeaway is that people are looking for change. And employers need to find ways to satisfy that or risk having checked out and listless teams.

That’s where internal mobility comes in: How can you keep people growing inside your org rather than forcing them to jump? 

Joaquin says it comes down to one thing: Trust. 

“I trusted my manager…which I think is fundamental for you to stay in a company that long."

This wasn’t the easy answer I was hoping for, frankly. I thought maybe the key to making internal mobility work was learning courses, or mentorship, or internal job boards or any other projects that a company could simply build and support. But if the answer is “Trust” it means building a culture where employees are taken care beyond their job of the moment; where talent-on-the-rise know they’ve got backers for the long-haul. None of that is easy when companies have to meet aggressive Wall Street or VC targets — or are simply trying to survive in a competitive world.

But for Joaquin, he kept taking one leap after another and finding that not only did he have a safety net beneath him, but that he was increasingly gaining new skills that propelled him to the next level. That made it easier to develop a ‘say yes’ approach. He accepted every opportunity presented to him. That included taking on opportunities that he didn’t think he wanted and that he wasn’t sure would take him in the direction he had planned for himself. 

Each move, “opened a set of opportunities that I never would have imagined,” he told me. “You have to be willing to take on these opportunities. You have to be willing to say yes.”

So what do you do once you’ve made the internal move? Here Joaquin was more deliberate. He said he’s learned that you have to move into a “builder” mindset. 

“When I take a new role, my first job is to listen and learn, to get to know the people first, to get to know the organization, to get to know their customers, to understand their business,” he said. “ Take the time to understand what are the strengths of that organization. Every organization has a set of strengths, everyone — otherwise they wouldn't be there. And then once you know that, then start building upon the strengths of that organization.

The subtle difference between the “builder” mindset and the “listener” mindset are in those last words about finding the “strength” of the organization. Joaquin isn’t listening so he can start gutting a team or so that he can play nice before he implements his own strategy. He’s trying to understand where the bedrock is so that the team can construct something that will grow. 

“I generate change by enrolling people and focusing on their strengths,” he explained. “There are different business situations as you can imagine. I mean, you may be in a situation that you have to do a turnaround, but generally you are going into places that do reasonably well. How do you take them to the next level? It's going to be mainly by capitalizing.”

That idea of finding strengths doesn’t just apply to internal teams. He says he tries to apply it to people in his one-on-ones with them. 

And he applies it to the companies that J&J buys. The company gets 50% of its growth from external innovation. So Joaquin is careful about listening and probing for strengths vs descending and assimilating. As an example, when J&J makes an acquisition, it keeps the companies together for a long time.

“We normally try to maintain the end-to-end integration that this company have,” he explained. “We don't want to break the company and lose part of the essence that made that company great. We make sure that we pay enough attention to learning about their culture and their characteristics to be able to be respectful to that. And at the same time, we make sure that we amplify their strengths by further investing in that company to make it more successful and more able to serve those patients than they were before.”

I think there are a lot of lessons to come out of this: First is that any company that can develop trust with its employees is going to be a company where people stay and take risks with their assignments. Second is that trust takes time and proof. The Joaquin strategy of “listen, learn, then invest in strength” is a great way to develop trust among people, teams, and even acquired companies. And if you’re lucky enough as an employee to find a place that has proven its trustworthy, don’t let it go to waste — make the jumps, even if you’re not sure where you’ll land. Saying Yes is a risk worth taking.

What’s your take on Yes? Have you experienced good or bad things when making a jump — and is trust enough to give you that belief in taking on risk? Join the conversation below and subscribe to the This is Working newsletter. 

And be sure to tune into the latest This is Working podcast, which I co-host with LinkedIn Senior Producer Nina Melendez Ibarra . Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

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