Thanks to the worst dive of her life, Hanneke Faber learned all about focusing on what she could control.
Many years before becoming Logitech’s CEO, Faber learned resilience the hard way—as a competitive diver in the Netherlands. A seven-time Dutch national champion by her teenage years, Faber was recruited to dive collegiately at the University of Houston. But at a major competition in Austria, before she headed to the Lone Star State, Faber experienced one of her most challenging dives. Competing outdoors for the first time, she misjudged her timing due to the reflection of the blue sky on the water, leading to a physically painful, poorly scored dive.
Falling through the air at 30 miles an hour, Faber’s inexperience with outdoor diving showed. Because of the reflection, she got confused, throwing off her rhythm and timing. She hit the water awkwardly, pain surging through her entire body. When you are diving at that speed and hit the water wrong, your body is bruised and marked for days, she said. Even worse, the judges gave her zeroes for the failed dive—and she had to climb the ladder and go back up on the ledge for one more dive.
Faber explained what went wrong in a recent interview. “As a diver, you’re always spotting the water right to know where you are because you’re flipping and twisting,” Faber said. “You need to know where the water is. And I was new to the outdoor platform…In Holland, we always dove indoors because of the weather. My seventh dive, I’ll never forget, it was a back one and a half with two and a half twists off the 10-meter.”
After the hard landing, despite the pain, Faber climbed back up the platform to complete her final dive, a decision that marked her approach to setbacks. Today, Faber credits this experience for teaching her to focus on what she can control, an essential lesson in her business career. “As a leader, you win some, but you’re also going to lose some,” Faber shared. “You can’t control everything, like the fact that the sky and the water are the same color of blue that day.”
In her roles at Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and now Logitech, Faber has implemented her diving lessons to lead teams with a fearless focus. Remembering her days on the 10-meter platform, she approaches major business decisions and presentations with confidence and great preparation.
Faber stressed that we need to excel in the things we can control to be successful. She has certainly set the bar on that front, overseeing phenomenal growth at Procter & Gamble and Unilever before serving in her current post at Logitech. Faber has also been recognized as one of the most influential women in business today.
While the bad dive in Austria stayed with Faber, so did other lessons she learned from her swimming and diving career, which led to her being named an All-American during her time at Houston, including;
- The importance of coaching in sports and how it translates to life and business. Faber said she was blessed to have several excellent coaches over her diving career. After bad dives, especially during her freshman year at Houston, one of her college coaches helped get her focused through humor. She also learned from her coaches to work on the little things so she could be ready for the big moments. Before Faber dove off 30-foot towers, her coaches had her practice on trampolines, building her confidence so she could be ready to face the larger challenges. She’s brought that approach to the boardroom for the companies she has worked with.
- Why you need to be fearless. Faber shared how you need to muster up your courage when you make a 10-meter platform dive just as when you lead. “Diving is a scary sport,” she said. “If you mess up, you know you’re going to hit the water at 30 miles an hour, and it’s like hitting a boat.” After those experiences, almost nothing can faze Faber. “I’m pretty fearless in my job today, even before a big presentation to a big crowd. I just think back to standing up on the platform, and I’m not really nervous. It’s helped me move industries, move countries, and change strategies. All of that can be scary, but it’s never as scary as that 10-meter platform.”
- New leaders need to hit the ground running and communicate with the entire team. When she joined Logitech at the end of last year, Faber immediately turned her attention to building a new strategy. Realizing she had a lot to learn about the industry, Faber and her leadership came up with a plan. “We worked pretty fast to create what we called an MVP— minimal viable product—of our ambitions, our goals, and the strategic choices we were going to make, and we put those on one page,” she said. After crafting the MVP, Faber shared it with all 7,000 Logitech employees in more than 100 countries to get feedback on what they liked and what could be improved.
Other business leaders also competed on swim and diving teams, learning about courage, competition, and discipline. Michael Gugel, the co-founder and CPO of GoCo.io, noted that the same attributes that made him a top national swimmer also helped him in the business world. Former Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman took part in many high school sports, including on the swim team. In addition to being a decorated swimmer who won five Olympic gold medals, Ryan Murphy is also an advisor to a venture capital investor.
During her incredible business career, Faber continues to apply lessons from diving, particularly the power of small, consistent wins. “I always try to tell myself and my team that we focus on what we can control, because there’s lots of things that you can control,” she explained. “If you continue to work on those and break big goals up into small pieces, things start going your way. In the end, you will get there, but the path is not always easy.” Despite the challenges, her career path exemplifies the tenacity she learned from that tough dive years ago in Austria.