Another Honor

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Black Enterprise Story

Black Enterprise ran a story on me in their August issue. It really sums up my leadership philosophy.

Motivating the Troops

A food network executive believes that finding the passionate makes for successful leadership

Name: Michael Smith

Title: General Manager, Cooking Channel, Scripps Networks Interactive

Location: New York

Age: 47

Power Play: Named one of the “Top 50 Most Influential Minorities in Cable” in 2007, 2008, and 2009, this Stanford University science and technology graduate held a variety of media positions at Disney/ABC Cable Networks and CBS Corp. before joining Scripps Networks in 2000, where he eventually became senior vice president of marketing. He was promoted to general manager in 2009.

Launching a new network speaks to audience demand, but how do you motivate your team to adjust to changes in your business model?
I’ve always believed that leadership is getting someone else to do something because they want to do it. It’s helping people to be the best they can be and helping them realize their potential—giving people a vision of what their future can be and then giving them the resources to actualize that. Sometimes it’s potential they may not even see in themselves. A big part of it is first pulling the right group of people, then figuring out strategically what those people should be doing, communicating clearly to everybody, making sure you have the right people in the right roles to be able to execute, and then finally making sure that everybody has the resources they need to execute. That’s my job regardless of the business situation we’re tackling or industry we’re in; those principles are timeless.

So leadership is really about coaching?
One of my role models is Mike Krzyzewski, the coach of Duke’s [University] basketball team. In an interview he said his role is to make the spotlight shine as brightly as possible on his players. And as the spotlight grows on the team, it automatically spills over onto him as the coach. It’s really not as much about you as it is the people that you’re coaching. If the people you coach are successful, of course you’ll get that credit. There’s also the theory of servant leadership, where the role of the leader is to serve the people you lead. It’s like you have a caretaker role. [Coach] John Wooden [he died earlier this year] is one of those people whom I also admire. Whenever you listen to him talk about coaching and his role, he would say, “the players I was entrusted to lead.” He wouldn’t say “my players, my team.” It was almost as if it was a privilege to work with these young men. Leadership is about getting things done through other people. So the people part is such an important piece of it.

How do you determine the right people?
I think if you match a person’s passion with what they’re assigned to do for a job, that’s the magic nexus. Then the person doesn’t feel like they’re doing a job; they feel like they’re doing what they were born to do. I always ask people if they were to win the lottery tomorrow and didn’t have to work for a living what they would do with their lives. And that’s probably their true passion. If you can get people who when they come here really believe that their passion is to do what we do, which is to inform and entertain people about food, we’re off to a good start. So a good part of my job is figuring out who those people are and naturally bring them into the organization. Once they’re in the organization, you look at what their particular skill set is and their particular area of interest is and then you try to match and align that with the specific roles within the company. Then you have to give them a future. You have to help them see where they can be in two years, where can they be in five years. Hopefully your vision of where you see the company going aligns with their vision and where they want their lives to go.

Pracitce Before You Preach

Ghandi said “An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

Like many people, I've always been afraid of public speaking. But as my career has progressed I've been increasingly called upon to speak to groups and to lead by articulating a vision to groups of people in public forums.

Back in 2006 I made an effort to get more comfortable and confident through practice. I began accepting every opportunity to speak in public.



I began volunteering to speak at industry conferences, to schools, associations, and to any other group that would have me.



I also pushed for opportunities within my job to make presentations.



I did over 15 speaking engagements between 2006 and 2009, including a keynote speech to over 400 marketing professionals,


and little by little, after each one, I felt just a bit more comfortable.



Every time I'd get behind the microphone I'd find myself sweating a bit less, stumbling over my words a bit less, and lapsing into pregnant pauses just a bit less.



Today I can actually say that I enjoy and look forward to public speaking.

My advice to everyone is to use practice to tame your fears. The more you do something you're scared of, the less scary the thing becomes. It's like weight training. The more your stress your muscles during a single workout session, the stronger they recover for the next session.

So even if you feel you've screwed up while trying something, think of that screw up as practice. Practice that will make you stronger and better the next time.

Best Teen Chef

I spent the weekend in Houston judging the Art Institute’s 10th Annual Best Teen Chef competition.


Included were 36 high schoolers from across the US, winners of preliminary local competitions among 1,200 students.


The winner gets an $87,000 scholarship to study culinary arts at one of the Art Institute’s 37 campuses.

The students had about 1 hour each to to prepare two courses using a preset list of ingredients.


They were closely monitored by the judges, who evaluted their knife and other culinary skills.



As judges, we also had to taste two courses each from the 36 competitors. That made for 72 plates to taste in about six hours.




We also met with each student and gave them feedback on their cooking and career advice.

I can’t tell you who won.



You’ll have to tune into Cooking Channel later this Summer to find out.

Turning 47 Tomorrow

Birthdays always seem to make you think about your past. Where you've been, how far you've come. What you've accomplished, what's you've failed to achieve.

This year is 2010 and I thought I'd look back at myself over the past four decades, starting in 1970.

In 1970



I was a skinny young immigrant kid, fresh off the plane from Jamaica W.I., living with my parents in Rochester, NY. My dream was to become a big time automobile designer for GM or Ford. My dad had been a carpenter back in Jamaica, so I was always into building things.

By 1980



I was living in Columbia, MD, preparing to depart for college at Stanford University to study Industrial Engineering. By them my dream was to work in the entertainment business. Since coming to the US in 1970, I'd become obsessed with American pop culture, especially television. I majored in Engineering to make my mother happy and because I truly do enjoy science.

In 1990



my TV dreams began to be realized when in April of that year I began working for the Disney Channel TV network in New York City.

By 2000



I'd been in the TV business for over 10 years and was working for Food Network. It's better to be lucky than good, and coming to Food Network was certainly a lucky break as its success has led to my great current job with Cooking Channel.

As we move through 2010



my only regret is that I wasn't so vain about my weight and could allow myself to really chow down on all the great food I'm surrounded with at Food Network and Cooking Channel :)

One lesson I've learned over the years is that the more consistently you show up, the better your chances of having good things happen to you. Sometimes, just hanging in there can take you to surprising heights.

Savoy Magazine

When I was a kid in the 70s I used to read all the top 100 lists in magazines like Ebony and Black Enterprise and I was inspired by the professionals of color who fought through the incredible barriers of the day to gain some influence in the business world. They paved a road that's made it much easier today for people like me to be on similar lists today.

They started us all down a road to where one day the truly exceptional thing in the term "successful black person" will not be the "black", but "successful". I'm honored to walk that road.

O Canada - part 2

The second and third days of my Canada trip were spent in Toronto, a much newer looking and feeling city than Montreal. Below is a shot of the South African War Memorial in downtown Toronto commemorating Canada's participation in the infamous Second Boer War of 1899-1902 between the British and Dutch.



First we had lunch at Nota Bene with French Food at Home




host Laura Calder,



a really intriguing woman with an impressive personal story.


Later in the day we had dinner at One restaurant with David Rocco and his wife Nina,



who both work on David's Italian cooking and travel show La Dolce Vita.



I enjoyed a wonderful entree


of Orecchiette with merguez sausage, tomato, chili and labneh.


The next day we had breakfast as the Fairmont Hotel where we met up with Roger Mooking (2nd from left),



host of Everyday Exotic,



who like me has Caribbean roots (he's from Trinidad) and lived his early life in Edmonton Alberta (I was born in nearby Red Deer Alberta).