Speaker 0 | 00:01.020
All right. Hey, everybody. Another episode of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. And today we’ve got John Lay. So, John, if you’d like to introduce yourself, please tell us a little about who John is and what he does.
Speaker 1 | 00:24.097
Happy to. So, yes, as you’ve said, I’m John Lay. I like to consider myself a long-term technology leader with extensive background in software development and building technology teams. I’m currently the VP of IT for a specialty retailer and RV dealership group. My focus is on applications and those teams that are delivering and supporting applications for the organization.
Speaker 0 | 00:53.593
All right. So… Tell us a little more about your beginnings, your humble beginnings in IT. What was the thing that helped spark that interest for you that got you interested in these damn machines?
Speaker 1 | 01:11.055
So I’ll go back and take a trip here in the Wayback Machine. I did not originally think I would have anything to do with technology as I left high school. Back then, technology was something locked away in a glass room, and phones were mounted to walls. But things have changed, and so have I. I’m still a small-town Tennessee farm boy at heart, but blessed with the ability to work with technology and be successful at building technology teams. And a lot of that has to do with communication and being able to understand technology and relate it to those non-technical folks, but also to tell stories and help the technical folks, the folks who need to actually do something. with technology, understand what the business needs and how to solve their problems. I have had a long, varied history, but probably pretty much all of my jobs had something to do with software or applications, either supporting them, running them, or building them. Took a little sidetrack for a little while in embedded systems, which was quite interesting. And actually… was a key contributor to devices that played advertisement on cable television systems. The things that we all hate to watch, those interruptions, as we’re watching and binge watching.
Speaker 0 | 02:40.150
Let me interrupt for a quick second. Tell me a little bit more about that piece of it. So in that time period, I mean, it was… something that we kind of talked about a little before, that shared experience. So we all saw the same damn advertisements. And so tell me a little bit more about exactly what you were doing in that piece of this. Give me a little of the history in the matter or what it was.
Speaker 1 | 03:10.133
Yeah, so I’ll give a little history and describe it all in one. So I had been working for an organization in Memphis and had had been tasked with taking a new division that they were trying to spin up. The company that I was working for provided software and systems for television stations and their advertising. And they were starting up a division that would do the same, but on a smaller level. So the big organization was Mainframe and Minis. And the… The new division they wanted to start up with PCs. PCs had come in and were really beginning to show their value. And they wanted to have a package for radio stations and small television stations. At that same time, cable television and advertising on cable systems had come into being. And this organization in Salt Lake City had started a package on a… on a PC that did that. And they had purchased this company, but it was like a year later and things weren’t coming into fruition the way the organization wanted. So I was tasked with some others to go in, analyze the system, analyze the people, and bring it back. So we did that. We brought it to Memphis. We brought the products to the market and started selling it. And during that, one of the things… we needed to do was provide files to these systems that actually played the commercial. Now, let’s put some context on this. This is back in the mid-80s. And so we’re talking about Betadex. big, huge VCRs, and the machine control on them was very, shall we say, specific, right? We were talking like controlling a parallel printer, but we’re controlling a VCR by turning lines on and off. And so I had been working with this company who had a package that ran the machines, and they were trying to step up to the next level and build an actual machine that controlled multiple right so if you not a lot of not everyone’s aware of cable systems but you have your local cable provider and and they’ll give you at that time it was around a dozen to three dozen channels that you could get on your on your at home on cable and about a third of those would allow the local cable system to inject commercials in the shows you Everyone thinks that it’s, you know, ESPN doing the commercials, but then you’ll see a local bar commercial, right? It’s those local bar commercials that we were doing the injection of. And so in working with that company, they said, hey, you’ve got some great ideas. You’ve got some great experiences. Will you come work for us? So I did. And this company was, if you want to think about it in today’s terms, we’re taking a PC and today would go. pull a pie off the shelf, right? But they were actually having to design and build their own PC motherboard along with all the device controls to run these machines, these big Sony Betamax machines. Around that same time, Sony started coming out with machines that we could control via serial. Of course, we had to support what was there as well as plan for the future. So, I mean, we… We started from the ground up. I mean, we were designing boards. We were putting operating systems on them. Not DOS, not Linux, but Unix-like things that we were buying from the back of magazines at the time to really build this from the ground up.
Speaker 0 | 07:15.666
Yeah. So, I mean, I’m thinking back to mid-’80s and what I was doing. And I’m still running around in high school. doing all that that kind of stuff and computers we weren’t thinking about computers let alone automation of things like that and especially not for the little guy that’s like the local cable provider right for sure um wow
Speaker 1 | 07:38.581
interesting okay people that had technology right that they were larger companies and you were talking about mainframes and maybe if you were intelligent you had a smart terminal, but more than likely that was a dumb terminal. You might have color, but more than likely it was monochrome.
Speaker 0 | 07:59.750
Yeah. Green screens. That’s right.
Speaker 1 | 08:04.192
Yes.
Speaker 0 | 08:06.973
Yeah. Wow. Okay. So, so I’m sorry. I interrupted the whole history and spun you off for a moment on, on that, that cable piece. Keep going from there. Get us, get us from there to how you went. You know, you’re automating the injection of commercials into TV to the leadership role that you’re in today. I’ll finish drawing out that path.
Speaker 1 | 08:30.001
Sure. So from doing the cable stuff, kind of stayed around cable a little bit more, but moved companies. Went more to a company that was focused on the software side of things, the scheduling, and came up to a new, we had a database. at this point now, but it was still not what you think about. It wasn’t SQL. It was a relational database, an index, an ISAM system. And so we put together a package and went from supporting eight possible channels that you could advertise on to 32 across multiple locations. So now you’ve, you know, kind of back to what you’re thinking. You want that computer to do it. So now we’re talking about bringing… together groups of these cable systems and running commercials in a larger area. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, you know, they have just in that, at that time, they had 20 different companies all around the Bay providing cable to the folks. And so, we built a package for them. Well, guess what? They saw me. They said, well, hey, why don’t you come start a… MIS department for us because we don’t have anything. We’re just, you know, taking what we got. So I went out there and built them a group and… Started a team and got them up and running. Met a girl. There’s always a girl in the story, right? Gets married and it’s time to head back home. So I got that started, left it, went back to consulting so I could move around the country some. Basically, just general consulting, software consulting, writing programs.
Speaker 0 | 10:20.960
Are we in the 90s? Have we gotten through the bubble yet?
Speaker 1 | 10:24.901
Yes, we’re just tipping over into the 90s now. Okay. When I finally land in Nashville at a big six accounting firm with their technology center, it’s a shared service center providing technology to the entire firm, and they had all these mainframe developers and mainframe applications. They had heard about this thing called client server. And so they were looking for someone to help bring the teams forward to that. And so… That’s when I joined them as a technical specialist and started showing the team how to do things. That’s, you know, Windows 95 was beginning to show up. We have SQL Server. We have Oracle. We start to see a lot of the more familiar terms that people know. And I worked with the teams, brought those people and showed them how. All of that stuff you knew in the mainframe is still valid. Now we’re going to step it up to client server. We’re going to step it up to new languages. Here’s one for you. Power Builder was a big tool that we started using to pull them forward. Then we moved into Visual Basic 6 before it moved in and started going up the chain. So I was there for… for quite some time, probably just about 10 years. So we cover the 90s real fast right there. A lot of just showing people how to take that skill, those knowledge points that they know about good design and good testing and building things to meet the user’s needs from the mainframe, but apply it now into client server world and PCs. Windows, and now things start getting graphical and more user-friendly, and we start doing reporting. We start democratizing data and providing this information to folks. And so we start moving now towards the end of the 90s, and the .NET boom starts up, and everything, excuse me, the Internet takes off. And… I get wooed away from that accounting group to now go work for an internet startup and was building a team there because they were a internet service provider that wanted to move into the world of an application service provider. Kind of a new term. It doesn’t exist much anymore. You know, you have the Internet service providers that will bring Internet to you and give you a connection at home. But now you have application service providers, which was what they were wanting to be, to start providing applications on that, on that network. And they were focused around the educational space, schools and whatnot. And so they wanted to have, they were providing. applications and services that would be appropriate for schools. Basically, those pre-K to 12 schools, and you had filtering, you had caching, and we were building for them a toolbar, which was an always-present portal from back in the day. Some things came to fruition. The business really didn’t go the direction they wanted it to. There was a layoff, which puts me back into the consulting world. When I come up here to my current employer as a consultant, for a six-week engagement to help them with a point-of-sale system project that was going off the rails, I had that problem solved in about four hours. And they asked me to hang around. Here I am almost 20 years later. And so that started out very similar to the last one where they were coming from not necessarily mainframes, but micro machines and a lot of COBOL programming and programmers. And I looked, they were asking me to now. bring those teams up into client server, bring them into some new technologies, bring some process and procedure around to how they manage and run applications. And that’s what I did and have done for the last so many years. And the real theory, the real thread here is change and staying current and helping folks both in the business side and the… and the technology side understand how to use and apply new technologies to reduce friction for our customers and the business customers. Our customers in IT, of course, are our business users. And we want to give them systems and tools that help them do the business of the business with less friction and pain. And hopefully we all make a little bit more cash for our wallet.
Speaker 0 | 16:06.251
Yeah, of course. That’s one of the goals for sure. Now, one of the things that I definitely pick up on within all of the history that you just outlined for us, thank you, team building. You have a constant theme of team building, like you were hired for it. It seems like something, one of those innate skills. So tell me a little more about that. About team building and what’s some of the magic sauce or things that you’ve learned or what’s a pitfall that you can help me avoid if I’m starting to build a team? If I find myself at some organization and it’s time to form the MIS or the IT group and start supporting this organization, what are some of the things that you’ve learned in this realm that you need to share?
Speaker 1 | 16:57.841
Well, first and foremost is communication, right? communication is both the answer but more times than not it’s also the problem and you know and that takes me to the second point is we all have our own journeys right we’re all have our own fights our own internal struggles and we come from different points you you started that you started the conversation with that we all have our own points of reference and so so we you I always try to recognize that and meet whoever I’m speaking with in the middle, right? If you’re a business person and you don’t really care about technology for technology, but you want it to do something for you to make your life easier, I need to understand what it is you’re doing and what are those pain points. And it’s very similar to when I turn that around and communicate it. to the technology folks, what is it that you need to understand to help them with their problem? And how do we go about getting that? And the English language is a wonderful tool, but Lord have mercy, how many ways can we say the same thing? And the point of reference… that you may be meaning to give me is going to be different than what I hear, because I’m going to hear it from my, so I have to listen and I have to, to communicate. And one of the things I’d like to use is storytelling and trying to relate things to people in stories that they understand. And I get to that point by listening and speaking with those kind of a third thing is relationship building. I am. huge on that. They call it work, right, for a reason. We’re here for a reason, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it fun and we can’t enjoy the time together. And we need to just figure out how to do that while still meeting our goals and objectives.
Speaker 0 | 19:14.240
Yeah, for sure. Because if you’re not enjoying work, if you’re not enjoying those relationships, it’s a slog. I mean, you just all right trudging through and waiting for 5 a.m or waiting for the weekend and and those are i’ve had more than a few days that have felt like that and those are not fun days to be at work but when you’re building those when i’m building those relationships when i’m talking to others it it adds it adds that flavor like you’re talking about it’s i know that one of the greatest things for me is when i get a chance to network with peers, like talking with you and talking with others, I find enjoyment in that. Especially, it’s another way of learning some more about where I’m at, what I’ve done, and where I can go. And it’s trying to hear that lesson or find that lesson, find that golden nugget in the conversation. Right. One of the other things that – go ahead.
Speaker 1 | 20:17.354
Well, I was just going to also point out is we need to celebrate, right? We need to celebrate our wins as small or as big as they may be, which goes to another side, the darker side, right, of leadership. We want to celebrate publicly, but of course, correct privately as best we can. But maybe every once in a while, there may need to be a little bit more public correction because that will go to trust building. Because you do have to build trust both in your customers and your staff as you’re building a team. And communication is critical there.
Speaker 0 | 20:58.856
Yeah, exactly. You brought it up earlier that the communication, it’s the boon and it’s the gift and the boon at the same time. But building trust, because that’s another thing that we all need within the organizations is to not only build the trust amongst our coworkers and or direct reports, but we’ve got to build trust with the business. Because if we’re not building that trust with… And you mentioned the IT customers and the customers of the organization. And I’m thinking of those as internal customers and external customers.
Speaker 1 | 21:38.357
Yes, right.
Speaker 0 | 21:39.398
And if we’re not building trust with them, that makes for those days that I was talking about or that I think we were both talking about where you come in and it’s just work. All you’re doing is trying to get through the day. get everything off the plate so that you can get home and then go back to life and living. So you have to build trust. You brought up a point, and I’m not sure how much we stated it. It’s not always about the technology. Tell me something about that. Tell me about when it wasn’t about the technology, when it was about…
Speaker 1 | 22:23.355
Well, so there’s… When I look at… applications, right? And I define what my role is as trying to provide application services to the organization. An application can be a piece of software, can be a piece of hardware, but it usually has some component of process and procedure that defines how humans use it and interact with it. And so you can’t ignore that. You can’t ignore that when you’re defining a change or defining a new application, but you also can’t ignore that in the support of it. And another subtle thing here is training, right? We think about training a lot of times as learning a new tool, learning a new technology, or maybe instructing users on how to use something new we just built. But training is continual and people come and go. So we have to reiterate training. But humans in general, it’s going to take, you know, three to seven times hearing something before they learn and truly comprehend it in the beginning. But then we also forget, right? Especially if it’s not something we use. So we’ve got to remember that we have to keep reminding people and not get frustrated with it. I know that’s… That’s one of my sins that I have to watch out for is I just told you that three times. Well, maybe I did, and maybe I just told three more people about it. But this person I’m dealing with right now only uses this application once every quarter, and they forgot. They had other things. They went home and went to sleep. They have things that are on their mind. So we have to give grace, both to ourselves and our kids. and our staff and users.
Speaker 0 | 24:29.147
So helping remind people of the changes, of the goals, of the lessons without shaming, without, you know, empower them and communicate it. It’s, you know, I find it ironic and refreshing at the same time. We’re going through a bunch of internal changes, and we’ve spun up a whole department around. We’re calling it the implementation department because all they’re doing is doing the documentation and starting the training of the trainers so that we can show that we. handed that piece off because there’s so many times with the organization and and the business that they we create something and we show the first group and we hand it off and everybody’s all gung-ho about it and then six months later they’re coming back and saying well you never trained us how to use this and and i’ve got you know the highest levels of management going um what did you guys accomplish what did you get done and we’re like well we built this awesome thing right and they’re like well they don’t know how to use it so fail you And it’s only just that tiny little piece, that tiny little piece. Communication, communication, communication.
Speaker 1 | 25:41.874
That’s right.
Speaker 0 | 25:42.775
And the training. And so the communication and training hand-in-hand, solidly together. Yeah, not about the tech.
Speaker 1 | 25:51.121
Right. And hopefully, you know, you can use some technology. You can put a wiki. You can put an internet together. You can have embedded training in the application. But it still never takes away from that human interaction. That’s just who we are.
Speaker 0 | 26:11.157
The human interaction is, you know, not the ageist. But, you know, today there’s so many of us who I hear it all the time. Well, I sent an email and there who. I’m trying to think of how it was put to me. There was action taken, but there was not. How was it put? Action taken, but the results, it wasn’t result driven. It was, I did an action. What were the results? Was there any level of follow through? Was there any making sure it was done? And the business so often wants somebody to get up. get off of their chair, get away from their desk, and go talk to somebody. Not even calling, although the calling is much more acceptable than the email today, they still want somebody to come talk to them. And it’s a huge thing, that communication again.
Speaker 1 | 27:18.423
Agreed. We also have a little bit of overload sometimes, I think, in ways to communicate. So your point is very valid. There has to be some sort of follow through and follow up to make sure that whatever action or answer was provided was correct and hit the spot. And it’s so easy with email, Teams chat, Zoom, WebEx, whatever, to have that immediacy and then move on, which is OK if everyone’s in agreement. But we can’t take silence as agreement. And that goes back to kind of the one thing I was telling you, I was having some cage rattling earlier today. And it’s just like, we need to make sure that there’s two ends, two sides of that communication to make sure that we have that ack and knack, right? We have that acknowledgement back that communication was heard, received. And things are moving.
Speaker 0 | 28:29.584
Yeah. Say it back to him in your own words versus, and just that whole interaction of the nonverbal communication, the chance to talk to him and more than, you know, I find it ironic that you said, do not take silence as agreement. Because we joke all the time in my organization of, you know, I’ll ask a question and. and nobody in the team speaks up or says anything okay silence is agreement you guys agree this is where we’re going and and nobody wants to say anything for whatever reason it is because they disagree or they don’t want to speak up publicly and are afraid of getting shamed and it’s not that my teams are free to get in shame but you know it’s just one of those human um interactions that that there are people out there that are afraid to share their opinion and And those silent ones sometimes are the ones that you really need to draw that opinion out of because they’ve got that gift for us. They’ve got that hidden golden nugget.
Speaker 1 | 29:36.434
That’s right. Sometimes they have the right. It’s the silent ones that really are listening. And in today’s world, it seems to have escalated a lot over the last decade or so. Of course, COVID and the whole shutdown escalated a lot of stuff. But. You know, we’re all multitasking or focused on other things, and you have your phone in your hand, and maybe you’re half listening. And we don’t always meet in a way where we can read those body signs and understand. So reiterating, checking back with folks is just something we have to do. This isn’t directly on the thread, but it keeps coming back through my mind because this has to do with making sure we’ve done things right. And if you think about… In software testing, you know, oh, it works on my desk, it works on my machine, or I tested it and it works. Well, really? Because two test points will draw a straight line. It just may not be the truest line you think it is, though, when you do a few more test points.
Speaker 0 | 31:00.012
Amen to that. There’s a couple of systems that we have. That, you know, we test them and we think, or the dev group thinks that everything’s perfect and it’s not a real world test. We’re testing in isolation, like we’re testing a single transaction flowing through the system and it’s not under load. It’s not trying to process a thousand threads at once. It’s just, here, let me fire up this single transaction. Did it land? Yes. Did I get the result I wanted? Yes. All right. you set yourself up with a perfect world let’s do it again and yeah okay we’re done um so tell me tell me one of your um your funniest stories or tell me the story that you tell everybody the non-geeks about testing and failures and let me hear that story because i’m sure there’s one out there because otherwise you wouldn’t have this lesson yeah well you put me on the spot
Speaker 1 | 32:01.566
now and it’s it’s hard to come up with those things but um well i mean i don’t have a good a good laughable one right at the moment i’ll keep talking like tell me the painful ones it’s okay um how did you learn that lesson i’ve learned that lesson by touching the fire way too many times right with with by doing that by setting up my perfect test scenario and then handing it over to a user and watch them break it in nothing flat. And that doesn’t mean banging on the keyboard. That means they’re doing a real-world scenario and they’re putting in answers that to them are, you know, from their perspective, right? If you read the requirements and you write a test based only upon that, well, it’s… It may be you will get a valid test, but it may not be complete. And again, it goes back to communication, right, and understanding what they really needed and how they really will intend to use the system. I’ll tell you the story I tell a lot. This doesn’t necessarily cover this one, but it does in a way. So back. to when I was in Memphis working for that company doing the radio and cable software. The platform that that application was written on was an old 8-bit system that was originally meant to be a key to disk, if you understand what that was. That was a mainframe thing. It was above a punch card, but not much above a punch card. And it was meant for data entry. But this company had written a translator and an emulator where you could run it on a Windows machine. But it was still under the covers. All the data structures were 8-bit. And dates were stored in an 8-bit integer. And I was no longer working for the company, but I get a phone call out of the blue saying, hey, these systems have quit scheduling past. This certain day, I’ll call it February 2nd of 92. I don’t think that’s the actual date, but we’ll call it that. And they’re like, what can we do? These things are still running. And I’m like, I ain’t been there for five years. How is the software even running? But anyway, so I have to go in. But that’s an example of we’re testing, right? You tested all the dates. We were testing back in the 80s. All we tested was 80 dates. And they were all working. Once you clicked over to a few months into the 90s, now it wasn’t working. And so we had to go in and I had to go in with binary code and expand that out to make it work further.
Speaker 0 | 35:11.736
Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 35:14.857
So you need to think of extremes, right? And how will these things work is kind of the takeaway there. But another way of saying that is really understand how. the system, the application, the tool will be used to think about your extremes. You know, we’ve heard it. Y2K was a perfect example, right? Oh, we’ll never have to worry about that. That COBOL program may be dead long before 2000. Well, guess what?
Speaker 0 | 35:54.802
It wasn’t, and we all thought the world was going to die and blow up and woke up to a nice, quiet morning going, wait a minute, or at least I did. Oh, man.
Speaker 1 | 36:05.505
So we either planned well in the remap or it wasn’t as big a deal as we thought it was.
Speaker 0 | 36:12.627
Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting. We’re probably still headed towards another one of these dates because how many of the Y2K solutions were just to… say okay well if it’s less than 32 we’ll assume that it’s the 1900s right right or no the 2000s and then once we get past 2032 oh that’s so far in the future we’ll we’ll have it solved by then let’s let’s come it up it is you know and and they we all took different answers on that one so it’s gonna start hitting us sooner than later oh man right um and then one of the other things that i that i heard um that I know hasn’t been communicated, and I’m not sure how much I’ve heard it, is understand the tool and how the user is going to use the tool, not just how the tool was designed. Because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done that. Like, I grab something, and I start looking at it, and I’m like, why did they design it this way? And I’m thinking, like, physical things, like, you know, bottle openers or the wine corks. And I… There’s been so many times that I’ve found a way to use one of these tools, and somebody else is looking at me like, why are you doing it that way? I’m like, it makes sense. Look. And they’re like, holy shit, that works. That’s not how it’s designed. I’m like, it looks like it is to me. And users do that with our stuff all the time. So, yeah, watching how they use it.
Speaker 1 | 37:44.996
Yes, for sure. The other thing is we don’t want to box ourselves into a way of thinking. Another catchphrase that people hear me and that you’re chuckling, you probably have heard this yourself, maybe even use it, right? Just because you have a hammer, not everything is a nail.
Speaker 0 | 38:03.009
That’s exactly what came to mind. As soon as you said that, I’m thinking, all right, you know, it’s the hammer and the nail because it is. I remember one of my first jobs and I’m programming in Lotus Notes and And I’m like, I’m listening to one of the directors at a local university and my boss, who’s like just, I don’t even remember the manager of just the department. And they’re talking about the problem. And I’m like, well, I can solve that using Lotus Notes. I can do this, this, this, and this. And the director just looks over at me and goes, you know, just because you understand Lotus Notes doesn’t mean that it’s the answer to everything. Just because you got a hammer. Like,
Speaker 1 | 38:47.533
ah! So is the person you’re trying to solve the problem for, are they a Lotus Notes user? Are they going to be there? Is that where they’re going to be when they need to do this?
Speaker 0 | 38:57.561
Yeah, exactly. Well, and, you know, that one kind of comes back to something else that I’ve heard you say a couple of times, and it’s definitely a mantra of mine, follow up, follow through. And, you know, for me, when I’m talking about follow up, follow through, it’s. specifically when I’m talking to my support and maintenance or my help desk team. You know, that one, the horizons on that are much shorter. You know, it’s like I’m trying to get them to follow up in a couple of days, you know, fix the problem, and then check back in a couple of days. But I want you to come back and follow through two weeks later to make sure that that thing was solved. Because there’s been so many times in my career that I’ve fixed a problem for somebody, and… When I never would check in with them, I would just think, okay, I’m done. Then, you know, a couple days later, they’re like, hey, it’s still broken. I’m like, well, why didn’t you tell me? Well, you thought you were done. Right. And then the other ones that follow through, just coming back. And if nothing’s broken, they love the touch points. They love the customer service. They love the fact that you care enough and you remembered to check again. And you’re communicating with them and talking to them and making sure that the business goals are being achieved.
Speaker 1 | 40:22.229
And. And even if everything is right, if you take that time, it may present you with an opportunity to learn more about what they’re doing, to figure out a way to avoid it in the first place so that you can enhance the system for users of the future or maybe find something new of value for others that are in the group. for the company. And again, it’s that friction, right? What are their friction points? It’s helping you understand them so you can be a partner and look ahead to make suggestions to improve their job, not just fix and address their problems.
Speaker 0 | 41:15.177
Right. And that makes me think of that other one that I love to bring up to my team is, you got to ask why. You don’t just take the solution that they propose to you. And it’s not a thing to say anything against our users and the people who are providing the solution. It’s back to the hammer and our nail analogy that they know this tool set. They know Excel. And so they’re going to ask for a solution that works in Excel. And half the time, if my team isn’t asking why and trying to find out what the real problem is, and you’ve been describing it as the point of. friction point. And I’m just saying, you know, find out what their goal is. What are they trying to fix? If you don’t find out what that is, then you’re going to provide a solution for the wrong solution.
Speaker 1 | 42:04.933
Well, you’ve said it several times here. You’ve used the word multiple times, and I want to take you down another path, right? Solutioning, right? Solutions. And it’s wonderful, right? And our… Our… users, I’m sure yours is the same, will bring you solutions. Here’s what I want. And sometimes maybe that’s what you give them, but the real service will be when you pause, you get them to pause for a second and say, okay, I hear your solution, but let’s talk about what the real issue is you’re trying to address and see if together we can find a larger solution, a more appropriate solution, you know, hopefully it’s one that we can put together, give them to quicker and cheaper as opposed to what they’re bringing, right? Someone comes running in saying, I have to have this piece of software. Okay, we can go get that. We can license it for you. It’s going to cost this. It’s going to take this much time. It’s going to take this much support over the next so many years and integration. We’ll have to deal with all this. But let’s pause for a second and say, what are you trying to accomplish? What is the real issue here? Because maybe I have it already here. Maybe it’s already a feature of something you’re already using.
Speaker 0 | 43:32.661
Yeah. I mean, that’s so important because that’s – and for any of you guys that are listening to us, I mean, that is one of the hard-learned lessons. How do we keep that application sprawl down? And when you can find those synergies and leverage the same or a solution for multiple problems, then that helps us win. I mean, that’s one of the reasons that I think both of us are sitting where we’re sitting is because we’ve been able to find some of those things and leverage those things. And the money people really like it when you can solve multiple things with an existing tool without having to go buy more.
Speaker 1 | 44:15.578
You have to be careful. You got to balance that out, right? Don’t leave the hammer.
Speaker 0 | 44:20.659
Right. But there are lots of times that that hammer could be used for multiple things.
Speaker 1 | 44:24.440
That’s right.
Speaker 0 | 44:24.680
It doesn’t just have to be for a down.
Speaker 1 | 44:27.361
That’s right.
Speaker 0 | 44:30.702
Right. I’m trying to think. So you got any other stories? What was one of the hardest learned lessons? Not just that one on the two test points, don’t make a straight line.
Speaker 1 | 44:46.947
Um, this doesn’t fit directly into a hard lesson, but it, well, it was a hard lesson, right? So, um, recognize that you may have a chip on your shoulder and be prepared to address it. You know, use it to motivate you and not in anger or not against others, right? Figure out what it is that’s making you feel that way. Kind of do a little bit self-introspective. Everyone’s fighting their own private battles, including yourself. So think about that. I said it once before, right? We have to give others grace. Well, we also have to give ourselves some grace. And kind of the circle back around that and something I said at the beginning, right? I grew up kind of with some duality, right? I grew up in a small town in Tennessee. So I have a lot of those preconceived notions about me as being that hick and that. know-nothing, small-town person, at least when I was starting out. But also, my father was a physician. My parents were well-known in the community, so I also had people saying, well, he’s just running on his parents’ coattails. So that was kind of my chip, and I had to figure that out. Learn how to turn that around and take, well, people are underestimating me. Those that once I moved out of the small town and moved into the larger cities, people were seeing me as that small town hick. And I said, well, okay, well, now maybe I can use this for my advantage to learn a little bit more and hear a little bit more, get them to explain a little bit deeper. And so you just have to take what your preconceived notions of a negative. and turn it around to figure out how you can use it and learn from it.
Speaker 0 | 46:58.827
Yeah, that one is a hard lesson for many. You know, I’ve got to be able to look at myself, got to be able to recognize my faults, and I’ve got to be not afraid to admit them, see them, own them, and then I can fix them. Because if I don’t see, admit, and own, I’m never going to fix it.
Speaker 1 | 47:26.084
Again, it’s back to that growth and learning.
Speaker 0 | 47:29.365
For sure. I mean, and it’s one of the best ways. If you can do that, then you can be a leader. If I can recognize my mistakes, my flaws, and I can start to grow from those and address those, then I can also, hopefully I can help others to see theirs and grow from theirs.
Speaker 1 | 47:51.404
Well, the other thing around leading is you’re not, you probably got to that position because you were the most productive, the most, the smarter, the most, you know, you were delivering the best products. But you’re in the management position now to inspire that and lead others to that. So you’re going to do so not so much by doing, but. by instructing them and supporting them and helping them find their passion and utilize the skills that they know or give them the training to give them the skills to be successful.
Speaker 0 | 48:37.963
Yeah, the training piece is important. It’s anymore, it’s kind of one of those benefits, those hidden benefits. Hopefully everybody’s finding organizations to work at that believe in that and hope. feed that and offer those opportunities. And a lot of the times it was, I’m not sure about you, John, but for me it was a lot of self-teaching, self-actualization. I had to go out there. I can’t tell you how many times it was, I hate manuals, but you know what? There’s a big button on like five of the applications that I’ve got open and it says help.
Speaker 1 | 49:17.022
It’s a lot easier today than it used to be, right? Training used to mean expensive and time out of the office. We have a ton of information in our hands, and we shouldn’t ignore it. We all love to use Google. Google’s our friend. The secret there is learning how to weed out the bad from the good. But that still doesn’t – I mean, that is one way of training. And really what we’re talking about now when you’re leading folks, It’s not necessarily being that trainer per se, although you will have that role from time to time. It’s being that motivator and encourager. to help them find their way to learning on their own and finding how they’re going to do that.
Speaker 0 | 50:06.430
For sure. Yeah. Oh, man. I just got lost in my own head thinking about all of that.
Speaker 1 | 50:14.592
Easy.
Speaker 0 | 50:15.633
Yeah. It did make me think of one other random thought, and that was Betting that you’re of the same kind of generation, I know you got a couple of days on me. But how often when you were growing up were you told not to touch that? Don’t touch that button. Don’t turn that knob. He’s holding up his hand and he’s missing part of a finger.
Speaker 1 | 50:44.957
So, yes, I was told that quite a lot. But I did have parents that encouraged me to learn. And my mother. up until when I was born, was a teacher. And she was always a teacher in my mind, just not professionally. I’ve raised a daughter that’s now a teacher as well. So learning and education is there. But then, of course, the don’t touch that is critical. But I was the guy. I had the 67 Mustang that people joked that I spent more money. for gas to wash parts than I did driving it down the road. You know, it was tore down and rebuilt multiple times. My mother would joke quite a lot that her appliances and devices were always being taken apart so I could figure out how they worked. It’s an inquisitive mindset. It’s a good thing.
Speaker 0 | 51:48.018
Yeah, it is. took me the longest time to kind of get over that don’t push that button because at some point i don’t remember exactly when i had this insight but somebody created that button for a reason that button’s sole purpose in life is to be pushed so like applications and and all of the different software well applications and systems and computers and all of the things that we work with you There’s so many different buttons that curiosity, I got to know what it does. I got to see how it works. And I want to know more. So pushing that button has become kind of a mantra. And I want to circle back to something else that you were talking about, the solutions and solutioning. I’ve started to hear a new saying, and I don’t know how new it is, but people start. saying a lot more in my realm of, don’t bring me a problem unless you have a solution. And I don’t want that. Like, bring me the problem and let’s figure out how we can fix it or what, let’s find the solution. Because there’s been so many times they come with that pre-fabricated solution and it’s back to our hammer and nail and it works.
Speaker 1 | 53:11.645
Right. That’s a statement that comes out of frustration. And I get it. And in those moments, it is an opportunity to improve. Sometimes, more times than not, that becomes an opportunity for us to manage up and set expectations and help, or more importantly, help better understand the expectations that triggered that statement. But that statement, I think, again, is one of those things that will be avoided with trust and open communications. Because if you have that, hopefully the person making that statement would be more willing and open to hearing or discussing with you the options that you want to propose. I get it. As a manager, as a leader, I don’t want… my staff coming to me with, oh, this is blowing up, tell me how to fix it, right? I want them to come and say, hey, this is blowing up. Another statement I’ll come back to on that one. And here’s what I’m going to do with it. Here’s my options. That’s what I want to hear, right? And they’re looking for guidance and approval to proceed. That’s a good thing. The bad thing is coming and saying, it’s blowing up. I’ve got a problem. Tell me how to fix it. that’s not that’s not good um and i just lost where my mind was a second ago um i’m not the only one Yes. Sorry.
Speaker 0 | 55:00.439
Empowering the employee to come up with a solution?
Speaker 1 | 55:03.199
It is about that, right? And it’s having them have the comfort to bring the problem, one, and then two, to ideate around possible solutions and just seeking guidance and basically approval. So I remember what I was about to say. Deliver bad news quickly, good news not as fast, and confirm that it is, which goes back to that testing two points, right? Just because it worked once, let’s make sure with the fix the good news is long-term, is going to be good news.
Speaker 0 | 55:45.267
That’s a good point. Bring out the bad quickly, but take some time to validate. Trust but validate. that on the good news and check those facts. I had an issue yesterday where we had a couple of things blow up. And, and so we brought everybody into the same room and said, okay, well, let’s get to the bottom of this. And we had, you know, we had the IT team that said, well, we’ve told them. And then we had the users who were like, no, you didn’t. Right. And we started to get to the truth and both sides were right. And so it’s, it’s fun when you when you do that it’s uncomfortable both sides were unhappy right but we got to the root we found a way of or we recognized where our communication was failing just like we were bringing up earlier you know that communicate communicate communicate and so if we’re not talking and sharing that and and being honest and truthful with each other then then we’re never going to figure out what’s broken and and get to the real solution So is there anything that you want to promote? Is there anything that you want others to know about you that you want to bring up about your life? You know, it doesn’t have to be the business. It’s here’s your chance, man. Promote what you want.
Speaker 1 | 57:09.006
Well, so when I’m not sitting here, you know, in empowering technology teams to deliver wonderful solutions, I do like to get out in my RV and get away from it all. disconnect. I am in Kentucky, so yes, I do own horses. My wife loves horses, probably more than me sometimes. So we have a small farm and we have some wonderful horses and we have one that we raised that has started showing this year that’s a champion racking horse that we’re thrilled about. So I’m really just bragging here that not only can I lead teams, but I can lead horses to success time to time. Congratulations.
Speaker 0 | 58:01.698
That’s awesome.
Speaker 1 | 58:04.200
Thank you.
Speaker 0 | 58:05.841
What’s their name?
Speaker 1 | 58:07.962
So we call this one Maggie. Her true legal name, I think, is, I can’t say, I’m not going to say it. It has something to do with a magical knight. I think. or some some twist in that her her father is his uh has knight in his k-n-i-g-h-t and his name and and we’re huge disney fans so we try to twist something into disney magic or magical or some
Speaker 0 | 58:42.759
some somehow disney name into it to get that as well yeah my uh my wife loves disney and my youngest has finally hit the point where she’s older than the number of times she’s been to a disney location it took until she was 17 before she at that point and we haven’t been going for a couple of years obviously but um yeah so i i get it name of things after disney in one way or another uh well john this has been an awesome conversation um is there anything else you want to bring up
Speaker 1 | 59:18.750
So one other thing, this doesn’t mean a lot to a lot of people, but I have a golden hoodie hanging on the door hook over here beside me, which for those that know what I just said, know it. Others don’t. So Salesforce has a huge community and they have, like a lot of companies, they have their MVPs, a group of folks who are selected. you know to be ambassadors and are recognized for some trait And then above, kind of above or alongside the MVPs are those folks who have also been recognized for what they’ve done with Salesforce and done with Salesforce in the community. And I am one of those, probably if I’m accurate, I think it was the second one ever awarded and has to do with Service Cloud. And that was a huge honor that I received six years ago as we deployed. Salesforce here at the company.
Speaker 0 | 60:26.138
Congratulations, right? If I’m not mistaken, I believe I see that golden hoodie or that golden hooded hoodie in your LinkedIn picture.
Speaker 1 | 60:38.362
Yes, you do.
Speaker 0 | 60:40.422
I thought there was some significance behind that. You look very happy with that. So yeah,
Speaker 1 | 60:46.184
it’s something that’s very, it’s special. It’s a special recognition that I was very proud of.
Speaker 0 | 60:55.142
And that should be one of the many. I mean, come on, you’ve put in what I believe I heard near 40 years of IT work and have been there from almost punch cards all the way through. And I bet you’re one of the few that would understand what 2600 is and what freaking is.
Speaker 1 | 61:22.117
Yes.
Speaker 0 | 61:22.737
Yeah. And. It’s amazing how many of them don’t know what we’re talking about at the moment. No,
Speaker 1 | 61:27.388
I can’t whistle that well.
Speaker 0 | 61:29.710
Yeah, I’m going to leave them wondering what the heck, what does Captain Crunch whistle have to do with any of this?
Speaker 1 | 61:37.395
Exactly. Well, I have actually dialed a phone successfully with nothing but two bare wires.
Speaker 0 | 61:47.262
Oh, that’s cool. So you’re actually one of them.
Speaker 1 | 61:52.442
Close to it. Breaking is a little bit different, but close. Yeah. It’s the beginning.
Speaker 0 | 61:57.484
Well, it’s pretty dang close. I mean, there’s no way that anybody’s – I’m going to show a cell phone on the camera. There’s no way anybody’s using wires to dial this thing today.
Speaker 1 | 62:08.029
No. No.
Speaker 0 | 62:10.010
Or not in the way that we’re talking, not by, like, tapping wires together.
Speaker 1 | 62:15.533
That’s right.
Speaker 0 | 62:16.773
Well Thank you very much, John. I do need to throw in a quick advertisement for ourselves for the Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Please, if you enjoyed the podcast, and even if you didn’t, give us some honest feedback. Go back to wherever you got the podcast from and give us some feedback. Rate us. Let us know how we’re doing. We need that so that we can improve the show. Thank you very much, John. It’s been an awesome conversation.
Speaker 1 | 62:43.684
You’re welcome. Thank you for having me. It’s been fun. Thanks
