Speaker 0 | 00:08.822

Welcome, everyone, back to I’m speaking English, I guess, today. Welcome one, everybody, back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Today, we are with Cliff Rich. Did I get it right? You got it right. You got it right. Sometimes we flip it backwards, you know.

Speaker 1 | 00:24.054

Man, I have two first names.

Speaker 0 | 00:25.916

Welcome. I have two first names too. Phil Howard, Howard, Howard Phillips. I mean, he was like the Nintendo power guy. I remember he was like the president of Nintendo back in the eighties or something like that. I was kind of like, I kind of wish my name was Howard Phillips back then, but anyways, welcome to the show director, HR information technology. That’s a new title for me. That’s a new title for me. Cardinal health. What is it? What is HR information technology? So you’re just in charge of HR technology. You’re not in charge of like the cows that we push around, the wireless units and the in very difficult things or what are you in charge of for technology over there?

Speaker 1 | 00:59.590

Yeah. So like you said, HR technology, my, my team supports most of our, our SAS offerings that are employee facing. So that’s Workday the ServiceNow platform that we use for our MyHR portal. We use UKG dimensions for time tracking Cornerstone for learning. And then Adobe signed per electronic signature.

Speaker 0 | 01:22.958

Let’s just jump right into this. I mean, what the heck? You know, how many, well, first of all, how many, I don’t want to say end users. We wouldn’t use that. It doesn’t apply to you anyways. How many, what’s your staff like, your support staff, IT support staff? Never mind the buzzing in the background that’s going off. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 01:40.431

The, the, the, my team is relatively small. By cardinal standards, I have a team of about 40 people that’s divided between FTEs and then a run partner, TCS. Prior teams I’ve led have been 100, 120 people. That was like service center and then more database platform services teams. But this team is mostly SaaS applications. We do a good bit of work with vendor partners and also with our HR.

Speaker 0 | 02:14.828

teammates uh hr information systems okay significantly bigger than most of the it directors vps of it and people that we work with kind of in the manufacturing space i guess construction mid-market mid-market you guys are i mean you guys are really i guess what we would call we would term enterprise it so having 40 people are you in charge of because this comes up on the show a lot and i’m i’m I know we didn’t talk about this before, but because it comes up on the show a lot, people looking for jobs, that’s what LinkedIn is. We’re searching for jobs and people are applying and people are always complaining about how hard it is to get a job where they didn’t, they have, they asked for ridiculous bullet points on a, you know, for qualifications, et cetera. Are you doing all the hiring or do you just go to HR? Ironically that you’re an HR support systems guy, or do you just go to HR and say, Hey, I’m looking for guys like this. How do you hire people?

Speaker 1 | 03:12.460

I have to go through the same process that any other hiring manager at Cardinal does. So we normally have a template for a job that we’re publishing, and then we get with a recruiter and tweak that as needed for unique qualifications or updating of that application. And then we either publish that for internal only, or we publish it for external, internal, and then check in with the recruiter after some time’s gone by when they’ve… kind of filtered down the applicant list and also have referrals. Then I go through a panel. I normally prefer a panel process. So I have people on my team that would be interacting with the new hire more frequently than others to make that decision on bringing on a new teammate.

Speaker 0 | 04:00.149

Okay. This is just very helpful. And I’ve had a theory for a while. I just want to, since you’ve been doing a lot of hiring and working with recruiters and all this stuff, I’m just going to run this theory by you and you tell me if it would work. So Whenever I have very skilled IT guys that I want to find, I want them to find a job where they’re on a good team. I want them to find a job where they feel valued. I want to find a job where like IT is, you know, exciting and it’s not just like, you know, why did I get into this field? I’m going to leave and just, I don’t know, I’m going to go live off the grid and do something else, you know, which I’m totally cool. Like I’m trying to do that myself. So one of the things that I’ve coached him and you tell me if this is just would not work for you or if it would work for you. So I say, Hey, look, I want you to pick. a hundred of the, I want you to have a dream 100, which is a common concept. I want you to have a dream 100 of the companies that you want to work for. Maybe it’s a dream 20. Maybe you just start with 20, 25 companies that you actually want to work for. Pick them out. Boom. Cardinal health pops up on the list. This is in my dream 20. Now I want you to do whatever you can. I want you to find out who is in charge of hiring for that role. Essentially who your boss would be, not the HR director. I want you to find out who the boss would be. And I want you to connect with them on LinkedIn. And I want you to just say, hey, I love connecting with other really smart IT directors and IT leaders. And I want to just have a good network of people and mentors, et cetera. Would love to connect. Would you connect with that person?

Speaker 1 | 05:31.717

Yes. So if I had somebody that reaches out directly that is interested in a role.

Speaker 0 | 05:38.563

Let’s just say they’re not even interested in a role. Let’s just say they’re not. They just connect. You have no clue that they’re interested. You’re maybe suspect that they are, but you know, they connect with you. And then they say to you, do you mind if I ask your advice? You’d say, yes, I’m assuming.

Speaker 1 | 05:52.013

Okay. Yeah. I mean, go ahead.

Speaker 0 | 05:55.055

Then they ask you, you know, when it comes to your role and, you know, what you’re doing and the organization, everything, what’s your single biggest frustration, problem or concern right now? What would your answer be? When it comes to IT, when it comes to guys that you’re helping. desk roles or when it comes to, you know, whatever it is, you know, like this particular role that they think they might be able to fill, what’s your single biggest frustration, problem, or concern when it comes to data, database and platform services, when it comes to, um, I don’t know, um, agile methodology software or something. I’m just trying to think of something that would, you know, what’s your single biggest problem, frustration, or concern? What would your answer be? Uh,

Speaker 1 | 06:36.353

single, single. biggest frustration or concern would be speed to delivery for our stakeholders. You’re an HR stakeholder, you have a need. There’s a vetting process that we have to go through before bringing on new technology. I don’t think Cardinal Health is like a Fortune 14 company by revenue. I don’t think we’re any different from any other Fortune 100 company where you have like The security team wants to get eyes on things. Third-party risk wants to look at things. But if everybody who are my HR stakeholders want to bring something new into the environment in the next six months, that puts a huge strain on bandwidth, not only for my team, but for others that are trying to do diligence to bring that on as fast as possible.

Speaker 0 | 07:28.156

And then, wow, that’s interesting. What do you think are… some of the major roadblocks? Is it just the, is it just healthcare? Like what are some of the major roadblocks?

Speaker 1 | 07:39.175

I think the roadblocks, I think within that, within that whole process is just capacity, right? So there’s only so many folks that are available on the third, third party risk team. There’s only so many people that are available with the security architecture team to do those kinds of assessments. So if you picture the, you know, a soda straw for capacity, and then Every other month, we have the equivalent of an elephant trying to get shoved through the soda straw because of the demand of our non-IT stakeholders. It just becomes a prioritization discussion, right? Like, hey, we’re going to have to table this maybe because the business case isn’t as compelling. Somebody else has a more impactful business case that’s going to have to go to the front of the line so that we can get them onboarded sooner.

Speaker 0 | 08:26.466

That’s obviously not an uncommon problem. At all. It is absolutely not an uncommon problem. Now let’s just say this guy connected with you asked that and you just said all of that and he actually goes out and does some research and connects with some other healthcare people, maybe some other people hiring at the same time. And he actually comes back to you with something that would actually be helpful in that department and said, I don’t know if you knew this, but here’s what I discovered from some of your other, not competition, but other. parallel organizations and other people doing this. And I noticed out on, you know, you know, in California, this company did this and they did this. And I don’t know if that’s helpful for you, but I just wanted to provide that information to you just to show you that I cared. And, you know, I really do care about my connections on LinkedIn. I do care about being, you know, someone that provides valuable information and works hard for the people that are connected with them. My blah, blah, blah. Would that person stand out to you as a candidate if they then, if they then applied?

Speaker 1 | 09:27.030

Absolutely. Yeah, that would definitely give somebody a competitive advantage. I think somebody that shows that type of initiative and ability to go do the process mindset where they have presented with a problem and then goes out and looks at solutions and then comes back and presents options. Yeah, I think that would be a standout candidate or definitely would be somebody that I would encourage to apply and then go through the process.

Speaker 0 | 09:55.336

Right. And the benefit to the person doing that is now they’re applying at a company that they actually have chosen that they want to work at versus going to a recruiter and just getting thrown a handful of like options because the recruiter’s job is just to fill roles. The recruiter doesn’t necessarily care. I don’t want to say they don’t care about you. Some recruiters are going to sit down and, hey, where do you want to work? Where do you want to be five years from now? Blah, blah, blah. But if the person does that themselves, I just. My point of view has always been, you are in charge of you. You’re in charge of you going and making your career. And why not you go directly to the top, go directly to the people and find the role yourself because you’re going to automatically stand out from everybody else. And you’re going to show… That’s kind of my philosophy or what I… Become your own recruiter. So that was just something that I’ve been… Because there’s a lot of guys that are just… IT is dead in their organization or… You know, it’s just like, it’s not, you know, it’s not viewed as a business force multiplier or they’re in a, like a toxic environment or, you know, it’s very, you know, so I don’t know. I just wanted to, I wanted some, I just want to know what you thought of that theory. It’s a theory that I’ve been testing out.

Speaker 1 | 11:11.669

Yeah. Phil, I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you talked about the person thinking through a short list of companies that they’re interested in, which is the same advice that I give. veterans that are transitioning out, trying to make that pivot into the corporate sector, is if geography is not a factor, or geography is a factor, then think about the top 10, 15 companies that you want to look at in that geography. If you’re somebody that wants to go remote, go through the same drill, then you can expand to something nationally. But if you’re not narrowing down the list… It’s going to, I think, feel very much like whack-a-mole and a numbers game that is incredibly demoralizing.

Speaker 0 | 12:01.203

I was going to say deflating.

Speaker 1 | 12:03.165

Yeah,

Speaker 0 | 12:03.465

you’re just going to send out. But same thing, yeah.

Speaker 1 | 12:05.347

Yeah, so you’re just going to send out resume after resume and apply to role after role. It goes into the black hole of the ATS system. But if you’re narrowing down your list of target companies. You can then go do the network mapping that you’re talking about. If you’re like in this case, we’re talking about somebody who’s a veteran. They can look at whether that company has a employee resource group or what some some companies call them business resource groups. Right. Where there is an affinity group that they can have a tie in with somebody who’s gone down this road before and say, hey. I’m just looking for more information on the company. This seems like a class outfit that I’d want to get with. Would you be willing to have a 20-minute phone conversation with me?

Speaker 0 | 12:46.342

Yeah. So I do want to get to the veteran thing because that’s very important. Before we do that, though, the other advantage of, A, reaching out to a future boss or I guess you’re not going to say boss, team member. Hopefully you are a servant leader and you’re not leading by meritocrity. And oh, meritocrity does work or like, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 | 13:19.471

Yeah, I do.

Speaker 0 | 13:20.652

22 years in the Air Force with pilot next to your name, what’d you fly?

Speaker 1 | 13:28.456

So I flew both helicopters and aircraft. I’d say that the two primary. Um, ones that I flew was the, uh, twin engine Huey, the civilian versions called a bell two 12. And then the aircraft I flew is, uh, it’s called the C12 in the air force. It’s a, uh, Beechcraft 200 King air, uh, on the commercial side.

Speaker 0 | 13:50.277

Googling this as we speak C12. What do I Google C12 aircraft? I mean,

Speaker 1 | 13:55.942

yeah, just C12 aircraft. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 13:58.464

So really cool. My brother’s a helicopter pilot. um he tried to get into the air force uh failed his colorblind test back in the day that was uh getting in the helicopter with him and and listening to him talk about how you fly a helicopter you know and i got into him with like the little i don’t even know what you call it i’m i’m doing not doing any justice to you like the mosquito like helicopter crop duster type you know helicopter you know like basically a bubble yeah and i got him with he landed it in my back my dad’s backyard and he’s like hop in yeah yeah and i get my nephew i look at my nephew and he’s shaking his head he’s like i would never get in that you’re like yeah it’s his son he’s like i’ve never flown that mom didn’t let me that’s right that’s just

Speaker 1 | 14:48.446

if you’re stepping and you’re stepping into the helicopter you’re thinking 10 000 moving parts all working against each other this is gonna be awesome

Speaker 0 | 14:56.773

keep your head down like you know anyways uh so we fly up in this thing it’s just you know like he’s like yeah you got these pedals on the floor you’ve got this throttle up and down this thing twists left and right then you got the joystick and then you got and by the way you know you want to crash you want to uh you want to stall this thing and do it like you know what do they call reverse reverse auto whatever they call it auto auto rotation yeah let’s auto rotate this down in like the woods here like no thanks and then and then i’m thinking back to like i mean i’ve had friends that i had a close guy in jujitsu died died in helicopter crash um i remember um and then when i talk with other people everyone that’s flown helicopters knows somebody that’s died i’m assuming do you know any you do right yeah um it’s just it’s such a it’s a it’s a crazy aircraft it’s it’s um so that’s really cool you The, and where was I going with that? I have no clue where I was going with that. Other than that’s really cool that you’ve flown air. Oh, I know where I was going. Cause we have a, we have a, um, a section of the show called conspiracy theories. I don’t do it on every show or if you apply, if you apply, if you, I don’t know if you ascribed any conspiracy theories that most likely are true. Um, when you look at maps in flights and airplanes and stuff, like how do you map point A to point B? Do you use a flat map or do you use a globe?

Speaker 1 | 16:19.965

use a flat map um but but then well so so let me go with me here for a minute so okay uh and the and the helicopter uh was always using a flat map um but there was there was early gps technology then that was using ellipsoids right so they had uh a they did have a um a map that was three dimensional within like the the technology side that wasn’t the carbon the carbon unit holding the the two-dimensional um map map depiction on my knee and trying to do point a to point b so you asked why um typically in any kind of pre-flight planning you could mark up the map beforehand and now we’re talking about like late 90s technology when i was flying hueys the gps technology wasn’t wasn’t that great um but then when i transitioned over to flying the c12 we still had flat maps that we would use um but i rapidly got to a point where that aircraft that i was flying went through an electronic flight instrument conversion um and we had um very very sophisticated navigation systems that rivaled like commercial commercial level so i would punch in stuff into a uh system from universal avionics and it would it would crank out a map a route to fly and then that was tied in with the autopilot system so a lot of that um we got away from uh map technology it was in other words it was computer technology it was basically technology and

Speaker 0 | 18:03.831

other and lorans and different stuff like that and the only reason why i ask is there’s like this whole community of pilots that are like you know like i don’t want to say flat earthers but you know There’s like this whole kind of like the curvature is not what they say. And I’ve been in, you know, I did fixed wireless technology for a while and we were always measuring, you know, the curvature of the earth is six miles. So you shouldn’t be able to see this, you know, and why can you see Chicago from, you know, Detroit or something like that. But that’s the only reason why I asked because it’s mapping and flying. And then there’s like this fascinating book that’s like 21. I think it’s like 21 emergency landings is what it’s called.

Speaker 1 | 18:39.864

Okay.

Speaker 0 | 18:40.833

interesting just look it up like 21 emergency landings and it shows like why did they like if the if the flight was from like texas to hawaii why did they like do the emergency landing and like it was like seattle or something it was just like some of these things are very it’s 21 emergency landings i don’t think they sell it on on

Speaker 1 | 18:57.965

amazon but um okay anywho maybe maybe they did the emergency landing in seattle for the coffee there’s 21 of them so there’s like there’s like it was like

Speaker 0 | 19:07.733

But if you draw it on a flat map or on the, on the old, like the older, um, kind of like navigation maps and stuff, it’s a straight line. So that’s kind of like where they’re going with that anyways. Um, or there’s just, you know, I guess like South America is like physically from landmass from a landmass standpoint is like grossly way larger than I think North America, if I’m understanding correctly, but why do, when we put it on a map, why do we make it smaller? Is that just because the United States has to be bigger? I think that’s why. Just a depiction. So more fascinating how 21 years, 21 years. What was that transition like to civilian life? And was it civilian life or were you kind of already civilian life when you were in the Air Force because you’re already kind of, you know, working in a civilian space or what are the problems that go around that? And this isn’t necessarily an IT show, but there’s a ton of people in IT. They’re all veterans. And it applies to it applies in other directions as well, because it could just be transitioning from high school to real life. You know, what is that transition like? And was there something that you had to deal with?

Speaker 1 | 20:15.530

psychologically or mentally or preparing yourself this type of thing yeah there was um after you know two decades in military service uh there there was a a huge range of things that um i had to deal with with the um transition not i i did not have uh kind of the some of the things that veterans that have been in direct combat um had to to deal with as part of their transition but i so wasn’t um Soft skills I actually was pretty good at before leaving the military. So, yeah, the transition was unplanned. So that made it more fun. Like there was a disagreement between me and the Air Force on where my next assignment was going to be. It was going to be a remote away from my family. And it was already after a difficult year. So we made a decision that it was time to maybe move on. I was able to come back here to be near my wife’s large extended family in a vibrant church fellowship that we were a part of. And we have an only child and she had several cousins back here that she could kind of grow up with as we put down roots. So I’d say the biggest challenge was dealing with stereotypes. Right. So I would go into an interview and even though I had a resume that was well. thought out and articulated on things that I did outside the cockpit, which as I got, you know, further along in my career, I got farther away from the flight line and was doing more staff and leadership and command roles. People would ask me, like, hey, so why aren’t you flying for the airlines? Or why are you interested in this project management role instead of flying? You know, and then that would be a conversation that I could, you know, if you’ve had the training and somebody has given you kind of the coaching. It was a very easy segue into how, well, here are the attributes that I was successful with that translate to the job that I’m applying for and the company that I’m seeking to be a part of. But that stereotype was still difficult to overcome. So along with what goes with being a pilot and the preconceived notion that people have about that, there’s also the piece where people think, Well, either you were just following orders or you were giving orders. Like you’re not an original thinker if you’re in the military and you don’t have, you don’t, you don’t question things. You don’t have like intellectual conversations, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Right. So, um, I think it’s again,

Speaker 0 | 22:56.748

people would love discipline. I would think people would love organization. I would think they would have, you know, like the ability to follow a plan through to completion with the least amount of people dying as possible.

Speaker 1 | 23:09.850

Yes. Yes. So there’s a lot on the plus side.

Speaker 0 | 23:13.331

I’ll figure.

Speaker 1 | 23:14.591

Yeah. But then I think it goes back to the bias that people have that haven’t been in the service. They’re only informed by what they see on the news or in Hollywood. And that doesn’t always paint the military in a favorable light or get you behind the scenes where you see people dealing with. pseudo diplomatic situations, dealing with international partners, dealing with stress. Well, being very planful, thinking through all options, being deliberate in planning instead of just being adrenaline junkies.

Speaker 0 | 23:46.684

So all things that we need in it. Yes.

Speaker 1 | 23:49.907

Yes.

Speaker 0 | 23:51.468

All things that we need. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Look, I’m just a hiring manager. I don’t know anything about it. They told me I need to hire for this, which is another reason why you should. call the dude that’s hiring and make friends with him and show him that you’re smart okay so okay so how did you overcome some of these obstacles i guess i mean you had to like learn to sell yourself i guess you know like yes tells you when you go get your first job go sell yourself or whatever that’s what my mom did she like dropped me out and have my didn’t have my license yet and she’s like go in there and apply for this job yes

Speaker 1 | 24:24.774

so i had so part of the part of the deal uh phil with being um having an unplanned exit was I had to get some help with networking, right? I had to have people do introductions. I had to be able to do a quick elevator pitch. I had to tell people what the companies that I was looking at and the roles that I was interested in because if you…

Speaker 0 | 24:49.430

Real quick, I’m sorry, because I was coaching some, I told you before the call that I do a lot with like, you know, just coaching people like on getting out of the idea that you’re just going to get a job after college and you need to be able to express yourself quickly and on the fly and be able to sell yourself. So what was your elevator pitch? Even though I hate the word pitch because pitch denotes this idea that you’re doing something to somebody, but you’re not. You’re not, you’re doing something for them. So what was your, we call it an IBS, initial benefit statement or original contact or whatever you want to call it. But what was it?

Speaker 1 | 25:28.366

It was, Hey, I’m Cliff. I’m new to the area, but I bring over 20 years of leadership experience with program project management and leadership and process improvement. I understand that your company is in, you know, X space and I, and you have some roles that would maybe be a fit. Could you introduce me to somebody that can tell me more or just provide some insights about the company?

Speaker 0 | 25:54.193

Awesome. And you know what’s powerful about that is you’re not asking for help literally, but you are asking for help. So you’re saying, could you introduce me to someone? People, the psychology of people in general, they want to help another person. The glass doesn’t always have to be half empty. It’s not like this world’s… dying. Everything’s falling apart. The economy, everything’s blowing up. This is terrible. We’re in the end of times, which I do think we are, but if not, everything’s like that. People are, I genuinely believe, I genuinely believe that people want to do good. They just don’t know how, or maybe they don’t have a guidance or anything like that. Right. So you were essentially asking for help and people want to help another person. They don’t want to say, no, I’m not introducing this. We get out of here. You know what I mean? If you ask for help, people will help.

Speaker 1 | 26:43.947

Yes. Yeah. And I found that. Yes. And I found that to be, I totally found that to be the case. People were willing to, my, one of my cardinal rules was every interaction I had with somebody that I was introduced to, I always asked for two referrals so that there were, you know, I’d end the conversation with who else do you think I should talk to or who else do you think would be interested in.

Speaker 0 | 27:06.502

taught you this this is amazing this is great no it guy learns this type of self-selling two referrals no one does that this is the first 200 episodes no one’s but the thing is when you ask for referrals it’s so key because i learned this a long time ago too because the human mind is like google right if you’re specific the mind will automatically do it without them even thinking if you say Can you think of two other people that might be hiring in the IT space right now that you could give me their name and contact number and put my card in front of them if I give it to you right now, please?

Speaker 1 | 27:39.493

Bingo.

Speaker 0 | 27:40.693

They’re immediately going to do it. If you say two to three, they will give you two. That’s why you say two to three. You don’t say, can you think of any referrals? Because then they’re like, nah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 27:50.438

And then what?

Speaker 0 | 27:50.798

Two to three.

Speaker 1 | 27:52.379

Yeah. So you’re hitting on the secret sauce, Phil, that I found in my own transition, which I’ve shared with veterans that I. that have reached out to for help on with their own transition is to be as specific as possible. It’s, it’s, it’s a balance, right? Because you don’t want to discount stuff, but you don’t want to be vague because if I, if I met you as somebody on the, let’s say both our kids play soccer and I met you at, on the sidelines of the tennis coach and I’m like, Hey, Phil, uh, Cliff rich new to the area. Um, I’m looking for work. It’d be like, uh, okay. But if I said, Hey, I have a background in program project management and process improvement, and I’m looking for some connections at Nationwide, Huntington Bank, and Cardinal Health. Is there somebody that you know that you could connect me with? Well, immediately, like you said, the mind works like Google to some extent, right? And you’re already going through your mental Rolodex thinking, who do I know at Cardinal Health? Who do I know at Huntington or Nationwide? And you’re more likely to get some names out of the second way that you presented it than to, Hey, I’m looking for a job in programming.

Speaker 0 | 29:01.943

And you don’t sound like a, like a dude that’s just out of work. You sound like someone that’s like specific that knows exactly what he’s looking for.

Speaker 1 | 29:09.128

Exactly.

Speaker 0 | 29:09.988

You know, and by six, I don’t know, but maybe this guy over here is a doctor knows you should talk with him. I’m going to plug Andrew Salmon right now of Salmon Healthcare, my buddy in jujitsu. Right. Like I remember when, uh, when, uh, when I, he first started out as a white belt, right. And he’ll still to this day, say it, I’m going to plug him on this show. He’s going to be mad. He was like, Phil kicked my butt for six months. I wanted to leave and quit, but I kept coming back. Now I’ve been out for a year. And if I go back, he’s going to be like a brown belt or something. And he’s just going to wipe the hats with me. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I, but I just remember, you know, he’s like, you know, I don’t know. He’s just the dude I do jujitsu with, but He owns nine, like he owns all the, like their, if their family owns all of the, the, the health, the, the, um, I don’t even know. This is like elderly care. I’m totally, I’m butchering this. He’s going to kill me. Like retirement communities that we’re not retirement community, like all these things that are in connection with the hospital. Like they opened up a whole, one of their massive campuses when COVID came in to, to create overflow for the hospitals. And, and okay. westerns anyways whatever it was are they like independent living assisted living and memory care living yeah but i’m way more on steroids like everything all kind you know everything the whole nine yards like probably all of that plus you know so anyways i don’t know how many people have probably gotten jobs just because through jujitsu working working at his place whether they’re like nurses or like you know doctors or referral Like my hip, like I need a hip replacement or my hips busted. I have a torn like labrums. Oh, you need to go see doctor or whatever. And like, well, my dad’s like, you know, my dad, Dr. Howard, urologist. He’s like, oh yeah, I know Michael Wall and his partner. He did, you know, I was like, it’s just the whole kind of community thing, you know? It’s just, I guess the point is, is like networking.

Speaker 1 | 31:06.585

Yeah. So I got, I told people, I told people to get uncomfortable with getting out at networking events and. introducing themselves, having conversations. Don’t go out and spray people with your business card that you made up.

Speaker 0 | 31:19.809

I cannot believe it.

Speaker 1 | 31:21.850

It’s just going to go in the trash. But have conversations with people and then ask questions. Do probably more listening than talking. And then there was this other concept. I can’t take credit for this because I think somebody else introduced you to this concept. But be the person that asks the question. The, the person that you’re talking to, how can you help them? It’s, it’s like you asked that question in a networking event and people are kind of like, uh, wow, nobody’s at, nobody’s asked me that. Right. Everybody’s been kind of self-serving and like, Hey, I’m looking for this. What can you do for me? Um, so it’s another way to stand out.

Speaker 0 | 32:04.833

I, I almost said everything that you said verbatim this morning, ask a question about the other person and shut up. and listen yep yep and then be genuinely interested in what they’re saying and ask another question i was like that’s right and then i said before that and get comfortable being uncomfortable because it’s like scary to like talk to strangers sometimes for people in a weird environment in a new place you know like that’s the right like that’s the uh stretching the comfort zone and like right it’s like the muscle it’s the muscle thing right it’s like how do you how do you grow muscle if you don’t ever like you know push it to its limit and it’s really hurt it’s like the last what is the arnold schwarzenegger whatever it’s like the last two reps that matter right it’s like whatever that is right whatever that is you know yeah it’s the last two reps that matter yes you flabby you flabby it person the saturday night lives can’t remember that you’re right yeah you’re flabber lunch what happened to these great stereotypes Why can’t we say them anymore? Every kid gets a trophy nowadays. No. Well, that was refreshing. I am just, you know, because usually IT, we’re very anti-sales people, you know, because mostly it’s like the problem with technology sales is everyone’s coming in pretty much for themselves. Not 80% of them are coming in trying to sell a product. They hold a quota. So a lot of the vendors that we deal with are… direct sales people, entry-level sales people looking to hit a quota. They’ve got the pressure of quota. So it’s all about them. It’s all about them first and having a product on your throat. And then once they hit quota, then they’re off to the next dude. So where’s the support? And typically the average sales rep lasts three to eight months at any given company, and you sign a three to five-year agreement with whatever vendor. So any personalized support outlives any of that. That whole model is broken.

Speaker 1 | 34:05.069

Yeah. Yeah. So I have a special appreciation for sales because my good friend and brother-in-law has been in sales his whole life. And then my dad was in sales and marketing before running a small business. But one of the biggest things that I do for my partners, and it doesn’t matter which role I’ve been in, is sniffing out the BS factor, right? Because everybody says, it’s out of the box. It’s an easy integration. I’m like…

Speaker 0 | 34:32.949

Plug and play.

Speaker 1 | 34:34.310

plug in yeah that’s right yeah what a load of you know we say plug in we say plug and pray yeah plug and pray that’s right um but that i think the the interesting phase that we’re in now is that being the top of the hype cycle with generative AI, right? So every other spam email now, or somebody who reaches out, they’re pitching their AI solution and getting to the, getting to sift the wheat from the chaff, right, is the most important thing, I think.

Speaker 0 | 35:05.285

I don’t even believe it yet. I don’t even believe that there’s an AI solution that if it was a sponsor on this show, and I would put this advertisement on the side of the website, I don’t think there’s one that exists that’s worth putting up there yet.

Speaker 1 | 35:19.271

Yeah. Maybe not yet, but maybe a,

Speaker 0 | 35:21.893

maybe a, maybe a, a voice to text, but we already know that has been in existence for a long time or a, I’m trying to think of who would be hitting you up. It would be like, you know, like automated, like voice systems,

Speaker 1 | 35:37.285

everybody like there’s, there’s,

Speaker 0 | 35:40.968

who do you get a call from today? Did you get a call today from somebody cold calling you?

Speaker 1 | 35:45.512

No, but I get…

Speaker 0 | 35:46.552

You know why? Because there’s no people calling anymore and they need to. They need to get back on that.

Speaker 1 | 35:51.976

Well, that means I answer my phone, which I don’t. And then the second piece is they have to, for emails, they have to get by the spam filter. Some people do get by the spam filter, but everybody’s pitching an AI solution at this point, right? I mean, and there’s some pretty, I think there’s some pretty compelling… use cases that are coming out.

Speaker 0 | 36:14.412

Give me the best one that you’ve seen.

Speaker 1 | 36:17.214

I don’t recall the name of the, the name of the vendor, but they have a good job. Well, I think there’s also don’t want to, I’d also don’t want to put it out there quite yet, but they, they had an avatar that, and you can see, you can find this on LinkedIn with some other people that have posted this. They have an avatar that can lip sync and then speak in a number of different languages. And this particular vendor also had, they could go dialects as well. So it wasn’t just, hey, this, we can speak Farsi, you know, Farsi, Hindi, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese. But they’re also able to do that.

Speaker 0 | 36:58.838

Or do, if we’re going to do.

Speaker 1 | 36:59.959

I did, I did forget. I did forget. Thank you. But they can also, you know, go with dialects as well. So that’s some pretty exciting opportunities with. learning and development, um, with training, um, you know, potentially with some sort of virtual interaction for help desk, you know, I don’t know.

Speaker 0 | 37:19.234

For sure. No, no. In the, in the healthcare space, that’s huge that, that, that it would be. Yeah. So language, um, translation. Absolutely. Absolutely. For sure. That’s a big one. Um, especially when you’ve got multiple, yes. When healthcare is involved and. Yes. I don’t know what else to say other than yes, that one is huge. Of course, I’m of the philosophy that everyone has to prove it. Always do a POC, not a trial period. There’s a big difference between a trial period and a POC. A trial period is you signed and you can cancel and they know that once you install, there’s no going back. There’s no going back. It’s a POC. Excellent. Okay. 40 people. I just, I don’t know where to, where to go or where to transition. How do you manage, what’s, how do you manage 40 people? What’s your philosophy there on that one? I mean, do you guys do weekly meetings? I mean, what, what’s like, give me something that I don’t know, no one else has ever taught you or done. That’s just so useful for you that made managing a staff of 40 people easy. It’s probably not easy. Probably never will be. But maybe something that took some of that stress off you, you know, late nights, not being able to go to sleep at night because I don’t know.

Speaker 1 | 38:38.742

Yeah. So I have three I have three managers. I have a scrum master and I have a really super MSA partner who I treat as part of my team. Right. So the majority of the leadership and interaction with the team is the managers. uh, being, being in there with them. I, I do skip levels or do direct, um, interaction with all of the team, um, on a, I’d say on a quarterly basis, I try to get skip levels in, but as things come up, you know, we draw, we draw people in who are, um, engineers or senior engineers into conversations as needed. Um, and I’ve always been a fan of the, you know, servant leadership model that, um, I’m there for the team to remove obstacles and help them with, um, where they have development desires and career goals? Do we need to get them, you need to create bandwidth for them to get them additional skills, training and experiences to selfishly not only help with retention, but to help them achieve their goals so they feel like they’re getting. They’re contributing what they can to company goals, but along the way, can we make it so that they’re also meeting their own development needs? So I have one-on-ones with the managers every other week. I have a weekly meeting with all four of them, the three managers and the scrum master, every Monday just to kind of get us all talking about what the priorities for the week are and does anybody need help. And then. That’s kind of just a quick snippet.

Speaker 0 | 40:18.843

When it comes to understanding IT leadership or growing in that space, or even, I don’t know if someone says, hey, somebody, I want to have your role. Okay, fine. Are you sure? That’s right.

Speaker 1 | 40:33.089

You must not know anything about my role if you want it.

Speaker 0 | 40:35.370

You want to be the data center guy. Trust me. You want to be the guy plugging in cables and playing with compute power. It’s fun.

Speaker 1 | 40:43.073

That’s right.

Speaker 0 | 40:43.718

I said this this morning. I said the happiest guys I know are the data center guys. The most miserable people I know are the, and I’m not saying this is, there’s outliers, okay? There’s a lot of fun coders. There’s a lot of happy coders. Yes. I just happened to find that the data center guys seem to be a little bit more, have a little bit more of a, I don’t know, you know, whatever in their step then. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 41:06.574

because it’s more tangible. Yeah, it’s more tangible to them. They get to deal with hardware.

Speaker 0 | 41:11.378

replacing blades and plugging stuff in racking the stack and you know yeah look at what look at look we did look at the kpis right it’s not like the code’s broken why isn’t this working you know there’s just like decoder guys i think um um have you have you read the phoenix project or listen to that one yes okay if you were to suggest of course sorry that sounded pretentious of course um i’m in the i came from the air force from the air force Did you not hear me earlier? I said everything.

Speaker 1 | 41:42.614

Of course I read the Phoenix Project. It has Phoenix in the title.

Speaker 0 | 41:47.976

I can reverse rotate.

Speaker 1 | 41:53.559

That did sound good.

Speaker 0 | 41:54.199

I can’t believe I did that. I wish I got paid for this. I actually pay to do this. This is what’s the funny thing about this. Maybe someday someone will sponsor me. Sponsors, please. Please.

Speaker 1 | 42:04.183

I’ll get you a Gen AI sponsor.

Speaker 0 | 42:08.685

That would be great. Think of… Cliff, can you think of two people that would be willing to sponsor my show, specifically in the AI space that you could introduce me to after the show? My email is phil at popularit.net. I’ll take two to three referrals. And I will be following up every day until I get said referrals.

Speaker 1 | 42:34.801

We reward persistence. But you were going to talk about the Phoenix project and the paint booth.

Speaker 0 | 42:40.284

What I was going to say is what would you like first book that comes to mind that you would or audio book that you that you would tell someone that asked you that question that wants to develop their skills and IT and leadership and all this stuff. First book and then first certifications, which I don’t think really matter anyways, but sometimes you need them. What would the certification be and what would the book be?

Speaker 1 | 43:04.341

Well, so. I’m kind of biased on certifications that are non-IT because I didn’t grow up as a developer or fingers to keys guy. So the certification that was the most helpful to me was my PMP certification because that was how I got my foot in the door with IT. Ironically, I actually started out with HR on the mergers and acquisitions side of the company doing integration work. And a lot of… a lot of interaction with the IT team so that within 16 months in that role, I got pulled over to the IT PMO. And then from there, I’ve had varying roles within IT until I got to this one. So certifications, I’m not going to be a lot of help in that area for people that are looking for, hey, what’s the killer certification for me to get? I would say the area of interest is maybe where you should focus on getting a cert. but then, um,

Speaker 0 | 44:04.878

on the general networking or something, I don’t know.

Speaker 1 | 44:07.439

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 44:08.899

Or talk with your team because, so basically what you’re telling me is like, look, Phil, I’m not the genius. Okay. I can just like manage all these people and make the dream happen. Okay. Yeah. That’s what I do, Phil. Um, if you actually asked me to program all these edge routers and stuff, um,

Speaker 1 | 44:22.403

it’s not me. It’s good.

Speaker 0 | 44:23.683

I would tell you, I would secretly nod my head up and down and hang up and call somebody else. Um, Let’s be honest. I am a PMP certified dude. Okay. I fly helicopters. I make the job happen.

Speaker 1 | 44:40.939

I’m a Francis guy.

Speaker 0 | 44:42.361

Let’s be honest. But that’s important. We, the world, the world needs.

Speaker 1 | 44:49.578

I was about to do a, I was about to do a, uh, Caddyshack reference, but exactly.

Speaker 0 | 44:54.500

The world needs ditch diggers too.

Speaker 1 | 44:55.781

That’s what I was going to say.

Speaker 0 | 44:58.182

Now I see no one understands. You see, this is the thing. These, this is why the X generation or whatever generation we are is where we are. That’s I mean, this is it, you know? Um,

Speaker 1 | 45:11.108

so it’s definitely a Caddyshack,

Speaker 0 | 45:12.689

right? You exact the world. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 45:20.895

You stumped me on the book question on what would be best for this space. I do.

Speaker 0 | 45:25.837

Well, you said servant leaders. I thought servant leaders. I thought seven steps, highly effective people. I don’t know if you’ve read First Break All the Rules. That was a big one for me.

Speaker 1 | 45:33.319

No.

Speaker 0 | 45:34.159

First Break All the Rules. I like that.

Speaker 1 | 45:36.300

I’ve gotten a little lazy if you go to chat. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Well. if you go to chat GPT and ask it to summarize, uh, the five, five main points of a book,

Speaker 0 | 45:46.604

it will kind of do a nice job with that all day long. Yeah. All day. You know, I’m not even going to reveal my secret. I saw some on this recording. I will, I will tell you that after, but as far, but yes, like I remember, like I wrote, I read first break. All the rules years ago was given to me by the VP of Starbucks at the time. Nice. And he said, pass it on when you’re done with it, which I did. um, Mark Lindstrom, who’s no longer the VP at Starbucks. He’s like running like some other tea company or he’s probably just retired now and living life.

Speaker 1 | 46:16.081

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 46:20.322

Anyways. Um, he, um, he gave me the book years ago and it made a huge difference. And, and I think I said this the other day on another one, but I’m going to just say it again, because I’ve said it multiple times, take your whole team, put them in a room, give them the evaluation forms, walk away within five miles of the place. And, uh, put someone in charge of it and let them fill out the evaluation forms and talk about you for an hour or two hours, however long they need, write all the crap down, everything that you could improve on, put it in and then have the person who’s in charge of the meeting, type it all up anonymously and deliver it to you in a manila envelope. That was something that came out of that book that was really powerful. And, but I couldn’t remember, they did like a whole hiring strategy and there’s a lot in there on behavioral interviewing and like, tell me about a time and be real specific. Cause it’s like, you can do interviewing so bad. You can do it wrong. Right. I couldn’t remember what all the questions were. So I went to chat GBT and I was like, could you please give me the top 10 interview questions from, you know, like from first break all the rules. I was like, sure, no problem. You know, whipped them out. I was like, oh, thanks. And then, then, you know, then that’s the LinkedIn post. And then I basically said, hey, LinkedIn, guess what? These are some great interview questions to ask your employees based on, you know, first break all the rules. Yeah. It was great. And it was very useful. So that’s actually something that. Um, anyways, it chat TVTs, it’s not cheating. You have to, you have to be the right driver. You have to know, you have to have a certain level of information first to be able to ask the questions so that it spits out the, like, if you didn’t have that information, you’d never be able to ask that question to begin with. So that’s why I say it’s not cheating. It has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Is there any final words of wisdom or advice, um, after talking with me and, you know, being a good listener, um, for. I don’t know, one hour, however long I’ve been doing this for. It’s been a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 | 48:08.085

It’s been a lot of fun, Phil. I appreciate you having me on. I think that the plug I wanted to leave with is going to be part of the things we’ve already talked about is for those IT leaders listening in, don’t discount veteran talent just based on what you see in a resume or a preconceived notion about putting people into categories. There’s some amazing talent out there coming out of the, out of the services that if you give them an opportunity, they’ve got great learning, agility, integrity, great. They’ve been team, they’ve had to be teammates. They had a lot of situations they’ve had to be leaders. So they’re the whole, they’re the whole package. And if you give the, you know, the right people an opportunity, they’re not going to let you down.

Speaker 0 | 48:50.274

Yeah. I, I mean, to, to honestly, in, from my personal perspective, having hired veterans in the past. I would actually give that preferential treatment as opposed to not that I want to like discount somebody else that’s, you know, he just only hires veterans. He only has, you know, but, um, I, I can clearly remember asking a guy, uh, an interview question, the behavioral questions. This is back when I worked in a coffee shop and it was very busy and stressful and there’s coffee and a line of people at the door and things always going wrong. And right. And people complain. It’s just insane. Right. It was really fast paced. Not like Starbucks today, which has gone way downhill. I think their standards have gone completely through. I don’t know what’s going on now. Anyways, I asked him, I said, so tell me about a time you had to deal with extreme. You were under extreme stress and pressure. And how did you deal with that situation? Could you please describe it and be very specific about it and how you overcame that situation? He’s like, well. So I was driving the Humvee in Baghdad on the front line when we invaded Baghdad during the Iraq war and my tire blew out and I had to replace the tire while, you know, while we were all in like night vision goggles and like, you know, shooting going off around us and like all this stuff. And I was like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. I was like, you can handle coffee. I was like, just stop. Next question. I was like, you know, like, you know, you know, like, I think you can handle a line of customers. That’s right. always showed up on time always early always like overdressed for like the coffee roll crisp clean never always too calm kind of like almost too calm everyone loved him and then um one day he came to me he said phil i can’t do this anymore i was like why he’s like i just i can’t do this i’m going back for my third tour oh wow he’s like i could he was that’s why i really wanted to ask you like what was the transition like because for him it was like I think he just really wanted to be. And I think the reality change was just too like, you know, maybe it was Starbucks was the fault. You know what I mean? It’s like everyone asking for their like venti three pump sugar-free vanilla latte at 179 degrees, you know, and it was just, I don’t know, but I’m just telling that story because I’m sure there’s someone out there listening. That’s going to relate to that.

Speaker 1 | 51:09.478

Yeah. It does take a reset on priorities, right? Especially if you’re somebody that. has been in combat i i never was but i have plenty of friends that have shared what that’s like so you’ve been in combat and then you try to walk into the just walk into the corporate environment you can’t you can’t do like one of these right where it’s uh just snap your fingers and uh all of a sudden uh you’re you’re you’re able to kind of translate like oh this is this is a like this is a priority like you can you can people are people veterans are very adaptable, right? But I’m talking about in the, somebody who’s been going through those first few days or weeks or initial months after exiting, if they’ve been in a high fast-paced environment, like that’s, I think that’s where you’ll have veterans that, you know, maybe the, the switch is so dramatic. It’s, it’s hard to make the, it’s hard to make the transition. And that’s where I think having coaching from peers, from hiring managers that have some higher level of empathy and patience around helping people with that transition. It’s not to say it’s charity, right? But just you’ll have somebody that if you go the extra mile to help them with the transition, you’ll end up with somebody who’s a super high performer and high potential organization. He was a high performer day one.

Speaker 0 | 52:38.184

Day one, he was a high performer, star employee. I just didn’t want him to quit. Right. You know what I mean? And I’m not selfishly, but you know what I mean? Like, well, yes, selfishly, but it was, um, you’re just, it was just kind of like, I get it. I’m not surprised. I wasn’t, you know what I mean? But it was just, I mean, the performance was not the issue. It was him being happy or him like, you know, I mean, I just think there’s a lot of, a little bit of a, no, it’s a lot of a tragedy actually. Um, I don’t know what to say with that, but it has been a pleasure having you on the show. I’m sure you’re. find with anyone, especially any veterans reaching out to you on LinkedIn, please find Cliff Rich. And if you want to find him, it’s Clifford Rich. His link will be on the show page when we produce the page. All you have to do is go to the page, click on Cliff’s LinkedIn profile link, and it will take you straight to him. Thank you again, sir.

Speaker 1 | 53:33.186

Thanks, Phil. Pleasure being with you today.