Speaker 0 | 00:08.738

We are talking with Dan Roberts from one of many, many different universes, one being Tech Whisperers. Welcome to the show. I don’t know how you want to introduce yourself. I’ll just let you introduce yourself however you would like. And we’re doing more collaboration than usual lately. So you have a great show. and a CIO network and IT leadership piece that you do yourself. So go ahead, fire away.

Speaker 1 | 00:39.171

Yeah, Phil, thanks so much for having me. And thanks for what you do for our community. This show is helping a lot of folks. I love it. So-I appreciate it.

Speaker 0 | 00:48.579

Maybe it’ll pay back someday. Someday we’ll make money. Maybe someone will want to advertise. That’s just my own laziness. I should go out and ask for advertisers. I guess hope really isn’t a strategy. you know, as far as, you know, leadership pieces, and that’s advice to everyone out there, hope is not a strategy. So I should stop hoping that someday someone will pay me something for all of this work. But until then, it’s a labor of love. So I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 | 01:12.050

I get it. Nights and weekends right there with you.

Speaker 0 | 01:15.933

Nights and weekends are free. They’re not. They actually are costing me, but okay, go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 01:21.758

Right. That’s right. We want to stay married and all those good things. But yeah, so Dan Roberts, Tech Whispers podcast. You know, Phil, I always say my thing is I’m not a storyteller. I’m a teller of other people’s stories, kind of like what you do. And I love doing that through the podcast, through panels and fireside chats, the day job, the stuff that pays the bills. For 40 years now, we have focused on developing the human side of technology. So I don’t know if we know, but there’s actually humans out there.

Speaker 0 | 01:55.031

People behind the keyboards. Yes,

Speaker 1 | 01:56.691

they matter. They matter. And so we’re all about how to develop future ready leaders, future ready workforce so that we’re relevant, we’re having impact, we’re growing. And that’s a good point.

Speaker 0 | 02:09.036

They do matter for now. And I think they matter. Do they matter from a number standpoint? It all depends on if you’re a glass half full or glass half empty guy. What do you have to say about the old, you know, the modern day knowledge worker versus the older day? factory worker. In other words, there’s the whole, I don’t even want to, I wouldn’t even call it conspiracy theory, but modern day schooling and the way that schooling was, a lot of people were skeptical of the educational system in the United States, that the majority of the people went to school to learn how to be workers, not necessary to learn how to think on their own.

Speaker 1 | 02:48.189

Yeah. I’m a little frustrated by the product that our schools and universities are. creating. I don’t think we’re getting better. I see the folks that we work with, we work with CIOs all the way to entry-level folks in IT. And the folks we’re getting, we’re just making the same mistakes. They’re showing up with the wrong mindset, the skillset that’s pretty irrelevant. Their interpersonal people, interaction, EQ, probably all-time low. And so I don’t think it’s conspiracy. I think it’s fact, Phil. No,

Speaker 0 | 03:24.123

yeah. It absolutely is fact. And it’s a good transition into what we’re going to be talking about here in a few minutes, which is really the end game and how do technology nerds and professionals create lasting legacies and income. But to transition into that, the biggest learning moments I had were the biggest transition points in my life for when I learned how to goal set, when I learned to have a personal mission statement, when I learned… to focus on what my values were, which I might not have even known what those were back in the day, that I had different roles and responsibilities in my life. And I don’t believe they ever taught that course in school. Not once. Not once in my entire schooling history. And I went to private school as well. So they taught me how to use Excel. It’s amazing how many people don’t know how to use Excel nowadays, which is a little shocking to me. And I’m maybe taking my education for granted from some basic tools and tips standpoint. But… When did they teach you goal setting, vision, mission statement, having a purpose, a reason worth living, or a dream worth failing for? Did they ever teach you that once in school? No,

Speaker 1 | 04:33.788

not at all. And also, they didn’t teach us that when you leave here, your learning just starts.

Speaker 0 | 04:41.194

Yeah, yeah. Be that continuous learner.

Speaker 1 | 04:43.696

And my pivot point, Phil, I appreciate yours. I think my big… pivot point, probably in my 30s, which is a long time ago for me, I started focusing on being what I call a net giver. Okay. Some might call it servant leadership, but I kind of take it another step further. And I find that when I show up every day and genuinely look for ways to help other people without any reciprocity, no expectation of getting back. Somehow it all comes back tenfold later. But it was a real pivot point that I can look back on. Happened to be during a recession, happened to be during a time when people were struggling, having a hard time. finding jobs, staying upbeat, and just taking time with people. And those are now CIO friends who we do big things together today. So it’s that whole notion of being a net giver.

Speaker 0 | 05:40.319

The being now and in the moment and being present with people. And like you said, taking the time to connect, I guess, discover, respond to use an old Starbucks term, which they probably ripped off from someone else that did consulting for them. makes it uh it doesn’t matter it i guess you’re living i guess you’re more living and living is better than not being present in the moment and kind of always either being in the past or in the hopes for the future if that makes any sense maybe we’re getting too deep here but the and as you said uh i remember stephen covey saying you know make deposits not withdrawals so make deposits in people’s days not withdrawals So, and that does, um, so for it, people out there listening to the show, make deposits in people’s days, not, uh, not necessarily withdrawals all the time. And the way that we, um, you know, attitude does matter. Attitude definitely matters. And I just, I would hire attitude all day long.

Speaker 1 | 06:43.718

Absolutely. Yeah. Attitude matters. Mindset matters. Um, words matter. Language matters. There’s a lot of things that I think we need to be more astute with and more focused on. to be successful in this great profession of ours.

Speaker 0 | 06:57.666

So as a tech whisperer, CIO leader, CTO leader, technology leader, having been around for, I don’t know, how many, can we even put a year on it? I mean, almost three decades. I mean, let’s just put it, the dawn of the internet and the dawn of technology, right? You know, that’s the, I just find this. topic so fascinating that the majority of the leaders, the tech leaders nowadays, were around since the dawn of technology. And if you go back as far as 1969, when we supposedly landed people on the moon, right, we didn’t have the internet back then. Maybe there were some inklings of it and depending on, but the modern public had none of that. So no one has really experienced the end game yet. And that is my, that was my number, that was my first bullet point of in my… my, I guess, shotgun or my first shell in the shotgun shell of questions today, which was the end game. And how did technology nerds, professionals create lasting legacies and income? Do we even have the answer yet? But you seem to be well on your way. You’ve got, you know, books written and, you know, we’ve got, you know, you’ve got quite a circle of influence. So What is the end game? What’s the, what should technology leaders and people that are growing up in technology or have even been in it for now that are in there over the hill, so to speak, what, what’s the end game. And I haven’t had anyone really give me, I may have had one good answer and I just haven’t, I don’t, I don’t know if there’s a, I don’t know if there’s any light at the end of the tunnel, I guess, so to speak yet. That’s very clear for all of us because most of the technology leaders are working within a company. And to me, the answer is not cash out 401k and retire. I don’t like that answer, although it might be acceptable to some people.

Speaker 1 | 08:50.242

Amazing question, Phil. And I think it all starts with realizing that what we do matters, right? This profession, never been a better time to be in this profession, even though it’s hard, even though there’s challenges every day. I think people focus too much on the, what would I say, the lagging indicators, the success. the money, the 401k. I think those who are thriving are focusing on the leading indicators. And the leading indicators, I would say, it’s more around the relationships that you’ve built, the people you’ve impacted, the people you’ve helped along the way. You ask any good CIO worth their salt, CXO, and you ask them what they want their legacy to be, they will tell you it’s all about people who are in that job today. that I impact along the way. Kevin Hart, I had him on my show. He’s this epic CIO to CEO story. There are 51 CIO, CTO, CISOs in the wild today because of that man, that leader. That’s a heck of a legacy, Phil.

Speaker 0 | 09:58.158

Yes.

Speaker 1 | 09:59.239

51. I mean, that’s, that’s like staggering. That’s, that’s being intentional. That’s being really focused. And I think, you know, rather than focusing on the income, I mean, we’ve all got, we’ve all got goals and things like that. But I think those who are thriving are focusing on impact first.

Speaker 0 | 10:17.215

Some of us have families and mouths that we have to feed and even larger families and other. Yes. And,

Speaker 1 | 10:25.682

and a whole litter, right? You’ve got a whole litter over there.

Speaker 0 | 10:28.744

I’m hoping they’re going to pay for me. You know what I mean? My, my is strength in numbers. You know, my, my, I was like, maybe one of the eight kids will, you know, turn out to be someone successful and I’ve just, you know, they can push me around. Maybe they’ll take care of me in my old age versus the other way around.

Speaker 1 | 10:44.455

I’m sure. So we’re going to do great. Thanks,

Speaker 0 | 10:49.019

Bill.

Speaker 1 | 10:49.539

I love it. Zone defense right there.

Speaker 0 | 10:51.320

Right? Yes. Yes. So, okay. So the end game is, is, is developing your people, having, having a lasting legacy. Exactly. How, how do we begin with that? Is there any like basic, you know, what do you find to be the common themes or it’s, it’s kind of like people like, oh, that all sounds great. That’s all inspiring. Yes. But what about little old me? And I don’t even know where to begin and how can, I’m not big enough. I’m not this. And maybe they don’t dream big enough. And you know, if not, if not you, why not? Or if not you. who else or, you know, whatever that saying is. I sound like Bush now, you know, fool me once, fool me three, whatever that saying is.

Speaker 1 | 11:32.200

I keep getting fooled. Yeah. Well, I think you hit on something, which is, you know, we still have too much victimitis in our profession, right?

Speaker 0 | 11:42.387

Thank you.

Speaker 1 | 11:43.407

And it’s a little annoying. And, you know, part of it is, you know, we take bad advice. Like some of the bad advice we’ve gotten over the last 15 years, here’s one of them. Here’s the one that drives me. crazy the most. We need to align IT with the business. That’s the dumbest thing we ever said. Right. And all the consultants, gurus, experts, researchers were promoting that for 15 years. Could you imagine the corporate CFO walking down the hallway or on the Zoom meeting or whatever saying, you know, we really got to focus on aligning finance with the business. Of course not. They would never say that because they are the business. So aren’t we, right? I think that puts us into that us and we. It puts us in that victim mentality.

Speaker 0 | 12:27.505

It’s really pointing the finger at yourself and saying, I’m not doing a good job. If we have to align IT with the business, then I’m disconnected.

Speaker 1 | 12:35.951

Yeah,

Speaker 0 | 12:36.571

yeah. No pun intended, disconnected. I’m disconnected from the network. I’m disconnected from the network. God, there’s so many great metaphors in our industry. The network. What network? You’re talking about the people network, the human network. What network are you disconnected from? from. Victimitis, I love it. I love it.

Speaker 1 | 12:56.103

I’m going to-You have to see the table. Here’s the other one. How many times have you heard that? You know what? It’s pretty tough, Phil. We just don’t have a seat at the table, so we can’t be a strategic partner. Well, Ralph Lora, one of the best CEOs ever to hold the title, just got inducted into the Hall of Fame. He would say, if you want a seat at the table, go to darn chair.

Speaker 0 | 13:18.329

You’re killing all of my marketing for this episode. For the whole show, which is about getting a seat at the table and crawling out of the server room closet where they used to slide pizzas under the door with sticky notes on top. You’re killing my show. I love it. Thank you. All right. Marketing department, we’ve got to go back to, you know, we’ve got to kill it. Just pull a seat up at the table. Stop, you know, not how to get a seat at the table. Just walk in and sit down.

Speaker 1 | 13:47.827

Exactly. Exactly. And then when you get there, you know. realize you got to show up in a certain way. You got to bring a point of view. You got to be ready to influence the conversation. And that kind of, we might get to a little bit later, but the whole idea of how we show up and the stages of showing up, we call it the maturity curve. And part of this too, Phil, is people get pretty comfortable. It’s a human trait. It’s part of our DNA. And we tend to do that a lot in our profession. And And there’s a book written a few years ago. I think it was Malcolm Gladwell. It’s What Got Me Here Won’t Get Me There. And we got to start realizing that what got me here to where I am today is not going to set me up for success tomorrow. The profession is changing. Skills needed are changing. If I want to get to that next level. So getting comfortable being uncomfortable, I know it’s kind of cliche,

Speaker 0 | 14:41.815

but-Absolutely not. I say it every day, all day. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Do what successful people- Successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. Yes, step out of your comfort zone. Tim Ferriss, who I’m not… necessarily a fan of him as a person. The book for our work week, which is so old now, it changed my life because just the concept of, of working from home and not wasting time with a bunch of stuff. I don’t know. I just remember going to my boss and saying, Hey, if I, uh, if I am produced 10% more than I’ve been producing and I’m this much more productive, can I work from home two days of the week? He was like, sure. And then, so that month went by and the next month it was like, how about I just never come into the office again and always do better? And he was like, yeah, okay, no problem. That changed my life. But in that book, he has somewhere where he’s like, he just has this whole like chapter or something about getting out of your comfort zone, just go into public and lay down and play dead for 30 seconds on the ground in the middle of a crowded area. There’s videos of guys doing it online when they read the book, you know, and just, you know, these kind of wild things to get you, help you. I guess, get you out of your comfort zone. I think it is a victim. That’s not a victim. I just, that’s just an itis. And once you start, you know, having the itises in life, then, you know, forget about it. That’s just another itis, but yeah, people get comfortable. You’re not going to grow. It’s just like, you know, that’s the, you know, the, the, the whole, you know, the Arnold Schwarzenegger thing, which is the, you know, the, the reps that give you the most muscle growth are like, you know, the last two or three, it’s not, you know, it’s not the first 20. So no, these don’t get old.

Speaker 1 | 16:22.014

That’s when people stop.

Speaker 0 | 16:23.323

but who takes action?

Speaker 1 | 16:24.704

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there’s an element of, you know, with my team and folks I interact with, I’m like, there’s an element of grit. Like you got to just show up some days and just do the hard work and you got to grit it out, even if you don’t want to. That’s those last two reps that Arnold will do. I think in today’s world, expect every day to be messy, hard, challenging. Right. And so. And so this, you know, I say grit is number one, grace is number two. You got to give other people grace, you know, when they drop the ball. I mean, if they keep doing it, that’s a different story, but you got to give other people grace and you have to give yourself a little grace in this world because things are, things are messy, but we got to just keep moving that ball down the field, Phil. And the third one is we’ve kind of hit on it. I call it the growth mindset. You know, there’s people have a growth mindset. There’s people have a fixed mindset.

Speaker 0 | 17:17.703

uh some people see the pie and say that’s all there is we gotta we gotta share it as it is other people say you know what let’s let’s go make let’s go make bigger pies let’s go make more pies i have a lot of questions that came up there and we can hold them we can answer them or not which is one of the questions came to my head was how do you get out of your own way i tend to get in my own way i’m a very much a um i will work really fast i’ll take on too many things at one time i’m too hard on myself and this is like a psychology session now all of a sudden And I will fixate. What’s the other thing? I will allow myself to get kind of in the weeds, so to speak. What are some of the common themes that come up on your show? I could tell you what they are right now. I can tell you all three or five. Every show comes into five things. And I do believe that every challenge, problem, whatever it is that in any industry or anyone’s dealing with, they can all be boiled down into. the three to five things, maximum eight, at the maximum, maximum eight. But I think most are three to five. And I can say that the five or the four to five things that IT directors struggle with in general are training and supporting end users, number one. I mean, there’s a ton of subcategories there, but training and supporting end users. You could call that leadership, I guess. I don’t know. Number two, decision direction. Decision direction in a massive, complex world of technology and AI and emerging technology and security and all of these different things going on, just taking decision direction. Three, disparate old technology silos that do not work together, that are separate technology silos that we haven’t had the money to forklift yet, or it’s too hard. Or it’s impossible because it’s the only software left running on an AS400. And then, let’s see, what am I forgetting? There’s got to be another one.

Speaker 1 | 19:27.135

Anyways. These are three good ones right there.

Speaker 0 | 19:29.917

You know what I mean? What are the themes that you see coming up? From a leadership perspective, there must be, I bet you, if we spreadsheeted all of your episodes and we took all the common words, I bet you we could divide them up into like three to five themes.

Speaker 1 | 19:43.939

If you’ll afford, you said eight earlier. If you could afford me seven, I will tell you.

Speaker 0 | 19:49.947

Seven, I can already see the article that we’re going to make up now for the show. The seven bullet points coming from Go.

Speaker 1 | 19:55.776

Boom. All right. So here’s what differentiates. the best leaders at all levels. They do not get distracted by the bright, shiny object. Okay? So that’s number one.

Speaker 0 | 20:08.459

Yes,

Speaker 1 | 20:08.579

I’m not a leader. That’s not number one. That actually sets up the seven. But they are laser focused on what I call the seven Cs of great leaders. I’m going to tie this back to your three, okay?

Speaker 0 | 20:19.887

Let’s do it.

Speaker 1 | 20:20.868

This is like consistent, eerily the same across these best leaders there. They’re intuitively good at it. They’re intentionally good at it. But number one, they’re always locked in on the customer. The customer is at the middle. Outside in.

Speaker 0 | 20:36.473

I call that, can I add in my own little twist to this every now and then? Because I have my own little quotes. And this is how I coach my people. It’s all about them. Customer one. It’s all about them. No matter what happens, no matter. what it is, no matter, you got the craziest person you got to talk with today, the meanest dude, whatever it is, it’s all about them. So it doesn’t really matter what happens to you because it’s all about them. So it’s like a sacrifice. You’re like the sacrificial, like you’re going in there. It’s all about them. So what’s the worst that can happen for them? Nothing because it’s all about them.

Speaker 1 | 21:10.961

Right.

Speaker 0 | 21:11.661

Anyways.

Speaker 1 | 21:12.382

That’s a, I call on my show, I unpack the CIO-isms. That right there is great philism. Those great expressions you use when you’re leading,

Speaker 0 | 21:22.168

communicating. We call that a philosophy. And let’s go ahead. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 21:28.070

I love it.

Speaker 0 | 21:28.550

People have been making fun of my entire life. So there’s a million more.

Speaker 1 | 21:33.251

Yeah. Well, keep them coming. So customer, number one at the center. And we try to beat this out of our IT nerd friends. Stop using the term user.

Speaker 0 | 21:46.315

Definitely not end loser.

Speaker 1 | 21:48.540

Not an end loser. Those blanky blank users, right?

Speaker 0 | 21:53.024

That comes from an engineering guy, by the way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 21:55.966

But I mean, I was just on with a CEO this morning and, you know, we talk, we say, you know, customer’s better, but customer kind of still implies retail, transactional, client better, you know, client, professional, peer relationship, business partners. This morning, Scott. was talking about those that they serve as collaborators. And he says, you know, when we show up and we see them as collaborators, we show up different. We treat them different. They treat us different. And so anyways, seven C’s, customer at the middle. Number two, culture. And you’ve had shows talking about culture. Nick, great show a few weeks back. Number three, cultivate. And this is all about people knowing, growing, engaging, developing. your people, your talent. That’s your team. Number four is courage. And we could talk for hours about this. And there’s a great lack of leadership courage today in business and politics and IT. And I could unpack that for you all day long. Number five is change, the fifth C. We need to do a better job of putting people inside of that new cathedral before the first brick is laid. We want to take people on a change journey. We want to take them on a big, big… bold, hairy ride that they have no idea if it’s going to be successful. How do we take them on that change? And the last two C’s, Phil, are we’ve got to be great collaborators, we’ve got to be great communicators. And if I think about your themes, the things you talked about, we’ve got to train, cultivate those users out there. But that’s all around, it’s all about them. It’s all about the customer. Decision direction. Here’s an ism for you. Confused minds don’t act.

Speaker 0 | 23:42.911

True.

Speaker 1 | 23:43.812

And in fact, confused minds say no. And that’s why we have a lot of inertia. We lose speed and philosophy. That’s why your decision direction is so important. And then the third one you talked about was silos, right? And again, we’ve got to do better at telling the story, changing the narrative. You know, why are there still technology legacy and silos out there? You know, is it, again, back to victimitis, if we own this, we would say, maybe I just need to tell the story better. Maybe I just need to go out there and tell them, if we do this, this is how it’s going to impact our business, our bottom line, our customer.

Speaker 0 | 24:22.113

Let’s look at this realistically with real life examples. Placing the first brick. There has to be a vision for the final outcome. There has to be some, even though it’s never exactly the way it is envisioned at first, there’s a mission, right? The mission, that can always be the same. It can be elaborated upon. It can be streamlined. It can be made better. The mission is the mission, right? Like I went over the mission statement with my team this morning, which is to be the number one technology leadership podcast, period, right? With the best. a behind the scenes support program that will never cost an it director or it leader cto cio a dime that that’s that’s the mission of the show okay so that’s very clear now the vision um that that can change right because how you do it how you lay those bricks right because right right now we’re laying the bricks we’re recording a show okay and then we take the show how do we take information from the show and repurpose that into different things how do we you know How do we gain people’s trust and be authentic and real and all those other things that you just said. So confused people and then to layer in the confused people, don’t say yes, don’t buy, whatever it is you want to call it. Because I do have a lot of past sales experience, customer service experience. And we used to always say, yes, confusion will kill any deal. A confusion will kill any deal. It’s not even a matter of like, do we, it’s just like, do we know it’s when we don’t know we’re confused, we’re confused. Confusion will always be, will always be a problem. So taking in the layering, the first brick and eliminating confusion, what, what do it departments do? Because if I sit down and I ask, and I do have a question that I ask a lot of it directors, which is, do you have a vision? Do you have a living, breathing vision, mission and vision statement for your it department? And I haven’t had anyone say yes.

Speaker 1 | 26:25.942

Yeah. Yeah. Off to a bad start. And, you know, here’s a short story that I think kind of helps set the tone to answer your question. So it’s the JFK story at NASA, right? He’s down in Houston getting the tour.

Speaker 0 | 26:39.854

This is going to go down a dark. This is going to go down a huge site. Keep going. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 26:44.137

I’m not going to go down that path. I know where you’re going.

Speaker 0 | 26:46.299

I may.

Speaker 1 | 26:46.700

I’ve heard the show before. I know where you’re going. No. Oh, he veers off. And he goes over and talks to what we would all say is the janitor. He says, sir, what do you do here at NASA? And the janitor looks him in the eye and says, Mr. President, I’m helping to send a man to the moon. And I think that’s where it all starts, Phil. I think that, you know, for those of you who work in healthcare, right, in IT, you’re fixing patients. You’re not doing IT work. You know, if you’re in higher education, you’re educating students. You’re not in IT. If you’re in any industry, it’s like, so it all starts with who is it that we are here to serve? What’s the end game? Who are we bringing value to? And if you can get closer to the customer in that way, John Meiser, CIO of Panera, one of the best CIOs who ever held the title. John has his people out in the cafes every year. He himself lives in the cafe. Let’s go see it from their perspective, right? And there’s this little trick of the trade. called Moments of Truth. We teach it as part of our service excellence training for IT. Moments of Truth are basically all those touch points, those points of contact, no matter how large, how small, they all leave an impression, right? And when we can understand things from the other side of the table, from the patient, the student, the customer perspective, now we can get laser focused. Because you know what IT does really well? IT work does very well at hitting their bullseye. What’s the problem? We’re shooting at our bullseye. We’re not shooting at the bullseye that matters to the marketing, the chief marketing officer or the head of revenue or the head of manufacturing. So I think it all starts there, Phil. That’s the first brick. And we’re not good at that in our profession. We think we’re laying IT bricks.

Speaker 0 | 28:38.568

So what should we do?

Speaker 1 | 28:40.489

Yeah, let’s go figure out what the customer wants. Let’s go figure out what matters. Let’s be business people first. Let’s show up different. And let’s realize what we do matters. And. Where we show up matters. And if we can do that in a way that is, I mean, some of the basic skills, the way we show up. I mean, do you know people who are good listeners, Phil?

Speaker 0 | 29:01.831

Yes. Active listeners that can listen without placing their own autobiography onto something in the background while the other person is answering.

Speaker 1 | 29:13.614

So that’s interesting. So do we tend to like those people? Trust those people? Do we want them on our team?

Speaker 0 | 29:20.528

Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 29:21.828

Yeah. So what if we just basically built a brand as being trusted, active listeners? And another way to think about that, I always coach people, when you show up in a meeting, show up and be interested first, then be interesting. Try that on, right? It’s amazing how that works because now you’re asking questions. Now you’re leaning in, you’re getting the other people or person talking. They love it, by the way, because people… they usually are competing for the air. So let them, let them be interesting first, you be interested. And then when you actually finally go to speak. You can just nail it now. You can just be wrapped up. You can message your stuff around what matters to that person, that group, that team, that initiative. And here’s a simple model that we’ve taught since 1985. That’s how long we’ve been doing this work. It’s called the HEAR model, H-E-A-R. And I’m going to ask you a question after I give you the acronym. It’s an acronym because we like acronyms, right? So you’re in a meeting, and this is your chance to practice interactive listening. H stands for HEAR. E stands for empathize. A stands for analyze. R stands for respond. And we’re really good at IT going from H to where? We go right to R.

Speaker 0 | 30:41.163

Yep.

Speaker 1 | 30:42.103

We go right to response. I was going to say H. We’re very smart, and our answer most of the time is right. Unfortunately, the other person on the other side of the Zoom meeting or the other side of the table is saying, you didn’t hear a darn thing I said. especially important when you’re in those difficult meetings, when you’re in that, you know, you’re that meeting you’re in where somebody’s presenting a new idea and you know, this is dumb as dirt. This thing has no wings, no prayer. We shouldn’t be talking about this. How do we message? How do we respond to that without sounding like the party of no? Because that’s what ends up happening, right? We do that and we end up getting invited to the fifth meeting next time, not the first meeting. And so you pull out your here model, right? And you take this in. So you hear, you’re listening. The empathy is all about asking some questions. You know, lean in, paraphrase, try to understand where they’re going. And you know this is a bad idea, but you don’t want to say no in that meeting. We always say no, no in the first meeting. Because unless you’re a McKinsey consultant or E&Y consultant, you do this every day, you’re probably not going to message it very well. But say, you know what? Give us 48 hours. Let us go analyze this. That’s the A in here. And then come back and respond. And now you’ll figure out a way to come back and respond with some options, some other ways of coming at this. So the hero model is good just for day-to-day, every day, listening, building your brain as a listener. But it’s also especially important in those difficult situations, those difficult moments. And again, back to those darn users.

Speaker 0 | 32:16.089

It comes up in email too. So how often has someone sent an email hastily without… taking time to first process. How often do we hastily respond to something with emotion versus first taking some time, walking away, and then responding?

Speaker 1 | 32:37.713

Yeah, I find when you type your keyboard really fast and really loud, it’s probably when you need to take a pause. And we teach that, don’t get hooked emotionally. One of the great CIO-isms out there is assume positive intent.

Speaker 0 | 32:53.988

Hmm.

Speaker 1 | 32:54.828

Assume positive intent. No, maybe, maybe it’s not, but, but start there because you’ll probably respond differently. And once you hit send that sucker’s not coming back. Well, you could recall it. Right. But once it, once it lands,

Speaker 0 | 33:08.632

how many recall, I’ve had maybe two recalled emails, not myself, but I’ve seen someone said recalled email. I’ve maybe seen that no more than five times in my life.

Speaker 1 | 33:17.735

Right.

Speaker 0 | 33:18.835

Um, It’s usually because I was on like a list by mistake that I got copied on a list because I was, my name, Phil was close to another Phil that someone knew. So I wasn’t supposed to get that email, but I got it. So it was recalled. So I was like, okay, I get it. Delete that. Okay. What can we give away that is, that is solid information that is, that is crystal clear that someone can walk away from this show and do right now. Not today, not tomorrow. What’s something that they can walk away with and it’ll make a difference? If there was one thing that you had to pick out of all these things that you’ve learned over the last 20 years, you said, just do this one thing and that’ll make a significant difference in your life today. What would it be?

Speaker 1 | 34:03.733

That’s a big, bold, broad question, my friend. But let me take a couple stabs at it here.

Speaker 0 | 34:09.294

I mean, take your time. I’m thinking of it myself. What would mine be? Yeah. What would my, I mean, I’ll, uh, let’s see whoever comes up with it first.

Speaker 1 | 34:19.398

I mean, it’s so situational, right. But just general, um, showing up different. I really think it’s, it’s all about them. You said it earlier. It’s one of your Phil philisms. It’s all about them, you know, show up and put yourself in their shoes. How can I help this person today? And, you know, there’s, there’s four powerful words when you get into situations. that people don’t use enough. And it diffuses people, Phil. And it’s, I need your help. Have you ever said no to somebody who can’t?

Speaker 0 | 34:54.998

I love that. I love the asking for help. Another thing that Starbucks grabbed from someone back in the day, there was like star skills. They had these, you know, anytime you ever worked for someone, I don’t know if Starbucks was just such a, it was such a period of my life after graduating college and first getting married and having my first kids. I think it’s like burned into my brain forever. You know, one of those first jobs through a, through a term kind of term, what’s the word turmoil to this point in your life, you know? So you remember all these acronyms and everything, especially when you’ve worked in a retail environment, they have to have acronyms. So star skills, right? One was ask for help. But yes, every time you ask for help.

Speaker 1 | 35:35.300

You know, the other little company over there in Seattle, you know, Starbucks is downtown, Amazon, you know, they’ve got 14 leadership principles that have kind of set them apart. And number one is customer obsession. You know, I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but this is pretty good. pretty good proof of the pudding there. Their 14th and final one, by the way, deliver results. And I think those are purposely bookended because if you show up and it’s all about the customer and we deliver results every day, we’re going to be okay.

Speaker 0 | 36:09.600

Here’s what mine would be. And after spending a year with this guy named Ryan Levesque, I’ll give him credit where credit’s due. I don’t know if he came up with this idea himself or whatever it was, but he wrote the book called The Ask Method. And he’s got a bunch of people that I think he used to work for Tony Robbins and stuff with him. And he’s a, you know where he’s from? He’s from Goffstown, New Hampshire. He’s from Goffstown. He’s down in Texas now. He’s some multimillionaire, you know, dude, life coach of sorts. But he wrote this book called The Ask Method. And the first question he asks, it’s two parts, but this is something that people can walk away with today. You can take action on this today. It will make a difference in your life, no matter where you’re at, no matter who you’re with. This will make a difference. I guarantee it. I don’t know what I’m guaranteeing, but I guarantee it’ll make a difference. You can unfollow the show if this does not make a difference in your life immediately today. The first question you ask is, do you mind if I ask your advice? Can you use that with any single… We don’t want to say end user, but you guys know who I’m talking about. People that, souls, other humans with beating hearts and blood running through them that have emotions, that have families and all their problems going on in their life. These people that are on endpoints, that are using the endpoints on your network. You can use this with any single one of them. You can say, do you mind if I ask your advice? I don’t know what the percentage is, but I would guess that 99.9, an SLA. I would bet that a fiber SLA, they’re going to say yes. You might have asked your advice. The second piece is, Ryan Levesque, I’m giving you credit for this. I’m giving you credit where credit’s due. When it comes to X, whatever it is, when it comes to IT in your organization, when it comes to marketing in your organization, when it comes to upper management in your organization, when it comes to HR, when it comes to… me being your father, your mother, when it comes to being a brother, when it comes to whatever it is, when it comes to X, what’s your single biggest frustration, problem, or concern? You can walk away with that today. You can ask that question. You can fire right off on that question. Mr. CEO, when it comes to IT in the organization, what’s your single biggest frustration, problem, or concern? Whatever they answer, fix that problem. That’s it. Now you’re serving. Everyone, that’s my secret. I gave it away. Now everyone knows how I started the podcast because I went up to 10 IT directors and I said, hey, when it comes to IT in your organization, what’s your single biggest frustration, problem, or concern? Training end users, taking decision direction, disparate IT silos. Oh, I remember number four, poor vendor customer service. Vendors that do not jive with our IT team. Vendors that take days, not hours to respond. It all falls into that category. So everyone can walk away with that today. Do you mind if I ask your advice? When it comes to X, what’s your single biggest frustration, problem, or concern? Brian Levesque, life altering. I’m glad that I spent a whole year with you and spent literally thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. It’s absurd. And that’s what I took away from it, but it was worth it.

Speaker 1 | 39:44.048

There’s a very good chance, Phil, that you and Brian and I are all in the same town at the same time.

Speaker 0 | 39:51.053

St. Anselm College for two years.

Speaker 1 | 39:52.974

In New Hampshire. That’s right. Right there in Georgetown. I was in Bedford, right? So good things are happening in New Hampshire. That’s all I can say.

Speaker 0 | 40:00.556

Live free or die. A bunch of patriots there.

Speaker 1 | 40:04.678

Right, man.

Speaker 0 | 40:06.099

People are like, what are you talking about? What do you mean live free or die, Phil? Just so you know, that’s on every New Hampshire license plate for anyone that doesn’t know that’s been living in Arizona for your entire life. Okay. That’s the model. That’s the New Hampshire model. And that’s where the first primaries are, whatever, over at Dixville Notch or something up there, right? Or was it the Balsams? Right. Where they do the morning or the… Okay. So you… said having heart has a lot to do with it leadership i would say what does heart have to do with it because i’ve had a lot of people say you know you can’t lead with heart there’s this new like feel good thing and you got you know we’re in the business world and the business world is harsh and you know hope is not a strategy and what do you mean lead with heart heart’s not going to pay the bills i’m just being i’m playing advocate here i love it i love it i love that you asked the question that way because

Speaker 1 | 40:59.812

In my interaction, I interact with about 1,000 C-level executives a year. And I would say in the last 18 months, I’ve seen a very measurable shift in terms of how they lead. And leading with heart is part of that. And heart is an acronym, by the way, because that’s what we do, right? It’s another acronym. So heart stands for they’re showing up with being humble. They’re showing up with more empathy. They’re showing up being more adaptable, more resilient. and very transparent. Okay. Now you might look at that and say, well, that, that sounds a little squishy, right? Let’s see, but.

Speaker 0 | 41:34.783

Oh, I think the last three were more hardcore, resilient and transparent. Yeah. Yeah. Adaptable. Well, you’re going to have to, you’re gonna have to get rid of some of that heart because we need to adapt to be resilient and transparent. Okay. So suck it.

Speaker 1 | 41:47.850

For people to do hard things, things they’d never done before that we’d never done before. But here’s the interesting, the balancing act, Phil, while leading with heart, right? those best leaders, and again, this is all levels of the organization, they’re still holding people accountable. They’re still having the hard conversations.

Speaker 0 | 42:06.360

Yes.

Speaker 1 | 42:07.061

Still focused, laser focused on delivering results, business results. Now, historically, we led with results. We were rewarded, you know, that’s where more command control came from. And we would talk about, well, there, you know, there’s dead bodies behind us in our wake, but that’s just the cost of doing business. It doesn’t work anymore.

Speaker 0 | 42:26.632

No, it really doesn’t because, A, a lot of people don’t want to work nowadays. It’s hard to keep good talent. People are paying for good talent because there’s a shortage of it. Maybe there’s not. There might not be. I don’t know. I don’t know the statistics on that. I’m assuming that it is because you hear a lot about just the shortage of people leaving and there’s no attachment to any one given company anymore. There’s no personal attachment, right? Because everyone’s… out for themselves. So that probably has a lot to do with it and developing people and leading with heart and being connected to them. Finish your thought, but I do want to ask you about having the tough conversations.

Speaker 1 | 43:09.125

Yeah. I mean, that balancing act matters. And so if you are a purely results-driven leader, you’re going to lose your people. If you’re purely a heart-driven leader, you’re going to lose your job. Because you’re not delivering results.

Speaker 0 | 43:26.321

Thank you.

Speaker 1 | 43:27.242

So that’s where it all comes together. And, you know, the results also ties back to something you shared earlier I thought was phenomenal. What’s the mission, right? And when people are delivering results based on that mission, they’re locked in, right? It’s a beautiful thing. People are now working together. They’re achieving things they never thought they could achieve before. They’re having impact. This is the end game, right? And Liz Wiseman, great author, researcher, her last book was called Impact Players. And one thing she found in her research, Phil, was that burnout today. We talk a lot about burnout, right? She found that a lot of burnout today is caused by the fact that people do not feel like they’re having impact. Because they’re showing up as the IT bricklayers, not as helping to impact the end customer. to deliver results that matter. And so that’s why all this leadership stuff matters, right? How we pull all this together. And at the end of the day, it’s not that hard. It’s not like a big bang thing. It’s just doing some basic things well,

Speaker 0 | 44:35.487

because there’s so much there. There’s so many more episodes there. The burnout thing is so big. It’s so true. Even if they do feel like they’re having an impact, who cares? We’re all going to die. Yeah. Right? So the burnout’s real. I have burnout. I suffer from burnout sometimes. Yeah. and yeah and it feels great when people are like I listen to your show I’m on your I’m on the regular I’m on the roster like I listen to the show I heard this one the other day I’m like wow It feels great. It’s awesome. It’s good to know that. Which goes back to, again, leaving the legacy, leaving a real legacy. As far as the tough conversation, one of the things that I learned a lot growing up in leadership and learning everything the hard way and making mistakes and failing forward and all that, and all those things are all real. They’re all real sleepless nights and just learning everything the hard way. It’s so real. The tough conversations, is there, do you have an… an acronym for that one because again i think it goes back to listening but there’s a certain thing there’s a certain aspect or there was a problem where there’s there’s something that happened that you need to coach the person on so i find the asking questions without having a you know trying to i guess lead i mean you’re kind of leading but without uh an outcome already in mind. I don’t know how to describe that, but by asking questions and getting someone to understand what the problem was themselves and how that didn’t align with, I guess, the vision and the mission. Do you have any acronyms around that, having these tough conversations? Because that can be very difficult. That can be very difficult for someone, especially a new leader that has to have a conversation with someone they see as poisoning the water trough, so to speak, or the gossipy person or the person that it might be, you know, now you got to confront this person and it’s a really difficult, you’re nervous the first time you’re going to do it and how are they going to respond? And are they going to see me as insecure and blah, blah, blah? You know, there’s all that type of stuff.

Speaker 1 | 46:41.702

Yeah. A lot to unpack there. You know, you made me think of a Roosevelt quote, people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. So if I were to throw an acronym at you, it would be DILLYGAB. Does it look like I give a darn? You know, when we’re showing up at that meeting, they’re going to know you care, right? That that’s your thing. You know, what was your question you ask, you know, that you gave the advice? It’s like, what’s the one thing? What’s the one thing that matters to them? What’s the one thing? And I don’t like to use that cliche, what keeps you up at night. But I mean, if you understand what they’re trying to do to be successful, if you can help them with that one thing, those tough conversations get a lot easier. And, Phil, it’s also how we show up in those conversations. And, you know, we have this research we did with Babson College out of Boston. We call it the maturity curve, but it’s really about how we’re showing up. And if you’re showing up in stage one, you’re kind of a keep the lights on, pipes and plumbing IT professional. Nothing wrong with it, but that’s what you are, okay? If you show up at the next level, you’re more of a solution provider. problem solver but you’re still in that stage two you’re still showing up as an order taker so i get stuck there because it’s fun yeah that’s the comfort zone we get a lot of gratification there but i’ll tell you why that’s a bad place to be here in a second okay and i’ll tell you i’ll give you the metric but that’s that that that way of operating of tell us what you want we’ll go do it that order taker stage three we’re now showing up as that strategic partner, a trusted advisor, more of that consultant. That person, by the way, gets invited to the first meeting of a new initiative because people want you in the room. You’ve got influence. You’ve built trust. You’ve built credibility. That person that is that solution provider, that order taker, they get invited to the fifth meeting. Ship sailed. Decision has been made. You want to have the tough conversation now? Good luck. Now it’s going to be basically, now you’re the party of no. Now you put yourself in the victim’s shoes. Now you’re like being the bad guy, bad guy gal. If you’re in that first stage, that pipes and plumbing, you never know there’s a meeting. Stuff’s going on all around you. You have no idea. And then we found this research. There’s a stage four. Okay. Stage three is strategic partner, trusted advisor, first meeting. Stage four says there’s another one that’s called the innovative anticipator. Okay. So think about any organization. I don’t care what industry, who sees the business, the enterprise end-to-end like IT does? I would argue nobody. I would say nobody has that vantage point. Historically, Phil, we’ve done a poor job of leveraging that unique vantage point. But when we do, when those leaders do, you’re able to lift your head up, look up, look out and say, how do we orchestrate a better customer, consumer, patient, student experience? How do we find ways? to drive new revenue for our company, drive new efficiencies? How do we even maybe even disrupt our space through technology? That’s your meeting. You’re driving that meeting. You’re driving a new narrative, a new art of the possible. So those tough conversations at those four different levels are very different. Stage three and stage four, it’s expected. You’re invited. You’re anticipated. Stage one and two, good luck.

Speaker 0 | 50:19.561

It takes time to build that. They have to see that too.

Speaker 1 | 50:23.424

Yeah, it does. And you don’t go from one to three to four. You go one, one step at a time by doing a lot of things you and I’ve been talking about for the last half hour or so.

Speaker 0 | 50:34.191

I would say by listening to this show, you could go from one to two, three, four, five a lot faster. So everyone listening out there, listening to Dissecting Popular IT Neurospeeds, because someone out there is going to be starting a new job as an IT director, and they’re going to have to go, they don’t want to go one and have five handed into their lap and have all this shadow IT going on at the same time. They’ve got to build those bridges. They’ve got to ask the questions. They’ve got to create those relationships as fast as possible. And you can do that by sitting down with everyone and saying, when it comes to IT in your organization, what’s your single biggest frustration, problem, or concern? Or when it comes to operations, because you might be sitting down with the operations guy. Or when it comes to marketing, what’s your single biggest frustration, problem, or concern right now? Well, it’s speed to this. It’s speed to that. I can tell you just given today, it’s a massive file. It’s a massive group of files sitting within multiple different drives that are all duplicate files and everything that I just need to manage today. And I’m looking for an AI, some sort of AI problem to help me sift and sort years and years and years of documents and different materials and organize it somehow. That’s my problem today. That’s my single biggest frustration, problem, concern today at this moment from an IT application perspective. So it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. How do people connect with you and get more future advice and plug in to your network and get what they need to grow their career and to leave a lasting legacy, so to speak, and lead with heart, but also deliver results? Did I summarize that good?

Speaker 1 | 52:18.602

Very well. Yeah. I mean, you’ve got really smart people. uh who listen to the show i’d love to connect with them reach out on linkedin dan roberts tech whispers whispers uh so let’s connect there i’m big on not networking because i think networking is all about people looking for other people to do stuff for them i think i think about it more as connecting like how do we help each other which is another podcast i know um and uh let’s connect that way let me know how i can be helping you and and your journey and you know i’ll I’ll end it here. You made me think of a minute ago, another victim-itis example. People get passed over for the promotion, the new job.

Speaker 0 | 53:02.504

Yes, they do.

Speaker 1 | 53:03.405

And they point the fingers everywhere else, right? And so, this is where self-awareness matters. Get mentors, get people, get feedback, understand what your blind spots are. And what people don’t understand, Phil, is there’s a room and that room has people in it. who are talking about you right now, talking about their talent right now. They’re talking about promotions, the next round of promotions, who are high performers, who are going to put in the next opportunity. And it’s not good enough just to have your direct boss in that room speaking on your behalf. You need to have a brand, you need to have an image with other people in that room who are going to go to bat for you. And so, that’s another way to combat this victim-itis on the career journey path. You know, your brain’s walking in that room without you. And again, the whole session talking about the importance of marketing and communicating and telling our story and this world of short attention spans and people are all over the place. But anyways, I guess I would leave it there. But please, please reach out. Listen to the show, Tech Whispers. You know, it’s. Let’s call it the number two show behind yours because you told me yours is number one.

Speaker 0 | 54:16.861

No, it’s not. It’s number 11th. It’s number 11th at some sort of technology global IT leadership thing. Who knows where that statistic came up? But it’s 11th. I’m going to run with that. Here’s a stat for you.

Speaker 1 | 54:32.045

Do your people know this, your audience? There’s a measure out there of podcasts globally. How you rank in, I think it’s like 3 million podcasts. Yep. Your show, impressively, is in the top, I believe, 1% of all podcasts globally.

Speaker 0 | 54:48.908

And I have done nothing. And just think if I actually worked at it, you know what I mean? I don’t know if it’s just, who is this crazy guy with the beard that’s talking, you know? But we are going to do a story time radio. We are going to start doing short stories, short IT stories when I’m releasing those two. And the first one is… seagull gets head lopped off with seven iron and why you should change the relationship with your isp so everyone can look forward to that it’s a true story really did happen and there’s a reason behind it so um of course it happened in maine of all places so everyone can look forward to that there was one final thought that i had oh we’ll end with this i guess and that is back to the coaching and people showing up level one and everything, and maybe you’re in an organization that’s not super exciting or whatever it is. I don’t know whatever it is. And you need a reason to show up to work every day. And I say this to my guys every day. I say, look, I’m not your boss. I’m not. I don’t want to be anyone’s boss, right? No one wants, I just, I’m not your boss. I don’t think anyone should have a job. I don’t think anyone should have a boss. I hated having a boss. I hated having a job. I’m not your boss. I’m your coach. You can argue with me all you want. You can hate hearing the things that come out of my mouth, whatever it is. I’m your coach. I’m just telling you what you need to hear so that you can get on the field of play, right? And that’s the game of life, right? And if you want to get on and you want to play in the game of life, you need a coach. And the coach is going to tell you whether you’re making it on the field or not, whether you’re going to get cut or not. So that’s, I’m your coach. I’m not your boss. I’m your coach. Take my advice for what you want. Do what you want with it. But be open to people coaching you. You can make excuses all you want. You can argue with someone. But the old adage, like perception is reality or whatever that is, however that applies to this. But I would want to know if I’m doing something that is average or inadequate or causing problems or whatever it is. I want to know what my weaknesses are. Um, or I want to know what my strengths are so that I can leverage my strengths. Cause I’m not, you know, I guess, uh, personality weaknesses are probably most likely going to always be there. Um, you can try and make them not a problem, but, um, anyways, make sure that you’ve got coaches, not bosses. So if you’re working, if you got people underneath you, turn your CEO or whoever it is, turn them into your coach, right? Because he’s going to want to help you and ask for help. Right. And then the more he asks for your help, the more he’s going to be. putting you in that position, going and talking about you when you’re in that meeting, you’ve got spokespersons preset, like you said. And then be a coach, right? Because if you’ve got a bunch of people on your team that don’t feel like they may feel like not, you don’t want them to feel like it’s a dead end job. You want them to feel like they’re growing. You want to grow your people, no matter what, no matter where they’re at in their life, whether they’re just, this is their first IT job or not. Would you agree?

Speaker 1 | 57:54.416

Oh, hardly. In fact, I would say you need to build up. a board of directors, your own personal board of advisors, and have people from different different walks of life who will be honest with you and not the ones are going to softball you and butter your you know what, but they’re going to give you honest, direct feedback. That’s a gift. And so I think that there’s two things we can do if you are quote unquote in any kind of leadership role. The best leaders are, they’ve got the lens of leader as learner every day. They’re learning every day. And they’ve also got the lens of leader as teacher, which I think goes along your lines of coaching. You know, how can I help my people succeed versus micromanage them?

Speaker 0 | 58:35.393

It’s amazing the things that you may think. It’s amazing of the knowledge that we hold inside that we’re not sharing with others just because we think of it’s like common knowledge or something like that.

Speaker 1 | 58:47.860

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 58:49.681

Dan Roberts. Thank you so much for being on Dissecting Popular IT Nerds.

Speaker 1 | 58:53.838

Thank you, sir. Appreciate what you’re doing. Keep it up.