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The Next USEF CEO: Has the Role Changed? · Two Point Perspective

• 0:00
  Over the past few weeks, there is one topic that seems to have dominated conversations throughout our sport.
• 0:08
  That would be the search for the next Chief Executive Officer of the United States Equestrian Federation.
• 0:16
  Like many of you, I've listened to the podcast, I've read the letters, I've read the articles, I've followed the conversations online.
• 0:25
  And at first I was doing exactly what everybody else seems to be doing.
• 0:31
  I was wondering who the next CEO might be.
• 0:34
  But after listening for a while, I realized I had stopped thinking about candidates altogether.
• 0:41
  And instead I found myself asking a very different question.
• 0:45
  Every organization hires the leader it needs for the moment that it's in.
• 0:51
  So what moment is our sport in?
• 0:55
  If we were sitting down today to write the job description, not just look at resumes, not discuss names, but simply just write the job description, would it look the same as it did 20 years ago?
• 1:10
  Or has the sport changed enough that the job itself has changed?
• 1:16
  This is two point perspective.
• 1:18
  Two riders with different viewpoints from different generations talking about the same sport.
• 1:25
  So let me ask you something.
• 1:26
  When you first heard that Bill Moroney was retiring, where did your mind go?
• 1:32
  Honestly, in a court of public opinion, Sort of, thank God.
• 1:36
  Because there's been so much, you know, around it that it felt like it was about time, honestly, a lot.
• 1:45
  Probably where everybody else is dead, thinking about who could be next, who might want the job, who has the right background for this particular job.
• 1:53
  But I don't think I stopped to think about the position itself.
• 1:57
  Yeah, me too, for about five minutes.
• 1:59
  And then I started listening to all these conversations and I realized I'd quit paying attention to the names.
• 2:07
  What really interested me wasn't the candidates anymore, it was the expectations.
• 2:13
  I think that's because everybody naturally approaches this from the part of the sport that they know best.
• 2:20
  When I hear people talking, I hear professionals thinking about one set of issues, parents are thinking about another.
• 2:26
  Competition managers, you know, have a whole set of issues themselves.
• 2:30
  Owners have issues that they want to talk about.
• 2:33
  And nobody's intentionally leaving anything out.
• 2:36
  They're just looking through it through their own experience.
• 2:38
  So you have all these different people, all these different perspectives.
• 2:42
  Exactly.
• 2:43
  And honestly, they should.
• 2:45
  If you've spent 20 years managing Hore shows, you're going to see things I never think about.
• 2:52
  If you've spent your career judging, you're going to notice different problems.
• 2:56
  If you're a parent bringing a child into the sport, your priorities are completely different.
• 3:02
  We're all looking at the same organization, but from different windows.
• 3:07
  Yeah.
• 3:08
  It reminds me of, you know, standing at the ring, we're all watching the same round, and the trainer is watching something different from the judge, and the owner notices something different from the rider, and the parents see something
• 3:19
  different from all of them.
• 3:20
  So nobody's wrong.
• 3:21
  It's just.
• 3:22
  It's all from a different perspective.
• 3:24
  That's actually a perfect analogy, because leadership has to look at the entire ring, not just one corner of it.
• 3:32
  And that's when I started wondering, maybe writing the job description is actually harder than selecting the person.
• 3:41
  I think it probably is, because before you can hire someone, you have to agree on what success looks like.
• 3:46
  And I think in this particular scenario, you know, everybody's got their own issues that they want resolved.
• 3:54
  And I think for everybody, it looks a little different.
• 3:58
  So while one thing is going to get a little better, one thing might not be addressed right away.
• 4:02
  So is it still successful?
• 4:04
  Could be, but maybe not from your set of eyes right away.
• 4:08
  And I'm not sure that's as easy as it sounds anymore, because success means, as you said, so many different things to different people.
• 4:18
  Well, and, you know, maybe that's because the sport itself has become much more complicated, or maybe not complicated, but complex.
• 4:27
  When I started thinking about it, I realized almost nothing exists by itself anymore.
• 4:32
  Horse welfare isn't just horse welfare.
• 4:34
  Technology isn't just technology, and membership isn't just membership.
• 4:39
  Everything overlaps.
• 4:40
  And that's exactly what struck me 20 years ago.
• 4:43
  You could probably separate issues much more easily, but today, everything is connected.
• 4:50
  A decision over here suddenly affects something over there that nobody expected, which to.
• 4:58
  Me probably means the CEO doesn't have to just solve problems, they have to understand the consequences.
• 5:03
  And I think that that's going to be a very, very important part of whoever they decide that comes in next.
• 5:11
  I love the way you said that, because I think that's one of the biggest changes.
• 5:15
  It's not simply making a good decision, it's understanding who else that decision touches.
• 5:23
  Sometimes it's immediate, sometimes it's years later.
• 5:27
  You know, for my insurance background, that's actually familiar.
• 5:31
  People often don't think that they're solving one particular problem, but every decision changes the level of risk somewhere else.
• 5:38
  You don't always see it right away,.
• 5:40
  And that's a great point.
• 5:41
  And horse sports works the same way.
• 5:45
  Nothing lives in isolation anymore.
• 5:48
  If you change one rule, it affects competitors, it affects horse shows, officials, owners, sponsors, sometimes even public perception.
• 5:58
  Not because anybody intended that, but because everything is totally connected.
• 6:04
  Well, I completely agree.
• 6:05
  I mean, it's.
• 6:07
  It's sort of a matter of who it's going to touch first.
• 6:09
  Not that it's not going to touch everyone.
• 6:11
  It's just a matter of, like, where it's going to hit.
• 6:13
  And I think that sometimes in.
• 6:15
  In a little bit of that, you can experience upset because, like, for one person, oh, my gosh, this is so much better.
• 6:20
  And then the next person who might, maybe they're an owner, not the rider, the rider feels like it's better.
• 6:25
  The owner is like, this doesn't.
• 6:26
  You know, this doesn't benefit me.
• 6:28
  So it's.
• 6:28
  It's sort of like if somebody handed us a piece of blank paper, where do we begin?
• 6:34
  Because I'm not sure I'd start with experience anymore.
• 6:39
  Neither would I.
• 6:40
  And I.
• 6:41
  And I have to say, that really surprised me.
• 6:43
  I thought I'd write horse experience or business experience or maybe leadership.
• 6:50
  Instead, the first thing that came to my mind was something completely different.
• 6:55
  Oh, God.
• 6:55
  What was that?
• 6:56
  Honestly, the ability to see the whole picture or the big picture.
• 7:01
  I actually wrote something different.
• 7:03
  Really?
• 7:03
  Yes.
• 7:04
  I wrote curiosity not.
• 7:07
  Because I don't think that anyone can possibly know every part of this sport.
• 7:12
  There are too many disciplines, too many, you know, variations of each discipline, too many stakeholders, too many perspectives.
• 7:20
  So if you can't know everything, you'd better be curious enough to keep learning.
• 7:25
  I love that.
• 7:26
  Because curiosity assumes that you don't already have all the answers.
• 7:31
  Exactly.
• 7:32
  And I worry that sometimes that people think leadership means having the answers to every question, and I don't think that it does.
• 7:39
  I think great leaders ask really good questions, and they surround themselves with smart people and they listen and then they make their decisions.
• 7:48
  Because if you're not asking and also they're asking questions.
• 7:52
  So while they might not have the answer to every question, they're also willing to ask questions to other people to try and get the answers, to get a different perspective, to understand.
• 8:01
  I think about this from even, like, my insurance background.
• 8:05
  I, you know, I have a background in the hunter jumpers, and that's what I've been a part of my entire life.
• 8:11
  And I was exposed due to just our market and then the people that we serve, the very vast discipline of the Western world, and a lot of, like, Rainers and, you know, pleasure and barrel racing and all of
• 8:26
  that.
• 8:26
  But, I mean, we personally became very, very, like, infatuated with the rating industry.
• 8:32
  I think it's so cool, but, like, I'd never really been exposed to that before.
• 8:39
  It's.
• 8:39
  It's just showing that, like, you can have a background in this and the point we're making.
• 8:44
  You're not going to know it all, you're going to know horses, but you might not know everything about how every discipline works.
• 8:51
  You just can't.
• 8:51
  So you have to be willing to know that you can't know all of that in order to be successful.
• 8:56
  I just don't see any, any other way around it.
• 8:58
  I totally agree, because I.
• 9:01
  But I think that curiosity and seeing the big picture are actually connected.
• 9:07
  Agreed.
• 9:08
  Because if, if you're convinced that you already know everything, you're probably only seeing one part of the sport, like you said.
• 9:16
  But curiosity forces you to keep looking, to keep listening, and to keep asking, what am I missing?
• 9:24
  Because Bill Moroney even said it in the town hall that he's responsible for Arabians, for dressage, for eventing, for hunters and jumpers, but for all kind of disciplines.
• 9:39
  And there's not one person who could actually be a hundred percent knowledgeable in every single one of those areas.
• 9:49
  Right.
• 9:49
  And, and maybe that's why that's harder today than it's ever been, because information comes at us constantly.
• 9:57
  Everyone has an opinion or a platform, and the challenge isn't finding the information anymore, it's figuring out what part is important.
• 10:06
  And you know what else I wrote down?
• 10:08
  Humility.
• 10:09
  That's interesting.
• 10:10
  Tell me why.
• 10:11
  Because I think there is a temptation, especially in a position like this, to believe that you're supposed to have all the answers.
• 10:18
  And I don't think that that's possible anymore.
• 10:20
  Sort of like what I was just talking about.
• 10:22
  The sport is just simply too broad.
• 10:25
  There's too many disciplines, and then, for lack of a better term, sub disciplines within that.
• 10:31
  And I think people respect someone who says, I don't know enough about that yet.
• 10:36
  Help me understand.
• 10:37
  And I will relate that back to insurance, too.
• 10:40
  Insurance is kind of crazy.
• 10:41
  There's a lot of nuanced stuff, and it all changes from company to company.
• 10:46
  And so if there is a question that somebody comes to me with that I don't have the answer to, I go, hang on one second.
• 10:53
  This is what I think the answer is going to be, but I'm going to get confirmation on that for you.
• 10:58
  Because why, why, why can't you just admit or say, hey, you know, that's a really great question, and I don't have the information that you need to give you the exact answer.
• 11:09
  So give me a moment, I'm going to find the answer and I'm going to come back to you.
• 11:12
  I would rather a salesperson or anybody tell me that a hundred times over than tell me the answer they think I want to hear and then not be the correct information.
• 11:21
  So, to me, that doesn't make someone weak.
• 11:23
  It makes them believable.
• 11:24
  I couldn't agree more.
• 11:26
  One of the smartest people I ever worked with used to say that the quickest way to stop learning was to believe that you'd already learned enough.
• 11:33
  Big mistake.
• 11:34
  That's right.
• 11:35
  And horse sports has a way of humbling us all.
• 11:39
  And just when you think you figured it out, a horse reminds you that you haven't.
• 11:44
  Every single time.
• 11:46
  Exactly.
• 11:47
  And maybe that's why so many great horsemen remain students their entire lives.
• 11:53
  And I do think that's something that business people forget.
• 11:58
  But if you're a student, you're always watching, you're always asking questions, and you're always willing to change your.
• 12:06
  Your mind when you learn something new.
• 12:08
  Which makes me think of another thing I'd be looking for, which is adaptability.
• 12:13
  I was hoping you'd say that, because I don't think that adaptability means changing with every opinion.
• 12:21
  It means recognizing when the world has changed enough that your approach has no choice but to evolve.
• 12:29
  And those aren't the same thing.
• 12:32
  Oh, yeah, for sure.
• 12:34
  There's a difference between reacting and adapting.
• 12:37
  And so if every criticism changes your direction, then you never actually lead.
• 12:44
  But if you ignore everything around you, you're not leading either.
• 12:49
  And I think this has been a lot of noise that we're hearing right now.
• 12:55
  And so it seems like if you're not leading, you're standing still while everyone else moves.
• 13:02
  And.
• 13:02
  And I think leadership lives somewhere between those two extremes.
• 13:07
  You know, it's funny, we still haven't ridden, quote, horse person on our list.
• 13:13
  I know, and I thought about that, because I think that's one of the biggest questions people are asking.
• 13:21
  Does the CEO have to come from within the horse industry?
• 13:25
  Well, and I don't.
• 13:26
  I don't even know that there's a.
• 13:27
  A simple answer to that.
• 13:29
  Sure.
• 13:29
  I.
• 13:30
  Personally, I feel like they need to have a background of some kind in that, but I.
• 13:35
  I don't think that it's as simple as that with a business this big.
• 13:39
  I would agree, because I've met extraordinary leaders who weren't experts when they started, and I've met lifelong horse people who aren't or weren't particularly good leaders.
• 13:52
  They're completely different skill sets.
• 13:55
  Well, exactly.
• 13:55
  I mean, experience gives you context in.
• 13:59
  In the job purview, if you will, but it doesn't exactly give you vision for where it needs to Go.
• 14:06
  So it gives you, gives you an in, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you can take it somewhere other than where it is.
• 14:12
  And vision without context can be dangerous too, which tells me that this probably isn't an either or question.
• 14:21
  It's probably about finding someone who knows what they know, knows what they don't know, but is willing to build a team around both.
• 14:30
  Well, I think that's probably true in every successful organization.
• 14:33
  The strongest leaders I've worked with weren't trying to be the smartest person in, in every room.
• 14:38
  They just made sure that the room contained people who knew more than they did or could contribute to, to their ideas, knew that they would be, you know, the prop.
• 14:49
  Because a leader is only as good as the people that they surround themselves with.
• 14:53
  You can even have a bad idea and still be a good leader if you can encourage the people around you to prop you up.
• 15:01
  Absolutely.
• 15:02
  That's leadership and not pretending to have every answer, but creating an environment where the best answers can emerge.
• 15:10
  And I think that's critical, as you said, in any business and in any organization.
• 15:17
  And I think when I see that all the names and the things that people are talking about, I don't know that we've gotten to that point yet.
• 15:29
  Well, you know, as a thought too, I think it's interesting that the leader is important.
• 15:35
  I agree with that.
• 15:37
  You have to have good surrounding support staff.
• 15:40
  So everybody's like, oh, new CEO, new CEO, that's going to solve all of our problems.
• 15:44
  This, that, and the other.
• 15:45
  And like, you know, it's it regardless of it, clearly a new CEO is coming your way.
• 15:49
  But like, you've got to make sure that support also makes sense.
• 15:55
  People who are willing to challenge, who are willing to ask questions to the leader, and, you know, it can go bottom up or, or top down.
• 16:03
  I think both are, are very, very important, which is, you know, something that we haven't talked about is trust.
• 16:09
  I'm glad you brought that up because I think trust is earned very differently today than it was 20 years ago.
• 16:15
  Ooh, how so?
• 16:16
  Well, people have more access to information than they've ever had before.
• 16:22
  They're more connected, they're more informed.
• 16:24
  They're also more willing to question decisions.
• 16:27
  And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
• 16:30
  It just means trust has to be built continuously.
• 16:34
  It isn't something that you earn once.
• 16:37
  And I think here again, this has been something that has been a gigantic criticism that we're hearing all along for numerous different reasons.
• 16:48
  Well, and it probably doesn't come from always making popular decisions either.
• 16:53
  No, I don't think so.
• 16:54
  I think sometimes leadership requires making decisions that won't be popular.
• 16:59
  The question is whether people believe that those decisions were thoughtful or fair or made for the right reasons.
• 17:08
  And that's different than everybody just agreeing on something.
• 17:13
  Agreed.
• 17:13
  I mean, it's interesting.
• 17:15
  When we started this conversation, I thought we'd spend potentially the whole episode talking about, like, who should become the next CEO.
• 17:22
  I thought we might talk about who it should be, too, but instead, we've never talked about a single candidate.
• 17:29
  Because I don't really think that's the conversation we wanted to have.
• 17:33
  I mean, someone else will choose the person.
• 17:36
  That's not our role.
• 17:37
  But what interested me was something much bigger.
• 17:41
  This search has given all of us, and we see that, and I say all of us, and I mean all of us, the opportunity to stop and ask, what does our sport need from leadership right now?
• 17:56
  Yeah.
• 17:57
  Not 20 years ago, not 10 years ago now.
• 18:01
  And I think that's a worthwhile conversation, whether you're talking about the federation or a breed organization or a local horse show or even your own barn.
• 18:12
  Because leadership isn't just about the title.
• 18:15
  It's.
• 18:15
  It's about understanding the moment that you're in right this minute.
• 18:19
  Well, and I think that that's probably really what we've been talking about more today than anything.
• 18:24
  It's.
• 18:24
  It's not just a job description.
• 18:28
  It's a description of the time that we're in now and the moment that we're in now.
• 18:33
  And I think that that's really important for the person.
• 18:36
  You know, everybody's like, oh, I want to participate in assisting with this, or I have an opinion, and I think we all have opinions.
• 18:44
  But I also would.
• 18:45
  Would beg the question that the person who thinks that they are up for the task.
• 18:51
  Have you heard all of everyone's opinions and thoughts?
• 18:55
  Do you feel like you're up for the task?
• 18:58
  Because it's.
• 18:59
  It's a big role to step into.
• 19:01
  And I don't think that any one person is going to be praised for every decision that they've ever made.
• 19:07
  Like you said, you know, you're going to have to make some unpopular decisions for the betterment of the broader group.
• 19:15
  Right.
• 19:15
  Because it's not just us.
• 19:16
  It's not us, just us hunter jumper people.
• 19:19
  There's other disciplines to consider across the board.
• 19:24
  But I.
• 19:25
  I think that you're right in that everybody is just trying to enjoy the sport that they love.
• 19:34
  Ultimately, I think if you Strip it back.
• 19:37
  The base of the membership are people who really want to participate, and our owners or amateurs, they want their kids to be in it.
• 19:49
  But there are trainers to consider.
• 19:52
  There are people who are at the top level of our sport in the Olympic category that are there making money, doing this for a living.
• 20:01
  It's a lot of disciplines, and it's also a lot of groups to have to please.
• 20:06
  And that's a.
• 20:07
  That's a big shoe to fill.
• 20:10
  Big shoe to fill.
• 20:11
  It's a huge thing.
• 20:13
  And I.
• 20:13
  I think that every generation inherits the sport at a different point in its history, and none of us get to choose the chapter that we arrive in, right?
• 20:23
  We only get to decide what we contribute to the next one.
• 20:26
  And maybe that's true for all of us, not just the next CEO.
• 20:30
  Whether we're writers or, like you said, parents, professionals, judges, owners, or even volunteers, we're all helping to write the next chapter.
• 20:42
  The question isn't simply who leads, it's what kind of sport are we asking them to lead?
• 20:51
  Because once we understand that, then maybe the job description almost writes itself.
• 20:58
  And to me, that's a conversation worth having.
• 21:01
  I think we'd get some very interesting perspectives on all of that.
• 21:05
  Yep, I think it is.
• 21:07
  So we'll see you next week, and let's ride.