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353- Mastering the art of Flexible IT Leadership with Kevin Eikenberry · You've Been Heard

• 0:03
  Speaker A: So, yeah, man, you're kind of a big deal. Flexible leadership. I'm more a fan of inflexible leadership, but, you know, people tell me I'm wrong. Everyone out there listening. You're listening to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Today we're talking with, I believe he's going to be a super nerd, Kevin Eikenberry. He's read. He's written the book Flexible Leadership, which obviously is like, you know, you don't want to be an inflexible leader, but, you know, talk to me, man. What's this?
• 0:26
  Speaker B: A lot of people are. I don't. I will have to see if I can, if this will qualify me as a nerd. I don't know. Maybe I'll just be dissected. I don't know. We should.
• 0:35
  Speaker A: Okay, we'll start with dissecting. We should. Oh, my gosh. Of course. Of course. My wife's calling me at the same time via some kind of weird computer application, via video. So I'm going to shut that off. Someone. I don't know what the problem is. You got to ignore your wife. You know, you got to ignore your wife when you're doing that is probably.
• 0:52
  Speaker B: Not the big message of this morning. Just saying, like, I mean, listen. My wife will probably not listen, but just in case. I am not advocating for that, Phil. You're on your own on that one.
• 1:04
  Speaker A: We'll have her listen to the show and see what she says. I should have brought her on live. It would have been, I wonder what she's got to ask. You know, I should have brought her on. We should do that. We should allow, you know, we allow interruptions on this show from significant others. Just as that would be like a good. That'd be like a good section of the show. We should do that. You know, like wife interruptions. What are the top three interruptions you get? What are the top three interruptions you get from your life on a daily basis? You know what I mean? She'd be like, can I borrow the card to do this? Yes, take the card. Or can I pay for the. Yes, of course. Like, what are you talking about? Just do it. Why are you asking?
• 1:39
  Speaker B: That's all flexible.
• 1:40
  Speaker A: I'm flexible.
• 1:41
  Speaker B: That's all about having clear boundaries and expectations. Like, those things you don't have to ask. Those are all good.
• 1:46
  Speaker A: How can we turn this into a flexible leadership conversation? See, I'm flexible. Flexible. Gosh, Just ignore your team members. That's probably a number one rule in your book. I'm sure, you're open too.
• 1:57
  Speaker B: You are over two, Phil. Don't ignore your team members, don't ignore.
• 2:02
  Speaker A: Your spouse, and, and don't be inflex and don't be, you know, inflexible. Okay, let's go. Come on, man, talk to me.
• 2:09
  Speaker B: Because here's the thing. I mean, can I just say that, you know, because you just, you, you said something, you know, you're, you're just sort of riffing off the word flexible and saying, well, you know, I'm a fan of being inflexible. Who wants to be inflexible? And so that's actually one of the big points of the book. And that is that a lot of, most everyone will say, well, yeah, I want to be flexible. Yeah, I want to, you know, do that. And yet on the other hand, they will say, well, but aren't I supposed to be consistent? And aren't supposed to people supposed to know like, where I stand? And so then they start to do this. Well, if I'm. This, I can't be that, right? If I'm flexible, I can't be stable and I can't be consistent. And I would suggest that those aren't opposites, that they're symbiotic, and that rather than thinking about the world as an either or, we have to think about it as both. And at some level that's kind of filled the underlying idea of the book that it's not about I have to pick a spot, or I've been, or I assume I'm in a spot in my approach, but rather how do I flex? And I can do that and still get great results for everybody.
• 3:17
  Speaker A: So the majority of the listeners are fairly senior IT level managers, CTOs, CIOs, IT managers, and they have to be probably maybe some of the most flexible because technology is perfect and nothing ever goes wrong in the technology world. And every implementation that you do goes as smooth as possible.
• 3:40
  Speaker B: I'm taking notes on that, Phil.
• 3:43
  Speaker A: So, um, and just the nature of, of business in general, mergers, acquisitions, technology, AI adoption, employees coming and going, taking computer systems and applications and putting them together and make them work for a very diverse, diverse crowd of people is very, very, is very, very difficult. Um, so the, if you were, if you were inflexible or very rigid or, you know, tunnel vision type of thing, which can be a problem if they're very kind of engineering mindset, you know, with like the blinders on and we're, we're working this direction towards a solution. I can only see one way would be problematic. So maybe you can speak to that dilemma that I just described to you and you know, give us some, some simple pointers or some simple methodologies, so to speak, to, to deal with some of that.
• 4:42
  Speaker B: So here's the first thing. I would say that you just said something in passing. That's a really important point, and that is that we come into our role as a leader in the case of those of you listening today in the IT world. But you came from different backgrounds, you got here in different sorts of ways, and that's all good. But many of you, if you got into a senior level, you've taken some sort of workshop, you've taken some sort of course, and you've taken some sort of assessment and you have determined, or the assessment determined for you what your strengths are, what your style is, or I'm an engineer, right, or what, however you want to frame that. And the point is, all of those things are useful until they aren't. And when they be, when they become not useful, Phil, is when it does, as you said, put our blinders on. Because, see, here's the thing about flexibility, that as we're talking about it, it's flexible in approach, right? What should be the same for us as a leader, our principles, our values, our mission, all those things should be steady, solid as a rock. It's the how or the approaches that have to change. And we can think about that sort of from the approaches of the technology. But really what I'm talking about from is the perspective of how am I actually leading my team? Okay, how is it that I go about leading my team every day, right? And I might be very flexible and agile and able to think about, well, we need to take. Go to this technology, we're going to think about these vendors, we're going to try these things. Doesn't necessarily. But if we're making all of those decisions ourselves all the time, then I'm saying in that way you're not flexible at all. Right? And in a world that is more uncertain than ever, I would propose that trying to assume that everything has clear context and one person has to or needs to have all the answers is going to leave us falling short. If we think best practices are going to get us there, they're likely not.
• 6:43
  Speaker A: I'm frantically looking for a pen to write down all this very. These deep thoughts. And it's. I think it's probably good that I don't have a pen today because I have endless notebooks of just, just scribbles, right. That I Never look at again and I just throw away. So we're just gonna. Maybe this is the day that I become flexible and change that. So this is very deep, actually. So. Because I think if you ask the majority of people, how do you lead, like, literally, how do you consciously lead? Like, not just show up and be who you are and you know your systems and you know, how you do things or you know what needs to get done, and you look at this and you look at that.
• 7:21
  Speaker B: Yeah. Not how we manage, but how we lead.
• 7:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I don't think people could actually. Could actually tell them how they lead, like you said. I think they've gone to a course like I've. I've taken years ago. You know, I've probably gone through, you know, Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People maybe twice. I've, you know, I've read Atomic Habits. I've definitely gone through all the first, Break all the rules now, discover your strengths. And I've gone through that whole. That whole deal years ago. I've been through numerous leadership positions and courses, and I don't think I could tell you. I don't think if I'm being completely honest with myself, if you ask me how I lead, I would say I'm a mix of, you know, you know, this, this and this and prioritizing. And I need. I know when I need to get out of my own way, and I probably don't do that enough.
• 8:09
  Speaker B: So I think one of the most important things to think about here and, and because here's the thing, just like you said, Phil, we tend to lead whether we can label it or not. Right. If we can label it, then that becomes our identity, which is the problem. Right. Because then the blinders come. Well, I lead because I lead this way. I lead because I have. I'm a trained engineer. I lead because I have these strengths. This is how I lead. But whether we have that piece or not, what you're saying, I think is true for many leaders. Many leaders, excuse me, because we just do it on autopilot. We do it based on our habits. We do it based on our learned experiences, which we probably quit trying and working on relearning a long time ago. So we're basically set in our patterns. And I'm suggesting that in a world that is more uncertain, complex, and complicated than ever, that we have to be willing to say, is that approach going to get me the results we need? Need that the team needs or not.
• 9:13
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• 10:04
  Speaker A: So what do we need to do? Give I want your best thing. I want to know.
• 10:08
  Speaker B: So, so here's the thing, let's just take so there are three parts to the, to the approach. One is intention, which we've been getting at like even being aware that maybe I need to think about doing something other than what comes automatic. The second is what's the context of our situation? And we can come back to that if you want. And I've hinted at that by saying that the context of our world is more complicated and uncertain than ever. But the third part where I want to go to give you something tangible is this idea of a flexor. So here's the idea of a flexor. I'll give you an example of one that everyone who's listening can connect with. So the question for all of you listening is this, do you want to lead for commitment or compliance? And most leaders will say and I, because I've done this with all sorts of groups, including one with several hundred on a webinar last week and like 95% of you, well, I want to lead for commitment, I want to lead for commitment. I people to be committed. I want accountability, I want ownership, I want engagement. Like I want to lead for commitment. And yes, all the research says that's not really where we're getting. So even if that's what we want, are we getting it right? So here's, so here's the flexer compliance, commitment. And most people, and even honestly the way I framed the question says which do you want? And I'm even that is really the wrong or an unfair question because the right question is which do I need more of right now? Right? So I'm, I'm with the group who says generally speaking I want to be on the, I see on the commitment side, like I want to Be. I want my team to be committed to the work, committed to the team.
• 11:45
  Speaker A: To have ownership and feel creative, be happy, come into work every day like they love it. This is the best job ever. But in reality, what you get a lot of times is, well, we need to get a job done okay at the end of the day. So we're really getting as people that are complying with what needs an end result that needs to happen, happen.
• 12:02
  Speaker B: And they're saying, yes, boss. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. I'm of the opinion that leaning toward commitment is, generally speaking, a better answer. And even though that's the direction I want to lean, there are times that all we really need is compliance. Sometimes all we need is, we just need to get this done today. And there's a high enough level of trust and, and people will follow the like. Everyone knows there's a pretty simple, straightforward, someone needs to decide, and if the boss decides, I can be in with that. But if we lead like that all the time, that's not the right answer. So the challenge of the Flexor is the ends of the spectrum by themselves are rarely the best answer. The right answer is somewhere in between, and it depends on the situation.
• 12:48
  Speaker A: I'm assuming you have to have good foundations because people are going to. It's kind of like being in the army, right? Like, people are going to just take orders, right. But they know why they're taking orders ultimately, and they have to, like, there's a certain kind of level of, like, once you get to a certain decision, even if there was, you know, once, once the decision in order is made, you, you just, you just follow orders because. So there has to be. And I'm just thinking of a situation. Let's just say there's an ERP implementation which could be very, very complicated and take a very, very long time. Right. And that's one of those things where we just need to get the job done, but we know that if we get the job done efficiently and fast and everything, then the commitment piece is like the light at the end of the tunnel. Kind of like when we're, when we're done with the job, then we can like, maybe enjoy the fruits of our labor a little bit more and, and, and, and have a little bit more visionary speak and things like that. So I'm assuming that's kind of what you're getting at. At least that's what I'm imagining.
• 13:43
  Speaker B: That's part of it. And what I would say is in the midst of that multiple, multiple month ERP implementation Right. Like we can say that ultimately the business drivers say we have to have this new arp, erp, we have to have it by this point in time for these reasons and all that stuff, like the business drivers are there and the facts are there and ultimately we just need to get it done. And yet there are moments of time during a week or during a month or in a phase of the project when maybe what you need to do is lean more the other direction for a bit. Maybe what you need to do is say, hey, here's ultimately where we need to get. What do you all think is the best way to do this thing inside of this? Like, what are we engaging our folks in the micro decisions along the way at the appropriate times? And that's where context comes in. So this is, again, it's not just like, well, it's an erp, it's a big project. So that, so it's about, it's about compliance. And then, oh, hopefully when we're done, we get there. But like, how many people do we burn out along the way? And we don't. We never get there. Or because of the way we led the project, we make it really hard to move. To move us, move the team to the other direction later. How do we manage that along the way would be my point.
• 14:56
  Speaker A: I don't know which question to ask you next. We need some.
• 14:59
  Speaker B: Well, what.
• 15:01
  Speaker A: I've got a bunch.
• 15:02
  Speaker B: You don't ask any. It's a shorter podcast.
• 15:03
  Speaker A: Let's see if we. We need some. We need some like fire branding questions here, let's see here. That one. Well, you have a couple things in here that, that are fascinating to me. Leading in a distance and remarkable results. So how do you lead at a distance and get remarkable results? I want both. I want to lead at a distance. I just want to check out. I have a friend, he runs a very, very good and efficient software development company. And he said to me, he's like, look, one day, Phil, he's like, I sold the one guy. I said, hey, look, you're the boss. You're like the big boss man, okay? You're in charge of all this. You know the results, you know what you're doing, you know what needs to happen. You're in charge of the team. Don't ever call me. He's leading at a distance. Okay, now that might be a little bit over exaggerated, but he's leading at a distance and he's getting remarkable results. And yeah, so.
• 16:01
  Speaker B: And that's, that's happening in that case. And I mean, I would. I would love to dissect that a little bit more with him. I mean, not, not hypothetically with you here, but here's what I'd say.
• 16:11
  Speaker A: It's like, how does Elon Musk do everything? How does Elon Musk launch rockets? Run a. This company? X. How does he do it?
• 16:18
  Speaker B: Well, number one, you have to have. You have to have people that you can trust. And number two, you have to be willing. And I'm not. I'm not enough of a student of Elon to answer it from the Elon perspective. Right. And he's. He's kind of the. The extreme example anyway. Right. But let's just take it back a notch or two and say that if you want to be able to have to get remarkable results when folks aren't all around you and you're not seeing them all the time, or in your guy, your friend's case, maybe you don't want to talk to him, which I'm not sure I quite agree with, however.
• 16:51
  Speaker A: No, no, he's just. He just. He likes surfing a lot.
• 16:54
  Speaker B: I know, I know. So here's the point. The point is that we have to have people who understand the mission, who that you. You trust, that you have clear expectations with, and you have to let them go. Like, you know, I. I can ask. I can ask. Leaders say, think of the best leader you've ever thought of and then tell me why. And no one will ever say, well, they were a great micromanager. Like, no one wants to be led by a micromanager. And yet all of us have been led by one. Which means that it happens, even if people think they don't want to do it or they'd like to not do it. And the only chance you've got, whether people are down the hall or whether they're across the country or on the other side of the globe, is that you have to have clear expectations, clear picture of where you're trying to go, and you have to let them do it and give them a safety net when there's a challenge.
• 17:46
  Speaker A: Do you think it's possible that they have a hard time firing people and getting the right people in the right seats on the bus?
• 17:54
  Speaker B: Well, I think there's no question that there are people that have a hard time firing people. I have had challenges with that. I'm in many of those situations. Right.
• 18:03
  Speaker A: They get in micromanaging, they get into the micromanaging position. Position because they don't have the right person there that can do the job.
• 18:08
  Speaker B: That's one of the reasons they might have a whole lot of other reasons people micromanage and it is that they can't let go. It's not that they don't even have the. Sometimes they don't have the right person, no doubt, but more, I would say at least as often it's they want it done the way they want to do it in regard irregardless of how good that other person could do it, they can't let go.
• 18:28
  Speaker A: True.
• 18:29
  Speaker B: There's no doubt.
• 18:30
  Speaker A: I think that would be the. That's the stereotypical answer. I'm just trying to dig deeper into what some of the problems could be as to why someone gets stuck into a, you know, a micromanaging position because no one wants to be.
• 18:40
  Speaker B: I can give you a couple of them. Here's number one. People got promoted because they were really good at doing the work. Yeah, like really good at doing the work.
• 18:47
  Speaker A: But they're not a good leader in this world.
• 18:49
  Speaker B: In this world, they were really good coders. Right. And. Or really good project managers. Right. They were excellent at it. They were rewarded for it. They were recognized for it. They were promoted for it. But what the. What the role the new role requires is not to code, at least not all the time. Even if you're a working manager role where you're still going to code 30% of the time, you can't have all your focus on that part. See, we have our head connected to. That's what we're good at. That's what we were recognized for. That's what we have to still be good at. We're supposed to have all the answers. So psychologically, why wouldn't we then keep doing the work, keep checking the work that we're comfortable with, rather than doing the stuff now of guiding the team, setting the vision, all those things that are harder and they've never done before.
• 19:40
  Speaker A: So what would you suggest then, they. They do, rather than stand over some shoulder and tell them this is how you do it, would you guide them through the same learning process that you may have learned when you became a good coder? Like, hey, take. So this is the other thing that the guy that just said, don't ever call me. I left out the best piece of advice that he actually gave that person, which is, you're the best. You were the best, whatever, coder, project manager on the team, thus why I'm promoting you. Which may be the wrong reason to begin with, but I don't think it was. I don't think it was because he Also said, when there's a lot of work to be done, you guys need to work hard. And this goes back to the first part that we had just talked about, right? When there's a lot of work to be done, it's not, it's, it's just compliance. It's just compliance, right? There's a lot to be done. I want you guys to work hard when there's not a lot of work to be done. I want you to be leading the team and for them to be doing the work, but I want you to be spending the majority of your time learning and like, researching and upskilling yourself and doing that. So, but like, for me, for example, I, I, I'm a, I have a creative writing degree, yet I ended up in technology, okay? So I have a creative writing degree. I've been studying copy and writing copy, you know, for years and years and years. So one of the things that I have a hard time letting go of is the titles of episodes and the copy and the bullet points and stuff, right? But I've just let it go, right? And then like, I let it go and then I'll see like a dip in like some kind of like, you know, clicks or something or like, you know, it'll show up on the data. So then I'll be, I'll be back in it again, like micromanaging all of the copy because it's very, very, it's just difficult. Cop writing copy sometimes just comes naturally after years and years of experience. So now rather than what I did is we put like a, like in a, you know, in an agile kind of like a Kanban board type of style. Just put like more of a, of a training and coaching copy section. So you do the copy first, then I'll give the points, then you go back and change it and then come back. Would you say that, would you say that that's a good method?
• 21:48
  Speaker B: First of all, if that's working for your team and for you and isn't keeping you from doing other stuff, then that combined sort of flexible approach seems perfectly fine.
• 21:59
  Speaker A: But what if it is keeping me from other stuff? What if it obviously is taking me from other stuff?
• 22:03
  Speaker B: So then it's like, what are the things that there are things that you have in your head or metrics that you can see, Clicks, engagement rate, whatever it is that you like, you have Dashboard, whether it's in your headers for, you know, for real, that says, here's when I found myself sucked back in. So make sure that the team knows what Those measures are. Right. So rather than you just jumping in and taking away their ownership, fundamentally, when everyone, if everyone can see where that dip is, then it's a five minute, ten minute conversation. Why do we think that dip is being caused? Right. Maybe it's the copy, maybe it's not. Now, I'm going to guess in this case it probably is based on what you said. But in some more complex situations, guess what it could be. Because your expertise is copy. Every problem looks like. Because you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Right? So that's the thing you want to fix. Might not even be the thing that needs to be fixed, which is why we suck into our expertise, but rather we could say to the team, hey, the goal is we got to keep this set of metrics flat or up and to the right, whatever that is. Right. And that, and in your. If that's in your head when you found yourself going back in, make sure everyone can see it. And then let's have a conversation about that. And guess what? There may be sometimes that they would say, man, Phil, you're so good at writing the damn bullets. Would you just write the bullets?
• 23:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, everything he says, spot on.
• 23:27
  Speaker B: Because you see what I'm saying?
• 23:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, everything is spot on because I would say that maybe a small port of it. Portion of it was the copy and the other part of the problem was backlinks and who's promoting it and how it was posted.
• 23:45
  Speaker B: Because there's a. Because it. That is a comp.
• 23:47
  Speaker A: I just am personally attached to the copy. I'm just personally attached to. Like, come on, that's not exciting enough.
• 23:53
  Speaker B: Like, can't we just make the copy better? That'll solve everything. And it might help. Might not be the whole picture, but that's the thing that we all get sucked into. We get sucked into the piece that we knew the best. And so now if you're listening and you're at this in the C suite, you're a very high level on it. Guess what? There's a whole lot of stuff in your organization, in the details like Phil's describing that. I guarantee you they know better than you do. Even if you used to do it, because look how much of it's changing.
• 24:21
  Speaker A: Okay, so how do we uncover that?
• 24:22
  Speaker B: How do we uncover which part of that.
• 24:24
  Speaker A: My, my, my. Like, how do we uncover that stuff that you don't know what you don't know, Right? So this is like it, guys. And. Or a lot of people hate that. Ah, stop giving me that. I don't Know what? You don't know. That's just a. You know, it's like a way of. Like, it's something that salespeople like to say. Right?
• 24:38
  Speaker B: Well, let's just. Let's just say it's very specifically for, you know, those of you who are listening right now. Right. I'm not talking to Phil. I'm talking to all of you. Like, if you've been in a senior IT role or any length of time, it shouldn't be hard to realize that there's a bunch of stuff that your team does that you can't do anymore or you can't do like you used to be able to do because so much has changed. Like, you don't even have to. You don't even. I don't. We don't have to figure out which piece it is. Just I think that we can all agree to that fact. Right. So then the question is, how do we get better at asking the questions to uncover the stuff rather than just rolling up our sleeves and going in ourselves? So it really does start with an awareness that I have blind spots, even if I don't know what they all are. Right. Like, maybe we just kind of uncovered one for you. Phil around. It's not just the copy, right?
• 25:34
  Speaker A: No, it's certainly not. It's like how you know what other things are really.
• 25:38
  Speaker B: Right. And so that's the point.
• 25:39
  Speaker A: Where else could we spend this time? Like, do we need to spend really all of our time on this? Or where else could we spend our time that would actually move the bar 4, 5x7, the next 10x what it is in, you know, a fraction of the time, as opposed to worrying about how much time is being spent on production.
• 25:57
  Speaker B: And I would propose to all of you listening that it's our job to ask that question. It's not our job or even possible for us to know all the answers to that. We have answers. Our answers are useful, but they're not the only answers. Our job is to ask that question. Because all of now go back to when you were an individual contributor, all of you listening, and remember all those times, like, well, if they would just listen to. Like, we're the ones doing the work. We see it. See, here's the thing about leading. We need as a leader. And this is another reason why it's hard sometimes for us when we get promoted from within. As a leader, we have to have what I would call a bird's eye view. We have to see at a higher level. So let's just imagine that I'm a bird, and I'm looking at a forest. I see a bunch of trees, okay? But if I'm an individual contributor, I don't see that. I'm, like, down on the ground. So I like to call it the bird's eye view and the worm's eye view. I'm not saying that our employees are worms. Don't misunderstand that. But if a worm is looking at the tree in front of them, it looks very different to them than that same tree looks to a bird. Right. And the worm has a perspective that is useful, and the bird has a perspective that's extraordinarily useful. And if, as leaders, we're not lifting our sight to look higher, to look broader, and to look further than no one will, because no one can. That's our job.
• 27:18
  Speaker A: It's pretty deep metaphor.
• 27:20
  Speaker B: Even though I called. Even though I implied that people are worms, which they aren't.
• 27:26
  Speaker A: The bird worm, bird worm metaphor. It's like the next. How can we work that into a. Into a book title? See, I already just went back into copy. Just went back into the copy.
• 27:34
  Speaker B: There you go.
• 27:35
  Speaker A: The burn worms.
• 27:39
  Speaker B: But I do think that that really, in some ways, encapsulates a lot of what you and I've been talking about for the last 15 minutes or so, right? About the challenge of us as we lead, to not get sucked in or to get sucked in at the right times. And because what we. What we see, what you run the risk of doing, and I'm not saying you are, Has a lot to do with the context of your actual team and who's on it and their confidence and their trust in you and all that stuff. But when you swoop in to work on copy, you run the risk, right, of sliding them all back to compliance. Well, like, whatever he says, that's what we'll do, as opposed to them having ownership not of the show notes, but of the result.
• 28:17
  Speaker A: Okay, top three questions that you can ask your team today that will make a massive, let's say, thermonuclear difference and completely open up your eyes to what's going on in your organization. Top three questions that a leader should ask his team that he can take from this ep, he or she can take from this episode today and ask their team.
• 28:43
  Speaker B: I'll ask the qu. I'll give you the questions, and I have to have. And then I've got a caveat. Or so question number one is, what do you see that I don't see? Question number two, if you were in my Spot. What would you change?
• 28:57
  Speaker A: Love it.
• 28:58
  Speaker B: Question number three. Well, I got four. Question number three, what are, what other opportunities do you see? Question number four. What, what worries you?
• 29:05
  Speaker A: Freaking love.
• 29:06
  Speaker B: So opportunities and threats question. Right?
• 29:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, I love it.
• 29:08
  Speaker B: Here's the caveat. So I said I, I'm going to give you the question. I'm gonna give you a caveat. If you have a team, if you've not asked questions often or questions like that often, asking them now will give you blank stares.
• 29:22
  Speaker A: I have, I have a way of delivering it. I have a way of delivering that then.
• 29:25
  Speaker B: Right.
• 29:26
  Speaker A: Send out an anonymous survey or let that, or, or well, see here, one of the most valuable things that I did and that came from first break all the rules or whatever that was book a long time ago, which is, and it's, it only, it kind of works if you have a big team, if you only have two people then you know, it might be like, it might be difficult. Right? But if you have a team of like 20 or 30 people then you can't tell really who's who. Right. So you put like the leader on the team, you have all those questions. It's a lot more than three or four, right? Yeah, you put, you let them meet without you there and let them answer all those questions and roundtable, you basically have a roundtable discussion and have someone facilitate it. Yes, have someone facilitate it, take all the questions, put it in a vanilla envelope, type it all up typed and deliver the feedback to you as a leader anonymously. And it might be one of the most eye opening, eye opening, challenging experiences you've gone through for sure.
• 30:22
  Speaker B: So the other half of my caveat is yes, so you can certainly ask those questions and honestly find out what. And you don't necessarily ask them in front of the whole group and then ask them to like share their thoughts, you know, live in front of everybody else in front of you. But I will say this, that if you have, if you have a culture and if you have working relationships where trust levels are higher, the need for anonymity will go way down and it will actually be richer. Because now I can get context because now you can give me some feedback and I can say tell me more about that, which I can't really do with the typed up results. So 100% use that, use that kind of an approach. But as you build the culture in your organization of trust, you can more likely get those, some, at least some of those answers from.
• 31:12
  Speaker A: 100% agreed. 100% agreed. I've received some very vicious I don't want to say vicious, but like difficult feedback because it's a way of being, I guess, or saying or.
• 31:27
  Speaker B: And people feel safe to share with you.
• 31:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. I had a friend once say that it's like it's better to get like a. It's better to get like an insult and a slap from like a trusted friend than like, you know, like a piece of feedback from someone that's like, you know, not really trustworthy or whatever. That's just telling you kind of like what you want to hear or something like that. Right. You know what I mean? It's better to get like, you know, it's better. Yeah, yeah. So.
• 31:52
  Speaker B: Because here's the thing about feedback. It's not just about we have to.
• 31:56
  Speaker A: For.
• 31:56
  Speaker B: In terms of us receiving feedback or giving fee. Either way, like, it has to be heard. Understood. The ultimate goal of feedback is that people use it. Right. But it's not just heard. Understood. There's another step. It's called accept. And what you're saying is, well, I'm looking at that person, I'm looking at their position, I'm looking at their expertise, I'm looking at my relationship with them before I decide whether I'm going to accept that or if I'm going to take action on that or not. Right. But if I get it from a friend or someone that I trust or someone that and someone that I know has expertise here, then I'm much more likely, like, I probably ought to pay attention.
• 32:31
  Speaker A: Yes. There's this thing going around a lot lately. I find that these trends happen. I don't know if it's AI and social media and people feeding me stuff on a new level. And I think AI and social media and how they're pixeling me and recording me secretly through my cameras all over the place and on my cell phone and listening to me and spying on me, all that stuff. I'm very much a. I've. I've become more of a conspiracy theorist as I got older. I don't know if this is just something that happens with old age or not, but I say that in fun as well. I should do. I would love to do a show on just crazy stuff. The. Where was I going with this?
• 33:07
  Speaker B: Do that. Right. You have the power to do that.
• 33:10
  Speaker A: The. Is it okay to be a quitter? And the reason why I'm saying is what's going around a lot is this like, you know, a lot of people stay in things for too long, but I'm very much one of the ones that's like, built everything on grit, right? Like, I remember, you know. You know, like how the grit, the grit goes around a lot sometimes, too, you know, that. That whole. Like, that, like, you know, you got to have grit, and grit's the main thing that separates people from the. From, like, you know, the successful people from the whatever, you know. And Tony Robbins used to always say, you know, like, hard work and whatever beats out talent any day, you know, hard work and grit, you know, and, you know, just, you know, pushing through and just, you know, being able to be take on pain and suffering, you know, is so good. And even the video guy or whatever, he's saying that too, you know, he's like, I love pain and suffering. If I. If my. So if my employers are going through a lot of pain and suffering or I tell them that's good, that's good, because that's. That's where we learn and get developed and stuff, you know, And I don't know if he said pain and suffering, but something along those lines. And. Yep. But there is a sometimes where you're still kind of like, spinning the wheels too long and you've got to just give up and quit or. And when. And. Or it's. Or it's like, hey, this. Maybe this guy's not in the right position or whatever. And it's, look, when do we call it quits? When do we quit? Is it okay to be quit?
• 34:27
  Speaker B: There's a great book with that title called Quit by Annie Duke. And in all seriousness, it's a great book. And I would say this, and I'll Just for the purposes of our time, I would say think about the bird's eye, worm's eye view. Right. Like, I think probably most people listening to this buy into have lived in that grit, work hard, be persistent, be resilient thing. You said you have. I know I have. And yet sometimes we need to lift our eyes and look and say, are we trying to burrow our way through that tree when all we need to do is walk around that tree? And the bird would see that and the worm never would. And so I think that one. A short answer to part of that question is to. Is that perspective matters so much. Which takes us back to part of our formula, which is that word of context, Right? And so to me, context is like, the more we understand the context, the smarter we get about anything. Right? And so when we're in the middle of that banging our head, pushing forward, we need to step back enough to say, well, if. What if we moved over 12ft and moved forward again and made another right hand turn. Would that be different? Right. Like, are we trying just to try or are we trying intelligently? Right. Like the goal is still the same. Should we be looking differently or maybe has the world changed and we want a slightly different go?
• 36:03
  Speaker A: So it's okay to quit because you're burrowing, because you're burring, burrowing through a tree? I think, I think that it's more like pivot. I guess it's more like a pivot. It's more.
• 36:13
  Speaker B: Well, I think it's. I think, yeah. Part of, part of it is how you define quit. Part of it is, you know, how quickly are you quitting? Right. Is it. Are. If the, if the question is, are there times when quitting is the right choice, I would say the answer is 100. Yes. That's my personal answer. I probably need to hear that as much as anybody.
• 36:32
  Speaker A: Yes. Well, we've had it happen before. We've had people. I was so inspired, I went and quit. I was like, okay, that's awesome. Kind of. All right, what else do we have? What's your final. If you had, you know, one final message or something to deliver to, to the listeners out there, to the leaders in the world, what would that be?
• 36:57
  Speaker B: Well, in the, in the context, Phil, of what we've said, what we've talked about, and thanks for having me, and.
• 37:02
  Speaker A: I do have a 0.5. I am gonna, I'm gonna reserve a second, a follow up question to that, but go, that's fine.
• 37:07
  Speaker B: So here, here's in the context of our conversation, here's what I'd say. In a world that is more uncertain than ever, the best antidote we have to, that is to be flexible. Because we. Uncertainty happens because there are things we don't know and things that we probably can't know. So being willing to flex in our approach is our only chance to move to, over time, reduce that, that uncertainty. So the anti, the antidote for uncertainty is flexibility.
• 37:37
  Speaker A: And guys, you can do that just in anything. It's actually something that I realized a long time ago, which is you can be flexible in your life in general. You don't have to stay living in that house, making payments on that mortgage for the rest of your life and be buried in the backyard. You really don't have to if you don't want. I have lived in multiple different countries for different periods of time. I have completely ignored the person that says, like travelers is the fool's paradise or whatever that is. I've completely ignored That I don't believe that. And although my wife did say, can we make this the last move, please? Because we've moved like, you know, like six times. And like, I can understand that, I can understand the pain of that, but there's a lot of things that you can experience in this life and in this world without having to just continue doing the same thing over and over and over again, forever hoping that there's going to be this weird light at the end of the tunnel where I cash out my 401k and sail off on a pirate ship into the Caribbean and retire with this great life. Because by that time you're probably going to have a couple slipped discs, some other aches and pains, some itises. The itises are going to start to come in and by that time it's like this, you know, false perception of, like, what the future really brings. So with that being said, from the flexibility of leadership and everything, do you have. What's the end game for a lot of people? I think a lot of people are in this thing and they're kind of, you know, they're going on day to day, which is not, it's not a problem if you're passionate about what you do and you just love doing it. And I'm just going to keep doing this. But what's the legacy mindset that people should have? Should they have this mindset of leaving a legacy and wanting to, you know, you know, give back more than they take from this world? Because most of us are just really, really, really just adding to the, what are the, those trash, big trash areas that they cover up and then have to put the little, the hose on it for the nitrogen gas to landfill, most of us are just adding to the landfill and eventually we're going to become part of that landfill anyways. So what's the, what's the problem with this constant capitalistic mindset and constantly going, do we have any, do, do we fail to have any future, future legacy thoughts or anything like that?
• 40:05
  Speaker B: Well, you know, I, I don't, I don't like to answer shoulds for other people. Right. So I can answer the question for me. And that to me, the, the role of leading, not necessarily the position of being a leader, but the role of leading in whatever part of our life that might be, is, is, is the best way to leave a legacy. If that's your goal, if that's not your goal, that's fine. But I'm guessing if you're listening to the show and you've been listening to Phil's podcast for some period of time. You, you are, you're leading in a way and you are, you care about doing it, or you wouldn't choose to spend your time listening to these podcasts. You'd listen to music instead. Right. And there's nothing wrong listening to music. Don't misunderstand me. But like, I'm guessing you're somewhat self selected if you're hearing these words that at some level, legacy is a part of what you want to do. And I would suggest that be. Nothing positive happens in the world without someone leading. Things can devolve alone, but they can't evolve without.
• 41:09
  Speaker A: It's funny that you brought up the music thing because I gave up. I gave up music a long time ago and I used to be a guy that was like that, that's like a. That's like a deep conversation for, for like another level. For like another time.
• 41:20
  Speaker B: Like you gave it up. Like, you don't listen to.
• 41:22
  Speaker A: I used to play. I used to play guitar, I used to play piano. I used to be like, really, like hardcore. Like, and it's just, it's interesting. So. But I, I like, like you said, like, there's no should for another person. I actually happen to believe that a lot of good leaders are in a leadership position. Not because they chose to or they even wanted to. They kind of fell into it and it happened to them. Which is interesting because most of the people that are in IT leadership in an IT leadership position nowadays fell into that position because it wasn't a real thing back in the day. No one went to school for it. They're all engineers or they were someone else that just knew how to fix printers. Well, back in the day. And then one thing led to another and now they're the CTO or the CIO because there was no school for IT back then. I mean, if you think about it, think about when you were growing up, what was the technology that you had? What'd you have, an lp? I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to insult you by going down to like, you know, like eight track, but. I remember eight tracks. I remember. Okay, that's it. I just wanna, I just didn't want to go there without going there right.
• 42:26
  Speaker B: In the middle of the song. Right.
• 42:30
  Speaker A: You know, it's just crazy. There was no cell phones. There was no. None of that. So that the fact that we're in this, you know, you know, if you thought the industrial revolution was a big thing, we're like, we're the history book right now, we're like the history book being written that they're going to talk about maybe, I don't know, decades from now on, if we don't blow ourselves.
• 42:47
  Speaker B: There's no question about that.
• 42:48
  Speaker A: AI doesn't take over.
• 42:49
  Speaker B: You know, that's a whole other show about leading virtually and about everything that's happened about how the world society views work. That changed over a long weekend in March in the United States.
• 43:05
  Speaker A: It did happen it. March, exactly. March 3rd. March 17th.
• 43:10
  Speaker B: March 17th was a month, was the Monday. It started happening late that week.
• 43:15
  Speaker A: I was supposed to get on the plane on the. I was supposed to get on a plane on the, on the 16th or 17th and fly off and be in another country for three months. And that did not happen because three days before everything shut down and the.
• 43:28
  Speaker B: President came on television, said, if you're over, if you're a United States citizen and you're overseas, you need to get home. And my daughter was studying overseas and we had figured out how to get her home and she came home on the night of the 17th.
• 43:40
  Speaker A: I had people stuck, stuck in other countries for a long time. Some of them were like, dude, this is great. I'm stuck. There was a whole podcast I remember, done on like, like four kids that got stuck on like a, like some island in Indonesia and surfing and like, they kind of like lost their minds and kind of went crazy and were shaving their heads and stuff. They're like, yeah, like, it's just different when you're, like, surfing and getting barreled every day. And like, now it's your life and you're stuck here because of COVID and they kind of like lost. It was like, you know, you could probably go. There's like, there's a whole nother psychology type podcast thing on all that stuff. Either way, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. How can they get your book Flexible Leadership? What do we need to do? What do they want to click on? What do you. Where do you want us to send people?
• 44:27
  Speaker B: 3 things. First of all, if you go to. If you. Anywhere you buy books, if you look up Flexible Leadership, my name, you'll find it. And we'd love to have you buy a copy. Of course you can. You can follow me and connect with me on LinkedIn. You can go to our website, Kevin Ikenberry. I'll spell that for you in a second. Kevin ikenberry.com K E V I N E I K e n b E-R-R-Y.com and Phil, for everybody if they if they've made it through this conversation till now and you're listening to us, I've got a gift for you. The piece of in the book that we haven't talked a lot about is confidence and the role of confidence for us as leaders and for our teams. So I created a masterclass a couple years ago about how to build confidence in ourselves and others. And I want to give that to you as a gift. You go to this page kevininconberry.com gift. You can get that masterclass for free. And there's stuff there about the book too.
• 45:19
  Speaker A: Beautiful. And you're we'll put all of those links will be on your on the website page when we release the episode. So you guys can just click on the little LinkedIn box and it'll take you right to his LinkedIn page. And we'll do a special post inside the leadership community as well so that everyone can get the master class for free. Been a pleasure, sir. Thank you so much for being on Dissecting Popular IT Nerds.
• 45:43
  Speaker B: Thanks so much.