Latest / Something Extra / The Human Side of High-Stakes Tech w/ Larry Bonfante

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The Human Side of High-Stakes Tech w/ Larry Bonfante · Something Extra

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Larry Bonfante: What are the three most important things you want people to say about you,
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to say about their experience of working with you and their experience of working
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with your team versus passion?
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Because I always want people to feel that when they work with me, I'm
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never mailing it in.
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I'm never giving them some half baked effort.
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I'm bringing all my energy, all my passion, everything I have to every engagement
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and they know that they're getting the best for me, right?
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The second for me is results.
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I want them to know that when they worked with my team that the
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widget was going to come out of the machine on time, on budget, on
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value.
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And the third is integrity because I want people to work with me to
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feel that I say what I mean and I mean what I say.
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Lisa Nichols: It takes something a little more to lead with impact.
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I'm Lisa Nichols, author of Something Extra, and this podcast
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was inspired by our daughter, Ali, whose additional chromosome has shaped
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how I see people in leadership.
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Each episode features conversations with inspiring leaders from around the world
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about what truly defines how they lead and serve others.
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If you enjoyed today's conversation, please consider leaving a five star
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review.
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It helps more people discover the show.
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And if you'd like to go deeper, my book, Something Extra, is available on
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Amazon and through other major book retailers.
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I'm excited to have Larry Bonfante on the show today.
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Larry is the founder and CEO of CIO Bench Coach.
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Well, Larry Bonfante, welcome to the Something Extra podcast.
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I have been looking so forward to this time with you.
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Thank you so much for making the time.
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I know how busy you are.
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Larry Bonfante: It's my pleasure.
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So happy to be with you today, Lisa.
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Lisa Nichols: Happy to be with you too.
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I wanna read just a few things, and then we're just gonna get into
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a lot here.
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But,
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I just think this is so good.
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From the courts of the US Open to the boardrooms of Fortune 500 ,
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our guest today is a titan of leadership.
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He is a CIO hall of fame nominee, the founder of CIO
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bench coach, and a mentor to over four hundred world class
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executives.
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He's the author of "L essons in IT T ransformation," which I have a copy
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of here, and "R eflections of an E xecutive C oach," a classic
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rock musician, w e're gonna talk about that, Larry.
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And a master of turning tactical reality into strategic
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success.
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Welcome, Larry Bonfante.
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I'm so excited to have you.
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So, Larry, I always love to go back and tell my listeners
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how we met and how you know, they they wanna know, like, how do
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you get these guests, you know, on the podcast?
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And you are part of our leadership development team.
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In fact, you have led several of our technology leadership,
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workshops.
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You're getting ready to do a storytelling workshop for us that we're very excited,
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and we're just grateful to have you on the team.
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You, I get nothing but rave reviews about
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Larry after someone has experienced his session.
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Larry Bonfante: Well, that's so kind of you to say.
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Yeah.
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It's been my pleasure to be a part of the team now for going
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on eight years, doing countless TechLXs w orking as an
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Executive Coach for some of our clients and doing custom workshops
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from everything from storytelling to understanding the value of IT
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to understanding how to develop senior relationships so it's just been a real treat
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and a real gift to be able to work with our clients.
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Lisa Nichols: Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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And we always say that we are not necessarily teaching
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how to program in Java, how to program in Python.
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We're teaching the human side of technology, r ight, Larry?
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Larry Bonfante: Exactly.
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And that's really my focus.
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What I learned is when I started doing executive coaching is many leaders I
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work with very talented IT executives, very talented technologists, technology,
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talented business people but when you got to the point of how they engaged
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at the C suite, how they engaged in the boardroom, how they created relationships,
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how they communicated with people, how they motivated people, those weren't things that
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didn't always come naturally to IT executives.
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So that's really what I've worked in.
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I hate when people call it this, but people refer to it as soft
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skills, but to me soft skills have hard results.
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Lisa Nichols: That's a good way to put it.
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Yeah.
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Soft skills have hard results.
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And, gosh, sometimes in today's world, Larry, I've
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seen leadership change where I believe people are yearning
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for more the human side.
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Right?
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It's no longer just command and control.
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I mean, people, leaders need to have emotional intelligence
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and, understand a lot more about the human side and how
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to interact with people.
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My goodness.
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Our organizations are made up of people.
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Things do not happen without people.
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Larry Bonfante: Organizations are living, breathing organisms, alright?
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And they're made up of people and I always joke with my clients that
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depending on the culture you build and depending on how you lead people determines
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how they're going to engage at work.
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You know, we all lead volunteer armies.
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The people on our teams could decide to go take their role and go
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somewhere else.
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And I joke with people that there's two ways that an employee could think
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about life on a Monday morning.
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If they're working for a leader that they respect someone who treats them well
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someone who is an advocate for them and a partner for them they're excited
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about the work they do and the people they do it with they wake
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up on a Monday morning they say Good Morning God!
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And if they're working for somebody who doesn't respect them, who doesn't treat them
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well and they're not excited about the work they wake up on a Monday
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morning and say good God it's morning.
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So we have to be very thoughtful about the way we treat people and
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why we lead people in corporate America.
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Lisa Nichols: So incredible.
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And that is what you are so gifted at.
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So,
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Larry, you have led across the highest levels across multiple industries,
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multiple industries.
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When you look back, what drew you to leadership,
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not just technology?
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Larry Bonfante: To me, it was more about leadership than technology.
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I kind of almost got to technology by default.
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I had an internship my last year of college and I was gonna be
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a human resource director.
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I was working for an agency doing HR work and the IT director said
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we've got these new things these PCs people seem to like you, you seem
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to be able to work with them, would you like to train people on
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this and you offered me a whopping eighteen thousand dollars and before you knew
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it I was in IT.
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So but my real focus was on leadership because it was about how do
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we work with people to get results.
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And I think a lot of people try to get into leadership for the
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wrong reasons.
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They want to be leaders because they think they can control things.
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They can be the boss, they can dictate how things go.
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I get the big office, I get the big paycheck.
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But to me leadership isn't a privilege it's a responsibility.
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It's about being able to have an impact on other people's journeys and if
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you look at it that way then you come to it with the right
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heart and the right approach to it because it's all about servant leadership, it's
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all about helping people grow and all ships rise with the tide when you
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help other people grow then you'll succeed.
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You know, I found that in my career, whenever my focus was on helping
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my clients succeed and my people succeed, my career took off.
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On a rare occasion, I was more myopically focused on what's my next promotion,
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things kinda stalled out.
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Lisa Nichols: Yes.
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I could not agree more with that.
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Well, here's here's what you have said.
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I've read this somewhere that you learned the hard way
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how to be a CIO early in your career.
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Is there one mistake,
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Larry, that you made that shaped really,
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even more it shaped you as a leader more than success?
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Larry Bonfante: I think that early on, I was in leadership positions
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very early at the age of thirty, which quite frankly was a mistake on
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their part, but I'm glad they gave me opportunity.
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Lisa Nichols: Right.
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Larry Bonfante: But one of the things I learned is you don't lead people,
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you lead persons.
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When you try to take a one size fits all approach to leading people,
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it's a mistake because what excites Lisa, what excites Karen, what excites
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Joe are three different things.
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And to get the best out of these people, I need to know who
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they are.
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I need to know their strengths.
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I need to know their areas for development.
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I need to know what motivates them.
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The other thing I learned early on is we in corporate America make I
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think a common mistake.
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I certainly believe in development.
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Obviously, I'm an Executive Coach.
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So I believe in helping people get better at the things that are opportunities
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for development but one of the things we don't do well enough is find
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the things that people are good at and give them the opportunity to shine.
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Play to their strengths while we're working on their areas for development.
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I think so much time is spent focusing on, well, you need to get
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better at this without thinking about what are the things this person is already
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great at.
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How do we make sure that we give them opportunities to exercise
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those muscles so that they can be the best version of themselves at work.
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So I think it's a combination of continuing to develop people while giving them
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opportunities to shine.
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Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
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Yeah.
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I'm a huge believer in S trength F inders.
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And not that we should not address our blind spots.
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Sure.
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And let me just say we all have them, whether you believe it or
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not.
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That's why it's called a blind spot.
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Right?
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Sometimes we're blind to it.
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But I am such a big believer in playing to the strengths.
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Why wouldn't you do that?
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People tend to be more engaged.
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They tend to be more passionate Yeah.
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When they're working in their strength zones, I believe.
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Larry Bonfante: Yeah.
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I learned I learned an interesting lesson that my first day on the job
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at USTA, I was given a spreadsheet by our secretary
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treasurer of our board, and I shook his hand and said Jim it's nice
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to meet you.
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Could you tell me what the spreadsheet is?
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And he said this is your severance spreadsheet.
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You need to fire everyone.
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There's no one worth keeping.
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And I said well let's take a deep breath and let's do some due
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diligence to figure out what's going on.
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And there was one individual in particular that they wanted me to fire.
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And what I learned after working with this individual for a few weeks is
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that they had miscast him.
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They put him in a role where they asked him to be a budgeter,
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a politician, a presenter, and he was none of those things.
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But he was an excellent coach.
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He was an excellent technologist.
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He was great with the clients.
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And I shifted his role to focus on the things he was good at
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and I didn't fire him.
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And fifteen years later, when I left, he was still there.
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And he was considered a rock star because we found ways to play to
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those strengths while we were working on the areas where he was miscast.
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So a lot of times we do people an injustice by promoting them
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to a different set of muscles that they have and expecting that they're just
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gonna figure out how to do that.
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Lisa Nichols: Sure.
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That's such a wonderful leadership blessing right there.
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As a leaders, we need to pay attention.
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We need to pay attention and make sure that people are in the right
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seats.
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Well, is there a specific moment,
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and and you said, really, leadership was kind of your
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jam, if you will, from day one.
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But was there a specific moment that you realized, Larry,
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that I'm no longer just a technologist?
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I truly am a business leader.
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Larry Bonfante: There was a couple of things that were moments for me.
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One was the first time I walked into the room, all eyes were
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on me.
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Because when you are a leader, all eyes are on you.
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And people are going to model the behaviors that you exhibit.
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People are going to look to you for direction and you know we've all
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worked with people who are very good at talking the talk and God bless
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them.
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But talking the talk doesn't mean a whole lot if you're not walking the
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talk.
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And I learned very quickly that my people were gonna look to me and
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the way I carried myself had to be congruent with what I told them.
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And only if it was would they model those behaviors.
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And if I wasn't doing that, they would model behaviors I wouldn't be too
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excited about.
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So that was an moment.
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The other moment was when I realized when I asked for ideas
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and all eyes were on me that I had to make sure I created
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an environment where people felt comfortable contributing, collaborating,
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because none of us have all the ideas.
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But leadership isn't about having all the ideas.
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It's about bringing out the best in people to make sure that we bring
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the right ideas forward.
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So those were kind of a couple of lessons early on in my career,
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that really stood out in my mind.
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Lisa Nichols: Those are good lessons.
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Those are good lessons.
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Well, you've now spent nearly fifteen years as CIO.
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You were fifteen years as CIO of the USDA s upporting US Open,
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which I believe is the most highly attended sporting event ever.
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Right?
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Larry Bonfante: Most highly attended annual sporting event in the world.
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The only one that's hired just ended, which is the Olympics, which happens every
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four years.
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Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You know, and this is a live event,
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Larry.
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Very much so.
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With no do overs.
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Larry Bonfante: It's it's a live event and we used to lovingly refer to it as
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twenty one days of Black Friday because ninety percent of our annual
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revenue came from the proceeds of the US Open.
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So you don't get them all again.
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Okay?
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If the concessions system isn't working, that's a problem.
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If ticket scanning isn't working, that's a problem.
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If WiFi isn't working, that's a problem.
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So it it was a high wire act.
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It was a high pressure situation and my biggest goal was making
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sure that I kept people centered and kept them calm during
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the event.
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Because it's very easy when you're under that kind of pressure to make that
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pressure cave you in and you're hearing noise from every angles
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and my goal was to be the human shield so that people could focus
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on what they had to do and I was making sure that they had
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the opportunity to do that while I was providing political cover for them.
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Lisa Nichols: That's good.
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Yeah.
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I was gonna ask you, what did that teach you?
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And you just told me.
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So that's that's really good.
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Well so now you have coached other CIOs, high level C
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suite executives.
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How has that changed how you show up?
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Larry Bonfante: You know, I I think that one of the benefits,
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that I bring to the coaching opportunity.
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I've worked with a lot of people who are outstanding executive coaches,
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but they don't understand what it is to work in IT day in day
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out.
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Lisa Nichols: Right.
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Larry Bonfante: I've worked with a lot of IT executives who have tremendous expertise in running
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an IT organization but they don't necessarily know how to coach and mentor people.
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And I think one of the things that's helped me be successful in this
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is the ability to bring both of those things together.
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To have the empathy of understanding what their world is like because I'm not
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coming at it from a place of theory or academia I'm coming from a
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place of having lived that life for thirty five years.
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Right.
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But at the same token having worked with people and being able to understand
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how to nuance a message how to work with people who are coming from
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different perspectives to help them get that message and and tell the story in
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a way that resonates with them.
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So I think those sets of experiences combined have helped me be effective in
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what I do.
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Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You're very good at it.
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You coach over four hundred executives.
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Is there a common blind spot?
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Larry, we talked about blind spots before.
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Is there a common blind spot that you sometimes see in leaders, or are
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they all over the board?
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Larry Bonfante: Well, you know, every human being is different.
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Lisa Nichols: Yes.
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Larry Bonfante: So I need everybody where they live.
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So everybody is a little different and you have to support them in a
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little bit of a different way.
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There are some common themes that I see again and again, especially with IT
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executives.
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Communication
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critically important.
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Making sure because a lot of people think we've communicated
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but maybe not so much.
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Lisa Nichols: Right
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Larry Bonfante: So making sure you're telling people as much as you can as soon as you
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can as often as you can Constantly being on theme so
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that people get the message.
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Delivering that message in different ways through different media so that it resonates
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with people because people hear and learn different ways.
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So communication is so critically important.
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Something I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, Managing persons not
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people.
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Yeah, I love that.
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Really understand who is this human being who I'm working with?
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What makes Lisa special?
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What can I do to help Lisa?
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What motivates Lisa?
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You know, one of the things I've learned, IT executives are great at the
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how.
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You know, most of us are left brained, and we're great at the how.
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We're very analytical.
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We know how to connect the dots.
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If I ask an IT executive about a project she's working on, she'll
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whip out an eight page Gantt chart with all kinds of milestones and dependencies
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and tests, we're great at the how.
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But one thing sometimes a lot of IT executives are not great at is
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the why.
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Why are we doing this?
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Why should these people care about this?
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Why should they be motivated to help us and collaborate with us?
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So focusing on the why, helping people understand the value proposition
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not for us but for them.
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Now all my clients say to me, Larry I'm a leader, I have to
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motivate people.
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How do I motivate people?
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And my message to them is you don't motivate people by getting them excited
16:53
about Larry's agenda.
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You motivate people by understanding what's their agenda, what are they trying to accomplish,
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and how can you help them accomplish that, and where are the points of
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synergy between what you're asking them to do and their agenda?
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Because when you could accomplish those points of synergy, that's what's gonna motivate them
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to move forward.
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Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I think about Simon Sinek.
17:15
Right?
17:15
You start with why.
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You start with why.
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And I feel like, Larry, I'm just thinking here, that's kinda where the storytelling
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comes in too.
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Right?
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And that is an art, like, telling the the story.
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Why are we doing what we we are doing?
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Right?
17:29
Larry Bonfante: Absolutely.
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It's so critically important that we're able to first of all engage
17:34
people, get them to take that journey with us
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and see the value of what we're trying to do and it's all ultimate
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storytelling.
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You know I learned a lesson really hard way.
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My first
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executive board meeting at the USTA, we had a gentleman on our team
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who had responsibility for all systems that supported the US Open and
17:56
when I got there IT was not actively engaged in supporting the US Open
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which is insane when you think about ninety percent of our revenue coming from
18:02
it.
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So he was only supporting four systems.
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Well, fast forward two years and now we're ingrained in everything, which
18:09
was wonderful.
18:09
Now he was supporting forty systems.
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So I went to our board of directors and I said we have this
18:14
gentleman who's supporting forty systems and we're killing him.
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We need to have another person to take on someone's workload.
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And when I said to them we're killing him, their response was well if
18:23
he dies find someone new.
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Which shocked me but then I said you know what Larry, shame on you
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because you told the story through your lens what mattered to you, you didn't
18:32
tell the story through the later lens.
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So the next Board meeting I went there and I said to the Board,
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we have a gentleman who's supporting forty operational systems at the US Open.
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There's more than four hundred million dollars in revenue associated with those systems.
18:45
If God forbid this man has a heart attack two weeks before the US
18:49
Open or says you know what I can't take the stress anymore and leaves
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we're putting four hundred million dollars of revenue at risk.
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They ap proved two headcount.
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Because that time, I told the story to the lens that they cared about.
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Lisa Nichols: Sure.
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Yeah.
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That's a great story.
19:04
That's a great story.
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Gosh.
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You know, we we've talked about, you know, emphasizing
19:13
the human side of IT leadership.
19:16
Why do you think this piece is still hard for some leaders
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to master?
19:22
Larry Bonfante: I think there's a couple of reasons probably, Lisa.
19:24
One one is that a lot of people who come in through up through
19:27
the ranks of IT are focused on the technology,
19:31
on algorithms.
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They're focused on things that are very cut and dried.
19:36
It works for a dozen, it's a zero or a one.
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It's very logical.
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Well, you and I, we're not quite as logical.
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Lisa Nichols: Right.
19:44
Larry Bonfante: Okay?
19:44
So I think one of one of the things that we have to realize
19:47
is that in order for us to to be successful, we've got to be
19:50
able to work with people and through people and people are messy.
19:55
Right?
19:55
So I think that messiness is challenging for a lot of IT
19:59
executives.
20:00
A second thing and we mentioned this a little while back is that a
20:03
lot of IT executives are more left brain wired than right brain wired.
20:08
And my goal is not to turn people into something they're not.
20:11
My goal is to help to tap into them to see how they're coming
20:14
across to people and to understand how to best engage people so that they
20:18
could be a better version of themselves.
20:20
World works in progress, when I do our leadership workshops I always ask
20:24
people how many of you know a perfect person and not a single hand
20:28
is going up yet.
20:28
I always joke with them that my wife Denise is pretty close but she's
20:32
not even perfect right?
20:33
There are no perfect people.
20:34
There's just us humans walking around.
20:36
So if we want to be able to get the best out of humans
20:38
we have to be able to have patience, to have emotional resilience,
20:43
to have emotional intelligence, to know what motivates people and these are things that
20:47
don't always come naturally tied to executives and these are things that haven't
20:51
been necessarily their focus for a lot of their careers.
20:54
You know there's a book by Marshall Goldsmith I'm a big fan of his
20:57
work and the book is called " What Got You Here Won't Get You There."
21:00
Lisa Nichols: Love it.
21:01
Larry Bonfante: So as you as you go up the ranks of IT to a certain
21:04
point being a tremendous technologist and having business acumen is enough.
21:08
Well, once you start really becoming a leader that's not enough.
21:12
It's less about your technical acumen.
21:14
It's more about your emotional intelligence.
21:16
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
21:17
That's really good.
21:18
That's really good.
21:21
Let me do you because we do this in TechLX.
21:25
We we teach a whole session on marketing.
21:28
Yep.
21:28
Marketing and the value of IT.
21:31
Now this kinda maybe, for some people, feel like it's self
21:35
promotion, which kinda can feel icky.
21:38
Larry Bonfante: But People have all kinds of problems with it.
21:40
Yeah.
21:40
And I'll share with you.
21:41
So whenever I I use the word marketing to IT leaders, the first thing
21:45
you see is their eyes roll back in their head.
21:47
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
21:48
Okay.
21:48
Larry Bonfante: Because they think of this as something unclean.
21:51
It's almost like they think you're asking him to be Willy Loman in Death
21:54
of a Salesman and that's not what marketing is at all.
21:56
What I try to explain to people is marketing isn't selling anything to anybody.
22:01
What marketing IT is is very simple.
22:05
Our boards of directors, our leadership teams are giving us
22:09
dozens of hundreds of head count and millions of dollars that they're investing in
22:12
us.
22:13
Lisa Nichols: Right.
22:13
Larry Bonfante: And we have a fiduciary responsibility to these people to help them understand
22:17
what's the return on that investment. O K?
22:21
With all the money and all the people you're giving me, what are you
22:23
getting in terms of business value and return?
22:26
So one aspect of marketing is helping people understand that we have a fiduciary
22:29
responsibility to help people understand the value because if we can't help
22:33
them do that we're not going to get that investment, we're not going to
22:36
get that support.
22:38
The second thing I try to explain to people I always ask them how
22:40
many of you have someone on your team who you'd like to promote or
22:43
get a nice salary increase?
22:44
All the hands go up.
22:46
I said, well, if nobody knows or understands the work that person
22:50
is doing or the value that they're bringing from a business
22:54
perspective, when it comes time for me to get Lisa a promotion, the reaction
22:58
I'm gonna get from my board is who's Lisa?
23:01
Okay?
23:01
But if people know who Lisa is and understand the work she's done and
23:04
how that work is helping us drive sales, helping us create operational efficiency, helping
23:08
us create a better customer experience, Then I have a much better
23:13
opportunity to support Lisa and get her what she deserves.
23:15
So even if you don't wanna do it for you, you have to do
23:18
it for your people because they deserve your support.
23:20
And when you look at marketing through those lenses, people think about it different.
23:24
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's so good, Larry.
23:26
I love that.
23:27
I love that.
23:30
Let me ask you, like, one or two more questions, and then we need
23:32
to take a quick break.
23:33
And then Sure.
23:34
We'll we'll come back and talk about a lot of lot more things.
23:38
But you've helped a lot of and this is kinda going
23:42
kind of what we just talked about.
23:44
It's kind of branding.
23:45
You know, we all have a personal brand whether we believe we do or
23:48
not.
23:49
Right?
23:49
Yeah.
23:49
And you've helped a lot of leaders clarify their leadership brand.
23:53
I went back and looked at tons of recommendations and tons
23:57
of things, testimonials that people have said about you and how
24:01
you really helped them clarify.
24:04
How do you define how do you personally define a strong leadership
24:08
brand
24:09
without it becoming self promotion?
24:13
Larry Bonfante: Because it's not about self promotion.
24:14
It's about you represent your team.
24:18
So one of the things I learned very early in my leadership career is
24:21
that if I have two hundred people working for me, to a large degree
24:26
their success, their promotion, their salaries
24:30
are depending upon how I represent them.
24:32
So I'm not representing Larry, I'm representing Team Larry.
24:36
Right.
24:36
Okay.
24:36
I'm representing these people and the way I think about brand is you know
24:40
as I've gotten older I stop thinking about eulogies because I don't want to
24:43
think about eulogies as I get older.
24:45
Lisa Nichols: Right.
24:45
Larry Bonfante: We used to say when we were younger what would you want people to
24:48
say?
24:48
What would you want
24:48
Lisa Nichols: people to say?
24:49
Larry Bonfante: What would you want people to say?
24:50
What would you want people to say?
24:50
What would you want people to say?
24:50
What would you want people to say?
24:50
Yeah.
24:50
What would you want people to say?
24:50
So I asked them.
24:51
I call it the three adjectives of brand.
24:53
What are the three most important things you want people to say about you,
24:57
to say about their experience of working with you, and their experience of working
25:01
with your team?
25:01
What are those things?
25:03
Why are they important to you?
25:04
Why are they important to your team?
25:06
And think about brand through that lens.
25:08
What are those three things?
25:10
And I always give them my personal example.
25:12
The first is passion.
25:13
Because I always want people to feel that when they work with me, I'm
25:16
never mailing it in.
25:17
I'm never giving them some half baked effort.
25:19
I'm bringing all my energy, all my passion, everything I have to every engagement
25:22
and they know that they're getting the best for me, right?
25:25
The second for me is results.
25:28
I want them to know that when they worked with my team that the
25:31
widget was going to come out of the machine on time, on budget, on
25:34
value.
25:35
And the third is integrity because I want people to work with me to
25:38
feel that I say what I mean and I mean what I say.
25:42
I say what I mean meaning I'm transparent, I'm honest, I'm forthright you don't
25:45
need a decoder ring to figure out what's up Larry's sleeve what's the real
25:49
hidden message what did he not tell us now I don't want you to
25:52
run out to think about that and I mean what I say which means
25:55
if I write you a check Lisa you could drive to the bank and
25:58
cash it because I'm a person of my word.
26:00
So those were my three adjectives of brain.
26:02
I want them to think about what are the most important things I want
26:04
people to feel about working with you and your team and why are those
26:08
things important to you.
26:09
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
26:10
That's so good.
26:10
I was thinking about a couple different things when you were talking there, Larry.
26:15
You had said the passion.
26:17
And a lot of people I don't know if you ever watched
26:21
Ted Lasso.
26:23
Jenny and I love Ted Lasso and all the leadership lessons.
26:26
But Donnie Campbell is the guy in real life that Jason Sudeikis
26:31
, like, patterned Ted Lasso after .
26:35
And I had Donnie on the podcast, and I've never forgotten this.
26:39
He goes, I tell you know, because he still coaches.
26:42
He still coaches basketball.
26:44
And he's like, I, he goes, I tell my players
26:49
I will bring the juice.
26:51
I will bring the juice every day, but I expect you to too.
26:54
You know?
26:54
And, I mean, I was just thinking, that's it.
26:56
I mean, it's like, why if you're not passionate,
27:00
why would anybody else be passionate?
27:02
Larry Bonfante: Exactly.
27:02
You know, if transformation is a marathon, it's not five hundred
27:07
yard dash.
27:09
It t akes an enormous amount of emotional investment, psychic investment,
27:13
physical investment.
27:14
If I'm not excited about where we're going, if I'm not passionate about it,
27:19
why should you be and why should you put forward the kind of effort
27:23
that's required to do this if there's no passion about it?
27:27
So if I can't get you excited about it then I'm doing something wrong
27:31
but the most important thing I can do to get you excited about it
27:34
again is help you see yourself in that journey, help you see your success
27:37
in that journey and how it's going to impact you and a personal value
27:40
proposition for you.
27:42
But if I'm walking around I always, I always used to joke you know Ferris
27:46
Bueller's D ay O ff with Ben Stein...
27:49
Bueller, Bueller.
27:51
So if I'm showing up running a workshop and I have no affect
27:55
what whatsoever and no enthusiasm about my message, I'm gonna put these people to
27:58
sleep in ten minutes.
28:00
Right?
28:00
So I've gotta bring the passion because I can't expect other people to be
28:03
passionate if I'm not willing to dial that up.
28:05
Lisa Nichols: Right.
28:06
Bring the juice.
28:07
Bring the juice, Larry.
28:08
Bring the juice.
28:09
Yeah.
28:09
And then the the third the the other thing that I was thinking about,
28:12
your third,
28:14
attribute there that you want people to remember about you is the integrity.
28:18
Larry Bonfante: Yeah.
28:19
Lisa Nichols: And it just made me think because you and I have talked about this.
28:23
There's leaders that say the right words, but then their feet don't
28:27
match what they say.
28:28
Larry Bonfante: Yeah.
28:29
Yeah.
28:30
Lisa Nichols: And, boy, that will destroy trust.
28:34
Larry Bonfante: Yeah.
28:34
There's good information.
28:35
That says what you do speaks so loud I can't hear what you say.
28:38
Yes.
28:39
And I'm a firm believer in that.
28:40
I think it's important to be able to articulate the right message, but
28:44
how you carry yourselves in those quiet moments when no one's looking, that's gonna
28:48
determine what kind of person you are and what kind of leader you are.
28:51
So I could make all the right noises, but if I'm not backing out
28:54
with all the right actions, that's gonna fall on deaf ears very quickly.
28:58
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
28:58
Could not agree more.
28:59
Well, we do need to take a quick break, and then we'll be right
29:02
back with Larry Bonfante on the Something Extra podcast.
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29:36
Lisa Nichols: Welcome back, everyone, to the Something Extra podcast.
29:39
My friend, Larry, we've been talking about so much wisdom.
29:43
I mean, it's like every, every minute here has just been filled with
29:47
amazing golden nuggets from Larry.
29:50
But, Larry, let me ask you this.
29:52
What about we talk a lot about executive presence and executive
29:56
voice.
29:57
Right?
29:58
It's really important to I mean, sometimes you've got somebody
30:02
that's technically competent, but then they don't have that executive
30:07
presence about them.
30:08
What advice would you give to someone that's kind of in
30:12
that that space, if you will?
30:15
Larry Bonfante: Yeah.
30:16
I think there's a couple of things that are important.
30:17
The first is authenticity.
30:20
You know early in my career, I tried to impress people by sounding like
30:23
people who impressed me and that was horrible.
30:27
That was a nightmare and I learned that for better or worse, I had
30:31
to be Larry.
30:31
Not had to be the best version of Larry but I had to be
30:34
Larry.
30:34
You know a kid from Brooklyn you could tell my accent and you know
30:38
I'm not third generation Ivy League school, I was the first generation of my
30:42
family to go to college but I had to be genuinely who I am.
30:45
So I think authenticity is important, don't try to be phony, try to be
30:48
who you are.
30:49
Do your homework.
30:51
There's no
30:53
there's nothing you could do that will make up for preparation.
30:56
So, if you walk into a room and you're not prepared,
31:00
executives and board level people could be like sharks in the water.
31:03
If they spell blood, you're in trouble.
31:05
So you better be prepared.
31:07
Third thing with executive presence is be concise.
31:12
Get right to the punchline.
31:14
What I, I joke with my clients when we do our workshops that most
31:18
executives have the attention span of a four year old kid.
31:21
Okay?
31:22
So if you're trying to build out this big story for them, a lot
31:25
of times they don't have the patience for them.
31:26
Hit them with the punchline, hit them where they live, hit them with what
31:29
matters to them and then if they want to unpack it and they want
31:32
the details, have those in your back pocket but don't try to build it
31:35
from scratch without first making sure they understand why this is important.
31:39
So doing your homework, being concise.
31:42
The other thing is I when people say how do you how do you
31:45
present to a board?
31:47
You don't present to a board.
31:49
You're presenting to twelve different people in that room.
31:52
And what matters to Greg and what matters to Lisa and what matters to
31:56
Karen are different things.
31:58
So within the context of my message, I'm gonna make sure that I look
32:01
at every one of those individuals and hit something that I know is a
32:05
hot button for them.
32:06
Certainly, there's gonna be an overarching message Yeah.
32:09
That's gonna wrap everything together that everybody cares about.
32:11
But within the context of that message every one of them cares about something
32:15
slightly different and I want them to know if you care about it I
32:18
care about it and we're going to address that.
32:20
So I think being prepared, knowing your audience, speaking to people,
32:24
being authentic.
32:27
There used to be a a commercial years ago for deodorant,
32:31
and the and the commercials tagline was never let them see you sweat.
32:35
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
32:35
Larry Bonfante: Okay?
32:36
You never let them see you sweat.
32:37
You might be sitting there in in a pool of your own sweat.
32:40
Alright?
32:41
But keep your wits about you.
32:43
Alright?
32:43
Never let them see.
32:44
And if you don't know an answer, don't make it up on the fly.
32:48
That is the absolute worst thing you could do.
32:50
If you don't know an answer, that's a great question.
32:52
I'm not a hundred percent convinced of that.
32:54
I'll get back to you in a timely fashion with that because when you're
32:57
a leader, the leader isn't the person who has all the answers.
32:59
The leader is the person who knows how to get all the answers.
33:03
Okay?
33:03
You're not the subject matter expert on everything.
33:05
The higher you get, the more impossible it is for you to be a
33:07
subject matter expert on everything.
33:09
I always joke with people, if your CIO is the most talented technical person
33:12
in the room, you're probably in deep trouble.
33:14
Okay?
33:15
You need to you have the only subject matter experts that that person has
33:18
to lean on.
33:19
So if you don't know, admit you don't know, but minimize the times you
33:23
don't know by doing your homework.
33:25
Lisa Nichols: Sure.
33:26
Now those are that's really good.
33:27
That's really good.
33:29
Well, you know, you encourage leaders to slow down and celebrate success.
33:33
Something that you said didn't really come naturally to you,
33:37
Larry.
33:38
Why is celebration such a leadership discipline?
33:42
Larry Bonfante: It's so important.
33:43
As you've probably already figured out, I'm a type in New Yorker.
33:46
Okay?
33:47
So I'm running a hundred miles an hour.
33:48
So for me, when we completed a project, my motorcycle on there was great.
33:52
Check that one off.
33:53
I'm off to the next one.
33:54
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
33:56
Larry Bonfante: But what I learned is that while I was appreciating people and their contributions,
34:00
it didn't feel like them to them, like that to them because I was
34:03
running off to the next thing.
34:05
So you need to stop and realize transformation is a marathon
34:09
and at points along the marathon, you need to stop and say, Hey, look
34:13
at the progress we're making.
34:14
You know, my daughter Danielle has run the New York City marathon twice.
34:18
And the two times we went to cheer her on, we didn't go at
34:20
the starting gate because everybody's got adrenaline at that point.
34:23
We didn't go to the finish line because by that point, it's too late.
34:25
We're rather half halfway through the race because that's when people are starting to
34:29
get physically ill, start to question why am I doing this, start to doubt
34:33
themselves.
34:33
Yeah.
34:34
That's when people need a blast.
34:36
So what I made sure that throughout the program, you know, I think
34:40
of it as a football game.
34:41
We're not going to spike the ball because we're not in the end zone
34:43
yet but you know what?
34:44
We started at the twenty yard line.
34:45
We're at midfield.
34:47
Look at all the ground we've already made.
34:49
We're already halfway down the field.
34:51
Now we still have work in front of us, but look at the progress
34:54
we made.
34:54
So stop, recognize that progress, make sure people feel appreciated,
34:59
feel seen, feel heard, feel valued.
35:02
And, yeah, there's still more work to go, but look at the progress we
35:05
made.
35:06
Look at the great work that's and calling out people individually, not in some
35:09
the team did a great job.
35:11
No.
35:11
Lisa, when you did x, it was really impactful.
35:15
John, when you delivered y, this is the impact it had on our client
35:18
community.
35:19
Call people out for real things.
35:20
Make sure that they feel seen, feel valued, and because it's it's
35:25
a marathon.
35:25
It takes a lot of energy and if you're not putting fuel back into
35:28
people, they're gonna run out of gas.
35:30
Lisa Nichols: Right.
35:31
Yeah.
35:31
Some of these transformations, Larry, can take years.
35:34
Larry Bonfante: Yeah.
35:34
Lisa Nichols: Like, I think about an ERP, you know, implementation.
35:38
Right?
35:38
An SAP implementation could take three years.
35:42
Larry Bonfante: Absolutely.
35:42
I always joke with my clients that if you're doing an ERP implementation, that
35:46
a hundred years of health when you die and go to heaven, just say
35:49
to say, Peter, I did a ERP implementation, and it'll open up the gates
35:52
without any further questions.
35:55
Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
35:56
I agree.
35:57
Well, you know, I think this is so important.
36:01
So humility.
36:03
Because you just said it while ago.
36:05
You know, there is no way that you can have all the answers.
36:09
I say the best leaders don't have all the answers, but they ask really
36:12
good questions.
36:13
Larry Bonfante: Yeah.
36:14
Lisa Nichols: And like you said, they know where to get it.
36:16
How has humility played a role for you in your growth
36:21
as a leader?
36:24
Larry Bonfante: Being humble is critically important,
36:27
especially making sure I've seen a lot of so called leaders that when
36:31
something goes right they're the first ones on stage taking the bow, patting themselves
36:35
on the back.
36:37
I feel as a leader when something goes right you should be recognizing the
36:40
people around you who made it go right.
36:42
People on your team, maybe peers in other parts of the organization, your clients
36:46
who contributed, make sure they feel seen and valued and you be humble
36:50
about it.
36:50
Don't be the first one to take that bow.
36:52
All ships rise with the tide.
36:54
I always joke with our clients that the good news about working in IT
36:57
is that humility is built right into our profession.
37:00
Because the first time you start thinking good about it, you say, you know,
37:02
maybe I really am pretty good and start reading your press clippings, a system
37:05
will go down, something will happen and, you know, it'll make you humble in a hurry.
37:09
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
37:11
That's so true.
37:12
And and typically, IT hears about it when things go wrong.
37:17
Right?
37:17
Larry Bonfante: Yeah.
37:18
I always tell our I I tell my clients that IT is an interesting
37:21
field of endeavor because ninety nine percent of the time things go right and
37:24
you don't hear a blessed word.
37:26
But the one percent of the time things don't go right, you hear a
37:28
lot of words and some of them are not very kind.
37:30
Lisa Nichols: Right.
37:30
Larry Bonfante: That's exactly right.
37:31
Why it's so important that we recognize our people and make sure that they
37:35
feel seen and valued because imagine a poor soul who's working at your your
37:39
service desk who eight to ten hours a day, she's taking calls from cranky
37:43
people because they're having problems.
37:44
If we're not making them feel valued and appreciated and and seen, who is?
37:49
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's really good.
37:52
Your book, Lessons in IT Transformation, focuses on
37:56
moving from expert to leader.
37:59
What do you think is the hardest letting go that this
38:03
transition requires, Larry?
38:05
Larry Bonfante: A lot of the IT leaders I work with got into IT because they
38:09
love the technology.
38:11
And I would hearken it to, like, being a Swiss watchmaker.
38:14
They love to tinker.
38:15
They love to, you know, they they love to see the finished product.
38:18
Well, when you're a CIO, you're not working on the finished product.
38:21
Lisa Nichols: Right.
38:22
Larry Bonfante: OK?
38:22
I always used to joke with my team that as CIO, I didn't actually
38:25
do any actual work. O K?
38:27
Because I didn't touch a wire.
38:29
I didn't write a line of code.
38:31
I didn't do any of those things anymore.
38:32
You don't want me writing code anymore.
38:34
Last time I wrote code, it was Fortran and COBOL.
38:36
That's a scary thing.
38:37
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
38:37
Larry Bonfante: Alright?
38:38
Yeah.
38:38
We're involved in making sure we have the support we need, the resources
38:43
we need, the budget we need, the partnerships we need, the people get recognized.
38:47
That's the work of a CIO.
38:50
So letting go of actually touching the technology
38:55
is something that's very hard for a lot of people.
38:57
And I ask them, why do you want to be CIO?
38:59
If you want to be CIO for the reasons that you want to impact
39:02
things in a positive way from a business perspective, from a leadership perspective that's
39:06
great.
39:07
But you need to let go of these things and if you're not willing
39:09
to maybe you should consider doing something else.
39:12
You know I had a person on my team when I was at Pfizer
39:16
and whenever I did annual reviews with people, I always used to ask them
39:19
as part of the review, what do you wanna be when you grow up?
39:21
A, because I wanted to know what their goals were and B, because that question
39:24
put a smile on their face like you just gave me and it kinda
39:27
got the tension out of your room.
39:28
And I had a gentleman on my team, Darren, who was my network architect
39:31
when I ran Global Networks at Pfizer , and he said, Larry, I want your job.
39:34
I said, great.
39:35
Let's talk about it.
39:36
And we had a twenty minute conversation about it.
39:38
And at the end of the conversation, here's what we determined.
39:41
He wanted my salary, he wanted my office, but he sure as heck didn't
39:45
want my job.
39:46
Okay?
39:46
So be careful what you wish for.
39:48
So make sure you're going into things for the right reason.
39:50
That's because what's the next step up is gonna be more money.
39:53
Is it what you wanna do?
39:55
Because you're gonna be spending fifty, sixty hours a week doing it.
39:58
You better make sure you have some passion about it because that's a tiring
40:02
way to live life.
40:03
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
40:03
I agree.
40:04
I agree.
40:07
Well, okay.
40:08
I wanna talk about this because this is fun.
40:11
You're a singer and a guitarist in a classic rock band.
40:15
And what?
40:16
Larry, I read that you opened for Aerosmith.
40:20
Larry Bonfante: So that that's a funny story.
40:21
So Aerosmith had a period where they were rolling drug rehab
40:26
and, you know, they had fallen off the face of the earth.
40:28
And then they got the band back together and they were trying to, like,
40:32
get their chops, as we say in music industry, and and put their set
40:35
together.
40:36
So they were playing small clubs around the country to just get in front
40:39
of everybody's and start working on their material again.
40:41
Well, a friend of mine who was in my band, the bartender for this
40:45
little club in New York, called him up on Thursday and said, our
40:49
opening act tomorrow night just canceled on us.
40:52
Are you guys available?
40:53
So Jeff reached out to me and said, you wanna, I said, yeah.
40:56
Sure.
40:56
Let's go play.
40:57
And we went to open up on Friday night, and sure enough, the band
41:00
we were opening up with was Aerosmith .
41:02
Now they had nothing to do with us.
41:04
They were not interested in talking us.
41:05
Don't get me wrong.
41:06
But it's still kinda cool.
41:07
We opened up for hours.
41:08
Lisa Nichols: That is so cool.
41:10
So what's your band's name?
41:13
Larry Bonfante: So I've been with a couple of bands over the years.
41:15
So the band I spent the longest time with from when I'm fifteen years
41:18
old is a band called Sunburst.
41:20
And we we still we got two of the guys retired and moved south
41:23
now so the band kind of dissolved because of that.
41:26
But up until about four years ago we were still playing together.
41:28
I have another band called Backstage that I jam with and another band called
41:32
P & L that I jam with.
41:33
So a lot of overlap between some of the guys in the bands, but
41:37
most of the guys that I've played with, I've known forty or fifty years.
41:41
Lisa Nichols: That is so cool.
41:42
I love love love that you that you do that.
41:46
And, Larry, I know that you know this, but it has always fascinated
41:50
me how much of a parallel there is
41:55
between IT and I can't even tell you how many IT
41:59
people I know that are also musicians.
42:02
Larry Bonfante: Yep.
42:02
I mean, that that whole we talked about theory.
42:04
We talked about the way your brain is wired.
42:06
Musicians, the way their brain works, and not and technologists, the way their brain
42:10
works.
42:10
There's a lot of commonalities.
42:11
Lisa Nichols: Very similar.
42:12
Yeah.
42:13
Well, you've been married to Denise for forty years.
42:17
Larry Bonfante: Forty years.
42:18
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
42:19
Forty years.
42:19
Greg and I have you beat by a year and a half.
42:23
Larry Bonfante: Well, we will be forty three in September.
42:24
So we'll we'll get
42:25
Lisa Nichols: Forty three.
42:26
Okay.
42:26
Well okay.
42:27
Alright.
42:28
No.
42:28
Okay.
42:29
You got us beat then.
42:30
You got us beat because we're not until December.
42:33
But what has marriage taught you about partnership and
42:37
patience?
42:40
Larry Bonfante: It's taught me a lot of great leadership lessons.
42:42
One thing is taught me that if you want somebody to put up with
42:45
your nonsense, you better be willing to put up with theirs.
42:49
Lisa Nichols: Right.
42:49
Larry Bonfante: So it is truly a partnership.
42:51
So we all come with baggage.
42:52
You know, mine might be American Tourister, yours might be Samsonite, but we all
42:56
bring baggage.
42:56
Lisa Nichols: Right.
42:57
Larry Bonfante: Right?
42:57
So if if I want you to put up with mine I gotta put
42:59
up with yours.
43:00
It also taught me that as much of a great communicator as I might
43:04
fancy myself to be, maybe not so much.
43:07
Right.
43:08
So sometimes I gotta take a step back and think about what I say
43:11
and how I say it differently because Denise might
43:15
hear it differently or react to it differently.
43:18
Another thing is it told me about personality types.
43:22
And we talk a lot about emotional intelligence and personality types.
43:25
My wife is an analyzer.
43:27
Okay.
43:27
So about twenty years ago, we redid our kitchen and we had four
43:31
contractors come to the house to give us quotes.
43:34
Three of them talked to me, one of them talked to Denise.
43:37
You can imagine which one got the job.
43:39
Okay.
43:40
So we we made the decision.
43:41
We're moving forward.
43:42
And we had talked in great detail about the kind of cabinets, this and
43:45
that.
43:45
And after so much dialogue, Denise was still asking me a million
43:49
questions.
43:50
And I said to myself, my God, we've been at the time.
43:52
We've been married over twenty years.
43:54
Doesn't she trust me?
43:56
It had nothing to do with trust.
43:57
It had to do that Denise is an analyzer and the way she processes
44:00
this information is by connecting the dots.
44:02
And until I gave her enough information to connect the dots, she wasn't able
44:06
to feel comfortable moving forward with a decision.
44:09
So understanding who your audience is, understanding how they process
44:13
information, and leaning into their communication style and their behavioral style
44:17
is really important.
44:18
So she's told me a lot of things, including how to swallow my tongue.
44:22
And That's been an incredibly valuable message as well.
44:25
Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
44:26
Wow.
44:27
That's awesome.
44:28
Well, I know you've got daughters, and now you've got a grandson, Ethan.
44:32
What which really you know, we talked about this the last time we had
44:36
dinner, but it really reminds you, doesn't it, Larry, about what really matters?
44:41
Larry Bonfante: Listen.
44:42
What matters in life is the people you touch.
44:45
You know, we talked a little bit about my career.
44:47
I've had the privilege of being part of the team at Pfizer that in
44:51
the ten years I was there, we put out life changing drugs like Zithromax
44:55
and Zoloft and Viagra that made a real impact on people's quality of life.
44:58
And I'm proud of being a part of that team.
45:00
You know, I was part of the team that ran the most highly attended
45:03
annual sporting event in the world.
45:04
I was proud of that.
45:05
But the real impact about it as a leader is touching people and helping
45:09
them on their journey.
45:10
And I cannot tell you how gratifying it is that people I've worked with
45:14
in the past or people I've coached reach back to me telling me about
45:17
promotions telling me about wonderful things that happened in their lives and and giving
45:21
me far too much credit for that.
45:23
But even if in some very small way you planted a seed that helped
45:27
that process that's what really matters is the impact you have on people's lives.
45:30
So looking at my eleven year old grandson who's a character, who's funny, who's
45:34
athletic, who's smart, and and just seeing the world through his life reminds you
45:38
how important it is, the impact you have on others.
45:41
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
45:41
I know that you love talking about, the the legacy,
45:46
the true legacy of a leaner, And I suspect that's it.
45:49
It's the people that you touch, right?
45:51
And the people that you do.
45:51
Larry Bonfante: And John's legacy.
45:52
You know, my my mom passed when I was sixteen years old.
45:55
And she had a high school diploma.
45:58
She never worked a job of any significance in her life.
46:01
But she left the greatest legacy of any human being I've ever met, which
46:04
was every person who she was in their life was better off because
46:08
she was in their life.
46:09
And she left the planet better than she found it.
46:12
And if we could say that as leaders, we've probably done something right.
46:15
Lisa Nichols: I agree.
46:16
Well, Larry, this is called something extra.
46:19
So I would love to hear from you.
46:21
What do you believe is the something extra that every leader needs?
46:26
Larry Bonfante: Always remember, it's never about you.
46:29
It's about your people.
46:31
It's about your clients.
46:32
It's about your stakeholders.
46:33
It's about the people you serve.
46:35
And if in some small way you can help them on their journey, they're
46:39
better off because they were a part of your organization, they learned something from
46:42
you that could help them project their career forward, that's
46:46
what really matters.
46:47
So take your eyes off yourself, put it on other people, and make that
46:50
your focus.
46:51
Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
46:52
Larry, this has been so much fun.
46:54
Thank you so much for spending this time with me.
46:57
I know that your wisdom is gonna help our listeners.
47:01
And, I'm just I'm so grateful.
47:03
I'm so grateful that we get to work together the way we do.
47:06
So
47:07
Larry Bonfante: It's been an absolute pleasure, Lisa, and I I so value our partnership.
47:11
Lisa Nichols: I agree.
47:11
Me too.
47:12
Announcer: Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production.
47:16
Copyright Technology Partners Inc.
47:18
Twenty nineteen.
47:20
To learn more about this week's guest, check out the show notes at tpi
47:23
dot co slash podcast.
47:26
If you enjoyed this episode, consider leaving us a review.
47:29
Thank you for listening to Something Extra.