Latest / Be the Bison / Leading Through the Storm with Integrity
Transcript
- Andrew: Hey Bruno, ⁓ good As always, my enjoy seeing your smiling face. Good to be with you this morning as we do a quick engagement and on be the bison leading through the storm. Excited to have this conversation with you and and gain your insights about a moment or time in your life where you've had a storm. some guidance on how you handle that and and maybe leave us with a nugget or two ⁓ for the people that would listen. So before we do that, I've gotten to know you over the last couple of years, ⁓ but just give our audience just a quick ⁓ maybe two minute ⁓ update on who you are and where you're heading. Bruno: Amazing. So first of all, my pleasure to be here. I'm honored to be here with you. Andrew, you are a great guy and everything you do, it's amazing. So I'm a pleasure to be here. So name is Bruno Silva. I'm from Brazil. I'm CEO and founder of WiseTech. We provide AI first engineer for ⁓ transformation ⁓ the companies. And so I've I've been working the last 15 years. in this company and growing the company and helping people to simplify their process and boost their core business operations. yeah, this is me. Andrew: Very good. Then ⁓ I I know you've got a beautiful family back there in Panama City. You're originally from Brazil. You've got this unique ⁓ experience growing up and ⁓ well positioned to ⁓ be the CEO of an emerging and growing business ⁓ there out of Panama. So all right. so Bruno, what ⁓ is a a season or a moment in your life that you want to share about a storm that was in your life? Bruno: ⁓ just remember it's painful sometimes. this happened almost two years ago, so it's recent. one that I have very good on that time I had very good relationship with them. We developed a software for them. And one day this client called me for a meeting, ⁓ as usually does. So I went to that meeting. And when I arrived at the meeting, ⁓ was a virtual meeting. when I get in on the meeting, we had more people than the normal, like we had ten people on that meeting, and I was like, Whoa, something different's happening here, right? And I was the only one from my company on the meeting because usually our meetings were very simple. We just catch up on the the timelines and the work we do. We always on time for them, doing whatever they asked for and we were s always delivering. So we had a very good relationship. and the the the the meeting started and people started to push me and ask questions in now a tech manner could I say so they were not friendly. They were like just throwing things that I wasn't completely unprepared. I was unprepared for them because they never said to me that like the meeting is for this or something. So I was there like in the middle of 10 different people that I basically don't know, and they were throwing things about the system, about the security of the system. some things were right, like things that my team did wrong, or other things were more like different perspectives we had and wrongs from their teams. because they had like a chance on the organization and the Team who was working with us requiring things for us, they kind of discovered that they were doing wrong, asking us things that we should not be doing. And you know, that created like a big mess. But at the end of the day, the meeting they had with me was more like just to say, okay, you are guilty, I don't trust on you, you are lying to me. Was critical for me. And since we had we never lost any clients during our entire company lifetime. So we always have a very good relationship with our client. So for us for me was a complete different environment. And I was in the middle of the storm like, whoa, this is crazy. What is happening here? How how can I live in this place? And the the meeting star ⁓ finished terrible, terrible, terrible way. I I had in my mind at the end of the meeting like, okay, we're gonna lose this client. There is no way to to recall this. and ⁓ of it was because they were attacking me. Not not only the company was kind of I I won't I would not say personal, but they attacked my identity. Like I felt like, ⁓ I'm not I'm ⁓ am I am I a liar? Am doing things wrong? Am I trying to, you know, deliver things for them that are not true? So I I I left the meeting with many questions marked. Wow. And this was like this form for me. Andrew: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. So a few things ⁓ come to mind as yeah, just a sense of somewhat of a personal attack, but maybe more of an integrity or character attack. And it kind of reminds me a little bit of some stories that you and I might be familiar with, like Daniel in the lion's den, right? Being accused and throwing in being thrown into this, you know, metaphorical example of the lion's den here, right? Or, you know, being accused, or maybe, hey, you know, what kind of test is this? you know, about my company, my character, my integrity. We've never lost a client. So really tough storm to to run into unexpectedly. It sounds like you just, you know, it came out of nowhere, right? One of those storms that just came out came out of nowhere and hits you. so what actions ⁓ did you take personally to get through, ⁓ you this particular situation, this particular storm? Bruno: Yeah, amazing. So since my character and my integrity was like I I I had da I was doubting about it, so I wasn't sure about me, like and this is very uncommon for me because I'm very confident usually. the first thing I started to do was pray. Like, hey, I went to God and I said when ⁓ what I'm doing and I'm doing wrong, how can I ⁓ Get out of this situation. How can I recall if is that possible? And I had plenty of times of praying and going to God and asking, help me please, because I need help. You are the only one who can help me right now. And this was mostly for messal identity. So I I ⁓ I energy to fight. And I had no energy to fight because I was really drowned by the meeting. and For the worst thing or for the good, right now every meeting is recorded, right? So I could recall the meeting and see what they were seeing, things like that. And sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not that good. But the first thing I did was went to God and asking him what should I do? And asking clarity from him. So when I realized that like, you know, Bruno, you you do things right, your company do things right. So go for the right way. Because I had two options there. I could deny things that we were doing wrong, but we were doing wrong. So we need to we need to assume though that that those things. And this was the first thing, like okay, we are going to the right path, and the right path is assuming everything that is our fault and them to fix the things that are their faults and trying to recall the trust. So I become very transparent with them. We start to exchange emails, giving all the information they needed, and assuming anything that we need to assume and helping them ⁓ with a plus like things that we should not be working, but we were working to help them so they could see could see like, ⁓ they are here to help us and this is like the final goal. We together gonna win this storm. Andrew: Yeah, nice. so just to maybe summarize if I if I heard, was of I know that you're a man of faith and ⁓ is important to you, you know, professionally, but personally and just throughout your life. So makes sense, you know, you know, ⁓ giving up humility, if you will, saying, Hey, I need help. And, you know, starting with with prayer. So, you know, what a what a great way to start on on that. And then secondly, what I heard you say is You know, internalizing, you know, what we did well and what we can improve on, ⁓ you know, focusing on both. Okay, let's capitalize, you know, what we did well, make sure the team understands that, but also make sure the team understands, hey, you know, here's some areas of improvement that I heard. Let's take ownership of it, right? And be proactive with a lot of transparency and improved communication ⁓ with the client and a sense of. Yeah, you know, at Solid we talk about one of our core values of S for solid of serve, you know, with the heart of serving and just letting the results kind of fall where they may. So what what happened? What happened ⁓ after that? Bruno: And what happened is amazing. It's just like I would never imagine that one year later we're gonna double the contract. They will give our give us much more projects, much more engagement, including r referring us to other clients. So it's it's amazing just like why that happened, because we were able to rebuild the trust. They they trust on us right now. Andrew: Amazing. Bruno: And and this was really, really, really, really, really cool. and one of the things I did I I ⁓ didn't tell you but this client is in is in another counter, so I flew there after we did all the work. I flew there, I had a meeting face to face with them. I s basically was I was trying to say like, you know, problems happens, that happened, but I'm here. I'm not running from it. I wanna be with you and let's move forward. And this was amazing, amazing. We have amazing relationship. We have much more penetration of the company right now, because at the beginning we were more like a provider for some area. Right now we provide to the entire company. We double the contract. We have many things for the future. So best outcome, impossible. ⁓ Andrew: Amazing. Nice, nice. So thank you for sharing that. We just got a couple of minutes ⁓ left for our conversation today. Bruno, so from your story, ⁓ what would be like one ⁓ maybe a couple that you'd want people to take away from your your lesson and your storm? Bruno: Good. So the first one is no storms will last forever. So this is a perspective, like, okay, it's hard, but it's gonna end in a moment. so with that in mind, first survive the storm. Then when the storm goes, you need to rebuild what the storm has destroyed. So this is something that I've learned, like, okay. The storm's here and probably some things will be damaged by the storm. But first you need to survive the storm. And second, you need to see what are you gonna do after the storm? How are you gonna recreate this? What are you gonna get from what the storms left, you know? And I've been one time in United States during ⁓ a hurricane and I saw that like people working a lot after, you know, because during the storm you just need to survive. Andrew: Right. And then just ⁓ coming out, ⁓ do some some repair. So that is really awesome insight. Hadn't thought about that personally. ⁓ so that's a lesson learned from me and good sharing ⁓ on your end, Bruno. Well, Bruno, hey, awesome as always to be with you. sure do look forward to being in person with you sometime soon. ⁓ But if you're interested in hearing more of these stories, like with ⁓ Bruno, about ⁓ leading through the storm. go to solidleaders.com, be the bison, ⁓ ⁓ you'll find some of those interviews there. Bruno, good to be with you. Thanks for the time today. Bruno: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. It's my pleasure.