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460- Seat at the Table, Still the IT Guy w/Brian Ledbetter · You've Been Heard

• 0:00
  Speaker A: One of the heads of the firm would refer to me as his cio, the other would refer to me as his IT director, and another would refer to me as his IT guy. I'm like, whatever, as long as the check cleared, I don't really care. You may feel like you've made the transition, but until you are seen and viewed by the organization in the same way, you're going to have struggles, and you eventually become the one with the, quote, seat at the table. But you're still viewed as the guy that helped me fix my printer or something like that. I think that's always going to be a struggle. I really do.
• 0:43
  Speaker B: Sitting in the guest chair today is Brian Ledbetter, a veteran cio, US Air Force veteran, and the mind behind the lead IT leadership framework.
• 0:56
  Speaker A: It sounds so super cliche, you know, get out of the server room and into the boardroom. But everybody understands the phrase and they know what it means. And that's something that I've seen so many people struggle with through the years. I started off in the Air Force. Now we're going back many, many, many years. And the job I had was. It was fairly technical, you know, by a lot of standards. Maybe not by today's standards, considering all the crazy technology that military and government have, but. But it was. That kind of launched me into my IT career. I love the work I did in the Air Force. It was the hardest job I've ever had, but it was also the most rewarding. It was. It was very. It was very challenging, mentally, very draining, but it was very rewarding. It was. It was super cool, to be honest. And I had a career path planned, and it got derailed at the last minute. There's a whole separate story there. I think we would need a separate podcast for that. But I ended up. I ended up working at a computer training center. I had, you know, computer skills. Not nothing. Nothing crazy, probably, but. But. But I would say much more so than the average person. And I saw an ad in the paper. Yes, in the newspaper. And it said, can you teach? And I said, well, I can try, and I sure, I certainly need a job. And it was at a computer training center, and it was to teach computer stuff. And this was in the mid-90s, mid to late 90s. And. And so I started there and kind of had to pay my dues. And after a short time, I transferred over to the technical side, which was people pursuing their Microsoft, Novell, Cisco certifications. It was really mostly Novell back then. Some people, you guys would know, I can Tell by the gray hairs, you'll know. But at the time that was it, it was Novell and Microsoft was starting to make a play for the enterprise. It was just kind of an app server that no one would dream about it.
• 2:45
  Speaker B: Windows for work group.
• 2:47
  Speaker C: Right.
• 2:48
  Speaker A: And so Windows, I mean, you're not going to run that on a wan, right? So I, you know, I had to be certified in everything, every class that I taught. So I accumulated enough certifications to plaster the wall, all of which are completely obsolete by now. Right. But it was all of the Novell CNE and Master CNE and the Microsoft MCSE and MCSD and all the Cisco stuff and all that. So that, that has really got me into the hands on, deep into the technical stuff and, and from there I just kind of parlayed that into IT admin roles and more senior levels and stuff. And I went back to school to graduate school to get my MBA probably, let's see, 20, actually I graduated this December will be 20 years ago. So 22, 23 years ago I decided, look, I don't want to, I don't want to be 50 years old and still building servers, right. I want to do more than that. So I want to stay in the industry because I enjoyed it, but, but I want someone else to do that stuff and I'll just be in charge of them and make sure it gets done. And we know there's a lot more to it than that, but that's when I went back to school and that really kind of, you know, started my journey into, into the, the, the senior level, you know, whatever title you want to give it. Which, and that's another, you know, point I have is that I think a lot of the challenges that senior IT leaders face are going to be independent of whatever title they may be assigned. You could be the CIO or the cto, the IT director, the, the Vice President of Technology and da, da, da, da, whatever. You know, your, your challenges and your, what you face day to day is I think, independent of what that, you know, I, I, I worked at a, I worked at a firm, this was a small law firm, you know, 20 something years ago. And it was, you know, law firms tend to have multiple personalities as far as like multiple leaders, I guess you'd say. Not, not multiple personalities and well, maybe both. Well, one, one of the, one of the, you know, one of the heads of the firm would ref as his cio, the other would refer to me as his IT director and another would refer to me as his IT guy. I'm like, whatever, as long as the check cleared, I don't really care. Right? So it's, I mean, to me those are just words, but I think a lot of people, or a lot of IT leaders, senior IT leaders, face the same, same struggles. And when I was asked to, you know, to join this podcast, and I'm super happy to be here, I started looking at the past, past podcast he would done and started to get a feel for it and listen to some of them. And I, I said, literally said to myself out loud, I was like, you have got to be kidding me. These guys are in my brain right now. Your topics for your podcast are straight out of my brain. The idea that a, you know, again, whatever title, a senior IT leader continues to be viewed as a technology person and that, that's the struggle is you, you may feel like you've made the transition and you may view very, you may have, but until you are seen and viewed by the organization in the same way, you're going to have struggles. And I think that's, I think that's especially common at smaller organizations because where you have to wear multiple hats, sure, you can be the cio, but you also may have to help someone, you know, print their spreadsheet and da, da, da, da, right. As you get to large organizations, I think that kind of goes away and, but I think smaller. And another thing is, I think you're more likely to get stuck with that stigma, if you will, if you have advanced through your career by beginning at lower levels. You know, you were the support level one, help desk, tech support level two, and then analyst and network admin, senior sysadmin. And as you work your way up, let's say you're the same organization for, you know, several years, a dozen years, 20 years, whatever. And your co workers have seen that progression. And so they will continue to view you as that's my IT person right there. And so then you eventually become the, the, the one with the, quote, seat at the table. But you're still viewed as the guy that helped me fix my printer or something like that. And that's, that's, I think that's always going to be a struggle. I really do.
• 7:07
  Speaker B: That's a, It's a really good point. Having switched organizations in the last few years, I definitely see and feel what you're talking about in a, in a new light because, because the prior job, I was there for two decades and, and did exactly that, grew up and, you know, I was beholden, as beholden to the mailroom clerk and their needs for technology help. As I CEO, and. And the CEO would say, you know, I don't want to be treated differently than. Than anybody else. But, you know, here I am thinking I'm the leader of the group and I'm out there helping somebody who, the mailroom clerk, like I'm saying. And, and this is not slamming that position. It's just I'm helping them with their Excel spreadsheet.
• 8:00
  Speaker A: Yep. Yep.
• 8:01
  Speaker B: So I was just going to ask you, tell us a little bit more real quick about Lead it. What's the lead IT frame framework?
• 8:09
  Speaker A: Okay, well, so without making it a whole pitch, it was something I built based on lots of things I learned over the years, including quite a few things that I learned the hard way, to be honest, it was the best way.
• 8:24
  Speaker C: Right.
• 8:25
  Speaker A: So, I mean, it's really, you know, it's lessons that came from my own struggles trying to make that transition from being what I considered a strong technical leader to becoming more of an executive leader. And at some point I thought to myself, you know, if I. If I struggled with this, and I did a lot, I said, you know, if I struggled with this, then surely other people have struggled as well. And it turns out a lot of people have, and a lot of people still do. So I thought maybe I could take some of the things I've learned the hard way and put some structure around them and turn them into something that might help other IT leaders make that transition a little more intentionally. And that's where my lead IT framework came from. And it's. It's pretty simple. It's six pillars, and each one has a, you know, focus or an objective. I mean, I could rip through them real quick. I don't want this to turn into a whole pitch. But, yeah, you know, each one, and it's in us. Honestly, this is going to sound silly, like I made it up, but the. The letters are conveniently do spell out lead. But. But the first pillar is lead. It is your behavior. It is how you show up. It's how you make decisions. And what people can count on elevate is increasing your capability. You become a multiplier. You remove yourself from the equation, which we know is so unbelievably hard, especially if you've been at that organization for a long time and you've worked your way up because they know you. It's about letting others own the work, your team own that work, and building people who don't need you for every decision. So you're elevating them. Align is about Creating a shared direction agreement on the actual problem and getting the right people involved early and supporting them without micromanaging them and making ownership and trade offs clear. Deliver is, it's clear promises and clear owners. Right. It's following up without hovering. It's basically doing what you said you would do because no one cares about intent and no one, no one cares what you wanted to do, what you plan to do, what you intended to do. It's what did you deliver. And that's just the reality of it. If you don't deliver, your intent means nothing. Innovate is an interesting one because that came up in a, in a, in a LinkedIn discussion recently. Innovate is, is keeping today running while making room for what's next. It's solving real problems and not chasing the next shiny object. But it, it is, it is trying to keep today going and still making room for, and planning for tomorrow. And then transform is making the new way stick. Right. It's, it's changing more than the technology. It's, it's. Now you're talking about culture and behavior and it's, and it's helping people through the messy middle, if you will. So that's. And, and it, you know, the origins, like I said, are these were recurring patterns that I saw what worked and what did not work, what I saw. Leaders, it leaders repeatedly struggle with what I struggled with myself. So I just, and it's been there for years and it just helped, it just, it took someone to kind of pull it out of me to say, you know, you, you've got this in your head. It's been in your head for, you know, I don't know, a dozen or more years, 15 years have been there. You just need to formalize it and put it into some sort of structure. And I know a lot of people say, well, who needs another framework? Well, you know, what I did and it helped me and I apply my own framework to my own situations all the time. And it reinforces that, yes, it does work. I mean, it works for me. So that, I mean, that's kind of the bolts of it right there.
• 12:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. And we do such a disservice to ourselves. And in all of the conversations that I've had with many, many different leaders of multiple organizations. But, but we talk about being able to talk the business or to understand and know the business and be able to speak the business or speak do the business, and all of the things that you just talked about in Lead it are paths to speaking the business and understanding the business. Because with that, that's how, that's, it's one of the primary ways that, that I've learned to get my seat at the table is to be able to have those kinds of discussions with the rest of the executive and the senior leadership is to talk to them about what matters to them and.
• 12:58
  Speaker A: Right.
• 12:59
  Speaker B: You know, part of that is that I'm trying to think of which one it was. But you know, how I show up, how I look to them.
• 13:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's the reason it's the first one.
• 13:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. And when I deliver, if it doesn't matter if, if I make all of these promises and I never deliver, then it doesn't matter how I lead because I, if I don't deliver.
• 13:23
  Speaker A: And that's, I mean, that's the point exactly is these are not isolated pillars. I mean, I've got a little hex diagram, logo thing. They're not separate, unrelated, independent pillars. They are interconnected and they're, they each are super important. You know, I always say that lead is the most important one because it all, that's the foundation. It all start. Because it all starts with you. Like I said, it's your behavior. It's how you show up. It's, it's what others see and from you, that's your behavior, how they perceive you and can people count on you? I mean, that starts to lead into some of the other ones as well. But is if you don't establish that foundation first, then you're going to have struggles and you need everything. But that has to be first because let's say, for example, you move on to the discussion of the next pillar, which is elevate, that is, that is, you become a multiplier. You multiply through others and you're letting others own the outcome because it's all about outcomes. Again, nobody cares what you plan to do or what you want to do. It's what the outcome is. And you enable them and you support them, but you're removing yourself from the equation and you get out of the weeds, you get out of the trenches. You're there, of course, and you can elevate those, let's say, on your team, for example. But you can't do that unless you first establish how you, how you present yourself as a leader, how you show up, how you behave. So that has to be first. And then. But my point is they're all connected. And I don't know that there's any one more important than the other. If I had to pick, I'd say Lead because that, it all starts there. That's the first pillar.
• 14:57
  Speaker B: But you know, and that elevate piece, that one. I, I don't know how hard it was for you. It was really hard for me. I, I honestly really almost needed to have that break to move into a new organization, to really quit being so involved.
• 15:17
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 15:17
  Speaker B: You know, I, I, after growing up in the organization, I knew where all the bodies were, I knew why and how, and, and I had so much of the tribal knowledge that it was hard to let somebody else learn it by doing it because I always, I always had a secret or experience that I could share and I was taking away their chance to experience.
• 15:45
  Speaker A: Well, and so that there's so many different aspects to that. So many. We could unpack that in a couple hours. But because you have progressed or advanced through your career, that technical experience, that's your foundation, that's that built who you are professionally. And so you can't abandon that. Right. That, that's, that defines who you are. And it, it is probably one of the, if not the main reasons that you are where you are right now. So you can't abandon that technical foundation. So it's very hard to let go of that and allow others, allow your team and support them and elevate them. But you know, remove, like I said, removing yourself from the equation is so ridiculously hard because, and you know, and not only that, but you start to lose that immediate feedback that you, something was broken, you fixed it, there was a problem, you solved it, something was stuck, you unstuck it. I, I got, you know, whatever up and running again and it's, it's instant gratification.
• 16:42
  Speaker B: Well now core portion of who I am. Yes, I am a problem solver. I love puzzles and I want to fix and figure them out. And so yeah, letting go of that and allowing somebody else to solve the puzzle is hard to do.
• 16:59
  Speaker A: Something that's, and that's, that's the. I'm actually writing an article. It's, it's mostly in my head. I've got it kind of drafted and it's, and it's the idea, I don't really have a title, but it's, it's the idea of, I think I called it something like abandoning the code, leaving the code behind or something like that. The idea is that your hands on, whatever that may have been, you're a programmer, your servers, you're exchange guy, you're a dba, whatever, you've been a hands on IT person for so long that now you've moved into these senior roles and again, that foundation is there. It's important. It's not going anywhere. But when you begin to manage others and so forth, you lose that instant gratification that you've had for so long. It's going to happen. It's going to be, first of all, it's going to be delayed and it's going to be put on someone else, which is almost like, you know, the whole proud papa thing. But it's, it's, you're, you're abandoning what you've always known because that's how you advance. And that was so important. And it got you to where you are. Like I said, especially when you're talking about someone who's advanced within the same organization. And it, like you said, it's just, it's crazy hard to let that go. But you have to.
• 18:12
  Speaker B: I want to let the listeners know that we have a guest with us today who's been patiently listening in. Bruce Ott, a former guest at you've been heard.com and has had his own interview, has joined us and actually Bruce has been asked a question. So Bruce, go for it. Jump in.
• 18:32
  Speaker C: Well, a couple of things. One of them is reinforce again what the last two acronyms are, the A and the D. We spend a lot on the L and the in the E, but on the elevate piece specifically, particularly when you build something from the ground up, right? And typically if you're a new CIO coming into a small organization that's growing rapidly, you end up doing a lot of the hands on stuff as you're hiring staff to take that over. On the elevate side, how did you personally deal with two specific challenges? One of them was as you were relinquishing the decision making, right? Saying, hey, you make the decision, you may fall, you move forward with it. How did you handle when they made the wrong decision or the business didn't like the decision that they made? How did you then handle that with those individuals? And the second one on that is some individuals are really skilled, really good. But, but like having you as a crutch. So how did you take steps to move yourself away from being their crutch? So two related things, but still very different.
• 19:42
  Speaker A: So I'll answer the second one first. You can still be the crutch without them knowing you're the crutch, right? You're there, you're constantly watching and you're available and you get into that fine line of supporting without micromanaging. You don't want to Hover. But you need to keep an eye on what's the, what, you know, how things are going and what's happening. But I think a lot of it starts. Well, for me it starts with your selection of whether or not someone is prepared for what you're about to hand them. Okay. And someone may have demonstrated their ability to solve problems and fix things and this and that, but there's some discernment there that, well, just because they're good as a systems administrator or, you know, whatever role and they're highly technical and highly skilled and they fix all the problems, are they ready for the, all of the other stuff that comes with it? We'll just say it like that, right? All the increased visibility, the extra pressure, the demand that things be a certain way because up to this point they've been a cog in a very large wheel and now you're asking them to own it. And owning an outcome is a lot different than working on that outcome. So you have to. But, you know, carefully select us. Have they shown the initiative to jump into things before they became a problem? Are they just a, you know what I call. And some people don't like this. I call that some people a task based worker, meaning they are fantastic at what I put in front of you, like, like a dog with a bone. Great. But if I don't put something in front of you, then they, they don't see that things need to happen and they don't have the initiative to go find stuff that, well, this is a problem. I'm going to address this before it becomes an issue, before it manifests and creates a bigger problem. If they can simply, you know, tick off boxes and complete work you've assigned them, well, they might be good workers, but that doesn't mean they're ready to move up to the next level. So I think it starts with, you know, figuring out are they ready for that role. And it's more than just did they complete this task, they accomplish this. It's looking at how they completed it and did they look at. So here, here's another one of my little analogies is I worked at a place one time, this was a long time ago, so nobody knows. What I'm talking about is I had someone who I called my three foot hole guy. He's, he's a three. And it's just a general analogy, right? And I would, so if I would give him a task, he would complete the task and that was it. But nothing else. And I say, okay, well, but there's other Considerations that you've missed. I mean, you completed the task and you did what I asked and that's great, I appreciate it. But what about all the other things? I was like, here's my analogy. If I ask you to dig a three foot hole, you're going to dig a three foot hole and then that's it. And I'm going to say, okay, but what about the other stuff that I think should be obvious to you? What about the gigantic pile of dirt you've created? What you need to put that in a wheelbarrow and get it out of here. What about the shovel that needs to be cleaned off and put away? We need to rope this off so nobody falls in. All of these are other things that should have been considered, but it just kind of goes along with the task of build me a hole or dig me a hole. But all you did was focus on what I gave you without. It's like you had your blinders on. You can't see the bigger picture of what other things naturally would be associated with that. And so you would apply that to a situation where I say, I need you to do such and such. And they do it and they say, hey man, you asked me to dig a hole, I dug a hole. Well, yes, you did, and that's great. But there are other tasks that I just obviously think go with that. But if they don't have the mindset to see the other pieces, then maybe this goes back to your first question, Bruce. Then maybe they're not ready for that next level because that's what it's going to be is if the organization says, you know, we need such and such, and if all you give them is this without considering how other pieces and other components are affected, then you may deliver this one piece. But you've missed all the other things that are also affected, even within your own group, other departments within the organization. And they're going to be like, well yeah, you delivered this and that's great, but what about this and that? And you can't throw your hands up and say, well, hey, you know, I dug a hole. That's all you wanted. You have to look at all the other pieces. And so this goes back to what you received, is what I was saying of selecting quality. I don't know candidates, if you will, for the potential to be elevated. So are they ready to step up? And it has nothing to do with how good they are technically or how senior they are in the role. It's just, it's a personality trait. It's Behavior, and it's just. But you have to be, like you said, you have to be there to support. You don't want to want to. You need to be closely available and support them. You don't want to hover. You don't want to micromanage, but you don't want to just hand it off and bail. You know, delegation of some sort of task is not abdication. Right. You don't want to just hand it to them and all right, good luck. Or throw him in the deep end and say, well, he'll figure it out. Well, he might, but he probably won't. And who do you think it's going to come back on? Right. That it's your. It's your thing that you've assigned to someone else. And that's where you get into the difference of, did I assign him a task or did I ask him to manage this whole process and own the outcome? And if they're not ready to own the outcome and they're just simply ready to complete a task and tick off a box, then all they did was dig the hole. They didn't worry about all the other stuff that went with it. And that kind of tells me they're not ready. They may be, but right now they're not ready for that.
• 25:15
  Speaker C: Yeah. So the two cases that I was thinking of. Right. That led to those questions are, in one case, they were very skilled. They knew their stuff. They looked at the whole picture. Around the end, they didn't have the confidence to trust themselves. So, you know, have you run into that with an employee and how. What were your steps for encouraging them to take those steps? And then the other case was where they believe they knew the business better than the business side. So they were doing things and implementing and wanting to do things that the business didn't go along with and have you run into that and how did you deal with it?
• 25:53
  Speaker A: So that one. That one. That one makes me cringe a little bit. So on the confidence, that's where, you know, you would have to be. You know, I try to be super selective about when I can give them something that if they. Even if they fail miserably, I can handle it. I can.
• 26:11
  Speaker C: It's.
• 26:12
  Speaker A: It's like you quietly say, I got you, but you don't tell them that. You let. You let them believe. And I'm not trying to, like, play games here, but it's like you let them believe and it's true. This is yours. You. This is your baby. You own it. Go do it. Go be magical. Make it happen. But if they don't, you're ready to, you know, clean up the mess and make it work. And, you know, it's a similar situation where if you have a, let's say you have some sort of, you know, major issue or something's going on, an outage or whatever, and you don't want to get pulled back into the weeds, but you know, the fix immediately. Right. But rather than just go take care of yourself, you ask one of these individuals, let's say you've got someone that you've got your eye on. You think, I think that might be my guy. I think she's the one. I think he's the one that I might, you know, so you're thinking about it. Then you present it to him. So you, rather than just say, okay, here's what we do, say, and they might call you all frantic and, well, this and that and whatever, and we've had this system down for four hours. And what. And I said, well, hold on, let's just take a beat. It's been broken for four hours. Three minutes isn't going to kill us. What. Talk to me. What, what, what do you think? What's on your mind and just walk me through it. Just, just take a breath and tell me what you think and then why it may be that, why it may not be, and what other, you know, indicators do you have? And then if they. That's when you get to the.
• 27:32
  Speaker C: It's.
• 27:32
  Speaker A: It's not necessarily the exact answer I'm listening for. I mean, of course. Right. But it. More I want to hear their thought process. Well, I think it's xyz. Okay, great. Why. How did, how did you get there? You know, let me follow your brain path. How did you get from where we are now to there? And I'm listening to how they, you know, figure the way through it. Meanwhile, I may have already fixed it 20 minutes ago, but I didn't tell them that. Right. Because I want to hear them talk their way through it. And, and are they, Are they working their way through and are they able to, to put that into some sort of, I don't know, solution that, that, that can be applied maybe in other scenarios. And I'm following how they think because then you can take that logic and apply it to all sorts of other scenarios as well. And I mean, it. I guess it kind of depends on individual examples, but that's, I mean, that's kind of the way I would, I
• 28:23
  Speaker B: would throw in a few other experiences that I've run into too, actually, I want to get one saying out there that I've heard, which is, again, it comes from the military. Another coworker of mine that as we were having some of these team building meetings, he had a sergeant that he reported to and the sergeant told him, one day I may let you fail, but I won't let you be a failure. And that one, I think is a huge thing for that elevate. Because if I can give you the space to make the mistakes and make it okay and you learn how to recover from a mistake, that's a huge lesson. But one of the other things that I've learned in providing that space and being quiet and not giving them my answer or my solution is sometimes they come up with a unique solution that I haven't thought of and it's completely different because their path to that solution came around in a direction like, like you're trying to discover the path. And you know, just working with them and, and withholding the solution that I know works allows them to suddenly come up with this other one. And I'm like, you know what? I can use that in three other places.
• 29:51
  Speaker A: Right.
• 29:51
  Speaker B: I'm so glad that I kept my mouth shut.
• 29:54
  Speaker A: And that's why, like I said, that's why I'm paying attention to what route did their brain take to get there? Because it may have or may not have solved this particular issue. But more importantly, you're tracing their strips and you're like, oh, wow, I, that, that's a route I had not taken. And I'm going to hang on to that because that could be super helpful in some other scenario. Absolutely. And what you mentioned about failing, I just, you know, so I've got a course that I just finished putting together. I had to go back and re record the elevate module. And so it's fresh in my brain. And you talk about failing. That's one piece I talk about is it's okay. And sometimes it helps them, you know, and, and I can relate that all the way back to when I used to do the novel and Microsoft training is I would basically there'd be a topic and I would give, you know, the lecture on whatever topic it, whatever we're learning for this, this particular section. And then they would work on a lab, it could be 10 minutes, it could be an hour, whatever. And I'll say, look, when you, when you run into a problem, you're following steps in your, in your book. When you run into a problem, you work in groups, just stop. And you know you and your partner figure out, what are we trying to do? Why does this not work? Your first reaction should not be to say, brian, I need help. Well, because what have you learned? You've learned to call me over to help you get past step seven. Okay. But instead I was like, just look at the bigger picture. Just literally just push yourself back from the chair and just. Hold on a minute. What are we trying to do in this lab? What is the exercise here? And then, okay, what have we done up to this point? Because I can probably tell you what you're doing wrong just by looking at, well, you're on step seven. Oh, you don't. You're not logged in as admin. I don't know, whatever. But the point is to step back and look at the whole process. And then you've made a mistake. You've failed in your little lab. And you will learn more because the guy next to you over here, he probably finished an hour lab in 10 minutes, and he's playing solitaire. And it took you 55 minutes to finish this lab, but you've actually, at the end of it, you've learned what the whole point of the exercise was because you failed seven times before you actually, you and your partner finished, you know, that, that, that piece. And it's sort of the same concept, only now we're talking about in a production, actual environment. And if you fail, I'm not going to let you fail so miserably, you're going to cause catastrophic damage to the company. But that will be a lesson and you will take from it, you know, what did you do wrong? And so that, to me is as important as what. Because if everything goes right, yes, you're going to learn. But I honestly feel like you're going to learn more by what went wrong along the way. Because then you, you know, it's no different than taking a test. And if you look at the question and you see the answer, all the answer is B. Okay, well, okay, you know, it's B.
• 32:39
  Speaker C: But what?
• 32:39
  Speaker A: Ask yourself and you'll make yourself understand what is wrong with A and C and D, that those are not correct answers. It's the same concept. If I'm working through something, what is it that caused this piece to fail? That ultimately maybe we got the solution. But along the way, these two things got screwed up a little bit, and I could have done better on those. Why? And so just, you know, make notes, use some tool to keep track of it, or even if you just burn it into your brain, use that, you know, you can leverage those as opportunities for the next time something comes up. Absolutely.
• 33:14
  Speaker B: Well, Bruce is going to drop. I just want to say thank you very much, Bruce, for joining us and, and stopping in and, and adding to the questions. Thanks again.
• 33:24
  Speaker C: It was, it was a pleasure.
• 33:26
  Speaker A: Thank you, Bruce.
• 33:27
  Speaker B: Pleasure having you drop in. So, Brian, you know, we've been talking about the lead IT framework and all of these different things, but right before I hit the record button, we were talking about a completely different topic. But actually, I think it really blends very well with this just in general. And that was peer groups and, you know, like, typically when I'm introducing what, what this podcast is going to be like to the guest, before I ever hit the record button, I talk to them about how, you know, what, we get to have a discussion. And my eyes aren't going to glaze over. You know, when I start talking to my wife about the technical details of what I do every day, eyes glaze over and she disengages. If, if I start talking to her about the politics and the people and, and who said what, when and how they said it. Oh, she's in. But, but when I start talking about the technical details of trying to accomplish some geo fencing project and, and time stamps and things like that, she's out. But, you know, you mentioned that you were starting to see and hear and, and find some critical value in peers and peer groups. And I know for myself, I happen to find some of that camaraderie and that friendship and that peer group and some of the advisory boards. I found that hugely valuable. And you sounded like you're looking for more of that.
• 35:09
  Speaker A: It is. I started to be within the last, literally in the last few months, being a little more intentional about trying to put myself in the room with people who share my same brain, basically. And it didn't take long. And, you know, I. Going to events and meeting people and I'm starting to see the same people, you know, over and over again and getting to know them. And it's, it's so interesting. I was an event last night and sitting around a table with, you know, 10 or 12 people and listening to their experience and it's, it's a different environment. They work in different companies, different sizes and so forth. But, you know, someone mentioned last night that in their organization, which is very large, that cyber belongs to legal. It does not fall under it. And everybody at the table was like, oh, man, that would be great. He's like, well, yeah, why should it? I mean, and it makes sense, right? Because The IT is going to be involved, but you're going to implement it, you're going to support it. But why does it own that decision? And that goes back to a lot of things that, that I have a personal issue with is that, is that anything that involves technology, which is pretty much everything these days, that all of its failures fall at the feet of it. And I have a huge problem with that. I'm like, no way, right? If, if, if someone else, because there's a, there's a whole process here, right? Is, is if someone else is responsible for this idea, this strategy, this was decided at the organization level, then they need to, they, they own that decision. They also need to be part of the accountability process, you know, good and bad. So it's like if the idea was, if it works out great, they get credit for the idea. If it fails, it's, it's fault. I'm like that usually it's not though, you know, maybe it was just a poor idea. So there's, there are so many pieces to it that, you know, like you said, is talking with others that have the same, that are in the similar situations, share the same struggles and so forth, that's, that has been very valuable. And it's funny because I, you know, like I said, I recently started getting more involved in this stuff and my calendar's full. It's like, you know, every other day I've got something. And I thought to myself, I was, I even said to someone, I'm like, why am I suddenly getting invited to all these, you know, conferences and dinners and all these things? And they said, it's not suddenly anything. You always have been. But I was always head down focused. I would, you know, delete that email and block the sender. I was, wasn't interested in that. That just wasn't my thing. But I'm like, you know, what if I want to have peers and have somebody to bounce ideas off of and swap war stories with, I need to get out. Even if it's virtually and it's just through LinkedIn or whatever. I need to be engaged with others that sit in the same seat and most likely face the same struggles that I do. I mean, that's the whole reason I put my framework together. And I, like I said, I use it daily to help me with whatever's going on in my little world. It's, it's become in, in this short amount of time, it's become absolutely invaluable. And I'm, I'm literally, I'm kicking myself that I was not engaged sooner, but, you know, what are you going to do?
• 38:23
  Speaker B: So, yeah, it's now. Now you just got to lean into it and enjoy what you're finding within it. I know that I found this a little bit earlier in my career because one of the reasons I think I found it was because I needed that validation. I couldn't. I couldn't even have these kinds of conversations with the rest of the senior management or the executive leaders because, you know, again, I was that guy that grew up in the organization and they didn't look at me like that. They didn't hear that. And having this group of people and then talking about what we had accomplished or the team had accomplished and the things that we had done, I started getting feedback of how, how many times. You know, I'm thinking of myself as this. I'm. There's no original ideas. There's no new things. And I'm out here in Backwater usa and there's, you know, I, I'm not doing anything new and I'm not doing anything amazing. But I start talking to my peers and I start finding out how, how many times I'm a few steps ahead of my peers and I'm going, but you guys are bigger organizations. You guys have bigger budgets. You guys have more teams. You guys have.
• 39:46
  Speaker A: And. And it was, yeah, but you're leaning, but you're lean and you can move quicker. Well, you know, you brought up an excellent point. You said about, you know, speaking with your wife is. Is that whole communication thing is something that is overlooked and something that caused me issues early in my career. You know, as you advance to these senior leadership roles in. It is. You have to. It's not only, you know, like we said, the whole behavior and all this other stuff, that's fine. But how do you communicate with what are now your peers in the. Within the organization? You know what, again, whatever time you give them, if you're sitting around, you know, you're sitting at the table and it's that. And you've got it somewhere on here. Or maybe it was my, my call before this. It was, you know, you're seen. But are you heard. You have to be able to put it into, into their language.
• 40:38
  Speaker C: Is.
• 40:38
  Speaker A: Is, you know, stop with the technical jargon. They don't want to hear that. They, you know, they may not understand it. They probably don't. And even if they did, that's not, that's not what they want to hear. They don't care about that. And, you know, sometimes I don't care about that. You have to speak in business terms. If, if you're talking about, you know, firewall ports and protocols and blah, blah, they don't want to. They want, they're talking in terms of cost and, and risk and timelines, deadlines, customer impact, client experience, stuff like that. Now you're speaking their language and how you do it. Technically they don't care, right. They're looking at it from the organization level and you have to hang on to that technical foundation. That's why you in this position, that's great, don't lose it. But when you're communicating, it has to be in their terms. And that's, you know, you mentioned that stop training the room to see you as the IT person. The whole idea that you are, you will continue to be perceived as the IT person despite your advanced career, your role, your title. I don't think that's ever going to change in our world. I mean each person may change their situation, right? And I think things are changing only because companies are starting to appreciate the technology has to be involved in the discussion from the beginning. But if, and that was the essence of that article, right? Is if all you ever do is show up to the meeting and sit there quietly until they hand it over to you and say, you know, and they whatever question and you answer the question and then you shut up. Well, now you've created your own problem, right? Or you've fed into that problem, right? So, so you know what the ant. Well, again, my solution is to answer the question, of course, but immediately, before anyone else has a chance to speak, just spin it into. But the bigger question we need to be asking is such as. Or the, you know, another thing we need to consider is so and so. So yes, you provide the answer, of course, but then you immediately just roll the right into how that affects the business. What's the impact on the strategy and the, the project, you know, whatever it is. And I, and ideally, pretty soon the questions that come to you are no longer simply technical, it's more business strategy. Because I think, and that's another thing I think is overlooked in a lot of companies, companies is the technical component is not included early enough. It needs to be included from the very, very, very beginning. It's not just a downstream implementation, right. It belongs in the entire decision before, you know, before we do anything else. This is, this is ground zero. This is step zero. Not step one or step two or step ten. This is step zero that it needs to be in that decision making process from the absolute Very beginning. And it is commonly not so.
• 43:29
  Speaker B: And it's, it's one of the things that, like right now I'm trying to change the culture of the team that I'm working with. And, and their culture is the fear of having to grab the broom and the dustpan to go clean up what others have decided. And, and so they detest that, they detest being brought in after the fact to clean up stuff that they could have said. If you had, if we had talked about this, we could have avoided this and we'd be further along the path.
• 44:06
  Speaker A: Right.
• 44:06
  Speaker B: If you had just brought us in, let us be heard.
• 44:10
  Speaker A: That's, that's. Well, you know, like I said a minute ago, is, is that is something that I think if as much as possible it or technology involvement from the beginning rather than like you said, clean up the mess, is if I'm part of the decision process, then maybe things would go a little bit differently. And if someone else makes that decision, then like I said a minute ago, you, you need to also be part of the, if you're part of the decision process, then guess what, you're part of the accountability process as well. So when things fail, don't just drop it at my feet and say it's my problem. Will I have some cleanup? Of course, because it's technology related. But you know, this is going to, There are other people that belong in that chain and if they helped make that decision, they should share in the responsibility of the outcome.
• 44:58
  Speaker B: You know, governance has taken on a new meaning for me, but I, I also really think that we're at this cusp. Not only are we at an inflection point because of the technology, but I think we're at another cusp because traditional IT, I think, is starting to disappear where we're becoming your co worker sitting next to you in the cubicle right there or in the role right next to you in every department. Because what used to be unique to us as the ones who could program the clock on the VCR now is everyday knowledge to so many people.
• 45:49
  Speaker A: Right.
• 45:49
  Speaker B: They don't understand the fundamentals like that networking, they don't. I, they couldn't tell you how this device that I'm holding up can communicate across the world and what it's using and how, how phone calls can find it. You and I might be able to do that because we understand those fundamentals, but their understanding of the technology and what technology can do for them is foundational to them. And they're sitting next in that cubicle off to the Side.
• 46:19
  Speaker A: Well, and that's why, you know, you mentioned governance and everybody hates that. It's boring word. But it's, I mean, to me it's just, it's a fancy way to talk about rules. That's all it is.
• 46:30
  Speaker C: Well, it's rules.
• 46:31
  Speaker A: Who can build, especially as it relates to AI, because that's the only topic anybody wants to talk about. But who can build an, and approve and deploy and own and monitor and shut down, you know, these, these initiatives, these, these, you know, whatever is, that's, to me, is what governance is all about. And I think that's what you're going to see over the next several months and years or whatever is. It's going to continue to, you know, AI is pervasive and everything, but companies are going to have to crack down on, you know, because I think what a lot of companies are missing is they're starting in the wrong place in the equation. I think you start at the end. You know, the first thing I need to ask you is, is what are we trying to do? And if the discussion about AI begins with what tool? And let's talk about licensing costs And I'm like, do we even need it? I mean, the answer is most likely going to be yes, but what do we need it for? You know, it's not a, you know, what is your AI strategy? Well, we don't have an AI strategy any more than, and I saw this somewhere, so I can't claim credit, I think I read it somewhere is, you know, you should not have an AI strategy more than you have a spreadsheet strategy or you have a wi fi strategy. Those are just tools. Those are resources you use to help you do some work. Well, AI is a tool, it's a resource, it's not a strategy. Do you have to have all the rules, all the governance? Of course, absolutely. But that gets you to it, to your end game, to your outcome. So when we're talking about AI, to me, to me it's start at the end. So we want to use AI. Okay, great. For what? Well, we just need to be doing more of it. Don't give me that answer. I personally think that's a terrible answer. You need to tell me what is it you want to do? Where are we going?
• 48:17
  Speaker B: The, the governance piece that I didn't articulate, but I wanted to, is the, the change in that word for me recently came in on data governance and the ownership of the garbage. Garbage in, garbage out. We've been saying it for ever, right? And now governance, to me, is also saying that, okay, data governance means that, hey, you're the person that entered that order and you're the person that decided that a zip code of 00,000 was a valid zip code. No. And yes, it's a rule like you were talking about, but it's the ownership, the governance and the ownership of what's going in because. And, you know, it's not just trying to control it and keep it from getting out, but it's making sure that it's valid when it goes in. And that, that portion of the governance was a kind of a light bulb moment for me in the last couple of years. But, yeah, I, I actually love that thought that you just gave of AI strategy. Okay, well, wait a minute. First tell me what your Excel strategy is.
• 49:37
  Speaker A: Right, well, and it's like, you know, I've had someone tell me, well, we need to be doing more with AI. Okay, what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, I think our. I think our competitors are doing more or our competitors are doing more. Okay, tell me specifically what it. Well, I don't know. I just assume they are. And I'm like, get out of here. You know, that's not, you know, if you have something specific. And look, I'm going to, I'm going to admit that it is very, very, very likely we're going to implement some sort of AI tool to get us to, To. To there. But you need to start with there. Start with the end. Tell me what we're trying to do. Well, we need to, you know, increase speed, improve efficiency and that. And we want to do. Okay, great. Now you've got my attention. Now let's find the tool to do it. But if you just say we need to be using AI more, that. That's an empty. That's an empty discussion right there. That has no value.
• 50:30
  Speaker B: I warned you that I was going to hit you with a question.
• 50:34
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 50:35
  Speaker B: So hopefully that's had a chance to percolate in the back of your brain for a little bit. What do you think that we, as IT leaders will be, or as information technology, as technologists, as, as the nerds, as the geeks? What are we going to be talking about in 18 months that we're not talking about today?
• 50:54
  Speaker A: Well, if we hadn't just talked about it, I would have said governance. Because, you know, you know, and I
• 51:00
  Speaker B: heard something about it today.
• 51:01
  Speaker A: I heard something funny the other day. It was. They said, remember, there's no I in team, but there is AI and fail said, okay, that's clever. I. I think you'll. I don't know that. I don't. That's probably not a great answer because we are talking about it today. I think it will, it will be more of the focus on the controls and the measures and the restraints and the guardrails and whatever term you want to use to tame that beast, because that's. It's not going anywhere. And I've had someone recently feel like it was a passing fad. And I said, I don't know what, what world you're living in, but this thing is just all in our face right now. And it's not growing every six months or every 18 months. It's every like two days. It just. It's crazy. Well, yeah, that's. I think we're still going to be talking about that.
• 51:53
  Speaker B: It's been amazing. I've gotten some really good answers on that. One of them was that somebody felt that it was going to flip that like today. You know, one of the primary things that, where we're starting to hear about it, but we're hearing of, you know, AI is taking jobs. Right. And actually. Agreed, agreed. But we're hearing that and, but their response was that in 18 months we're going to be talking about the need of the people inside of that loop, that we're going to need the human
• 52:33
  Speaker A: in the loop, human on the loop,
• 52:34
  Speaker B: human oversight, human governance that we're going to be bringing back. The true crafters, the engineers, the.
• 52:43
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 52:44
  Speaker B: That we're going to be bringing those people in to help with the cluster that we're going to create. As we say, oh, just let it do it 100%.
• 52:56
  Speaker A: So I, I don't think so. AI has taken jobs and it's also going to create more. That's my opinion. So I will give you an example. I have a good friend of mine is a full stack developer and he's looking for a new work and I had a conversation with him the other day and I said, look, this is only my little opinion, so take that for what it's worth said. But your job, as you know it, is gone. If you're looking to. If you're looking to get hired on somewhere to sit at a computer and hammer out code all day, those days are gone and they are not coming back because you cannot do what AI can do. It can do it in a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the time. However, the good news is that they will still need you because they need someone to manage that process. They need someone who knows what this tool is writing and get in there and dissect it and say, okay, hold on, that's no good right there. We need to clean that up. You simply cannot compete at this with the speed at which these things can work. But your skill and experience and knowledge is absolutely going to be necessary. Good news for you. You're going to make more money doing it. You're just, you're just no longer going to be sitting in a computer hacking code for a hundred hours because it can do it in the blink of an eye. But your company needs you in there to manage those agents and those processes. So I think is it is. Has AI already taken job? Probably. And it will take more, but it's going to shift because I think at the end of, you know, 18 months from now, you know, net net, there may be a lot more people involved and hired and working, but they're just going to be doing different things. It's just like you said, it's, it's, it's a shift. You still need that human in the loop because there are some tasks that, that these tools can do now and eventually, obviously in the future we'll do even more so that we cannot come close to replicating speed and efficiency. But, and we've seen this, you have to have someone in there to, to, to, to step in and make sure that all of these processes are, or whatever are taking place appropriately. Because, you know, especially when you're talking about things that are automated. Because, you know, and that's another confusion I see is when people talk about AI, when they're really talking about automation. Automation is just repeating a task, right? But if AI introduces judgment and rationalization and discernment and in logic and reasoning, none of which are automation, right? So you can automate all those tasks, but a lot of that judgment and logic and reasoning, at least for now, I want a person doing that. I don't want some, you know, supposed sentient tool doing that. I don't trust that yet. I trust that your automation and so forth and sometimes the logic and the reasoning is sound and absolutely, absolutely blows my mind. And what these things, it's like having a conversation with a real person and then they turn around and screw something. It's like you just gave me a third grade question and messed it up. I'm like, I can't trust you. If I can't trust you fully, I don't trust you at all. Because now misinformation is worse than no information. If you don't know, then just say I don't know. But don't make something up. And it's, it's not sometimes it's not only are they wrong, they are it. It is confidently wrong. And that's where you run into a problem. And I'm like, wait a minute, wait. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Time out. Where in the world did you get that? And it'll come back and say, I don't know, I just. And I'm like, you literally just made that up. Yes, I did. I'm like, what the heck? So I think you'll always. Well, I don't know about always, but I think fast forward 18 months from now, you're going to have, in the same way that you have, you know, project managers and, and you know, HR managers and IT managers, you're going to have agent managers. And I know companies are already hiring for that. You need people in there to manage those aspects that, like I said, my friend that does code and he can write all sorts of programs and languages. And I told him, I said, hey man, those days are gone because you're not. That is not the highest and best use of your time. You are super valuable based on your skills and knowledge and experience, but not in that capacity. They need you to do something else.
• 57:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. In that 100 hours that you could write that one program, you can manage 10 agents writing a hundred programs and produce quality products out of all of them.
• 57:17
  Speaker A: Right. And, and, and that's another thing. Companies are struggling to appropriately track those as reports. You know, what is it they say that you know, no more than seven reports or direct reports. Well, if you manage, you know, four people and you have 10 agents, you manage. Well, hold on a minute now. You've gone way past your threshold because those should count as employees. They are your direct reports that you supervise.
• 57:40
  Speaker B: They steal enough time, that's for sure. Brian, thank you so much for your time today and your experience and sharing all of this with us and your framework. I truly appreciate you sharing that with us and talking about it and helping us to understand it and helping us to understand how we need to sell ourselves and to quit selling ourselves as that technology person.
• 58:05
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 58:06
  Speaker B: But as the, the leader, so.
• 58:09
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 58:09
  Speaker B: Thank you very much for your time today, sir.
• 58:11
  Speaker A: I appreciate it. Thank you.