Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to What IT Takes to Lead.
Speaker: I'm your host, Matt Detweiler, and today our guest is Autumn Salama, Chief Integration Officer at Evolve IP.
Speaker: Welcome, Autumn.
Speaker: Hi, Matt.
Speaker: How are you doing this evening?
Speaker: Pretty good.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So I usually like to talk about how I've met people and I actually have never met Autumn before.
Speaker: So this is a cold interview.
Speaker: This is very exciting, but I do have a very good friend that works at her company, Evolve IP, which is my wife.
Speaker: So that's how we know each other.
Speaker: I think the first thing that I enjoy starting with is everybody's origin story.
Speaker: How did you get into IT?
Speaker: What got you started in this journey?
Speaker: Well, so it's probably a typical journey that a lot of children go through.
Speaker: My father was a computer programmer, so I grew up in a single-parent home with my dad, and just, he's my hero, and he was into computers.
Speaker: So at a very early age, I started working with computers, and I remember being in the fourth grade, and I
Speaker: My teacher going, okay, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker: I'm afraid every teacher asks that.
Speaker: So I responded, I'm going to be a computer engineer.
Speaker: And they were like, wow, okay, that's not what you usually hear from fourth graders.
Speaker: They're like, it's okay.
Speaker: You don't have to decide yet.
Speaker: But, you know, alas, here I am and definitely went into the tech field.
Speaker: It was from a very early age.
Speaker: I started out in high school being able to
Speaker: to take CCNA classes through my high school.
Speaker: So that pointed me in an initial direction, just because that was something that was made available to me.
Speaker: And I also had an opportunity, a teacher that I worked with in high school,
Speaker: recommended me to a company that was looking for someone to start making web pages for them.
Speaker: I assume they wanted cheap labor, but that's okay.
Speaker: You know, it was a great experience for me.
Speaker: Most kids in high school are working at McDonald's or other companies like that.
Speaker: I did have, you know, typical high school jobs as well, but I had an opportunity to actually start building web pages in high school.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: That really helped solidify what I wanted to do.
Speaker: So I started in community college, got associate's degrees that were relevant.
Speaker: And then I started my journey to actually starting my career and went out and started applying for jobs after that and landed my first job at a data center company working in the network operations center.
Speaker: I guess the rest is history from there.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Well, I'm very happy to know that we're both community college grads.
Speaker: That is so huge.
Speaker: Yeah, it's really a great way.
Speaker: And one thing that I can say I'm proud of is I graduated without any debt, you know, and being able to go to community college.
Speaker: It's hard for kids these days to graduate without debt.
Speaker: And after going through community college and then getting a job in the field, I did finish my bachelor's at a university, but my company paid for it.
Speaker: So, you know, that's, uh, if you can, if you can get through that and end up with a bachelor's degree and a couple of associates degrees and zero debt with that in the W column.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I, I actually went through my community college journey.
Speaker: I put on my credit card.
Speaker: We, I couldn't qualify for any financial aid at the time.
Speaker: Um, so put it on the credit card, ended up working at Macy's or JC Penny's, one of the department stores at night.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: Yeah, it's such a great way to get started.
Speaker: If people aren't entirely sure of what they want to do or they're not really sure about the financial component, it's such a great way to get started in the journey.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And so much so often that credits are transferable, right?
Speaker: Now you got to pay attention.
Speaker: Make sure that if you still want to finish out a four-year degree, I made the mistake of, you know, I graduated with two associate's degrees, so I had 100 and something credits, but only 45 of those were transferable towards my four-year degree.
Speaker: So that's one recommendation I would make if you go to community college, just make sure you know what's transferable.
Speaker: at least if that's your plan but the thing that's wonderful about i.t in my opinion is you don't always need a four-year degree people want to see that you have experience and if you can't get a starting out job like you can't go work at the apple store or geek squad you don't have a way to break into the i.t industry if you get even a certificate you can usually get started and then if you work your butt off
Speaker: People recognize that.
Speaker: And experience is king when it comes to hiring people in IT.
Speaker: Certificates are great.
Speaker: People love to see four-year degrees, but at the end of the day, they really want to see that you have experience.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: I did skip my order here and I realized that I do want to go back and just get a brief idea of what a chief integration officer does because the letters match up.
Speaker: We see CIO, but I think the title that, that some people might not be familiar with.
Speaker: Can you talk about the specializations that you do in your daily life?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, I guess I've never been big on titles and exactly what titles mean.
Speaker: But at the company, I focus on integrating.
Speaker: Company grew out of 13 different acquisitions over time.
Speaker: And so when you do that, you have a lot of disparate platforms and tools and systems.
Speaker: And so honestly, that was one of my chief focuses, given that I've been through several acquisitions, but on both sides.
Speaker: I've been working at a company that's been acquired.
Speaker: I've been at a company that's acquiring other companies.
Speaker: And I've seen what it takes to actually bring everything together.
Speaker: And born out of that, not only did I manage just integrating systems, tools, processes, et cetera, I've also managed the global product portfolio as well.
Speaker: So in a lot of other companies, you might see a chief product officer, but because this has a dual purpose, it covers both ends of the spectrum.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: So with Chief in mind, I see an organization that you belong to called Chief.
Speaker: Could you talk a little bit about that and what the mission is and what's going on there?
Speaker: I have to tell you, I came across this.
Speaker: Somebody that I knew in my network had joined this and I was like, I want to check it out.
Speaker: Given that you, when you're a female in IT, you work with primarily men.
Speaker: And given the men that I've worked with, I've actually worked with kind of the same executive team across three different companies now.
Speaker: And so I've worked with a lot of the same men, over again, and you just don't see as many women.
Speaker: And so Cheap was a network that was founded simply around empowering women.
Speaker: And so it is only female executives.
Speaker: that are part of this network.
Speaker: And they have thousands of members.
Speaker: They recently expanded into the United Kingdom as well.
Speaker: They originally started just in the United States and really just started on the East Coast and then started expanding throughout the United States.
Speaker: But they've seen that need of women executives needing other women executives to be able to talk to them and bounce ideas off of them.
Speaker: And I don't want to belabor, it's great.
Speaker: I have a lot of great mentors that are men.
Speaker: But they just see the world a little bit differently.
Speaker: And they also aren't necessarily as in tune with some of the unique challenges that come with being a female in the C-suite, being a female president, vice president, executive officer.
Speaker: It's just unique challenges.
Speaker: They have a lot of great different things.
Speaker: Not only can you talk with people on forums and post ideas and...
Speaker: Something as simple as, I need to rebrand a product.
Speaker: Has someone done this before?
Speaker: And people volunteer.
Speaker: I don't know if that's just a women thing.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't see men do this.
Speaker: But women just raise their hands like, I've done this.
Speaker: Let's chat.
Speaker: And more than happy to share the wealth of knowledge and experience that they've had from doing that thing before.
Speaker: And I was able to be on the other side of it as well.
Speaker: People saying, hey, I need to integrate some companies.
Speaker: What are things that I need to think about?
Speaker: I was like, oh, I'd be happy to talk to you about that.
Speaker: But they also have a host of programming and women speakers that are coming in all the time.
Speaker: They join you up with what's called a core group, which is a group of 10 to 12 women that you meet with every month.
Speaker: Just to talk about challenges and you get to form those relationships.
Speaker: I cannot say enough great things about that network and really enjoy all of the women that I connected with.
Speaker: And the knowledge that I was able to get out of that network was just, it's completely invaluable.
Speaker: I would love to.
Speaker: highly recommend to any woman who is struggling to get a swath of unique perspectives as they're going through their journey and tackling different challenges.
Speaker: Obviously, I'm married to a woman in IT.
Speaker: I hear her stories.
Speaker: Her first name is Shannon.
Speaker: A lot of people think that she's a man until she gets on the phone and then, oh, wow, you're a woman engineer?
Speaker: But, you know, just the stupid things that I hear frequently, thank goodness they're from outside of your company, not inside your company.
Speaker: So I'm just curious, thinking about that, what are your thoughts on
Speaker: Yeah, it's challenging and I wouldn't limit this just to IT, but of course, any male dominated industry, you're going to see these challenges.
Speaker: And the first that I think is always really hard to overcome is just a woman can behave the exact same way as a man, but be labeled completely different for it.
Speaker: A man, if they have presents and they want to be bold and want to say things,
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: They're a real go-getter.
Speaker: The woman wants to do that.
Speaker: Wow, she is overbearing.
Speaker: Can you believe her?
Speaker: And it's so challenging to walk the line of the kind of double standards that you will see when they look at men versus women.
Speaker: And again, this can be in a leadership role, it can be in IT.
Speaker: I'm sure it's not exclusive to the IT industry.
Speaker: It just so happens that IT is like 90 plus percent men.
Speaker: on its own.
Speaker: And you talk about that, it's, it sometimes is hard to find that representation because even if you talk to 10 people, only one out of 10 of those is going to be a female.
Speaker: And that's assuming that you even have a good sample size.
Speaker: Now that may be their other problem that you've heard there, but
Speaker: Women just have to fight back the stereotypes of what it means to be a woman and how they respond and, oh, maybe they're going to be too soft or maybe they're going to be too emotional.
Speaker: And it does make you feel like you're in this constant state of anxiety.
Speaker: trying to take advantage of all of the things that make women unique and diverse and helpful to industries.
Speaker: I mean, you can look at the stats.
Speaker: Anybody can look at the stats.
Speaker: Companies with diverse leadership crush those that do not have diverse leadership.
Speaker: In every single industry, it is proven time and again that the more diverse a company and specifically its leadership is, the better that company will perform because you have different ideas, different perspectives,
Speaker: So it's so hard because you want to embrace everything that makes you different and unique and special and brings something different to the table.
Speaker: There are people out there who have stereotypes and have certain things in their head and you feel the need to fight against that.
Speaker: so that people will respect you, so that people will accept you, so that people will treat you the same as they would treat a male in your place.
Speaker: And that is the challenge, is that even though I've had great mentors and wonderful men and women in my career who have always seen me as equal, there's always this element of like, well, I have to treat you different.
Speaker: You're a mother, or I use different language when I speak with you.
Speaker: And I'm sure people of color feel this exact same way.
Speaker: There's just these stereotypes that people have and the way that they handle things.
Speaker: The last piece I'll just add that is a really unfortunate thing because several years ago, it was a big thing that hashtag me too, but that's a reality.
Speaker: I've been lucky that it hasn't been as bad in the latter part of my career, but in the early part of my career,
Speaker: There were just days when you would come on and go, oh, why do I even do this?
Speaker: Why do these people treat me this way?
Speaker: And so you'd have to kind of have thick skin at some point.
Speaker: You have to not let the actions of a few dictate the way that you're going to respond and all of that.
Speaker: And I've read a lot of leadership books.
Speaker: And I think one of the most important things is responsibility.
Speaker: You have the ability to respond.
Speaker: That's what responsibility means.
Speaker: So I can't control how a man is going to talk to me or how a woman is going to talk to me or how a customer is going to treat me, whether they're going to see my name and assume that I'm a man.
Speaker: Luckily, you know, with Autumn, not that real thing as much.
Speaker: But I cannot, I can't control that, but I can control how I respond.
Speaker: And that is my responsibility as a person.
Speaker: So I see it as that I have to take that up and own that.
Speaker: And I think that's true for anybody in any scenario.
Speaker: It's just something that's going to be more frequent if you're a female, when you're going to have to deal with those specific scenarios.
Speaker: But I think again, at the end of the day, it all comes back to, I don't control them and what they think or what they believe.
Speaker: And you just stay inwardly focused on, I'm gonna do my best and I'm gonna continue to work my butt off.
Speaker: The other thing I would say is for women,
Speaker: Find a leader who believes in you and sees you as you are.
Speaker: That will make all of the difference.
Speaker: I guarantee it.
Speaker: And people say that it's one thing to have a manager that you can get along with.
Speaker: It's a very different thing to have a mentor and somebody who just believes in what you're capable of and wants to see you succeed.
Speaker: If you find somebody like that, latch on and
Speaker: Don't let go.
Speaker: The support is the biggest aspect to what's going to help you weather those particular challenges.
Speaker: And whether you have someone to talk through with, hey, this thing happened.
Speaker: I don't really know how to respond.
Speaker: Or even if you have someone who's in your cheerleading section and says,
Speaker: Don't worry about the people in the cheap seats that want to take shots.
Speaker: Worry about people that are in your cheering section in the box there for you.
Speaker: And I think as long as you can latch onto that, you're able to overcome and see past those types of challenges and not let them cause you distress or make you worry about who you are and what you're capable of.
Speaker: Tabitha, one of my former co-workers, she actually asked a question about what you just said in terms of other women you've worked with or mentors or other leaders.
Speaker: Was there anybody from your journey that specifically stood out as somebody that kind of was that voice that you could listen to or talk to?
Speaker: Yeah, well, so I've probably had two, I mean, I've been lucky to have lots of great mentors.
Speaker: My first mentor was actually a man, and he was the one who hired me into my first IT job.
Speaker: And one thing that was just so different about him, I, you know, I was in school, I was a star student, I got straight A's.
Speaker: I was never really pushed hard.
Speaker: It was just like, hey, you did a great job.
Speaker: And when I first started working for him, he was someone who would just push you.
Speaker: And he would be like, yeah, you're great, but you can be even better.
Speaker: And it was the first time I had heard that.
Speaker: Most of the time I just heard, you're great.
Speaker: You're top of your class.
Speaker: You get great grades.
Speaker: Nobody was like, you can be even better.
Speaker: And so for the first time in my life, I was hearing
Speaker: Try even harder, right?
Speaker: Not, hey, this is just great.
Speaker: And I think that's the key with a mentor is a mentor isn't just a cheerleader, isn't just someone who says you're great, helps you feel good about yourself.
Speaker: They wanna challenge you and they believe in you so much that they wanna push you constantly to the next level.
Speaker: I know a lot of people who love to just sit in a room and be like, wow, I'm the smartest person in this room.
Speaker: If that is you, then you are in the wrong room.
Speaker: You need to surround yourself by people who are smarter than you constantly so that you're being pushed to take your skills to the next level, to learn new things.
Speaker: So that would be one of my first mentors.
Speaker: And then I also had
Speaker: a couple of great female mentors, but one in specific when in my earlier career, first half of my career, I started having children.
Speaker: And that's something, not every woman goes through this, but I can tell you that drastically changes.
Speaker: You go from
Speaker: I'm a career, I'm going to go get in, I'm going to do everything to, wow, there's a little person or little people that depend on me for everything.
Speaker: And I know from working with your wife, like that, this, there's this constant, you want to be the best mother you can be, you want to be the best manager you can be.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Sometimes you just struggle to go, how can I be both of these things at the same time?
Speaker: Because sometimes you feel like something has to get.
Speaker: If I want to be a great manager, then I'm going to be letting someone down at home.
Speaker: Or if I'm going to be a great mother, I'm going to be letting someone down at work.
Speaker: And there's this constant thing that mothers and women that you always feel like you're never good enough.
Speaker: You're never going to be the best at this and the best at this at the same time.
Speaker: And so I did have a mentor.
Speaker: about halfway through my career when I first started having children, who was just incredible in teaching me about the balance that it takes and go, well, but you can be a great mom one week and maybe one week you're going to miss a practice and you're going to make a deadline for work.
Speaker: But it's all about balance and knowing that sometimes you're going to pick one thing and then sometimes you're going to pick another.
Speaker: And you have to let it even out in that scenario because you cannot be both at the exact same time, but you can be both.
Speaker: and move them around, right?
Speaker: And focus on one thing and make sure you strike that balance of, no, I'm not going to work on the weekend.
Speaker: I'm going to do something with my family and setting the appropriate boundaries at work.
Speaker: But then also though, when I'm going to be at work, I'm going to give it my all.
Speaker: I'm going to focus on everything I need to do.
Speaker: So I think that balance was
Speaker: really important for me to learn when I first started having kids and trying to navigate wanting to climb the corporate ladder, but also just wanting to be an incredible mother to my two little boys.
Speaker: So they're not so little anymore.
Speaker: Now they're 12 and 10 and my 12 year old's taller than me.
Speaker: Don't even know what to do with that.
Speaker: But I like to believe I've done a good job in being really good at both.
Speaker: Just never both at the exact same time.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker: I've watched my own family story unfolding, right?
Speaker: And it's such a different journey.
Speaker: I think as much, even in the most balanced relationship, husband and wife, kids, women, they just take...
Speaker: In general, women just take more ownership of everything, right?
Speaker: They just own it.
Speaker: They have to make sure things are running right.
Speaker: This is my experience.
Speaker: Maybe I'm stereotyping.
Speaker: But what I've seen in my wife's journey is really there's almost this guilt that, and I think it's early on.
Speaker: I think she's like coming out of, well, I think she has come out of that, right?
Speaker: But there's this, like you said, there's this guilt, there's this balance where you want to be a perfect mother, you want to be a perfect parent, but you also realize that, hey, there's things that I have to do at work and I have to prove myself.
Speaker: And honestly, I think with both of our kids,
Speaker: I want to say the first two to three years for any mother are extremely difficult in just being a mother.
Speaker: There's all sorts of stuff that they're getting used to when they're doing and trying to balance work at the same time.
Speaker: Yeah, I totally hear what you're saying with that.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's where it comes into play where you find the right people who believe in you and support you and know that it's just a matter of time until you find that balance and you realize how to level the scales.
Speaker: But yeah, motherhood is just a trip all on its own.
Speaker: But it's made me a better leader, honestly.
Speaker: Oh, for sure.
Speaker: Once I had my children, I think there was just a different things that I understood differently.
Speaker: And I'm not, I don't want to, there are women who choose not to have children.
Speaker: And this is just the way I learned certain things.
Speaker: It's just a different level of compassion, different level of patience that I didn't necessarily have.
Speaker: before I had my children.
Speaker: And I've found that that level of patience and the level of compassion and empathy, that when you show up at work with that level of compassion and empathy and patience and understanding your ability to lead individuals and watch them grow,
Speaker: is incredible because it's one thing to be a great individual contributor and be great at your job.
Speaker: And it is completely another thing to take the 5, 10, 20 people who report to you and making them all outstanding at their jobs.
Speaker: And I feel like parenting is something that helped me take that to the next level.
Speaker: Not to say that the people who work for me are children, but just that everybody has those same needs when you're trying to learn things, when you're trying to guide someone.
Speaker: If you are patient when you are teaching somebody something, it's so much different than if you are impatient.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I would just say it's a dual-edged sword.
Speaker: It was really challenging at first in my career, but I think it's helped make me the leader I am today.
Speaker: I totally agree with that.
Speaker: I haven't been through an MBA program, but I would strongly suggest to anybody to just become a parent instead and maybe do your MBA after that.
Speaker: But I totally agree with you.
Speaker: Being a parent was the most pivotal thing in my leadership journey.
Speaker: Kids are mirrors.
Speaker: They reflect back to you what you put into them.
Speaker: They reflect back to you all of your insecurities from when you were a kid.
Speaker: And they're immediate feedback machines.
Speaker: You know, as you know, I'm sure there's times when you're a parent and you just want to take that shortcut and steer your kid in the right direction.
Speaker: Guess what?
Speaker: That is going to blow up and you're going to lose three hours of your night because you're arguing about a cookie.
Speaker: Blue plate.
Speaker: I wanted the blue plate, plate, end of the world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's funny because you think about things like that and then you start applying them to the business world.
Speaker: You're in a meeting and somebody's being cranky.
Speaker: And I agree with you.
Speaker: I really hate to think about management like parenting because I think it's a, it's a little bit patronizing, but in the same way, I think if you're a really good manager, if you're committed to your people,
Speaker: If you're trying to help them grow, everything else comes out of that.
Speaker: So you could take those parenting skills, you can apply them to what you're doing to help people grow in their career and the things that come out of that are just miraculous.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think people say this or you see it on memes or photos on LinkedIn, but they say, take care of the employees and they will take care of the business.
Speaker: But it is absolutely true.
Speaker: If you spend all your time trying to focus on how you take care of the business, but you don't take care of the employees,
Speaker: You're only one person and there's only so much that you can do.
Speaker: If you take care of the employees, they will all take care of the business.
Speaker: You'll create a custom, consistent customer experience with your internal and your external stakeholders.
Speaker: That investment in the people who work for you
Speaker: And knowing that you care about them personally and want them to be successful.
Speaker: And not only want them to be successful, believe they can be successful, and we'll push them in that direction.
Speaker: We'll challenge them to take on new tasks that they're like, oh, I don't think I can do this.
Speaker: Yes, you can.
Speaker: You absolutely can do this.
Speaker: Take the next step.
Speaker: I believe in you.
Speaker: You need to believe in you.
Speaker: And it's amazing what people can accomplish when you do that.
Speaker: We really do need to lean into people's strengths.
Speaker: We need to recognize the ones that...
Speaker: are so into what they're doing that they will go home and for fun read through books, read through documentation, learn all this stuff.
Speaker: That's anybody good in IT.
Speaker: We talk about what it takes to lead, what it takes to grow in IT.
Speaker: You have to continuously reinvent yourself.
Speaker: You have to continuously learn.
Speaker: If you're the person that learned, you know, okay, I learned this in college, I'm good.
Speaker: You're not, you're going to be getting into real estate or something.
Speaker: No offense, real estate agent.
Speaker: I love real estate.
Speaker: Eventually one day when I retire, I'll probably do that because it's super fun, but I appreciate the consistent paycheck that my current job provides for.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Curiosity.
Speaker: I think it was like a year ago.
Speaker: I really started, the word curiosity started really resonating with me.
Speaker: And I think it applies to everything in life.
Speaker: I really don't think that there's this thing where people just want to keep learning and
Speaker: oh, I like learning and that's it.
Speaker: No, it's really, it's curiosity.
Speaker: And in IT, there's so many directions that you have to go.
Speaker: Being malleable, not being stuck up on all of the details, but having a really good understanding of the different verticals in IT, like you said, networking or AI or software or business systems, whatever it is,
Speaker: and being curious, just wanting to know what is even going on with AI.
Speaker: Is there a class I can take?
Speaker: How can I learn more?
Speaker: Can I join a group on LinkedIn and talk about this stuff?
Speaker: What are some things that you do to learn?
Speaker: Well, I ask a lot of questions whenever I'm talking to anybody and whether I'm asking them of Google or I'm asking them of the person that's sitting next to me.
Speaker: And it's really been important.
Speaker: And even when you look at things like integrating and some of the things I've kind of floated around, I've done everything from running PMOs to running engineering teams to running support teams to, you know, things.
Speaker: And it's just ask a lot of questions.
Speaker: Google is your friend.
Speaker: Now there's some crazy stuff out there on the internet.
Speaker: I won't even lie about that.
Speaker: But the bottom line is, is you want to learn about scripting.
Speaker: Try writing a script.
Speaker: And that will help you learn so much faster.
Speaker: Not that reading doesn't help.
Speaker: I love to read, but actually playing with things and seeing how does this act?
Speaker: How does this respond?
Speaker: One of the characteristics that you'll see of most people in IT just love to mess with stuff.
Speaker: And that could be
Speaker: taking their RC car apart or fixing their vacuum cleaner.
Speaker: Like it's just that nature of want to understand how this works.
Speaker: I want to take it apart.
Speaker: I want to put it back together and you learn through that process.
Speaker: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker: That's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: And I think there's a really good line there.
Speaker: You're going through and you said, oh, I like to read and everything.
Speaker: And immediately my mind thought of, okay,
Speaker: The things I do in leadership, I'm probably reading a book.
Speaker: The things I'm doing in IT, I'm probably doing some sort of hands-on exercise.
Speaker: Unless you're really trying to go deep in IT, there's just not as much occasion to read books.
Speaker: Most of them are textbooks anyway.
Speaker: Well, there's RTFM, right?
Speaker: Everybody knows that acronym.
Speaker: So sometimes you need to do that.
Speaker: Is there a chat GPT version of that?
Speaker: Is there like GPTFM?
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: If not, there should be one.
Speaker: I feel like chat GPT is the FM.
Speaker: So you just use that.
Speaker: But, you know, I wouldn't say, though, that...
Speaker: playing around with things and doing different leadership things.
Speaker: I read books and some of them really do.
Speaker: They have exercises.
Speaker: Try this with your team.
Speaker: And I've definitely been like experimental, exploratory with that.
Speaker: One of the things that I've been really working on lately is just trying to develop a concept of
Speaker: motivators, you know, like different things for different people.
Speaker: And I think the old school way of management is, okay, we throw a title at you, we throw money at you and you're supposed to be happy.
Speaker: What I'm learning is it's such a multifaceted thing.
Speaker: Some people are driven by money and title.
Speaker: Those are the easiest ones, maybe not depending on budget, but then there's, then there's that mix.
Speaker: Some people are motivated by respect.
Speaker: I've one person I might see my joke around with him.
Speaker: I said,
Speaker: You would probably, he, his thing is he, he's one of the, he's an engineer, but the thing that he likes above anything else, I'm convinced of this, is to be able to do things the right way.
Speaker: And I even said to him in a 101, I said, look, can I ask you a question?
Speaker: I'm not trying to be weird or anything, but...
Speaker: Would you rather have a pay raise or be able to do things the right way every time?
Speaker: And he stopped and he thought about it and he said, I'd rather do things right every time because otherwise it's going to drive me nuts.
Speaker: And I think about those motivators and I think about the things, maybe if it's a parent, maybe flexibility is their top thing.
Speaker: If it's a woman, maybe being recognized for her talent is a top thing.
Speaker: I'm just throwing things out there.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: What do you think about that?
Speaker: Do you have any experience?
Speaker: Absolutely true.
Speaker: And and more that you can actually spend getting to know what makes your people tick and what and also what is a detractor for them to the other side of it matters just as much.
Speaker: So you got you want to know what motivates them.
Speaker: And I ask this at every single interview.
Speaker: What motivates you?
Speaker: You get up in the morning, you're excited to come to work, you can't wait, why?
Speaker: What about your work makes you feel that way?
Speaker: Okay, you wake up and you, I don't wanna go to work today, why?
Speaker: What's a detractor, what demotivates you?
Speaker: And just simply knowing what motivates your people and what demotivates your people,
Speaker: can make just an astronomical difference in the amount of productivity that you can get out of somebody.
Speaker: And it isn't always about a raise or a title.
Speaker: Those things are nice.
Speaker: Those things help.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, those things aren't what are going to drive loyalty to you.
Speaker: They're not what's going to drive loyalty to the business.
Speaker: Because somebody can always come in with a different title or a different...
Speaker: dollar figure, there's always companies out there willing to pay and do all of that.
Speaker: Going back to multipliers, I think if memory serves, I think the back of that book has a really good list of their detractors and multipliers and all those things.
Speaker: And that book is such a, I think everybody should read it.
Speaker: And actually, I feel like I need to reread it as well as the seven books that I'm currently in the middle of.
Speaker: But it's such a wake-up call to a lot of people.
Speaker: One of the most important things in leadership is knowing what you don't know about yourself, where your blind spots are.
Speaker: And sometimes when you're reading books like that and things like that, something will resonate.
Speaker: But I think also it resonates with the people around you.
Speaker: And if you're brave enough and you could go to those people and you could say, hey, which one of these bad habits do I have?
Speaker: And take the constructive feedback.
Speaker: It can be transformative.
Speaker: It can be transformative.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: I talk too much.
Speaker: Who knew?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, you got to be quiet.
Speaker: Let people talk.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When I think, you know, like what is a thing that I want to do as a leader?
Speaker: And I think the driving factor for me, and this kind of ties into Bottle Pliers, is I think back to those times, like you said, you wake up, you don't feel like going to work, or you night before the morning that you're about to go into work, you have that pit in your stomach because you're dreading a conversation.
Speaker: You're having these imaginary scenarios with yourself in the shower.
Speaker: I think about my personal metric as a leader as I want to provide the environment where people don't have that in any way, shape, or form.
Speaker: And more importantly, a place where they can grow, really foster, and this ties back into women in IT, but creating a space, I hate the word safe space, like it sounds...
Speaker: So, so soft, right?
Speaker: But it really is.
Speaker: It is, it is a safe space where people can learn.
Speaker: It's almost like an academic environment.
Speaker: You know, like how can we set these people up to grow in something they're excited in?
Speaker: Let's only hire the people that are excited about what they do and they want to learn and they want to grow.
Speaker: All that stuff is so vital.
Speaker: So in line with all that, if we're really in IT, especially what you do with engineering, things are running best when they're quiet.
Speaker: But the most difficult thing to navigate is really good work is invisible.
Speaker: Nobody's going to pin a medal on you because you had this server that's been running for 10 years with no outages.
Speaker: They might.
Speaker: Hopefully they do.
Speaker: But we always want to celebrate the hero.
Speaker: Oh, our whole network went down, but this person was the one that figured it out.
Speaker: So the question to you is, in the people that you lead, knowing that good work is invisible, and that's a terrible thing if you want to move up, get promoted, what are some things that you do to highlight the work that your folks are doing when they're doing good work and it's invisible?
Speaker: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker: I actually saw a comic strip the other day that said the network never goes down and they go, whoa, why are we paying you IT?
Speaker: The network goes down and they go, oh, why are we paying you IT?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: The others, why are we paying you?
Speaker: You know, that can be a constant challenge and there's always gonna be the unsung heroes, people that feel like they have thankless jobs.
Speaker: But the bottom line is you thank them.
Speaker: You personally thank them for making your life easier.
Speaker: I got to spend graduation weekend with my son.
Speaker: And that's because you made sure that our network was 100% stable.
Speaker: And you highlight those things in company meetings.
Speaker: People should be excited about 100% uptime or even just hopefully 99.999.
Speaker: You have to just celebrate people.
Speaker: And you have people set goals.
Speaker: And their goals, I always make my team set three different goals.
Speaker: And people think it's a little bit corny, but they have to set a personal goal.
Speaker: And that can be they want to lose 10 pounds or they want to join a band or whatever.
Speaker: I want people to know that their personal goals matter just as much as their professional goals.
Speaker: And I have set a professional development goal.
Speaker: I'm going to take a new cert, what we talked about, always learning, being curious, a certificate, a course, a networking event, something that makes you a better professional.
Speaker: You're going to read a book.
Speaker: You're going to participate in book club, whatever.
Speaker: And then they have to have a business oriented goal.
Speaker: But every goal has to be measurable because otherwise, how do you know when you have met your goal?
Speaker: But we talk about progress along the way and we celebrate steps towards reaching the goal.
Speaker: When they're measurable, you can do that.
Speaker: Oh, we're a third of the way there.
Speaker: You said you were going to go to three networking events.
Speaker: You've been to two.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: We celebrate every event that you go to that gets you a step closer to your goals.
Speaker: Making sure people think about it that way.
Speaker: And it isn't just as simple as my goal is 99.999% uptime.
Speaker: What are your goals?
Speaker: How do you contribute?
Speaker: And sometimes it is I'm going to execute 100 maintenance with zero errors.
Speaker: OK, right.
Speaker: Those are things that you can track and you can build off of that.
Speaker: Before we wrap it up, are you reading any books right now?
Speaker: Is there anything that you're into learning wise that you'd want to share?
Speaker: Well, we just finished Dare to Lead by Brene Brown, and we are getting ready to start Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willing.
Speaker: So I haven't gotten into it yet, but, you know, I think I'm really excited about this book.
Speaker: I want to learn, you know, just...
Speaker: taking it to that next level and really owning things.
Speaker: I've always been big on owning things.
Speaker: I've always been big on integrity and standing behind your word.
Speaker: And, you know, Jocko is a Navy SEAL.
Speaker: We read a colleague's, one of his books, Overcome Jason Redman.
Speaker: And you see this mentality of when it is literally life or death.
Speaker: People are making decisions.
Speaker: People either live or die.
Speaker: Think about what it takes to own that scenario and to have that level of accountability.
Speaker: So I'm excited for that.
Speaker: That's what's next.
Speaker: Did you know there's actually two people on this podcast that will be in that book club?
Speaker: Oh, I did not.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Well, then I look forward to seeing you on the book club.
Speaker: I'm not terrified at all.
Speaker: It is awesome.
Speaker: Except for that means now, you know, we can't talk about you on the book club anymore.
Speaker: Oh, well, I love when people talk about me to my face.
Speaker: That's my favorite thing.
Speaker: Oh, no, we do.
Speaker: We joke around because some of my employees are on there.
Speaker: They're like, oh, but you can't talk about your boss.
Speaker: Your boss is in the book club.
Speaker: That's so awkward.
Speaker: Yeah, I've been in that a lot at my company.
Speaker: It's totally awkward.
Speaker: Anything else you want to promote?
Speaker: I notice you have your own company.
Speaker: You want to throw a shout out about that?
Speaker: Well, yeah, I mean, it's just a short-term rental that we have.
Speaker: So we did establish an LLC.
Speaker: If you're going to do business, establish an LLC, protect the rest of your assets.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, we, uh, we bought a vacation home in 2019, right before COVID and, um, which was great timing.
Speaker: We got to enjoy it a lot during COVID when everything else was shut down.
Speaker: Then we started renting it out.
Speaker: So yeah, I have an LLC for that.
Speaker: And I would say, um, investing in real estate is great.
Speaker: Very wise.
Speaker: If you have the means to do that, it is one of the most stable kind of guaranteed investments that you can put in at least as long as you can be in it over time.
Speaker: If you have at least a 10-year horizon investing, you can't lose if you invest in real estate.
Speaker: in that scenario.
Speaker: So we really enjoyed doing that.
Speaker: And it's going to be part of my retirement plan.
Speaker: I'd like to get a couple more.
Speaker: And not only can we just like bounce around to our different vacation houses, but they pay for themselves.
Speaker: Someone else is going to rent your house or stay there, comes with all of the fun of like, you get there, where are my towels and what's going on here, right?
Speaker: It's not without some of its qualms.
Speaker: You'll feel a little weird going back to your own house after, you know, hundreds of people have been in it.
Speaker: But they absolutely pay for themselves.
Speaker: And it's great, great investment.
Speaker: Our property value has doubled already.
Speaker: And we bought it just four years ago.
Speaker: So very wise way to take and invest your money outside of some people want to play the stock market or do mutual funds.
Speaker: But we found this to be a really good way to invest in.
Speaker: I really appreciate you being on.
Speaker: I think there is a ton of stuff that I'm going to rehear in editing this and I'm just going to, you know, my brain's going to be growing two sizes.
Speaker: Any final parting words?
Speaker: Now for just thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker: I think it's...
Speaker: I think it's amazing what you're doing to promote helping people get into that leadership mentality and hearing from other people who have been there, done that.
Speaker: And especially for women who look and go, well, I can never be an executive.
Speaker: That's not true.
Speaker: That's not true.
Speaker: Find your people.
Speaker: Don't be afraid to be who you are and to capitalize on your strengths.
Speaker: But find the people who believe in you and don't be afraid to take it to the next level.
Speaker: It is absolutely possible.
Speaker: And I think it's great that you're out there getting the word out so that others can do the same personally.
Speaker: I would be more than happy to if you find women that are watching your podcast and go love to talk with a female executive.
Speaker: I would be more than happy to let you have my contact information.
Speaker: We're not going to blast it out on the internet, but if someone reaches out to you and they wanted to chat, I would be more than happy to do that.
Speaker: It's all about paying it forward.
Speaker: You want to see other women succeed in the way that you have because I had people who helped me.
Speaker: And so I would love to help the next generation of female leaders, specifically in IT, not be afraid and to go for it.
Speaker: Well, thank you for putting that out there.
Speaker: Hopefully some of the listeners will take you up on it.
Speaker: I think that's a superb offer.
Speaker: I think they would learn a ton.
Speaker: So thank you again for being on.
Speaker: Appreciate it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks, Matt.
Speaker: Have a great evening.
Speaker: You too.
Speaker: please reach out to us via email and social media.
Speaker: Your questions and ideas are important, and we'd love to give you a seat at the virtual table.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: The content presented in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional or legal advice.
Speaker: The host and guests do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information or views presented in this podcast.
Speaker: Any opinions expressed are solely those of individual speakers and do not represent the views or opinions of their respective employers or organizations.
Speaker: Listeners should proceed at their own risk and seek professional advice as needed.
