The Leader Fast Lane - Episode 24 - with Derek McIntire, COO of TCP Software

Derek McIntire, COO of TCP Software, joins me in this episode. Derek is an exceptional leader of a highly successful business and shares best practices on engaging with AI/LLMs, leading with vision, qualities he most values in leaders, and the impact Angelo State University has had on him.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello and welcome to the Leader Fast Lane, the podcast where accomplished leaders from higher education, public service, and beyond share real stories, practical principles, and hard-earned lessons listeners can apply in their everyday work. No buzzwords, no shortcuts, just real leaders sharing real lessons you can apply right away. I'm Lane Mears, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Leader and Culture Development at the Texas Tech University System. Today I am joined by Derek McIntyre, Chief Operating Officer of TCP Software, a global workforce management software provider where his focus is coaching VPs and senior leaders to operate with clarity and confidence in ever-changing business environments. As a COO in private equity-backed companies, he's owned and operated businesses throughout every stage of the life cycle, growth, transformation, and exit. Derek is a senior software executive with more than 20 years of founder, operator, and board experience, and he's spent all of it learning what it takes to lead people and build great teams. Outside of TCP, Derek partners with founders and boards on leadership, strategy, and the future of work, turning uncertainty into action that drives shareholder value. He's a believer that great operators are constantly evolving and that the best leaders are the ones still willing to get their hands dirty. It's great to have been the podcast, Derek.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And uh great uh great chat with you. I've been looking forward to this for some time, and so I just really appreciate you having me on.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Me too. Thanks. Can you share a little bit about your background and leadership journey?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah, so I think early on I was I was a leader on lots of teams. So everything from probably T-Ball through uh early kind of FFA and 4-H type stuff, um, and then into college, uh became pretty entrepreneurial, started a small business. Um, that continued into really the early days of my career post-college. And then ultimately found my way into a company called BEPC, doing work for Honeywell globally, um, got to manage really large um teams that were geographically dispersed around the world and really honed in my leadership ability there. Um, transitioned to TCP software, which was in Time Plug Plus, um, helped them scale, sell to private equity, and then scale further, do a lot of mergers and acquisitions, which I continue to lead today. Um, and then now we have, you know, almost a thousand employees around the world, um, tens of thousands of customers around the world. And so uh lots of leadership goes into my everyday and and uh looking forward to sharing some of that experience with you here today.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Me too. Thanks for for that background, and I look forward to hearing more about uh about the business as we as we engage in some of these questions. So I've got a list of questions um on various topics that I'll I'll rotate through as we talk. But the first one um has to do with with your current work. You lead a company that's growing rapidly through acquisitions and innovation. What's one leadership lesson that has become more important to you as your responsibilities have grown?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I've learned as we've we've scaled and then brought new companies into the fold is to have a strong vision. Um I think you have to create a strong vision that you can then cascade objectives from so that people understand what is the North Star of the business, where are we going? They can then build their OKRs and measurables around that. Um, and then that way the team stays highly aligned to you know exactly where where you're headed, um, and and that the the things you're paying them out on, incentivizing them on, recognizing them for, really aligned to the objectives of the organization. And so um vision for me is is just absolutely critical in an organization these days, especially as you scale.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

A follow-up on that. Um I I think every organization or company that I've worked for, whether it be a law firm or international development or Texas Tech, has a mission, vision, and values. How do you make sure to that that that those are operationalized effectively? I think you've talked a little bit about that with with rewards and incentives, but um it's a challenge, I think, for lots of companies to take this well-thought out vision, but make it tangible for people.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Yeah, for too many people, I think the mission, vision, values is is you know a list of things on a wall somewhere in an office, right? It's almost more memorialized in a plaque or some poster that's been framed. Um, and I'm actually more a fan these days of moving away from the mission, vision values and moving more into a culture brief. And so um, I find them to be really brilliant. Um, these briefs, they tend to be very direct and they really inform everything around how a company hires, how they work, how they interact, the employees interact, um, what the expectations, kind of shared standards and expectations are across uh between employees and the employer, as well as between employees themselves. And so what I found the cultural brief helps you do is rather than it being a three-bullet guide for this is our mission or these are our values, um, it's essentially a four or five-page document that outlines everything from here's here's the foundation, the underpinnings of our business, our organization, our culture. Um, and I found them to be really, really valuable. And not only for your existing employees, but they if you if you publish them well and you keep them at the forefront of your hiring, it really helps you kind of self-select people who read that and find they're going to be a poor fit for the culture or that's just not for them, um, they self-select out. And people who that excites them, they self-select in. And so ultimately you get a bunch of people rowing the boat same direction. And um, those culture briefs can be really powerful in ways that kind of the memorialized mission, vision, value statement um, I think just sometimes falls short.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, that's that's great. Um I'd love to see y'all just to see see a model. That's one thing that uh Steve Sosland, who is the vice chancellor when I was first hired at Texas Tech here at the system, um was big on was making clear the values and the culture to those people being candidates for a per certain position so that uh it was clear this is the type of people that we're wanting to bring in, the type of values that we want. And it was a self-selecting process. So I I I I see that. Uh you're your chief operating officer at TCP. Um when people describe great operators, they often focus on processes and efficiency. How do you define great leadership as a chief operating officer?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

So I think processes and improved efficiency are really key to sustainable businesses. So you think about um, you know, to create a business that's profitable, has staying power, can grow, take care of employees, fund future raises, initiatives, growth investments, et cetera. Like you have to have process, you have to have improved efficiency, but neither are all that valuable without actual discipline, right? And I think that's what makes not only a good COO, but that's what makes a good leader. And so thinking about building a business, and you think about a scale of one to a hundred, a hundred being kind of perfect in where where you aspire to be. Getting from like one to eighty is pretty easy, right? The teams, they they rally around some vision, they then make meaningful improvement quarter over quarter, and they can see this improvement showing up in the organization. And so that that one to 80 is is easy, right? Everybody's super motivated. It gets a little harder to go from 80 to 95 because 80 to 95 is this area where the margin of errors is really small. You're grinding hard to just get, you know, one or two percent better every day or every quarter. And so that 80 to 90 is hard, but that challenge can motivate people just to just to get there, right? They've had this North Star in mind and they want to want to drive to it. Um, and so these people are in your teams are really motivated by the rapid ascent and the visible improvements. Um, but then it's when you reach that kind of near peak performance or reach peak performance that everything becomes really hard because all the goals people had in mind, they've achieved them. They've gotten there, right? And so practical drift sets in, backsliding sets in, the day in and day out of just staying, staying where you are becomes a grind. And so, you know, my view is is that discipline is the most important piece because adopting process, improving efficiency are great. Um, but if you can't stay efficient and you can't hang on to the process for year after year after year, um, what happens is a business falls into decline, employees begin to leave, and you have to restart the cycle over. And so um you'll hear me when I talk about leadership, you'll hear me talk a lot about discipline um and self-discipline. And it's it's not in the negative connotation way, right? It's it's that self-discipline to drive hard and for teams to to adopt, kind of doing the right thing every day, even when it's hard or inconvenient. And so that's my view on leadership and really at the core of what makes great leaders.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

I love that. I'm uh I'm a big sports fan, played a lot growing up, but you read about the really successful coaches and the programs that that had great success, John Wooden, Nick Saban. It was all about discipline. It was all about high standards, maintaining those through success, through challenges. Um and frankly, that's some of the issues that the the Cowboys had for years. Is when Jimmy Johnson had high standards, high discipline, his successors didn't, and the team suffered because of it. With all the talent in the world, and I think it's a principle for for businesses too, that you can have all the talent, but without that discipline, holding to a vision, all effort pointed pulling in the same direction towards those uniting goals, then it's you're not going to achieve what you intend to achieve.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, and it's got to be at all levels too, right? So I I read an article. Um, there's a journalist who did kind of the preseason walkthrough at Alabama when Nick Saban was there, and the coach, and you know, a very notable coach, probably the greatest of all time, built a dynasty dynasty, won lots of national championships, sent lots of players to the NFL who were very successful. Um, this this journalist was walking through doing the preseason tour, walked into the equipment room and asked um someone there, what are you doing? And they said that we're folding towels to win a national championship. See, the national championship was the vision, right? The vision is a national championship, and everything from that vision cascades down. And so if you fold towels at Alabama, you're doing it to win a national championship. If you're tying shoes, you're doing it to win a national championship. If you were playing on the field as a quarterback, you are passing and practicing and working to be a national champion. And that is extreme discipline. But it's also why Nick Saban was able to build a dynasty. Um, he had a strong vision for what it was. And when you got recruited to Alabama, you got recruited there to win national championships, not to play football, not to, you know, hang out, go to practice, eat, eat in the cafeteria. You got recruited there to win national championships. And and that's how they talk about the their program. And that's the underpinning of their culture. And and that's that's what discipline looks like in action. And so, yeah, you can tie a lot of these things to sports, and and I will tell you that the greatest sports teams, as you point out, they have very good self-discipline.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Excellent. Love that story. All right, our first topic is leading through growth. Many leaders know how to build a team, but fewer know how to scale one. What's something that has to change in your leadership as an organization doubles or triples in size?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah, so um, let's go back to that vision thing. So, vision is really kind of the envelope that it all works within. You create a strong vision that people can rally around. Um, and then it's important to then create the standards and measures around that vision, right? So it's one thing to say, hey, look, this is where we're going as a business. Um, this is how we're going to get there. And another to say, this is how we're going to remain accountable to that, right? We all adopted this vision together. Um, I'm also really big on not adopting a vision that is, you know, super grand and five years in the future. I like to do them on a first and second half of the year basis. And so let's say what is the biggest problem we want to solve in the first half of the year, this year, whether it's innovate in our product, whether it is drive growth, whether it is improve our level of service and support, whether it's approve customer attention, whatever it may be, let's make that our rally cry and part of our kind of overarching vision for the business and say this is this number one thing in our organization. And let's cascade from that. What is everybody going to do to do their part to drive results against that vision for the first half of this year? Um, and that allows people to really compartmentalize um the activities they do in any given day. It allows them to really focus in their kind of manager attention units on, you know, what are what are the key deliverables I have in front of me. Um, because if people have too many things to work on, they'll get nothing done. Right. And so um I really believe in in using the vision and then having standards and measures around that to ensure that people are making progress against it, um, and really creating kind of this organizational rigor and and and the underpinnings of that accountability across these large teams.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

A follow-up. So I imagine part of this in order to be done effectively is is through your senior leaders. That you, as the COO and the CEO, are all developing that vision with the senior leaders, but how do you hold leaders of different divisions or teams or departments accountable to that six and twelve month vision?

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yeah, that's where it's really important to keep them as part of the process because you can create a vision and say, um, you know, cascade your objectives from this vision, and then let us know what the measures are and let's have a discussion about what those are. And do we have compensating measures to ensure that you're not measuring the wrong thing, or do you measure something that ultimately allows practical drift somewhere else? Um, and then and then the idea is report on it. So, for example, if it's all about driving top line revenue for the first half of the year, because we need to make up for maybe a shortfall at the end of a prior year. Um, our marketing teams, they need to generate, they need to think about generating near-term pipeline, pipeline that closes in the first half of the year. Our sellers need to look at what are deals that you lost in the last quarter of last year and can you pull them back in? Was there indecision? And then how do you accelerate deal velocity on deals that you have in front of you today and or accelerate the pipeline that marketing is generating today? Our support and services team, as you're interacting and building relationships with customers, what can you be doing to identify opportunities for expansion, for growth, for cross-seller products? Right. And so everybody has an aspect. Product management, engineering, can you create a compelling roadmap that gets people excited about what's to come and therefore they sign on the dotted line now? Our engineering teams, can you commit to pulling innovative ideas in that excites customers and or allows us to get product out to customers faster to enable cross-sell and expansion? And so everybody's thinking about what are the ways that I can contribute to this number? And then what you have to do is then you have to report on that number. And I'm talking about weekly. I love the idea of breaking down that number into a weekly number, a monthly number and saying, look, we need $150,000 days or $150,000 weeks, right? And then reporting on that almost like a fundraising chart. Like, you know, you probably have the idea of a thermometer in your head. You've seen those in those fundraising things, but tracking towards, you know, what is this big goal that you have and how are we all contributing to it? And then aligning your rewards and recognition to that goal. And so thinking about in your monthly all hands and your weekly, weekly stand-ups or check-ins, how do you recognize individual contributors who've done some you know extraordinary thing or made some uh major effort to achieve this goal and making that front and center. And so I've done this quite a few times. Um, I've had something called Operation 150, where we we were driving to a number and and we we tracked to it. Um and we've done we've done other similar initiatives over the years that were really, really powerful. And it's exciting when you see a team, like a whole team, rally around this, right? The the culture of the business improves. People um start getting really excited and adopting this winning culture. And if you can continue that, uh, it can be really, really powerful for organization. I mean, I've I've seen I've seen quarters or half a year where it was, you know, a terrible first half of the year. And not only do we hit second half numbers, we made up for everything we missed in the first half of the year because of the level of excitement you can create around this. And so um, it can be really powerful if done well. And um, and it all starts with bringing those leaders in and saying, like, here's what we need to get to. You help us craft a plan to get there, and then let's adopt that as a vision and cascade the OKRs from there.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

That brings to mind I was uh leading a nonprofit in in Rwanda doing child sexual assault casework. So tough, tough work, cross-cultural, tough system. But we had a team goal of we're gonna have four convictions of of child abusers in a certain year, and it was brand new, it was it was a stretched goal for us because it was a brand new project, but I had it up on our chalkboard, it was there every day. So every morning we'd meet as a team, we'd look up there, assess where we are on the different metrics leading toward that goal, and and I to motivate them. I said, if we achieve our goal that team, you can shave my head by the end of the year. And that was a motivation. We we did it, and they got to have a big party and and shave my head at the end of the year. Uh I've done the same.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

There's a video on my LinkedIn where a team shaved my head. Is that right? I don't know what I don't know what's shaving ahead, why why it motivates people so much, but it very much seems to that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Good. Well, how do you keep um culture from becoming collateral damage during rapid growth or acquisitions? Because even you operate internationally in very different cultures, cross-culturally, acquisitions. How do you maintain that strong core culture?

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah, look, it's hard. You have to be as intentional and thoughtful about maintaining culture as you are about maintaining your bottom line or maintaining your top line. I mean, it it it is part of the the three or four-legged stool, right? Um, culture defines everything. It defines how you show up with your customer, it defines how you show up with each other, it defines how you show up on meetings. And so going back to that culture brief idea, right? If you have a strong culture brief and you have a strong cultural identity that you can memorialize to orient people to so that there are shared norms when you join a meeting, right? Things like, you know, if if there's more than six people on this meeting, we need to think about is this a good use of our time? Or, you know, what are the norms for a meeting? Should we have 24-hour preread when there's decisions that need to be made? Um, should we never get on a meeting where there's not decisions to be made, right? Should that just be an email update? And so thinking about how you utilize your time, right? How you utilize your human resources, um, how you utilize your tools, how you um show up in front of customers. I mean, these things are all critically important to scaling a business. And uh, and so you have to be very thoughtful and very attent, very, you know, intentional about it. And you also just can't assume that everyone's going to get it right because people have different working styles. Um, you know, if not careful, departments silo away and they become very close, especially in a in a remote work environment. You're they're on meetings all the time together working through things. So they become very close and quickly forget to bring in, you know, uh other voices into meetings. And so um, yeah, Lane, it's it's one of the hardest things and probably one of the most important things that I do in any given month or week is think about um what we're doing culturally, how we're showing up for employees, how we're showing up for our customers, how we're showing up for each other.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah. Yeah. And and once you've got a strong culture, it's worth fighting for uh to to maintain it through those those changes. Our our next um topic is is further digging into culture and people. So you've you've invested in creating better environments for employees. You care for your employees, not just better offices, but places where people actually want to work. Why does that matter to you?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Well, I think good work requires focus, and focus requires stability and or kind of a calm. Um, and then stability and calm are really a function of your environment. So uh whether you're at home or in the office, um, if you can't focus because it's not stable, it's not calm, then you're likely not going to do great work, right? And then there's some roles where um it's not so much calm and focus that creates great work, but sometimes And energy. So you think about sales, for an example, salespeople are told no, no, many more times, probably thousands more times than they're told yes. Um, it can be a pretty emotional job, right? The roller coaster if you think you're closing a deal and suddenly you're not. And so um, sales is one of those where sometimes surrounding people with energy, um, now it's got to be very stable, right? It can't be complete chaos, but if you can put people in an environment that's that's stable, um, that's well connected, even if they're remote, where there's regular check-ins with peers and managers and thought partners so that they can get through and work through these no's and these emotions and sometimes these feelings of self-doubt, and or can I achieve this? Um, that's all really, really important. But so we think a lot and spend a lot of time thinking about like what are the environments that individual roles need, um, individual personalities may need to be successful. Um, and just like people don't learn the same way, they don't work the same way either. And so um again, this is one of these things that you have to be very intentional. And I would tell you the environment you create for people to work in is as much a part of your culture as your pay scale and or you know the snacks you put out in the office, right? So um it is it's all intertwined.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

When you're hiring leaders, what qualities immediately make you think, I want this person on my team?

SPEAKER_00 23:25

It's definitely ownership. Um, ownership, like we can teach everything else. And then I would say close second will be entrepreneurship, which in my opinion in business is akin to ownership, right? It's it's finding those people who will figure it out no matter the obstacle. Um and you have to have this to scale, by the way, because we we talked about management attention units, right? There's only, so many things that I can own, right? And I have to be very thoughtful about what I hand off and how many things I hand off because in my next level down, they're running their work day to day. And so there's only so many things they can own too. And so if I give somebody 10 things to do, they'll either not do any of them well or they'll burn out very quickly. Like those are the only two options because it's maybe near impossible to get all those done well in a reasonable amount of time where they're not burnt out. And so um, it's about finding people that are, you know, high ownership, entrepreneurial, they'll figure it out in a matter of the obstacle, um, and that that they also can delegate, right? So they can also delegate and then take ownership at the end because that's another another big piece of scaling is I can't own everything. There's there's it's funny when you scale because everything else expands except for the hours in a day, right? Like everything else becomes more complex. You have more customers, more employees, more teams, more direct reports, but there's no more hours in a day. And so then it's like, well, what do you focus on? Right? What are and that's where that vision, RallyCry, those OKRs come into come into focus because um that helps you figure out what you focus on, and then you cascade the rest down. Um hopefully it all aligns back to that vision and rally cry. But um ultimately what I need on any given day is more owners, more people to you know apply these manager attention units to solving a problem, take extreme ownership of that, figure out a way, um, and then make sure it stays aligned to our vision.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

So, how do you identify the people who really do exude ownership and and self-starting nature?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

So I'll tell you, I can I can usually spot a leader from a mile away. And the reason is is because it's it's the people that are being surrounded by other people, right? They're they're usually pretty natural in this role. Um, they're they're infectious, they they're trusted. They may not be extroverts, right? They may not be loud in the office. Um, they may not be uh the people who jump up on stage, but they're the folks that people trust. They're the folks that people are vulnerable with, that people ask help from. Um and what's interesting is not all leaders in our organization become managers. Some leaders are aren't good managers, right? Maybe they don't value um being a manager, someone with a title, right? They may value things outside of the business more than they value things inside the business, but they're really good leaders on team. They have a calming effect. They can rally a team as an IC, they can rally their peers to a cause. They can calm their peers when something's scary, right? And so these are these are the leaders I'm looking for. And um, whether I task them to be leaders within their teams or I task them to be leaders as managers, um, you know, that varies. But what I will say is um these leaders typically, when an idea floats across their desk, they take ownership of it. And whether they're a titled leader or not, um, they they make the most of that opportunity, the most of that initiative. And so um, man, leaders for me, they they they stick out like a sore thumb in the in the organization. And and um that's always really exciting for me because um it's it's a great way to promote as well because you find a leader that wants to be a manager and everybody already views them as such, um, it really is a natural you know progression for them, which is which is always awesome.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Shifting topics, we're gonna talk about um AI and the future of leadership. It's clear AI is changing almost every industry. Which leadership skills become more important, if not less, in an AI-enabled workplace?

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Yeah, when I when I uh saw this topic on your list, I got really excited because it's an area that I'm doing a lot of work in, obviously running a software company. Um and then more broadly, you know, working with people across different industries on AI use cases and how they're leveraging AI, because we're obviously deploying AI for our customers. Um, I think the number one thing for leaders right now is adaptability. So most leaders, senior leaders especially, got into their roles because they have strong mental models of how things work, uh, whether it be business operations or hiring profiles, right? Like they can meet somebody and instinctively know that they'd be good for a role, or they can look at a situation and instinctively know what to do. Um, but AI is rapidly making these mental models obsolete. And I see way too many leaders these days trying to hold on to these kind of empirical knowledge that's the foundation of their success, right? It's it's really kind of questioning um, you know, the things that got me here, will they get me there? And I think for the last many years, in a lot of ways, that was the case. But I don't think it's I don't think that's the case any longer. And so you have to be adaptable. And what I'm finding is that if you don't adapt, you know, as somebody much wiser than I once said, you're gonna be well equipped for a world that no longer exists. Right. And so um adaptability in leadership and being able to use those mental models in a different way, um, maybe to pressure test what you're seeing with AI versus just to make your decisions is going to be critically important going forward.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

All right. I think I'm gonna have a follow-up question on that uh before we leave this topic, but I'm gonna move on to the next question first. Where do you think leaders are overestimating AI today and where are they underestimating it?

SPEAKER_00 29:21

And this one's this one's gonna be um challenging for you and I to discuss because I think what's being overestimated is how many people are going to be replaced with AI, like frontline employees. Leaders are looking at AI, at least in my space, and saying, hey, look at look at all the things AI can do and how many people will I need going forward? How many frontline people will I need to do this work? Um and the reason I say they're overestimating is, for example, today, AI can analyze dozens of recorded prospect calls, make recommendations for next steps, help a seller close a deal. Um here's the deal: this is where they're underestimating. That was a leader's job. That was a sales leader's job several months ago. So what leaders are underestimating is themselves being replaced. And what I mean by that is think about this AI, it can now analyze sales rep behavior, it can analyze market data, it can look at win-loss data, it can build a go-to-market strategy. In minutes, it can build a go-to-market strategy. It doesn't require a mental model. It doesn't require some strategic thinker that's been in the field for 30 years. It can do it. That was a sales leader's job two years ago. Meanwhile, sellers themselves, they're still building relationships out in the field, right? They're still the ones closing deals, negotiating terms, building trust, et cetera. And so I think it's a bit flipped, Lane. I think that leaders going into this thinking that um they're going to be able to leverage AI to replace frontline workers. Um, I think that's very flawed. I think leaders need to be thinking about what their place is in an organization in this AI-enabled world. And it's going to be less around strategy, it's going to be less around audit, it's going to be less around presentation creation or Excel file creation. And it's really going to focus in more on the relationship building. It's going to focus on what we've been talking about, which is to be a good leader, it's less about being strategic. It's less about being hard charging. It's less about being a good auditor and more about are you a good relationship builder? Can you build a strong culture that people want to be a part of? Can you build relationships with customers and prospects? And so I think I think we're quickly going to go from a world in which managers are considered leaders to a world in which management is largely done by AI. And leaders actually have to be leaders, right? They have to have leadership traits. And um, I I think that's where where the industry is headed.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Fascinating. I I yeah, I'd love to hear more of your your thoughts on AI. It's it's it's ubiquitous, obviously. And even in our work here at the at the system, we do programs for students, faculty, and staff on leadership, character development, do webinars, we do, I do this podcast. Um and AI is a tool, you know, as I as I develop content and as I engage in developing questions for this. But the temptation I think for anybody using AI as a tool is to go from using it as a tool to using it to suppl the thought process and the creative process. Um and so wonder if you have thoughts on that. How to that maybe it's a discipline thing. How do you maintain the discipline of using it as a tool and not supplanting the human thought that needs to go into creativity?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

So I I I'm leading a lot of AI initiatives right now in our organization. And one of the things that I'm coaching my team to do is create skills. So it's create like working with me skills. So think about all the things, the mental models, the way you work, the way you communicate, your idiosyncrasies, your traits, and and how you think and solve problems. I like my people to get all that down into a skill or an artifact that whatever AI they're using, whether it's Claude or ChatGPT or something else, get that into that skill and get that into that model so that that model knows what's important to you, who you are, what your role is, who you're communicating with, um, your style, your background. Let it read your LinkedIn, give it your resume. Let the let the LLM understand everything about you so that now it becomes more like an executive coach or a thought partner. And then you can start having a conversation with your LLM. You can have it analyze your data. You can have it go through your emails, last 12 emails with your boss and say, hey, look, read these emails, go through these documents my boss has sent me, and help me understand how to best articulate a plan. Here's what I'm trying to communicate. This is my strategy. Help me figure out like what is the best way to communicate it to this person, right? Because everybody you're working with may have a different style, they may have a different, different way of consuming information. And so what I've found is that AI is really good at finding patterns, it's really good at analyzing styles, it's really good at looking across many, many, many thousands of emails or communications and identifying, you know, what the key elements that you may be missing are. Um it's also really good at analyzing data and challenging your way of thinking. So if you're in a position where you just feel overwhelmed or you feel like, you know, I don't have the answer, or I just can't get this right, asking, asking LLM to look at what you're doing and looking at what your peer's doing and telling you, like, where am I missing this? Am I thinking about this the wrong way? The LLMs are generally very good at doing that. And so um I would say everybody should really shift from using it to do their work to using it as more of a thought partner. And the only way to use that thought partner, and as silly as it sounds, is almost like to build a relationship with the LLM. And in order to do that, you have to tell it who you are. You have to tell it, you know, what's your what's important to you, you have to tell it who you're working with. Um, and then you can start getting some pretty good output that ultimately will help you um not only form your thinking, but also help you um adjust your style to better align to what other people need to effectively do their job.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Interesting. There's there's an author that I've I've read a few books by the name Mark Manson, the subtle art of not giving a F. Um who has this same mindset of using uh AI as a as a as a life coach or a professional coach. What would you say to the people who who who would respond, well, I don't want it to have that much information about who I am?

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Look, I I don't I don't know, unless you're gonna live under a rock with no internet, I'm not real sure that in this day and age um you can hide out very long. And so I get it. Uh what I would say is maybe buying a paid subscription where, you know, and that's what I do, I buy a paid subscription so that my data stays my data. Um it's you can go into the back end of it when you cancel, you can have it destroy the data in all your sessions. Now, is that foolproof? No. Is it, you know, could could one of these companies potentially exfiltrate that data or use it somewhere else? Probably, but it's it's about the best you can do now. Um, what I will say is I'm not sure there's a profession left outside of maybe not even in the trades, quite honestly, that you can't start adopting AI and remain relevant for you know much longer. A good example is I uh I recently um had a plumbing issue and I took a picture of two pieces and I said, tell me what's wrong here. And Claude was able to analyze those pictures and tell me exactly what was wrong and tell me which part to go get and install, just looking at the pictures. And so if I'm an HVAC guy, if I'm a plumbing guy or whatever, and I have a new apprentices, I have helpers on the job, I'm adopting these tools, right? Because if if they can literally take a picture of what's going on, take a picture of the readings on a thermostat and figure out how to solve the problem, what the troubleshooting steps are, um, that's tremendously helpful. If they can, you know, with using Chat GPT or Claude, um, analyze a 800-page, you know, manual, troubleshooting manual, and not have to sit on the phone with with tech support. That's a, I mean, I'm I'm uh I'm paid by the job, sometimes by the hour. I mean, I I'm I'm using those tools. And so I I think that everybody's going to have to use this if they're going to remain relevant, stay competitive. Um and so then it's about okay, well, how do you how do you use how do you adopt this early? And how do you master it and how do you use it to your advantage to become a competitive differentiator in your business or in your role at your job or whatever it is, and and and use it to create competitive modes. And so um I would tell people to, you know, I think a healthy fear or uncertainty is fine, but but don't let that don't that last don't let that last too long because you really need to jump in here and and learn it and master it, I think.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Excellent. Thank you. Ah man, I'm well, I could I could talk about AI with you for for hours, but I'm gonna move on to to character and decision making. So as the chief operating officer, you're I'm sure, constantly making decisions with incomplete information. How do you know when it's time to stop analyzing and simply make a call?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Sure. I've always been very decisive. Um I don't know what necessarily that comes from. Maybe it becomes from just being a uh constant learner, right? I'm on this journey of kind of constant learning, and and I always feel gonna fish out of water if I don't know everything I need to know about a topic. And so that helps that helps me continuously update those mental models I was talking about earlier to be decisive. Um, but funny enough, coming off the AI topic, I will say it's actually less frequent that I have um all the decision making I need or all the information I need to make a decision these days. Because with AI, I've I've got you know, my AI connected to dozens of data sources, all of our systems within our business, um, recruiting interfaces, LinkedIn, you name it, and within minutes it can distill years of data down and help me make decisions. So that's another area where I'd say is for people like me who've historically relied on mental models. Now being able to access all this data and using those mental models to inform how I look at that data and the decision I make has made me even better and even faster at making these decisions. Um but you know, beyond that, again, it goes back to those mental models and how you utilize them. Um but you have to keep those up to date, right? I mean, you can't you can't run a software business on a mental model from 1990, right? We've had the dot-com boom, we had the SaaS migration, now we're having AI. And so um you have to update those. But um, the more information you consume, the more uh situations you can work through and kind of catalog in your mental library, um, the faster you'll be able to dress and kind of fill in gaps as you see these situations rise again in the future.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

So a bit of a tangential question is I'm a big baseball fan and it's been a it's been a um 25-30 years of growth in in analytics being used in baseball. And some would say that it's an overload of information, for certainly for managers and general managers and making decisions. And the the tug of war is this analytics and data versus instinct, gut, feel. How what's what's the role of that in your role as a chief operating officer with all this increased information? How much do you still need to rely on your instinct and gut?

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Well, because AI can't can't, the AI is okay at doing it, but it's not perfect because it doesn't know the people. It can't factor in the human elephant element. So at the end of the day, right, we're a software company, so we don't we don't make, you know, 2,500 widgets and sell 2,500 widgets for a premium, right? What we're doing is we're we're actually writing one set of source code that then we just copy and paste over and over and over for our customers. And so then what do we really manage? Um, we don't manage a manufacturing line, we manage people. And so everything in our business has a human element on both sides, the customer side and our side. Excel can't get that right. And so I have many times been in situations where the Excel file says, you know, um downsize the headcount of this organization you've just acquired because you have duplicate roles. But what Excel can't figure out, and what Claude or ChatGPT hasn't figured out, is that there's someone in the business who's been there 22 years sitting in that role and they have tremendous tribal knowledge. They have relationships with customers, they have relationships with other employees. And by getting rid of them, not only does all that tribal knowledge walk out the door, uh, but those relationships with customers walk out the door, and you you just basically nuke the culture of your organization because that employee was beloved by everybody, right? And this whole thing seemed unfair. And you've now just demo demotivated everyone who knew her or him. And so, you know, that's that's where I I fall back on. Like the data tells me one thing, but I also have to be a leader, I have to be a manager, I have to consider all the human elements around this this issue or this topic, and uh and find ways to address that. And I've done it many times over the years. And so what I what I tell finance guys all the time is there's incalculable cost to almost every decision, and you you need to sit down with people working in the business to understand that before you just make an ex decision based on some AI regurgitation or or some Excel file formula.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Sure. Excellent. Okay. Who who's shaped your leadership more than anyone else, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Um definitely my father and my grandfather. I think you know, both were raised kind of farming and ranching, both self-made, both highly regarded in their communities. Um I think the main thing they taught me is that you have to care about people. Um, and I believe really at my core that people will never care how much you know until they know how much you care. And you know, what I mean by that is you've got to build trust, you've got to show genuine care. Um, you gotta want them to do well, you gotta coach them when they aren't doing well, you have to show respect for their ideas and opinions, uh, and so on. And it's only really then that they will adopt. Your strategy, your vision, go move mountains for you. Um, and I think it's also really important for new leaders, especially to know that this has to be genuine. Um people will see through fake leadership. Like this is not one of these areas where you can fake it till you make it. You you have to genuinely care about the people um in your charge, uh, or else you it will just be a job. They will they will do it until they decide that there's some discrepancy between their effort and your pay, um, and they'll be gone and you'll be starting all over. So um I truly believe that came from that farming and ranching background of caring for livestock, caring for the land, caring for the people in your community, helping others. And uh I've adopted that and it's it's it's been good for me.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Yeah, great. On this topic of of developing leaders and and and new leaders, how do you know when someone's ready for more responsibility and when they may not even see it themselves?

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Yeah, we talked about that a little earlier. Um, but you know, leaders, leaders aren't always managers, and unfortunately, managers aren't always leaders, and that that goes in my organization as well. Um, but I just believe leaders have different characteristics, like they're the people who others trust, the people that they're they go to with their problems, um, right? There's they share their vulnerabilities, they ask for help. Um, I see this on meetings. I see it as I walk through our office, um, I see it in the hallways. Uh like I said, I can spot a leader from probably a mile away because they're always surrounded by others, right? Um, and and for no other reason, oftentimes than they're just a leader. And the people that others want to sit with at lunch are the people that when something scary happens in the office, you know, where there's some change in policy or process, the others go to them to ask what their opinion is. And so, um, and I'd also say that, like I said earlier, not all leaders make good managers. Um, and again, not all managers are great leaders. Some just manage things and and uh and processes and and outcomes and are less good at managing people, which we're always working on here. And so I would just tell you that, you know, I'm always looking for those people who are um really natural leaders, who are understanding what's going on in the organization, who people are going to. And then I work with them to figure out like, are they going to go in man into management? Or do they just need to be a senior technical resource on a team that has a bunch of other senior technical resources that need, you know, maybe a peer who's more positive and or injects some level of surety in the org in the org? And so um that's that's what I'm looking for, Lane. And and uh, you know, how I know when they're ready, I don't know, maybe it is a little bit instinctual, but um, I can generally, you know, see it and see it in their maturity.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Yeah. Good, good. Well, we're getting uh near the end of our time here. It's just flown by. Uh, but I definitely wanted to talk a little bit about your link to Angelo State. Um my work has had me there quite a bit over the past year, and I've I've loved the community, loved working with the folks at at Angelo State. Um tell us about your link to Angelo State and why what makes that place special to you?

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Yeah, so uh my great-grandfather actually graduated, he's a first graduating class um almost a hundred years ago, and it was, I think it was called San Angelo Business College back then. Uh and so I think maybe it's just in my blood. My parents both went to school there. My dad graduated from there, my wife went to school there and graduated from there. Um, I actually, having grown up here and spending lots of time on campus and at camps and other things, um, I chose to get away from town for a little bit. I went to Texanium originally, but I always felt like Angelo State was home. And so when I came back to the Angelo area uh and had a chance to do my MBA, that's where I went uh and and absolutely loved it. And then, you know, since then I've been able to be on leadership councils and do work with the Alumni Association and and uh even put in place an endowment. And uh I think it'll always just be a part of my family and and you know my heritage, to be honest with you. And uh it'll always be, you know, blue and gold for me for sure.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Well, you do play an important role, um, certainly in the in the student leader development program and in pulling together alumni to engage with students about their leadership journeys and and paths to the roles where they um are serving now. And it's been uh had a big impact on the students that uh since I've been there. So thank you for for investing in the in those coming up.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Sure. Yeah, no, I I really appreciate uh the invite to be involved.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Good. Um lastly, you're leading a global company, but you're you've remained deeply committed to Texas. What is there something about Texas business culture that's worth preserving? What's unique about operating in Texas?

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Um You know, I don't know that it's totally unique. Um maybe it's unique to kind of the uh rural states in America, but Texas business culture is underpinned by the poor immigrants that came here, settled these lands, became farmers and ranchers, um, and then many of their kids grew up to be wildcatters and big betters on the oil field. Uh you know, that came after. And so I think Texas has always just had this spirit of of making um good with what you have, right? And and betting big on yourself. And and I think there's a show, there's a reason like shows like Yellowstone and Landman have had great success, right? Is because that's what built America. It's what built Texas. Um, I think in in all of us, there's we all want to have some of that in in some way or another, that ruggedness, the resiliency, the big, big betting, the afraid of nothing. And I just think Texas has a lot of that in spades, right? And and and I love it. I think the people here are um hardworking, they they see industry around them all the time, and and uh they want to be a part of it. And so uh yeah, it's a great state to to do business in, and and uh I'm happy we're here.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Yeah. Well, as someone that grew up in in in North Texas and was away for 16 years and and landed in in West Texas, I uh I concur that there's something unique about this place. I think that the the term grit is what resonates with me and it encompasses a lot of what you've said, just this sense of you know putting your head down, doing the work, rolling with the punches, um taking risks and continuing to press on even those risks don't produce the rewards intended, and it really is uh it's in it's in the blood here, and so it it makes it a fun place to live and work. Well, any any final words for for listeners um that you'd like to share about leadership or about team building, anything that's on your mind?

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Yeah, I would just wrap it up with um a reminder that leadership, in my opinion, is you know, the foundation of that is that discipline we talked about. Um it's a drive to do the right thing every time, even when it's inconvenient or hard, to avoid distraction, to avoid complacency, to avoid the pitfalls of success, and so on. Um, and I'm not saying that people should have prived themselves of celebration, but what I am saying is those celebrations can't last too long. If you have a great month, um make a toast to your colleagues and settle back in to have a second great month. Same goes for a quarter or for a year. Um, discipline will also help you avoid disruption. Um trust me, there's always someone out there looking to disrupt you, whether it's a colleague, a competitor, a new administration, like it's going to be someone. And so staying focused, avoiding uh the disruption, ensuring that you have continued success over a long period of time, in my belief, it all starts with discipline. And so um that would be my takeaway from today is is you know, incorporate discipline in all you do, including learning AI, um, and and you'll have great success.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Excellent words. Well, Derek, thank you for joining me. It's been great to hear your leadership journey and get practical takeaways that we can all incorporate in leading our teams. To those listening, thank you for joining me on the Leader Fast Lane. If today's conversation sparked a moment of reflection or a lane change in how you think about leadership, take a minute to share this episode with someone you lead or learn from. Join me next time when I'll be joined by Billy Breedlove, Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning and Construction at the Texas Tech University System. You can find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, keep leading with purpose, integrity, and clarity, especially when it's hard.