May 23, 2025 • 50 mins
Ron Higgs shares insights on transforming engineers into effective executive leaders, drawing from his extensive experience in military aviation, aerospace, and consulting. He discusses the critical skills engineers need to advance into leadership roles, emphasizing people skills, systems thinking, and continuous improvement.
Main Topics:
- Journey from Naval Flight Officer to Executive Coach
- Developing People Skills in Technical Professions
- Systems Thinking in Leadership
- Overcoming Communication and Leadership Challenges
- Strategies for Engineers Transitioning to Leadership Roles
About the guest: Ron Higgs is an experienced executive coach and operational strategist with a strong background in both military and corporate leadership. A U.S. Naval Academy and Naval Postgraduate School graduate, he began his career as a Naval Flight Officer, developing key leadership skills in adaptability and mission execution. With over 20 years in engineering and operations roles at companies like Boeing and L3 Technologies, Ron has successfully led initiatives that enhanced performance and increased company valuations.
He now leads Wolf Management Solutions and serves as a Scale Architect using the Predictable Success model, helping technical leaders grow into visionary executives. Ron also acts as a Fractional COO and board member, emphasizing emotional intelligence, systems thinking, and sustainable team development. His human-centered approach to leadership is rooted in the belief that great leaders are made and that engineers have the potential to become exceptional leaders.
Links:
Wolf Management Solutions Website
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ron Higgs (00:00):
And the first thing she said to be she says, I've
never seen anyone in yourposition being able to take such
complex ideals and simplify themthe way you do. Remember, those
of us that are really, reallygood at certain things sometimes
don't realize it because theycome naturally to us. Ron,
Aaron Moncur (00:29):
hello and welcome to another exciting episode of
The being an engineer podcast.
Today's guest is Ron Higgs, a USNavy veteran systems thinker and
former engineer who specializesin transforming engineers into
effective executive leaders.
With over two decades ofleadership experience spanning
(00:50):
military, aerospace startups andconsulting, Ron is the principal
of wolf management solutions,where he serves as an executive
coach and strategic businessadvisor. He's the kind of leader
who doesn't just manage systems.
He builds the leaders who runthem. Ron, thank you so much for
being with us today. Thank
Ron Higgs (01:11):
you for having me.
Aaron. I appreciate it, and I'vebeen looking forward to our
Aaron Moncur (01:14):
conversation.
Excellent, excellent. I amespecially excited today, not
just because you're afascinating person and have so
much wisdom and insight to sharewith all of us engineers, but
because you're also going to beone of our speakers at the
upcoming PDX event in October,so we'll get a sneak peek,
maybe, of a little bit aboutyour background and a little
(01:36):
more of what you're going totalk about at PDX, and this will
just be a great segue into intoyour talk at PDX as well.
Ron Higgs (01:45):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that, and
hopefully some interaction herewith the audience. So help me
shape what we're going to talkabout in October.
Aaron Moncur (01:56):
Absolutely. Yes.
Okay, great. Well, let's startwith the same question I always
start with, which is, what madeyou decide to become an
engineer? Oh, man,
Ron Higgs (02:07):
I can track this back to being a kid, just being
excited about learning about howthings work, I took a couple of
things apart that I probablywasn't supposed to take apart
when I was kid, and my dad gaveme this book called The Way
Things Work. And it's probably,you know, it's like just a black
(02:29):
book, and inside the book withjust some explanations about,
you know, how things work, whichwas great, and that's how it
started. And I have a love of,you know, aircraft, science
fiction. And I was a big StarTrek fan, you know, looking at
all that stuff and wondering,like, how, how could that work?
(02:51):
How could somebody buildsomething like that? You know,
that I watched the Apollomissions, watched the space
shuttle missions and things likethat. And I just fell in love
with engineering aircraft,aircraft carriers, still modern
marvels of engineering to thisday, and I wanted to become an
(03:12):
astronaut. So how am I going tobecome an astronaut? So really
is how, how I fell in love withthe engineering discipline.
Aaron Moncur (03:24):
So let's talk a little bit about that. You
wanted to become an astronaut.
You thought, well, engineering,maybe that's my path to becoming
an astronaut. And then you, youended up in the Navy, right?
Yes, as a let's see you were apilot. I think I saw a picture
of you, maybe on your LinkedInprofile, where you're in a
fighter jet, I think, andthere's a little arrow pointing
(03:45):
and saying, That's me, orsomething like that. Yeah,
Ron Higgs (03:51):
it is. And I was a naval flight officer, so if you
saw the Top Gun Maverick andgoose, I was goose guy and wow.
And all the work while thepilots taking the credit for
kidding. Navigation, weaponsystems operation, all sorts,
weapon and sensor systemsoperations, things like that.
But I loved it. Where I grew up.
I didn't have any exposure todidn't have any exposure to
(04:14):
anyone who had walked that path.
It's like you want to be I wantto be an astronaut. It's like
you want to be a what? So therewas no one who can help me,
really. So I had to find my ownpath through the library system.
Was one of those things. I hadto go to. There was no Google. I
had to go to the library tofigure this out. And through all
(04:36):
of that research, you know, Ifound out that, hey, a lot of
astronauts went to the NavalAcademy. A lot of astronauts
were test pilots, first thingslike that. So here's what I want
to do. I want to fly airplanes.
I want to go in the Navy,because aircraft carriers, I
thought were cool, and anybodycould land a plane on the
ground. That's landing a planeon an aircraft carrier would be,
(04:56):
would be really cool. So I foundmy way. Ended up at the Naval
Academy, selected naval aviationas a naval flight officer, ended
up being accepted and going andgraduating from US Naval Test
Pilot School. So I followed,followed the path, and I was one
of the people that the Navyintroduced as a candidate, an
(05:19):
astronaut candidate, to NASA,because I had to apply to the
astronaut program through theNavy. And then when I was
evaluated by NASA, I gotdisqualified for a medical
reason. So I got as close as Ipossibly could from starting
with that dream for literally,from starting watching science
fiction to making it to to thatpoint, and I still, I have
(05:42):
friends that are in theastronaut program. In fact, the
local news, the astronauts thatjust came back from the space
station that was stuck there fora few days, we were all in test
pilot school together. So a lotof my friends were successful in
their dreams and become anastronaut.
Aaron Moncur (05:59):
Now, a person could look at this as the glass
is half empty or half full. Yougot so close to being an
astronaut. You You could look atit as I was almost there, I
almost made it. Or you couldlook at it as man, I got so far.
I really got very far here,further than most people ever
(06:20):
get what was your your mindsetlike at that time? Well, I
Ron Higgs (06:24):
mean, if you what is that? I think I'm gonna get it
wrong, but if you shoot for themoon, if you fail, you'll still
end up in the stars orsomething, you know, something
like that. So I am thankful foreverything that I have,
everything that I was exposedto, everything that I was able
to do, and from where I started,I am proud of the fact that I
(06:47):
got as far as I did, and thethings that I learned from it,
and the things that that stuckwith me, that shaped the way I
think today, I wouldn't give anyof that up. So it was great
experience. I never looked backnegatively on any of it.
Aaron Moncur (07:04):
Absolutely, that's wonderful. How so you're doing
executive coaching right now,specifically with engineers and
technical professionals. How didyour experience as a naval
flight officer shape yourapproach to executive coaching
Ron Higgs (07:24):
well, so military aviation in general instills a
combination of discipline youhave to be adaptable and
continuous improvement, and alot of things like that kind of
stayed with me. And the militaryenvironment in general focuses
on mentoring, training,coaching. Now, everyone in the
military goes into a unit for afinite amount of time, for a
(07:47):
specific amount of time, let'ssay two, three or four years
during your time in that unit,you are being trained as a
replacement as you are trainingothers to replace you as you
come along, because nobody staysanywhere, you know, sort of like
a real, you know, a corporatejob. So that mindset in trying
(08:09):
to coach there are a lot,there's a lot of coaching of the
people coming behind me as I'mbeing coached. So I learned how
to be a good coachee, and then Ilearned how to coach people,
because I want to make thosepeople the best that they can
be. So let's say I'm beingtrained as a wingman as I come
in, and then when I able to takethe lead, then I want to train
(08:32):
the wingman to be the bestwingman that they can be. So
that whole that whole mentalityof coaching was just part of
what we did in the military. Nowwe didn't call it that, but when
I discovered executive coaching,it's like, wow, this is this is
great. This is just a naturalextension of where the things
(08:53):
that I've always been doingthroughout my career, yeah,
Aaron Moncur (08:56):
at what point did you know that you wanted to
extrapolate the coaching you arealready doing in the military
into more of a private practiceor a profession for yourself in
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Ron Higgs (09:54):
So it took me a while to settle on some of these
things, because I spent a.
Career in the military, got out,did several jobs with the
defense contractors, and thendecided to go off on my own a
little while after that, duringthat there are a lot of coaches
out there, right? So I'm tryingto separate myself as a coach.
You know? You have to reflectback and go, What do I have to
(10:17):
offer that's unique that nobodyelse does, and so my engineering
background, I go, Wait, I'veseen like I've seen a lot of
engineers struggle with theirtransition in their leadership
roles, especially executiveleadership roles. I struggled
with it. I know what I struggledwith, and I know how I was able
to overcome it. And I go, Wait,this is a great niche for me to
be able to help others. As youmentioned, I did a few other
(10:41):
jobs. I was a COO, a fractionalCOO, and what I learned from
that is, while I was the COO ofthese companies, I really
enjoyed coaching the individualmembers of the executive team. I
also enjoyed the coaching of theteam as a whole, and I found
eventually that I that resonatedwith me a lot more than the COO
(11:04):
stuff. So I switched intocoaching full time. Interesting
Aaron Moncur (11:12):
you. You mentioned earlier that not only did the
military teach you how to be agood coach, but how to be a good
coachee, what? What are somethings that engineers, looking
to be coached, looking formentors, can do to be a good
coachee,
Ron Higgs (11:29):
I think you have to have an attitude of continuous
improvement. So for us, here'sthe thing that stuck with me. In
the military, every flight hasthree elements. You have a
brief, you go out and executethe flight, and you have a
debrief. Every flight gets adebrief, where you get debriefed
on your performance. You getfeedback. Feedback seems to be a
(11:52):
four letter word in some ofthese circles, but if feedback
really is the key, because howelse are we going to get better,
right? I think people who onlypeople who care about you and
want you to be better will giveyou feedback. So it's not all
negative. You become betterbecause of that feedback. Then
you start to seek it. So I seekfeedback in everything that I
do, and some things are hard tohear, but ultimately it helps me
(12:15):
become better. So the feedback,the desire for continuous
improvement driven by thatfeedback. Because a big, a big
deal to separate, you know,average engineers from the above
average leaders that we'relooking to create.
Aaron Moncur (12:33):
It's interesting that you say that just several
weeks ago, Jake Kennington wason the show. He's also an
engineering coach, a little bitdifferent than your focus, and
actually you'll meet him at PDX,because he is also speaking
there. But something he saidthat I thought was really
insightful was that we don'tgrow based on our experiences.
(12:54):
We grow based on reflecting onour experiences, which is
effectively what you're sayingnow with the feedback loop,
Ron Higgs (13:03):
absolutely. And one of the things is one of the
things, and one of the traits, Ibelieve, of coming a good
leader, is self awareness. Ifyou're self aware, especially
with your with your actions,with your emotions and things
like that. If you know whatyou're good at and you know how
others are perceiving youremotions, not just how you
(13:26):
perceive them, that's reallypowerful. And if you can reflect
back on that and exercise somecritical self awareness, I
believe that's key. And so what?
Whatever his name was, I thinkthat that's great advice.
Aaron Moncur (13:45):
I think one area that a lot of engineers in
particular struggle with is thepeople skills, right? We're all
good at math. We're good atphysics. We know the equations
thermodynamics, statics andfluid dynamics and all this fun
stuff, but we sometimes strugglewhen it comes to having just a
conversation with people andrelating well, how is that an
(14:09):
area, especially in theexecutive leadership that you've
coached, is that an area you'veseen to be a stumbling block?
And what are some ways that youhave helped engineers get past
that stumbling block?
Ron Higgs (14:24):
Well, that's absolutely a stumbling block,
probably one of the bigger ones,but just like you headed towards
what are the things thatseparate technical experts from
effective executive leaders?
Right? Because it's not justtechnical skills or experience,
right? It's the people skills.
It's the people focused traits.
So you have people focusedtraits that you need to develop,
(14:46):
like self awareness, which wetalked about, and empathy, it's
a big thing. There'sorganizationally focused traits
like systems thinking andstrategic vision, but I believe.
Believe the biggest thing thatyou can do is understand that
different people are motivatedby different things. Think we
(15:07):
all know that, right? How do youknow what motivates a specific
individual? You have to createsome kind of relationship with
them. So those of us in art,those of us engineers who think
logically will start off going,well, I have to treat everyone
the same. Well, not really,right? And so again, you have to
(15:29):
know what important to people,what motivates them, and you
won't know that unless youcreate relationship with them.
So one of the biggest thingsthat you can do. And most
important things that you can dois learn how to build
relationships with people. Andit's difficult. I and there are
some simple exercises, simplethings that you can go and do to
(15:49):
help you get used to that, butthat is a challenge for people.
Aaron Moncur (15:57):
I'm thinking with my engineer hat right now, and
if I'm an engineer, I'mlistening to Ron, and I'm
saying, Okay, I have to learn todevelop relationships with
people. Check, great. What's theprocess for that? What do I do
first, and then what do I dosecond? And then what do I do
third? My opinion, there's notreally a linear checklist to go
(16:21):
through. But what are somesuggestions that you have? What
are some pro tips for buildingrelationships with people?
Ron Higgs (16:28):
Well, let me just say this, yeah, engineers have to do
this. We all like data, right?
And some of us disregardqualitative data, right? We look
at quantitative data. We look atstatistics and we get all these
numbers, right? There'squalitative data out there that
doesn't have any numbers. Thereare no numbers. Can't measure
it, forget about it, right? Sowe one have to sort of let go of
(16:51):
that whole thing. You know, howmuch do you like somebody,
right? Can you quantify that?
Really? Relationships, feelings,desires, motivation, all those
things. Can you measure any ofthat? So the first thing is to
just let go of that idea ofeverything has to be measured,
(17:15):
right? And come at it from asfar as talking to people be
genuine. If you're genuinelycurious about someone, that will
come naturally genuine. For me,it's genuine curiosity. I just
like to know people's stories.
Everybody has one. Everyone hasa great time, a great story. And
I guarantee you you engage withsomeone on a regular basis,
(17:39):
you'll come out of thatconversation and go, Man, I
never knew that, and some ofthose discussions were able to
help me shape and or reshapesome relationships I had with
people throughout my career,listening to a story of a 16
year old Native American ladywho worked for me, who went to
(18:02):
college when she was 35 yearsold and had, you know, four
kids, and all these things. Andyou learn about man she went to
college, which she was, youknow, 35 years old and had four
kids, and then got divorced, andall sorts, I mean, just all
(18:24):
sorts of things. And I justrealized how strong of a person
she really was. And beneath allof that, you know, one of the
things that I think about iseverybody you meet is fighting a
battle, you know, nothing about,right? And so the more I got to
know that person, what hercharacteristics were, what she
was capable of, the more I wasable to challenge her in that
(18:48):
role and and have her Excel. Sojust to sum this up, just be
genuinely curious about people,and I think it'll come
naturally. That's
Aaron Moncur (19:03):
such good advice.
I mean, if you just ask peoplequestions about themselves, they
will start talking, and theywill love you forever. People
love to talk about themselves.
I'm not saying that in acondescending way at all. It's
just how we're built.
Ron Higgs (19:19):
People also love to give advice, I think. And so if
you you're having trouble, youknow, getting through, because
there are some people that willbe guarded, you know, notice
something about them. It's like,oh, I noticed that you're
really, really organized. It'slike, what kind of advice would
you give to somebody like methat's trying to get as
organized as you are? That's
Aaron Moncur (19:40):
huge. That's a huge insight right there. Wow.
Okay, going back to executiveleaders, right chances are there
are plenty of engineers who arelistening to this right now.
Maybe they're early in theircareers. Maybe they're managers
right now, but they haveaspirations to be. Climb the
ladder and become executiveleaders at some point in their
(20:04):
careers. What are, I think we'vealready talked about a few of
them, but are there any otherkey attributes or behaviors that
are really critical for leadersat an executive level to have to
be successful?
Ron Higgs (20:20):
Well, I think one of the things you have to get past,
right is that I think a lot ofengineers think that technical
proficiency is for as long asI'm technically proficient, as
long as I'm good, that's all Ineed, right? And it's not. And
so all the things that sort ofgot you that promotion into into
(20:42):
executive leadership or any kindof a people management role, are
not the things that you need tobe successful in that role. And
so some of the blind spots arereally overvaluing technical
proficiency at that level,because most of the stuff we're
paying you for now is the peoplestuff the dynamics and team
dynamics, people interact,right? And then I mentioned it
(21:06):
earlier, undervaluing those softskills, right? So it's a
combination of, Wow, so and so'sgreat engineer, right? But
nobody says, Man, that person'sreally great at making
relationships, or they're greatat they're great at maintaining
these relationships with nontechnical stakeholders, that's a
big thing. And so to go intosome of those other traits,
(21:27):
right? Thinking, big picturesystems thinking, try it,
because we're naturally in theweeds all the time, lots of
detail, right? But sometimes yougot to back out of that detail
and look at the whole forest andunderstand, understand the
bigger picture, and being ableto communicate with your non
(21:48):
technical stakeholders. Thereare always HR people, finance
people, you know, all sorts ofother people, marketing folks,
sales folks, who aren'ttechnically astute whose eyes
glaze over every time you start,every time we start describing
something to them. So weliterally have to learn to
(22:10):
communicate with those folks.
And again, it's just aboutasking, you know, and thinking
it's like, Well, what amarketing person tend to know?
Because we tend to just, hey,I'm going to tell this person
everything I know. Well, no, thereal art is to tell them what
they need to know, right? It'sto understand and tell them what
they need to know.
Aaron Moncur (22:30):
That is a huge, huge point. I worked with an
engineer for a period of time,and he was brilliant. This guy
could run circles around me whenit came to technical expertise,
and honestly, I didn'tunderstand a lot of what he
said. It was just it was so farabove my head, above my
(22:54):
technical capabilities. And Iremember being in awe that he
was just so smart, so brilliant,right? But also as as his leader
being so frustrated because Icould never get cohesive
communication from him, anytimeI asked him something, the
(23:16):
answer, it didn't make sense tome. He He really didn't
understand how to give me theinformation I was looking for.
And I've seen that over and overin some engineers and other
engineers, they just get itright. They're able to give you
a concise explanation of whatyou're looking for. Great. Done.
(23:37):
Move on to the next thing. Andthat is such a huge skill, I can
tell you that as a businessowner and as I lead my team, the
the individuals, the engineerswho know how to give you a
concise summary, give you theinformation you need, and then
just move on, those are the onesI love working with. And I, I
(24:00):
want, I, I do everything in mypower to keep them there right
promotions and raises andrecognition and all of this
stuff, whereas the other group,let's say, and I'm not
suggesting that theseindividuals are at pipeline
right now. This is just generalexperience here, but those other
individuals who who don't knowhow to to communicate. Well,
(24:24):
wow, I just I almost run theopposite direction when I see
them coming, you know? Soanyway, a couple of my data
points there. I
Ron Higgs (24:34):
believe that being able to simplify things is a
superpower. It really is. Andfor me, I come from a family of
folks that are, let's say,relatively uneducated, like my
grand my grandparents didn'thave an education because black
people at their time weren'tallowed to go to school or were
(24:54):
limited in the amount ofeducation they could have,
especially the women, right? AndI remember my grandmother just.
Asking me things about what Iwas doing. I was like, I need to
be able to explain this to mygrandmother. You know, my mom
was a medical assistant, notechnical knowledge whatsoever,
right? And I loved and my momwas always very curious about
what I was doing. I was like, Ihave to be able to explain this
to my mom. And so I just thoughtabout that, how can I really
(25:19):
explain this so that almostanyone can understand that. And
I realized I was validated. Iwas talking with a CEO when I
was looking to make mytransition out of the aerospace
and defense world and into theconsulting business, and I was
wanted to just make sure that myskills were transferable. And
the first thing she said to beshe says, I've never seen anyone
(25:40):
in your position being able totake such complex, complex,
complex ideals and simplify themthe way you do that is really,
really valuable, and I didn'tknow it. Because remember, those
of us that are really, reallygood at certain things sometimes
don't realize it, because theycome naturally to us, and so we
have to ask other people whatwe're good at. So one of the
(26:02):
ways I was able to, you know,really settle on the coaching
thing, is to ask people what Iwas good at. They're like, Oh,
no, Ron, you do this. Well, I'mlike, Really,
Aaron Moncur (26:13):
this is so true for a long time, I think that
I'm very good at communicationand organization, and for a long
time, I did not understand thatthat was a special skill set I
had. I thought everyone can dothis because it's easy. It just
makes sense, right, tocommunicate efficiently and to
be organized. It did not occurto me that that was a special
(26:35):
skill set until much later in mycareer. So just echoing what you
said, oftentimes, the thingsthat we're really good at, we
don't realize, because they justcome so naturally. Yeah,
Ron Higgs (26:46):
your normal is an aha moment for others, right? Yeah,
or can be an aha moment forothers
Aaron Moncur (26:54):
you worked at or maybe consulted for. I can't
remember now, but a companycalled commercial laser
Corporation, and I read that youhelped triple their valuation.
Is that accurate? Yes, okay,that floored me, and I would
love to hear obviously, it takesa village, right? Wasn't just
(27:14):
Ron Higgs, but what were some ofthe things that you and the team
did to triple A company'svaluation.
Ron Higgs (27:22):
Well, let's say that that was a startup, right? And,
you know, in startups, teamshave to work well beyond their
job descriptions, and I thinkyou know that. And so for this
particular one, the CEO wasvery, very direct. I didn't take
a lot of input from others. Andthere was, you know, there was
also a lack of Team diversityand lots of different aspects.
(27:48):
So when I came aboard, you know,I was able to notice something
and share my unique perspectivethat just helped identify a new
value proposition. Because, youknow, we're looking at the
companies locked in on a valueproposition. This is what our
valuation is. And I'm like, I'mlike, Oh, wait, I don't think
(28:08):
so. And here's what I think ourreal that is a value
proposition. Here's what I thinkour real value proposition is.
And I think this much morevaluable than the one that
you're going as our primaryvaluation. So, like you said, it
takes a team. We look at it go,you know, what? You know, or,
like Ron's on to something here,we're right. So through a little
(28:30):
bit of work, you know, we wereable to to adjust our numbers.
You know, there are a lot ofthere are a lot of contributing
factors there. You know,leadership, practices, valuing
teamwork, you know, recognizingcourage. Because, you know, it
was a startup, I wasn't going tobe bullied. You know what? I
mean? It's like, Hey, I'm gonna,I'm good at my opinion. And if
(28:53):
you don't want it, then I can goelsewhere, where I think it'll,
it'll be valued, making sure allof our goals were aligned. And
as part of a startup, again, youjust go in there, especially
when you're new, you could go inand look around and just start
asking those new guy questions,like, Well, why don't we have
this? Why don't we have this?
Why don't we have this? Is like,Okay, I'm in a startup, so I'm
going to do it. And, you know,engaging everyone cross
(29:16):
functionally, the systemsthinking that we talked about,
really, all those things made animpact, and that's how we were
able to I was the catalyst forthat. I didn't do it on my own,
but I was the catalyst forThat's
Aaron Moncur (29:31):
fascinating. Wow.
You often talk about systemsthinking. What? What does
Systems Thinking mean? I
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Ron Higgs (30:24):
Well, systems thinking is understanding how
different parts of the systeminteract with and influence each
other. So if you look ateverything, and ironically
enough, I have a bachelor'sdegree in systems engineering,
and when I got my first coo job,the thing that helped me the
most, night and a lot ofdifferent jobs before, you know,
(30:44):
the military and out. But as aCOO the systems engineering
actually helped me the most,because I looked at all the
operating functions of thebusiness and how they operated
the system and how they wereinterrelated. And I, you know,
getting to talk with the otherexecutives on the team that's
like, okay, sales guy, you justsold this, but you told the
(31:07):
client that we could deliver itin three months. We have a six
month backlog, and so now yousee what you just did to
everyone in this entire thing.
Now you're going to make theentire business look bad because
we're not going to be able todeliver it. You're going to put
some extra pressure onproduction, manufacturing, all
those people. I mean, do weunderstand all that? So again,
(31:31):
everything has a what is thatwas called the butterfly effect,
right? All of those things andhow different things happen.
It's not as extreme as that, butunderstanding where your piece
fits in the hole, how or intothe hole, and how it influences
(31:51):
everything around it, and how itis being influenced by the
things around it, I think willmake you that much better of a
problem solver. Now, sometimesthis came from the military. The
military was really, really goodat mission alignment, so we all
took an oath to supportdefendant constitution United
(32:12):
States. We're all very clear onthe mission of each individual
service, right? And so we'realso very clear on the mission
of our part of the service. So Iknew the mission of the Seventh
Fleet, I knew the mission of theaircraft carrier. I knew what we
were doing every day. I knew themission of my aircraft, and I
(32:35):
could map out every action thatI took to how it was, how it
supported and defended theConstitution the United States.
That's alignment. That doesn'thappen everywhere, right? But if
you understand that system, Ithink that you will then become
a better problem solver and abetter part of that system,
Aaron Moncur (32:59):
yeah, I think that is that as a whole, and not just
engineering organizations, butmany organizations where we
don't understand the high levelwhy the purpose, and I'm sure
that's the case to some extendedpipeline as well. How have you
helped teams overcome that anddraw very clear paths between
(33:20):
individual roles and the overallpurpose of a company?
Ron Higgs (33:24):
Well, you really have to start at the top, right? So
now we're going to go back totalking about the soft stock
again, right? So missionstatements, very valuable,
right? That's your North Star.
That's what you're doing. Yourvision statements, the
difference between the two, yourvalues, all those things that
make some engineers eyes glazeover, that's not really
(33:45):
important stuff, but yeah, it isright. And so you've got
organizational goals that shouldalign with the mission, right?
And then there's individualteams and or, you know,
organizations or departmentswithin the organization, can you
help them see what theirspecific part is towards that
(34:08):
goal? Now, a lot of it's easiersaid than done, but it starts
with getting the the frontoffice, the executive team
aligned? Because, because if theexecutive team isn't aligned and
they're not functioning welltogether, then the company's not
gonna function well, right? Andso you have to start there, and
(34:31):
it has to flow down.
Aaron Moncur (34:34):
How have you been able to identify whether an
executive team is or is notaligned, because these are
highly educated, capable, smartpeople, right? It's how do I say
this? They're probably not goingto be or maybe I'm wrong. I
(34:54):
don't know. They're probably notgoing to be advertising the fact
that I know we're not inalignment and we're not doing
things. Right? And maybe theyhave their guards up and they're
not looking for a consultant tocome in and say, You're not
aligned as a team. How do youidentify? Goes back to the soft
skills, right? You have to makepeople comfortable, genuinely
trust you. But how do you howwould you assess a situation,
(35:16):
situation like that?
Ron Higgs (35:18):
So my executive team coaching. I've usually been
called in by a CEO that says myexecutive team isn't getting
along, or there's conflictwithin the team. There's
conflict within the team that'simpacting our mission, that's
impacting the bottom line, or anexact quote from one of my
clients is like, my team isgood. I want to make them great,
(35:41):
right? And then you start, youknow, I have an assessment that
I use. There's a thing to makesure that, you know, businesses
go through stages of growth anddecline, and everyone sort of
has to be aligned on what theirdepending on what stage they're
in, their priorities and thethings that they should be
working on. So, for instance, ifyou're a startup, you should be
working on cash flow. You shouldbe working on finding a
(36:04):
profitable, sustainable market,right, so that you become self
sufficient before whatever seedcapital you have runs out. And
if everybody's not working onthat, then they're not aligned,
right? So there's some way offiguring out, you know, hey,
here's what we here's what weall need to be doing. Sometimes,
(36:24):
when you have visionaries, youlook at the company vision, you
may have people at the top whohave completely different ideas
of what success looks like forthe company. Hey, we want to
take the company in thisdirection. Now we want to take
the company in this direction.
So which ends up leads to, howmany stories have you heard
about co founders breaking up?
(36:46):
Right? And that's usually whatit leads to. So I'm not sure
that was a good answer to yourquestion, but some symptoms are,
you know, executives not gettingalong. A lot of things get
buried under the rug too. A lotof people just don't want to
address it, right? Becausepeople just like, oh, wow, I
don't want to, you know, I'mscared of conflict, not
(37:09):
necessarily scared of conflict,but just don't, don't want to do
any conflict, right? So they letthings get swept under the rug.
Everybody knows when you have aproblem person, and it only
takes one person to sour yourculture, sour your organization,
so you're going to get what youtolerate. And so example of that
(37:32):
is like, hey, so and so is a isour top salesperson? Yeah, we
know they don't follow all therules. We know he or she has
done something inappropriate andprone to do inappropriate things
at times, but they're the numberone salesperson, so we let them
get away with that, but what youlet them get away with and what
(37:52):
you tolerate is what you'regoing to begin to get right. So
now you're telling people thatwhatever bad behavior they're
exhibiting is okay as long asthey can perform, which will
destroy your culture, as you allknow. So you have to make a
choice. Let's
Aaron Moncur (38:09):
let's extrapolate from there a little bit. Can you
think of a situation that wasparticularly challenging, right?
A leadership situation, and howyou resolved
Ron Higgs (38:21):
it? You know, there's a couple. And these aren't
specific. These aren't very,very challenging, but I'll give
you the examples just to kind ofprove a point, right? So I had
one where a group of people cameor several team members accused
the lead of sort of slacking andunderperforming, like hey, so
(38:43):
and so is slacking off theirunderperforming. You know, this
guy's a dirtbag. You need tomove them here and there now,
because I had created arelationship with this person.
And I knew him. I knew that hewas a Navy, a retired Navy
Master Chief. That is thehighest enlisted rank that you
can get to slacker is incapableof being a slacker. And I knew
(39:07):
that, so pulled them into myoffice and just asked, Hey, you
know we're not seeing our usualhigh standards of performance
from you. So do you have any yougot anything personal going on
that's impacting your ability toengage at work, and that
emotional opened up with some ofthe challenges that he had. And
(39:31):
I'm like, okay, so listen, we'reinterested in a whole person
here, so let's help you out. Sowhat can we do so we were able
to adjust some of theresponsibilities that he had,
and give him more time to focuson his personal issues and and
satisfy our teamresponsibilities. Also gave us
the opportunity to have a coupleof other team members step step
(39:52):
up. He also personally apologizeto some of the folks on the
team, but. So again, the biggestlesson in that is just get to
know people and lead with somekind of empathy. Because I knew
that guy was in a dirt bag,right? And this was, there are a
(40:14):
lot of people going, No, no, yougot to get rid of this guy. He's
not doing this. He's not donethat. I'm like, No, that's
that's not the problem. Wow,somebody else, had I not taken
the time to get to know himbeforehand that could have came
out a lot. I'm glad it came outthe way it did.
Aaron Moncur (40:31):
That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing
that
Ron Higgs (40:33):
so, so that's a people issue problem, right? And
then we end up with technicalissues, right? So I was in
charge of an aircraft deliveryat a large aircraft
manufacturer, right? And ouraircraft delivery timeline
wasn't being met. So and infact, our timeline was, let's
(40:54):
say, 10 days. And when I showedup, the average delivery was
taken 21 days, you know. And soone of the things that we did is
step back. We took a six systemsthinking approach. We took some
input from all of thestakeholders. And as it turns
out, the contracts team, it wastaking the contracts team five
(41:17):
days from the time we finishedthe aircraft to the time that
they were able to get all thecontracts paperwork done right
five days. Turns out they wereworking from the wrong schedule.
They were working from sort of amaster schedule. And so all I
did, I put them on delivery, Iput put them on distribution for
(41:42):
our aircraft status updates,okay, decrease that time to one
day, because now they were doingit in parallel instead of
series. Okay, biggest lessonthere sometimes really, really
simple solutions can have a bigimpact. It doesn't have to be a
really big one, right? So thatwas a leadership challenge,
right? And inheriting this kindof, okay, Ron, what are you
(42:05):
going to do about this? It'slike I just got here. Give me
some time. But every solutiondoesn't have to be elegant,
right? I mean, that was probablyan example of the simplest
solution that I think was everproposed to solve complex
problem. Communication, yeah,
Aaron Moncur (42:24):
yeah, that one comes up over and over.
Communication, well, what for,for the engineers listening who
are interested in moving intomore leadership, strategic
roles, what's Of course, thereare many, many things, but if
there was one thing that youcould recommend that they start
tomorrow to move in thatdirection. What? What do you
(42:46):
think that would be? Um,
Ron Higgs (42:48):
I would say this, because a lot of every people
just struggle with peopleleadership, right? That's
probably the biggest strugglethat people have, right? And so,
what do you if you'reautomatically now in charge of a
team, what's your naturalinclination as an engineer, if
Aaron Moncur (43:07):
I'm in charge of a team, my natural inclination is
to get to know the people,understand what motivates them,
and make sure what we're tryingto do aligns with what their
goals are. Find a way to matchthose up, so we're all enrolled
in rowing in the same direction.
Well,
Ron Higgs (43:25):
a little simpler than that. You're probably a bit more
advanced than others, but I'mtalking about, I'm someone new
to a leadership role. Youprobably are automatically, at
least, I was automaticallyattuned to giving people the
answer, like you had to have theanswer, right? You were the
answer person. You had to makesure that you had all the
answers to everyone's problems,right? And so instead of
(43:48):
focusing on answers, what if youfocused on better questions to
help your people grow? I lovethat, right? So in other words,
you know people ask you, okay,hey, Ron, what are we going to
do about this? Okay, what areour options? What do you think
we're going to do? What are ourvariables, whether this and so
you start laying out all thethings you're thinking about.
(44:11):
You start asking those questionsto let them get to it, and then
they don't get used, they don'tget used to coming to you for an
answer, right? You just keepgiving them, asking them more
challenging questions. And so tostop get out of that, I gotta
solve everything. I gotta do itand really come at it from start
(44:32):
asking questions. Now it's gonnaannoy some people. How come,
Eric, how come you answer myquestion with a question?
Because I'm trying to get you tothink for yourself, and you'll
appreciate it, but that that'sreally one of the biggest shift,
I think, that they can can make,along with that, you know, under
(44:53):
we talked about it,understanding the bigger
picture, right, understandingpeople, right, and getting to
the point where you. You canactually are proactive instead
of reactive, and you're notputting out fires. That's
probably if I, as I do myresearch, especially with some
newer managers, for folks thathave been in it for a while,
it's like I'm spending all myday putting out fires. I had
(45:15):
time to do anything else. I want
Aaron Moncur (45:17):
to go back briefly to your comment about answering
questions with questions,because I think that's so
powerful. I have appreciated andunderstood the power there from
a sales standpoint for a longtime, but I don't know that I've
fully appreciated the power froma leadership standpoint as well.
I know oftentimes in a salescontext, a customer will ask me,
(45:39):
Well, how big is your team? AndI could just give them an
answer, right? It's this manypeople that this number, right?
But chances are they don'treally care how big my team is.
And so, and this, I use thisquestion because I get this all
the time. I don't know whypeople just love to ask this
question. And so I answer thatby saying, Wow, that's a great
(46:01):
question. Typically, when peopleask me that they're really
looking for something else, whatare we trying to get at here?
Help me understand the root ofthe question so I can give you
the most relevant answer, andthat always 100% of the time,
opens up a much broaderconversation that we would never
have had if I had just giventhem the answer to the question,
(46:23):
which wasn't really thequestion, Well,
Ron Higgs (46:27):
you're right, and that's a great answer. And my my
answer went about the same. It'slike, well, what kind of
servants do you have that wouldmake you ask that? Because there
have to be some underlyingconcerns as to why you would
want to know that. So are youconcerned about the amount of
time we have, the amount ofperspectives we're going to get
in answering this problem, what?
What's the, what's the realquestion here? Right? Because,
you know, just like you saidthat, how many people doesn't
(46:50):
necessarily matter, there'sanother answer they're trying to
get to, exactly
Aaron Moncur (46:56):
right? Well, Ron, this has been really a delight.
Thank you so much for spendingsome time with us and sharing
some insight and some wisdom.
This was excellent, and I'msuper, super excited to hear
your talk at PDX, coming upOctober 21 and 22nd we hope to
see you all there before we signoff from the podcast. Ron, how
(47:19):
can people get in touch withyou? Well, if you'll allow me
Ron Higgs (47:23):
to ask this question first, right? Because I'm really
excited about speaking at theevent as well, but I really want
the talk to be relevant andimpactful for everyone there,
and so if you're out therelistening, I'll give you my
contact information in a second.
But here are the things I wantyou to think about you can help
me shape this talk so that youcan get the most out of it.
(47:43):
Think about this. What's thebiggest frustration you have,
biggest obstacle you have that'sslowing you down, and I would
say keeping you up at night, butyou know, there's not much work
related that's keeping me up atnight, maybe. So what's your
biggest frustration out there onthe other side, what does
success look like if all if thatfrustration immediately
(48:04):
disappeared, what would yourlife look like? What is it that
you could do that you don't havetime to do now, right? And if
you could just wave a magic wandand change one thing, one thing
about your job, one thing aboutyour team, what would that be?
Those three things? If you canhelp me quit those three things,
send me some answers to you canemail me Ron at wolfmanagement
(48:27):
solutions.com LinkedIn is mynumber one channel. You can
reach out and connect with me onLinkedIn there. I also think I
published some pretty engagingcontent. Please take a look at
that. Give me some feedback onthat as well. And I have a
website, www, dot wolfmanagementsolutions.com, any of those
ways, please let me hear fromyou. Would love to hear from you
(48:51):
and help me make my presentationthat much more of a success,
because you will have shaped it.
Aaron Moncur (49:00):
Ron, thank you so much for being on the show
Ron Higgs (49:03):
today. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Aaron Moncur (49:06):
I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and
engineering. If you liked whatyou heard today, please share
the episode to learn how yourteam can leverage our team's
expertise developing advancedmanufacturing processes,
automated machines and customfixtures, complemented with
product design and R D services.
Visit us at Team pipeline.us. Tojoin a vibrant community of
(49:30):
engineers online. Visit thewave. Dot, engineer, thank you
for listening. You.
And the first thing she said to be she says, I've
never seen anyone in yourposition being able to take such
complex ideals and simplify themthe way you do. Remember, those
of us that are really, reallygood at certain things sometimes
don't realize it because theycome naturally to us. Ron,
Aaron Moncur (00:29):
hello and welcome to another exciting episode of
The being an engineer podcast.
Today's guest is Ron Higgs, a USNavy veteran systems thinker and
former engineer who specializesin transforming engineers into
effective executive leaders.
With over two decades ofleadership experience spanning
(00:50):
military, aerospace startups andconsulting, Ron is the principal
of wolf management solutions,where he serves as an executive
coach and strategic businessadvisor. He's the kind of leader
who doesn't just manage systems.
He builds the leaders who runthem. Ron, thank you so much for
being with us today. Thank
Ron Higgs (01:11):
you for having me.
Aaron. I appreciate it, and I'vebeen looking forward to our
Aaron Moncur (01:14):
conversation.
Excellent, excellent. I amespecially excited today, not
just because you're afascinating person and have so
much wisdom and insight to sharewith all of us engineers, but
because you're also going to beone of our speakers at the
upcoming PDX event in October,so we'll get a sneak peek,
maybe, of a little bit aboutyour background and a little
(01:36):
more of what you're going totalk about at PDX, and this will
just be a great segue into intoyour talk at PDX as well.
Ron Higgs (01:45):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that, and
hopefully some interaction herewith the audience. So help me
shape what we're going to talkabout in October.
Aaron Moncur (01:56):
Absolutely. Yes.
Okay, great. Well, let's startwith the same question I always
start with, which is, what madeyou decide to become an
engineer? Oh, man,
Ron Higgs (02:07):
I can track this back to being a kid, just being
excited about learning about howthings work, I took a couple of
things apart that I probablywasn't supposed to take apart
when I was kid, and my dad gaveme this book called The Way
Things Work. And it's probably,you know, it's like just a black
(02:29):
book, and inside the book withjust some explanations about,
you know, how things work, whichwas great, and that's how it
started. And I have a love of,you know, aircraft, science
fiction. And I was a big StarTrek fan, you know, looking at
all that stuff and wondering,like, how, how could that work?
(02:51):
How could somebody buildsomething like that? You know,
that I watched the Apollomissions, watched the space
shuttle missions and things likethat. And I just fell in love
with engineering aircraft,aircraft carriers, still modern
marvels of engineering to thisday, and I wanted to become an
(03:12):
astronaut. So how am I going tobecome an astronaut? So really
is how, how I fell in love withthe engineering discipline.
Aaron Moncur (03:24):
So let's talk a little bit about that. You
wanted to become an astronaut.
You thought, well, engineering,maybe that's my path to becoming
an astronaut. And then you, youended up in the Navy, right?
Yes, as a let's see you were apilot. I think I saw a picture
of you, maybe on your LinkedInprofile, where you're in a
fighter jet, I think, andthere's a little arrow pointing
(03:45):
and saying, That's me, orsomething like that. Yeah,
Ron Higgs (03:51):
it is. And I was a naval flight officer, so if you
saw the Top Gun Maverick andgoose, I was goose guy and wow.
And all the work while thepilots taking the credit for
kidding. Navigation, weaponsystems operation, all sorts,
weapon and sensor systemsoperations, things like that.
But I loved it. Where I grew up.
I didn't have any exposure todidn't have any exposure to
(04:14):
anyone who had walked that path.
It's like you want to be I wantto be an astronaut. It's like
you want to be a what? So therewas no one who can help me,
really. So I had to find my ownpath through the library system.
Was one of those things. I hadto go to. There was no Google. I
had to go to the library tofigure this out. And through all
(04:36):
of that research, you know, Ifound out that, hey, a lot of
astronauts went to the NavalAcademy. A lot of astronauts
were test pilots, first thingslike that. So here's what I want
to do. I want to fly airplanes.
I want to go in the Navy,because aircraft carriers, I
thought were cool, and anybodycould land a plane on the
ground. That's landing a planeon an aircraft carrier would be,
(04:56):
would be really cool. So I foundmy way. Ended up at the Naval
Academy, selected naval aviationas a naval flight officer, ended
up being accepted and going andgraduating from US Naval Test
Pilot School. So I followed,followed the path, and I was one
of the people that the Navyintroduced as a candidate, an
(05:19):
astronaut candidate, to NASA,because I had to apply to the
astronaut program through theNavy. And then when I was
evaluated by NASA, I gotdisqualified for a medical
reason. So I got as close as Ipossibly could from starting
with that dream for literally,from starting watching science
fiction to making it to to thatpoint, and I still, I have
(05:42):
friends that are in theastronaut program. In fact, the
local news, the astronauts thatjust came back from the space
station that was stuck there fora few days, we were all in test
pilot school together. So a lotof my friends were successful in
their dreams and become anastronaut.
Aaron Moncur (05:59):
Now, a person could look at this as the glass
is half empty or half full. Yougot so close to being an
astronaut. You You could look atit as I was almost there, I
almost made it. Or you couldlook at it as man, I got so far.
I really got very far here,further than most people ever
(06:20):
get what was your your mindsetlike at that time? Well, I
Ron Higgs (06:24):
mean, if you what is that? I think I'm gonna get it
wrong, but if you shoot for themoon, if you fail, you'll still
end up in the stars orsomething, you know, something
like that. So I am thankful foreverything that I have,
everything that I was exposedto, everything that I was able
to do, and from where I started,I am proud of the fact that I
(06:47):
got as far as I did, and thethings that I learned from it,
and the things that that stuckwith me, that shaped the way I
think today, I wouldn't give anyof that up. So it was great
experience. I never looked backnegatively on any of it.
Aaron Moncur (07:04):
Absolutely, that's wonderful. How so you're doing
executive coaching right now,specifically with engineers and
technical professionals. How didyour experience as a naval
flight officer shape yourapproach to executive coaching
Ron Higgs (07:24):
well, so military aviation in general instills a
combination of discipline youhave to be adaptable and
continuous improvement, and alot of things like that kind of
stayed with me. And the militaryenvironment in general focuses
on mentoring, training,coaching. Now, everyone in the
military goes into a unit for afinite amount of time, for a
(07:47):
specific amount of time, let'ssay two, three or four years
during your time in that unit,you are being trained as a
replacement as you are trainingothers to replace you as you
come along, because nobody staysanywhere, you know, sort of like
a real, you know, a corporatejob. So that mindset in trying
(08:09):
to coach there are a lot,there's a lot of coaching of the
people coming behind me as I'mbeing coached. So I learned how
to be a good coachee, and then Ilearned how to coach people,
because I want to make thosepeople the best that they can
be. So let's say I'm beingtrained as a wingman as I come
in, and then when I able to takethe lead, then I want to train
(08:32):
the wingman to be the bestwingman that they can be. So
that whole that whole mentalityof coaching was just part of
what we did in the military. Nowwe didn't call it that, but when
I discovered executive coaching,it's like, wow, this is this is
great. This is just a naturalextension of where the things
(08:53):
that I've always been doingthroughout my career, yeah,
Aaron Moncur (08:56):
at what point did you know that you wanted to
extrapolate the coaching you arealready doing in the military
into more of a private practiceor a profession for yourself in
the future, the productdevelopment expo or PDX is your
(09:17):
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(09:42):
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Ron Higgs (09:54):
So it took me a while to settle on some of these
things, because I spent a.
Career in the military, got out,did several jobs with the
defense contractors, and thendecided to go off on my own a
little while after that, duringthat there are a lot of coaches
out there, right? So I'm tryingto separate myself as a coach.
You know? You have to reflectback and go, What do I have to
(10:17):
offer that's unique that nobodyelse does, and so my engineering
background, I go, Wait, I'veseen like I've seen a lot of
engineers struggle with theirtransition in their leadership
roles, especially executiveleadership roles. I struggled
with it. I know what I struggledwith, and I know how I was able
to overcome it. And I go, Wait,this is a great niche for me to
be able to help others. As youmentioned, I did a few other
(10:41):
jobs. I was a COO, a fractionalCOO, and what I learned from
that is, while I was the COO ofthese companies, I really
enjoyed coaching the individualmembers of the executive team. I
also enjoyed the coaching of theteam as a whole, and I found
eventually that I that resonatedwith me a lot more than the COO
(11:04):
stuff. So I switched intocoaching full time. Interesting
Aaron Moncur (11:12):
you. You mentioned earlier that not only did the
military teach you how to be agood coach, but how to be a good
coachee, what? What are somethings that engineers, looking
to be coached, looking formentors, can do to be a good
coachee,
Ron Higgs (11:29):
I think you have to have an attitude of continuous
improvement. So for us, here'sthe thing that stuck with me. In
the military, every flight hasthree elements. You have a
brief, you go out and executethe flight, and you have a
debrief. Every flight gets adebrief, where you get debriefed
on your performance. You getfeedback. Feedback seems to be a
(11:52):
four letter word in some ofthese circles, but if feedback
really is the key, because howelse are we going to get better,
right? I think people who onlypeople who care about you and
want you to be better will giveyou feedback. So it's not all
negative. You become betterbecause of that feedback. Then
you start to seek it. So I seekfeedback in everything that I
do, and some things are hard tohear, but ultimately it helps me
(12:15):
become better. So the feedback,the desire for continuous
improvement driven by thatfeedback. Because a big, a big
deal to separate, you know,average engineers from the above
average leaders that we'relooking to create.
Aaron Moncur (12:33):
It's interesting that you say that just several
weeks ago, Jake Kennington wason the show. He's also an
engineering coach, a little bitdifferent than your focus, and
actually you'll meet him at PDX,because he is also speaking
there. But something he saidthat I thought was really
insightful was that we don'tgrow based on our experiences.
(12:54):
We grow based on reflecting onour experiences, which is
effectively what you're sayingnow with the feedback loop,
Ron Higgs (13:03):
absolutely. And one of the things is one of the
things, and one of the traits, Ibelieve, of coming a good
leader, is self awareness. Ifyou're self aware, especially
with your with your actions,with your emotions and things
like that. If you know whatyou're good at and you know how
others are perceiving youremotions, not just how you
(13:26):
perceive them, that's reallypowerful. And if you can reflect
back on that and exercise somecritical self awareness, I
believe that's key. And so what?
Whatever his name was, I thinkthat that's great advice.
Aaron Moncur (13:45):
I think one area that a lot of engineers in
particular struggle with is thepeople skills, right? We're all
good at math. We're good atphysics. We know the equations
thermodynamics, statics andfluid dynamics and all this fun
stuff, but we sometimes strugglewhen it comes to having just a
conversation with people andrelating well, how is that an
(14:09):
area, especially in theexecutive leadership that you've
coached, is that an area you'veseen to be a stumbling block?
And what are some ways that youhave helped engineers get past
that stumbling block?
Ron Higgs (14:24):
Well, that's absolutely a stumbling block,
probably one of the bigger ones,but just like you headed towards
what are the things thatseparate technical experts from
effective executive leaders?
Right? Because it's not justtechnical skills or experience,
right? It's the people skills.
It's the people focused traits.
So you have people focusedtraits that you need to develop,
(14:46):
like self awareness, which wetalked about, and empathy, it's
a big thing. There'sorganizationally focused traits
like systems thinking andstrategic vision, but I believe.
Believe the biggest thing thatyou can do is understand that
different people are motivatedby different things. Think we
(15:07):
all know that, right? How do youknow what motivates a specific
individual? You have to createsome kind of relationship with
them. So those of us in art,those of us engineers who think
logically will start off going,well, I have to treat everyone
the same. Well, not really,right? And so again, you have to
(15:29):
know what important to people,what motivates them, and you
won't know that unless youcreate relationship with them.
So one of the biggest thingsthat you can do. And most
important things that you can dois learn how to build
relationships with people. Andit's difficult. I and there are
some simple exercises, simplethings that you can go and do to
(15:49):
help you get used to that, butthat is a challenge for people.
Aaron Moncur (15:57):
I'm thinking with my engineer hat right now, and
if I'm an engineer, I'mlistening to Ron, and I'm
saying, Okay, I have to learn todevelop relationships with
people. Check, great. What's theprocess for that? What do I do
first, and then what do I dosecond? And then what do I do
third? My opinion, there's notreally a linear checklist to go
(16:21):
through. But what are somesuggestions that you have? What
are some pro tips for buildingrelationships with people?
Ron Higgs (16:28):
Well, let me just say this, yeah, engineers have to do
this. We all like data, right?
And some of us disregardqualitative data, right? We look
at quantitative data. We look atstatistics and we get all these
numbers, right? There'squalitative data out there that
doesn't have any numbers. Thereare no numbers. Can't measure
it, forget about it, right? Sowe one have to sort of let go of
(16:51):
that whole thing. You know, howmuch do you like somebody,
right? Can you quantify that?
Really? Relationships, feelings,desires, motivation, all those
things. Can you measure any ofthat? So the first thing is to
just let go of that idea ofeverything has to be measured,
(17:15):
right? And come at it from asfar as talking to people be
genuine. If you're genuinelycurious about someone, that will
come naturally genuine. For me,it's genuine curiosity. I just
like to know people's stories.
Everybody has one. Everyone hasa great time, a great story. And
I guarantee you you engage withsomeone on a regular basis,
(17:39):
you'll come out of thatconversation and go, Man, I
never knew that, and some ofthose discussions were able to
help me shape and or reshapesome relationships I had with
people throughout my career,listening to a story of a 16
year old Native American ladywho worked for me, who went to
(18:02):
college when she was 35 yearsold and had, you know, four
kids, and all these things. Andyou learn about man she went to
college, which she was, youknow, 35 years old and had four
kids, and then got divorced, andall sorts, I mean, just all
(18:24):
sorts of things. And I justrealized how strong of a person
she really was. And beneath allof that, you know, one of the
things that I think about iseverybody you meet is fighting a
battle, you know, nothing about,right? And so the more I got to
know that person, what hercharacteristics were, what she
was capable of, the more I wasable to challenge her in that
(18:48):
role and and have her Excel. Sojust to sum this up, just be
genuinely curious about people,and I think it'll come
naturally. That's
Aaron Moncur (19:03):
such good advice.
I mean, if you just ask peoplequestions about themselves, they
will start talking, and theywill love you forever. People
love to talk about themselves.
I'm not saying that in acondescending way at all. It's
just how we're built.
Ron Higgs (19:19):
People also love to give advice, I think. And so if
you you're having trouble, youknow, getting through, because
there are some people that willbe guarded, you know, notice
something about them. It's like,oh, I noticed that you're
really, really organized. It'slike, what kind of advice would
you give to somebody like methat's trying to get as
organized as you are? That's
Aaron Moncur (19:40):
huge. That's a huge insight right there. Wow.
Okay, going back to executiveleaders, right chances are there
are plenty of engineers who arelistening to this right now.
Maybe they're early in theircareers. Maybe they're managers
right now, but they haveaspirations to be. Climb the
ladder and become executiveleaders at some point in their
(20:04):
careers. What are, I think we'vealready talked about a few of
them, but are there any otherkey attributes or behaviors that
are really critical for leadersat an executive level to have to
be successful?
Ron Higgs (20:20):
Well, I think one of the things you have to get past,
right is that I think a lot ofengineers think that technical
proficiency is for as long asI'm technically proficient, as
long as I'm good, that's all Ineed, right? And it's not. And
so all the things that sort ofgot you that promotion into into
(20:42):
executive leadership or any kindof a people management role, are
not the things that you need tobe successful in that role. And
so some of the blind spots arereally overvaluing technical
proficiency at that level,because most of the stuff we're
paying you for now is the peoplestuff the dynamics and team
dynamics, people interact,right? And then I mentioned it
(21:06):
earlier, undervaluing those softskills, right? So it's a
combination of, Wow, so and so'sgreat engineer, right? But
nobody says, Man, that person'sreally great at making
relationships, or they're greatat they're great at maintaining
these relationships with nontechnical stakeholders, that's a
big thing. And so to go intosome of those other traits,
(21:27):
right? Thinking, big picturesystems thinking, try it,
because we're naturally in theweeds all the time, lots of
detail, right? But sometimes yougot to back out of that detail
and look at the whole forest andunderstand, understand the
bigger picture, and being ableto communicate with your non
(21:48):
technical stakeholders. Thereare always HR people, finance
people, you know, all sorts ofother people, marketing folks,
sales folks, who aren'ttechnically astute whose eyes
glaze over every time you start,every time we start describing
something to them. So weliterally have to learn to
(22:10):
communicate with those folks.
And again, it's just aboutasking, you know, and thinking
it's like, Well, what amarketing person tend to know?
Because we tend to just, hey,I'm going to tell this person
everything I know. Well, no, thereal art is to tell them what
they need to know, right? It'sto understand and tell them what
they need to know.
Aaron Moncur (22:30):
That is a huge, huge point. I worked with an
engineer for a period of time,and he was brilliant. This guy
could run circles around me whenit came to technical expertise,
and honestly, I didn'tunderstand a lot of what he
said. It was just it was so farabove my head, above my
(22:54):
technical capabilities. And Iremember being in awe that he
was just so smart, so brilliant,right? But also as as his leader
being so frustrated because Icould never get cohesive
communication from him, anytimeI asked him something, the
(23:16):
answer, it didn't make sense tome. He He really didn't
understand how to give me theinformation I was looking for.
And I've seen that over and overin some engineers and other
engineers, they just get itright. They're able to give you
a concise explanation of whatyou're looking for. Great. Done.
(23:37):
Move on to the next thing. Andthat is such a huge skill, I can
tell you that as a businessowner and as I lead my team, the
the individuals, the engineerswho know how to give you a
concise summary, give you theinformation you need, and then
just move on, those are the onesI love working with. And I, I
(24:00):
want, I, I do everything in mypower to keep them there right
promotions and raises andrecognition and all of this
stuff, whereas the other group,let's say, and I'm not
suggesting that theseindividuals are at pipeline
right now. This is just generalexperience here, but those other
individuals who who don't knowhow to to communicate. Well,
(24:24):
wow, I just I almost run theopposite direction when I see
them coming, you know? Soanyway, a couple of my data
points there. I
Ron Higgs (24:34):
believe that being able to simplify things is a
superpower. It really is. Andfor me, I come from a family of
folks that are, let's say,relatively uneducated, like my
grand my grandparents didn'thave an education because black
people at their time weren'tallowed to go to school or were
(24:54):
limited in the amount ofeducation they could have,
especially the women, right? AndI remember my grandmother just.
Asking me things about what Iwas doing. I was like, I need to
be able to explain this to mygrandmother. You know, my mom
was a medical assistant, notechnical knowledge whatsoever,
right? And I loved and my momwas always very curious about
what I was doing. I was like, Ihave to be able to explain this
to my mom. And so I just thoughtabout that, how can I really
(25:19):
explain this so that almostanyone can understand that. And
I realized I was validated. Iwas talking with a CEO when I
was looking to make mytransition out of the aerospace
and defense world and into theconsulting business, and I was
wanted to just make sure that myskills were transferable. And
the first thing she said to beshe says, I've never seen anyone
(25:40):
in your position being able totake such complex, complex,
complex ideals and simplify themthe way you do that is really,
really valuable, and I didn'tknow it. Because remember, those
of us that are really, reallygood at certain things sometimes
don't realize it, because theycome naturally to us, and so we
have to ask other people whatwe're good at. So one of the
(26:02):
ways I was able to, you know,really settle on the coaching
thing, is to ask people what Iwas good at. They're like, Oh,
no, Ron, you do this. Well, I'mlike, Really,
Aaron Moncur (26:13):
this is so true for a long time, I think that
I'm very good at communicationand organization, and for a long
time, I did not understand thatthat was a special skill set I
had. I thought everyone can dothis because it's easy. It just
makes sense, right, tocommunicate efficiently and to
be organized. It did not occurto me that that was a special
(26:35):
skill set until much later in mycareer. So just echoing what you
said, oftentimes, the thingsthat we're really good at, we
don't realize, because they justcome so naturally. Yeah,
Ron Higgs (26:46):
your normal is an aha moment for others, right? Yeah,
or can be an aha moment forothers
Aaron Moncur (26:54):
you worked at or maybe consulted for. I can't
remember now, but a companycalled commercial laser
Corporation, and I read that youhelped triple their valuation.
Is that accurate? Yes, okay,that floored me, and I would
love to hear obviously, it takesa village, right? Wasn't just
(27:14):
Ron Higgs, but what were some ofthe things that you and the team
did to triple A company'svaluation.
Ron Higgs (27:22):
Well, let's say that that was a startup, right? And,
you know, in startups, teamshave to work well beyond their
job descriptions, and I thinkyou know that. And so for this
particular one, the CEO wasvery, very direct. I didn't take
a lot of input from others. Andthere was, you know, there was
also a lack of Team diversityand lots of different aspects.
(27:48):
So when I came aboard, you know,I was able to notice something
and share my unique perspectivethat just helped identify a new
value proposition. Because, youknow, we're looking at the
companies locked in on a valueproposition. This is what our
valuation is. And I'm like, I'mlike, Oh, wait, I don't think
(28:08):
so. And here's what I think ourreal that is a value
proposition. Here's what I thinkour real value proposition is.
And I think this much morevaluable than the one that
you're going as our primaryvaluation. So, like you said, it
takes a team. We look at it go,you know, what? You know, or,
like Ron's on to something here,we're right. So through a little
(28:30):
bit of work, you know, we wereable to to adjust our numbers.
You know, there are a lot ofthere are a lot of contributing
factors there. You know,leadership, practices, valuing
teamwork, you know, recognizingcourage. Because, you know, it
was a startup, I wasn't going tobe bullied. You know what? I
mean? It's like, Hey, I'm gonna,I'm good at my opinion. And if
(28:53):
you don't want it, then I can goelsewhere, where I think it'll,
it'll be valued, making sure allof our goals were aligned. And
as part of a startup, again, youjust go in there, especially
when you're new, you could go inand look around and just start
asking those new guy questions,like, Well, why don't we have
this? Why don't we have this?
Why don't we have this? Is like,Okay, I'm in a startup, so I'm
going to do it. And, you know,engaging everyone cross
(29:16):
functionally, the systemsthinking that we talked about,
really, all those things made animpact, and that's how we were
able to I was the catalyst forthat. I didn't do it on my own,
but I was the catalyst forThat's
Aaron Moncur (29:31):
fascinating. Wow.
You often talk about systemsthinking. What? What does
Systems Thinking mean? I
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Ron Higgs (30:24):
Well, systems thinking is understanding how
different parts of the systeminteract with and influence each
other. So if you look ateverything, and ironically
enough, I have a bachelor'sdegree in systems engineering,
and when I got my first coo job,the thing that helped me the
most, night and a lot ofdifferent jobs before, you know,
(30:44):
the military and out. But as aCOO the systems engineering
actually helped me the most,because I looked at all the
operating functions of thebusiness and how they operated
the system and how they wereinterrelated. And I, you know,
getting to talk with the otherexecutives on the team that's
like, okay, sales guy, you justsold this, but you told the
(31:07):
client that we could deliver itin three months. We have a six
month backlog, and so now yousee what you just did to
everyone in this entire thing.
Now you're going to make theentire business look bad because
we're not going to be able todeliver it. You're going to put
some extra pressure onproduction, manufacturing, all
those people. I mean, do weunderstand all that? So again,
(31:31):
everything has a what is thatwas called the butterfly effect,
right? All of those things andhow different things happen.
It's not as extreme as that, butunderstanding where your piece
fits in the hole, how or intothe hole, and how it influences
(31:51):
everything around it, and how itis being influenced by the
things around it, I think willmake you that much better of a
problem solver. Now, sometimesthis came from the military. The
military was really, really goodat mission alignment, so we all
took an oath to supportdefendant constitution United
(32:12):
States. We're all very clear onthe mission of each individual
service, right? And so we'realso very clear on the mission
of our part of the service. So Iknew the mission of the Seventh
Fleet, I knew the mission of theaircraft carrier. I knew what we
were doing every day. I knew themission of my aircraft, and I
(32:35):
could map out every action thatI took to how it was, how it
supported and defended theConstitution the United States.
That's alignment. That doesn'thappen everywhere, right? But if
you understand that system, Ithink that you will then become
a better problem solver and abetter part of that system,
Aaron Moncur (32:59):
yeah, I think that is that as a whole, and not just
engineering organizations, butmany organizations where we
don't understand the high levelwhy the purpose, and I'm sure
that's the case to some extendedpipeline as well. How have you
helped teams overcome that anddraw very clear paths between
(33:20):
individual roles and the overallpurpose of a company?
Ron Higgs (33:24):
Well, you really have to start at the top, right? So
now we're going to go back totalking about the soft stock
again, right? So missionstatements, very valuable,
right? That's your North Star.
That's what you're doing. Yourvision statements, the
difference between the two, yourvalues, all those things that
make some engineers eyes glazeover, that's not really
(33:45):
important stuff, but yeah, it isright. And so you've got
organizational goals that shouldalign with the mission, right?
And then there's individualteams and or, you know,
organizations or departmentswithin the organization, can you
help them see what theirspecific part is towards that
(34:08):
goal? Now, a lot of it's easiersaid than done, but it starts
with getting the the frontoffice, the executive team
aligned? Because, because if theexecutive team isn't aligned and
they're not functioning welltogether, then the company's not
gonna function well, right? Andso you have to start there, and
(34:31):
it has to flow down.
Aaron Moncur (34:34):
How have you been able to identify whether an
executive team is or is notaligned, because these are
highly educated, capable, smartpeople, right? It's how do I say
this? They're probably not goingto be or maybe I'm wrong. I
(34:54):
don't know. They're probably notgoing to be advertising the fact
that I know we're not inalignment and we're not doing
things. Right? And maybe theyhave their guards up and they're
not looking for a consultant tocome in and say, You're not
aligned as a team. How do youidentify? Goes back to the soft
skills, right? You have to makepeople comfortable, genuinely
trust you. But how do you howwould you assess a situation,
(35:16):
situation like that?
Ron Higgs (35:18):
So my executive team coaching. I've usually been
called in by a CEO that says myexecutive team isn't getting
along, or there's conflictwithin the team. There's
conflict within the team that'simpacting our mission, that's
impacting the bottom line, or anexact quote from one of my
clients is like, my team isgood. I want to make them great,
(35:41):
right? And then you start, youknow, I have an assessment that
I use. There's a thing to makesure that, you know, businesses
go through stages of growth anddecline, and everyone sort of
has to be aligned on what theirdepending on what stage they're
in, their priorities and thethings that they should be
working on. So, for instance, ifyou're a startup, you should be
working on cash flow. You shouldbe working on finding a
(36:04):
profitable, sustainable market,right, so that you become self
sufficient before whatever seedcapital you have runs out. And
if everybody's not working onthat, then they're not aligned,
right? So there's some way offiguring out, you know, hey,
here's what we here's what weall need to be doing. Sometimes,
(36:24):
when you have visionaries, youlook at the company vision, you
may have people at the top whohave completely different ideas
of what success looks like forthe company. Hey, we want to
take the company in thisdirection. Now we want to take
the company in this direction.
So which ends up leads to, howmany stories have you heard
about co founders breaking up?
(36:46):
Right? And that's usually whatit leads to. So I'm not sure
that was a good answer to yourquestion, but some symptoms are,
you know, executives not gettingalong. A lot of things get
buried under the rug too. A lotof people just don't want to
address it, right? Becausepeople just like, oh, wow, I
don't want to, you know, I'mscared of conflict, not
(37:09):
necessarily scared of conflict,but just don't, don't want to do
any conflict, right? So they letthings get swept under the rug.
Everybody knows when you have aproblem person, and it only
takes one person to sour yourculture, sour your organization,
so you're going to get what youtolerate. And so example of that
(37:32):
is like, hey, so and so is a isour top salesperson? Yeah, we
know they don't follow all therules. We know he or she has
done something inappropriate andprone to do inappropriate things
at times, but they're the numberone salesperson, so we let them
get away with that, but what youlet them get away with and what
(37:52):
you tolerate is what you'regoing to begin to get right. So
now you're telling people thatwhatever bad behavior they're
exhibiting is okay as long asthey can perform, which will
destroy your culture, as you allknow. So you have to make a
choice. Let's
Aaron Moncur (38:09):
let's extrapolate from there a little bit. Can you
think of a situation that wasparticularly challenging, right?
A leadership situation, and howyou resolved
Ron Higgs (38:21):
it? You know, there's a couple. And these aren't
specific. These aren't very,very challenging, but I'll give
you the examples just to kind ofprove a point, right? So I had
one where a group of people cameor several team members accused
the lead of sort of slacking andunderperforming, like hey, so
(38:43):
and so is slacking off theirunderperforming. You know, this
guy's a dirtbag. You need tomove them here and there now,
because I had created arelationship with this person.
And I knew him. I knew that hewas a Navy, a retired Navy
Master Chief. That is thehighest enlisted rank that you
can get to slacker is incapableof being a slacker. And I knew
(39:07):
that, so pulled them into myoffice and just asked, Hey, you
know we're not seeing our usualhigh standards of performance
from you. So do you have any yougot anything personal going on
that's impacting your ability toengage at work, and that
emotional opened up with some ofthe challenges that he had. And
(39:31):
I'm like, okay, so listen, we'reinterested in a whole person
here, so let's help you out. Sowhat can we do so we were able
to adjust some of theresponsibilities that he had,
and give him more time to focuson his personal issues and and
satisfy our teamresponsibilities. Also gave us
the opportunity to have a coupleof other team members step step
(39:52):
up. He also personally apologizeto some of the folks on the
team, but. So again, the biggestlesson in that is just get to
know people and lead with somekind of empathy. Because I knew
that guy was in a dirt bag,right? And this was, there are a
(40:14):
lot of people going, No, no, yougot to get rid of this guy. He's
not doing this. He's not donethat. I'm like, No, that's
that's not the problem. Wow,somebody else, had I not taken
the time to get to know himbeforehand that could have came
out a lot. I'm glad it came outthe way it did.
Aaron Moncur (40:31):
That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing
that
Ron Higgs (40:33):
so, so that's a people issue problem, right? And
then we end up with technicalissues, right? So I was in
charge of an aircraft deliveryat a large aircraft
manufacturer, right? And ouraircraft delivery timeline
wasn't being met. So and infact, our timeline was, let's
(40:54):
say, 10 days. And when I showedup, the average delivery was
taken 21 days, you know. And soone of the things that we did is
step back. We took a six systemsthinking approach. We took some
input from all of thestakeholders. And as it turns
out, the contracts team, it wastaking the contracts team five
(41:17):
days from the time we finishedthe aircraft to the time that
they were able to get all thecontracts paperwork done right
five days. Turns out they wereworking from the wrong schedule.
They were working from sort of amaster schedule. And so all I
did, I put them on delivery, Iput put them on distribution for
(41:42):
our aircraft status updates,okay, decrease that time to one
day, because now they were doingit in parallel instead of
series. Okay, biggest lessonthere sometimes really, really
simple solutions can have a bigimpact. It doesn't have to be a
really big one, right? So thatwas a leadership challenge,
right? And inheriting this kindof, okay, Ron, what are you
(42:05):
going to do about this? It'slike I just got here. Give me
some time. But every solutiondoesn't have to be elegant,
right? I mean, that was probablyan example of the simplest
solution that I think was everproposed to solve complex
problem. Communication, yeah,
Aaron Moncur (42:24):
yeah, that one comes up over and over.
Communication, well, what for,for the engineers listening who
are interested in moving intomore leadership, strategic
roles, what's Of course, thereare many, many things, but if
there was one thing that youcould recommend that they start
tomorrow to move in thatdirection. What? What do you
(42:46):
think that would be? Um,
Ron Higgs (42:48):
I would say this, because a lot of every people
just struggle with peopleleadership, right? That's
probably the biggest strugglethat people have, right? And so,
what do you if you'reautomatically now in charge of a
team, what's your naturalinclination as an engineer, if
Aaron Moncur (43:07):
I'm in charge of a team, my natural inclination is
to get to know the people,understand what motivates them,
and make sure what we're tryingto do aligns with what their
goals are. Find a way to matchthose up, so we're all enrolled
in rowing in the same direction.
Well,
Ron Higgs (43:25):
a little simpler than that. You're probably a bit more
advanced than others, but I'mtalking about, I'm someone new
to a leadership role. Youprobably are automatically, at
least, I was automaticallyattuned to giving people the
answer, like you had to have theanswer, right? You were the
answer person. You had to makesure that you had all the
answers to everyone's problems,right? And so instead of
(43:48):
focusing on answers, what if youfocused on better questions to
help your people grow? I lovethat, right? So in other words,
you know people ask you, okay,hey, Ron, what are we going to
do about this? Okay, what areour options? What do you think
we're going to do? What are ourvariables, whether this and so
you start laying out all thethings you're thinking about.
(44:11):
You start asking those questionsto let them get to it, and then
they don't get used, they don'tget used to coming to you for an
answer, right? You just keepgiving them, asking them more
challenging questions. And so tostop get out of that, I gotta
solve everything. I gotta do itand really come at it from start
(44:32):
asking questions. Now it's gonnaannoy some people. How come,
Eric, how come you answer myquestion with a question?
Because I'm trying to get you tothink for yourself, and you'll
appreciate it, but that that'sreally one of the biggest shift,
I think, that they can can make,along with that, you know, under
(44:53):
we talked about it,understanding the bigger
picture, right, understandingpeople, right, and getting to
the point where you. You canactually are proactive instead
of reactive, and you're notputting out fires. That's
probably if I, as I do myresearch, especially with some
newer managers, for folks thathave been in it for a while,
it's like I'm spending all myday putting out fires. I had
(45:15):
time to do anything else. I want
Aaron Moncur (45:17):
to go back briefly to your comment about answering
questions with questions,because I think that's so
powerful. I have appreciated andunderstood the power there from
a sales standpoint for a longtime, but I don't know that I've
fully appreciated the power froma leadership standpoint as well.
I know oftentimes in a salescontext, a customer will ask me,
(45:39):
Well, how big is your team? AndI could just give them an
answer, right? It's this manypeople that this number, right?
But chances are they don'treally care how big my team is.
And so, and this, I use thisquestion because I get this all
the time. I don't know whypeople just love to ask this
question. And so I answer thatby saying, Wow, that's a great
(46:01):
question. Typically, when peopleask me that they're really
looking for something else, whatare we trying to get at here?
Help me understand the root ofthe question so I can give you
the most relevant answer, andthat always 100% of the time,
opens up a much broaderconversation that we would never
have had if I had just giventhem the answer to the question,
(46:23):
which wasn't really thequestion, Well,
Ron Higgs (46:27):
you're right, and that's a great answer. And my my
answer went about the same. It'slike, well, what kind of
servants do you have that wouldmake you ask that? Because there
have to be some underlyingconcerns as to why you would
want to know that. So are youconcerned about the amount of
time we have, the amount ofperspectives we're going to get
in answering this problem, what?
What's the, what's the realquestion here? Right? Because,
you know, just like you saidthat, how many people doesn't
(46:50):
necessarily matter, there'sanother answer they're trying to
get to, exactly
Aaron Moncur (46:56):
right? Well, Ron, this has been really a delight.
Thank you so much for spendingsome time with us and sharing
some insight and some wisdom.
This was excellent, and I'msuper, super excited to hear
your talk at PDX, coming upOctober 21 and 22nd we hope to
see you all there before we signoff from the podcast. Ron, how
(47:19):
can people get in touch withyou? Well, if you'll allow me
Ron Higgs (47:23):
to ask this question first, right? Because I'm really
excited about speaking at theevent as well, but I really want
the talk to be relevant andimpactful for everyone there,
and so if you're out therelistening, I'll give you my
contact information in a second.
But here are the things I wantyou to think about you can help
me shape this talk so that youcan get the most out of it.
(47:43):
Think about this. What's thebiggest frustration you have,
biggest obstacle you have that'sslowing you down, and I would
say keeping you up at night, butyou know, there's not much work
related that's keeping me up atnight, maybe. So what's your
biggest frustration out there onthe other side, what does
success look like if all if thatfrustration immediately
(48:04):
disappeared, what would yourlife look like? What is it that
you could do that you don't havetime to do now, right? And if
you could just wave a magic wandand change one thing, one thing
about your job, one thing aboutyour team, what would that be?
Those three things? If you canhelp me quit those three things,
send me some answers to you canemail me Ron at wolfmanagement
(48:27):
solutions.com LinkedIn is mynumber one channel. You can
reach out and connect with me onLinkedIn there. I also think I
published some pretty engagingcontent. Please take a look at
that. Give me some feedback onthat as well. And I have a
website, www, dot wolfmanagementsolutions.com, any of those
ways, please let me hear fromyou. Would love to hear from you
(48:51):
and help me make my presentationthat much more of a success,
because you will have shaped it.
Aaron Moncur (49:00):
Ron, thank you so much for being on the show
Ron Higgs (49:03):
today. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Aaron Moncur (49:06):
I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and
engineering. If you liked whatyou heard today, please share
the episode to learn how yourteam can leverage our team's
expertise developing advancedmanufacturing processes,
automated machines and customfixtures, complemented with
product design and R D services.
Visit us at Team pipeline.us. Tojoin a vibrant community of
(49:30):
engineers online. Visit thewave. Dot, engineer, thank you
for listening. You.
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