April 23, 2024 • 56 mins
We are kicking off a brand new series called Visionary Executives. There are a lot of cool leaders out there that are doing really interesting work and bringing people in business together in a way that everyone wins.
So, today, we start this series to talk with executives the leading edge stuff they're doing and what you can take away from that, either as an employee or as an executive yourself.
And we're stoked to start with Alan Whitman, the former Chairman and CEO of Baker Tilly. Alan's known for being a progressive leader. But what we we're interested in is how he was able to balance business results (he 3X'd the firm during his tenure) with the people stuff (he was voted #1 Advisory CEO on Glassdoor).
We cover the big stuff: WTH do CEOs actually do? How DID he balance results and people? What's critical for CEOs to nail?
...to the elephants in the room: Should CEOs make as much money as they do? Should they take paycuts over layoffs? Are most of them pathological or cool?
This is an inspiring conversation with a leader you is equally so.
More about Alan.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
When I was early on in public accounting, you always
knew the people that were goingto be successful because they
were pukers.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Huh what.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Like grow up in a trash can before.
No, what's a puker?
A puker is somebody that feelslike they're going to puke when
something goes wrong.
They care.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Well, guys, welcome to your Work Friends.
We're your two HR friends, I'mFrancesca and I'm Mel, and we
have no filter, but we'regetting you through all this
work shit.
And today, mel, what are wetalking about?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
We are kicking off a brand new series called
Visionary Executives.
There are a lot of cool leadersout there that are doing really
interesting work and bringingpeople in business together in a
way that everyone wins, and wewanted to start a series that
started to highlight those folksand talk about the things
(01:11):
they're doing and what you cantake away from that, either as
an employee or as an executiveyourself.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Yeah, there's nothing like talking to people that are
at the tippy top of the seatsand making these big decisions,
so we're excited to kick offthis series with Alan Whitman.
Alan Whitman was a chairman andchief executive officer at Baker
Telly US, which is a top 10 CPAfirm, and the reason why Alan's
a really interesting person totalk to is threefold.
One Alan was the CEO of a top10 accounting firm and if
(01:40):
anybody is familiar withaccounting, you know how
volatile that industry is, notonly from a business side, but
also from a people side.
People just really don't wantto go into accounting as much as
they used to, so it's a stickysituation.
The other thing is during histenure, he 3x to the business,
which is huge, and at the sametime, was able to have a number
one employee satisfaction andCEO approval rating from
(02:02):
Glassdoor of the top 20 advisoryfirms.
So here's a guy that is in avolatile industry, 3x his
business and also had the peoplesaying we love this guy.
So we wanted to talk about howthe hell did he do that?
How the heck did he balancepeople and results, and he did
it in a pretty interesting way.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Absolutely, and you don't want to miss this episode.
So here's Alan Whitman.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Hey Alan, how are you today?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I am fantastic, great to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Where are we finding you Today?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I'm in Atlanta and it's a sunny, warm day in
Atlanta.
A little cool in the morningsbut nice and warm in the
afternoons.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So I'm not anywhere where it's snowing, which is
great, kim my wife says thatit's snowing back in Michigan,
so I'm glad to be here.
Yeah, I heard a friend was upin Ann Arbor at University of
Michigan, so I'm glad to be here.
Yeah, I just I heard a friendwas up in Ann Arbor at
University of Michigan and saidit was snowing.
So I'm like, yeah, that doesn'tsound fun.
So it sounds like you're welllocated.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I am, and I'm going to Florida tomorrow night.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, but you're a native of Michigan, right Since
1996.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, I grew up in New York and Cincinnati.
I lived in Detroit as an adultbut since 96, I met my wife
there and my kids are from there, so I'm from there.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, you are.
You are a Michigan.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I'm not a U of M fan unless I'm with my wife or my
mother-in-law.
I'm still a Cincinnati Reds fanand Indiana Hoosier fan,
although the Lions were a lot offun to watch this year.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Oh my gosh, I loved how Eminem totally got behind it
.
A big fan I am.
I lived quite a long time inColumbus, ohio, which is home of
the Ohio State University.
Understand the not liking theblue.
I went to liberal arts college,so I don't have any skin in
this game Anywho.
Anywho, alan, we're here today.
I'm excited to talk with you.
I want to talk about the roleof a CEO.
(03:59):
It's not very common for us tobe able to talk to leaders that
have led global billion-dollarorganizations and we want to
know all about it and what it'slike.
What does it feel like?
What do you do?
What does your dailiness looklike?
Are you the type that gets upat 4 am on the Peloton?
That's the vision everybody has, right.
So that's what we want touncover with you today is what
(04:20):
is the world of the CEO?
And, probably more importantly,is what do you think the world
of the CEO?
And, probably more importantly,is what do you think the world
of the CEO should look like aswe're going into the future?
So we have a few questions wewant to go through with you
today.
How does that sound?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
All right, let's roll , I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
We'd love to hear more about your journey to CEO.
How did that happen?
Tell us about it.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, as both of you know, I'm a public accounting
brat.
I grew up in the big eight, 6,5, 4.
Went to a few smaller firms Taxguy by background and really
never had the plan.
I never had the professionallife plan.
I just always trusted thatthings would work out.
And when I joined Virchow Krauswhich is the firm that became
(05:01):
Baker Tilly just by a nameschange, I had a great
opportunity to lead this thingcalled International services
and I had no idea what it wasabout, really had no idea what
it was about, and my predecessorhad no idea.
His idea was it's yours if youwant it.
I said what is it?
He goes I don't know, you'llfigure it out.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I did.
We figured it out Before that Ihad just.
I had great mentors, and so Iwouldn't be where I am or
wouldn't have had theopportunities without great
people looking after me andhelping me.
And look again, it was.
There was no plan to be the CEOof Baker Tilly.
The plan was to do great work,build great relationships, build
trust with the people I workwith and have a lot of fun doing
(05:39):
it.
I'm not a guy that's built on alot of structure.
I'm not a rules-based guy.
I'm more of a principles-basedguy and I do like to wing it and
I have trust that it's going towork out.
It's not that I have so muchtrust in my abilities that I'm
going to just crush everything.
I just have trust in the systemthat if I do the right things,
(06:00):
everything will work out.
Some would say that I'moblivious to the outside world.
I don't know, but that's how Iwas.
And I remember I was in a busheading to a partner retreat and
we knew we were going through asuccession plan process and a
former partner of mine leanedover and said, hey, you should
put your name in to be the nextCEO.
And I laughed.
I'm from a small practice, I'mnew to the firm.
(06:21):
And she said listen, everybodytrusts you.
You're not here to build yourown practice.
You were here to help everybody, including her me, as she said.
And I think you'd be a viablecandidate because the partners
trust you, that you're here forthem and for us in total, rather
than trying to pad your ownperformance or your own book of
business, et cetera.
(06:42):
And so I said all right, I'llput my name in that.
And one thing led to another alot of testing, a lot of
interviews, et cetera.
And I still remember the day Iwalked out of the last interview
.
I remember that day.
And then I remember the nextday when I got the call and I
found myself as the next CEO ofBaker Tilly and it was like wait
(07:03):
, what just happened?
And then I could talk to youabout the journey as the CEO.
I think the ability tovisualize the future of what
would we build the organizationto.
I'm not so sure I knew how todo it yet, but I certainly knew
what I wanted to build and whatthe foundational principles of
my candidacy.
(07:23):
And they took a chance and Ithink it paid off.
We did remarkable things.
We everybody did remarkablethings in that eight-year run.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like there's definitely that
light bulb moment.
It wasn't about youestablishing a practice.
It was about switching whatyour role is completely.
What exactly is the role of aCEO?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
What's the role of a CEO?
I think, above all, the role ofa CEO is to enable the team to
do more than they think they cando and to do things they're not
even aware of doing.
So pulling them together for acommon cause and achieving
twofold, threefold, fivefold,x-fold the amount of outcomes
(08:09):
and deliverables and performanceand accomplishments compared to
what they think is possible.
You both know that I don't askbinary questions.
Can we do this, can we do that?
I ask the question.
What will it take?
And so it opens the mind to theart of the possible.
And so, above all, there's allsorts of different things
strategy and acquisitions andcommunications, client
(08:30):
connections, et cetera.
Those are the how, the what, inmy mind, is innate pulling
people together for a commoncause, a vision, a mission, and
engaging them to believe theycan do more than they thought
they could.
Engaging them to believe theycan do more than they thought
they could and, in turn,providing that pathway and the
ingredients to do just that.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I love that You're bringing that visionary role to
folks.
You're making them feel likethey're a part of something
larger and you're also reallybuilding up their confidence in
a space where they thought theymight not be able to do it,
which is really exciting.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Confidence in a space where they thought they might
not be able to do it, which isreally exciting.
A successful CEO is somebodythat enables people to have a
little bit of blind faith.
If he or she thinks I can do it, or he or she is totally
committed to this, let's go.
Let's go on the journey thatshe or he is describing.
In my opinion, the mostsuccessful CEOs are the ones
(09:25):
that can paint the picture oftomorrow when maybe not
everybody understands even whattoday's all about.
They come on that journey withyou and they have blind faith
that I trust him or her and allright, I'm going to follow, or
I'm going to ride shotgun, whichis even better, or I'm going to
lead, which is even better.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
It's interesting.
You talk about vision.
Marcus Buckingham wrote the OneThing you Need to Know, which
is what differentiates good fromgreat leaders, is the ability
to paint a vision and get peoplebehind it.
So much of that is on trust andthe compelling nature of the
vision, the doable nature of thevision, where it has a little
(10:09):
bit of I don't know if we can dothis, but I think we can.
You talked about trust.
What makes you so good at trust?
Like, how do you get people totrust you?
How have you gotten people totrust you?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Look part of it is what have you done prior to
becoming the CEO or the leader?
Yeah fair done prior to becomingthe CEO or the leader?
Yeah, fair, do you havecredibility?
That's the first and the secondin many facets, francesca, it's
being able to tell a compellingstory, to not wither in the
face of adversity.
And if you have adversity, howdo you deal with it?
Don't go too high, Don't go toolow, don't get too excited,
(10:41):
don't get too down.
Don't get too excited, don'tget too down.
Building a compelling narrative.
Look, words matter, the storymatters, and so having a great
(11:09):
right-hand person to help youtake your crazy ideas and
organize them and build theminto a compelling vision that's
believable, even if it's crazy.
You separate yourself fromreality a little bit and you
dream.
And so, look, communication isa crucial skill of any senior
leader, a CEO being able tocommunicate.
And that's with words, withemotion, with heart, eye to eye,
being relatable, not demandingthings, but working together on
(11:33):
things.
And look, I always thought thatI was Alan, who happened to be
the CEO.
That's how I communicated.
I'm just Alan.
Yes, I'm the CEO.
Yes, I probably have moreexperience than you.
You know, our family's a big fanof the movie Ratatouille.
Our kids grew up watching it.
It's a great flick aboutanybody can cook.
(11:55):
Guess what?
Anybody can be a CEO.
Now, there's got to be somethings that happen in your
career, but it's not out of therealm of possibility, and so I
was just Alan.
I am Alan and it happens to bethe CEO.
I was on a personal level withpeople while at the same time,
being their boss, or theirboss's boss, or the steward of
(12:15):
the organization, and so beingwilling to be relatable and
being a person first.
Yeah, you get the job, ofcourse, things you do, but
you're still a person.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yeah, like that the job, of course, things you do,
but you're still a person.
Yeah, like that approachabilitypiece, vulnerability as a
leader.
You weren't the Wizard of Ozhiding in your tower and that
probably made a huge difference.
How do you think the role of aCEO is going to shift in five
years, 10 years, with howbusiness is changing?
Like what might be different inthis role in the future years,
10 years with?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
how business is changing, like what might be
different in this role in thefuture.
Just think about technology andautomation and how much is
going to be accomplishedartificially.
The stakeholder groups havenever been as numerous as they
are now.
There's so much influence onbusiness from the social part of
humankind that the stakeholdergroups have become numerous and,
(13:07):
frankly, as I was the CEO, Iwas always concerned that
there's going to be anotherstakeholder that came up on
Monday or Tuesday, but we had toconsider that stakeholder and
so, look, business has neverbeen as fast as it is.
If Friedman wrote, the world isflat, you can use that title to
describe a lot of things intoday's day.
(13:28):
Right, everything is flat,nothing is compartmentalized,
everything is blending andbleeding into the other.
So that's a really hard thing.
I think CEOs are going to haveto continue upping their game in
what to communicate, when tocommunicate and how to
communicate.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Do you see organizations moving to being
increasingly more transparent?
As much as they can be, ofcourse, but do you see a change
happening there?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I think there's already been a change Now.
I think that, done poorly, itcan blow up in your face.
Yeah, right, we've seen thatrecently in some very poor
communications about some verysensitive subjects.
And, yeah, I do think thatpeople expect more transparency.
But it is interesting.
(14:19):
Is it transparency or is itinclusion?
That's the that's a bigquestion, right?
Is it transparency that you gotto know everything because you
can't know everything, right?
Or is it better said inclusionin a lot more of the how the
sausage is made or how decisionsare made, et cetera?
(14:39):
Look, you can't includeeverybody in decisions.
I wrote about a recent post Iput up on LinkedIn.
You can't.
So you've got to find a way tomake people feel like they're
part of the subject, they'repart of the decision making
process or the project, so theyfeel like, as much as they can,
they're engaged.
(14:59):
I think that is a bigexpectation of people today.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
You talk about the power of communication.
I'll tell you look at what'shappening.
We're still looking for KateMiddleton with the idea,
Honestly which, by the way, wentdown a massive rabbit hole with
that.
But it really goes to provethat when you have poor
communication and or nocommunication at all from an
entity or a leadership position,people will make up their own
(15:26):
narratives, and you don't wantthat as an organization, right?
You want them to be clear.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You just wonder.
You're like, who in the worldis advising them?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
A thousand percent.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And you know that they've got advice, whether it's
legal advice or Tom's advice orPR advice.
But I remember something justhappened recently the university
presidents when they wentbefore Congress.
I remember I was listening tothat and I felt so bad for them
just because of the situationthey were in.
That's got nothing to do withwhat I believe in, so we'll
(15:58):
leave that aside.
And I remember calling my goodfriend saying who the heck's
advising them?
Even I know that whatever theywere communicating was done
poorly.
So you just wonder how arethings being missed so wild?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, joking aside, we're seeing it front and center
, which, by the way, will be aHarvard business case tomorrow
because it's just awful.
I have a theory that when thequeen mum died, the whole place
just went downhill.
That's just my whole thing.
But you see it there.
You see it happening inbusinesses and companies too,
right, especially as some ofthese corporations are moving
through things like mass layoffsor less than desirable business
(16:35):
results, and some of the tonein which employees are feeling
the conversation is changinginternally and externally is
really nailing communication.
Well, and, by the way, we knowhow to do this.
It's always just so fascinating, to your very good point, when
you're like who the hell'sadvising them?
Because they're biffing it, andthey're biffing it really hard.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I've got a saying listen, you're not going to like
this and it's okay not to likeit.
I give you permission becausesome of these things that I'm
about to tell you I don't likeKnowledge butchered in.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
I don't like Knowledge is a turd in the room.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I'm asking you, you don't have to like it.
I'm asking you to respect it.
Yep, and what I find is if yougive somebody the permission to
not like something, it doesn'tmake them like it.
It just kind of deflates theirballoon because the emotion it's
like he's not going to fight me, he's not going to argue with
me, he's not going to engage inthat.
No, I'm okay with you notliking it.
There's a lot of stuff thatpeople won't like and there's a
(17:27):
lot of stuff that I guaranteethe CEOs themselves don't like.
There were decisions.
I had to make, or I made, or Iagreed with or endorsed that I
didn't like, no question aboutit.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And they had to be made and I respected them and I
asked the people to respect them.
You're framing that as you'renot going to like this, but this
is where we're going to have togo.
Takes it in a direction of whatdo we do now?
Let's get into solution mode,or how do we collectively handle
the situation, as opposed togetting into the emotions of it,
(18:01):
which can be time consuming,and listen.
I think everyone has to go intotheir hidey hole of emotions
and do all that shit, but thereality is we need to move, and
that's a nice way to frame it.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
The reality is, the decision has to be made because
it's not going to go away justbecause we don't like it.
Right, let's get on with it.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, productive about it yeah.
You talked about communicationbeing a really critical piece
for a CEO.
That, to me, is someone who isreally looking out for people
and wanting to have aconversation around people.
But you're also running abusiness, and you're running a
global, multi-billion dollarbusiness and you need to get
business results.
How do you, as a CEO, balancethe need for wanting to put your
(18:45):
people and your businessresults on an equal playing
field?
How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, you spend a lot of time thinking about it.
You spend a lot of for wantingto put your people and your
business results on an equalplaying field.
How do you do that?
Yeah, you spend a lot of timethinking about it.
You spend a lot of timedebating and designing and
redesigning.
I had a wonderful professionalcoach who was a little bit of a
therapist.
I would say.
I don't know if she would wantme to say that, but she did act
(19:13):
that way because, gettingthrough these conundrums is hard
.
You know what it needs to be,you just need to figure out how
to get there.
Look, I know people didn't likesome of the decisions I made
and I'm sure some of the peoplesaid he's not a people person.
Look what he did here in theinstant on the micro and I tried
to use both and versus but foreither or a lot.
(19:36):
I can be the people person andI can make those hard decisions
and trying to get people thatwere the but of the hard
decisions to realize that it'sin the best interest of
everybody.
Here's an example.
I was reading Reed Hastings'book no Rules Great book.
(19:57):
He reminded me in the book thatyou need to be transparent and
you need to really get to thepeople and if somebody is not
right for the organization, makethe decision and move on.
And it reminded me of a decisionthat I put off for five years
and I look back and said, gosh,darn it.
I wasted five years of thisperson's professional life
(20:19):
because I was trying to be toonice, I was weighted too much to
I need to do what's right bythe people when in reality doing
what's right for the person wasto be honest with the person
five years ago, and as much aswe think that we're not nice to
people when we make hard peopledecisions, you may actually be
(20:40):
being nice, being genuine,helping them out.
So it's not a binary you eitherare or you aren't.
There's a middle ground there.
So, look, I thought a lot abouthow to reimagine the
organization, knowing thatpeople would have to move out of
their current role because theorganization had passed them by
(21:02):
and we needed to redeploy people.
And that is a really hard thingto do, probably one of the
hardest things, because there isemotion involved.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Et cetera, relationships, everything, all
these people yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
And was I good at it?
I don't know if I was good atit.
I think that the organization'ssuccess would probably conclude
that, yes, we got it right morethan we got it wrong, much more
than we got it wrong.
But I wouldn't suggest that Icaptured the flag on that one.
It's a constant struggle.
You mentioned all hands or thelive cast that I love those just
(21:36):
adored those.
I love the time with everybodybecause I was just again just
let's be myself and that didempower me.
Frankly, it did build trust andit was just so much fun that we
could just be people and we'reall in it together, and titles
weren't part of those eventsthere are a lot of organizations
(22:16):
that talk about.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
They're either people first or they're very
people-centric.
They're there for their people.
You've obviously sat at thewell, at the tippy tappy of the
table where you're makingdecisions financial decisions,
strategic decisions aroundinvestments in people.
And I'm curious if we couldflip this, because you know what
this takes from an insiderperspective, working with boards
, working with the C-suiterunning an organization.
(22:38):
I'm Jane Doe of ABC Company.
How do I know?
What are the tells that mycompany really walks the walk on
being people-centric?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Features is not being people-centric, actions is
being people-centric.
I remember talking aboutdevelopment plans and I came up
with the analogy of if you buyan outfit off the rack, okay,
but it doesn't fit well, itdoesn't hang well, you may have
(23:11):
to have it tailored, but if youbuy a bespoke or a tailored suit
, it feels really good andyou're on the top of your game.
I was reminded at one point hey, alan, in today's day nobody
gets tailored suits anymore, soyour analogy doesn't make any
sense.
I'm like okay, got it, okay,fair.
But the point I was trying tomake was people-centric
(23:32):
organizations have to come tothe people rather than say we're
going to get pet insurance orwe're going to give you the 25
healthcare membership.
Those are all features.
What if you put dollars todirect one-on-one development
(23:55):
programs, coaches, how are youhelping me?
Or how are we helping you,francesca, at this company,
become a better person andprofessional?
You, it's not going up to abuffet and you get to choose
what you pick.
No, you're going to pick offthe menu and you're going to
actually pick the meal you wantand it's going to be made to
order for you.
There's plenty of buffet styledevelopment and learning and
(24:20):
development platforms, etc.
How do we build something thatis bespoke, tailored and it's
not 100% of it?
80% can be buffet style and thelast 20 is really focused on
the person.
And look, we do that forexecutive coaches.
That's a bespoke program, suredo.
Why are we doing it through theorganization?
(24:42):
If I had a coach when I was asenior, I'd have been a much
better professional.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Why don't organizations do that?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Well, I think it's a pretty progressive platform.
I think it's a pathway thatrequires a lot of confidence and
trust.
It's expensive, it's expensiveyeah.
And I think that I don't know.
I'm going to say this and I'mgoing to get ridiculed for it.
I wonder if people work to themean Like do you get the?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
degrees, Alan.
Is that what you're trying tosay?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I, Francesca.
It's a great question.
I don't know why people wouldsay it's impossible.
Why do this?
Why not?
We can't do it.
What would it take to do it?
What would it take to put aprogram like that in place?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It's a doable.
I think I agree with everythingyou're saying.
It is a trust, it's a vision,to your very good point A lot of
times because people haven'tseen it.
They're typically a long game.
They're not something that youcan turn in a quarter and see
results a lot of times, butthose are the things that are so
meaningful.
And this is what I reallystruggle with is when we're
doing these like quarter byquarter, needing to see results,
(25:57):
needing to see results, how canpeople fight for the long tail
stuff, the break the mold stuffthat really truly changes and
shifts industries?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I was just working with my colleague on an article
about intentionality and mybelief now in coaching or in
tailored development programs.
We all hear professionalathletes have coaches.
Yes, and you can see thedifference.
Because they're higher up onthe leaderboard, they win more
tournaments, they can shoot abetter percentage.
Whatever it is On theprofessional setting, as you
(26:37):
said, francesca, it's the longgame.
I don't know if you canassociate a win or this to the
coaching.
Maybe you can, but it's lessdirect, it's less cause and
effect.
The coach helps the golfer puttbetter, so on Sundays they make
more putts, they win thetournament.
Versus building somebody as aprofessional.
I can tell you from experiencethe people that I've engaged in
(27:03):
coaching and I've pushed tocoach are much better as people
and professionals, much moreaware than they would have been
or they were prior to.
So I think most think that'sfor the athletes, because
there's a grade right, you win,you lose, you move up.
I think we can learn a lot fromsports or from other
(27:26):
professions.
And so, look, I think it'smassively expensive.
But you know what?
So are all the campuses up inthe Silicon Valley, the open
campuses.
Those things are massivelyexpensive.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, real estate's not cheap.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Right, and so is it all making people better
professionals or is it allowingthem to work in a better
environment?
Now, some would say working ina better environment will make
you more productive.
Okay, I'm not going to arguethat I don't know the data on
that.
What if you took all that moneyand you put it back in
developing Mel and Francesca tobe better people, more spatially
(28:04):
aware?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Less smart ass.
There's a lot of benefits here.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
I don't like that.
I like that part of you, so Iwould not put that in the
program.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
That's your sassiness , I appreciate it.
I couldn't agree with you more,alan I've always believed in
coaching and to both of yourpoints that you don't
necessarily see ROI in the firstquarter, the second quarter, it
just becomes part of yourorganization's culture that
everyone gets a performancecoach.
All the people stuff is wherethe problems happen at the
(28:38):
leadership level, starting atmanagers and above.
So if you're addressing thatwhen someone's first coming out
into their career, it's going toget them light years ahead of
other people who don't have that.
So when they're at a managerlevel, you're not trying to
suddenly jam down their throatsmilestone programs to make up
for all of the care andattention that they haven't yet
(28:59):
received.
Beautifully said, we've talked alot about things that make
people feel valued and respected, empowered in the workplace.
You talked about inclusivepractices, transparency, as much
as you can have that, but makeit really.
It's like acknowledging theiremotions, speaking to them human
to human level.
What are other things that CEOscan do or leaders can do to
(29:23):
foster an environment wherepeople really feel valued,
respected, like they havebelonging and meaningful work?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Certainly accolades and awards and the at a gal, at
a boy comments.
Yeah, to me the thing that gotpeople really jazzed was the
idea that they could connectwith the CEO one-on-one, the
idea that they knew the CEO waslooking out for them and was
(29:53):
looking to put them in differentplaces, move them around, cared
about their career.
They felt part of theingredients that were going to
make the strategy reality.
And once you get them bought in, they're bought in.
As hard as it is to get theminto the, into the room, if you
do it right, it's equally ashard to get them out of the room
(30:15):
and to have them turn away.
Now, if you're a jerk andyou're really not trustworthy,
of course you can ruin a second,but I I had some colleagues
that were just so sold on itbecause we activated their need
for belonging and being part ofthe solution.
I had people coming up to meand it wasn't to brag, it was.
They would come up to me andtell me about all this stuff
(30:37):
we're doing and how this isworking and that is working, et
cetera.
It had nothing to do with theirperformance, they just wanted
to share it.
That's when you know they're in, they're so far.
In Fine, you go tell the peopleabout this.
This is awesome.
I don't need to be the conveyorof the good news.
You mentioned culture, francesca.
I'm a big believer that cultureshould change.
It's a living organism.
It should not be the same todayas it was yesterday.
(30:58):
It should continue improving.
It can deteriorate, but ifyou're doing everything right,
it will continue to change.
You Build new cultures overtime.
(31:19):
It's just critical forleadership to empower, to push
more.
Sit beside people and watchthem.
I remember when I called aclient service partner and I
said hey, we want you to comelead this practice, because she
was stuck in a practice.
She was doing great, she was apartner, she was doing great.
But I saw something in her,just like my predecessor saw in
(31:40):
me.
I called this person, said wewant you to lead this and she
said you realize I'm an auditpartner.
I have no idea about that.
I said you don't need to knowabout the technical aspects.
We've got plenty of people thatknow the technical aspects.
I need you to lead it and Ihave every confidence and will
be right there with you to leadit.
And she's like, okay, I reallydon't know what I'm going to do,
(32:02):
but okay, and she's crushed it.
There's dozens of exampleswhere I would go into the system
One because I like to shake itup, I like to get people rustled
up to go do other things, butthen I brought them out and boom
, they became people that theynever even thought they'd have
the chance to become.
(32:22):
It's a big thing of culture,trust, empowerment, and that's
where people get really engagedwith wow that's really cool.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
He is for the people and someone believing in them.
A big common red threadthroughout all of your stories
is not just the trust peoplehave had in you, but your belief
in them really empowered themto do it.
You're advising and coaching alot of CEOs now, but if it's a
new CEO, they've never done itbefore.
In the position you were inmany moons ago, like how am I
going to do advising andcoaching a lot of CEOs now, but
if it's a new CEO, they've neverdone it before.
In the position you were inmany moons ago, like how am I
(32:57):
going to do this, knowing whatyou know now?
What would you advise them todo right away in this space to
establish a?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
good culture.
Trust your gut as much asnumbers don't lie.
Numbers aren't the only thingthat you should be focusing on.
Be willing to take a chance.
We know who good people are.
We always say that she has theit, and if the square peg
doesn't have to fit in thesquare hole exactly, which is my
(33:22):
example a minute ago this maysound a little crass.
You can teach technical skills.
You really can't teach the it.
You can teach technical skills.
You really can't teach the it.
You can polish the it, you canbring the it out, but you can't
really teach it.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And when you see somebody that has it, give them
a chance.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, what is it the X?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
factor.
Is it X factor?
Is that what we're talkingabout?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, the X factor, yeah yeah, when I was early on
in public outing, you alwaysknew the people that were going
to be successful because theywere pukers.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Huh, what, okay?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Like grow up in a trash can before.
No, what's a puker?
A puker is somebody that feelslike they're going to puke when
something goes wrong.
Goes wrong, they care and yourbelly gets all tied up and some
people probably do puke.
I don't know, but is the persona puker or not?
The person that's a puker, I'mgoing to work with that person
(34:19):
because that person cares andgets it Part of the X factor,
versus the person that just hey,okay, we'll try again tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
When you think about the people that have the X
factor are the people that careenough to get nervous enough to
get anxious.
And yet earlier in thisconversation we were talking
about why don't organizations dothis in macro right, in terms
of caring about their people?
It's because they're goingtowards the mean.
It's because they're operatingas in C's get degrees as opposed
(34:49):
to getting the pit in theirstomach and really caring.
It's an interesting hilaritythere.
The puker story absolutely isstaying in.
We talked about this earlier.
Like speed of business, we'rein an election year.
Ai, inflation, stagnation,boards, you name it.
The amount of stuff and theamount of stakeholders that any
(35:12):
CEO in any organization has todeal with is nuts, honestly.
It's evolved massively, it'sway more than it used to be, and
it's only going to get morecomplex.
I am curious about what are thehardest parts of this job.
When you think about sitting inthat seat, does the puking stay
(35:33):
?
This is what I'm wondering.
Did you ever hurl as a CEO?
That's what I really want toknow.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Did I ever hurl as a CEO?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
No, and I'm not even going to say I curled up in a
ball and sucked my thumb.
I've done that, maybe not as aCEO.
Anyway, I had a ball and suckedmy thumb.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I've done that, maybe not as a CEO.
I didn't.
Anyway, I had a lot ofsleepless nights.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
I had a lot of waking up at 2.30 in the morning with
junk driving in my head or I'mnot performing, I'm not
performing.
Look, I talked to my coachabout this.
I'm a big believer.
Everybody's got impostersyndrome no matter how
successful we are, we all haveit.
I have it sure, okay, I admitit.
And so I had a lot of waking upat two o'clock in the morning
and never go back to sleep, andthat was part of the job,
(36:18):
because my head was swirling.
I had a lot of pukingexperiences, not literally, but
where I was all balled up in mygut because I had such a dilemma
or I had such a challenge.
One was when COVID came aboutright, plenty right.
Others were when earnings werenot where they needed to be, and
(36:39):
what are we going to do withcompensation and bonuses for
everybody?
There's all sorts of making.
One of the biggest moves I hadto make, which was a personnel
move.
It took me four months tofigure out how to do it.
I remember exactly when Ifigured it out.
I was on a plane from Detroitto Asia.
Kim was sleeping next to me inthe little pod and it just over
Washington, where you live,francesca, and I figured it out,
(37:01):
but it took me a long time.
So, yeah, I had a lot of knotsin my gut over the course of the
year.
Okay, I have gray hair.
You can see I have gray hair.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Now I didn't have gray hair when we met.
Think of presidents.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
To your question, francesca people and the
relationships that ensue, thatwill never go away.
That's really hard Because, atthe end of the day, no matter
what business you're in, thereare people in the business.
It's a huge part of every ceo'sroutine anticipating what's
(37:32):
next, not missing something.
He always fretted that I wasgoing to see a headline on the
front page of whatever or anemail, that something happened
and I totally blew it.
I just wasn't paying attention.
I wasn't worried aboutdelivering good service because
we had great people at theorganization.
I wasn't worried aboutdelivering good service because
we had great people at theorganization.
(37:53):
I wasn't worried aboutexecuting the strategy of the
firm.
Once we got everybody to aplace where they believed in the
strategy, which took about twoyears, once everybody was on the
train, I didn't worry aboutthat.
I knew people, knew how to runthe business and knew how to do
what we needed to do.
It's everything else.
It's the ability for me to keepelevating my game in the firm's
(38:17):
game.
It was not missing something.
It's not seeing around a cornerand the people aspect of things
, because every decision affectspeople, no matter what it is.
It affects people, yeah, and sothat was a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
It's interesting to hear you talk about that,
because we talk to employeesleaders all week, every week Mel
and I do and it's very similarto what we hear from them around
their own craft, their own work.
I was thinking when you get toa C-level, there's one of two
things that happen.
If it's me, I'm probably justpuking my guts, which is totally
(38:55):
fine.
I love the fact that you stillhold that level of care and that
level of curiosity.
There's this other, wherethere's this perception, too,
that some CEOs are like have youheard this?
That a lot of them are likepathological.
Have you heard this?
That a lot of them are likepathological.
Have you heard this?
Yeah, yeah, you roll in thesecircles.
Do you find that more peopleare pathological or they're more
(39:15):
in the care?
What's the split?
Are we talking like 20, 80?
What's going on here?
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Oh, I think there are a lot of CEOs that are
misjudged.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Oh interesting, Tell me more.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And look, I'm misjudged too.
I've got a hard outer shell, noquestion about it.
And if you don't know me, a lotof people think I'm a jerk.
When you get to know me, yourealize I'm really not a jerk,
yeah, and I'm going to getthings done.
Look, you've got to be prettyconfident, even if you have
imposter syndrome.
You've got to be prettyconfident, pretty bold, to lead
(39:49):
an organization and lead ajourney.
You got to be pretty bold andyou got to be pretty tough.
Now I do know there's plenty ofpeople that are crazy.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, at all levels in the organization.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
To be fair, believe me, I've met some of them, so
it's yeah, but I think there aremore that are caring than
people give credit to.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I like that, I like it?
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I really do.
There's a CEO in the CPAprofession there's a couple of
them One that's got a bad rapand personal friends with him,
and he's the nicest guy in theworld and he gets a bad rap.
And I can see why, because itwas out of shell, but he's as
caring as they come.
And so the old adage okay, doesthe media do that to you, or is
(40:33):
it real?
I don't want to throw the mediaunder the bus.
People come up with their ownstories.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, people come up with their own narratives.
It does go back to.
One of the keys here is to be agreat communicator.
Fair enough, and not that youneed to be like happy joy all
the time, but communication.
This is one of the reasons.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
You're in such a unique position too, I think, as
a CEO, because every day you'rein a position where you have to
prove yourself to so manydifferent people, day in, day
out, over and over and not thatothers don't need to do that in
their positions and I do thinkthat there is a little bit of a
uniqueness in that role whereit's like the pressure of that
(41:11):
has to be intense yeah, lookmore than anything.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
All the eyes are on you right.
I remember when I became apartner I was told look, every,
all the eyes are on you as apartner.
Yeah, but it's not 6,000 personorganization but in a hundred
person team or whatever.
I'll give you a story.
I remember I was late to ameeting.
I ran in and my coach was there.
She was observing a lot ofmeetings for team effectiveness.
(41:39):
I wanted her there to help mewith the team effectiveness of
the senior leaders of theorganization Very helpful.
And so I run in and I want toget the meeting started.
And so I go get a plate, wantto get the meeting started.
And so I go get a plate tolunch and I'm standing up eating
and she's watching me and shepulled me aside before and she
(42:01):
says what are you doing?
I'm like what do you mean?
I'm eating.
She goes think about what youlook like.
They're all looking at you andeven if they're not there,
they're seeing you way out ofcontrol.
And so again, in that littleinstant, you realize, holy moly,
I might have gone backwards alittle bit.
And to your point, yeah, youare being looked at and even if
you're not being looked at, youshould not act like an idiot.
(42:22):
And at that point, I was actinglike a knucklehead.
Slow down, sit down, eat.
One, two more minutes isn'tgoing to kill us.
It was a good lesson.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
There's this concept of shadow of a leader, and when
you're at the top, all of yourshadow casts over here, and even
if it does something as simpleas eating in front of people and
giving the perception of we'renot even going to spend time to
sit down and eat, that's allstuff you have to consider and
(42:54):
it's all part of the gig, right,and I don't know if people get
that.
Oh yeah, you've got a persona.
I have no question about it.
Mel and I were talking aboutthis on the pod the other day.
There is no one on the face ofthis planet that has led through
what we're about to go throughno one.
And there's no playbook.
I'm quite sure when you becamea CEO, someone didn't say Alan,
here's the CEO 101 book, numberone and number two.
(43:14):
You're in a context that hasnever existed before To me.
There's a little bit of no oneknows what the hell the answer
is.
There is no answer necessarily.
It's just what are the choicepoints and how are you going to
move through it?
Speaker 1 (43:27):
So I'm advising a firm that has grown very quickly
, that's exciting.
Yeah, it's wonderful.
And the CEO brought me in totalk to the board and one of the
comments he made is he did whatwe want to do.
He led a firm and then headmitted to his board.
He goes I've never run acompany this big and I've never
(43:49):
run a company that's bigger thanthis.
Now he has, and so one.
I gave him a lot of credit forrealizing that he doesn't have
all the answers and he's willingto take input.
He doesn't follow my advice allthe time but and he listens but
to your point he's never run acompany like this.
And it's interesting.
There's this concept.
I don't know where I saw thisbe like this and it's
(44:10):
interesting.
There's this concept.
I don't know where I saw this,but gradually.
Then suddenly, gradually theygrew.
Suddenly they're a half abillion dollar firm.
Gradually they're going to be abillion dollar firm.
And if you're not focused onwhat's happening gradually, you
won't be prepared for suddenly.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
You talked earlier that you live by a set of
principles, and when I thinkabout companies that are in
hyper growth, leaders that arein unprecedented times, how
important are a core set ofprinciples in leading oh, I
think they're critical One,because it will demonstrate
consistency to your stakeholders.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
If you communicate appropriately, it will be the
foundation to everything you do,because they'll know the type
of person you are.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
And it won't be just haphazard, it'll tie everything
together.
So I think it's critical.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Yeah, yeah, I've been thinking about that too, just
like when I look at some of thebest leaders and the best strat
and the best comms, like there'sthis undercurrent of principles
that run through it and you caneven make mistakes, you can
make, you can biff, you can eatin front of your C-suite, right.
There's like from small,something like that very small
(45:22):
to.
We made an investment in thiscompany and it was a stinker.
Oh, move on.
You know what I'm saying.
There's a lot of forgiveness orelasticity in the culture when
you do that.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Look, if your stakeholders know your
principles, know what you standfor, whatever you want to say it
, they'll understand thereasoning and they'll understand
that these decisions were madewith the right principles in
mind or at the core.
And again, not everything goesperfectly, but at least they'll
understand why the decision wasmade, or how it was made, or
(45:56):
what was made upon, etc.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yeah, and that's inclusion to your point yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
All right, Wow rapid round.
Well, this was meant to be fun,Alan, hopefully.
Okay.
Is it lonely at the top?
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Doesn't have to be.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Good answer.
Family Feud Good answer.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I think, look, you need to surround yourself with a
lot of people, and they don'thave to be people that work for
you.
You can't tell things toeverybody, and if you surround
yourself with the right people,have the right advisor, even
internally.
No, it's not lonely at the top.
I wasn't lonely.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
You have your community.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
I really wasn't.
I thought I was very connectedto a lot of people and I engaged
them as I could, but no, Iwasn't lonely.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Can I ask a question?
Did you have someone that wouldsay, Ellen, that's nuts or no,
you're absolutely wrong.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Oh, yeah, yeah, more than one.
Some I gave permission to dothat and some I didn't, or some
did it before.
They asked for forgiveness.
Yeah, and I wanted that.
I don't have all the answers.
So, yeah, I wanted people tosay, hold on Really, but now I
push back.
(47:26):
It would push back.
What would it take?
Why not?
Speaker 3 (47:30):
They keep you honest and help you out by your blind
spots.
Yeah, yeah, would you recommendthat your kid become a CEO?
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I would recommend that my kids figure out what
they wanted to do every day.
Yeah, and I won't tell them toshy away from being a CEO if the
opportunity presents itself.
And I won't tell them to shyaway from being a CEO if the
opportunity presents itself.
But the only way you're goingto become a CEO, unless you
start your own company, is ifyou're really good at doing what
you want to do, because ittakes head and heart and don't
(48:03):
shy away from it.
I didn't like me, I didn't planfor it and it's very rewarding
and complicated and pukey andyou know all these things.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Okay, Hot topic item CEO compensation.
And not every CEO is paid $30million a year, but this is a
hot topic in the news these days.
Do you think CEOs should bepaid as much as they are?
Speaker 1 (48:30):
All right.
So I'm going to apologize to mymother because she told me
don't answer a question with aquestion, so I'm going to play
around here.
If you're going to ask shouldCEOs be paid what they are paid,
then should athletes, shouldmovie stars should?
Where does it stop?
Now to your specific question.
Yeah, I do think they should bepaid a lot of money because
(48:54):
look at what they're overseeing,Look at what they're stewarding
, Look at the effect that theyhave and the multiplier effect
that they have, whether it befor careers, whether it be for
the public product or services.
That doesn't happen by chanceand if you think about skilled
(49:15):
athletes, their careers are, onaverage, much shorter.
They're taking a huge risk.
In my profession, you take ahuge risk when you become a
senior leader because you giveup your binky, your comfort, you
give up a book of business.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Yes, if they're performing, they're performing
they're making such the effectthat commands a significant top
level.
I'm going to move, then, tolayoffs, because I think there's
a connection here to your point.
You mentioned that if they'reperforming they should get that
layoff.
What's the best way for CEOs toshow accountability during a
layoff?
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Layoffs are caused by a number of different things.
They could be caused by acompany not performing, bad
strategy, bad execution.
They could be caused by apandemic.
When I was leading the firm, wedidn't do layoffs for a few
years and I took the mostsignificant cut in pay because I
didn't want to take layoffs.
(50:11):
I didn't want to executelayoffs.
I didn't think it was the rightthing to do in light of what
was going on.
So I don't think it's a onesize fits all answer.
Having said that, I would thinkthat performance pay would be
adjusted in situations whereworkforce had to be reduced
(50:32):
because of an environment.
I don't know if that happensall the time, yet I would think
that would be.
There would be an and to that.
There were layoffs and seniorleadership didn't make the money
that they made the year before.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
It's so interesting because you see this in the news
where layoffs are happening,earnings are through the roof.
Some of that might have beenthrough efficiencies with
layoffs, and a lot of theseC-suite executives are like
crickets we take accountabilitybut they don't tell you how, and
(51:08):
so they may be taking thesecuts.
But again, going back to thered thread throughout this whole
conversation that you keepcoming back to, alan, which I
think is amazing iscommunication agreed.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
I I think that there should be more communication
around that.
I think that there should besome how to the what of
accountability.
How are you going to takeaccountability?
Speaker 2 (51:30):
No.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
I'm convinced that if people were more communicative
around that you don't need togive exact numbers, but you can
give directional comments Right,there wouldn't be a withdrawal
from the trust bank.
Yeah, yeah, look at times,layoffs or rifts or whatever you
want to call it.
It's a necessity because of thebusiness.
(51:52):
I realize the employees are,the team members, are integral
to the business, and this mightbe one of those things that
you're not going to like.
The business is a persona, as abeing itself, too.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Yes, yes, corporations are, yes, they are.
Yes, yes, corporations are, yes, they are.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
And unfortunately people get caught in the squeeze
.
So the only way to at leastmake it understood, not agreed
with or not liked or respectedis, yeah, better communication.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Even you taking the pay cut before having to pull
that lever to try to doeverything you absolutely can
goes a long way with employeeswhen they see that or hear that.
Is there a CEO?
Speaker 1 (52:35):
that you admire and, if so, why.
You know there's a couple ofpeople I admire.
They're both males, so Iapologize for that.
I think Ed Bastian at Delta hasbeen fascinating.
I fly Delta all the time.
I love their customer service.
I love what they stand for.
I love his messaging.
He seems to be a CEO of thepeople.
(52:57):
I do think he came out of thepublic accounting world, which
is pretty cool.
I also like Jamie Dimon.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
JP Morgan.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Yeah, I'm not anything like Jamie Dimon, other
than there's some similarities.
He says it the way it is.
He's very matter of fact, he'svery you're not going to like
this, and that's some of theprinciples that I live by, so
that's where I'll stop thecomparison.
I think he's great.
I think he's just a real, trueperson and I've heard he's a
real person outside the ropes.
(53:23):
He's just a dude that happensto be the CEO of JP Morgan and
he's crushed it.
He's just done so well.
There's so many others.
As an addendum to this question, I love reading books by
leaders, not leadership books,necessarily, books by leaders.
I want to know their story.
I said read Hastings' no Rulesand David Cody and the book by
(53:45):
Imbolt, and there's just so manybooks that I've read because I
want to know their journey.
I want to know how they did itand the stories are fantastic
and I learned from them, and sothe idea of passing it along
through a book is wonderful.
But those two I admire quite abit.
I really enjoy watching them.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
What's the best leadership advice you've ever
read?
Speaker 1 (54:07):
I don't know if this is leadership advice or not.
There's a book it's calledExtreme Ownership.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Yeah, yeah, jocko.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Jocko Willick and in there.
There's a lot of great stuff,but the one that I find myself
using a lot in my coaching andhelping teams and leaders get
their shit together isdiscipline equals freedom.
People think that discipline orstructure ruins entrepreneurial
spirit or it ruins.
(54:36):
No, if you're disciplined inwhat you do and you set the plan
and you execute it, it doesallow you to have some freedom
on the edges.
So let's build that plan asopposed to just being all over
the place, and it does allow youto have some freedom.
So I like that From my point ofview, just as my advice is read
(54:57):
the books by the people thatcame before you.
So read books by leaders thathave been in the seat.
It's amazing how much you learn.
I was never a big reader as akid by now.
I can't stop.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
I love reading it's so nourishing, right it is it is
alan, it was awesome to talkwith you today.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Yeah, thanks for being here,friend.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
My pleasure.
This is a great venue.
I wish y'all luck in the worldand I'm really humbled by you
asking me to join you.
Speaker 4 (55:43):
Thanks so much for joining us today, mel.
We're back with new headlinesnext week.
Yeah, yeah, we are All right.
In the meantime, hit us up onTikTok, instagram, linkedin and
YouTube at yourworkfriendspodand Mel.
What else can they do?
Speaker 3 (55:56):
Email us at friend, at yourworkfriendscom.
Send us a message, folks.
We do reply.
Speaker 4 (56:03):
We do reply.
All right, Bye friends, Byefriends, Bye friends.
When I was early on in public accounting, you always
knew the people that were goingto be successful because they
were pukers.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Huh what.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Like grow up in a trash can before.
No, what's a puker?
A puker is somebody that feelslike they're going to puke when
something goes wrong.
They care.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Well, guys, welcome to your Work Friends.
We're your two HR friends, I'mFrancesca and I'm Mel, and we
have no filter, but we'regetting you through all this
work shit.
And today, mel, what are wetalking about?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
We are kicking off a brand new series called
Visionary Executives.
There are a lot of cool leadersout there that are doing really
interesting work and bringingpeople in business together in a
way that everyone wins, and wewanted to start a series that
started to highlight those folksand talk about the things
(01:11):
they're doing and what you cantake away from that, either as
an employee or as an executiveyourself.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Yeah, there's nothing like talking to people that are
at the tippy top of the seatsand making these big decisions,
so we're excited to kick offthis series with Alan Whitman.
Alan Whitman was a chairman andchief executive officer at Baker
Telly US, which is a top 10 CPAfirm, and the reason why Alan's
a really interesting person totalk to is threefold.
One Alan was the CEO of a top10 accounting firm and if
(01:40):
anybody is familiar withaccounting, you know how
volatile that industry is, notonly from a business side, but
also from a people side.
People just really don't wantto go into accounting as much as
they used to, so it's a stickysituation.
The other thing is during histenure, he 3x to the business,
which is huge, and at the sametime, was able to have a number
one employee satisfaction andCEO approval rating from
(02:02):
Glassdoor of the top 20 advisoryfirms.
So here's a guy that is in avolatile industry, 3x his
business and also had the peoplesaying we love this guy.
So we wanted to talk about howthe hell did he do that?
How the heck did he balancepeople and results, and he did
it in a pretty interesting way.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Absolutely, and you don't want to miss this episode.
So here's Alan Whitman.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Hey Alan, how are you today?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I am fantastic, great to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Where are we finding you Today?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I'm in Atlanta and it's a sunny, warm day in
Atlanta.
A little cool in the morningsbut nice and warm in the
afternoons.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So I'm not anywhere where it's snowing, which is
great, kim my wife says thatit's snowing back in Michigan,
so I'm glad to be here.
Yeah, I heard a friend was upin Ann Arbor at University of
Michigan, so I'm glad to be here.
Yeah, I just I heard a friendwas up in Ann Arbor at
University of Michigan and saidit was snowing.
So I'm like, yeah, that doesn'tsound fun.
So it sounds like you're welllocated.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I am, and I'm going to Florida tomorrow night.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, but you're a native of Michigan, right Since
1996.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, I grew up in New York and Cincinnati.
I lived in Detroit as an adultbut since 96, I met my wife
there and my kids are from there, so I'm from there.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, you are.
You are a Michigan.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I'm not a U of M fan unless I'm with my wife or my
mother-in-law.
I'm still a Cincinnati Reds fanand Indiana Hoosier fan,
although the Lions were a lot offun to watch this year.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Oh my gosh, I loved how Eminem totally got behind it
.
A big fan I am.
I lived quite a long time inColumbus, ohio, which is home of
the Ohio State University.
Understand the not liking theblue.
I went to liberal arts college,so I don't have any skin in
this game Anywho.
Anywho, alan, we're here today.
I'm excited to talk with you.
I want to talk about the roleof a CEO.
(03:59):
It's not very common for us tobe able to talk to leaders that
have led global billion-dollarorganizations and we want to
know all about it and what it'slike.
What does it feel like?
What do you do?
What does your dailiness looklike?
Are you the type that gets upat 4 am on the Peloton?
That's the vision everybody has, right.
So that's what we want touncover with you today is what
(04:20):
is the world of the CEO?
And, probably more importantly,is what do you think the world
of the CEO?
And, probably more importantly,is what do you think the world
of the CEO should look like aswe're going into the future?
So we have a few questions wewant to go through with you
today.
How does that sound?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
All right, let's roll , I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
We'd love to hear more about your journey to CEO.
How did that happen?
Tell us about it.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, as both of you know, I'm a public accounting
brat.
I grew up in the big eight, 6,5, 4.
Went to a few smaller firms Taxguy by background and really
never had the plan.
I never had the professionallife plan.
I just always trusted thatthings would work out.
And when I joined Virchow Krauswhich is the firm that became
(05:01):
Baker Tilly just by a nameschange, I had a great
opportunity to lead this thingcalled International services
and I had no idea what it wasabout, really had no idea what
it was about, and my predecessorhad no idea.
His idea was it's yours if youwant it.
I said what is it?
He goes I don't know, you'llfigure it out.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I did.
We figured it out Before that Ihad just.
I had great mentors, and so Iwouldn't be where I am or
wouldn't have had theopportunities without great
people looking after me andhelping me.
And look again, it was.
There was no plan to be the CEOof Baker Tilly.
The plan was to do great work,build great relationships, build
trust with the people I workwith and have a lot of fun doing
(05:39):
it.
I'm not a guy that's built on alot of structure.
I'm not a rules-based guy.
I'm more of a principles-basedguy and I do like to wing it and
I have trust that it's going towork out.
It's not that I have so muchtrust in my abilities that I'm
going to just crush everything.
I just have trust in the systemthat if I do the right things,
(06:00):
everything will work out.
Some would say that I'moblivious to the outside world.
I don't know, but that's how Iwas.
And I remember I was in a busheading to a partner retreat and
we knew we were going through asuccession plan process and a
former partner of mine leanedover and said, hey, you should
put your name in to be the nextCEO.
And I laughed.
I'm from a small practice, I'mnew to the firm.
(06:21):
And she said listen, everybodytrusts you.
You're not here to build yourown practice.
You were here to help everybody, including her me, as she said.
And I think you'd be a viablecandidate because the partners
trust you, that you're here forthem and for us in total, rather
than trying to pad your ownperformance or your own book of
business, et cetera.
(06:42):
And so I said all right, I'llput my name in that.
And one thing led to another alot of testing, a lot of
interviews, et cetera.
And I still remember the day Iwalked out of the last interview
.
I remember that day.
And then I remember the nextday when I got the call and I
found myself as the next CEO ofBaker Tilly and it was like wait
(07:03):
, what just happened?
And then I could talk to youabout the journey as the CEO.
I think the ability tovisualize the future of what
would we build the organizationto.
I'm not so sure I knew how todo it yet, but I certainly knew
what I wanted to build and whatthe foundational principles of
my candidacy.
(07:23):
And they took a chance and Ithink it paid off.
We did remarkable things.
We everybody did remarkablethings in that eight-year run.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like there's definitely that
light bulb moment.
It wasn't about youestablishing a practice.
It was about switching whatyour role is completely.
What exactly is the role of aCEO?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
What's the role of a CEO?
I think, above all, the role ofa CEO is to enable the team to
do more than they think they cando and to do things they're not
even aware of doing.
So pulling them together for acommon cause and achieving
twofold, threefold, fivefold,x-fold the amount of outcomes
(08:09):
and deliverables and performanceand accomplishments compared to
what they think is possible.
You both know that I don't askbinary questions.
Can we do this, can we do that?
I ask the question.
What will it take?
And so it opens the mind to theart of the possible.
And so, above all, there's allsorts of different things
strategy and acquisitions andcommunications, client
(08:30):
connections, et cetera.
Those are the how, the what, inmy mind, is innate pulling
people together for a commoncause, a vision, a mission, and
engaging them to believe theycan do more than they thought
they could.
Engaging them to believe theycan do more than they thought
they could and, in turn,providing that pathway and the
ingredients to do just that.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I love that You're bringing that visionary role to
folks.
You're making them feel likethey're a part of something
larger and you're also reallybuilding up their confidence in
a space where they thought theymight not be able to do it,
which is really exciting.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Confidence in a space where they thought they might
not be able to do it, which isreally exciting.
A successful CEO is somebodythat enables people to have a
little bit of blind faith.
If he or she thinks I can do it, or he or she is totally
committed to this, let's go.
Let's go on the journey thatshe or he is describing.
In my opinion, the mostsuccessful CEOs are the ones
(09:25):
that can paint the picture oftomorrow when maybe not
everybody understands even whattoday's all about.
They come on that journey withyou and they have blind faith
that I trust him or her and allright, I'm going to follow, or
I'm going to ride shotgun, whichis even better, or I'm going to
lead, which is even better.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
It's interesting.
You talk about vision.
Marcus Buckingham wrote the OneThing you Need to Know, which
is what differentiates good fromgreat leaders, is the ability
to paint a vision and get peoplebehind it.
So much of that is on trust andthe compelling nature of the
vision, the doable nature of thevision, where it has a little
(10:09):
bit of I don't know if we can dothis, but I think we can.
You talked about trust.
What makes you so good at trust?
Like, how do you get people totrust you?
How have you gotten people totrust you?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Look part of it is what have you done prior to
becoming the CEO or the leader?
Yeah fair done prior to becomingthe CEO or the leader?
Yeah, fair, do you havecredibility?
That's the first and the secondin many facets, francesca, it's
being able to tell a compellingstory, to not wither in the
face of adversity.
And if you have adversity, howdo you deal with it?
Don't go too high, Don't go toolow, don't get too excited,
(10:41):
don't get too down.
Don't get too excited, don'tget too down.
Building a compelling narrative.
Look, words matter, the storymatters, and so having a great
(11:09):
right-hand person to help youtake your crazy ideas and
organize them and build theminto a compelling vision that's
believable, even if it's crazy.
You separate yourself fromreality a little bit and you
dream.
And so, look, communication isa crucial skill of any senior
leader, a CEO being able tocommunicate.
And that's with words, withemotion, with heart, eye to eye,
being relatable, not demandingthings, but working together on
(11:33):
things.
And look, I always thought thatI was Alan, who happened to be
the CEO.
That's how I communicated.
I'm just Alan.
Yes, I'm the CEO.
Yes, I probably have moreexperience than you.
You know, our family's a big fanof the movie Ratatouille.
Our kids grew up watching it.
It's a great flick aboutanybody can cook.
(11:55):
Guess what?
Anybody can be a CEO.
Now, there's got to be somethings that happen in your
career, but it's not out of therealm of possibility, and so I
was just Alan.
I am Alan and it happens to bethe CEO.
I was on a personal level withpeople while at the same time,
being their boss, or theirboss's boss, or the steward of
(12:15):
the organization, and so beingwilling to be relatable and
being a person first.
Yeah, you get the job, ofcourse, things you do, but
you're still a person.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yeah, like that the job, of course, things you do,
but you're still a person.
Yeah, like that approachabilitypiece, vulnerability as a
leader.
You weren't the Wizard of Ozhiding in your tower and that
probably made a huge difference.
How do you think the role of aCEO is going to shift in five
years, 10 years, with howbusiness is changing?
Like what might be different inthis role in the future years,
10 years with?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
how business is changing, like what might be
different in this role in thefuture.
Just think about technology andautomation and how much is
going to be accomplishedartificially.
The stakeholder groups havenever been as numerous as they
are now.
There's so much influence onbusiness from the social part of
humankind that the stakeholdergroups have become numerous and,
(13:07):
frankly, as I was the CEO, Iwas always concerned that
there's going to be anotherstakeholder that came up on
Monday or Tuesday, but we had toconsider that stakeholder and
so, look, business has neverbeen as fast as it is.
If Friedman wrote, the world isflat, you can use that title to
describe a lot of things intoday's day.
(13:28):
Right, everything is flat,nothing is compartmentalized,
everything is blending andbleeding into the other.
So that's a really hard thing.
I think CEOs are going to haveto continue upping their game in
what to communicate, when tocommunicate and how to
communicate.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Do you see organizations moving to being
increasingly more transparent?
As much as they can be, ofcourse, but do you see a change
happening there?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I think there's already been a change Now.
I think that, done poorly, itcan blow up in your face.
Yeah, right, we've seen thatrecently in some very poor
communications about some verysensitive subjects.
And, yeah, I do think thatpeople expect more transparency.
But it is interesting.
(14:19):
Is it transparency or is itinclusion?
That's the that's a bigquestion, right?
Is it transparency that you gotto know everything because you
can't know everything, right?
Or is it better said inclusionin a lot more of the how the
sausage is made or how decisionsare made, et cetera?
(14:39):
Look, you can't includeeverybody in decisions.
I wrote about a recent post Iput up on LinkedIn.
You can't.
So you've got to find a way tomake people feel like they're
part of the subject, they'repart of the decision making
process or the project, so theyfeel like, as much as they can,
they're engaged.
(14:59):
I think that is a bigexpectation of people today.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
You talk about the power of communication.
I'll tell you look at what'shappening.
We're still looking for KateMiddleton with the idea,
Honestly which, by the way, wentdown a massive rabbit hole with
that.
But it really goes to provethat when you have poor
communication and or nocommunication at all from an
entity or a leadership position,people will make up their own
(15:26):
narratives, and you don't wantthat as an organization, right?
You want them to be clear.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You just wonder.
You're like, who in the worldis advising them?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
A thousand percent.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And you know that they've got advice, whether it's
legal advice or Tom's advice orPR advice.
But I remember something justhappened recently the university
presidents when they wentbefore Congress.
I remember I was listening tothat and I felt so bad for them
just because of the situationthey were in.
That's got nothing to do withwhat I believe in, so we'll
(15:58):
leave that aside.
And I remember calling my goodfriend saying who the heck's
advising them?
Even I know that whatever theywere communicating was done
poorly.
So you just wonder how arethings being missed so wild?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, joking aside, we're seeing it front and center
, which, by the way, will be aHarvard business case tomorrow
because it's just awful.
I have a theory that when thequeen mum died, the whole place
just went downhill.
That's just my whole thing.
But you see it there.
You see it happening inbusinesses and companies too,
right, especially as some ofthese corporations are moving
through things like mass layoffsor less than desirable business
(16:35):
results, and some of the tonein which employees are feeling
the conversation is changinginternally and externally is
really nailing communication.
Well, and, by the way, we knowhow to do this.
It's always just so fascinating, to your very good point, when
you're like who the hell'sadvising them?
Because they're biffing it, andthey're biffing it really hard.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I've got a saying listen, you're not going to like
this and it's okay not to likeit.
I give you permission becausesome of these things that I'm
about to tell you I don't likeKnowledge butchered in.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
I don't like Knowledge is a turd in the room.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I'm asking you, you don't have to like it.
I'm asking you to respect it.
Yep, and what I find is if yougive somebody the permission to
not like something, it doesn'tmake them like it.
It just kind of deflates theirballoon because the emotion it's
like he's not going to fight me, he's not going to argue with
me, he's not going to engage inthat.
No, I'm okay with you notliking it.
There's a lot of stuff thatpeople won't like and there's a
(17:27):
lot of stuff that I guaranteethe CEOs themselves don't like.
There were decisions.
I had to make, or I made, or Iagreed with or endorsed that I
didn't like, no question aboutit.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And they had to be made and I respected them and I
asked the people to respect them.
You're framing that as you'renot going to like this, but this
is where we're going to have togo.
Takes it in a direction of whatdo we do now?
Let's get into solution mode,or how do we collectively handle
the situation, as opposed togetting into the emotions of it,
(18:01):
which can be time consuming,and listen.
I think everyone has to go intotheir hidey hole of emotions
and do all that shit, but thereality is we need to move, and
that's a nice way to frame it.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
The reality is, the decision has to be made because
it's not going to go away justbecause we don't like it.
Right, let's get on with it.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, productive about it yeah.
You talked about communicationbeing a really critical piece
for a CEO.
That, to me, is someone who isreally looking out for people
and wanting to have aconversation around people.
But you're also running abusiness, and you're running a
global, multi-billion dollarbusiness and you need to get
business results.
How do you, as a CEO, balancethe need for wanting to put your
(18:45):
people and your businessresults on an equal playing
field?
How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, you spend a lot of time thinking about it.
You spend a lot of for wantingto put your people and your
business results on an equalplaying field.
How do you do that?
Yeah, you spend a lot of timethinking about it.
You spend a lot of timedebating and designing and
redesigning.
I had a wonderful professionalcoach who was a little bit of a
therapist.
I would say.
I don't know if she would wantme to say that, but she did act
(19:13):
that way because, gettingthrough these conundrums is hard
.
You know what it needs to be,you just need to figure out how
to get there.
Look, I know people didn't likesome of the decisions I made
and I'm sure some of the peoplesaid he's not a people person.
Look what he did here in theinstant on the micro and I tried
to use both and versus but foreither or a lot.
(19:36):
I can be the people person andI can make those hard decisions
and trying to get people thatwere the but of the hard
decisions to realize that it'sin the best interest of
everybody.
Here's an example.
I was reading Reed Hastings'book no Rules Great book.
(19:57):
He reminded me in the book thatyou need to be transparent and
you need to really get to thepeople and if somebody is not
right for the organization, makethe decision and move on.
And it reminded me of a decisionthat I put off for five years
and I look back and said, gosh,darn it.
I wasted five years of thisperson's professional life
(20:19):
because I was trying to be toonice, I was weighted too much to
I need to do what's right bythe people when in reality doing
what's right for the person wasto be honest with the person
five years ago, and as much aswe think that we're not nice to
people when we make hard peopledecisions, you may actually be
(20:40):
being nice, being genuine,helping them out.
So it's not a binary you eitherare or you aren't.
There's a middle ground there.
So, look, I thought a lot abouthow to reimagine the
organization, knowing thatpeople would have to move out of
their current role because theorganization had passed them by
(21:02):
and we needed to redeploy people.
And that is a really hard thingto do, probably one of the
hardest things, because there isemotion involved.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Et cetera, relationships, everything, all
these people yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
And was I good at it?
I don't know if I was good atit.
I think that the organization'ssuccess would probably conclude
that, yes, we got it right morethan we got it wrong, much more
than we got it wrong.
But I wouldn't suggest that Icaptured the flag on that one.
It's a constant struggle.
You mentioned all hands or thelive cast that I love those just
(21:36):
adored those.
I love the time with everybodybecause I was just again just
let's be myself and that didempower me.
Frankly, it did build trust andit was just so much fun that we
could just be people and we'reall in it together, and titles
weren't part of those eventsthere are a lot of organizations
(22:16):
that talk about.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
They're either people first or they're very
people-centric.
They're there for their people.
You've obviously sat at thewell, at the tippy tappy of the
table where you're makingdecisions financial decisions,
strategic decisions aroundinvestments in people.
And I'm curious if we couldflip this, because you know what
this takes from an insiderperspective, working with boards
, working with the C-suiterunning an organization.
(22:38):
I'm Jane Doe of ABC Company.
How do I know?
What are the tells that mycompany really walks the walk on
being people-centric?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Features is not being people-centric, actions is
being people-centric.
I remember talking aboutdevelopment plans and I came up
with the analogy of if you buyan outfit off the rack, okay,
but it doesn't fit well, itdoesn't hang well, you may have
(23:11):
to have it tailored, but if youbuy a bespoke or a tailored suit
, it feels really good andyou're on the top of your game.
I was reminded at one point hey, alan, in today's day nobody
gets tailored suits anymore, soyour analogy doesn't make any
sense.
I'm like okay, got it, okay,fair.
But the point I was trying tomake was people-centric
(23:32):
organizations have to come tothe people rather than say we're
going to get pet insurance orwe're going to give you the 25
healthcare membership.
Those are all features.
What if you put dollars todirect one-on-one development
(23:55):
programs, coaches, how are youhelping me?
Or how are we helping you,francesca, at this company,
become a better person andprofessional?
You, it's not going up to abuffet and you get to choose
what you pick.
No, you're going to pick offthe menu and you're going to
actually pick the meal you wantand it's going to be made to
order for you.
There's plenty of buffet styledevelopment and learning and
(24:20):
development platforms, etc.
How do we build something thatis bespoke, tailored and it's
not 100% of it?
80% can be buffet style and thelast 20 is really focused on
the person.
And look, we do that forexecutive coaches.
That's a bespoke program, suredo.
Why are we doing it through theorganization?
(24:42):
If I had a coach when I was asenior, I'd have been a much
better professional.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Why don't organizations do that?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Well, I think it's a pretty progressive platform.
I think it's a pathway thatrequires a lot of confidence and
trust.
It's expensive, it's expensiveyeah.
And I think that I don't know.
I'm going to say this and I'mgoing to get ridiculed for it.
I wonder if people work to themean Like do you get the?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
degrees, Alan.
Is that what you're trying tosay?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I, Francesca.
It's a great question.
I don't know why people wouldsay it's impossible.
Why do this?
Why not?
We can't do it.
What would it take to do it?
What would it take to put aprogram like that in place?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It's a doable.
I think I agree with everythingyou're saying.
It is a trust, it's a vision,to your very good point A lot of
times because people haven'tseen it.
They're typically a long game.
They're not something that youcan turn in a quarter and see
results a lot of times, butthose are the things that are so
meaningful.
And this is what I reallystruggle with is when we're
doing these like quarter byquarter, needing to see results,
(25:57):
needing to see results, how canpeople fight for the long tail
stuff, the break the mold stuffthat really truly changes and
shifts industries?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I was just working with my colleague on an article
about intentionality and mybelief now in coaching or in
tailored development programs.
We all hear professionalathletes have coaches.
Yes, and you can see thedifference.
Because they're higher up onthe leaderboard, they win more
tournaments, they can shoot abetter percentage.
Whatever it is On theprofessional setting, as you
(26:37):
said, francesca, it's the longgame.
I don't know if you canassociate a win or this to the
coaching.
Maybe you can, but it's lessdirect, it's less cause and
effect.
The coach helps the golfer puttbetter, so on Sundays they make
more putts, they win thetournament.
Versus building somebody as aprofessional.
I can tell you from experiencethe people that I've engaged in
(27:03):
coaching and I've pushed tocoach are much better as people
and professionals, much moreaware than they would have been
or they were prior to.
So I think most think that'sfor the athletes, because
there's a grade right, you win,you lose, you move up.
I think we can learn a lot fromsports or from other
(27:26):
professions.
And so, look, I think it'smassively expensive.
But you know what?
So are all the campuses up inthe Silicon Valley, the open
campuses.
Those things are massivelyexpensive.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, real estate's not cheap.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Right, and so is it all making people better
professionals or is it allowingthem to work in a better
environment?
Now, some would say working ina better environment will make
you more productive.
Okay, I'm not going to arguethat I don't know the data on
that.
What if you took all that moneyand you put it back in
developing Mel and Francesca tobe better people, more spatially
(28:04):
aware?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Less smart ass.
There's a lot of benefits here.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
I don't like that.
I like that part of you, so Iwould not put that in the
program.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
That's your sassiness , I appreciate it.
I couldn't agree with you more,alan I've always believed in
coaching and to both of yourpoints that you don't
necessarily see ROI in the firstquarter, the second quarter, it
just becomes part of yourorganization's culture that
everyone gets a performancecoach.
All the people stuff is wherethe problems happen at the
(28:38):
leadership level, starting atmanagers and above.
So if you're addressing thatwhen someone's first coming out
into their career, it's going toget them light years ahead of
other people who don't have that.
So when they're at a managerlevel, you're not trying to
suddenly jam down their throatsmilestone programs to make up
for all of the care andattention that they haven't yet
(28:59):
received.
Beautifully said, we've talked alot about things that make
people feel valued and respected, empowered in the workplace.
You talked about inclusivepractices, transparency, as much
as you can have that, but makeit really.
It's like acknowledging theiremotions, speaking to them human
to human level.
What are other things that CEOscan do or leaders can do to
(29:23):
foster an environment wherepeople really feel valued,
respected, like they havebelonging and meaningful work?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Certainly accolades and awards and the at a gal, at
a boy comments.
Yeah, to me the thing that gotpeople really jazzed was the
idea that they could connectwith the CEO one-on-one, the
idea that they knew the CEO waslooking out for them and was
(29:53):
looking to put them in differentplaces, move them around, cared
about their career.
They felt part of theingredients that were going to
make the strategy reality.
And once you get them bought in, they're bought in.
As hard as it is to get theminto the, into the room, if you
do it right, it's equally ashard to get them out of the room
(30:15):
and to have them turn away.
Now, if you're a jerk andyou're really not trustworthy,
of course you can ruin a second,but I I had some colleagues
that were just so sold on itbecause we activated their need
for belonging and being part ofthe solution.
I had people coming up to meand it wasn't to brag, it was.
They would come up to me andtell me about all this stuff
(30:37):
we're doing and how this isworking and that is working, et
cetera.
It had nothing to do with theirperformance, they just wanted
to share it.
That's when you know they're in, they're so far.
In Fine, you go tell the peopleabout this.
This is awesome.
I don't need to be the conveyorof the good news.
You mentioned culture, francesca.
I'm a big believer that cultureshould change.
It's a living organism.
It should not be the same todayas it was yesterday.
(30:58):
It should continue improving.
It can deteriorate, but ifyou're doing everything right,
it will continue to change.
You Build new cultures overtime.
(31:19):
It's just critical forleadership to empower, to push
more.
Sit beside people and watchthem.
I remember when I called aclient service partner and I
said hey, we want you to comelead this practice, because she
was stuck in a practice.
She was doing great, she was apartner, she was doing great.
But I saw something in her,just like my predecessor saw in
(31:40):
me.
I called this person, said wewant you to lead this and she
said you realize I'm an auditpartner.
I have no idea about that.
I said you don't need to knowabout the technical aspects.
We've got plenty of people thatknow the technical aspects.
I need you to lead it and Ihave every confidence and will
be right there with you to leadit.
And she's like, okay, I reallydon't know what I'm going to do,
(32:02):
but okay, and she's crushed it.
There's dozens of exampleswhere I would go into the system
One because I like to shake itup, I like to get people rustled
up to go do other things, butthen I brought them out and boom
, they became people that theynever even thought they'd have
the chance to become.
(32:22):
It's a big thing of culture,trust, empowerment, and that's
where people get really engagedwith wow that's really cool.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
He is for the people and someone believing in them.
A big common red threadthroughout all of your stories
is not just the trust peoplehave had in you, but your belief
in them really empowered themto do it.
You're advising and coaching alot of CEOs now, but if it's a
new CEO, they've never done itbefore.
In the position you were inmany moons ago, like how am I
going to do advising andcoaching a lot of CEOs now, but
if it's a new CEO, they've neverdone it before.
In the position you were inmany moons ago, like how am I
(32:57):
going to do this, knowing whatyou know now?
What would you advise them todo right away in this space to
establish a?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
good culture.
Trust your gut as much asnumbers don't lie.
Numbers aren't the only thingthat you should be focusing on.
Be willing to take a chance.
We know who good people are.
We always say that she has theit, and if the square peg
doesn't have to fit in thesquare hole exactly, which is my
(33:22):
example a minute ago this maysound a little crass.
You can teach technical skills.
You really can't teach the it.
You can teach technical skills.
You really can't teach the it.
You can polish the it, you canbring the it out, but you can't
really teach it.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And when you see somebody that has it, give them
a chance.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, what is it the X?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
factor.
Is it X factor?
Is that what we're talkingabout?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, the X factor, yeah yeah, when I was early on
in public outing, you alwaysknew the people that were going
to be successful because theywere pukers.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Huh, what, okay?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Like grow up in a trash can before.
No, what's a puker?
A puker is somebody that feelslike they're going to puke when
something goes wrong.
Goes wrong, they care and yourbelly gets all tied up and some
people probably do puke.
I don't know, but is the persona puker or not?
The person that's a puker, I'mgoing to work with that person
(34:19):
because that person cares andgets it Part of the X factor,
versus the person that just hey,okay, we'll try again tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
When you think about the people that have the X
factor are the people that careenough to get nervous enough to
get anxious.
And yet earlier in thisconversation we were talking
about why don't organizations dothis in macro right, in terms
of caring about their people?
It's because they're goingtowards the mean.
It's because they're operatingas in C's get degrees as opposed
(34:49):
to getting the pit in theirstomach and really caring.
It's an interesting hilaritythere.
The puker story absolutely isstaying in.
We talked about this earlier.
Like speed of business, we'rein an election year.
Ai, inflation, stagnation,boards, you name it.
The amount of stuff and theamount of stakeholders that any
(35:12):
CEO in any organization has todeal with is nuts, honestly.
It's evolved massively, it'sway more than it used to be, and
it's only going to get morecomplex.
I am curious about what are thehardest parts of this job.
When you think about sitting inthat seat, does the puking stay
(35:33):
?
This is what I'm wondering.
Did you ever hurl as a CEO?
That's what I really want toknow.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Did I ever hurl as a CEO?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
No, and I'm not even going to say I curled up in a
ball and sucked my thumb.
I've done that, maybe not as aCEO.
Anyway, I had a ball and suckedmy thumb.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I've done that, maybe not as a CEO.
I didn't.
Anyway, I had a lot ofsleepless nights.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
I had a lot of waking up at 2.30 in the morning with
junk driving in my head or I'mnot performing, I'm not
performing.
Look, I talked to my coachabout this.
I'm a big believer.
Everybody's got impostersyndrome no matter how
successful we are, we all haveit.
I have it sure, okay, I admitit.
And so I had a lot of waking upat two o'clock in the morning
and never go back to sleep, andthat was part of the job,
(36:18):
because my head was swirling.
I had a lot of pukingexperiences, not literally, but
where I was all balled up in mygut because I had such a dilemma
or I had such a challenge.
One was when COVID came aboutright, plenty right.
Others were when earnings werenot where they needed to be, and
(36:39):
what are we going to do withcompensation and bonuses for
everybody?
There's all sorts of making.
One of the biggest moves I hadto make, which was a personnel
move.
It took me four months tofigure out how to do it.
I remember exactly when Ifigured it out.
I was on a plane from Detroitto Asia.
Kim was sleeping next to me inthe little pod and it just over
Washington, where you live,francesca, and I figured it out,
(37:01):
but it took me a long time.
So, yeah, I had a lot of knotsin my gut over the course of the
year.
Okay, I have gray hair.
You can see I have gray hair.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Now I didn't have gray hair when we met.
Think of presidents.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
To your question, francesca people and the
relationships that ensue, thatwill never go away.
That's really hard Because, atthe end of the day, no matter
what business you're in, thereare people in the business.
It's a huge part of every ceo'sroutine anticipating what's
(37:32):
next, not missing something.
He always fretted that I wasgoing to see a headline on the
front page of whatever or anemail, that something happened
and I totally blew it.
I just wasn't paying attention.
I wasn't worried aboutdelivering good service because
we had great people at theorganization.
I wasn't worried aboutdelivering good service because
we had great people at theorganization.
(37:53):
I wasn't worried aboutexecuting the strategy of the
firm.
Once we got everybody to aplace where they believed in the
strategy, which took about twoyears, once everybody was on the
train, I didn't worry aboutthat.
I knew people, knew how to runthe business and knew how to do
what we needed to do.
It's everything else.
It's the ability for me to keepelevating my game in the firm's
(38:17):
game.
It was not missing something.
It's not seeing around a cornerand the people aspect of things
, because every decision affectspeople, no matter what it is.
It affects people, yeah, and sothat was a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
It's interesting to hear you talk about that,
because we talk to employeesleaders all week, every week Mel
and I do and it's very similarto what we hear from them around
their own craft, their own work.
I was thinking when you get toa C-level, there's one of two
things that happen.
If it's me, I'm probably justpuking my guts, which is totally
(38:55):
fine.
I love the fact that you stillhold that level of care and that
level of curiosity.
There's this other, wherethere's this perception, too,
that some CEOs are like have youheard this?
That a lot of them are likepathological.
Have you heard this?
That a lot of them are likepathological.
Have you heard this?
Yeah, yeah, you roll in thesecircles.
Do you find that more peopleare pathological or they're more
(39:15):
in the care?
What's the split?
Are we talking like 20, 80?
What's going on here?
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Oh, I think there are a lot of CEOs that are
misjudged.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Oh interesting, Tell me more.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And look, I'm misjudged too.
I've got a hard outer shell, noquestion about it.
And if you don't know me, a lotof people think I'm a jerk.
When you get to know me, yourealize I'm really not a jerk,
yeah, and I'm going to getthings done.
Look, you've got to be prettyconfident, even if you have
imposter syndrome.
You've got to be prettyconfident, pretty bold, to lead
(39:49):
an organization and lead ajourney.
You got to be pretty bold andyou got to be pretty tough.
Now I do know there's plenty ofpeople that are crazy.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, at all levels in the organization.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
To be fair, believe me, I've met some of them, so
it's yeah, but I think there aremore that are caring than
people give credit to.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I like that, I like it?
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I really do.
There's a CEO in the CPAprofession there's a couple of
them One that's got a bad rapand personal friends with him,
and he's the nicest guy in theworld and he gets a bad rap.
And I can see why, because itwas out of shell, but he's as
caring as they come.
And so the old adage okay, doesthe media do that to you, or is
(40:33):
it real?
I don't want to throw the mediaunder the bus.
People come up with their ownstories.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, people come up with their own narratives.
It does go back to.
One of the keys here is to be agreat communicator.
Fair enough, and not that youneed to be like happy joy all
the time, but communication.
This is one of the reasons.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
You're in such a unique position too, I think, as
a CEO, because every day you'rein a position where you have to
prove yourself to so manydifferent people, day in, day
out, over and over and not thatothers don't need to do that in
their positions and I do thinkthat there is a little bit of a
uniqueness in that role whereit's like the pressure of that
(41:11):
has to be intense yeah, lookmore than anything.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
All the eyes are on you right.
I remember when I became apartner I was told look, every,
all the eyes are on you as apartner.
Yeah, but it's not 6,000 personorganization but in a hundred
person team or whatever.
I'll give you a story.
I remember I was late to ameeting.
I ran in and my coach was there.
She was observing a lot ofmeetings for team effectiveness.
(41:39):
I wanted her there to help mewith the team effectiveness of
the senior leaders of theorganization Very helpful.
And so I run in and I want toget the meeting started.
And so I go get a plate, wantto get the meeting started.
And so I go get a plate tolunch and I'm standing up eating
and she's watching me and shepulled me aside before and she
(42:01):
says what are you doing?
I'm like what do you mean?
I'm eating.
She goes think about what youlook like.
They're all looking at you andeven if they're not there,
they're seeing you way out ofcontrol.
And so again, in that littleinstant, you realize, holy moly,
I might have gone backwards alittle bit.
And to your point, yeah, youare being looked at and even if
you're not being looked at, youshould not act like an idiot.
(42:22):
And at that point, I was actinglike a knucklehead.
Slow down, sit down, eat.
One, two more minutes isn'tgoing to kill us.
It was a good lesson.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
There's this concept of shadow of a leader, and when
you're at the top, all of yourshadow casts over here, and even
if it does something as simpleas eating in front of people and
giving the perception of we'renot even going to spend time to
sit down and eat, that's allstuff you have to consider and
(42:54):
it's all part of the gig, right,and I don't know if people get
that.
Oh yeah, you've got a persona.
I have no question about it.
Mel and I were talking aboutthis on the pod the other day.
There is no one on the face ofthis planet that has led through
what we're about to go throughno one.
And there's no playbook.
I'm quite sure when you becamea CEO, someone didn't say Alan,
here's the CEO 101 book, numberone and number two.
(43:14):
You're in a context that hasnever existed before To me.
There's a little bit of no oneknows what the hell the answer
is.
There is no answer necessarily.
It's just what are the choicepoints and how are you going to
move through it?
Speaker 1 (43:27):
So I'm advising a firm that has grown very quickly
, that's exciting.
Yeah, it's wonderful.
And the CEO brought me in totalk to the board and one of the
comments he made is he did whatwe want to do.
He led a firm and then headmitted to his board.
He goes I've never run acompany this big and I've never
(43:49):
run a company that's bigger thanthis.
Now he has, and so one.
I gave him a lot of credit forrealizing that he doesn't have
all the answers and he's willingto take input.
He doesn't follow my advice allthe time but and he listens but
to your point he's never run acompany like this.
And it's interesting.
There's this concept.
I don't know where I saw thisbe like this and it's
(44:10):
interesting.
There's this concept.
I don't know where I saw this,but gradually.
Then suddenly, gradually theygrew.
Suddenly they're a half abillion dollar firm.
Gradually they're going to be abillion dollar firm.
And if you're not focused onwhat's happening gradually, you
won't be prepared for suddenly.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
You talked earlier that you live by a set of
principles, and when I thinkabout companies that are in
hyper growth, leaders that arein unprecedented times, how
important are a core set ofprinciples in leading oh, I
think they're critical One,because it will demonstrate
consistency to your stakeholders.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
If you communicate appropriately, it will be the
foundation to everything you do,because they'll know the type
of person you are.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
And it won't be just haphazard, it'll tie everything
together.
So I think it's critical.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Yeah, yeah, I've been thinking about that too, just
like when I look at some of thebest leaders and the best strat
and the best comms, like there'sthis undercurrent of principles
that run through it and you caneven make mistakes, you can
make, you can biff, you can eatin front of your C-suite, right.
There's like from small,something like that very small
(45:22):
to.
We made an investment in thiscompany and it was a stinker.
Oh, move on.
You know what I'm saying.
There's a lot of forgiveness orelasticity in the culture when
you do that.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Look, if your stakeholders know your
principles, know what you standfor, whatever you want to say it
, they'll understand thereasoning and they'll understand
that these decisions were madewith the right principles in
mind or at the core.
And again, not everything goesperfectly, but at least they'll
understand why the decision wasmade, or how it was made, or
(45:56):
what was made upon, etc.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yeah, and that's inclusion to your point yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
All right, Wow rapid round.
Well, this was meant to be fun,Alan, hopefully.
Okay.
Is it lonely at the top?
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Doesn't have to be.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Good answer.
Family Feud Good answer.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I think, look, you need to surround yourself with a
lot of people, and they don'thave to be people that work for
you.
You can't tell things toeverybody, and if you surround
yourself with the right people,have the right advisor, even
internally.
No, it's not lonely at the top.
I wasn't lonely.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
You have your community.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
I really wasn't.
I thought I was very connectedto a lot of people and I engaged
them as I could, but no, Iwasn't lonely.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Can I ask a question?
Did you have someone that wouldsay, Ellen, that's nuts or no,
you're absolutely wrong.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Oh, yeah, yeah, more than one.
Some I gave permission to dothat and some I didn't, or some
did it before.
They asked for forgiveness.
Yeah, and I wanted that.
I don't have all the answers.
So, yeah, I wanted people tosay, hold on Really, but now I
push back.
(47:26):
It would push back.
What would it take?
Why not?
Speaker 3 (47:30):
They keep you honest and help you out by your blind
spots.
Yeah, yeah, would you recommendthat your kid become a CEO?
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I would recommend that my kids figure out what
they wanted to do every day.
Yeah, and I won't tell them toshy away from being a CEO if the
opportunity presents itself.
And I won't tell them to shyaway from being a CEO if the
opportunity presents itself.
But the only way you're goingto become a CEO, unless you
start your own company, is ifyou're really good at doing what
you want to do, because ittakes head and heart and don't
(48:03):
shy away from it.
I didn't like me, I didn't planfor it and it's very rewarding
and complicated and pukey andyou know all these things.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Okay, Hot topic item CEO compensation.
And not every CEO is paid $30million a year, but this is a
hot topic in the news these days.
Do you think CEOs should bepaid as much as they are?
Speaker 1 (48:30):
All right.
So I'm going to apologize to mymother because she told me
don't answer a question with aquestion, so I'm going to play
around here.
If you're going to ask shouldCEOs be paid what they are paid,
then should athletes, shouldmovie stars should?
Where does it stop?
Now to your specific question.
Yeah, I do think they should bepaid a lot of money because
(48:54):
look at what they're overseeing,Look at what they're stewarding
, Look at the effect that theyhave and the multiplier effect
that they have, whether it befor careers, whether it be for
the public product or services.
That doesn't happen by chanceand if you think about skilled
(49:15):
athletes, their careers are, onaverage, much shorter.
They're taking a huge risk.
In my profession, you take ahuge risk when you become a
senior leader because you giveup your binky, your comfort, you
give up a book of business.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Yes, if they're performing, they're performing
they're making such the effectthat commands a significant top
level.
I'm going to move, then, tolayoffs, because I think there's
a connection here to your point.
You mentioned that if they'reperforming they should get that
layoff.
What's the best way for CEOs toshow accountability during a
layoff?
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Layoffs are caused by a number of different things.
They could be caused by acompany not performing, bad
strategy, bad execution.
They could be caused by apandemic.
When I was leading the firm, wedidn't do layoffs for a few
years and I took the mostsignificant cut in pay because I
didn't want to take layoffs.
(50:11):
I didn't want to executelayoffs.
I didn't think it was the rightthing to do in light of what
was going on.
So I don't think it's a onesize fits all answer.
Having said that, I would thinkthat performance pay would be
adjusted in situations whereworkforce had to be reduced
(50:32):
because of an environment.
I don't know if that happensall the time, yet I would think
that would be.
There would be an and to that.
There were layoffs and seniorleadership didn't make the money
that they made the year before.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
It's so interesting because you see this in the news
where layoffs are happening,earnings are through the roof.
Some of that might have beenthrough efficiencies with
layoffs, and a lot of theseC-suite executives are like
crickets we take accountabilitybut they don't tell you how, and
(51:08):
so they may be taking thesecuts.
But again, going back to thered thread throughout this whole
conversation that you keepcoming back to, alan, which I
think is amazing iscommunication agreed.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
I I think that there should be more communication
around that.
I think that there should besome how to the what of
accountability.
How are you going to takeaccountability?
Speaker 2 (51:30):
No.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
I'm convinced that if people were more communicative
around that you don't need togive exact numbers, but you can
give directional comments Right,there wouldn't be a withdrawal
from the trust bank.
Yeah, yeah, look at times,layoffs or rifts or whatever you
want to call it.
It's a necessity because of thebusiness.
(51:52):
I realize the employees are,the team members, are integral
to the business, and this mightbe one of those things that
you're not going to like.
The business is a persona, as abeing itself, too.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Yes, yes, corporations are, yes, they are.
Yes, yes, corporations are, yes, they are.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
And unfortunately people get caught in the squeeze
.
So the only way to at leastmake it understood, not agreed
with or not liked or respectedis, yeah, better communication.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Even you taking the pay cut before having to pull
that lever to try to doeverything you absolutely can
goes a long way with employeeswhen they see that or hear that.
Is there a CEO?
Speaker 1 (52:35):
that you admire and, if so, why.
You know there's a couple ofpeople I admire.
They're both males, so Iapologize for that.
I think Ed Bastian at Delta hasbeen fascinating.
I fly Delta all the time.
I love their customer service.
I love what they stand for.
I love his messaging.
He seems to be a CEO of thepeople.
(52:57):
I do think he came out of thepublic accounting world, which
is pretty cool.
I also like Jamie Dimon.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
JP Morgan.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Yeah, I'm not anything like Jamie Dimon, other
than there's some similarities.
He says it the way it is.
He's very matter of fact, he'svery you're not going to like
this, and that's some of theprinciples that I live by, so
that's where I'll stop thecomparison.
I think he's great.
I think he's just a real, trueperson and I've heard he's a
real person outside the ropes.
(53:23):
He's just a dude that happensto be the CEO of JP Morgan and
he's crushed it.
He's just done so well.
There's so many others.
As an addendum to this question, I love reading books by
leaders, not leadership books,necessarily, books by leaders.
I want to know their story.
I said read Hastings' no Rulesand David Cody and the book by
(53:45):
Imbolt, and there's just so manybooks that I've read because I
want to know their journey.
I want to know how they did itand the stories are fantastic
and I learned from them, and sothe idea of passing it along
through a book is wonderful.
But those two I admire quite abit.
I really enjoy watching them.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
What's the best leadership advice you've ever
read?
Speaker 1 (54:07):
I don't know if this is leadership advice or not.
There's a book it's calledExtreme Ownership.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Yeah, yeah, jocko.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Jocko Willick and in there.
There's a lot of great stuff,but the one that I find myself
using a lot in my coaching andhelping teams and leaders get
their shit together isdiscipline equals freedom.
People think that discipline orstructure ruins entrepreneurial
spirit or it ruins.
(54:36):
No, if you're disciplined inwhat you do and you set the plan
and you execute it, it doesallow you to have some freedom
on the edges.
So let's build that plan asopposed to just being all over
the place, and it does allow youto have some freedom.
So I like that From my point ofview, just as my advice is read
(54:57):
the books by the people thatcame before you.
So read books by leaders thathave been in the seat.
It's amazing how much you learn.
I was never a big reader as akid by now.
I can't stop.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
I love reading it's so nourishing, right it is it is
alan, it was awesome to talkwith you today.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Yeah, thanks for being here,friend.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
My pleasure.
This is a great venue.
I wish y'all luck in the worldand I'm really humbled by you
asking me to join you.
Speaker 4 (55:43):
Thanks so much for joining us today, mel.
We're back with new headlinesnext week.
Yeah, yeah, we are All right.
In the meantime, hit us up onTikTok, instagram, linkedin and
YouTube at yourworkfriendspodand Mel.
What else can they do?
Speaker 3 (55:56):
Email us at friend, at yourworkfriendscom.
Send us a message, folks.
We do reply.
Speaker 4 (56:03):
We do reply.
All right, Bye friends, Byefriends, Bye friends.
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