September 11, 2025 • 45 mins
Strong business relationships don’t happen by accident — they’re built with intention, consistency, and genuine care. In this episode of Sticky From The Inside, I’m joined by Brad Englert, business advisor, former CIO at the University of Texas, and author of Spheres of Influence: How to Create and Nurture High-Quality Connections.
Brad shares the three keys to build strong business relationships that last. Drawing on decades of leadership experience and client work, he explains how these principles work in practice and why so many leaders unintentionally undermine their relationships by skipping them.
We explore real-world stories of trust, missteps, and turning points — from leading complex change to creating partnerships that stand the test of time. Whether you’re managing stakeholders, working with clients, or leading a team, Brad’s approach will help you build stronger, more mutually beneficial relationships that drive results.
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Key Takeaways- Relationships need intention. Strong partnerships aren’t built on chance — they’re created with purpose and consistency.
- Know their goals. Understanding someone’s aspirations is the first step to earning trust and creating value.
- Set clear expectations. Misunderstandings shrink when everyone knows what’s expected from the start.
- Care about their success. Genuine care turns transactions into long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.
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Key MomentsThe key moments in this episode are:
0:01:10 – Welcome and why relationships matter now 0:03:25 – Meet Brad Englert: advisor, former CIO, author of Spheres of Influence 0:04:08 – From CIO to advisor: lessons that shaped Brad’s approach 0:09:40 – Partnerships and trust: the foundation of strong relationships 0:15:38 – When ‘selling’ erodes trust (and what to do instead) 0:19:38 – Building relationships with intention inside complex organisations 0:26:04 – A simple system to stay connected and build strong business relationships 0:33:25 – Where to start when you’re early in your career or lack influence 0:35:32 – When relationships go wrong: how to reset and repair 0:49:25 – Brad's 3 Sticky Notes of advice
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Join The Conversation Find Andy Goram on LinkedIn here Listen to the Podcast on YouTube here Follow the Podcast on Instagram here Follow the Podcast on Twitter here Follow the Podcast on Facebook here Check out the Bizjuicer website here Get a free consultation with Andy here Check out the Bizjuicer blog here Download the podcast here ----more---- Useful Links Follow Brad Englert on LinkedIn here Find the 3 offers on Brad's website here ----more---- Full Episode TranscriptGet the full transcript of the episode here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition-smashing, consistently successful organisations from the inside out.
I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them and create tonnes more success for everyone.
(00:39):
This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.
Each episode we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses, the sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work, and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it.
(01:03):
So if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.
Okay then, we hear a lot about networking, work the room, grow your contacts, live on LinkedIn, but in a world full of shallow connections and performative corporate small talk, what does it really take to build genuine, meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships in business?
(01:30):
According to today's guest, that's not a soft skill either.
It's a critical, hard skill, one that could shape your career, your team success and even your company's long-term future.
Brad Englert is the author of Spheres of Influence, How to Create and Nurture Authentic Business Relationships.
(01:50):
It's an Amazon bestseller across three different business categories, which is impressive stuff.
And Brad's not just writing from theory, he has lived this.
He spent over two decades with Accenture, including 10 years as a partner before becoming CIO at the University of Texas in Austin, where he's led the modernization of systems that supported over 75,000 people.
(02:16):
His entire career has been built on relationships, both internal and external with execs, staffs, customers, partners, vendors, and a whole host of other people.
And in today's conversation, we're going to start not with the framework, and by the word, it's a beautifully simple framework, but with a story about a relationship that changed everything for Brad.
(02:40):
And then from there, we'll explore why treating relationships as soft stuff is going to be holding us back, where and how we can begin to earn influence, even when you're early on in your career, and what to do when business relationships break down, but also how to stay meaningful in a world that increasingly rewards the quick and the transactional.
(03:03):
And it's all linked to Brad's beautifully simple framework.
So if you'd like to improve your stakeholder management, or be better at building cross-functional trust, or just consistently keep your business relationships human, I think you're going to love this one.
Brad, welcome to the show, my friend.
Thanks for inviting me.
(03:24):
Super to have you here, my friend.
Really good.
I'm so looking forward to this conversation about relationships and networking, and really interested in the whole point about making that meaningful.
I think some people treat their relationships as the needs must bit to look up when you need a job.
(03:44):
Who can I call to put me in touch with someone?
And other than that, you just don't pay attention to it, or in most cases, we don't.
But we can unpick all of that later on, I'm sure, in this conversation.
But before we get started, my friend, do you want to just give us a brief introduction, in fact, a better introduction than I gave in that intro, to you, what you do, and what you're focusing on right now?
(04:07):
Sure.
I started as an exchange student in high school in Australia, then I went back to the same high school and taught for a year and a half, which was a lot of fun.
And even though as a Yank, they knew I had been there, I was an old boy, so I knew where they smoked cigarettes.
(04:27):
Then I realized I wanted to go to graduate school, so I got a map of the U.S. out on the kitchen table, and I picked Austin, Texas, and came here, great university, had been to Austin before, and started a master's program, and did a lot of research in the use of computers and government.
(04:47):
This was the early 80s, so personal computers were just coming out, and just the whole growth of the industry was projected to boom.
And so I joined Arthur Anderson, which has a wonderful three-year training program for people like me with a liberal arts undergraduate degree and a master in public affairs, and they taught me how to code and how to design programs and how to manage coders and designers.
(05:15):
And after about 20 years, I was managing $20 to $30 million projects with a couple hundred people.
So, you know, it was just a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow.
And the culture of the firm was such that they really valued training and mentoring and coaching.
And even as a senior partner, I was expected to teach once a year in our training center outside of Chicago.
(05:43):
And three months before I retired, I was teaching with other partners, project management to 200 people from all over the world, and it was just such a joy.
And after I retired, I got called by the university, my alma mater, and they needed some IT strategy work, and I offered to help them hour a week pro bono, and that was in October.
(06:08):
By March, I was halftime, by June, full-time.
And eight years later, I retired again as the chief information officer for seven of those years.
And my first year was H1N1 swine flu.
The president asked, could we go online?
The simple answer was no.
Our equipment was eight to 10 years old.
(06:29):
Our learning management system, which 54,000 students use and 4,000 faculty, was buggy.
And the students lovingly called it clunky.
So I worked with the vice provost for curriculum, and she hated that system as well.
And her team, which helps instructors in the classroom with technology, and my team went to the market, and we evaluated 15 products, and actually a group of students and faculty picked the replacement learning management system.
(07:06):
And my legacy vendor, he would only show up once a year for his maintenance check.
And it was always 10% more than the prior year.
And he just didn't care.
He didn't care about us.
And when we had issues, you know, they were sluggish.
(07:26):
And their tech support was erratic.
My tech guy was erratic.
So we embarked on a two-year transition to move to this new learning management system.
Luckily, the students loved it, and the faculty.
So there's a natural pull to the new, and people were happy to leave the old behind.
After two years of transition, an email was sent to the president, copying the vice provost and me, and I thought, oh my God, I'm going to get fired.
(07:55):
Because, you know, what could possibly go wrong, right?
Thousands of things.
And the email was from all the department contacts we worked with, thanking us for helping them with the transition, and doing it with humility and sincerity, and even a little humor along the way.
(08:15):
And we had a big celebration, invited the department leads.
And we have a bowling alley on campus.
So we had bowling, we had pizza.
And I made a, I had ordered a cake in the shape of a tombstone that had the old learning management system's name on it, with rest in peace.
And we feasted on the cake.
(08:38):
My legacy account rep did not even know that we were making a two-year transition.
That's how clueless he was.
So he didn't hear the bullet coming when I fired him.
There's some real transition there in that then, some real transition.
So, you know, a guy that's had at least two careers that you've just explained to me now, and now an author of a book, a book that focuses very much on creating what I interpret as meaningful relationships with people, which I think is critically important in today's world.
(09:14):
And I mentioned in the intro, because when we first met, we were talking about relationships and there were some exchange stories about relationships.
I'm just interested to know from your perspective, Brad, has there been one particular relationship, business or personal, that changed everything for you?
(09:34):
Changed something about your career?
May have changed you?
Is there a story you could share with us?
Yeah, it's really the partner that worked for Arthur Anderson, who also went to my graduate school.
And when he learned I was studying the use of computers in government, he said, hell Brad, that's what we do.
(09:57):
And, you know, he was my mentor for many years.
And I actually went through 22 years of annual reviews and just read that partner and another partner helped me grow into being a partner, getting the technical skills, getting the project management skills, and more importantly, stretch roles.
(10:23):
You know, they had me work as a manager when I was a senior consultant.
They gave me a role as an associate partner when I was a senior manager.
They gave me a partner role when I was an associate partner.
And it was really wonderful because it was kind of a less risk environment.
It was a learning environment and they treated it as such.
(10:46):
And so even if I made mistakes, you know, I was in a learning situation.
And more importantly, when I was finally promoted to partner, I had already walked the walk.
You know, I knew I would be successful and they knew I would be successful.
Um, at the university, I had a problem with this multinational company that was not being responsive and I was stuck down in the bowels of this company and I couldn't get up to management.
(11:21):
And I was on vacation with my wife and we're drinking this wonderful Cabernet, looking out at the ocean and Portland, uh, beautiful.
And I thought, I need, I need help.
Yeah.
And I thought of the guy who hired me and it turns out he was on the executive committee of Accenture.
(11:42):
I reached out to him and said, you're alma mater suffering.
I need help to get to the highest levels of this multinational tech company.
And he replied immediately and goes, I actually serve on a board with a company jointly owned by Accenture in this company and the senior vice president for the service you have is on that board.
(12:06):
I'll call her on Monday.
(Andy (12:08):
The power of connections.)
So he lives in Florida and I just pictured in my mind this heat seeking missile coursing across America to hit the West coast.
And sure enough on Monday, I'm in my office and I get the call from the senior vice president and I said, Susan, we have a five alarm fire and your company is giving a one alarm response.
(12:35):
You don't want this to be public.
I do not want this to be public.
We need help.
And she immediately said, we will get you help.
And she hired a company on her nickel to review the project.
And frankly, there's blame on both sides.
We had some issues we needed to deal with.
(12:57):
She had some issues she needed to deal with.
She sent her team of engineers to campus and these people have never been outside before.
Yeah.
They had like possum eyes, you know, they're in their office programming their whole lives.
And I said, go sit with my executive assistant and watch the pain she's going through.
(13:21):
They never talked to a customer before.
They'd never seen a customer.
And the head of the team and I just connected because he knew we wanted them to be successful and they wanted us to be successful.
They came five times over a year and we had 40 issues and they knocked out all 40 issues.
(13:45):
We restarted the program and there were absolutely no problems after that.
You know, to think about, okay, who can help you?
And think about 40 years of relationships.
There's someone who can help you.
I guarantee it.
And is that, is that the sort of main lesson, I guess you took out of that experience over time that the connection thing is, is powerful.
(14:14):
And was that the inspiration for you writing this book about influencing relationships?
Yeah.
I mean, the culture of the firm, they focused on training, mentoring, and coaching.
From day one, they said the people you're working with, whether it's your client or your peers at the firm, someday may be your boss, may be a customer someday.
(14:38):
You need to treat them with respect and empathy and help them be successful because who knows what's going to happen in the future.
So 27 years later, from the day I started with the firm, I became chief information officer at the university of Texas.
The guy I started with became a chief information officer of this huge organization the same year, 27 years later, and actually became a client of ours, you know, so it actually came true.
(15:10):
There we go.
Perfect.
Don't burn, don't burn those bridges.
Well, I think this is the thing, right?
It's like, why do you think, and maybe this is something that you've explored in the book or the research for the book, but why do you think so many individuals, organizations neglect relationships to a point when they clearly drive so much performance and growth for those organizations or at least the potential to grow? What's behind it, Brad?
(15:38):
.
Well, I think people get wrapped up in transactions and counting transactions and not thinking long-term, no long-term view.
So if I'm a salesperson and I'm just racking up sales, the fact that I may be losing half my customers, it doesn't matter if I keep filling the bucket.
(16:03):
At Accenture, 80 to 90% of our customers are repeat customers.
Well, why is that?
We've had a successful relationship.
We helped them succeed.
They helped us succeed.
Usually that lasts years and decades.
It's a matter of how can you understand their goals and aspirations?
(16:26):
This is all business relationships.
How can you understand whether it's your boss, direct reports, or customers?
What are their goals and aspirations?
It's not hard.
You just have to ask.
And then two, set and manage expectations.
And I was bad at that early in my career.
I got a lot better later.
And three, third principle, genuinely care about their success.
(16:51):
So when I joined the university, I met with this professor, 40 years, electrical engineer, crusty dude.
And I said, okay, give me some advice, you guys.
Get out of the office and tell people you give a damn.
And that was the best advice.
Yeah.
Don't hide in your office.
Don't hide behind the screen.
You need to get out there.
(17:12):
And I think people get so caught up in transactions and they just don't stop and think strategically and intentionally, who should I be reaching out to?
Yeah, I just, I think it's missing in, in lots of places.
I think the simple framework there is, is a nice reckoner for, for, for where to, where to put our focus within that.
(17:37):
What I think is really interesting.
And I'd like to understand a bit more of from someone who's, who's written a book about it is what does an authentic relationship actually look like in practice?
That's a great question.
It needs to be mutually beneficial and it needs to be trusting and it needs to be enduring.
(17:59):
Those are the, that's what makes it authentic.
I had a woman who I work with early in my career and we had two or three very successful projects.
I didn't hear from her for 15 years.
Well, she reached out and said, Hey, I'm going to hire someone who used to work for you.
What do you think?
And I said, Ron, no, there's a reason he used to work for me.
(18:24):
Another five years goes by.
She calls me again and says, my son is moving to Austin.
He's applying for a job at the university.
He's an attorney.
Would you talk with him?
And it's like, and it's like, we hadn't stopped talking ever.
It was just like, it's kind of a litmus test where you just pick up where you left off.
(18:48):
And I said, of course, of course I'll talk to him.
I met her son when he was five years old.
So this is the thing. He's a lawyer now.
.
But this is, this is what happens.
I think if you think about your own personal life, your very best friends, you may not live near them necessarily, but you know, you, you, you see them once again and probably because you're good friends, it's not all about being in each other's pockets the whole time and talking all the time.
(19:13):
But in whatever that gap is, you start talking again.
It does feel like we were chatting five minutes ago.
Right.
And this is, this is no difference here.
I think what's also interesting is that word enduring.
Right.
So, I mean, there has to be some intention behind your actions to make it enduring, right?
(19:35):
Yes.
And what, what does that look like?
Well, when I joined the university, I was strategic and intentional about who I would build relationships with.
And for the professor, I needed to get out there and meet with people, talk to people.
And, you know, I thought, well, there's the vice president for public safety.
(19:58):
It's not a matter of if something will go wrong.
It's when it will go wrong.
And how do our teams work together?
And we had a bomb scare.
We had a shooting.
We had a murder.
We had a power go out.
We actually practiced our teams together once a year.
What would happen if there's a cyber attack?
What would happen if there's an ice storm?
What would happen if a hurricane came?
(20:20):
We made sure we had three emergency management centers that had copper phone lines.
Well, why is that?
When the power goes out, you don't have a network.
And he actually earns his doctorate at The Ohio State University.
He was one of my best clients.
I walked into his office.
There's all this memorabilia and stuff about Ohio State.
(20:44):
We just bonded immediately.
It was like, say no more.
And the vice provost for curriculum.
If I hadn't got out of my office and met with her and realized how frustrated she was with that learning management system, I wouldn't have known.
And I'd just be following some path.
(21:06):
Who knows?
Facilities.
We have 16 million square feet of buildings.
They all have IT.
Am I going to be a good citizen and work with that team?
Or am I going to be a bad citizen?
The culture I inherited with Central IT was heroics.
And they rewarded heroics.
And it was fire drill time all the time.
(21:29):
Fire drill.
And which is the opposite of my philosophy.
I want proactive customer service.
And I had seven direct reports, three of them self-ejected as we're trying to change the culture.
And the first thing we did in the first 90 days was we identified what are our values as a central support organization.
(21:53):
And we talked to campus.
And they wanted collaboration.
They wanted truthfulness.
They wanted consistency.
They wanted communication.
Yeah, they wanted us to be successful.
So those became our values.
We added one.
The prime directive was family first.
(22:15):
Well, why would we do that?
Austin, Texas has all the multinational tech companies.
So I'm competing with all the big names.
I cannot compete on salary.
But you know what I can compete on?
A balanced lifestyle.
So I've sent messages to the team, the entire staff, 330 people.
(22:39):
If you have a school play, go to the school play.
If you have a doctor's appointment, go to the doctor's appointment.
Do not check your email 24 hours a day.
If you're sick, stay home.
Don't be a hero.
And then I would model those behaviors.
Go to training, go on vacation.
And I actually wrote a blog once a week for eight years talking about the values.
(23:03):
It went to 330 people in my organization and about 300 other people on campus or other campuses interested in IT at UT.
And I would talk about what's going well, major projects that are coming.
We replaced all the phones, voiceover IP, 21,000 phones.
So basically irritated everybody.
(23:26):
But I also gave kudos to staff that were providing proactive customer service.
I would apologize when we screwed up.
And you know, when you have quarter million devices hooking to the network every day, things will go wrong.
And it's like, it's not if they'll go wrong, but how do we deal with it when it goes wrong?
(23:49):
And, you know, we just got much better at being consistent.
And, you know, over time people saw us as being proactive and customers not reactive and heroic.
They hated fire drills.
You know, it made their life bad.
I had a woman who worked for me who read the manuscript and said, where's my story?
(24:12):
I said, what story?
She says, when you ordered me to go meet with this manager who hated us.
Oh, that story.
I said, well, I'd rather have her in the tent than outside the tent throwing rocks at us.
And frankly, there was some bad behavior in the past.
You know, we were not a good partner.
So she started meeting with this manager.
(24:34):
Then after about seven, eight, nine months, that manager saw us change, saw us get better.
And she became an advocate for us.
And her boss, who also had some bad things happen, untruthfulness in the prior regime, he became an advocate.
(24:56):
But that doesn't happen if you're hiding in your office and hiding behind a screen.
All these things are music to my ears, hearing about intentional use of values and behaviors and upholding those things and role modeling them.
They're all wonderful things around what I think is great leadership today.
I think what I'm really interested in also is this intention to build relationships and influence.
(25:25):
I know I've got a guy in my network who I don't hear from for months and months and months, but almost like clockwork, I'll get an email or a text or something from him, just checking in.
And I swear somewhere he's got the world's biggest Rolodex and I'm just on the cycle, right?
Now, I don't care what process he has, but when he checks in with me, he's checking in with me.
(25:48):
It's not a robot checking in with me.
He's checking in with me.
And in this intention to build authentic relationships, are those the sort of practical practices that you would just do automatically, Brad?
Or did you have systems in place?
I mean, what was your story?
Very simple system.
It's called a calendar and put recurring calendar items.
(26:11):
So once a month, I would meet with the VP for public safety, whether I needed to or not.
And I would always send an agenda prior, ask for his input, same thing with the vice provost for curriculum.
And I asked my people to do the same.
So I had seven direct reports.
I asked them to meet with their peers across campus.
(26:34):
So everyone had seven to 10 consistent checkpoints at least once a month.
So that was like our nervous system.
You know, we would learn, you know, how are we doing out there?
You know, what should we be doing differently?
What do you need that you need to be successful?
(26:55):
Is there a way we can help you with that?
And then I would ask my directors to put that in their status report.
So once a week, we were getting feedback from probably, you know, each month, 70 people on campus.
One of my peers was really good about sharing rumors with me.
He would call me up and say, Brad, I heard a rumor.
(27:17):
I heard that there are not enough licenses for the students to track their training.
And we need that in the labs for federal requirements.
I said, you know, Bob, that's a great rumor.
I'll go check.
And I talked to my licensing guy.
And no, we had covered all the licenses for the students.
(27:40):
So I was able to call him up, same day, nip it in the bud.
He had another rumor.
There's not enough diesel in the generators at the data center.
Good rumor.
I'll check.
Well, one of the generators ran on natural gas, so that was not a problem.
But the other, we topped up the diesel every month.
(28:00):
We had an annual maintenance cycle.
And I was able to just call them and say, you need to tell that person it's not a problem.
And just think of how that diffused a lot of angst within an organization.
Yeah, I just think that a lot of that intention when it comes to the relationships is not front of mind.
(28:20):
It's sometimes a byproduct.
It's sometimes completely missed because task takes over.
You talked about the transactive world that we live in.
I think it really does take this sort of intention.
You could argue that, you know, you're in this place, you're a man of influence.
You're a man of position.
And so it's easier for you to have these relationships, maintain these relationships, gain influence.
(28:45):
But I know you're confident to talk about how to influence up and down through an organization, even when you don't have the authority or you're early in your career and you haven't got that kind of backlog to back you up.
If you're talking to people about this particular element of building relationships, what's your advice, Brad?
(29:10):
What are the secrets that you've amassed over the years?
Well, I think you need to start from day one and work with your customers, work with your staff because over time, you know, you're going to keep working with them.
And it's kind of simple.
You know, someone said, Brad, your book is common sense.
(29:33):
And then they said, but not everyone has common sense.
And, you know, with my direct reports, they never got out of their office and met with customers.
You know, I had to set that expectation.
And then they saw the value in it.
And IT people are not known for being, you know, good schmoozers.
(29:54):
They usually have sharp elbows.
So, you know, just to set the expectation that part of your job is to go talk to your customers, you know, I think they appreciate it.
One of my direct reports said that I helped her slow down.
Okay, so she's brilliant.
(30:16):
You know, she would run to whatever the problem was and, you know, ready to solve it.
And I would often slow her down and say, well, what really is the problem?
You know, one of my techniques is intentional foot dragging.
Sometimes you just need to let things sort themselves out.
(30:38):
And, you know, jumping in too early with the wrong answers, not always the right answer.
And so I think just setting those expectations.
And I had to learn that.
I had a partner who is a type A personality.
Everything was urgent, urgent with her.
(30:59):
And one night I'm trying to leave at a reasonable time to have dinner with my wife.
And literally five o'clock the phone rings.
And it's a partner.
Brad, I need a white paper.
Oh, white paper.
Well, I read a book just the day before I finished the book.
And it's called Managing Expectations.
(31:20):
And it's by a psychologist, Naomi Curtin, who had, she was a psychologist who worked in IT.
So she had these principles that she would use to manage expectations.
And one of the principles was just say, whoa, don't say no, because especially a type A personality, they'll explode.
(31:41):
I was scared, but I literally said, whoa.
I said, when do you need this white paper?
Well, let me check my calendar.
Oh, I need it.
I need it in two weeks.
Oh, how many pages do you want this white paper to be?
Three pages.
I was thinking 10.
Do you have an example of white paper that I could use?
(32:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I asked David.
I wrote one on XYZ Corp 10 years ago.
Well, guess what?
I went home and had dinner with my wife.
Now, before I learned to say, whoa, I would call her and cancel dinner, upsetting her and me.
I would have stayed up all night and delivered a 10-page paper the next day and get yelled at.
(32:23):
Yeah.
And you're managing two relationships there with that approach as well, right?
The important relationship at home as well as the office relationship.
That's right.
So after learning to say, whoa, I never missed a vacation.
I never missed training.
I went to the school play.
I went to the doctor because, you know, two phrases came up, came to me in writing the book.
(32:49):
One is use your words.
So if you want something, you need to say something.
And if you're an employee and you need something from the boss, use your words.
If you're the boss, you need to know people are not mind readers.
So you need to tell people what you want and don't just assume they can figure it out on their own.
(33:12):
And for those people early in their career, is there a particular thing that you would recommend that they absolutely do when they're trying to begin and grow their sphere of influence?
Well, I would start with your boss.
You know, some people are afraid to ask what the boss's goals and aspirations are.
(33:34):
Well, why would you be afraid?
When I was the boss, I welcomed that discussion.
How can you help me be successful as a good conversation?
I want to have to set and manage those expectations.
So when your boss gives you an assignment, be sure you understand, you know, what's expected.
What is expected?
(33:55):
What are the resources needed?
It's okay to have that conversation.
And then third, genuinely care about your boss.
So in our consulting firm, all partners have sales targets.
Well, how could I help my partner meet their sales target?
I can write a proposal.
I can help with a project.
(34:17):
You know, there's things that I can bring to the table that I can help with.
And a lot of people hate writing proposals.
You know, I liked writing proposals because that's the lifeblood of the firm.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I don't know why I should be surprised that it comes back to the three principles.
I mean, in my head, I'm like, is there some magic pixie dust that gets sprinkled on the people who start the relationship?
(34:41):
Well, that's the beauty.
You don't have to be born with the skill.
You can learn how to build authentic relationships, just like coding a program.
You just got to follow the principles and practice.
And I guess, again, not wanting to sort of preempt the answer, these principles, how do these principles bring real meaning when perhaps relationships go bad?
(35:08):
Like when things have escalated too far, or perhaps a relationship has been left on the back burner for too long, and things get a little messy.
People forget emotional intelligence at this point, and it starts to get quite difficult.
How do you use this framework to kind of right the ship when we're in that sort of situation?
(35:32):
Well, not all the stories in the book are good.
Yeah, there are some that are good, bad, and ugly.
I had a peer of mine who was toxic, and I made a point to meet with him every two weeks.
So other peers I'm meeting with once a month.
(35:54):
But, you know, keep your friends close and enemies closer.
I wanted to make sure I had a dialogue.
And he thought he knew everything about running central IT.
He didn't.
And, you know, we both reported to the same boss, and early on in my first year, I would get this email from the boss clearly written by my toxic peer.
(36:21):
Now, how did I know that?
One, the boss always sent email from his phone with no subject line, and toxic peer always had clouds of words.
And, you know, I do run the calendar system.
So I looked and said, well, when did the peer meet with the boss?
(36:42):
Oh, two to three.
At 3.02, I get an email from the boss.
So I talked to the boss.
I said, look, if you want him to run my organization, you don't need me.
Yeah.
So I need you to hold him accountable for his organization.
I need you to hold me accountable for my organization.
(37:07):
And if you want him to run my organization, I'm leaving.
And he said, well, thank you for the frank conversation, but it nipped it in the bud.
Now, did that stop the peer?
No.
So I kept, you know, kept the dialogue going, kept it open.
(37:28):
I actually had a strategy for dealing with him and his direct reports.
And I had my direct reports do the same thing.
And the strategy was they can hit us with batons.
They can send the dogs after us.
They can shoot us with water cannons, but we're not going to fall into the trap.
(37:49):
We're going to keep our eye on the prize and walk across that bridge.
Because pigs love mud.
So don't get in the mud with the pigs.
And they were darn good at it.
I mean, they would run circles around us.
So we just had a strategy, which is, you know, we're just going to love them to death.
(38:10):
I think it's a good strategy.
I think it's a good strategy.
It's so easy to get drawn into things and behaviors that aren't conducive to maintaining, building, nurturing relationships.
And I think that's where a lot of people get lost in the combat zone of business.
And actually, I think it takes a lot of resilience at times to stay consistent to those values.
(38:35):
I think that's what's great though, about that earlier thing you were talking about, about values and behaviors within your team.
You know, lots of people do it for businesses, fewer do it for team.
They will absolutely act as that anchor point for you as a team.
This is where we win.
And we don't want to get drawn out of that for a short term, well, possible gain.
(38:57):
But reality, we compromise ourselves and we lose in the long term.
I think that's fascinating and important.
I did want to ask you before we completely run out of time.
I mean, if you think about the decades of your career and how things have kind of changed, and we are in, let's be honest, a more distracted world than ever before.
(39:20):
Relationship building has kind of changed, I think, from COVID.
The amount of time we spend on screens with each other is untold, based on what was happening just years before.
But do you think it has hurt the ability to build relationships, strengthened the ability for relationship, changed the paradigm in terms of how we build relationships today?
(39:44):
What's your view on how we're doing it now?
And is it harder to make those meaningful connections with the context of what we're dealing with today?
I think it's very easy to get overwhelmed with minutiae.
And the thing you need to fight is inertia.
(40:04):
And so it's easy to, well, I'll meet with them maybe next month.
Well, maybe, you know, three months go by and you haven't reached out.
Six months go by.
I had a team at Accenture for two years that was virtual.
So this was virtual before it was cool.
And I had 90 people all across North America.
(40:26):
And when we had a project, we would send people to different projects.
And my direct reports every Friday for an hour would get on a conference call, good old-fashioned conference call before Zoom.
And we would talk about what are the opportunities in the pipeline?
What are some assignments that we can give people to give them stretch roles?
(40:47):
You know, and built up that camaraderie.
The other thing I did was I referred to as the Winnebago tours.
So I would go visit, you know, the team in San Francisco, the team in New York, the one in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
And I would meet with my clients.
I would meet with my team, all levels.
(41:10):
I would take the team to dinner.
And when we did 360 reviews, they loved the Winnebago tours because it showed I cared.
I was interested in all their development and interested in helping our clients be successful.
So twice a year, we would meet in person.
And that would, where we would, you know, build stronger relationships.
(41:33):
But you can do it virtually.
I think you can do it virtually.
I think the interesting thing is whether we just default to it too often.
And I think the lesson I'm hearing that you are subtly giving, Brad, is, again, there's more intention in, you know, striking out and making that personal contact face-to-face where you can.
(41:57):
It does show a bit more meaning to plan a visit to go and see somebody, even if it's just down the road or even across the office.
I mean, that could be a trip for some people.
I think it is that intention of coming back to this essence that I think within your book is about playing the human in the relationship, right?
(42:18):
And really making meaningful connections.
It's human centric leadership.
Absolutely.
Which is why it's been fantastic to get you on this podcast, because that's what we talk about every couple of weeks, right?
Just stepping up.
Yeah, well, exactly.
This is the thing.
I think we are wired for connection as humans, and I think we just take that for granted.
(42:43):
And I think if we just lean into it a little bit more, we actually enjoy this stuff.
It's more rewarding.
Exactly, exactly.
And Brad, before I let you go, I've got to the part in the show I call sticky notes.
And so this is a simplistic attempt to harness all of your pearls of wisdom into three little sticky notes that you can imagine stuck on someone's screen as reminders of the things to focus on.
(43:09):
So if we were thinking about leaving the listeners with some practical advice for intentionally building stronger, meaningful, more productive relationships, what would your three pieces of advice be, my friend?
Understand their goals and aspirations, set and manage expectations, and genuinely care.
(43:31):
I knew this is what you were going to say.
And this is what I think beautifully simplistic, but cleverly deep behind these three pieces.
They sound like you said before, common sense.
A common practice of these commonsensical things is not universal, not universal.
Which is another link to the world of Covey and the whole influence and control spheres, my friend.
(43:59):
Brad, I've loved having you on.
Before you go, where can people find out more about you and the book?
I'm on LinkedIn, so feel free to connect there.
My website is bradenglert.com, and I'm going to send you a link to my website for your show notes that will provide three offers.
(44:20):
Sample the book, how to buy the book, and a third tab, how to schedule time on my calendar.
Love that, brilliant.
We'll put that absolutely in the show notes, my friend, and share that with everybody.
Brad, it's been fantastic having you on.
I am a better person for having met you and got to speak to you.
Thanks so much.
Oh, you're welcome.
I enjoyed it.
(44:41):
Okay, everyone, that was Brad Englert.
And if you'd like to find out a bit more about him, where to get the book, or anything else that we've talked about on today's show, please check out the show notes.
So that concludes today's episode.
I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting, and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward.
(45:08):
If you have, please like, comment, and subscribe.
It really helps.
I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast.
Until next time, thanks for listening.
Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition-smashing, consistently successful organisations from the inside out.
I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them and create tonnes more success for everyone.
(00:39):
This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.
Each episode we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses, the sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work, and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it.
(01:03):
So if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.
Okay then, we hear a lot about networking, work the room, grow your contacts, live on LinkedIn, but in a world full of shallow connections and performative corporate small talk, what does it really take to build genuine, meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships in business?
(01:30):
According to today's guest, that's not a soft skill either.
It's a critical, hard skill, one that could shape your career, your team success and even your company's long-term future.
Brad Englert is the author of Spheres of Influence, How to Create and Nurture Authentic Business Relationships.
(01:50):
It's an Amazon bestseller across three different business categories, which is impressive stuff.
And Brad's not just writing from theory, he has lived this.
He spent over two decades with Accenture, including 10 years as a partner before becoming CIO at the University of Texas in Austin, where he's led the modernization of systems that supported over 75,000 people.
(02:16):
His entire career has been built on relationships, both internal and external with execs, staffs, customers, partners, vendors, and a whole host of other people.
And in today's conversation, we're going to start not with the framework, and by the word, it's a beautifully simple framework, but with a story about a relationship that changed everything for Brad.
(02:40):
And then from there, we'll explore why treating relationships as soft stuff is going to be holding us back, where and how we can begin to earn influence, even when you're early on in your career, and what to do when business relationships break down, but also how to stay meaningful in a world that increasingly rewards the quick and the transactional.
(03:03):
And it's all linked to Brad's beautifully simple framework.
So if you'd like to improve your stakeholder management, or be better at building cross-functional trust, or just consistently keep your business relationships human, I think you're going to love this one.
Brad, welcome to the show, my friend.
Thanks for inviting me.
(03:24):
Super to have you here, my friend.
Really good.
I'm so looking forward to this conversation about relationships and networking, and really interested in the whole point about making that meaningful.
I think some people treat their relationships as the needs must bit to look up when you need a job.
(03:44):
Who can I call to put me in touch with someone?
And other than that, you just don't pay attention to it, or in most cases, we don't.
But we can unpick all of that later on, I'm sure, in this conversation.
But before we get started, my friend, do you want to just give us a brief introduction, in fact, a better introduction than I gave in that intro, to you, what you do, and what you're focusing on right now?
(04:07):
Sure.
I started as an exchange student in high school in Australia, then I went back to the same high school and taught for a year and a half, which was a lot of fun.
And even though as a Yank, they knew I had been there, I was an old boy, so I knew where they smoked cigarettes.
(04:27):
Then I realized I wanted to go to graduate school, so I got a map of the U.S. out on the kitchen table, and I picked Austin, Texas, and came here, great university, had been to Austin before, and started a master's program, and did a lot of research in the use of computers and government.
(04:47):
This was the early 80s, so personal computers were just coming out, and just the whole growth of the industry was projected to boom.
And so I joined Arthur Anderson, which has a wonderful three-year training program for people like me with a liberal arts undergraduate degree and a master in public affairs, and they taught me how to code and how to design programs and how to manage coders and designers.
(05:15):
And after about 20 years, I was managing $20 to $30 million projects with a couple hundred people.
So, you know, it was just a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow.
And the culture of the firm was such that they really valued training and mentoring and coaching.
And even as a senior partner, I was expected to teach once a year in our training center outside of Chicago.
(05:43):
And three months before I retired, I was teaching with other partners, project management to 200 people from all over the world, and it was just such a joy.
And after I retired, I got called by the university, my alma mater, and they needed some IT strategy work, and I offered to help them hour a week pro bono, and that was in October.
(06:08):
By March, I was halftime, by June, full-time.
And eight years later, I retired again as the chief information officer for seven of those years.
And my first year was H1N1 swine flu.
The president asked, could we go online?
The simple answer was no.
Our equipment was eight to 10 years old.
(06:29):
Our learning management system, which 54,000 students use and 4,000 faculty, was buggy.
And the students lovingly called it clunky.
So I worked with the vice provost for curriculum, and she hated that system as well.
And her team, which helps instructors in the classroom with technology, and my team went to the market, and we evaluated 15 products, and actually a group of students and faculty picked the replacement learning management system.
(07:06):
And my legacy vendor, he would only show up once a year for his maintenance check.
And it was always 10% more than the prior year.
And he just didn't care.
He didn't care about us.
And when we had issues, you know, they were sluggish.
(07:26):
And their tech support was erratic.
My tech guy was erratic.
So we embarked on a two-year transition to move to this new learning management system.
Luckily, the students loved it, and the faculty.
So there's a natural pull to the new, and people were happy to leave the old behind.
After two years of transition, an email was sent to the president, copying the vice provost and me, and I thought, oh my God, I'm going to get fired.
(07:55):
Because, you know, what could possibly go wrong, right?
Thousands of things.
And the email was from all the department contacts we worked with, thanking us for helping them with the transition, and doing it with humility and sincerity, and even a little humor along the way.
(08:15):
And we had a big celebration, invited the department leads.
And we have a bowling alley on campus.
So we had bowling, we had pizza.
And I made a, I had ordered a cake in the shape of a tombstone that had the old learning management system's name on it, with rest in peace.
And we feasted on the cake.
(08:38):
My legacy account rep did not even know that we were making a two-year transition.
That's how clueless he was.
So he didn't hear the bullet coming when I fired him.
There's some real transition there in that then, some real transition.
So, you know, a guy that's had at least two careers that you've just explained to me now, and now an author of a book, a book that focuses very much on creating what I interpret as meaningful relationships with people, which I think is critically important in today's world.
(09:14):
And I mentioned in the intro, because when we first met, we were talking about relationships and there were some exchange stories about relationships.
I'm just interested to know from your perspective, Brad, has there been one particular relationship, business or personal, that changed everything for you?
(09:34):
Changed something about your career?
May have changed you?
Is there a story you could share with us?
Yeah, it's really the partner that worked for Arthur Anderson, who also went to my graduate school.
And when he learned I was studying the use of computers in government, he said, hell Brad, that's what we do.
(09:57):
And, you know, he was my mentor for many years.
And I actually went through 22 years of annual reviews and just read that partner and another partner helped me grow into being a partner, getting the technical skills, getting the project management skills, and more importantly, stretch roles.
(10:23):
You know, they had me work as a manager when I was a senior consultant.
They gave me a role as an associate partner when I was a senior manager.
They gave me a partner role when I was an associate partner.
And it was really wonderful because it was kind of a less risk environment.
It was a learning environment and they treated it as such.
(10:46):
And so even if I made mistakes, you know, I was in a learning situation.
And more importantly, when I was finally promoted to partner, I had already walked the walk.
You know, I knew I would be successful and they knew I would be successful.
Um, at the university, I had a problem with this multinational company that was not being responsive and I was stuck down in the bowels of this company and I couldn't get up to management.
(11:21):
And I was on vacation with my wife and we're drinking this wonderful Cabernet, looking out at the ocean and Portland, uh, beautiful.
And I thought, I need, I need help.
Yeah.
And I thought of the guy who hired me and it turns out he was on the executive committee of Accenture.
(11:42):
I reached out to him and said, you're alma mater suffering.
I need help to get to the highest levels of this multinational tech company.
And he replied immediately and goes, I actually serve on a board with a company jointly owned by Accenture in this company and the senior vice president for the service you have is on that board.
(12:06):
I'll call her on Monday.
(Andy (12:08):
The power of connections.)
So he lives in Florida and I just pictured in my mind this heat seeking missile coursing across America to hit the West coast.
And sure enough on Monday, I'm in my office and I get the call from the senior vice president and I said, Susan, we have a five alarm fire and your company is giving a one alarm response.
(12:35):
You don't want this to be public.
I do not want this to be public.
We need help.
And she immediately said, we will get you help.
And she hired a company on her nickel to review the project.
And frankly, there's blame on both sides.
We had some issues we needed to deal with.
(12:57):
She had some issues she needed to deal with.
She sent her team of engineers to campus and these people have never been outside before.
Yeah.
They had like possum eyes, you know, they're in their office programming their whole lives.
And I said, go sit with my executive assistant and watch the pain she's going through.
(13:21):
They never talked to a customer before.
They'd never seen a customer.
And the head of the team and I just connected because he knew we wanted them to be successful and they wanted us to be successful.
They came five times over a year and we had 40 issues and they knocked out all 40 issues.
(13:45):
We restarted the program and there were absolutely no problems after that.
You know, to think about, okay, who can help you?
And think about 40 years of relationships.
There's someone who can help you.
I guarantee it.
And is that, is that the sort of main lesson, I guess you took out of that experience over time that the connection thing is, is powerful.
(14:14):
And was that the inspiration for you writing this book about influencing relationships?
Yeah.
I mean, the culture of the firm, they focused on training, mentoring, and coaching.
From day one, they said the people you're working with, whether it's your client or your peers at the firm, someday may be your boss, may be a customer someday.
(14:38):
You need to treat them with respect and empathy and help them be successful because who knows what's going to happen in the future.
So 27 years later, from the day I started with the firm, I became chief information officer at the university of Texas.
The guy I started with became a chief information officer of this huge organization the same year, 27 years later, and actually became a client of ours, you know, so it actually came true.
(15:10):
There we go.
Perfect.
Don't burn, don't burn those bridges.
Well, I think this is the thing, right?
It's like, why do you think, and maybe this is something that you've explored in the book or the research for the book, but why do you think so many individuals, organizations neglect relationships to a point when they clearly drive so much performance and growth for those organizations or at least the potential to grow? What's behind it, Brad?
(15:38):
.
Well, I think people get wrapped up in transactions and counting transactions and not thinking long-term, no long-term view.
So if I'm a salesperson and I'm just racking up sales, the fact that I may be losing half my customers, it doesn't matter if I keep filling the bucket.
(16:03):
At Accenture, 80 to 90% of our customers are repeat customers.
Well, why is that?
We've had a successful relationship.
We helped them succeed.
They helped us succeed.
Usually that lasts years and decades.
It's a matter of how can you understand their goals and aspirations?
(16:26):
This is all business relationships.
How can you understand whether it's your boss, direct reports, or customers?
What are their goals and aspirations?
It's not hard.
You just have to ask.
And then two, set and manage expectations.
And I was bad at that early in my career.
I got a lot better later.
And three, third principle, genuinely care about their success.
(16:51):
So when I joined the university, I met with this professor, 40 years, electrical engineer, crusty dude.
And I said, okay, give me some advice, you guys.
Get out of the office and tell people you give a damn.
And that was the best advice.
Yeah.
Don't hide in your office.
Don't hide behind the screen.
You need to get out there.
(17:12):
And I think people get so caught up in transactions and they just don't stop and think strategically and intentionally, who should I be reaching out to?
Yeah, I just, I think it's missing in, in lots of places.
I think the simple framework there is, is a nice reckoner for, for, for where to, where to put our focus within that.
(17:37):
What I think is really interesting.
And I'd like to understand a bit more of from someone who's, who's written a book about it is what does an authentic relationship actually look like in practice?
That's a great question.
It needs to be mutually beneficial and it needs to be trusting and it needs to be enduring.
(17:59):
Those are the, that's what makes it authentic.
I had a woman who I work with early in my career and we had two or three very successful projects.
I didn't hear from her for 15 years.
Well, she reached out and said, Hey, I'm going to hire someone who used to work for you.
What do you think?
And I said, Ron, no, there's a reason he used to work for me.
(18:24):
Another five years goes by.
She calls me again and says, my son is moving to Austin.
He's applying for a job at the university.
He's an attorney.
Would you talk with him?
And it's like, and it's like, we hadn't stopped talking ever.
It was just like, it's kind of a litmus test where you just pick up where you left off.
(18:48):
And I said, of course, of course I'll talk to him.
I met her son when he was five years old.
So this is the thing. He's a lawyer now.
.
But this is, this is what happens.
I think if you think about your own personal life, your very best friends, you may not live near them necessarily, but you know, you, you, you see them once again and probably because you're good friends, it's not all about being in each other's pockets the whole time and talking all the time.
(19:13):
But in whatever that gap is, you start talking again.
It does feel like we were chatting five minutes ago.
Right.
And this is, this is no difference here.
I think what's also interesting is that word enduring.
Right.
So, I mean, there has to be some intention behind your actions to make it enduring, right?
(19:35):
Yes.
And what, what does that look like?
Well, when I joined the university, I was strategic and intentional about who I would build relationships with.
And for the professor, I needed to get out there and meet with people, talk to people.
And, you know, I thought, well, there's the vice president for public safety.
(19:58):
It's not a matter of if something will go wrong.
It's when it will go wrong.
And how do our teams work together?
And we had a bomb scare.
We had a shooting.
We had a murder.
We had a power go out.
We actually practiced our teams together once a year.
What would happen if there's a cyber attack?
What would happen if there's an ice storm?
What would happen if a hurricane came?
(20:20):
We made sure we had three emergency management centers that had copper phone lines.
Well, why is that?
When the power goes out, you don't have a network.
And he actually earns his doctorate at The Ohio State University.
He was one of my best clients.
I walked into his office.
There's all this memorabilia and stuff about Ohio State.
(20:44):
We just bonded immediately.
It was like, say no more.
And the vice provost for curriculum.
If I hadn't got out of my office and met with her and realized how frustrated she was with that learning management system, I wouldn't have known.
And I'd just be following some path.
(21:06):
Who knows?
Facilities.
We have 16 million square feet of buildings.
They all have IT.
Am I going to be a good citizen and work with that team?
Or am I going to be a bad citizen?
The culture I inherited with Central IT was heroics.
And they rewarded heroics.
And it was fire drill time all the time.
(21:29):
Fire drill.
And which is the opposite of my philosophy.
I want proactive customer service.
And I had seven direct reports, three of them self-ejected as we're trying to change the culture.
And the first thing we did in the first 90 days was we identified what are our values as a central support organization.
(21:53):
And we talked to campus.
And they wanted collaboration.
They wanted truthfulness.
They wanted consistency.
They wanted communication.
Yeah, they wanted us to be successful.
So those became our values.
We added one.
The prime directive was family first.
(22:15):
Well, why would we do that?
Austin, Texas has all the multinational tech companies.
So I'm competing with all the big names.
I cannot compete on salary.
But you know what I can compete on?
A balanced lifestyle.
So I've sent messages to the team, the entire staff, 330 people.
(22:39):
If you have a school play, go to the school play.
If you have a doctor's appointment, go to the doctor's appointment.
Do not check your email 24 hours a day.
If you're sick, stay home.
Don't be a hero.
And then I would model those behaviors.
Go to training, go on vacation.
And I actually wrote a blog once a week for eight years talking about the values.
(23:03):
It went to 330 people in my organization and about 300 other people on campus or other campuses interested in IT at UT.
And I would talk about what's going well, major projects that are coming.
We replaced all the phones, voiceover IP, 21,000 phones.
So basically irritated everybody.
(23:26):
But I also gave kudos to staff that were providing proactive customer service.
I would apologize when we screwed up.
And you know, when you have quarter million devices hooking to the network every day, things will go wrong.
And it's like, it's not if they'll go wrong, but how do we deal with it when it goes wrong?
(23:49):
And, you know, we just got much better at being consistent.
And, you know, over time people saw us as being proactive and customers not reactive and heroic.
They hated fire drills.
You know, it made their life bad.
I had a woman who worked for me who read the manuscript and said, where's my story?
(24:12):
I said, what story?
She says, when you ordered me to go meet with this manager who hated us.
Oh, that story.
I said, well, I'd rather have her in the tent than outside the tent throwing rocks at us.
And frankly, there was some bad behavior in the past.
You know, we were not a good partner.
So she started meeting with this manager.
(24:34):
Then after about seven, eight, nine months, that manager saw us change, saw us get better.
And she became an advocate for us.
And her boss, who also had some bad things happen, untruthfulness in the prior regime, he became an advocate.
(24:56):
But that doesn't happen if you're hiding in your office and hiding behind a screen.
All these things are music to my ears, hearing about intentional use of values and behaviors and upholding those things and role modeling them.
They're all wonderful things around what I think is great leadership today.
I think what I'm really interested in also is this intention to build relationships and influence.
(25:25):
I know I've got a guy in my network who I don't hear from for months and months and months, but almost like clockwork, I'll get an email or a text or something from him, just checking in.
And I swear somewhere he's got the world's biggest Rolodex and I'm just on the cycle, right?
Now, I don't care what process he has, but when he checks in with me, he's checking in with me.
(25:48):
It's not a robot checking in with me.
He's checking in with me.
And in this intention to build authentic relationships, are those the sort of practical practices that you would just do automatically, Brad?
Or did you have systems in place?
I mean, what was your story?
Very simple system.
It's called a calendar and put recurring calendar items.
(26:11):
So once a month, I would meet with the VP for public safety, whether I needed to or not.
And I would always send an agenda prior, ask for his input, same thing with the vice provost for curriculum.
And I asked my people to do the same.
So I had seven direct reports.
I asked them to meet with their peers across campus.
(26:34):
So everyone had seven to 10 consistent checkpoints at least once a month.
So that was like our nervous system.
You know, we would learn, you know, how are we doing out there?
You know, what should we be doing differently?
What do you need that you need to be successful?
(26:55):
Is there a way we can help you with that?
And then I would ask my directors to put that in their status report.
So once a week, we were getting feedback from probably, you know, each month, 70 people on campus.
One of my peers was really good about sharing rumors with me.
He would call me up and say, Brad, I heard a rumor.
(27:17):
I heard that there are not enough licenses for the students to track their training.
And we need that in the labs for federal requirements.
I said, you know, Bob, that's a great rumor.
I'll go check.
And I talked to my licensing guy.
And no, we had covered all the licenses for the students.
(27:40):
So I was able to call him up, same day, nip it in the bud.
He had another rumor.
There's not enough diesel in the generators at the data center.
Good rumor.
I'll check.
Well, one of the generators ran on natural gas, so that was not a problem.
But the other, we topped up the diesel every month.
(28:00):
We had an annual maintenance cycle.
And I was able to just call them and say, you need to tell that person it's not a problem.
And just think of how that diffused a lot of angst within an organization.
Yeah, I just think that a lot of that intention when it comes to the relationships is not front of mind.
(28:20):
It's sometimes a byproduct.
It's sometimes completely missed because task takes over.
You talked about the transactive world that we live in.
I think it really does take this sort of intention.
You could argue that, you know, you're in this place, you're a man of influence.
You're a man of position.
And so it's easier for you to have these relationships, maintain these relationships, gain influence.
(28:45):
But I know you're confident to talk about how to influence up and down through an organization, even when you don't have the authority or you're early in your career and you haven't got that kind of backlog to back you up.
If you're talking to people about this particular element of building relationships, what's your advice, Brad?
(29:10):
What are the secrets that you've amassed over the years?
Well, I think you need to start from day one and work with your customers, work with your staff because over time, you know, you're going to keep working with them.
And it's kind of simple.
You know, someone said, Brad, your book is common sense.
(29:33):
And then they said, but not everyone has common sense.
And, you know, with my direct reports, they never got out of their office and met with customers.
You know, I had to set that expectation.
And then they saw the value in it.
And IT people are not known for being, you know, good schmoozers.
(29:54):
They usually have sharp elbows.
So, you know, just to set the expectation that part of your job is to go talk to your customers, you know, I think they appreciate it.
One of my direct reports said that I helped her slow down.
Okay, so she's brilliant.
(30:16):
You know, she would run to whatever the problem was and, you know, ready to solve it.
And I would often slow her down and say, well, what really is the problem?
You know, one of my techniques is intentional foot dragging.
Sometimes you just need to let things sort themselves out.
(30:38):
And, you know, jumping in too early with the wrong answers, not always the right answer.
And so I think just setting those expectations.
And I had to learn that.
I had a partner who is a type A personality.
Everything was urgent, urgent with her.
(30:59):
And one night I'm trying to leave at a reasonable time to have dinner with my wife.
And literally five o'clock the phone rings.
And it's a partner.
Brad, I need a white paper.
Oh, white paper.
Well, I read a book just the day before I finished the book.
And it's called Managing Expectations.
(31:20):
And it's by a psychologist, Naomi Curtin, who had, she was a psychologist who worked in IT.
So she had these principles that she would use to manage expectations.
And one of the principles was just say, whoa, don't say no, because especially a type A personality, they'll explode.
(31:41):
I was scared, but I literally said, whoa.
I said, when do you need this white paper?
Well, let me check my calendar.
Oh, I need it.
I need it in two weeks.
Oh, how many pages do you want this white paper to be?
Three pages.
I was thinking 10.
Do you have an example of white paper that I could use?
(32:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I asked David.
I wrote one on XYZ Corp 10 years ago.
Well, guess what?
I went home and had dinner with my wife.
Now, before I learned to say, whoa, I would call her and cancel dinner, upsetting her and me.
I would have stayed up all night and delivered a 10-page paper the next day and get yelled at.
(32:23):
Yeah.
And you're managing two relationships there with that approach as well, right?
The important relationship at home as well as the office relationship.
That's right.
So after learning to say, whoa, I never missed a vacation.
I never missed training.
I went to the school play.
I went to the doctor because, you know, two phrases came up, came to me in writing the book.
(32:49):
One is use your words.
So if you want something, you need to say something.
And if you're an employee and you need something from the boss, use your words.
If you're the boss, you need to know people are not mind readers.
So you need to tell people what you want and don't just assume they can figure it out on their own.
(33:12):
And for those people early in their career, is there a particular thing that you would recommend that they absolutely do when they're trying to begin and grow their sphere of influence?
Well, I would start with your boss.
You know, some people are afraid to ask what the boss's goals and aspirations are.
(33:34):
Well, why would you be afraid?
When I was the boss, I welcomed that discussion.
How can you help me be successful as a good conversation?
I want to have to set and manage those expectations.
So when your boss gives you an assignment, be sure you understand, you know, what's expected.
What is expected?
(33:55):
What are the resources needed?
It's okay to have that conversation.
And then third, genuinely care about your boss.
So in our consulting firm, all partners have sales targets.
Well, how could I help my partner meet their sales target?
I can write a proposal.
I can help with a project.
(34:17):
You know, there's things that I can bring to the table that I can help with.
And a lot of people hate writing proposals.
You know, I liked writing proposals because that's the lifeblood of the firm.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I don't know why I should be surprised that it comes back to the three principles.
I mean, in my head, I'm like, is there some magic pixie dust that gets sprinkled on the people who start the relationship?
(34:41):
Well, that's the beauty.
You don't have to be born with the skill.
You can learn how to build authentic relationships, just like coding a program.
You just got to follow the principles and practice.
And I guess, again, not wanting to sort of preempt the answer, these principles, how do these principles bring real meaning when perhaps relationships go bad?
(35:08):
Like when things have escalated too far, or perhaps a relationship has been left on the back burner for too long, and things get a little messy.
People forget emotional intelligence at this point, and it starts to get quite difficult.
How do you use this framework to kind of right the ship when we're in that sort of situation?
(35:32):
Well, not all the stories in the book are good.
Yeah, there are some that are good, bad, and ugly.
I had a peer of mine who was toxic, and I made a point to meet with him every two weeks.
So other peers I'm meeting with once a month.
(35:54):
But, you know, keep your friends close and enemies closer.
I wanted to make sure I had a dialogue.
And he thought he knew everything about running central IT.
He didn't.
And, you know, we both reported to the same boss, and early on in my first year, I would get this email from the boss clearly written by my toxic peer.
(36:21):
Now, how did I know that?
One, the boss always sent email from his phone with no subject line, and toxic peer always had clouds of words.
And, you know, I do run the calendar system.
So I looked and said, well, when did the peer meet with the boss?
(36:42):
Oh, two to three.
At 3.02, I get an email from the boss.
So I talked to the boss.
I said, look, if you want him to run my organization, you don't need me.
Yeah.
So I need you to hold him accountable for his organization.
I need you to hold me accountable for my organization.
(37:07):
And if you want him to run my organization, I'm leaving.
And he said, well, thank you for the frank conversation, but it nipped it in the bud.
Now, did that stop the peer?
No.
So I kept, you know, kept the dialogue going, kept it open.
(37:28):
I actually had a strategy for dealing with him and his direct reports.
And I had my direct reports do the same thing.
And the strategy was they can hit us with batons.
They can send the dogs after us.
They can shoot us with water cannons, but we're not going to fall into the trap.
(37:49):
We're going to keep our eye on the prize and walk across that bridge.
Because pigs love mud.
So don't get in the mud with the pigs.
And they were darn good at it.
I mean, they would run circles around us.
So we just had a strategy, which is, you know, we're just going to love them to death.
(38:10):
I think it's a good strategy.
I think it's a good strategy.
It's so easy to get drawn into things and behaviors that aren't conducive to maintaining, building, nurturing relationships.
And I think that's where a lot of people get lost in the combat zone of business.
And actually, I think it takes a lot of resilience at times to stay consistent to those values.
(38:35):
I think that's what's great though, about that earlier thing you were talking about, about values and behaviors within your team.
You know, lots of people do it for businesses, fewer do it for team.
They will absolutely act as that anchor point for you as a team.
This is where we win.
And we don't want to get drawn out of that for a short term, well, possible gain.
(38:57):
But reality, we compromise ourselves and we lose in the long term.
I think that's fascinating and important.
I did want to ask you before we completely run out of time.
I mean, if you think about the decades of your career and how things have kind of changed, and we are in, let's be honest, a more distracted world than ever before.
(39:20):
Relationship building has kind of changed, I think, from COVID.
The amount of time we spend on screens with each other is untold, based on what was happening just years before.
But do you think it has hurt the ability to build relationships, strengthened the ability for relationship, changed the paradigm in terms of how we build relationships today?
(39:44):
What's your view on how we're doing it now?
And is it harder to make those meaningful connections with the context of what we're dealing with today?
I think it's very easy to get overwhelmed with minutiae.
And the thing you need to fight is inertia.
(40:04):
And so it's easy to, well, I'll meet with them maybe next month.
Well, maybe, you know, three months go by and you haven't reached out.
Six months go by.
I had a team at Accenture for two years that was virtual.
So this was virtual before it was cool.
And I had 90 people all across North America.
(40:26):
And when we had a project, we would send people to different projects.
And my direct reports every Friday for an hour would get on a conference call, good old-fashioned conference call before Zoom.
And we would talk about what are the opportunities in the pipeline?
What are some assignments that we can give people to give them stretch roles?
(40:47):
You know, and built up that camaraderie.
The other thing I did was I referred to as the Winnebago tours.
So I would go visit, you know, the team in San Francisco, the team in New York, the one in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
And I would meet with my clients.
I would meet with my team, all levels.
(41:10):
I would take the team to dinner.
And when we did 360 reviews, they loved the Winnebago tours because it showed I cared.
I was interested in all their development and interested in helping our clients be successful.
So twice a year, we would meet in person.
And that would, where we would, you know, build stronger relationships.
(41:33):
But you can do it virtually.
I think you can do it virtually.
I think the interesting thing is whether we just default to it too often.
And I think the lesson I'm hearing that you are subtly giving, Brad, is, again, there's more intention in, you know, striking out and making that personal contact face-to-face where you can.
(41:57):
It does show a bit more meaning to plan a visit to go and see somebody, even if it's just down the road or even across the office.
I mean, that could be a trip for some people.
I think it is that intention of coming back to this essence that I think within your book is about playing the human in the relationship, right?
(42:18):
And really making meaningful connections.
It's human centric leadership.
Absolutely.
Which is why it's been fantastic to get you on this podcast, because that's what we talk about every couple of weeks, right?
Just stepping up.
Yeah, well, exactly.
This is the thing.
I think we are wired for connection as humans, and I think we just take that for granted.
(42:43):
And I think if we just lean into it a little bit more, we actually enjoy this stuff.
It's more rewarding.
Exactly, exactly.
And Brad, before I let you go, I've got to the part in the show I call sticky notes.
And so this is a simplistic attempt to harness all of your pearls of wisdom into three little sticky notes that you can imagine stuck on someone's screen as reminders of the things to focus on.
(43:09):
So if we were thinking about leaving the listeners with some practical advice for intentionally building stronger, meaningful, more productive relationships, what would your three pieces of advice be, my friend?
Understand their goals and aspirations, set and manage expectations, and genuinely care.
(43:31):
I knew this is what you were going to say.
And this is what I think beautifully simplistic, but cleverly deep behind these three pieces.
They sound like you said before, common sense.
A common practice of these commonsensical things is not universal, not universal.
Which is another link to the world of Covey and the whole influence and control spheres, my friend.
(43:59):
Brad, I've loved having you on.
Before you go, where can people find out more about you and the book?
I'm on LinkedIn, so feel free to connect there.
My website is bradenglert.com, and I'm going to send you a link to my website for your show notes that will provide three offers.
(44:20):
Sample the book, how to buy the book, and a third tab, how to schedule time on my calendar.
Love that, brilliant.
We'll put that absolutely in the show notes, my friend, and share that with everybody.
Brad, it's been fantastic having you on.
I am a better person for having met you and got to speak to you.
Thanks so much.
Oh, you're welcome.
I enjoyed it.
(44:41):
Okay, everyone, that was Brad Englert.
And if you'd like to find out a bit more about him, where to get the book, or anything else that we've talked about on today's show, please check out the show notes.
So that concludes today's episode.
I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting, and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward.
(45:08):
If you have, please like, comment, and subscribe.
It really helps.
I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast.
Until next time, thanks for listening.
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