Transcript How to Create Intentional Meetings

Excuse the typo’s, this transcript was created by our friends at Otter.ai

Mitch Simon 0:10
Welcome to another episode of team anywhere where CEOs, leaders and experts are building teams, companies, organizations and amazing cultures

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 0:21
share how to lead from anywhere in the world. I’m your co host on the East Coast, Judy Bianca Mathis,

Mitch Simon 0:28
and I’m your co host on the West Coast. Mitch Simon. And we invite you to join us anywhere.

Today on Team anywhere we invite Brian ware Sisa, Assistant Director for cyber security and former CEO at both Digital Sandbox and haystacks. In this new world of remote teams, Brian emphasizes the importance of transparency intentions. finality and over communicating. Brian insisted the most important thing you can have in a highly effective team is news traveling fast, especially bad news. Brian encourages relooking at how where and when to have specific meetings. Brian has implemented senior leadership team on sites where decision makers get together with safety precautions honored to re engage the strategy, engage in conflict and to hold each other accountable. Brian notes the charisma is not going to take you as far as you did. Pre COVID employees are using the same camera to speak to their family, friends and loved ones as they are in connecting to their managers and leaders. They’re looking for humility, empathy, trustworthiness and thoughtfulness leaders will need to spend the time to be intentional, effective, really caring. Focus on where the company is going connected to the Grand mission and doing all of this elegantly and from anywhere, all at the same time.

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 2:04
Hello, everyone. Welcome to a another episode of team anywhere. And we feel very honored today to have a leader and entrepreneur in the world of cybersecurity. Ryan where welcome, Brian.

Unknown Speaker 2:20
Thank you, Jenny. Glad to Glad to be here. Happy to do this.

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 2:24
Thanks. Thanks so much. So to kick off, tell us just a little bit about your leadership journey in terms of companies and teams that you have had to develop, put together. attempt to move forward in different directions.

Unknown Speaker 2:44
Sure, well.

Unknown Speaker 2:47
I’m an engineer by by background and so I started out like a lot of engineers do as an individual and then leading projects and then leading small teams and pretty early happy To start a company, which really was a project and an engineering team, much more so than a, you know, a traditional CEO role. Venture finance that company company called Digital Sandbox. And we did, we did pretty well, we created a really interesting, niche capability that we were highly regarded in. So it’s a very high performing team, a very mission focused team. I sold Digital Sandbox to a private equity backed company that was really designed to buy companies and merge those companies together and create a hole that was greater than the sum of the parts. And I transitioned into a Chief Technology Officer role to help with that acquisition strategy, and then the integration strategy and I learned new things in that role different than being a CEO, being an advisor to a CEO. I also had to learn a lot of things that were hard about integrating different cultures of companies. and integrating different teams. And in a while, there’s so many things that we can say about that. I later got the opportunity to CEO that company and that was really cool because I had spent two years in a different capacity as a CTO, which I felt like was kind of like going to grad school, you know, I got to take a break from the day to day job of being CEO, watch another very capable public company, CEO, and his team, how they did things, learn about the hard things of integration. And so I felt like when I was had the chance to be a CEO all over again, I was really ready. And I think that’s where I put all the pieces together to become the kind of leader that that I wanted to be and we had some really good success for a few years and then I you know, we sold that company. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. What I wanted to do next and I had the opportunity to after probably 25 years of working in the private sector to come into the government and and to what I’m doing right now as I lead a team in the Department of Homeland Security inside of our cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, I lead the cybersecurity mission there. It’s about 1000 Feds and about another couple thousand contractors, so bigger enterprise and I’ve ever run a very different kind of culture and rules and ways that things are done. And so it’s been really a an eye opening experience and really rewarding experience to be an entrepreneur, a small company, fast paced technology person in a large Kind of bureaucratic organization, but also one with enormous resources compared to anything I’ve ever had enormous resources and really a very compelling mission, like a mission that is, is really important and really hard. And so, again, my my approach is very different than the approach of my my team that that my leadership team that works for me now who have been in the government, their whole careers, 20 years or more. And so the, it’s not friction, it’s like the, it’s the way that we engage is very different than people who’ve spent their whole life in the private sector in startups or whatever else it’s been at heart rate, an eye opening opportunity for me and one that has allowed me really to refine and hone parts of the you know the qualities that make for a for a CEO or leader

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 6:59
fabulous And of course that leads right into what is your philosophy? Has it always been the same? And and what is it now?

Unknown Speaker 7:09
You know, I think parts of the philosophy have always been the same. And parts of it you have to learn through experience and my experiences in some of those new ones are probably not all that unique. So the things that are true throughout my leadership journey have been trying to be very personal, very, very human to have kind of genuine relationships with as many of my team as I possibly can get to all of them as possible. To be honest, to try to speak the truth and and speak the truth in a way that allows your my leaders to speak the truth to me to to not have to hide the truth and hide hide bad news. One of the things I say is I want bad news to travel as fast as good news and real I’d actually rather travel faster. And I think that that takes, it takes leadership and it takes the right culture to do that, you know, maybe some of the things that I’ve had to learn and learn because I couldn’t figure out why things weren’t going the right ways. I have to focus, I think we all have to focus on communicating a lot more than we ever thought we would have to do. You know, I felt like I was pretty clear when I would say things, and then I would be surprised when, you know, for whatever reason, we weren’t doing what we just discussed, and weren’t going in the direction that we just discussed. And so I think that there’s a lot of experience out there that says that people hear things differently. They need to hear things a few times. Some people hear things, you know, with their ears, but other people need to read. And so really, I think that I hate the idea of over communication because as an engineer Over communication sounds to me like inefficiency. And actually I’ve seen organizations that really pride themselves on over communicating. And it really is just a lot of noise at a certain point, you have to be careful about that. Mm hmm. But under communicating is way worse, right? It’s way worse. And so right. I think whatever feels to me, like I might be over communicating is probably a lot closer to just about right. And, and so I think that’s one of the, you know, the hallmarks and see the last thing and this is there are all kinds of ways to make a living, and there are all kinds of ways to make a difference. But I really strongly believe in doing something that I’m that I’m passionate about, that’s going to move the needle, and I’d rather do something I’m passionate about and it’s going to have an impact than to do something where I can make a good living or build a big company or build a big team or whatever. There’s all kinds of considerations that drive and motivate a lot of people. But I find that it has been really It is easiest for me to be a leader when I believe that what we’re doing has to be done. I believe that it is so important that we get it right. And I felt like I was leading a team that was indistinguishable from any others that the work that we were doing was not differentiated from any others. That wouldn’t be particularly satisfying for me. But it also you just attract different kinds of people when when you’re getting people to buy into, to a vision into a mission. And that is, that’s, that’s powerful and compelling. And that’s, that’s the that’s the spot I’m always trying to look for. Right.

Mitch Simon 10:38
Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. How do you how do you keep people connected to the mission, when we’re now completely distributed? Is it is it easier when you’re in the room with people? Is it not easier when you’re distributed? And then what practices are you taking on such that people don’t forget them as And I would just imagine in, in, in, in, in what you’re up to, which is, you know, keeping the United States of America secure, that that mission would be not a hard sell one thing, I’m just wondering how you keep people connected to that mission when they’re, you know, at home with their kids or their dog, but they’re definitely not in the office with you.

Unknown Speaker 11:22
Yeah, I mean, Mitch, there’s a ton to what you just said, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 11:26
there are a lot of people who aren’t attracted to this mission for a lot of really good reasons. I mean, in general, you can make more money working in the government than you can somewhere else. In general, our technology is a little more out of date than you can get somewhere else. In general, we have a lot more rules and things that are harder for some people to feel like they want to live by. So not everyone is cut out for this job, even if they’re technically right for it or care about it. And so I just want to park that as just a it’s not quite as easy to get people to sign up as you might think. But the heart of your question I think is really important. Like, we are distributed, we and and the threats that we face the things that we’re trying to do. They’re not slowing down, if anything, there are more of them faster. And I think that you would logically believe that when you’re in a distributed operation, when you’re in a non different than your normal operation, that, that you as an organization, we would slow down. And, and that’s that’s, that can happen and we can’t afford to slow down when the the job that we have is speeding up that mismatch causes causes problems, right. And so I think that that in the heart of your question, there’s a conflict between a number of different things on the one hand, we can’t have all those little interactions that keep everyone on the same pace and knowing what everyone’s doing because we’re bumping into each other Other, you know, around the coffee pot are on our way into and out of a meeting those are harder to do. On the other hand, though, none of us as individuals can do all of the things that we used to do we have we as individuals, and as small teams, and hopefully as a whole organization, say, you know what, right now, some of those nice to haves, we’re just not going to get those done. We’re going to focus on the gotta haves, though the things that are critical, the things that that are most important, and I think that that we forced ourselves to simplify, we forced ourselves to focus on what really moves the needle, we should probably be doing that all the time. But you when you run into a resource constrained environment, that’s the logical thing to do. Right? You just constrain with the resource constraint, you constrain the things that you’re going to focus on. And right now our resource constraint is just that. We don’t have easy access to all the people and all the tools we use to so like, what are we going to make sure it gets done and in those constraints comes huge opportunities like focus Focus is a way to win focus is a way to make sure that you’re not doing those things that, you know, we’re not as essential. And I think that by simplifying our focus, we’ve got a lot better alignment of our leaders to the mission. And my expectation is that my leaders are carrying that down to their organizational leadership teams and all the way down to just that individual performer. And so

Unknown Speaker 14:31
it’s some of my thoughts to that, to that issue.

Mitch Simon 14:37
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Unknown Speaker 15:14
We’re all trying to manage our complex lives right now in ways that we didn’t fully anticipate. And so you may not choose to turn that on and I had as a leader, I just had to direct it. I just had to say, finally, guys, this is what we got to do. And and I, I believe that it is and will continue to pay dividends, we want to still be we still want to be people with personal connections to each other. And I think that seeing is a big part of adds a lot to just hearing and speaking right

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 15:45
now for sure, for sure. So there was another and yet you keep marching on and trying to create the team and I and work with the team on to have that more of the personal touch. So you said you started to have insight meanings. Yes. describe those a little bit.

Unknown Speaker 16:06
Yeah. So there are some things that I feel like still.

Unknown Speaker 16:12
We did better when we were all together. I’m sitting in front of my whiteboard, I love getting I always have my whole career. I love getting engineers together around a whiteboard to diagram out a hard problem and to understand it and argue about it. And I’ve done the same thing with you know how to make a winning proposal or how to play our present our financials to an investor. It’s this idea of the whiteboard in the conference room and getting around the table is kind of ingrained in the way that I have solved hard problems through my career. And again, I’m not alone in that. So I long for that. But we can’t do it all the time. So we have to find virtual ways to to solve hard problems together while we’re not in person together. But, you know, as we’ve gotten a better understanding of how how the virus works and how the virus spreads and ways that we the kinds of protections we can take in place. I started thinking about what we used to do in the good old days where we’d have a quarterly off site meeting, we get the whole leadership team together for a full day. We do things to build, team cohesion and personal depth and relationships. But again, we use those offsides to break with the routine, get out of our offices. Even if we all had offices side by side, get out of those offices and get into a place where the distractions were gone, the common environment was gone. And we could think differently and think differently. Again, that was the whole idea of the off site. So what we’re doing now I’ve started monthly on site meetings for my leadership team. So we were coming together to calibrate on our strategy and hold ourselves accountable for the execution of strategy And the interesting question is, well, why can’t you do that remotely? And I think, I think you can, except I want people to be able to break, you know, get out of their house, alright, get out of that place where you were, change the scenery, remove the distractions, and then we have that opportunity to have a bit of you know, it brings back the actual in person water cooler conversation between the breaks and everything else. And I feel like there’s some, you know, there’s different members of my team have more or less caution than others. And I completely understand it, but by the way our meetings are, I don’t even have to use the word strongly encouraged or anything else it is. It is okay. If you are not going to come to this meeting, because you have a compromised immune system or your spouse or your whatever, then that’s fine. But you know, my expectation is and what we’ve had is the almost every one of the leadership team has come together We’re sitting far apart talking through masks with muffle voices. But I, I feel and maybe it’s an emotional feeling more so than a intellectual feeling. I feel like when we leave those on site meetings we have a better understanding it’s a better it’s an easier place particularly to raise conflict or contentious issues. It feels like it’s a little easier when you can fully read the body language. And not that we have a ton of conflict but we do have some we have the issues we’ve got to address there’s no clear indication that this is right and this is wrong. Are we gonna have we have to go this way we can’t go that way. It takes some back and forth and argumentation to get there. And I I like dealing with things on a day to day basis through through teams and through emails and through small meetings and regular meetings. And I love getting together on this once a month to say all right, how are we Let’s unpack it all in this put things back together.

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 20:02
Right? Right. Yeah. folks are saying that they have and do need to build in some of the face to face times. But then that also means reorganizing somewhat highly using chat, for example, during those meetings, so other people could listen and add voice and in fact, bring up some of the conflict things because some people in the room are in So, again, all of these nuances, and in what Well, let’s try this. Let’s try that on. Mitch.

Mitch Simon 20:37
Yeah. Brian, you know, I’m really intrigued by that solution. It kind of connects to that to the last podcast we did is it used to be before COVID you know, familiar with Patrick lencioni at all, Brad.

Unknown Speaker 20:52
I’m not a very smart man that

Unknown Speaker 20:55
I’m willing unwilling to learn.

Mitch Simon 20:57
So Patrick lencioni has a very smart man. And, you know, he basically said, you know, you’d have your you’d have your standup meetings, you’d have your, your weekly meetings and you’d have a monthly more of like a strategy meeting. It seems like now, Brian, at least what you’ve done is you have certain meetings that you’re going to have when everyone is just distributed, like at your house. And then now what you’re saying is, but what we’re also doing is every month we’re coming together with masks on, you know, so I’m wondering, do you then in your in your head as an engineer, I think Well, okay, so there are certain conversations we would actually now have that we would do over zoom every let’s say every day or every week, and then there would be certain conversations we would have in person. And because we’re in person, that would pretty much categorize the type the types of conversations that we actually would have. I was wondering if you have given an Thought that or I’ve just come by it organically, with what type of conversations we would have over zoom or teams and then what kind of conversations we would have when we actually are in a room together?

Unknown Speaker 22:11
Yeah, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 22:14
some of it is that there’s no clear, pro or con between one or the other necessarily. But my, my view is that things that we do routinely, things that we do on an everyday and an operational basis, we should do those remotely a distributed we should make them formulaic, and I don’t mean formulaic in a bad way I mean, procedural and systematic. I personally hate reviewing complex spreadsheets on a screen and other kinds of things. I kind of feel like I need to see an end Paper Paper is harder to come by in the home than it was in the office. I realized their home printers but still but but realistically The hiring spreadsheet that I see every week, that meeting on how we’re doing on personnel, that’s easily done. It’s a status update. It’s a simple decision. It’s a simple review. It’s the approval of something, all those operational things. They need to be systematic and reproducible, and they can be very conducive to telework. When we want to make bigger decisions, when we want to hold ourselves accountable, when we want to try to brainstorm and think of something new, I could also do that, just this, you know, I could do that remotely. But I think that there’s additional benefit to breaking the space to changing the space, there’s additional benefit to see more than the face of the person, you know, like there’s just so many things that are better. So I would, I wouldn’t be particularly in favor of using that time to just review basic stuff, right? Or to spend a half a day doing 830 minute meetings, that also wouldn’t make sense. 30 minute meetings are perfect for video conferencing. But for our meetings are not, you know, four hours is too long to sit behind a little screen for most things. So that’s that’s kind of how I’m thinking about it. Yeah, there was something to that. I think you both touched on it. I do want to just mention, the problem of physical space that we didn’t used to think about as much we think about now is there’s only so many people that can fit into it. Right? There’s really no limit of people who can fit into your virtual space, if you choose. And even my biggest conference rooms are training rooms, once you start putting people six feet or more apart. Yeah, there’s only so many people you can get in there. And so it’s not just that we have virtual meetings, or we have in person meetings. They’re the hybrid meetings, and I think that this is Part of what we were all going to need to do. When we’re in our, our leadership on site, we still use teams to bring in our remote rest of the leadership team. So I love mine. I call it subdivisions. I want my subdivision leaders and their deputies in person if I can, but they all have branch chiefs and others who need to hear parts of this discussion because if they just hear the result of it, they didn’t see all the sausage making the goddess so why this is the right answer. But they don’t have to be in the room for that they can come in through teams. I think this is an area that needs at least on our side that is an area where we can improve the technology that we need to make that virtual hybrid experience more compelling to the people that are you know, that are just coming in through a screen and I know it can be done it’s just our space hasn’t been set up as well for as I would like,

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 25:57
right catching Yeah, that they they Extra technology, the visuals, right? I remember you once holding a meeting, all staff meeting in another company, and you had like eight screens up. Right? Because you wanted every face or combination of faces. And at that time, that’s all you could do.

Unknown Speaker 26:20
Yes. Yeah. That was because you could only fit so many people in the room and replicate. Right? Yeah, but but this is the same thing, but very, very different. All the people are distributed all over the US. Yeah. How can we make them a part of that? How can we better make them a part of that meeting? And so, you know, when you think about the way you set up your boardroom or the way you set up your training room, you maybe didn’t really set it up with that in mind, right. Some companies did. Ours did not. And so we just need to retool it to make that experience better for our remote, remote folks.

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 26:56
And that’s where real estate comes into.

Unknown Speaker 26:58
Yeah. Technology is being intentional. You know?

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 27:04
You’re right, Brian, like just now focusing on I want that kind of meeting to be the best it can that kind of brainstorming around that will be fabulous. When you figure that out, let me know.

Mitch Simon 27:17
Anyway we did we really it’s almost Brian, it’s like it’s an algorithm, you’re taking money in your head. Yeah, there would be, you know, there would be a maximum capacity of people for a room that would be effective for that. And then that’s about it. Once we hit that number, whether that’s 100 or 125, then we really don’t need any larger rooms, because we could we could mix the technology of online with, let’s say, your subdivisions who could, you know, sit in a room with another 5075 people somewhere else. So I really do see that and I really do see a lot of solutions coming out of that as well. And I really do appreciate how you use the word intentional. We have to be very, very intentional about it. And And I just think, you know, before COVID, we’ve just been very sloppy. And you know, we’ll be getting better as a society. But this I think, really forces us to put things in perspective to find what is the most effective way of gathering? Let’s say?

Unknown Speaker 28:16
Yeah, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 28:20
a lot of CEOs in particular

Unknown Speaker 28:24
rely on their

Unknown Speaker 28:28
charisma and being personal and being able to convince you get you to follow because of things that are just flat out easier to do. Person to Person and face to face. Seeing that someone is genuine and they mean what they say, you know, meeting someone for the first time and and knowing being able to kind of size them up and say, yeah, you know, I want to go where this person is going to leave me Is he legitimate? Is he CMI interests in mind whatever the issues are with your employees or your partners or your customers, you know, I have, I feel like I’ve always been able to come across personally as a as a trustworthy and thoughtful you know, partner. Now, when you are only meeting people for the first time virtually and particularly when it’s without, you know, video or whatever, it’s harder for those things to come across. This is like, it’s kind of like my signature strengths that I’ve relied on so much to get things done that now I have to realize I don’t have those in quite the same way anymore. So maybe I can’t spring something up on people in a meeting, like I normally would have been able to because I could have persuaded and everything else. Maybe I have to send out these are the three things I’d like to discuss or come to agreement on in advance. By the way, you know this about me, Jenny. I hate that. apart. Because it takes, it feels to me, it takes more work like it takes because it takes more time. But I’m finding that my extemporaneous skills that I’ve relied on for so long, don’t translate as well into this environment. And honestly, had I prepared better for meetings before and communicated better before and by the way, agreeing and documenting after had I done that in mind, prior to tell what goes on, I would have been way more successful. I just didn’t have to do it then. Right. So

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 30:36
the environment is forcing some new behaviors, and you’re comfortable here. I’d love how you stated at all. Well, I relied on them. Now I go, I go to those strengths and whoops. They’re not as effect. Well, let me give you a piece of feedback. Oh, so here you are. We’re talking. And I find you to be compelling. Someone who I want to listen to someone who says, Let’s focus on these three things. I don’t want to follow you. So what do you think that is about you? Because there is still something in this particular environment?

Unknown Speaker 31:31
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I think

Unknown Speaker 31:35
I think that you have to have something interesting to say, to cut through the noise of I mean, this screen and the conversation we’re having is no, it’s the same screen that people look at their Facebook the same screen that they stream their news or their Netflix or whatever it is. So the competition for attention is harder to love to say something’s interesting, and I think that people have to say something that is correct. And trustworthy and when you do, when there’s that honesty, maybe some humility and then something interesting to say it’s you, that’s when you can get people’s attention and you can get people to follow you. Maybe Maybe that is one of the hardest things right now is to realize that the same screen that we’re hearing our boss through or hearing our employees through is the one that they’re getting, you know, their family connections with and their streaming and everything else that distraction making, they probably make sure your content and the chemistry that you have all that more important and all that more compelling.

Mitch Simon 32:39
I think I think what you’re saying Brian, is that if I’m talking to my grandpa and my my parents and my cousin to the same medium, then you as a leader better show up kind of like my grandpa, my my parents and my, my my cousin. Because if you’re coming off as something completely different than it just it just Doesn’t make sense.

Unknown Speaker 33:02
Yeah, you don’t have a lot of thought. But Mitch, I think that’s right. And you can’t just come across as the boss, you can’t just bark out orders. Like, you know, I mean, you, you’re not likely to be heard in the right way and you’re not likely to get the engagement and response that that we needed to get. I mean it I feel like many of the things that we are trying to do is kind of broader knowledge workers are a bit harder to do in this environment. So yeah, you better come across as as some combination of understanding and empathetic as well as candid and personable and truthful and, and and realize that everyone’s highly distracted. So let’s like, get to the point like what is it we’re trying to do is simplify Focus, focus.

Mitch Simon 33:53
So you mentioned that you’re very extemporaneous, very improvisational as personality and then He said, but I probably also need to be on the other end to be more intentional. And before let’s say a meeting what will be some of the things that if you have a meeting coming up in your mind, what would be some of the things that you would start to think about such that you would have the impact that you want to have through the through the video that maybe you wouldn’t have thought about before when you didn’t have to do it through video? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 34:27
So, you know, I’ve always been very intentional, but I’ve been able to have roles that allowed me to use some of my personal qualities to feel like I was preparing every minute of every day so I could walk into any room extemporaneously, right. So, I think there’s what I guess what I’m trying to say is you can be extemporaneous and intentional extemporaneous doesn’t mean unprepared. extemporaneous doesn’t mean, whimsical or, you know, show me what you got. I do think that so this is this is a bit harder. Yeah, you can’t quite read the room, you can’t, it’s a little harder to whiteboard something out even if you’re using technology. And so what what I, what I’m having to do is set clear, clear expectations for meetings. This is what we’re going to do in this meeting. This is the result that we want to get to and do that fairly well in advance. And I find myself several times a day, kind of stating upfront, this is where I’d like to be at the end of this of this meeting. Again, that’s, you would have told me in January before all this code stuff happened, that that would be a good practice, but it’s more important to practice now, one of the things that you guys have brought up with me and I have been reflecting on this last week is we can’t be so intentional about the meetings and I can’t dislike the round robin so much that we don’t have to see incidental conversation.

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 36:01
Right? Right, right.

Unknown Speaker 36:02
Because then we lose for whatever we picked up by seeing each other’s faces, we lost the serendipity of some interesting idea or the empathy with one of our co workers, you know, challenging personal environments, or just a quick little updates. And so, we’re trying to you know, I’m encouraging people to come to their meetings a few minutes early, to replace the time that we would have spent gathering in the hall. And and we’re trying to encourage some meetings that are have no no particular agenda, not all that frequently, because they’re hard to do but frequently enough that we can just raise things from what you’ve just said is really appreciate the way you look at it as an engineer. Is that

Mitch Simon 36:49
what what we’re what we’re, what your job is, is as the president or CEO or whatever your title is today, you know, entrepreneur is to really make visible where we’re going For the next, let’s say, five to 10 years, both from a, just from, you know what we’re going to be doing and also just how we actually behave in the organization. And if I am sitting, you know, let’s say four levels down, and maybe four continents across, I need to have as as, as visible a picture of it as you do. And that I think, is what what is going to be separating, let’s say the men from the boys or the women from the girls right now, in terms of companies that are really going to get it right. Because we’re not together as much and even though that we work together many leaders dilton you have a good way to write their information, right? But but certainly now, it really is important that that picture is is there because you know, for the most part, you know, in today’s world, Brian’s never in his office or even if it is, it doesn’t matter because I don’t even know your office is Do you want to know, I do want to know what you’re thinking. And I do want to know where we’re going. And I do want to know how how I am a part of, of where this company is moving.

Unknown Speaker 38:10
Well, Vince, I appreciate you calling it out. You’re in the way of another story, you’re reminding me that my previous Board Chairman, pulled me aside one time after a particularly difficult board meeting, which was like all of my other quarterly board meetings where I was behind on some part of revenue, and behind them some part of the product. And so he pulled me aside, he said, Look, have you seen by now, that your quarterly forecasts, you’re almost always wrong on and you put us in a position where we have to beat you up. He’s like, I’m not telling you to forecast better. I’m telling you that you are the world’s expert in where your company should be in five years. And none of us can challenge you on that. But you’re not telling us where you’re going in five years. You’re telling us where you’re going to go next quarter? And we’re just nitpicking that. And he’s like, have that five year vision, have that five year vision, communicate that? And yes, the quarterly stuff still matters. But we hired you to get us to five years. Not so holds you accountable for what you did in this quarter.

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 39:16
Thank you so much. You have been phenomenal. And we’ll catch up with you in a few years to see what what you’ve done. Yeah. Mitch,

Mitch Simon 39:27
yeah, thank you so much for, for being on podcast, Brian, really appreciate it really learned a lot. And I think it’s really grounded a lot of the thinking that we’ve had, yeah, seeing some of the practices in the way you think. And I think it’s gonna really help all of our listeners out there. So thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 39:41
Well, thanks for the opportunity. I don’t feel like I’ve necessarily figured a whole lot of things out. It’s helpful to actually talk them through and I think the reality is, we just have to be thinking them through and talking through and learning and we should be doing we should all be strive to be continuous learners all the time anyway. But every once in a while, a big shift,

Unknown Speaker 40:06
alright, and we’ve got to be hyper

Unknown Speaker 40:07
learners and

Unknown Speaker 40:10
I appreciate the opportunity to kind of learn out loud with you and share with you the things that I’m doing.

Ginnie Bianca-Mathis 40:17
Fabulous. Thank you. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai