Fostering and Developing Highly Functional Teams

Wade Erickson (00:00):

Welcome the next episode here of Tech Leaders Unplugged. I'm Wade Erickson with Logigear ,and our guest, this show is Jeffrey Brown. He's a fractional leader, and he'll talk a little bit about what that means with primarily with Unilog now, but, has quite a, you know, a few companies that he is working with. And our topic today is, fostering, developing highly functional teams, this is a, subject, very true near to, near to my background. I've been managing geographically dispersed teams for 20 years. You know, our logic gear companies, most of the talents in Vietnam, so very much used to selling teams and managing teams, and managing projects over the years. So this is going to be a great topic for us, I think here today. Uso enough about me. Let's talk about you, Jeffrey. Let's a little bit about your background, a little bit about maybe Unilog and, why this topic was of interest to you today.

Jeffrey Brown (01:12):

Yeah, thanks, Wade. And yeah, my background's quite, quite a bit, so I'm going to start first with the Unilog, right? So I, I've come to Unilog, it's a, a great company. It's a B2B e-commerce Plus content platform which really ties the, the content and commerce together, right? So it's a great of great solution for many customers. There, I'm the VP of engineering, and like you just said, I've got company or employees or teams spread around the world, right? So that's like, you, we have to do it. And it does take a different skillset. It's not the same skillset you would do for just a local team, where you can show up to everybody's desk and go around in the morning and say hi to everyone. It does require a different set of skill sets, and it does take a different, slightly different approach, but you'd be surprised as well. And I'm, I'm sure you would say the same thing, Wade, that a lot of our skills translate. So, want to start with, how did I come into this and, you know, working with different teams and how do I, my approach to, to take that as a fractional leader, I have to come into companies, come up to speed very quickly, and a lot of times I'm coming into to really help out, to bring not only my experience with my technical background, but also bring in that experience of setting up a highly functional team, get the team running really well, and I have to involve them in this process. I can't just come in and I don't want to be that type of leader that just comes in and changes everything, right? That, that, that doesn't, that's not me. It's not effective. It doesn't work really well. When I start with a brand new team, I, I sit down with each one of them. I try to do it within the first couple days, the one or two days of their, I want to sit down and have the face-to-face, even if it's a Zoom call. I want to have some time with them, learn a little bit about them. I'm kind of doing a pseudo interview, if you will, right? So I'm trying to get to know them, who they are, and I, I've got this technique that I've been using for years, right? Since I've been a leader for 20 plus years. I sit 'em down and I, I kind of build this social contract to help them understand my leadership style. I say to them, you know, as a leader, it's my job to make sure you have the tools to be successful. That can be hardware, software, a budget. It could be a big picture. It could be help with prioritization, it could be resources. Whatever it is. That's my job. Your job, do your job. As simple as that, right? We hired you as an expert. We hired you for doing it. I'm not there to, to micromanage or get in the way and tell you how to do your job. We were hired you for that. What I'm doing, and what I'm doing, establishing is what I call that trust-based organization. That's such an important thing. It really makes a big difference. Think about when you've had different leaders in your past, that leader that trusts you, where you come in and they know you've got your back. They know what you're doing. They're not constantly on you, and trying to figure out, they've built that trust. That's what I want. And that's a really big key. Then a foundational piece to building that really high performing team is they can't always be second guessing themselves. They can't always be looking backwards to say, well, what could I be doing differently? Am I doing my job? In fact, years ago, I had somebody who I called up to ask them if they could join my team, and they said yes before I even finished the, the, the offer, right? But she had mentioned to me, she's like, working for you. I always know where the expectations are. I know where I stand, and that's a really key thing. I've had teams where every day you show up and they, they deal out the, the work that needs to be done for that day. Instead, I transform those organizations into, here's how you choose the next work product. Here's how when you're done with something to go get the next one. I want them to be responsible for that. I want them to be in charge of that. I also have to, in building that trust based organization, I have to build it, put the right structure in. So one of the first things I do is I, as I'm sitting down and talking to each one of them, I'm looking at it from a point of view, is I ask them, you know, just directly, do you think you're in the right place in this organization? Are you in the best spot to be successful? Do you think you should be here? Or do you think you should be promoted or a leader or whatever? And you'd be surprised that not a lot of people say, yeah, I want to be that, you know, I need to be promoted instantly, right? They want to have the security and I can't promise them. Then coming in as a new leader, I'm, I'm open with them, but I want to know where their aspirations are. I want to know where they think it. And guess what? If you go to an organization and you talk to 'em, and you ask them, who is that one that's hard to work with? They'll all point to the same guy. So they know what, it's, that inside information is an invaluable tool for me to put the right organization together. One of my good mentors in the past, right, had told me the instructions. When you take over a team, make changes, make it your own, you have to, so many leaders are afraid of coming in and, and afraid to make changes. Well, they've already done it that way. They've, they've been doing it that way a long time. My advice to any new leader is assume nothing until you've proven it out, until you've looked at it. Until you've seen it. You have to make sure it's what you know and what you're, what, how you expect things to run. Because when it's running your way, which is what you were hired for, based on your expertise, you can ask the right questions. What about this? Did you think about that? Is this happening? You can't do that if you're not fully ingrained in how they're running it. Now, that doesn't mean going so far as to tell them exactly how to do their job, but you're there to support them in that thought process. And it's really important leaders is that assume nothing, right? Come in. And until you've seen it, that leaves me to that, that the next thing is I do is I don't just give out blind trust, though it becomes a trust, but verify, right? Once I know the questions to ask, I can come in, I can keep asking the questions, I can verify things, and I can check to make sure those things are in place. But that also allows me to build KPIs that tell good story, right? That tell things and, and give me actionable events. I can see how they're performing. And some teams, especially in the tech world, right, they, they sometimes get afraid of being measured that way. Sales teams and stuff, they're used to it, but not always in the tech space. So with that mindset, you can help them understand that it's safe and it's helping them do their job better, and it's with the best interest. And if I've created that trust based organization, then they see it that way. I've also had people come to me from a, you know, point of view and say, you know, well, you know, Jeffrey, your job is so much more important. And I stop that thought process immediately. We're all, we all add value. That's why we all have a job. If you are not doing your job, somebody else is doing it, right? So no job, no person's job. They're just different. They're all important. The smallest job is an important job. Do it well. So those are kind of my, you know, thought processes, my philosophies. I mean, Wade, again, you've been in this space for a very long time, right? I'm sure some of that echoes with you.

Wade Erickson (08:30):

Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, my management style is very aligned with what you do. You know, coming in, I've had that responsibility to reshape a team, and oftentimes these teams were not doing well. That's why they came and, you know, replaced the person that was managing the team. And it's so, so true that you said, you know just because they've been doing that way, doing it that way doesn't mean that their team members are even happy that they're doing it that way. You got to ask them, you got to interview 'em, of course, that, you know, one-to-one, build them, build that trust, you know, really you're building that tribal bond because this, you know, being a small, you know, these team sizes, there's no you’d a reason. Teams are tend to typically seven to 10. It's part of our, kind of our human nature to have these smaller groups that you really, really, your hunting party. It's your hunting party. You know, back in the, the days of tribal communities that you went out, you hunted with certain people you trusted, right? Because that was a dangerous thing. So it's just part of our natural you know, human nature to, to want to work hard in smaller teams. And then of course teams can work, you know, larger societies of teams and all that stuff. And so,

Jeffrey Brown (09:42):

Right. And I want to touch on something you just said there, Wade. 'cause It's interesting, right? As, as I've tend to break some bigger teams into those smaller groups, especially in the remote world that we're in. It's even harder to reach out and having that ability to have a smaller group, right? And put somebody who's more senior to kind of lead that little pod of work, right? Really allows you to have them reach out every day, do a mini scrum, make sure things are going on, because you can't do those things effectively in, in a very large group, large group. So I echo what you said. I've been very successful in those smaller groups, even if it is within a larger group.

Wade Erickson (10:17):

There's a great book called Team of Teams out there that I think was written by a military guy. I don't have my book list in front of me, but I think it's a really good book. It talks about how teams of teams, and that's how they build up the military to go to war, you know, some of the most dangerous things to do as a job and how they, you know, manage these teams. So, you know, I have a few questions. If you want to jump.

Jeffrey Brown (10:38):

Let's do it.

Wade Erickson (10:39):

Great. So, you know we talked about remote teams, and I think a lot of people now because of covid, have experienced that is maybe only in the last because of Covid, because they only had US teams. Can you describe a scenario that you successfully transformed a struggling remote team to be highly efficient and, and, you know, what are some of the steps? I know you, you talked about, you know, we talked about having the smaller groups and breaking them up so they could have their own pods within country or within location. Even if they're not going into the office, having lunches or what, you know, kind of getting them to, to still have a bit of a physical cohesiveness if they can from time to time. Can you talk a little bit about some of those steps?

Jeffrey Brown (11:20):

Yeah, and it, it is a really good point, right? Especially with so much remote workforce now. And, and a lot of us, you know, the secret is, is Covid didn't make us go there. We were going there beforehand. Especially when I'm working in companies around the world, because a lot of times, you know, the office in, in or in the cities, cities don't have great power everywhere in the world. You know, we're a little blessed in the US right? But ha, making sure everybody has a laptop, making sure everybody can go home and making sure they have the tools to be successful. Also, I think a big part of that is, is building the trust. I remember one story that I've got is, I worked for this one you know, with this one team when I first came in, is they were a remote I mean they were a small country. It was based out of Sri Lanka and the leadership that was there. Whenever they would have to have a meeting with the US he would call everybody in because he wanted to see everybody's answers. He wanted to see the responses. Immediately. I put a stop to that. I said, when the office closes at five, you're done. And I don't want that travel back and forth on these little roads and these back town things to, to have to come in. I want this to be a safe place to work. And by enabling that culture, enabling it to be okay to work from home, to be able to trust them at home, I also have to be able to, like I said, verify, right? I need to be able to see that they're doing the work that they're supposed to, that they're doing it. But again, by adding that smaller pod, you've got a small group now who collectively wants to do really, really well together in a small team. And that visibility is very high, which allows me to keep that, that up. And having them do that daily, kind of, even if it's a five minute scrum call, right? Just to make sure everybody's on the same page, allows them to connect regularly. Have that expert there that they can call up and say, I don't understand this. I need some help. Even no matter who we are, we need that person to reach out to when we, when we are stuck or when we need to move forward. So you know, kind of a long-winded way of answering the question, but setting them up to make sure they have the resources to do it, making sure that they know that it's okay to do that, and that we allow it. And then verifying to make sure that they're there and they're not closing their laptop at the end of the day, but also encouraging that low work life balance. 'cause I do want them to compartmentalize. I do want them to log off. I've had guys where two in the morning for them I'm like, log off, please get some sleep. Right? Because they, they're, they're hard workers. They want to work hard.

Wade Erickson (13:46):

So we talked a little bit about collaboration. I got another question. What are some of the practices that you use to foster the collaboration to build these high performance teams who might not get to meet face-to-face because of the country boundaries, like you talked about, and, you know, make sure everybody's connected and engaged. And, you know, we've got fantastic tools nowadays that, you know, when I was doing this 10 years ago, I mean, the dial the, the lines were not quite dial up. They were DSL, but, you know, 2 56 K from India, you, you couldn't have video conversations, but you could use some chat tools that were audio, you know, and things. Tell me a little bit about how that's changed and how you've been able to apply technology to improve.

Jeffrey Brown (14:31):

The truth is, is it actually hasn't changed that much a lot of ways, right? You still take a big team and put a bunch of video things up there and everybody starts to go down, but you've nailed it, right? You've hit all the right tools, right? The thing is, is communication, whether it is phone or something, you have to pick up. You have to get involved. And I try to, to, by building those smaller groups within the team, right? I make that sure that they have to work for each other is, and I use it to my advantage all the time. In fact, I split some teams up in the US like I have business analysts, right? They have to analyze things they have to go through. And it's a very collaborative effort. Well, having a business analyst in the US and then having a business analyst overseas can allow me round the clock work, right? Have one go through. And we use tools like Microsoft Word, right? With the comment feature and the, the ability to, to track changes. That way we can see the lifecycle of the document and we can get that more work out of it. Somebody can be reviewing something, the same thing the other way around. They log off at the end of the day, they've got the things here sitting for me. I can go through and review them, give the feedback, send it back. I even do it with video, right? I'll have them record the meeting that was during the middle of the night when I'm sleeping, send it to me in the morning. I review it, add all my notes of the things that they might have think about, thought they might have, think to think about, and to put it in there, but give them the instant feedback and give them, here's some things that maybe they didn't think about. So I think that, that the, the fact that the global can actually be a huge benefit if you use it to your advantage more than a disadvantage.

Wade Erickson (16:07):

Awesome. Awesome information. So we talked a little bit about time zones and locations and a little bit about people got to sleep, you know, people got to go home. And like you said, safety is an issue, especially in some countries. I've worked a lot with India and you know, we would you know, this doesn't mean to be sexist, but we'd have to send the women home earlier. They couldn't stay later. And the guys were like, ah, you know, because maybe we had a release or something that required them to be at the office with the higher, you know, quality connections and stuff. So tell me about how you've dealt with time zones a little bit more you know, with recording and stuff, you just brought up a little few. Is there anything else that kind of has helped? Because I know meeting planners and other things like that, that are out there kind of help to set times that you may or may not know everybody's, you know, all it takes is one or two time zones off your assumption and you've just booked it into their dinner time or something, you know?

Jeffrey Brown (17:08):

Right. Well, and yeah, you throw in their daylight saving time, right? Which it throws everything off. I think the biggest advice I can give, right, is, is it, you have to be a different kind of leader, right? You have to be a very engaged leader. You can't do this at arm's length. You have to be involved, you have to be there. I've been in several calls that, you know, started at 9:00 PM and went till two in the morning, right? To do those designs calls, those discovery calls to sit in and, and make sure they have really good direction. It doesn't have to be every time, but like right now, I am based out of, of, you know, Colorado. So I start my day at 4:30 AM It lets me overlap the time with them. And also I work with, you know, our headquarters is in, in Eastern time, so it allows me to have more of an eight to five day with them, but also have many more hours of overlap. With, when I was working in different cultures in different parts of the world, I'd adjust my things or even do a split schedule where I would do some in the morning log off for, to get some work life balance, and then at night log in for a couple more hours just to make sure things. So I think the biggest thing, which I think you and I would both say really anywhere in leadership, adaptability is the key.

Wade Erickson (18:23):

Yeah. I would agree. Because I'm dealing with Asia, like a 12 hour time zone. Of course, when I was in California it was 12 hours with India, or 12 and a half. And so that whole thing with work-life balance, where you're starting at four and you might work till nine or 10, and then you take two or three hours off, you go do your doctor's appointments, do your grocery, whatever you got to do because you jump back on at four to eight, you know, and one, it makes a really takes an understanding family to have that kind of, what I call a calendar. You might not be working 10 hours a day or 15 hours a day, but you got to have a calendar open for 15 hours a day to be able to take those one-off calls and stuff like that at times that are more appropriate. Especially, you know, if I'm working from home and they're traveling those rough roads to get in or crazy traffic, who am I to put them on those somewhat dangerous, potentially dangerous trips on public transportation in India and stuff like that. Not disparaging them, but, you know, just saying, I'm familiar with the challenges of international public transportation but I'm at home, you know, and, you know, I could step out and go have dinner a hundred feet away. And I think, you know, being able to have that flexibility, like you said, for them to take stuff from home where they do have a good enough internet at home to be able to participate, really, really improves their work life balance. And I think what it it shows is that we're not working 16 hours a days, but we might have to have a 16 hour day calendar, you know? Correct. And, and it, it requires a dedication to be an international manager that I think that's foreign to a lot of us workers that have always done nine to five, like our parents did, you know? Yep. So

Jeffrey Brown (20:17):

I want to jump on that thought process, that mindset, right? Because there's another thing that you just kind of clued into, you know, that made me think of something that I deal with or, and I run into is leaders, you know, I've been doing it for a long time, like you have, but you might get a new leader who's never worked outside of, with, outside of the US and having to reframe their mind a little bit, right? Because if it's very dangerous to go into those cultural things and expect them to all be like American because they think differently, they have different priorities, they have different things of value that make more sense to them. One country, you know, to, to your point, right? Spending time with the kids might be very valuable. Getting home at, at a certain time might be, that might be the most important thing to them when I sit down and talk to them, you know, I want to find that out so that I can create value for them. So retraining leaders or training leaders and mentoring them that have never done that before is really key because you kind of have to forget some of that stuff, you know? And, and take it a whole different place. Especially if you have somebody that you're working with that maybe doesn't have the critical thinking skills you would expect them to have, but they may be the hardest worker you've ever seen and they'll, they'll push that button all day long for you, right? There's a, there's a good fit. As a leader, we have to be able to see the potential in people and put them in the right positions based on that and not force them to do things the way that we do. One of the tricks I've done is a lot of times as I use as this tool, after I've been a manager for a month or two, I'll bring in and have them for fun, right? We make a fun time of it, but we do a personality test. I do that so that I can adapt to them so I can find out this leader, right? Really likes information in charts and graphs. They're visual thinker. This one's not. And, and the worst thing a team, a leader can do, those leaders who think that they can come in once a week, do a team meeting and say, okay, this week everybody has this work for stream to do. They're not effective leaders. In fact, I tell my teams is my leaders, you can't lead teams. You have to lead individuals. And taking it down to that level is critically important. So it fits as well in the cultural thing because now that you're global, now that you have global cultures, you really have to understand what's important to that culture as well as the individual.

Wade Erickson (22:33):

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I wanted to pivot to something a little more personal that was in your bio. Sure. you know, in this day and age I noticed you were 23 years at Infor, and I have a lot of experience with that company. I managed a, a bond five C in the ERPL and implementation for over five years at a billion dollar global company. So it was you know, lots of upgrades and patches and everything weekend and closing the books year end and all of that kind of stuff. And then, of course, all the systems that integrated this was a manufacturer. So they had PLM systems and everything feeding into the ERP system. We used the CRM system, they're called Epiphany before we went to Salesforce. So you know, you had 23 years at that company, and that is somewhat rare in today's, like my dad was with one company for that year period of time. And so it was very common for our parents, I think. But typically now we jump three to five years. And you were able to navigate your way through for 23 years and continue to climb the ladder. And a lot of times that really is about you presenting yourself and where you want to go, showing value, showing value in the next spot before you're in that spot and all those kind of things. And you know, there's, there's folks that are happy at the company. I mean, I was at Accenture for 10 years, a massive company that you could jump around from project to pro. It was really, you could be an entrepreneur within the company. But at the same time it had some of the limitations of a huge enterprise that, you know, in other areas. So but tell me some of that advice you have for somebody that's in a big company is happy in that big company, how to navigate and climb the ladder to get to places they want to be.

Jeffrey Brown (24:27):

Absolutely. That's great. And, and maybe, you know, that all-nighter that you were pulling, I was behind the keyboard at that time, so maybe, hopefully that will work out well. But yeah, you know, I work with a lot of young people as well, right? Coming into the industry for the first time. And one of the things that I see is there, you know, and again, not to, you know, put people in these buckets, but there's this conception, you know, I'm fresh out of to college. I've got that degree, I know what I'm doing, right? I know, I, I know so much. I know it. All right. That is a little, you have to kind of break that down because it doesn't translate to the real world. And there's this misconception that if I'm that guy who is the go-to guy for something, then I have infinite job security. And you might be right, but you've also just pigeonholed you into that position forever. So you better really like what you're doing. 'cause You're never going to move on. So the, the, the thing that I did all the years is this was my kind of thought process. Every time I learned something, I went and taught it to somebody else. Yes. Yes, it did. Two things. One, it didn't pigeonhole me, and two, it also tested my understanding of what I just did. 'cause If I can't teach it or if I asked questions, I don't know, I don't know quite as well as I thought I did. So by expanding that and making sure I always have redundant version of me on the team, it allowed me to every two to three years move to something else. And it, what the hardest position out of it, you know, when I was at Infor to get out of was tech support. It was really hard to get out of support. But once I did that and I got to development, then yeah, I, I did, you know, if you look through my, my LinkedIn and my resume, right? Every two to three years I was switching roles, not companies. Yes. And when I switched those roles that I took, that I had honest conversations to say, this is where I'm at based on compensation, based with what I'm doing. This is what you want me to do. You're moving me here because of my background. I had to learn to advocate for myself Yes. And not be afraid to go somewhere at certain times of that 23 years where I said, okay, I I'm, I'm, I'm looking for the next phase. It doesn't have to be here. Here's what I'm going to need. And they're like, well, what is it going to take? And they said, okay, well let's do that. And I was comfortable where I, I didn't have to move, but I was willing to. So you have to be brave enough to advocate for yourself and be okay with that. You might have to go somewhere else, but have open and honest conversation with good leaders and you'll usually get what you want to keep moving forward.

Wade Erickson (26:53):

And I definitely want to reiterate that because a lot of people don't realize that you can get so good at your job that you can't, that a manager is afraid to replace you. And that happened to me when I had one guy that could close the books annually for a billion dollar company and he never got to do New Year's celebrations. 'cause He was up running the scripts to get those books to close on January one. And, and to promote him out of that, I told him, here's the deal, you're going to have to spend six months training your replacement and then you're going to have to shadow them in the quarterly book closing to prepare for the annual book closing. And once we close the books with them and you just coaching, I can promote you out. And so exactly to your point, if you're doing that yourself and you're training those around you to be your replacement, always replace you, be replaceable. That takes the, you know, the anchor off your butt to be able to get out of there if you want to keep.

Jeffrey Brown (27:59):

It doesn't, and it shows leadership that you're willing to train, you're willing to learn, you're willing to learn that. And that is much more important than you've just been the only go-to guy.

Wade Erickson (28:08):

You don't be the one that covets that position and wants to hold onto it for security because your security provide providing value. It's not providing value and one position. So. Alright. Well man, I just thank you for your time. And you know, we're right at the top of the hour here, so

Jeffrey Brown (28:26):

Wait, this flew by and I really enjoyed talking to another, another industry leader. This was fun.

Wade Erickson (28:31):

Yeah. So real quick, I wanted to introduce a show for next week. It is Don Gaspar, CEO and co-founder of Gigantor Technologies. And they provide machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies for companies. So, you know, once again, another AI machine learning kind of topic as we you know, present tech leaders unplugged for next week, again, February 7th at 9:30. So same bat time and save bat channel as they say. Right. So again, Jeffrey, great conversation. You have a great weekend coming up here and let's stay in touch.

Jeffrey Brown (29:11):

Thanks Wade.