Rob Reynolds, CIO at Congruex, joins us in this episode to reveal the secrets of fostering transparent and unfiltered communication within teams. You'll discover how feedback and open dialogue are not mere buzzwords but essential tools for confronting issues directly and building unwavering trust. Learn how active listening can revolutionize team dynamics and drive organizational success. Inspired by Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, we explore how self-awareness in leadership, through self-reflection, empathy, and accountability, can reshape the way leaders navigate their responsibilities.
In this episode, we discuss the following:
1. Importance of honest, unfiltered communication within teams.
2. Simplifying communication, especially in the tech space.
3. Recognizing and celebrating achievements, both big and small.
CONNECT WITH ROB:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/reynoldsrob/
http://congruex.com
CONNECT WITH SUSIE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok/
CONNECT WITH JAMES:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/capps/
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Quick Take podcast, the show where you
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get targeted advice and coaching for executives by
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executives.
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I'm Susie Tominchuk.
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Speaker 2: And I'm James Capps.
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Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to
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address the complex topic of issues that are challenging
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executives like you today.
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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Quick Take.
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I'm your host, Susie Tomachuk, along with my favorite co-host,
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James Gap.
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How are you, James?
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Speaker 2: I'm great.
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I wasn't favorite co-host.
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I've been relegated to third place below the dog, but I think
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I moved my way up Well, I only said that because we have a
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guest today, so you know I wanted to make you feel good, so
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that you would get your confidence up.
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Speaker 1: So why don't you tell us a little bit about our
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guests?
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Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so excited we have Rob Reynolds with us today
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, who is a good friend of mine.
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He is the CIO at Congruix, which is a really great company
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here in Colorado that does some amazing stuff as they think
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about how to lead people a real people-focused orientation.
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We could spend an entire episode talking about the great
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stuff you guys do and how you think about your employees, but
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you know, rob, we wanted to jump in on your leadership style.
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Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and we can
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jump in there?
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Speaker 3: Sure Thanks, james and Susie.
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I'm glad and happy to be here.
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Look forward to the conversation.
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Yeah, I've been around for a while.
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A little long in the tooth, as they say.
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Been in the technology went to school for technology, so I'm
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actually doing what?
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Speaker 2: I went to school to do that's fine.
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Speaker 3: Not always the case, but been mostly in the telecom
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space always the case, but been mostly in the telecom space,
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started off in the systems development realm and have been
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CIO at a few different companies and from extremely huge
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companies of the Comcast of the world to where I'm at today with
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Congruix, which is a little over a five-year-old company
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that has had extreme growth.
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In those five years we're approaching a billion dollars in
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revenue and so it's been a big change in a short amount of time
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.
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And, as you said, it's all about people and our biggest
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asset is people and you know the teams that we have and the team
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that I have, certainly throughout my career, but
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certainly here at Cringerix, has been awesome and, yeah, I'd
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love to talk about that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know we've had we've had several
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conversations around the way that you think about leadership.
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I love hearing you talk at events and some of our little
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smaller groups saying how you think about it.
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Why don't you give us a little sense of some of the things that
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you think differentiate the way that you lead and some of the
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things that you bring to the table that are obviously
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successful for you, but also things that our listeners can
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take away as some nuggets for their leadership?
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Speaker 3: Sure, We'll start with the obvious one and that's
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communication.
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You know, communication obviously is key, but maybe take
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a little bit different approach to that, the way we kind of
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think about things and the way I like to approach it.
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First element of that is just always wanting true, honest and
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unfiltered, you know, feedback and the truth.
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Right too often, especially when you're dealing with folks
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with certain titles, you want to sugarcoat things or not, maybe
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come out with exactly what's going on and not letting people
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know that maybe you know you're getting a little bit of lip
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service or they're saying they're doing this, but this is
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really happening, you know, over here.
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And so I really talk about honest and unfiltered and we try
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to do that within our teams.
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You know, let's deal with things head on, let's have great
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conversation, let's battle it out, and then we make the call.
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And when you run, when you make that call, everybody runs, that
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play.
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But if things are not going right, if things are a little
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bit messed up, let's address it, let's understand it.
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How do we change it, how do we make things better?
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But really, really true, candid feedback.
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I want to know how you're feeling, I want to know your
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opinion on stuff, and then again we put that together as a group
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and we make the right call for the situation for the company,
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whatever it might be.
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But I think too often things are sugarcoated or people say
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what they think they want you to hear rather than than you know
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really what's going on.
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And so I think, when I think about comms.
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Speaker 2: That's kind of the the first piece.
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Yeah, yeah, you know, I think that's so good because, uh, you
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know, and I think it goes up and down, I think your example are
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alluded to talking to leadership , but, boy, there's nothing that
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grows and build strength and trust with your team when you
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are transparent with them.
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You know, so often I find that the talking points from the head
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shed are a little sugar-coated or and I'll just tell my staff
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exactly what I know hey, this is all I got right and that just
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those are investments in the team throughout time.
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And I think you're right.
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That type of transparency always pays off.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I just want to add too I think it's also
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important to just illustrate how open you are to it, because you
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said, like some people will sugarcoat it.
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Well, that comes from when your reaction to the feedback and
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then people approach it differently.
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So really being open to it to understand it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it.
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Yeah.
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Maybe another piece you know related around that is stop
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talking and start listening.
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You know people talk about active listening.
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Active listening is really hard to do it takes a lot of work.
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Speaker 2: It's a muscle To truly listen.
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Speaker 3: It is Absolutely.
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It has to be trained, no question.
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I mean you have to be able to stop and you know, without
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formulating your opinion or without making sure you get your
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point across listen to what they're saying, learn from their
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experiences and respect those things.
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Like I say, it's easy, it's really easy to do or to say, but
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it's really hard to do and I think if you truly understand
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that, you understand how, when decisions are made, you can
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communicate that back out as to why that is how it maybe differs
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from where their viewpoint is, but how it supports whatever the
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goals of the department or the goals of the business and
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objectives or whatever it is.
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But listening, you can't.
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Can't listen enough.
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I don't think we do enough.
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Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I love, uh, when I am hit right between the eyes, uh,
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either witnessing or or being in a conversation with somebody
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who is an amazing listener, and it is like suddenly watching
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some athlete do pull-ups for 20 minutes.
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It's like what is?
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How is that possible?
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I didn't know that could be done and those those whether
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it's a podcast and you know there's several great podcast
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hosts I know a couple of people that I've I've worked with in
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the past it is hypnotic and it is impressive because you, you,
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you see the other side of that conversation open up and and you
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can see what a difference it makes.
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Um, and I, really I do, I aspire to that, to be as good as
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some of those folks, because it is, it's a game changer?
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Speaker 1: It definitely is, and I you know, a metric that I
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always talk to teams about is leaders should listen 70% of the
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time, and so it's hard though you have to kind of look back
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and evaluate yourself and say am I listening enough?
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Because it is so hard and we believe that we are sometimes
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and we're not doing it as well as we could.
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Speaker 2: I love throwing a number out there that plucks
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every guitar string of every leader.
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Right, I have to be 70.
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This is more like 40.
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I got to get up to that 60.
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So that's a good one.
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Speaker 3: Susie, I don't know if I want to see my KPI on that
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one.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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My real time dashboard on my phone would be horrific For sure
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.
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So what else?
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Give us another, another area.
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Speaker 3: How about less is more, right?
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So simplify our communications, Especially in the tech space.
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We over-architect and engineer our communications.
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We try to always feel like you have to give a dissertation or
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give examples as to why something is.
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And I think far, far too often.
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Now, obviously, you have to start with, you have to know
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your audience Right.
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Who, who are you speaking to at the time?
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Certainly, but far too often we elaborate way too much when
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really a simple yes or no or suffice.
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They'll let you know if they need more information, you know,
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and then the clarification or whatever.
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And I had somebody tell me one time they held up a bottle of
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water and they're like what is this?
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And it's like, well, it could be water, it could be vodka, it
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could be, you know, whatever it could be.
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This it's just water.
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you know the answer is it's just make it hard yeah, don't make
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it hard, and we find ourselves especially in the tech space.
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Just, you know we, we think we, you know, I think the people
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think they have to really explain themselves and give
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examples.
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And we really try to answer just the question yes or no?
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Start with that, is it binary?
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And then go from there.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and it goes so well with if you're
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listening, well, if you don't talk a lot and then you listen,
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then you can find out if they understand.
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So you listen to understand, so that you can get there.
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So I love that one Less is more , and especially because we're
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going so fast, we go from meeting to meeting, we try to
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get so much done and so I love that whole idea of try to just
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give less and just give silence and listen and see how it landed
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.
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Speaker 2: Well, we talk a lot about the power of that
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thoughtful pause and that silence goes so far and people
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will give you more if you are just not jumping in.
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It's a really powerful tool.
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All right, rob comms, that's a really great nugget.
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Give us another pillar of your leadership style.
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think, well related to
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communication or whatever but is celebrate our wins.
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We don't celebrate our wins enough.
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You know we always do so.
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Go back to the tech industry.
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We're always dealing with the problems.
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Right, this didn't happen.
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We have these many bugs.
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You know.
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This outage, whatever it is, trust me, we talk a lot about
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that and we over communicate those things.
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We have to communicate those up and across, and so on.
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We live our lives there.
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And then to your point a minute ago, susie we're so busy, we
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deliver and we're on to the next thing, we're on to the next
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thing, we're on to the next thing.
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We do not do enough around stopping and celebrating our
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wins, no matter how big or small , from a dot release to a big
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release, to a full blown blowout , to stopping an outage or
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avoiding some sort of a cyber event.
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You know, and so it's.
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It's probably not, probably it is.
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My weakest part of my leadership is trying to remember
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to stop and celebrate those.
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Um, you know, we do a pretty good job and and our teams do a
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pretty good job of celebrating individuals and team things that
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occur, but not the stuff we do day in and day out, because it's
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hard, it is hard work and it's hard stuff.
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The spotlight's always on us.
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We're always the reason why something's late or something's
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behind and we need to, you know.
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So I try, that's like I say.
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It's one of my biggest areas that I really try to work on is
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celebrate our wins and communicate that up, advertise
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that stuff.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
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You know.
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They do say the data shows even recent data around recognition
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and how important that is to people and most people leave a
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company.
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One out of every two people leave because they're not
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recognized.
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Yeah, I believe that.
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So it is so important, but it is hard to remember.
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Like you said, you're not the first leader I've heard that
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from that it's.
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I got to slow down and really recognize that because it's
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almost like we think it, but we need to really say it out loud.
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Speaker 2: Well, we also forget where we are in the journey.
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You know, so many times we're in the boardroom and we're, you
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know, working on a program or we're, we're, we're formulating
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an idea and then that goes off for implementation.
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We've already moved on to the next one, right, and it's you
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forget that, that that downstream effect, and that
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execution has happened maybe a month, two months after you
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thought about it.
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And you have to keep your head above water and say you know
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what.
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I'm focusing on third quarter right now, because that's what's
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coming up.
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But I got to go celebrate first quarter and that's just a real
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challenge of a leader who has to , you know, be Janice headed.
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You have to be looking in multiple directions at once, and
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that's just the nature of the beast.
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But yeah, it goes a long way to keeping your teams happy.
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Speaker 3: Love it, yeah, for sure, you know.
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Maybe one other area I love the book Extreme Ownership.
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You guys have read that by the former Navy SEALs Jocko Willink
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and Leif Babin.
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This is something that you talk about getting smacked on top of
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the head.
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This is the one that hit me between the eyes when I read it.
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It's, you know, it's all about stopping and making sure you're
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asking yourself what could I do differently or what could I be
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overlooking?
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Right Could be what, maybe how I communicated something that I
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don't effectively communicate that out, you know, or things
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that I did.
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Could I have done it differently?
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Done more of?
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Also, understanding the situation in the moment in time.
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Is somebody going through a circumstance, personal or
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professional, that's causing them to be somewhere else, maybe
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, than in the present, and just challenging yourself to look at
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what roadblocks could I help get out of the way?
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And so it's all about taking ownership and accountability.
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You know, looking in the mirror is paramount, it's true, right,
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and it's overused, probably a ton, but the best lessons that
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we get are from when we fail right or make mistakes or
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mishaps happen, and so having that retrospective and, honestly
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, you know, looking yourself in the mirror is something that I
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try to do I don't do enough of, none of us probably do but it's
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something that you know, I think is is key and paramount and
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having those retrospectives, even you know, in our world, in
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the technology world, is is absolutely key.
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Speaker 2: You know, one of the key elements of a retrospective
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in my mind mind actually ties to one of my favorite quotes out
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of that book, and I'm hoping I get it right.
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I think it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate,
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and I think a retrospective is the manifestation of identifying
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what you tolerate.
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And if you look back and accept those shortcomings, accept less
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than you know cohesion from your team, then that is you know
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.
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You can say it all day long that we are all in this together
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.
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But if you don't behave that way in a retrospective doesn't
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matter, and that that is that retrospective is the place, the
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crucible in which that which you tolerate is formed.
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And I always think about that when we do, when we do retros.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to just add before you wrap it up, james
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we'll see if you can remember them all is that self-awareness
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is something that people believe they either have or they don't,
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and self-awareness goes down as you go up in the organization.
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But self-awareness can be cultivated, and one way to
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cultivate self-awareness is to look back and to really be
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thoughtful about how you're leading or what you're doing and
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how a situation played out and what was your impact in that
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situation.
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So such a great key element to a good leader, especially at
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senior levels.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really well said.
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Speaker 1: What are the takeaways for the for the
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quicksters?
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Speaker 2: I, you know, I mean Rob just brought so much great
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to the table.
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You know, rob isn't as my task and burden is to wrap things up
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on the show and try to give everybody a quick recap.
00:15:57
But, um, I think you know you've you've brought up some
00:16:00
really great takeaways in the comm space and you know, I think
00:16:04
you know more is less or less is more.
00:16:07
You know making sure that you're you're not trying to fill
00:16:10
the space, understanding that you've got to be a good listener
00:16:13
.
00:16:13
And then when you are speaking, you know razor edge
00:16:18
transparency, making sure that that that communication is crisp
00:16:22
and everybody is on top of things.
00:16:24
And then you know not losing the point of view and
00:16:27
perspective and celebrate.
00:16:28
You know be aware of what your teams are doing.
00:16:32
Celebrate not only the diving catches, which we tend to do,
00:16:35
but also the day to days, also the day-to-days.
00:16:38
And it's a John Shantz right there, our Comcast brethren,
00:16:42
that celebrating the diving catch is good but it isn't how
00:16:47
you run a business and you've got to be good about celebrating
00:16:49
.
00:16:49
And then thank you for bringing up Extreme Ownership.
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What a great book.
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I really enjoyed that book and I think everybody here should
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take a look at that and get slapped upside the head in every
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chapter and realize that you know we all have a lot to learn.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, Rob.
00:17:08
Thank you so much.
00:17:09
You gave us so many great tidbits of wisdom from your
00:17:14
journey as a leader, and you also said that it isn't
00:17:18
something that you just.
00:17:19
You know we all lead differently.
00:17:21
There's a lot of components of leadership, so thank you for
00:17:25
being here.
00:17:25
We appreciate it.
00:17:26
Speaker 3: No problem, thank you .
00:17:27
Appreciate it as well and anytime Love to come back.
00:17:31
Speaker 2: We'll hold you to that.
00:17:32
We're always excited to have somebody share a little more of
00:17:35
their wisdom along the way.
00:17:36
So thanks, maybe.
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Speaker 3: I'll ask the questions.
00:17:38
Speaker 2: Ooh, I like that.
00:17:39
Yeah, we'll do upside down month hey.
00:17:44
Speaker 1: James, I was wondering, if you had to pick
00:17:46
one underrated quality in a leader, what would it be?
00:17:51
Speaker 2: I'm torn between saying patience and empathy,
00:17:57
because I think that so many leaders are quick to respond and
00:18:03
I don't think that they often look at it from their employees'
00:18:07
point of view and that empathy, I think, is underrated and
00:18:11
often seen as weakness, very work and business oriented.
00:18:21
You have to make tough decisions but I do think if you
00:18:23
don't take the true emotional situation into consideration,
00:18:24
that you're missing a big part of it.
00:18:26
I think companies make a lot of decisions without empathy and
00:18:30
while short term it certainly can be okay, the long term
00:18:34
impacts of that are pretty, pretty powerful.
00:18:36
And when leaders and people come to us and say, hey, how
00:18:39
come we have low morale, high attrition, you know, velocity is
00:18:44
down and our employee scores on our internal reviews are lousy
00:18:49
Like well, it's not a challenge to see why the decisions are not
00:18:53
made with your people in mind, and I think people just don't.
00:18:57
I think empathy is way underrated.
00:19:04
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick
00:19:06
Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the mind
00:19:09
of executives everywhere.
00:19:10
Connect with us and share what's on your mind.
00:19:13
Speaker 2: You can find us on LinkedIn, youtube or whatever
00:19:16
nerdy place on the internet.
00:19:17
You find your podcasts.
00:19:18
Our links to the show are in the show notes.
00:19:21
We appreciate you.