Some Goodness Podcast - Episode 1 - June 2024
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[00:00:00] Richard: In the book, Scaling Up, Vern Harnish wrote goals without routines are wishes, routines without goals are aimless. The most successful business leaders have a clear vision and the disciplines or routines to make it a reality. My guest today is one such leader, and I'm excited for him to share some goodness with us today.
[00:00:22] Richard: Welcome to Some Goodness, where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical. Guidance and tips to help aspiring and up and coming leaders maximize their impact. My guest today is Al Montserrat, partner at Corton Capital and a seasoned board member and CEO.
[00:00:39] Al: Al, welcome. Hey Richard, always fun to see you, always great to collaborate.
[00:00:44] Al: Congratulations on this new adventure, including the podcast series. I'm sure your experience combined with that of your network is going to help many excellent.
[00:00:53] Richard: Well, thank you for, uh, for being here with us. Uh, as you know, we've worked, uh, in the industry together and adjacent for, for a number of years.
[00:01:01] Richard: And so I'm excited to, to just pick your brain a little bit and kind of help our audience really think about as a leader in a firm, how can they really maximize their value and share goodness across the team and across their, their customer base. So today, as you and I were talking, there's a lot of things we could talk about.
[00:01:21] Richard: Right? And I think 1 of the things that we landed on was just this idea of getting back to the basics. And so, when you share that with me, I thought that that's really intriguing that a seasoned and experienced leader, such as yourself would say, hey, it is a priority. Uh, to just get back to the basics.
[00:01:38] Richard: And so tell me why, why did that come to mind? Why would that be important for executives to get right?
[00:01:44] Al: You know, the, it's well known that habits lead to consistent results, good and bad, and good habits tend to be really tough to form and bad habits tend to be really hard to break. I'm a big fan of habits.
[00:01:57] Al: I'm a big fan of muscle memory. Doing things out of muscle memory tends to lead to consistent results and you don't have to spend cycles thinking about those things. So the more we can get ourselves into doing the basic positive habits from muscle memory. The more capacity you have to think through the complex, non repetitive decisions that you have to make.
[00:02:21] Al: So ensuring that you develop positive habits around the basics will best prepare us for success. There's a list I have that I've shared with you that's very simple. And over time, honestly, I've forgotten to follow some of them. And I have to bring myself back, remind myself of them, and start following them again.
[00:02:39] Al: Uh, but I notice a drop in consistent performance when, when I don't follow them, when I don't stick to the list. And like I said, it's not rocket science. It's a very basic list.
[00:02:49] Richard: That's, that's, that's excellent. Well, I like the idea of having a list, you know, some of the best leaders and sellers that I work with have like their cheat sheets, right?
[00:02:57] Richard: They have their guides, they have their process. And so to think about, you know, a discrete list of basics that we may, we, you know, we, we want to make sure that we don't miss out on is good. Should we just take them one at a time and just kind of go down, you know, some of these basics that, that we have to get right.
[00:03:14] Richard: Sure. One at a time or the ones you think are the most interesting. Well, let's do it. So, and we can make this collaborative here. I know you did share a few with me. Here's one that I'd love to start with. And that is this idea of showing up on time. And I'll be honest, uh, you know, when I thought about what's out, you know, going to share with us today, I didn't think that, you know, just something as basic as showing up on time would be on the list.
[00:03:38] Richard: Why, why is that so important? And why, why did it make the cut?
[00:03:42] Al: You know, it's, it's extremely important and it's, it's not always easy. We actually, you know, we both did it today. I think we were both a couple of minutes early and then we got off to a good start. And, and I think number one, it just shows respect for everybody, whether it's you're just meeting one person or whether you're meeting multiple people.
[00:03:59] Al: This goes back a long time with me and just wanting to be on time as a sign of respect for the other person, but also finishing on time. Cause oftentimes, especially in the corporate environment, meetings run late. And then when a meeting runs late, it just messes up your schedule for the rest of the day.
[00:04:15] Al: And then you end up never showing up on time for the rest of the day. So. Starting on time, finishing up on time helps you just show up on time. And, and that's why I think it's important. It's a sign of respect that keeps things on schedule. You know, there's different things, different people have to do, and you want to be respectful of that.
[00:04:32] Richard: I love that, you know, the old adage of lead by example, you know, comes to mind. And so if that's what we expect of our people, right. We, as a leader. You know, need to be demonstrating that. And in our world, we have the opportunity to work with a lot of leaders that have been hired into an organization, right?
[00:04:50] Richard: So a new CRO, a new CEO, new CMO coming in to, to make some changes, improve the business, improve the team performance, et cetera. And, you know, when I think about showing up on time. You know, that really kind of, you know, sets sets a tone, right? And a lot of times, you know, we talk about building trust with teams.
[00:05:10] Richard: You know, when you come in there, they're a little bit anxious, right? About, Oh, what's going to change here, right? Is my job going to change? Am I going to be, you know, even be here anymore. So, you know, showing up on time, how do you, you know, see that kind of parlaying into building trust with a, with a new team that you may be joining?
[00:05:28] Al: You would almost think we rehearsed this one, Richard, which we did not. But I had a few stories, and I'll pick one, which is a little bit extreme, but it brings all of those points into the picture. One time I had just taken over a new team, and the team was feeling that way. There was change coming. It was both a process of people and a technology transition in time, and it was clear that we were going to have to do things differently.
[00:05:55] Al: And about two weeks after I took over this new team, we were having our first leadership team meeting. It was about two weeks. You know, 68 people that were all members of the leadership team for that team and one of the more senior members of the team who had actually communicated his desire to take on a more senior leadership role within the team.
[00:06:13] Al: I was late to the meeting and it actually started because that person went to the wrong location, the location and the time were clear in the agenda invite. And the person went to the wrong location and that started the, you know, the domino effect of showing up late, but then he decided to walk. from the wrong location to the right location.
[00:06:35] Al: And the right location was not a very close walk from the other location. And it was also a walk that this person had never done before, obviously. So to get to the new location required walking under Interstate I 95. So walking under a highway. And to be able to go under the highway you had to jump over a six foot fence.
[00:06:55] Al: The person arrived at the meeting almost an hour late, covered in sweat, And with a tear in the pants from where they got stuck on the fence when he was jumping over and no matter how much empathy or understanding you try to have in the face of his peers. This was unrecoverable.
[00:07:17] Richard: Just
[00:07:17] Al: showing up like that was a real story.
[00:07:20] Al: Absolutely. Real story. I clearly remember what this person was wearing. This was close to 20 years ago. And yeah. And not only, you know, not only does it show a lack of respect for everybody else, not only does, does it show poor judgment and decision making and then deciding to walk, you know, over to the other location, I mean, missing the meeting start and the location that was in the invite.
[00:07:42] Al: Uh, but on top of that, by the time he got there, he had missed the first 45, 50 minutes of the meeting. He had missed the introduction, which was the setup to having a successful day. And so it's an extreme story. I have a couple other ones that, you know, might be in the same category. But it just shows you how being late, not knowing where you're going can have a huge impact on what happens in your immediate career.
[00:08:08] Al: And it's no different than the first, you know, 10 minutes of a show or a movie. It's going to be much more harder to understand the plot of the movie, the plot of the show, if you don't watch the first 10 minutes and so showing up to meetings on time, being there for the beginning, you know, is important in developing an understanding for what's going to happen for the rest of the Of the show.
[00:08:28] Al: And again, just most importantly, it's, it's a sign of respect for the others in the meeting. If, if I had been one of his peers, it would have been forget about the fact that I was his boss. But if I'd been one of his peers, it would have been very disrespectful to show up late, show up in that manner. And then as an excuse, have the fact that, well, you didn't look at the meeting invites.
[00:08:44] Richard: Wow. Wow. That's amazing. That, yeah, that is an extreme, extreme example. Well, let's, let's move into the second one I have here from, from our discussion was do what you say you're going to do. That's another basic, like show up on time, do what you say you're going to do, but tell me why that makes your shortlist.
[00:09:02] Al: That makes my shortlist for, for a few reasons. Uh, one, it's a relatively recent one, uh, in my career, or at least the later stage in my career. Uh, and it came from, you know, who arguably was my favorite boss. Certainly one of the best I've had, uh, ever. Uh, and I've been blessed with some amazing bosses and some incredible mentors, but John Burris, you know, uh, we, we talked about not saying names, but this one, I have to say, uh, John was, it was a great boss and this was something that he would always say.
[00:09:31] Al: And the first time he said this to me, he said it within the context of a political work environment. Um, he said, he said, it's politics when you don't do what you say you are going to do. It's honesty, consistency, directness. When you say what you, when you do what you say you're going to do. And that's what he would always say.
[00:09:52] Al: It's, it's how you, it's how he would define not being political. And then that's funny and true. And if you say you're going to do something, do it. If you commit to doing something for the team, if you commit to doing something for an individual, if you commit to doing something for an organization, do it and don't commit to doing something that you're not.
[00:10:10] Al: Certainly you will be able to do and sometimes it does happen that you say you're going to do something and then you realize for some reason that you're not going to be able to do it. And that's happened to me. And when that's happened to me, I've gone back to the person or the people. And I said, listen, I said I was going to do this, but now I've discovered this other piece of information I didn't have before.
[00:10:28] Al: There's this other challenge I didn't have before. And maybe we need to overcome that challenge first. But if it's something we can't overcome, then I'm not going to be able to do that. And then we're going to have to go do something else. But if you say you're going to do something. Even if it's something as simple as calling somebody back, call them back.
[00:10:45] Al: How often do you call somebody or speak with someone and they go, Oh yeah, yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to get back to you on that. You know, I have this information. And then you never hear from them again, no matter how many times you try to engage with them. If you're not going to call me back, just. Tell me you're not going to call me back or don't, don't tell me you're going to call me back and help me with something if you're not going to.
[00:11:03] Al: So just say, you know, if you say you're going to do something, just do it.
[00:11:07] Richard: And you know, given that we really focus on kind of the revenue engine, I'm anticipating a lot of our listeners to our podcasts are going to be sales leaders and marketing leaders from a sales or marketing kind of team standpoint, or as a new leader coming in.
[00:11:22] Richard: Leading a sales team, leading a marketing team. What, what's one idea or an example that comes to mind where it's really important to do what you say for a sales team, for example.
[00:11:31] Al: Yeah. I mean, you know, we've worked and been together. We've worked on projects at several companies that for example, had a model where most of the sales were being done by a, by a reseller channel.
[00:11:41] Al: And, and to me, this is one that, that is part of being respectful of people who don't even work directly for you, but, but who work with you and where you're each other dependent on, on each other's success. And, and so I've seen situations where, uh, leaders may go and commit to the fact that they're going to provide some benefit or some improved process, and then it does not get delivered.
[00:12:02] Al: And, and I would always tell them, listen, This is what we're going to try to do, or this is what we are going to do from either a rewards perspective or an incentive perspective or an engagement perspective, and then we would go do it. And if they were asking for something that I knew was not realistic or couldn't be done, I believe I was always honest in telling them that it couldn't be done.
[00:12:21] Al: But if I committed to doing something, then I believe we always delivered on it. Same thing for the team in terms of compensation or, you know, enablement, training. Those are things that you always follow up on, and it just helps build trust. And when there's trust, people execute a lot better. That's great.
[00:12:38] Richard: Yeah. And I love that you threw out the example of channel, right? Because as a new leader, you know, it's not just the team underneath us that, that, that is impacted by, you know, our disciplines, our behaviors, our attitudes, et cetera, but, but it's also the adjacent right functions. So, whether you're a sales leader, and, you know, it translates over to marketing, because you're working with marketing to product, because you're working with product, but they even to our customers, our vendors, et cetera.
[00:13:05] Richard: So that's great. Yeah,
[00:13:07] Al: there's two, there's two, two things I frequently repeat and I firmly believe in and the first one, which goes to your point is life is a team sport. Life is a team sport. Every aspect of life is a team sport. If you try to do things on your own, whether it's business or personal, you're not going to be as successful as if you build the team and consider people, part of your team and consider everybody, part of your team.
[00:13:32] Al: And you want to treat everybody positively and you want to be direct with people and consistent with people and build that trust. For having a team, a team that's part of your life team or your business team or, you know, whichever team or your sports team and life is a team sport. And I firmly believe that.
[00:13:49] Al: And then the second thing that I always try to remember and try to tell people is treat everybody as if they're your customer. For today, you invited me, but in my mind, you and Heather are my customer for purposes of today. And so I went back, I prepared, I made sure I was on time and that we would have a positive conversation.
[00:14:09] Al: And at the end of this, I'm going to ask you, did I help you? Was it good? You know, are you gonna be able to do something with this? Uh, because for purposes of this particular engagement, you are my customer. And, and so if you treat everybody as your customer, regardless of the interaction, regardless again of whether it's personal or professional, ultimately, I believe you'll have better results.
[00:14:29] Al: That's excellent.
[00:14:29] Richard: I love that perspective. Definitely writing that 1 down because I, you know, I admit, I don't always think that way. Right? And, but that's a great perspective for us to have. Well, doing what you say, you're going to do leads to kind of the next idea of just providing clarity, right?
[00:14:43] Richard: Direction objectives timelines. And so they go hand in hand, but anything you wouldn't want to, you know, emphasize on just that, uh, that clarity angle.
[00:14:53] Al: Yeah, this one's maybe the toughest one because oftentimes it's, it's hard to be able to provide the level of specificity that a lot of people would want.
[00:15:02] Al: And I remember times in my career where there was such potential for variability in terms of what could happen, that the best direction I could give somebody. And I recall, you know, doing it one time was telling somebody, Hey, I have no idea what we're going to be doing next week, but I guarantee you it will be challenging.
[00:15:20] Al: We'll have fun and we'll be successful, but be prepared for a lot of ambiguity in terms of what's happening in the next phase of this engagement. And, and the person looked at me with a very strange look and was not sure what to expect the following week. But I recently, you know, that was maybe 30 years ago.
[00:15:36] Al: And I recently met with this person and we were laughing about it over drink because he goes, I showed up the next week and a lot of stuff happened. We were very busy. It was very complicated. We had a lot of fun and we were successful. And so sometimes, sometimes the clarity can be, Hey, I have no idea what's going to happen and you should be prepared for that.
[00:15:56] Al: Because I think clarity is more about managing expectations than the actual clarity. And so letting people know what to expect, and that might be the unexpected, but certainly the more specificity you can provide, the more you should provide, especially in terms of the assignment, being clear on the expected outcome, you know, not how to get there.
[00:16:18] Al: You want to give smart people the freedom to figure out how to get there. So expect that outcome, you know, if there are guardrails, what the guardrails are, the objectives are. And then always a deadline. This is the part where most people forget is to say, you know, we do need this by next Friday, or we do need this by the quarter.
[00:16:35] Al: We do need this by specific time, because that, that leaves a lot of people hanging when they're not sure how quickly you need to get something done. So expect that outcome, you know, objectives and deadline, but just thinking about. I think that's the most important thing and making sure that people are not surprised by what happens next, that they're, you know, that they know that that the expected might be something unexpected.
[00:16:57] Richard: That's great. You know, it reminds me of a recent project we worked on together. You were hired in as the CEO. That's always a bad decision. That's always a bad decision. It was a great decision. That team was, was in need of a lot of change, right? And one of the leaders that I was working with, she knew that I had knew.
[00:17:16] Richard: We worked with you in the past and she just kind of asking how we knew each other, et cetera. And so I took the opportunity to say, so, you know, you've been through a lot of change and, and you know, worked under a lot of leaders. What do you think about Al? And, and she said, I'll never forget it. She was like, the, the thing I appreciate most about Al is he is a straight shooter.
[00:17:38] Richard: And he makes decisions and he sets direction and he's clear about what he wants from us and we go get stuff done, right? And just that level of managing expectations, do what you say you're going to do, provide clarity, right? Straight shooter, you know, kind of sums it up in a way. And, you know, she, you know, had been through a lot of leaders, a lot of change and that that's what she needed and the organization needed and what they really appreciated.
[00:18:05] Richard: So, I thought that just kind of came to mind as you were kind of talking about managing expectations and even in the, um, the world of, hey, I don't know what's going to happen yet, but you still need to be a straight shooter and say that, right?
[00:18:20] Al: It's not, you know, it's a strength to accept the fact that you don't know something.
[00:18:24] Al: It's a strength to ask for help. And those are other things that sometimes people don't realize.
[00:18:31] Richard: Well, speaking of not knowing things, right, and admitting that, one of the back to basics on your list is always be learning. And so just tell me, what does that look like for you? I mean, you, you've, you've served so many companies, you have such great experience, what could you, what could you possibly be doing now to enhance your learning besides just diving in with new teams?
[00:18:52] Al: You know, there's always, there's always things to learn and you can get a little bit arrogant over time in terms of believing, you know, more than you actually know, or that you're prepared for any kind of situation. When when I left Citrix and I'm mentioning Citrix, if anybody could go to LinkedIn and see that I was there for a very long time, but it was it was an amazing career.
[00:19:12] Al: It was a wonderful place. You know, met lots of great people, including yourself and your team. And we did a lot of great things together there. And when I left, I went to do my first CEO job. And I really felt that after 15 years at Citrix and being a senior executive in a 3 billion company that, you know, I knew everything.
[00:19:32] Al: There was little anybody could teach me, especially cause I was moving into a company. It was a CEO role, but it was a much smaller company. And within six months, it was, it was as if I'd been hit over the head with a two by four in terms of all the things, you know, all the things I didn't know, all the things I had to prepare for.
[00:19:49] Al: Um, and it just led me to, to start reading a lot again, which I stopped doing during my last few years at Citrix. And there's always great, you know, there's always great authors out there. I'm not a big fan of recommending, you know, a lot of books. I think everybody has their own personality and there's things that they do like and things that they don't like, but always be learning is the key.
[00:20:09] Al: And then always be learning for books from books. Always be learning from mentors. You know, one, one, one thing I did, one exercise I did when I did leave a Citrix and I was going to go do my first CEO job is I had a list of all the CEOs of either companies we had acquired at Citrix or others who I had met along the way as part of that journey.
[00:20:27] Al: And I took a trip, I went on a personal tour. Where I scheduled meetings with all these former CEOs and, you know, and many of them were incredibly helpful in, in preparing me for what the journey was going to be at Rez. And I'm very, you know, very thankful that, that they did that, but it was part of always be learning, figuring out who were the really good ones, who were the ones that had been successful in building companies, you know, in the image of what I wanted to build from a culture perspective, from a success perspective.
[00:20:56] Al: People that had the same management beliefs that I had, and then going out and meeting with them and learning from them. And so that was part of always be learning and you should always continue to do that. And a lot of it is there in literature. A lot of there is there in the networks that you built and using them for, for those reasons.
[00:21:13] Richard: Yeah. Uh, what came to mind immediately was, Hey, we, we should read, right. There's lots of good books out there and be intentional about, you know, where can I fill some gaps in my knowledge or expertise, but you know, that idea of. Yeah. Being intentional about meeting with others, other leaders, other former leaders.
[00:21:30] Richard: That's a great idea. And in my experience, you know, people like to be in a position to help others right for free, right? If I could provide some value that makes me feel good, right? Hopefully it helps you out. So I think that's a great idea. Having, having
[00:21:45] Al: such a network and learning from people that have been there before is, you know, it saves you a lot of time and it saves you from a lot of pain.
[00:21:54] Richard: Al and I had such a great conversation digging into some basics and telling stories that we are already out of time. So what we're going to do is we're going to end it here and save his final three tips for part two. So be sure and come back for part two, where we dig into Al's perspectives on performance evaluations, Recruiting, hiring, and firing, and developing your own personal board of advisors.
[00:22:17] Richard: See you then.
