Authenticity and Trust: The Foundation of Symbiotic Business Relationships | RR268

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's

episode of relationships rule. My guest this week is Brad

anglers. And he is an author, advisor and technologist with

over 40 years experience in the private and public sectors. He

was with Accenture for 22 years a very well known company, as I

recall, including 10 years as a partner. And then with the

University of Texas at Austin for eight years, including seven

years as the chief information officer. His recent book, which

we're going to talk about today, spheres of influence how to

create and nurture authentic business relationships, offers a

practical guide to help emerging and established leaders develop

and perfect the critical hard skill of building effective and

lasting professional relationships. So first of all,

welcome to the show, Brad.

Thank you. I appreciate the invitation.

Absolutely.

And well, when I see anything to do with building

relationships, spheres of influence, networking, all of

that good stuff, that's right up my alley, because I'm all about

relationships, not only building them, but nurturing them,

because that's the key, right?

That's correct.

So the first thing that that actually came to

mind for me, when I think about your history, your background

and in corporate and the, the, the experience that you've had,

with lots of different age groups, I'm going to say,

talking and studying and learning about the business

relationships that have to take place properly for things for

people to be able to move ahead properly. Tell me something from

when you started getting involved in this to today. You

know, there's like all these different ages, you know, the

different the Gen Xers the millennials, now we have Gen Z's

were the baby boomers. How is it different? I mean, it changes

it's changed. People don't see things the same way. So you must

have to. It's different today, at least I think it is. So I

want to know what your take on that is?

Well, I came to conclude at the end of the book,

that there are three principles that apply to all business

relationships. And I think it applies to different

generations. And the first principle is understanding their

goals and aspirations. They can be wildly different between

generations. But just asking and having that dialogue, the second

principle is setting and managing expectations, what to

expect at the boss, what does your boss expect of you, and had

that dialogue. And then third, is genuinely caring about their

success. And I'd find in all business relationships, if you

really care enough to understand their goals and aspirations. You

take the time to set manage expectations, which is an easy

thing to do. But a lot of people don't do it. And then finally,

genuinely caring. And I think that really is where you develop

relationships that lasts years and decades. Well,

when you say, you know, managing the wolves, the

second one about your, your goals and aspirations, certain

manage expectations.

And you said, the one that you said to ask, just

ask, that seems to be harder. I think for the younger

generation, though. They expect but they don't dial

up. So I had this type A personality boss, and she

wanted everything read fast, fast, fast, fast, faster. And I

got our call one night at five o'clock, I was trying to leave

the office on a time to have dinner with my wife and cheap

bread. I did a white paper, a white paper. And it's like I

literally said, Well, I didn't say no, because that sets the

Type A personality off like a rocket. I said, Well, when do

you need this white paper? Because it sounded like

immediately. Yeah, yeah. Well, she checked her calendar. She

didn't need it for two weeks. Okay. How many pages is this

white paper? I was thinking 10. I wish she said three. Do you

have an example of the white paper that I could look at?

Yeah, yes, David. I did 110 years ago on XYZ Corporation.

Well, guess what I went home. came in the next day found one

of my staff. I said you have a week and a half to do the

research. Here's a model. It's three pages, and we'll get it to

the boss ahead of her client meeting. Right. And before I

learned the skill of saying, Whoa, I would have stayed up all

night, delivered a 10 page Paper got me all that procrastinator

expectations. So it's kind of a lose, lose lose. Yes. So have

the courage to say, Well,

yeah, that's a great, that's a great story

actually. Because I know I've had experiences with my daughter

who has had bosses like that, and she doesn't know how to

stand up to them. And, and that can be worse as it goes on.

Because you get bullied, you get bullied. So you have to learn

how to how to speak to them in a language that they will accept

and understand. Well, that makes me think of another thing that

makes me think of something you said, you said, she's a type A

personality. So how, how important is it for? For any

person in business, who wants to get ahead to understand say,

whether it's the disc or the, you know, the different

personality type tests that you can understand different

people's personalities? How important is that?

Very important with just give you a perfectly

simple example. Some people are morning people, and some people

are night people. So if your boss is a morning, people don't

come in late, work late, come in early, get a cup of coffee and

work when and the same. Tightens, because there's a

really good Wall Street Journal article about this 13 years ago,

the morning larks, think the night people are lazy, cuz they

come in late. And of course, the night people the night owls like

the larks are lazy because they leave early.

They put in three hours.

Observe your boss's behavior and match it.

Yeah, that's brilliant, of course. So you say

that you say that relationship building is a skill that you can

master. And you don't need to be born with this ability. Right.

And I always talk about, I like to ask, usually, towards the end

of a conversation with my guests, I like to ask about the

word curiosity. And I think that I don't know, I think maybe it

can be learned. But the I think my daughter again, who's very

introverted and doesn't have that curiosity factor with some

things. I mean, if it's something she's passionate

about, I think she does, but otherwise, I don't really care.

So what's your take on that? Is it about curiosity? Or is it

about just learning how to question and, you know, just go

through the motions, because I don't believe that you can just

go through the motions, but

Well, I think curiosity is certainly plays

into it. But if I want to know what the goals and aspiration of

my customer is, I mean, it's in my self interest to know what

they need. And so why wouldn't I want to learn that? Be curious

about it, because the only way I will sell them a service is

aligning to their business needs. And by asking what the

Coulson aspirations are, that I can set and manage expectations,

so it's all in my self interest to have a symbiotic

relationship.

So I think I think there's a fine line

between having something being in your best interest and making

it seem as though it's in an IT needs to be in the customers

best interest. Right. Right. So I think that's, that's a, that's

an art, I think that needs to be a skill that needs to be

learned. I think it's a fine art, to be honest. But

one part of that is accountability. You need to

hold your customer as accountable as the customer hold

you accountable. Oh. So I had a customer who I was providing

services to his organization. And he wanted one of his people

to be in with my team, a hybrid solution, where every time a

problem happened, he was causing the problem and pointing the

finger at us. And it's like, we don't have to serve everybody in

our store. I had lunch with the executive Mike here. And I

explained this situation, he looked up and said, You're

firing me as a customer, aren't you? And I said, Yes, I am.

Plus, I'll buy you lunch. Because this arrangement didn't

work. I won't charge you anything. And we stayed friends,

but it wasn't working. And so so you can't force it. That's good

point. Customers knowledge, right?

Yes, that Yeah, exactly. So in your book, The

spheres of influence, you talk about that you talk about. I

didn't observe, wanted to see that you broke it into internal

and external. That's correct influence, okay, I kind of focus

on the external because I wasn't in and a lot of my, my audience

is not corporate, right. So I think about those external, but

I mean, it's all it all pretty much is people skills right and

so forth. So, but you also talked about that the

traditional type of networking is not what you're talking

about. So, building relationships goes much deeper,

I'd love you to, I'd love to get your take on on the difference.

Well,

I find traditional networking to be superficial.

And, you know, you're encouraged to go meet with people and trade

your business cards, people still do that. And in 40 years,

I've yet to have a authentic business relationship come out

of one of those events. And I had someone I was talking with,

who had read the book and said, Yeah, I went to an event, I got

someone's card, and they called me for a donation to their

nonprofit the next week, I didn't even know this person.

That's not networking. No, no. And so you know, I get a little

frustrated. And actually, one of the reviewers of the book said,

people say, to go network, but they don't show you how to go

network. And that's what he liked about the book or exam

examples of how to network. So when I was at the university, I

would meet every four to six weeks with my peers in the

university. And so they were assistant Dean's over all the

colleges, who had it responsibilities, it would have

reporting to them. And I would meet with them and just say, How

are our services? Anything we need to improve with any things

you need, that we're not providing? And then oh, by the

way, we have a big project coming that's gonna affect your

college, we're gonna replace all the telephones. But don't worry,

we have a contractor who's done this many times before, you'll

get plenty in warning, and instruction, and it'll be okay.

And then some of my peers would share rumors with me, Hey, I

heard a rumor that your system detract training isn't covering

students who need to have training and labs to meet

federal requirements. I said, Good rumor, I'll check. And so I

checked in. And no, we had to kind of hurt their students. But

it was good to know that if I didn't have that dialogue, that

could have festered into a big problem.

So you have to be on top of it with with your

people all the time and keep those avenues of conversation

open. And

I expect my direct reports to do the same. So I

have seven direct reports. They had seven to 10 peers and

influencers throughout the organization. So every week

someone report back in our meet weekly meeting management

meeting, what did you hear what's going on out there? It

was almost like our nervous system. And the university is

52,000 students, 21,000 staff, 40,000 faculty, what could

possibly go wrong? And we changed the learning management

system. We changed student email, we moved faculty and

staff to teams, you know, these are all to your projects that

affect 1000s of people. Sure. And so having that nervous

system was very important.

I remember I don't know if I think I told you

this I went to university here in Vancouver University of

British Columbia, which was a big school. We went but now it's

like double or triple the size that it was then and it's like a

city on unto itself and I think it's 60 or 70,000 students on

campus there. And then when I was in corporate and I worked

for the telephone company, we would go out and do the reminded

me of this because you said you'd put new phone systems and

so we would go and put new phone systems into the and it was like

a huge project because they were like standalone city kind they

have their own elect. They had their own telecom setup. So lots

of people and lots of moving parts. It's kind of interesting.

Okay, you I was reading I love this because it reminded me you

were talking about. If you want to have a positive impact as a

change maker in an organization, you need to identify the most

powerful people. Now this with, you know, if you're going to do

work in a company, and you need to know who you need to talk to,

right, that's one reason to do it and also within the company.

But what struck me with this piece in your book, you talked

about Michael Boyles writing about power mapping, what it is

and how that how to use it. And he did that in the Harvard

Business School's Business Insights blog. But you say, once

you identify the central people, you need to understand what they

value. And you talk about an example here that made me think

of something that is, is I think, at the heart of building

and nurturing relationships, which is, you know, finding that

right person and that right person to help you move through

an organization. It could be the top of the chart, or it could be

the receptionist that has, right, and you talked about

this, the person that was the Chief of Staff for the CFO, do

you remember that story? Yes,

of course. I

love that story. Can you share that with us?

Sure.

I'm a big, huge research one university, the CFO

had this trusted Lieutenant. And she had worked with him for 25

years and put out fires help colleges and schools and press

resource needs, and was really a trusted the tenant. And so she

helped me guide me as we transformed all their accounting

and payroll systems to a new technology, which was a multi

year effort. I went to another research one university, same

size, same scale, great reputation. The chief of staff

said, the CFO, I don't think you should meet with me. I've only

been here for two years, and I'm just doing special projects.

Don't waste your time. Thank you so much for saying that.

Yeah. And were you able to ask her who it might

be that you should talk to? Did she? Oh, yeah.

She just said, work with a CFO.

Yeah. So that's brilliant. And then the, that

also reminded me of the old days when, you know, the receptionist

in a big law firm or a big accounting firm. She was, and it

was always a she back then was always, you know, the hub and

the gatekeeper for everything. But she wasn't respected in the

organization the same way she should have been as,

as a customer.

I would respect her. Yes. But internally, it was

never quite sure. Yeah. Do you think that's changed? We don't

even have receptionist anymore. Mail true. Yeah.

It's probably gotten better. Yeah.

I mean, I remember teaching receptionists

and I remember teaching them and getting them to understand that

they were the key person, because they were the first

person that people heard when they called into the company.

They were the first impression. And it had to be a good one.

Right? That's right. Yeah. But

your gatekeeper comment is something I want to

highlight. Because if you're trying to meet with the

executive, you have a relationship with the

gatekeeper. Yeah. You know, and having that respectful

relationship and caring relationship. Yes. Ask about

her, her family. While you're waiting, you're waiting. And

just trying to establish some sort of connection.

So tell me with your book, has it taken you to

some interesting places? Have you noticed any? Like I did ask

at the beginning, but I still think there's got to be a

difference between the young leaders of today and the ones

from the back in the day, and how they I mean, I think the

good ones probably get this really well. But you do you get

any pushback.

I've been pleased that people have been very

receptive. People my age are giving it to their adult

children. Oh, great. So they can consider in their first five to

10 years of their career, and they don't teach this in

business school now. And so I had at the book signing here in

Austin. I had several people who I've known for years buy two or

three copies for their children. That's fine. I thought that was

great. And then on Amazon, it's a best seller and leadership

training, mentoring and coaching and customer relations, which

were the three areas I really was focused on. That's

brilliant. And I've always enjoyed mentoring. And so a lot

of these stories, I would share with my mentors, but that's only

two or three people a year that doesn't scale. And so that's why

I wanted to put these ideas into the book.

That's awesome. Do you find any difference in

terms of females versus males? In their response, and in how

they maybe would use the information,

I think the feedback from people who I

worked with in the past when they reviewed the manuscript was

when I talked about apologizing, and every you're gonna screw up,

your people are gonna screw up. Yeah. And I, I emphasized the

need to apologize. But one person of color said, Well, I

don't want to over apologize, because then it looks weak. And

I said, You're absolutely right. And I put that in the book.

Yeah, you need to say you're sorry, you need to say what

you'll do to keep it from happening again. You might need

restitution. But you genuinely say, you know, I work to make

this never happen again. And people are forgiving, forgiving.

I guess don't over apologize is what popped out?

Sure. Of course, I see that in your notes here,

too. Okay, so what would you say? The three most important

things are to keep a relationship going? A business

relationship where you don't see people all the time. So how do

you keep it? How do you keep it going?

If you hang on a second? Yes. Well, I would

definitely keep in touch over the years. So, you know, with

people I've worked with in the past, you know, once a year,

twice a year, I might reach out and just say hi, doesn't have to

be in person. You know, many of my people, all clients I worked

with are all over the country. But I think just not forgetting

about them. And, and then often what I find is, I often get

contacted by them when they need something. And sometimes I need

something from them. So a good example is a woman who were was

my client, we had two or three really good projects very

successful. And I got to meet her side who's five. And here's

a cute little chi. And literally 20 years later, she calls me,

her son is just graduated from law school. He wants to get a

job as an attorney at my university. Would I talk to him?

It's like, well, of course, I'd be happy to talk to him, or talk

to him when he was five. I said to him that in the universities,

people have different professions talk to each other.

So autonomy is having an association across all the major

universities and they share contracts, they share ideas. And

so when we started a large contract with a global vendor, I

got the contract from Berkeley. I didn't start from scratch,

work with my attorney to update it for us. So I think being open

to helping people, especially when you've had a history of

success, I think is is the way to go.

Yeah, and I think just probably being authentic

and being sincere because it's those relationships, that like

you say, symbiotic relationships, it keeps going

back and forth over the years it becomes, you know, like you feel

like your friends, right, because you'll do things for

each other. And I know for me, one of the things that I'm going

to take us back to networking a little bit, one of the things

that I think makes a difference is being a true connector. are

not just a networker, but really looking at your connections. And

if you meet somebody new, maybe you can support them with

somebody in your network, but you have to feel that that

person is worthy to open your network to them.

And a word that popped into my head as you're

talking is trust. Yes, you need to build trust trust over time.

Because if you have that trust, then you'll be very comfortable

reaching out. Exactly. So I did a little project after I retired

from the university for Texas based liquor retail, which I

didn't know much about,

not your not your normal baileywick, right.

But they said, you know, we've grown from 40 stores

to 100 stores. We need an IT strategy, you know how to do

that. And it's not that hard. It's point of sale inventory. So

you'll figure it out. And so we came up with a strategy where we

outsource as much as we could to the cloud. And so they were

trying to run things. And then they needed a mobile app with

delivery and a new website. Well, then they wanted me to be

their IT guy. And it's like, I'd love to do it. I love you guys.

But I have to write this book. If I help you, I will never

write this book. I said, I'll find somebody. And there was a

woman who worked with me at The Ohio State University brilliant.

And at Accenture, but she didn't want to travel anymore. So she

came back to Austin got a job@dell.com in the mid 90s, and

actually created the e commerce website for Dell computer. So

she's brilliant, new e commerce at scale. And after 15 years at

Dell, she went to a private equity firm and did a medical

marijuana website for a Canadian firm on Vancouver Island. So she

knew controlled substance over the web. So about three months

into her tenure, she located white label, mobile app and

website for the liquor industry. Are there 25,000 items in a

store, you can't physically take pictures, and you have to have

feeds from the distributors. And so within a month or two, she

had 1020 stores. Then she had 40 stores and the pandemic hit. And

they said all 100 stores. So she and her team were bad night and

got off 100 stores up. And the customers love it. Because it's

just so easy to use. And I would test it every two weeks to make

sure it worked. Had my

well and you would test it because you were

also curious because you would trusted this person. That's

right. That's

right. So I even found a date timestamp error.

Show at the book reading. She was there. And I mentioned that

story. She says you still call it about

but that's so cool. That's really cool.

Because yeah, it's important. Like my, my, my contacts in my

phone, they're, they're important to me and I would not

want to waste their time or use my connection unwisely. Right.

You have to be careful who you do it for. So I think that's the

key to relationships. And, and keeping them keeping them going

right and being remembered and being known as the person who

connects people. When it counts, right when it comes. Right. So

So where is this gonna take you? Where is this book gonna take

you now?

Well, I enjoyed the podcasting world have really

enjoyed the different perspectives that hosts bring,

like yours. I mean, relationship rule, it's perfect. I am working

on a TED Talk. Woman who worked for me at the university

branched off and started her own creative consulting firm. So I

hired her and she's also working on a half day workshop, where we

will take the three principles, you know, yeah. What are their

goals and aspirations set manage expectations and and genuinely

care and have role playing different exercises. People can

actually Practice the question in the listening. Oh,

good. That's great. So you're really going

into this whole new world of entrepreneurship and, and, and

taking it on the road, so to speak. That's awesome. That's

great. This has been really good. And really interesting,

because it is something that I I'm all about relationships. And

so it's very important to me to get other perspectives on it.

And yeah, you say, right, in your somebody said about your

book spheres of influence brilliantly illustrates that in

the game of life, the strongest moves are made through the power

of genuine connections, which is exactly what we were just

talking about. Right? That was Liz.

It's more rewarding to it's more fun.

Yeah,

exactly. It really is. So how can my

audience find you and find your book, I think you have something

a special place that they can go, which I will put in the show

notes. So please share with us. Well,

my website is branding like.com. And I have

all sorts of information about the book and the workshop, but

it's available. And there's going to be a special link with

relationships rule. So I shared that link with you. So Friday,

like that comm backslash relationship rules. And they can

go in there and they can get a sample the book for free. They

can certainly find the link to Amazon, if they're interested in

ebook or audible or book book. And then third, they could sign

up for a free consultation with me. Oh, fantastic.

Okay. That's amazing. Well, thank you for

that generosity. And thank you for being here today. And I wish

you well on your retirement career, because that's really

what it is. And a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. And

you're still mentoring. Are you still mentoring people?

Yes, sir. Yeah.

That's fun, right? That's really rewarding,

I think. And so you've got this wealth of knowledge, you've got

your book, which really says it all. It's about relationships

with all the different people in your business world. And yeah, I

think it's really, I wish you well with all of that. And one

last thing I would like to ask you to leave with my audience,

maybe your favorite or best or most go to piece of business

advice.

genuinely care about people, let them know you

give a damn. Oh,

that's so good. Because I totally agree. And I

love that. Thank you so much. And I'm just going to end with

that because I think, show people you care is what it's all

about and genuinely care. So thank you, Brad. Thanks for

being here. Thank you to my audience again for being here.

If you like what you heard, please go and check out Brad's

special page for us at Brad Brad angler.com/relationships rule

and check out his book. Appreciate you. Thanks again.

Remember to stay connected and be remembered.

Thank you