Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And that young man on the other side of the screen for those of you watching on YouTube, for those of you not watching on YouTube, you're missing two middle-aged men talking together. It's Brad Englert. And Brad has a new book out called Spheres of Influence. And the subtitle is How to Create and Nurture Authentic Business Relationships. Good day to you, Brad, you're joining us from Austin, Texas. How are you?

Brad Englert
Great. Thanks for inviting me.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's a pleasure having you on the show. And it's also a pleasure to have you speak with our listeners about how to nurture authentic business relationships. We do get a lot of business listeners, but this applies really to almost anybody. I'll just tell them that. And if you go to Brad's website, it's Brad, Englert, bradenglert.com. There's where you get to the website with Brad and information about him. If you put a slash IPG after it, I'll let my listeners I will put a link that'll take you to the page he built just for us. So thank you, Brad for doing that. Let me let the listeners know a little bit about Yeah, Brad is the founder of Brad Englert Advisory and an author and advisor and technologist. He worked for Accenture for 22 years including 10 years as a partner. He served at the University of Texas at Austin for eight years, including seven years as the Chief Information Officer, the CIO. During Bad's career with Accenture and global management, consulting and Technology Services, he worked in a variety of information technology, leadership and operational roles for large complex institutions of higher education, state governments, Texas, California, Minnesota, Montana, and commercial organizations such as Best Buy Caterpillar, world blue, pool, Bell, South Deutsche Bank, and many more. When bad retired as a senior partner in 2006, he had a proven track record in Information Technology Operations, large scale Information Systems Implementation and strategic planning. At his website, you can look at his services, his book, his blog, resources, vision and inspiration, I encourage you all to go up to his advisory website. There, you can learn more about him. You also can go to LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. And last but not least, Instagram. They're all listed there. Well, Brad, pleasure having you on. And I think that, you know, everybody's always interested in how to build relationship, better relationships, how to communicate better. So what inspired you a guy that was a CIO, and worked in information technology? Because like we said, in our pre interview, a lot of times the people in that field are kind of dull and boring and

Brad Englert
not very communicative.

Greg Voisen
Exactly. And what inspired you to write sphere of influence? And how do you define influence in the context of professional relationships? And then a second part of that question, so twofold. How do would you if somebody out there is listening GET IT guys to wake up and learn that this is probably the most important way they can advance their career?

Brad Englert
Oh, I've been fortunate to have really good mentors over the years and bosses, I only have two clunker bosses and 40 years, so I've been pretty lucky. And part of the culture at the firm. I joined Arthur Andersen, which became Anderson Consulting, which became Accenture. And there's a culture of building and growing people, careers. And so I was expected to be a mentor, as I became a manager and a partner. And I really enjoyed that. And helping people learn how to grow is a lot of fun. At the university, I had a culture I inherited that was kind of a fire drill reactive it culture, they would speak in tongues and hard for customers to understand what we were doing. And I worked very hard over about a year and a half to change it into a customer-oriented culture. And, and that was a lot of fun. And so I think there's I retired the second time, I still mentor two or three people you hear here in Austin, and but I thought that it really doesn't scale and how can I I can't clone myself so how can I get the message out at to a wider group, and that just really was the genesis of the book idea.

Greg Voisen
And really, a really important thing to do. I mean, I think you saw that, like, getting this message out through this book was really just a brilliant idea, because it's so needed. And I want, I want to have time for us for you to share some of the key strategies from the book, and, and really how to build and nurture authentic relationships in business. Because it's not that people are devoid of emotional intelligence, or they don't know, it's really you've outlined in this book, some really key strategies. And I'd like for you to talk with the listening audience about it, because I think they're, they're excellent strategies.

Brad Englert
Now, there are really three approaches that relate to all business relationships. And number one is, you need to understand their goals and aspirations. And who doesn't want to share that with somebody, and you want to set and manage expectations? You always need to know, I'm a customer, I have someone promised me something a week ago, I still haven't seen it. I don't, I don't know when I'll see it. So, you have to set manage expectations. And then third is genuinely caring about their success. So in the internal sphere of influence, those are people you have the most direct impact with your boss, direct reports, executive leaders, and all your staff and then the external input sphere of influence are people you have less direct impact, but opportunities to build relationships, customers, Pearson influencers and strategic vendor partners.

Greg Voisen
You actually do a really good job of I think, most importantly, if you've got, I'm not going to call him a new leader, but emerging leader, somebody who's really trying to work themselves through the company learn more, they're curious, this book is for those people. And you discuss these internal spheres of influence extensively. How can these emerging leaders effectively manage the relationships with and you just said a minute ago, their direct reports, right? So it's like, okay, who are you reporting to? The CEO, the CFO, the, you know, some vice president, whatever it might be, and executive leaders. And I want to emphasize here, you said three things just now. And one of it was understanding their goals. That was the first one you started with? Yeah. And I think when your report that you give to them, helps them achieve their goals, you then become a big influence. Right? Right.

Brad Englert
That's right. Yeah. It's, it's really the power to help change people. You know, that's the secret power. You know, when I take over an organization, it's a perfect opportunity to meet with your direct reports, and just ask, you know, what's going well, what, what's really going well with the organization? And what could we be doing differently? And just go in with a clean slate, you're gonna trust all your direct reports, until proven otherwise? And ask them what are their goals and aspirations they hope to be a chief information officer one day, or they have been in the technical role, or they don't want to manage people. So manage expectations? What are the goals for coming here? And then check in once a week with your direct reports? How are we achieving those goals, and then third, just genuinely caring about them. And a good example would be requiring all your direct reports, they have a training plan, and then follow up on it, make sure that you go to the training, that they're not too busy to skip training, and, and I try to model those behaviors. So when I'm asking someone to do something, I try to be clear on what I'm trying to achieve. I make sure I specify when I need something, and, you know, how the scope of what I'm asking for, and then follow up and make sure you know, met those expectations. And sometimes people skip over that. And they, they don't set those expectations and that just you just get a mismatch.

Greg Voisen
How do you How would you tell the listeners, could you elaborate a little bit more on it? Some of the techniques and or strategies for setting and managing expectations with their upline or their direct reports, because if someone on above me has said, you know, this is the expectation I have of you what happens when I have to renegotiate, renegotiate that expectation? Because it was unrealistic? Because then it becomes disappointing. How do I manage this sphere of influence? Right? Such that the people who I am influencing and who are influencing me actually trust and or I can have a conversation that says that's an unrealistic expectation, I don't believe I can really meet that deadline or that goal. How do you how what advice would you give? You've been there a zillion times, Brad?

Brad Englert
Well, you need to create a safe environment, you need to make it okay for people to have a two way communication. One of my favorite phrases in the book when you're the boss, your people are not mind reader's. So you need to use your words. And then for the direct reports, your boss says in a mind reader, you need to use your words, I have a new director, join me. And there was a project that was supposed to be done in the summer. And, you know, he was new to the organization. But after he looked at the scope of the work, he really didn't see how it could possibly be completed by the summer. And even though it's the second week on the job, he had the courage to ask me, whatever the okay to really look at the schedule, because I'm not sure summer is doable. And I said, You know what, thank you for having the courage to ask me. It took us 40 years to get this way. What's another six months? Of course, you can read look at the schedule. Yeah, that's like, right. I don't even know where summer came up?

Greg Voisen
Well, I think sometimes I have the courage to say it. Yeah. And you know, people get planning, and then their management above them, and look for maybe an unrealistic expectation, they didn't renegotiate with them. And so it kind of trickles down, all the way through until you're saying this is unrealistic, or we can't do that. And this comes down to this thing. mutual accountability, yeah. plays in maintaining strong business relationships. And I'd say mutual accountability. Because when one person falters in the chain of accountability, it affects everybody else in that kind of chain of accountability as well. So what advice would you give, so leaders can foster this within their teams? That, Hey, open, honest communication as quickly as possible, is the best thing that I could always do to maintain my own influence within side of this team with inside of this organization? Sure.

Brad Englert
Well, the first thing I did when I joined the new organization, was to look at the values of the organization. And the value is really articulated very well. So in the first 90 days, I worked with all my direct reports, to say, what are our values? What should they be an open and honest communication was one of those values, and also, collaboration with our customers. We were this kind of standoffish central group, it group that didn't work well with others, but we needed to change that value. And, and they set the expectation that you should be meeting with your customers and asking what they need and seen asking for feedback and how they do so I think our number one value was family first. Now, why is that? Because we live in Austin, Texas. It's a booming market. All the high tech companies are here. I could not compete at the University on salary alone. But when I couldn't compete on was you work a solid eight hours, and then you go home, you go to the gym, you go read a book. If you have a doctor's appointment, you go to the doctor, if you have a school play, you go to school play. And if you're on vacation, you take the vacation, I would model those behaviors and expect my direct reports to do the same and then do the same for their team. So I think articulating the values and then living up to them modeling that behavior, and then rewarding them for modeling that behavior, I think is a way to change the culture.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and I think obviously, there were people that took you up on the job because you couldn't compete because you did have more of an environment that allowed them to get off of work and do the kinds of things they wanted. And you said family first, I think that's important. But you know, you there comes time and every organization and and I was just on with the Harbinger Institute and author of the book leadership and self deception. And the most important thing that we find is that these change initiatives, so it's inside of organizations, which are frequent, and frequently fail, you know, about 80% of these change initiatives, because there's resistance, because most people were never actually included, in even being asked about what kind of change that they would like to see within the organization. Can you share some exhibition experiences about overcoming leadership challenges like that, during these major transitions that companies are actually involved and in? You've been there you were with Accenture, you work it? You've seen all this? And what advice do you have for leaders facing these similar situations today, so that they can navigate it and be more, I'm going to call it in flux. Because if you can't be in flux, it's going to be pretty difficult if you're going to be in resistance.

Brad Englert
Well, you need to have a strategy. And I was fortunate when I joined the University that the president at the time and just completed a strategy for the entire university, for the next five or 10 years, here are the changes we're going to make. And he had the Biden the campus. So my task was to create an IT strategy that aligned with the overall campus strategy. So I'll give you an example. The academic side of the House wanted to have more discussion in classrooms and less lectures, they wanted a learning management system where the lectures could be recorded easily. And connection to the Internet easy. So that classroom time was devoted to instruction. But the learning management system we had was horrible. It was clunky, it was 15 years old. It was not securely connected to email, you could not commit to securely email. And so we embarked on a project to select a new learning management system. And it was the students and faculty who actually evaluated the products and selected the product. So when we got to the executive leadership team, the president, the provost, CFO, and said, We're recommending moving to this new learning management system, the President said, Well, what are the faculty and students think and I said, we'll serve they unanimously endorsed this recommendation. And we started a two year transition for 52,000 students, 4000 faculty, what can possibly go wrong? It's a massive change. And it impacted everybody. But the good news is the product

Greg Voisen
did you did you wind up with Blackboard or something like that, or

Brad Englert
Canvas can can can replace blackboard with Canvas, which was designed for the cloud. And it was built with industry standards that made it easy to connect email securely, and other tools. And over two years, we moved the entire university to that new platform. And at the end, an email came to me and the Vice Provost to I teamed up with to roll this out across campus. And it was to the President about our project and I just covered my eyes, it's like, I'm gonna get fired. He and I aren't gonna get fired. And it turned out to be the most complimentary email ever, about what they coined. A boring IT project is actually fundamental to changing the university. And the fact that my team teamed up with the provost office to support every department over two years, including asking the vendor to change the product to be more scalable for us. And they said that could not have done better.

Greg Voisen
Well, it just shows you you know, in spheres of influence, the kind of impact you can have to create these relationships when you have inclusion. And I think the most important thing is is that you had inclusion in the decision You got a unanimous vote to move forward this way, in regardless of the rough spots that you would meet along the way, and I'm sure you met plenty of them, it's easier to navigate with the team when they know everybody's aboard, because everybody then pitches in to work towards solving the problems. And so can you discuss the significance of external spheres of influence? Obviously, there were in this case, the example that you just used, and how professionals can build effective relationships with customers and strategic vendor partners, which is what you were with, with Canva. You lit building us a strong strategic vendor partnership. Could you address that this navigating external influences?

Brad Englert
So not all your vendors are strategic? And in at the university, we had about $100 million budget for it? Well, you're not. Not all those vendors are strategic. And you're exactly right, our Learning Management System vendor was strategic. And so I reached out, after we made the selection and built relationship with the senior vice president for sales. And when we had needs, I would go to him and say, this will really help your product, it will help scale at universities are excited because we're very early adopter. And he understood that if he worked in his company to make those changes, it would help him sell them. So there was a goal for both of us, for them to be successful. And

Greg Voisen
beneficial, I think the thing is, is, is when you see the bigger picture, somebody like Canva, who was vice president of sales, saw that assisting you guys to meet your needs actually helped him sell more of what he had as a result of saying, Well, you know, we have the University of Texas at Austin, now implementing a program and we're customizing it to meet their particular needs and solutions, it just turns out to be like a win win win for everybody a win for the students a win for the faculty, a win for this company, Canva. And for your IT department. So in the end, everybody's raising, raising a flag and, you know, toasting to a huge success. So can you discuss the significance of, or I should say, can you talk about the importance of what would be termed cultural alignment. Now, here is an area where you gotta get align a team's culture and the with the organization, the values to ensure that somebody's working toward a common goal, this example you just use, and it's a great example, Brad, is, you know, hey, we have a common goal, we're going to replace blackboard with Canva. We want security emails, we want to make sure that this learning management system allows for people to record these sessions in the classroom, we want to save them in the cloud, all the kinds of things that, you know, based on when you were doing it, were a lot more difficult than it is today. Today. It's like, hey, push button, anybody can do it. Look at us, you and I are on Zoom. It's being recorded. I'm recording it to this desktop, it's never going to end up on the internet, where millions of people can watch it right. So it things have changed. But the reality I'm getting to here is the team's cultural and organization value alignment, to actually make that common goal occur. What is it that I can do in spheres of influence, to make certain that that occurs?

Brad Englert
Well, you need to be intentional. So I met with the associate Dean's in all the colleges and schools, 13 of them, who are responsible for it in their college and school. And often, the IT people are not always telling them the truth. So they could call me and say, Hey, this has been recommended. Do you think it's okay? And sometimes it was okay. And other times, there are better ways to go about it. So every six to eight weeks, I would write the circuit and meet in their offices and just see, okay, what's going well, what have you heard they have any problems? Oh, there's a big project coming in. In six months. We replaced 21,000 phones to boast Voice over IP. So again, we basically irritated everyone once a year was something but you gave them a heads up that you know, here's what's coming. Here's what we're going to do to help with the transition. And then I asked all my direct reports to build a network of their peers across the campus. So they all had seven to 10 people they would meet with. And we just built this network. And it was like a nervous system that we and our weekly staff meetings would say, Well, what have you heard? You know, what's what's, what's going on out there? How are we doing? We wouldn't pick up rumors, there's a rumor that we didn't have enough diesel for the generator, or the generator ran out of natural gas. Good. Remember, that wasn't true. You know, and we're able to step it out, you know, easily. So I think being better being intentional, and it's not hard, all you have to do is put it on your calendar. And every six weeks, you're in their office, and you built that trust. And

Greg Voisen
it's funny how the small things, Brad, Brad make a big difference. In other words, the intentionality of putting on your calendar and setting an appointment with somebody who is a direct relation to you to communicate and just talk and let them understand what's going on. Because there's so much going on in their world, they don't always pray or into your world, yet. They're supposed to understand what's going on in your world. And so you're giving them an overview of the progress you're making in your world, which affects their world, right? I think that's kind of that's what you did. And you were good at it. And as technology continues to evolve, I want to ask you this question, because we're now experiencing it. As you and I are talking right here. What impact do you see it having on building and maintaining business relationships, because today's world is on? It's a lot on the internet. There's a lot of people, millions of people doing meetings like this every day on Zoom and other platforms and meats and teams, and you name it, they're, they're out there. And we're finding it as a way to actually optimize our time. But at the same time, we're not always making this human connection, meaning we're not sitting physically in Brad's office, talking with Brad seeing Brad's body language understanding where Brad's going, we're sitting here over the internet with two screens and video monitors, tracking, you know, what we're doing? What would you tell people today, you have to use this primarily as a way to communicate their messages?

Brad Englert
Well, I think it's a positive development to have tools like zoom and teams. I think you can still build a connection with the technical tools. My first year at the University was h1, and when swine flu, and the President asked, Could we go online? And the answer is no, because we had a Blackboard learning management system in our data center, which was an eight to 10 year old servers setting you couldn't even buy servers. The email system was 18 years old. File Storage was expensive. And over eight years, we moved as much as we could to the cloud. And in March 2020, my successor is able to increase zoom, increase BPM, and 70,000 people are able to teach, learn, research and do their work. And he just could not have done that, you know, in it with the old toolset.

Greg Voisen
No, and, and I think what's important is that the tools or the ideas and the things that you developed, and spheres of influence, work, no matter if it's online or offline. And I think that's the most important thing. And this is like, the human connection, the true human connection that we would that we need to make to understand that everybody on the team as a human being, we have feelings, we're here not to compete against one another, to collaborate with one another, to work toward a common goal, whether that goal is bringing up a new system in two years, or whatever that goal might be for the university or for any organization you're in for whatever it might be. So looking ahead, what do you believe are the emerging trends in professional relationships and how can leaders prepare for these changes? Because there's always going to be changes. The question is, is how adapt that mindset or we go going to be to actually manage those relationships?

Brad Englert
Well, there's a little bit of Back to the Future and going on. There was a Wall Street Journal article this past week talking about how companies are overwhelmed with the amount of resumes flooding in. And even if they have AI, they just can't deal with it. And so they've implemented employee referral programs. Well, that's back to the way things used to be. And there was such a number, like 30% of their new hires are from referrals. People who know the culture, people know the people that they're referring, there's an incentive for both parties. And so in spite of all this

Greg Voisen
automated knowledge, yes, spite of all this social media and US posting everywhere and trying to get on, indeed and LinkedIn and all this, companies saying, hey, how would you like to refer somebody position?

Brad Englert
Haven't I joined Arthur Andersen, I met somebody in graduate school who worked for Arthur Andersen. And he politely asked what my research was in and I said, Oh, it and the government, because, heck, Brad, that's what we do. He got me the interview. And

Greg Voisen
well, I think, look, you made you make this bond of them. You call it spheres of influence, but I would say this bond and connection, whether you did it online, or you did it in person, I don't think that there's that much difference. The key is that you had an impact on somebody's I'm gonna just say, empathy and understanding for you, you took the time to understand them, and they took the time to understand you. And I tell people today, you know, my business and podcasting. 90% of it, or 90 100% of it is referrals. I'm not out looking for people to interview that's for certain. It's coming to me from people that I've treated with respect that I have engaged with in meaningful conversations, that understand when they come on this show that they're going to get a good podcast, right period. The other element is is just like you said, If today, it's around referrals, then what you ought to be doing is looking for those centers of influence, who can influence those people who could give you the referral. And that's not hard to find they're everywhere, right? The centers of influence are all over the place, trying to comment.

Brad Englert
And you can reconnect with someone who you had a good working relationship with. And it's like, you never stopped talking to him. It's like old friends. You know, so I had a woman who was a client of mine, and her son wanted to apply for attorney job at the university, would I talk to him? Well, of course, you know, we work well together. It's like, I'm happy to help. And I referred him to a group of attorneys in higher ed that happened Association, and he was able to study up and all the principles that they're facing. And so he was able to go into the interview, understanding attorney work in how to read and he got the job.

Greg Voisen
Same thing just happened to me, my son is an executive at Adobe, I went to a networking meeting in a local town here, I met a nice man, I really liked him, I said, You should talk to my son, my son and him hooked up on LinkedIn. They talked him and now this young man is interviewing for a job at Adobe. That's great. So I mean, you know, that's, that's kind of, in the, the man who I met at their networking meeting, wrote me back and he said, You've got to be really proud to have a son like that, you know, followed up and actually, you know, took the time to get back with me and now is seeking somebody out in a 9000 person organization to actually help me get a job. I mean, I yeah, I'm very proud. I mean, I'm like, extremely proud. My point is is that, go and watch that video that Brad did at his website because that video literally tells you exactly what this book is about your current book trailer, it's a book trailer but, but more importantly, to dig into it. There's other ways you can get into it. But go out if you would, and get spheres of influence. This is a great book. And this is going to teach you how to create nurture these authentic, not just business relationships, really, it's any relationship but it's, it's how you become as a person and a soul treating other souls walking this planet. And I want to commend you for taking the time to write it. As you said to me on one of the pre interviews, you just hope that enough people read it and it can make an impact and change their lives positively. And Brad, I just want to thank you for being on the show. Any last words?

Brad Englert
Oh, thank you. I've really enjoyed the conversation.

Greg Voisen
Well, thanks so much. And again, for all my listeners, go to bradenglert.com. There you can learn more about his book. And you can also we'll put a link in forward slash inside personal growth but he actually it's just the initials IP G. So that'll be in the blog as well. Thanks so much, Brad.

Brad Englert
Thank you.