Prioritizing the People in IT Business Alignment with Rachel Lockett, CIO at Pohlad Companies

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Today, we're talking to Rachel from Pohlad Companies about her new book that explores the nuance of the gender gap, high turnover rate, and lack of executive involvement found in IT teams. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:18) Tell me about the book. I haven't gotten a copy of it, so I haven't gotten to read the book yet.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:00:23) That's because it does not actually come out until March 8th, 2023. But I have some people that I've shared it with early, so I've gotten some great feedback.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:32) And this is your first book?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:00:34) It is. Yes. The first of at least two. I've got the other one already written up here in my head.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:38) What prompted you to want to write this book?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:00:41) Several things. I mean, just first of all, the easy answer: I love to write and the power of words, and I also love storytelling. I think it's a very understated leadership skill, an incredibly important leadership skill. And so it's also a way for me to give back and share what I've learned with a broader audience. But really, it also comes down to the fact that there have been a few trends that I've noticed over the course of my 25-year career in IT leadership that I've been trying to figure out. I've been trying to understand. And I've started to come to some understanding of them and how they relate to each other and also got some insight from some other really smart people. And I decided to put that all together into a book to kind of tell the story and share what I've learned about those sort of disturbing trends in IT.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:34) Was there a big change between when you first started 25 years ago? Because back then, I would say the command and conquer style of leadership was really popular. I think there's Six Sigma. There's a bunch of different things that became popular fads, if you will, of leadership.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:01:49) Yellow belt high.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:51) Yeah. Yeah. There were a bunch of leadership, you know, ways of thinking, and that slowly became less popular.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:01:57) Yeah. And so, yeah. Definitely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:59) I'm curious to know of the trends that you mentioned in the book—have any of them stopped, or have they continued the entire 25 years?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:02:07) So some have improved, but not completely gone away. I'll just walk through what the three trends are. We'll start there, I guess. So the first one is one that gets talked about a lot. You've probably had many discussions on this and read and heard a lot about it, but it's the gender gap in IT. And that one has obviously been around since the beginning, but has improved significantly, I think. But there's still a big gap. And I get the opportunity really often to either speak to or mentor or do job shadows with young women and girls who are interested in STEM careers. And I love doing that. It's really rewarding. A lot of fun. I learn from them. But at the same time, when I approach problem solving, I want to start by understanding the root cause. I don't want to just keep attacking symptoms. And so I've struggled now for over two decades to understand what's really the root cause of that gender gap. There's lots of explanations. I mean, we hear all the stories about truly bad behavior in Silicon Valley. There's theories about systemic sexism in business and even in college classrooms. I mean, all the way back to the theories that it's because we give our little girls dolls instead of trucks to play with. But nothing really helped me understand the root cause of the gender gap in IT until I ran across something recently that kind of helped shed some light on it. And so that's the first trend.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:42) What did you run across? What shed some light on it?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:03:44) So it's some research by a professor and researcher at Illinois State University that really kind of shines some light on the neurological differences in IT people that kind of help to explain some of the difference. But I want to come back to that. First, I want to talk about the other two trends and how they're related. So the second trend is also something that I think is maybe not as widely known, not known to as many people, but certainly very apparent to those in IT leadership. And that is the high turnover rate that we have in IT. So you're probably aware of this. You know, we have this really high turnover all the way up and down. So at my level, at the CIO level, the average tenure of a CIO is 4.3 years. The rest of the C-suite is five to six years. What's going on there? But it's also the case all the way up and down from entry-level positions on up. And it's also not just unique to Silicon Valley. It's in IT departments across any industry and any geography. And so I've been struggling to understand what's going on there as well. Why do we have so much higher turnover than other highly skilled and in-demand roles in other industries? And so I've been struggling with that and trying to understand the root cause there. And you've probably seen that and—

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:07) It's such a common conversation topic—the tech talent wars, the difficulties, you know, recruiting. It's—

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:05:17) Do we have answers? Do we have a solution? Or do we know why? Do we understand it properly?

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:21) I think the most common response or the most common way people rationalize it in their head is culture. That's—I'm not saying that that's the correct answer. I'm curious what you've learned, but that's typically what people will say. They'll say, hey, you know, the most important thing to hiring and retaining is culture and then being clear about what your culture is, reinforcing it, and actually living it out versus it just being bullet points, those types of things.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:05:48) And I think that's on the right track, but I also think that there's sort of a deeper understanding that we need to have about the cultural needs and the workplace needs of technology professionals. So that, let's now get to the third trend that I've noticed. And this one, I don't hear talked about quite as much. So I'm really curious to hear if you've had conversations about this or seen this yourself or hear about this from the CIOs and CTOs that you talk to. And it's this challenge, this struggle that we have as IT leaders to really be included and valued as part of the executive team within the company, to really elevate the role of IT to the appropriate level, so that strategic leadership level within an organization. We talk about it sometimes in terms of getting that proverbial seat at the table. And what I've seen is very often, you'll have a company that has a C-suite. They have all the other C-level executives, the chief operations officer, the chief financial officer, the chief marketing officer. Sometimes they make up, you know, the chief experience officer and the chief revenue officer. They'll stick any word in there in the middle, right? But they don't have a CIO. They don't have a CTO. They have an IT director who reports to the CFO, or maybe they only go so high as an IT manager, or maybe they have a VP of IT, but they don't have IT at that C-suite level, at that executive level.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:13) What industry are you in?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:07:15) Well, I'm at a holding company in several industries, and I've worked in several industries. Now I will say that it is getting more and more common. I think we've—you asked about change—I think we've made progress. And most companies realize and understand that they need to have IT represented at that level. But again, tell me if you have seen this, because even as we see companies now that have the CIO, you know, and the representation at that level, it still seems that they're not included in the real executive leadership functions. Okay. So they're at the status meeting. They're at the CEO's, you know, team meeting. And they're given their status reports and they're hearing everybody else's, but they're not in the meetings where the real business of running the business is happening. And there are certainly great exceptions. Companies that do it right, do it well. CEOs that understand and get it right. But so often I see that they're there at that level sort of in name only, and they're still not included. They're still not participating in the real business of running the business. Do you see that? Do you hear about that?

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:25) Can you define what the real conversations—can you give me some examples of what the real conversations are versus the faux conversations?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:08:33) Sure. Sure. So it's being part of things like, you know, the true strategic planning and the budget reviews and the merger and acquisition discussions upfront before the decisions are made. It's being part of that strategic planning and direction setting for the organization.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:54) So who is usually in those meetings?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:08:56) Yeah. So what I see often is that in the organizations where they just aren't quite there yet to the full level of understanding, it's the CFO who's representing technology and sort of taking the instructions back to the IT leader. Or it's, you know, maybe someone else. It might be operations or whoever has the most technology knowledge.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:19) You know, in the interviews, I don't know how deep I get with these people to understand that nuance.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:09:27) Yeah. So I just see that even when the technology leader has the title of CIO and they're in the CEO's executive leadership meeting, they're still not really participating in the strategic direction setting of the company. They're still operating more as that sort of second line, and they don't get that sense of inclusion. And I ask CIOs about this, and I hear the stories and the examples. And, you know, I just talked to one a week ago, very accomplished, capable CIO, and he's with a great company now. But he was telling me about the last company he was at, where he was invited to the strategic planning meeting by his boss, the chief operating officer. And again, I think that's significant. And when he walked in the door, the CEO said, "What's IT got to do with the strategic direction of the company?" And you see it whenever you see IT reporting to the CFO or the COO or someone besides the CEO. Very often, I think it's because that CEO has delegated it down, maybe to someone who they think understands technology better or because they just don't see technology as being at that strategic level within the organization, even if they've got the title and even if they're invited to the status update meeting.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:53) I fully believe that. And a couple things that would maybe shed some light on my experience. So I'm a founder CTO, and I spend a lot of my time with CTOs and then some CIOs.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:11:07) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:07) And CTOs typically tend to be outward facing related to product. And that is always included in the business because everyone's building products, right?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:11:18) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:18) So I don't spend a lot of time with CIOs. I would say the handful of CIOs I have spent time with, that's how I learned that technology reports to CFO in any capacity. Right? That was news to me. I was like, oh, okay. Why? Because it doesn't make sense to me. It's like, why on earth would technology report to—

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:11:40) More than half. It's still more than half report to someone other than the CEO because I included that in my book, and I had to look up the most recent statistics just to make sure. And it's still a majority that report somewhere else other than the CEO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:55) And that is CIO specific, or does it include CTOs?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:11:59) I think it's both, but I'd have to go check. Okay. But I know for sure it's CIOs—they're so often stuck under the CFO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:07) Yeah. I'm really interested in the different trends that you have found, and I'm also interested in your experience because you've had a different experience than I have. And so my job is to go out there, collect experiences, explore, ask questions, get curious. So if somebody came to me and they said something that sounded completely out of left field, I'd be like, let's talk about that.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:12:27) Well, my experience has been over 25 years working specifically in IT leadership and management. I've had the opportunity to mentor a lot of technology leaders and, unsurprisingly, most of them have been men. And I have noticed this. I've observed this phenomenon of them being excluded or being included in name only at the executive level and not being a part of the strategic direction of the company and not having that proverbial seat at the table. And it's obviously happening to them regardless of gender, race, age, any of those things. And so I've tried to dig in and understand that and understand again the root cause and what's going on there. And I have, you know, I had sort of formulated a couple of theories of my own. One being that it could be that the business leaders are intimidated by technology. And so therefore, by extension, they're intimidated by the technology leaders and the technology professionals. And I think that sometimes results in the CEO delegating the responsibility down to the CFO. I think that's a possible reason why that may happen. I think we have business leaders that—you know, I've known many business leaders who they kind of walk in the door or enter any conversation with me saying, "I don't know anything about this technology stuff. I'm not really good with technology. I don't know anything about what you guys do," you know, and they're being—

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:53) Short their stock. Afterwards, you can text me their ticker number.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:13:59) Yeah. Certainly. There's within a certain category, within a certain industry. Not, you know, not again, not in the Silicon Valley, I'm sure. But those business leaders are unknowingly creating sort of a divide, a chasm, you know, a gap between them and their technology leader and, by extension, their technology team. And I've seen it even go even further where there's almost sort of a derogatory attitude. Either it's sort of that eye rolling, "IT never gets anything done. They never deliver what we need on time." Or it's more of a—I've even seen it as more of a personal thing. You know, "They're just—they're weird. They're quirky. They're different," right? I've heard some pretty direct, insulting comments about the stereotypical IT people that they never get away with saying something like that about a woman or a person of color. But they're saying it about a, you know, a geeky middle-aged white guy, and so it's okay? I don't think it's okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:03) Well, right now, the middle-aged white guys are not very popular.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:15:07) Well, like I said, that's who I've spent my whole career for the most part mentoring and working with. Maybe I have a soft spot for them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:15) Well, I do want to jump in there for a second. Sure. So I got to grow up with my father who was a software and hardware engineer and watch him join a startup that ultimately went public and got to watch how he went from individual contributor to management and then, you know, moved on from the company as they exited. So I know my dad really well. And—

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:37) He is definitely lower on the social scale. Right? Brilliant guy. Incredibly smart. He wants to talk to you about rocket thrust in relation to lift or all this stuff.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:50) Four hours

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:15:50) on end?

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:51) Yeah. Yeah. And he

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:15:52) doesn't. So here's the research that I came across earlier this year. It's Dr. Ronnie Jia, researcher and professor at Illinois State University, which is my alma mater. And he has done research correlating the prevalence of autistic tendencies with an interest in information technology. Now at first blush, that should be kind of a no-brainer. It's sort of the open secret in IT that probably half of us are somewhere on the autism spectrum whether we know it or not.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:16:22) But also, it was really sort of enlightening to me, and it helped shine some light on these trends and these phenomena that I've noticed over the course of my career. And I want to clarify, what his research was correlating was merely the prevalence of autistic tendencies, not any kind of official diagnosis. And so we're not talking about the extreme cases of autism here. We're talking about the people who are probably on the border, who might be diagnosed if they ever went to ask the question, but maybe not. They might fall under, but still have enough of those tendencies to make them different. Right? And so what he's saying is that stereotype, it has neurological basis. It has scientific fact behind it. And the reality is that many of the people who are in IT departments today and in college classrooms who will make up the IT departments of the future, they have a higher prevalence of those autistic tendencies.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:17:19) Now what are those autistic tendencies? You just mentioned one of them. Not being good at picking up on social cues. Not great with interpersonal communication. That's why they like to spend their time with computers, because computers are black and white. Do what they're told. Right? But also things like wanting to focus in and dig really deep into the details of something and hyperfocus on it for a long time, being very meticulous about whatever topic it is that they're interested in. Those are the things that make us great conversationalists. Right? And so here's another thing that Dr. Jia showed in his research. If he removed the variable of the autistic tendencies, if he controlled for that, the gender difference in IT interest went away. Now I don't know if you're aware, but right now, today, autism spectrum disorder, which is the official diagnosis, is diagnosed in boys four times more than girls. So there's some neurological difference there, and there's some debate about whether girls are underdiagnosed. But regardless, the

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:28) It's not gonna lead to 4x. You know? Just

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:18:30) Right. And also the characteristics and the traits that represent, or those autistic tendencies, even if they're representing in that way, they're manifesting in boys more often. It's because girls have the masking and the coping skills, the ability to pick up on social skills.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:47) They do. They're more agreeable, women in general.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:18:50) Thanks. Yeah. They are. And so what that tells us is that gender gap going all the way back, not at the end of the career or in academia, but at the very beginning, the interest in technology, it isn't driven by sexist policies in business or rampant sexism in college classrooms or some failure of the system. It's a neurological difference that actually creates that lack of interest or that lack of interest in women or a greater interest in men and girls and boys.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:19:25) And so that takes a little of the pressure off of us. Right? But also, I think it helps to explain the fallout because we also, and I don't have all the statistics memorized, but we have so much higher fallout of women all along the path, all along a career path. Fallout in high school coding clubs. Fallout in academic, in the college classrooms. Fallout early in the career, later in the career. All throughout when they leave IT professions at a much higher rate than men. Well, let's think about why that might be in relation to this research, to this realization. If you've got a group of people that's probably already predominantly more men because of the neurological difference and the people in that classroom or in that department don't pick up on social cues, dig in deep, hyperfocus on a subject. Just aren't great at interpersonal communication. Aren't great at creating that inclusive environment. Well, if I'm a woman who wants that and craves that and needs that, I'm gonna say, hey, you know what? I'm gonna go hang out with the philosophy majors because they're cool and they're nice to me and they can have a conversation. Right? So I think that this research clarifies and helps explain the fallout that happens as well as the initial interest. So it kind of really helps understand that trend and that phenomenon.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:47) To your point of the autistic tendencies, can they be acquired and learned and unlearned, or are they permanent from the beginning?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:20:57) So that's something that gets a little bit more, I think, into kind of the medical and psychological, neurological profession. I haven't done a lot of study there, but I know, so I have people in my family diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder that have really benefited from programs to help them learn the coping skills. Now the challenge is it's learning how to do something sort of by pattern recognition and learning it more as a technical skill, if you will, than having it be an innate thing that neurotypical people just kind of pick up on and develop naturally. And that can also create a lot of anxiety. So people with autism spectrum disorder or just with those autistic tendencies would have higher levels of anxiety and depression. They do. And part of it, I think, is that constantly needing to cope. And I also want to clarify, I don't think we have to just keep this limited to talk about autism spectrum disorder. I think it probably also applies to things like attention deficit hyperactivity, ADHD. Right? Any of these kind of things that really change the neurological behavior so that you're very detail oriented, you're hyperfocused on things, the details of things you're passionate about, and you struggle to pick up on those social cues. Those are the things that coincide with the stereotypical IT person.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:20) In your book or throughout the process of researching your book, did you come across any studies that talk about how in general, on a global level across cultures, men tend to be more interested in things and women tend to be more interested in people. Did you come across any of that?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:22:41) I didn't specifically in preparation for the book, but I've certainly read about that and heard about that. And I think it's very true. Maybe not universally. I think everybody can probably call to mind someone who is an exception both ways. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:56) They just said more likely, which means 51%.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:23:01) Because these stereotypes are rooted in some truth, and especially this one. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:07) Stereotypes are ways that we navigate the world.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:23:12) And so let's talk about how this applies to the other trends. So if we've got these stereotypical IT people, a little different, not great at the interpersonal communication naturally. There are certainly exceptions, people who kind of learn or just, you know, they got into IT even though that's not their background. Right? So they tend to rise to the top. But think about now how that relates to the interrelation between the technology leadership and the technology team and the rest of the business. If we assume that the rest of the business, statistically, is more likely to not have as many of those autistic tendencies, maybe be a little bit closer on the neurotypical side of the scale. And they're struggling to relate to these IT people because they're all different. They're all quirky. They have these little cartoon character figurines on their desks, and they wear t-shirts with characters I've never heard of from movies I've never seen, and they geek out about, you know? Right? Like, they're struggling to understand and relate to their technology team. And so I think that contributes to the fact that they don't get included. They don't get involved. The business tends to wait. Again, this is in some of the worst case examples. Wait until the last minute to tell them what we need them to do because it's difficult to talk to them. Because I want to go to them with this great visionary idea, and they're gonna drag me down with all the details of why it can't

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:36) But they will.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:24:37) Work, won't work. They will. But they will. We do.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:42) I know. I was that person until I figured out it doesn't get you far, and then you had to develop other types of skills. Case in point, why I started this podcast. And everything changed as I

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:53) refined those skills. I had a fairly good start because my mom was a cheerleader, my dad was an engineer.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:24:58) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:59) So I had a genetic propensity to get really excited about technology.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:25:03) Yeah. I'm married to a CIO. Just so you know.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:05) There was no chance.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:25:06) And so we have these business leaders who maybe they're intimidated by technology. Maybe they just don't want to talk to the IT people because they're weird and they're quirky. So we have this chasm. We have this gap. Right? We have this inability to relate and connect to each other, inability to communicate effectively. At least it's impaired. Right? Even if we figured out some coping mechanisms, it's not as good. The relationship just isn't as good there as it is with the marketing team because those guys are fun. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:36) Oh, yeah.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:25:36) So now think about how that impacts the high turnover that we experience in IT. I believe, and that's really the theory here, is that that high turnover rate is really affected and driven by that inability to relate to each other, to connect to each other. It's driven by that feeling of separateness, of being different, of being. I've even in the book, I use the term being marginalized, being kept out of the executive boardroom or brought in only in name only. And I think that's what contributes to that turnover rate because we want that same sense of connection. We just don't get it in the same way. And I say we as though I'm, you know, one of these

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:19) Representative of all CIOs.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:26:21) Right. I'm representing okay. And so that's the phenomenon I think is happening. And so the intention behind the book is to speak to both business leaders and technology leaders to shine some light on this, to say, look. Here's what's happening. To help the business leaders better understand this very different group of people that they have working for them that are incredibly important to their business, to help them think differently about the role of technology and the role and personality and needs of the technologist. And then give both sides some tools and some advice and actionable strategies to better work together to achieve that elusive IT business alignment. Because, let me ask it. Do you have, like I do, do you have a shelf full of books written to IT people trying to teach them how to better work and communicate with technology people?

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:15) Yeah. It's a large part of the library that I have on Audible, and there's The Manager's Path. That's a popular one. There's a couple related that are fictional that explore the interpersonal office tendencies and things like that.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:27:32) Many are, they're all being written to the technology leaders. And sometimes it feels like, you know, these books keep being written because they're still needed because

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:43) I don't think it's gonna change.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:27:44) It's still an issue. I don't think it's gonna change as long as we keep telling the IT people, here's what you need to do. Because basically, all these books are telling them, here's how to be less autistic. Yeah. Here's how to be more neurotypical. Here's how to talk to neurotypical people. I believe that business leaders need to have a better understanding and awareness, and then we need them to help out here. We need them to meet us halfway. We need them to step up and understand what's going on and help solve the problem if we're really going to achieve that elusive IT business alignment that we're looking for.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:13) I agree. I'm gonna present an argument here

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:28:15) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:16) or question slash argument. So I have learned when I first started the show, I was still writing software, and I learned really quickly that I couldn't write software on the same days that I would interview people because I would be more socially

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:28:30) awkward. Oh.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:31) Yeah. Wow. Because your mind, when it's down in problem solving phase, is vastly different than how your mind's operating when you're in lofty idea phase. Absolutely. I couldn't. I had to separate those days. I'd only write code on days I wasn't doing interviews.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:28:44) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:44) Yeah. A mindset. It's a benefit. It's required for them to be really, really great at their job. So when I think about it, I'm thinking, well, it's always gonna be harder to talk to the problem solving people because they're always deep down in the details and because, in general, if I took a cheerleader and I wanted to make her socially awkward, what I'd do is I'd cause her to spend more time in isolation.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:29:12) Uh-huh.

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:12) That's how you would do it. Right? Yeah. Put them in isolation more, and they'd start to lose their social skills by necessity of not being around other people. You don't pick up on the skills if you're not around them as much. Sure. And so then you have this whole cycle of people who are interested in things, and then it's being difficult to talk with the other sides of the business. And so I don't think that will change. What I do think will happen because of your book and people pushing this forward and making it known is it'll make it a larger part of the conversation so that regardless of how it ends up getting addressed, it gets addressed versus it just going on not getting addressed.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:29:56) Yeah. Because one of the big things that I push for, that I talk about in the book and that I talk about actually, you know, I get to do whether it's panel discussions or speaking events. One of the things I'm really pushing for is an increased awareness about neurodiversity and especially incorporating neurodiversity into, you know, almost every company now has a DEI initiative. Right? Neurodiversity needs to be a part of that because I love your example and how you are able to switch back and forth. Right? You can, and you can very intentionally plan your day knowing what you need to do so that you can put yourself in that right mindset. Now there are people who would really struggle with that. And then there are people also that we want them. You know, we want the security analysts and the systems analysts. And there are people that we want them to be focused on that very detail oriented work.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:30:43) That's the bulk of their job. And so telling them they have to sit in this nice open floor plan and be part of all of the company events and the social things that are going on and be accessible all day long, not only is that not productive for them, it's counterintuitive to what we want to achieve from their role. But it's also very difficult, very anxiety-inducing. I talk a little bit in the book about the management concept of—it's recommended in leadership books—management by walking around, MBWA. Right?

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:31:21) And so you've got these CEOs who feel like they're only doing their job if they get up out of their chair and out of their office and they walk around and talk to the people every day. Right? Well, that's all well and good for a certain group of people, but they're creating panic attacks for their sysadmins and for a handful of their hardcore heads-down developers. And so what I'm recommending is some different strategies for how to still accomplish what they're trying to do there, but not having it be a surprise. Hey, how's it going everybody? Which just sends dribbles of panic through certain types of people. And I talk a little bit too about the great progress we've made in moving to this sort of agile model of development and the importance—you know, how agile is so focused on people. It shifted the focus from process and quality to people and results, but it has to be handled and managed in a way that actually works for all of the people.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:24) Yeah. What else is in the book? Is it just the three trends and building awareness of the communication between IT and the people making the decisions?

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:32:35) Yeah. Well, so what I've done—I mean, the three trends are really only talked about in the introduction as the explanation of why. I do dig in in one of the chapters and go into a lot of detail on Doctor Jia's research and then sort of the recommendations that come out of that. But the first section is all about people, and I look at it from four perspectives: yourself, your relationship with your boss, your immediate manager, supervisor, and then conversely, the person IT reports to—their relationship with the IT leader.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:33:10) Then managing the IT department, and then looking outward, sort of managing sideways, your peers. And so within each of those, I alternate guidance for the business leader, guidance for the IT leader. And I say this at the beginning of almost every chapter: I'm not going to write a whole—you know, I've already got plenty of books on managing up or managing down or doing this thing or doing that thing. I'm just going to give you the things that are really specific to technology leadership and to this specific problem and the things that I've experienced and have found work really well.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:33:48) So there's a section when it comes to the relationship between the IT leader and their boss. I talk about things like, for the IT leader, how to make sure that you're always preventing surprises and managing expectations, how to know the audience and understand what type of communication that leader wants and needs. Then for the business leader, I said, hey, I'm going to let you guys in on some of the secrets of the things that drive us crazy as IT leaders. So I tell the story of being invited to a business strategic review meeting at the end of the year where we're going to review everything we did for the last year and then lay out our plans for the coming year. And it's a big deal, and everybody's been working and planning it for weeks.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:34:33) And we're all going to go off-site to a hotel for a couple of days, and we're going to work through this. Everybody's going to have their opportunity to present. It's going to be great. Right? Have you been part of something like that? Almost everybody.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:34:43) Yeah. Yeah. I've been part of one of those off-site meetings. Well, you spend weeks preparing for this. You're asked to do a thirty-minute presentation—or maybe last, maybe it's twenty because sales is going to take forty-five. And the agenda, nine times out of ten, IT is dead last on the agenda. And then what happens? Everybody else on the agenda takes a little bit longer than they were scheduled, and there's some impromptu discussions that come up, and when they finally get around to IT, when it's my turn to speak, well, we're already two hours past the original timeline. In fact, the meeting was supposed to have ended thirty minutes ago.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:35:21) Half the people left because they have planes to catch, and I've just been asked to condense my thirty minutes down to five minutes for the remaining handful of people that have already checked out. Yeah. That drives us crazy. That does not convey and communicate that IT is a strategic driver within the business. So some of it is just telling business leaders, hey, stop doing these things. You know? I also talk about—

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:44) Well, let's talk about if they don't.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:35:46) Oh, sure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:46) Let's say that they continue this path. I believe if you extend that path to infinity, about not putting IT or technology as a priority, that you simply will go out of business.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:36:02) Maybe, maybe not. Or you may just continue to have high turnover. You may just keep turning over that IT leader and everybody under them much more frequently than you do any of the other roles in your company. And you may still get by. You may still get things done because we're pretty resilient. We've kind of come to expect that this is what's going to happen, but you're not going to make those great gains and improvements that you want, that you need. So I'm not saying that every company is screwing it up so bad that they're all going to go out of business.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:30) I think ultimately, if you—I believe that they will, at some point, realize that technology is impacting their business and they need to figure it out. Actually, you've seen it a lot. I've seen it a lot with regional banks. Right? I follow that industry a little bit. I did some financial software for a while, so I follow that a little bit. They were super resistant to technology, the regional bank systems, and then enough technology companies innovated and made platforms that were easy to do, and then their customers started asking for them to the point where they had to start paying for them and doing this. And so you'll see industry by industry, them all sort of lagging, but I believe that the great people will go to the industries that recognize—

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:37:11) Can we talk about the airline industry? Can we talk about Delta, who has some of the coolest technology tools and the capabilities that—you know, what I can do right here from my phone? Every one of them has issues, but I'm pretty high on Delta. And then conversely, I would love to talk to the CIO of Southwest right now and understand, was this your call, or did someone tell you, don't worry, we don't need that yet. We'll worry about that once we're bigger, once we've got more revenue. I would love to find out.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:43) You're the third person who said something about Southwest to me in the past twenty-four hours. Can you explain what's happening? Because I don't know.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:37:49) Oh, oh my gosh. They had to cancel 13,000 flights over the course of a couple of days because they were already struggling like everyone else with the effects of the pandemic and everything with scheduling and getting people to the right places and being understaffed. And then when the snowstorms hit right before Christmas, the software that they were using, something I think is called SkySolver, was just completely incapable of handling the capacity demand of these changes. And they acknowledged even in some of the first reports that are coming out—they've acknowledged that the technology was not capable and was not up to the challenge that was presented because it should have been upgraded years ago. And I mean, I guess it was doing crazy things like deadheading a crew from Denver to Baltimore and then back without them ever actually having flown or worked a flight.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:38:44) It was just coming up with nonsense solutions, and they ended up having to cancel 13,000 flights. Your producer, Josh, is stuck in South Carolina because he was supposed to fly home on a Southwest flight.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:55) Yeah. He was one of the—so it was him, you, and then my wife was bringing it up, and I just kind of was like, all right, Southwest. Because you hear a lot about plane stuff over the holidays, and what I do with my news consumption is I one day a week, typically on a Saturday or Sunday, I'll go and look at it. And that way, I'm not getting all sad every day about all of that.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:39:17) I know. I know. Yeah. Well, I don't even look at politics one day a week. I can't even do that. But technology affecting the airline industry, I'm all over that. I—oh, gosh. And I just sat there, I want to talk to their CIO. I want to understand who said—

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:31) Can I make a guess?

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:39:32) We're not upgrading this year.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:35) I'll make a guess. Just out of thin air. And then we'll call them up and we'll ask them—unless they give us a no comment. But I think it's something along the lines of the system was built, and then the person who built the system is no longer there.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:39:49) And then—

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:49) The person that succeeded that person said, hey, it's working. Let's not touch it because we don't want to break things.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:39:53) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:54) And then that just happened for a really long time. And it was working and it was working and it was working, and then it wasn't. And that's what happened last week.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:40:02) Until it didn't. Yep. And, you know, maybe they were also dealing with high turnover.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:07) That's what I'm thinking.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:40:09) You don't upgrade systems when you're in the middle of a changeover of important high-level resources. So if we could bring that turnover rate down, we could do a better job of keeping up on our tech debt. If we could get the IT leaders more involved in the strategic planning of the business, more involved and aware of what the growth plans are and the capacity demands that that's going to generate, we could stay up on things a little better.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:36) Yeah. Do you speak at CIO conferences about this topic?

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:40:40) I do. Yeah. I'm looking for more opportunities to do so because I want to spread the word and get this talked about a little more often.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:50) What's the response when you get off stage and people start talking with you?

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:40:53) Well, so we brought up Brad at the beginning here, Brad Sousa from AVI, and I got the opportunity to present the keynote address at their national sales meeting earlier this year. And I got to tell you, Joel, it was the most fun I've had in decades. I walked off that stage. I could tell people were engaged and interested and really just fascinated by what I was talking about. And I felt like almost every person in that room came up to me to share their personal insights and reflections. And it was just—it was a lot of fun. And that happens all the time. So I love talking about this topic. I love hearing other people's stories. I love validating the things I'm saying, you know? Have you had this experience? And, oh, the people who are like, oh, every weekly meeting, I'm last on the agenda, and they never get to me. Every monthly update meeting. I don't even bother preparing anymore because I know I'm not going to get a chance to talk.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:52) Just go flip off some switches in the server room, and you'll be number one in the meeting there.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:41:54) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:58) Yeah. You're doing some reliability engineering.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:42:01) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I was going to mention that I talk about is triangulation and inappropriate escalations. I think, you know, all companies deal with triangulation in pockets, various places. But I think inappropriate escalations are really prevalent—are really a challenge for IT departments. You know, when someone takes their help desk issue all the way up the chain, that's so demoralizing. When you do walk into the executive meeting and someone wants to grill you on why Susie can't print PDFs from her laptop—

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:36) Yeah. I'm raising my hand. I'm that—I'm that guy.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:42:39) You're that guy?

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:40) Because I get to meet all these people, and then I go use their products in the real world.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:42:44) Who is this?

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:44) And then I message them, and I'm like, take a screenshot. Like, what's going on with this? And—like, I don't deal with problems as much because—it wasn't good.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:42:54) No. No. Come on. If we're going to be a strategic business leader and a part of the executive team, don't invite us to the meeting just so that we can make sure that the Zoom call works and that the AV technology is set up properly.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:06) Right. But—

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:43:07) Let us do it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:07) It's set up properly. Is it working, though? Just want to double-check.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:43:12) Not talk about how this whole thing kicked off and how I was a little bit late to the meeting.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:17) Never. Never. I do want to bring something up. Okay. So, okay. A large part of this conversation has been about the seat at the table-type decision makers communicating with the engineering IT teams or part of the organization. Yep. And you hinted at it a little bit earlier, but I think the responsibility lies with both parties.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:43:44) Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:44) So the engineers—or the IT—I keep calling them engineers in my head, but the IT organization, they have the responsibility of learning these skills because these skills will allow them to work better with their other teammates. Absolutely. And vice versa to the executive teams—right back at you. So do you have any favorite communication resources for IT people? I know you said you had a lot of books, but do any come to mind?

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:44:12) Oh, uh, other resources? Oh, I was going to talk more about a tool. Yeah. My book, please.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:18) Go buy your book.

(Rachel from Pohlad Companies at 00:44:19) Absolutely. Yeah. I've got a shelf full of them. I thought you were going to ask about a specific tool, and I would say my favorite suggestion, the thing I want to teach every IT leader that I get the opportunity to work with, is the power of the executive summary. If you can learn how to master executive summaries, your business leaders will appreciate that so much. And here's the great secret. You know what an executive summary is? You just put two or three sentences at the very beginning. And I always tell them, label it executive summary because that's telling them, if you're only going to read two sentences of my email, just read these two and you don't have to read all the rest. And then for all of the detail, put it down below and even, you know, put some headings over it. You know, this is the cost detail. This is the timeline detail. This is the background detail on why we need to do this. This is the resourcing detail. You know, put all that lovely detail that we enjoy so much, that we feel like that's our strength, that's our superpower.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:45:19) We've got the details, right? Put it all in there, but give them an executive summary that boils the whole thing down to two, maybe three sentences. Business leaders will love that. And here's the little secret.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:45:31) Nine times out of ten, they'll read the whole thing if they understand that. But if you didn't put it in the executive summary format, they would go, "Oh, I'm not reading this. It's too much. These IT people, they just always get bogged down in the details. I just don't—tell me what I—I just want to know what time it is. I don't want to know how to build a clock." Right? But if you put it in that executive summary format, you've given them exactly what they're asking for at the beginning. And then when they read that and they go, "Oh, but how much is it going to cost? Oh, look, I can read this paragraph if I want to know that. Well, are we going to use our resources or are we going to hire this out? Oh, that's down here in the resourcing paragraph. I can go get all that information."

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:46:13) So mastering executive summaries—number one piece of advice for better communicating with your business leaders and your executives.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:20) Yeah. To your point earlier, related to know your audience. Right?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:46:23) That's exactly what they're looking for.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:25) The high level people want to communicate in high level, and the low level people want to communicate in low level. And when the high level people are presented with low level information, what they're trying to do is look at the low level stuff to extract what the high level stuff is. Often, at first, they don't care about the details. They look at that as, "I have to read all of that to get the little high level thing I'm trying to get."

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:46:48) Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:49) And then the detail people, when they're communicating with high level people, they're given an idea, and instantly they're trying to figure out the problems with it. And so what comes back out of them is all the reasons why it can't happen and all the problems that are going to happen. And what the high level people want is another person that has a contributing high level idea. They don't want detail on their high level idea. So I think knowing all of these parties and these communication styles can really help people.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:47:18) And that executive summary lets you get the best of both worlds. And it does force the technology person, the detail-oriented person, to take all of that detail and create that summary. And oftentimes, I say make sure that it is your recommendation. Don't just give them all the details and expect your business leaders to discern from that what decision they should make, especially if, as a higher level technology leader, they're putting you in this role because they're expecting you to do that for them—to discern and weed through all of that detail and say, "Here's my recommendation." Now, all that backup detail is your justification of why, but you need to have that recommendation at the top line and be clear and firm in it. Now, do they have the right to make another decision? Sure, absolutely. But you've told them what you recommend, and here's why.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:06) So the book comes out in March.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:48:08) March 8th.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:09) Where can I preregister to buy it?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:48:11) Amazon or Barnes and Noble. I'll put a plug in for Barnes and Noble because if I get more orders there, it's more likely that they'll carry it in stores.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:19) Oh, nice. BarnesandNoble.com.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:48:21) So—

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:21) If I pull it up on Amazon, there's a preorder button?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:48:26) Yeah. Yeah. And what's the title?

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:26) Yeah. And what's the title?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:48:26) The title is—we didn't even get to that in the beginning. The book is called The Technology Doesn't Matter: Prioritizing the People in IT Business Alignment. Because the whole point is talking about we have to solve the people piece. It's not about the process. It's not about the technology. It's about the people.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:44) The reason why I like the summary that I've read about your book and the notes through Josh and everything is because to me, it's unique. It's a new conversation. It's a spin of several different conversations with a new perspective on top of it all.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:49:03) Sure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:04) And what I enjoy about it is the way in which you present these arguments is a very simple, easy way that doesn't pull up your defense systems.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:49:18) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:19) And when you can present a hard to talk about or a difficult argument without raising everyone's defense systems so that you can get them to talk about it, that's how you win. So I think the book will do well.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:49:28) Well, I appreciate that. And I hope so. When I first started, I thought to myself, I had to accept the fact that I probably wasn't going to be writing this great New York Times bestseller with something new and amazing the world has never heard before, that I was probably just going to be regurgitating the concepts and lessons that we all know. But I'll tell them with my stories, and I'll tell it in a little different way that'll resonate to different people. And then as I got into it, I realized there might be a few nuggets in there that aren't talked about much that might be a little new and different, especially bringing to light Dr. Gia's research and presenting that in the context of my experience in technology leadership. And the other thing, to your point, about not causing people to be defensive is I try to keep it kind of lighthearted. There's some fun in there, keeping it a little witty and tossing in some jokes. So I hope it'll be received well. I'm really looking forward to getting to March 8th and having it out there and then hearing broader reactions, what people think.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:33) We'll put a link in the show notes for people. And then if they want to find it on Amazon, can you say the title one more time?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:50:40) The Technology Doesn't Matter: Prioritizing the People in IT Business Alignment.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:46) That was one of the first big pieces of advice that I ever got hosting the show. I think it was episode 20 or 30 or 50. I got a big interview. I was so excited. It was Cody, the CIO of T-Mobile.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:50:59) Oh, okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:59) And I asked him for the most important piece of advice because he had been at T-Mobile for like twenty or thirty years. And he said, "It's all about the people." And then I have this two-minute clip of him explaining it's all about the people. And the reason why I like that so much is that was the first time I had heard it, and it has consistently proven itself to be true every step of the way the past five years of me building this business.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:51:23) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:23) And so it just keeps ringing in my head all the time. So right when I saw the title of your book, I was like, "Oh yeah, this is based on a sound principle."

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:51:30) Yes, yes. Yeah, or another thing that some of my peers often say is, "Technology is easy. People are hard."

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:38) Yes. They don't have log outputs, so—

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:51:40) Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:41) Yeah.

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:51:42) But, you know, time and time again, we know that you can have technology projects that fail miserably even though they're implementations of the absolute best technology tool, right? The top right corner of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for whatever it is. They're the best technology tool out there, but it fails miserably. And when you look at the reasons, it's always the people and the process stuff that causes those projects to fail.

(Joel Beasley at 00:52:13) This is great. We made a podcast. How do you feel?

(Rachel from Polad Companies at 00:52:15) Good.

(Joel Beasley at 00:52:17) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email, [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.