Real Leadership in the Age of AI: A Conversation with Melvin Brown II

We are honored to chat with Melvin Brown II, Vice President and Chief Growth Officer at Contract Administration Network International (CANI), LLC, to discuss authentic leadership amidst AI advancements. Melvin shares insights on effective leadership, addressing technology and culture gaps, and the significance of judgment and adaptability. The conversation highlights the importance of supporting decision-making skills, ethical practices, and the challenges of modernization in both federal and industry settings. Melvin emphasizes the shift needed from technology focus to capability building in people and underscores the need for outcomes-based rewards. 

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Transcript

Yohanna: [00:00:00] On this episode of The Buzz, we sit down with Melvin Brown for a candid conversation about what real leadership looks like in the age of ai. Melvin also shares the work he's leading at CANI and how he's partnering with 
Melvin: ACT-IAC to help organizations. Build the future of learning and performance.
Melvin: Alright, so I hope you enjoy. 
Yohanna: Hello everybody. Welcome to the Buzz. I am so proud that I finally get the great Melvin Brown, the second on the buzz. Hello Melvin. Thank you so much. Please introduce yourself to, um, our listeners. I think a lot of a lot of them know you. 
Melvin: Yeah, it, it, it's great to be here, Yani.
Melvin: Thank you so much for having me. Um, in this new role as the Vice President and Chief Growth Officer with C-A-N-I-L-L-C. Just excited about, uh, the work that we're doing around workforce development [00:01:00] training, uh, it modernization, uh, acquisition and contracting support and, and cybersecurity, you know, are the four building blocks of what we're, what we're building on.
Melvin: And then we're, we're rolling out and, you know, I, I don't want to spoil the surprise coming soon. We're gonna have some product partners that we're, we're gonna be rolling on and launching here in the upcoming year, and I'm excited about. Those partnerships and where we're going, and so we're just looking to help people and organizations close the gap between where they are and where they want to be.
Yohanna: Oh, that's great. Good. Yeah, I love a good surprise. Can't wait on the buzz. We talk a lot about where technology and leadership and real world accountability collide. Our guest today has lived at that intersection from federal leadership to. Advisory work and brings a perspective shaped by action, not theory.
Yohanna: Melvin, when people hear your name in government and in industry circles, what do you hope they understand about how you actually work? 
Melvin: I, [00:02:00] I think what I want them to understand is that I'm outcome driven and people centered and you know, I don't chase visibility or theory. I focus on building systems that work under real pressure.
Melvin: That means asking uncomfortable questions, being honest about the risk, and staying accountable for the results. Not just what we intended to do, but what do we, what do we actually get done? 
Yohanna: Yeah, the results, what happened? How, I think people just dunno how you get there and they're just like, what? How do you know you're at the intersection of leadership, of technology and accountability?
Yohanna: Um, I think. Or maybe you can tell me what, what do you think is the hardest part of the inter of that intersection that people don't really talk about enough? 
Melvin: I think the hardest part is, is owning the trade-offs in public, being public about the trade-offs. Uh, you're constantly balancing speed, security cost, the impact on humans, the impact on your customers, and you don't get to optimize all of them at one time.
Melvin: And, and so real leadership is about saying, here's the decision, [00:03:00] here's the risk. Here's why we're gonna account for it. And that, that's it. That's all. That's enough. 
Yohanna: Let's zoom out for a little bit real quick. I know we're, we keep talking about intersection, but really. Your, your career path hasn't been linear.
Yohanna: And I think that matters. I think a lot of folks think that like, oh, this is my path, and they forget the path might be a winding road. Um, you've led in environments where the, the stakes are really high and the margin of air is super thin. Um, you've moved between military, like, like you, uh, mentioned military service, federal leadership, you know, advisory roles.
Yohanna: What did each phase. Strip away from your assumption of, of that leadership. 
Melvin: So, you know, being a United States Marine, the one thing I can say is that the military stripped away the idea that authority equals trust. 
Yohanna: Okay. 
Melvin: You know, just because you're, you're an authority figure doesn't, people don't instantly trust you just because of that.
Melvin: Federal leadership stripped away the myth that good intentions fix bad [00:04:00] systems. And so we intended to fix that and, and, and so that, that, that worked. Uh, and then the advisory work stripped away the illusion that experience alone creates change, execution, and follow through, do. And so it's those encompassing, that authority doesn't equal trust.
Melvin: Good intentions don't fix bad systems. And experience alone creates change. It doesn't. Execution and follow through is what 
Yohanna: does. 
Melvin: Yeah, 
Yohanna: I like that. It's like it's action. It's all about action. I also kind of want us to be a little bit honest, 'cause I think there are a lot of leadership, leadership traits out there that get praised publicly, but like in private, they're not the best.
Yohanna: Like what do you think is one that, you know, in practice inside large organizations maybe isn't the best 
Melvin: decisiveness without listening? 
Yohanna: Mm. Okay. 
Melvin: And so fast Decisions always get their applaud. They move fast, they got it done, but they were disconnected from the people that was doing the work. [00:05:00] So they fail quietly and repeatedly.
Melvin: And so I always tell people, you know, you can build a house with your wife or for your wife. I know how that, I know how that looks on the back end of that. If you come home and you, you built a house for your wife, she probably don't wanna move into it or she gonna be real mad that you did. Whereas if you got, if you guys build a house together, it's gonna make it a great place to live.
Melvin: So I think, you know, you gotta be decisive. But you gotta listen. Uh, you gotta, you know, you gotta, you gotta be able to hear the people that you're leading, um, and what their concerns are, and, and let them help you shape the direction of where you want to go. 
Yohanna: Yeah, I like that. I like that analogy. Um, is that kind of a lesson that you've.
Yohanna: Learned or maybe something that you've learned relatively quickly that forced you to, to learn that idea? 
Melvin: I think the old ad is that culture is strategy on day one. I mean, we, we've always talked about it. Uh, uh, you know, you can have the best plan in the world, but if the incentives and the behaviors don't [00:06:00] align, the system's gonna reject it.
Melvin: And so it doesn't matter what you think, it doesn't matter what you put on paper, you've gotta get your people and you've gotta get the culture to go with you. Technology modernization in, in the federal space has never been around. The technology hasn't been the problem. 
Yohanna: Okay. 
Melvin: It's always been the culture.
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Melvin: And the business of it. Modernizing that. Yeah. And the things around that is where, where you need to, you know, 
Yohanna: need to focus. Yeah. So leadership is one thing. Leading systems is another. Um, I think, and also government systems in particular come with, excuse me. They come with layers of complexity. Most people never really see.
Yohanna: Okay. I also, I also hear a lot of buzzwords. Everyone talks about modernization. What actually slows transformation down more, do you think? Uh, technology, culture, or the incentives? Which one of those three do you think? 
Melvin: Incentives every time. Incentives. Incentives. Incentives every time. 
Yohanna: Oh wow. Okay.
Melvin: [00:07:00] Technology and culture can change. 
Yohanna: Okay. 
Melvin: But if, but if people are rewarded for maintaining the status quo, transformation stalls by design and you will not move the organization forward. So I say it's the incentives all the way you reward the behavior that you want to see. If you've got a child that.
Melvin: Kicks and screams in the middle of the aisle to get what they want in the, in the store, and you reward that behavior. They know now that if I kick and scream, I can get what I want. And so you have to make sure, and this is a, this is a change management thing. It's not a technical thing. Again, it goes back to it's a cultural thing again.
Melvin: You have to reward the behaviors that you wanna see going forward consistently, and you have to model that 
Yohanna: Melvin from, from your perspective, where do agencies still. Underestimate the human cost of bad systems. So you were talking about habits rewarding bad habits, but what about a bad system? 
Melvin: Frontline staff and the public [00:08:00] burnout, workarounds and frustration becomes normalized and the citizen experience delays errors and they, and every time we have a bad system, we lose trust.
Melvin: It just, it erodes the trust that people have in our ability to deliver whenever we have bad systems. And so. Improving those systems so that people have more confidence in our delivery, have more confidence in the service that they receive. We underestimate again, how well people can perform when they got the right tools, um, to help them do their jobs better.
Yohanna: Yeah. Speaking of systems, speaking of the right tools, AI is everywhere right now. What's the biggest mistake leaders make when they rush to adopt ai? 
Melvin: Why did I think that we were gonna have a podcast and not talk about ai, um, treating AI like a shortcut instead of a responsibility. 
Yohanna: Okay? All right. 
Melvin: And so AI amplifies whatever the systems, the data, the governance you already have [00:09:00] in place, whether it's good or bad.
Melvin: If the foundation is weak, the AI is just going to scale. A weak system faster. 
Yohanna: Yeah. Yeah. 
Melvin: That's it. Um, and so the biggest mistake leaders, you know, can make is it's not an end all, be all to everything. You still have to deal with the underlying data of how that system was, was trained and, and, and the processes by which you trained it on the policies, the procedures, you know, whether this RPA, whether this, whether it it's large language models.
Melvin: Whatever those things are trained on is gonna give you the outcome that you want. So, you know, not doing the work upfront of making sure that the data that is trained on or the data that is being used is, is clean. It's gonna give you the desired outcome repeatedly. 
Yohanna: That's true. So that brings us to the work you're doing now.
Yohanna: Uh, you didn't just leave leadership behind. You built something to address the gaps that you kept seeing. So canny focuses on leadership and workforce [00:10:00] capability. What problem were you seeing repeatedly that made you. This needs a dedicated solution. Like, I need to step in here and do something about this particular thing.
Melvin: I, it, it, it's funny because I, I, I had to do a reflection of, of where I've come from and so I spent 14 years as an adjunct professor at the University of Phoenix. And, you know, being able to bring that experience to the table and look forward, you know, now that with, now that I'm with CA and I, and to be able to look forward and, and the thing that organizations keep investing in is tools.
Melvin: But not in people's ability to lead, adopt, and make decisions inside those tools. And so we got a capability gap, uh, a capability and skills gap of people, not technology. Um, and so as long as we have, uh, capability gaps and not technology gaps, that's what's driving most failures. It's not the technology again.
Melvin: How can we be smarter? Uh, how can we lead, adapt, and make better decisions inside those tools? 
Yohanna: That's, that seems [00:11:00] like a really difficult, like a difficult thing to tell somebody, you know, like, you're doing this wrong. Like, uh, when organizations come, come to ca and I, um, what's the hard truth? They usually aren't ready to hear, but, but they need to hear it.
Melvin: Transformation. It's not a project. It's a behavioral change. If leaders don't model accountability, if they don't model learning, if they don't model transparency, no framework or vendor will be able to fix that. We're, we're not gonna be able to fix that. And so if you're, if you decide we're not gonna invest in learning, because I don't want to, uh, I, I heard the saying, uh, I don't wanna spend money on training because of what if they leave?
Melvin: Well, what if they stay untrained and stay. Now I'm trying to modernize with people with skills that they don't have. And so again, I've seen this do loop time and time again where organizations continue to invest in technology, but they don't invest in the people. And so technology is only [00:12:00] as smart as the person can configuring it.
Melvin: And not everybody's gonna be attacky, you know, just let's just. Do away with that myth. Um, and, and, and Yani, I don't know, but I, I'm a homeowner, but I, I don't do construction, but I, I know how to. Piece together enough to, to build a home. Um, and so I, you know, I don't, I don't build cars. I don't build cars. I, you know, I, I do around with fixing on them, but I can buy one and, and and, and figure it out and learn how to drive.
Melvin: And so I, I think, I don't think you have to know specifically how to do something in order to get the desire, outcome. I don't need to be in construction to, to build or live in a home. I don't have to know how to build a car and sit on the four factory line to know how to build or drive a car. And so I think that's, that's where we are with tech.
Melvin: I don't need to know how the technology works or build it, but I need to know how to use it and lead it efficiently to get the desired outcomes that I want. 
Yohanna: Do you think that's a pattern that you've seen across government and industry? Is that something that you would wanna fix if you could? 
Melvin: Yeah, I do.
Melvin: I think we just, we have, we have to [00:13:00] stop rewarding activity over outcomes and, and so we gotta measure effort meetings, you know, we measure meetings. How many meetings did you have? You know, how many reports did you, you know, did you do, but. What, what were the, the measurable outcomes that impacted mission.
Yohanna: Okay. 
Melvin: And the people whose lives that we serve. That's what you want to start rewarding. You want to start rewarding outcomes, you know, what was the outcome of that? Well, we, we made a decision. Well, how did that decision impact? What was the impact of that decision? So, you know, I, I'm a big believer in, in, in telling people that meetings are not accomplishments.
Melvin: That that's not an accomplishment. Um, when we deliver on a system that, you know, reduce the backlog of, of, of hiring or when we reduce the backlog of retirees, that's an outcome that people can feel and, and they can see. 
Yohanna: Yeah. Um, so you're talking about retirement, but a lot of our listeners are, um, are early and mid-career professionals.
Yohanna: They're trying to figure out how to lead well in these systems, [00:14:00] and they don't always. You know, get rewarded for it. So, for early career professionals, you know, listening to this episode, what skill matters more than resumes and like certifications and titles right now? Do you think? What, what's something that they should kind of maybe focus on?
Melvin: Judgment. 
Yohanna: Okay. Yeah. 
Melvin: The, the ability to assess risk, ask better questions and make ethical decisions. When in times of uncertainty, when you, when you don't have all the answers. Uh, I think the, the best leaders or the leaders of the futures are the ones that can ask the questions. They just ask better questions.
Melvin: Um, that's why partnerships like act, IAC and the Act, IAC Academy, and then our AI training series focus on decision making. It, it's not just technical literacy. It's, it is the thing that you have to know how to do is making judgment decisions based on risk and based on asking questions. And, and I, and I'll give you an example.
Melvin: Um, I, I did some research on, on, on home demolishing because I, [00:15:00] I was curious about, you know, when you, when you break an organization or when you break something, you know, what are some, some of the things that you want to do? And one of the things that, that they highlighted is, you know, before you demo your home, you wanna make sure you disconnect all the utilities.
Melvin: Yeah. And I'm going, oh yeah. That I could see how if you go in, uh, and not disconnect the utilities, you may not get a do over. 
Yohanna: Mm-hmm. 
Melvin: You gonna get an explosion or a flood or an electrical fire. 
Academy Ad: Yep. 
Melvin: And so knowing that before you go in, that's a judgment call is, Hey, before we go into that, have we disconnected all the utilities?
Melvin: Because what I don't want to have is, uh, oops. I can't put back. And so when we start, when we think about judgment, it's the analogy of the toothpaste sometimes. Once you know a hundred percent of the time, once that toothpaste is out, you can't put it back. So not everything in life is gonna give you a do over.
Melvin: So I say judgment and a and risk assessment, and asking [00:16:00] better questions and making ethical decisions in time of uncertainty. Probably going to be, you know, your best, best, best tools to have on your, on your, on your tool belt. 
Yohanna: Yeah. So quick Plug Act, iac, the Academy. We are partnering up with Ca and I, we're doing a 2026 AI training series.
Yohanna: I'm gonna have more information in the show notes. So what's something that you wish someone had told you earlier? Like what's, what's something that. Like that kind of piece of advice, like make sure your utilities are, are cut off, you know, maybe earlier in your career for navigating power, responsibility, visibility.
Yohanna: What's something that you wish someone had said to a younger Melvin 
Melvin: that visibility comes with responsibility, not protection. 
Yohanna: Oh, okay. Yeah. When you're out there. Yeah. 
Melvin: If you want to, if you want to influence, be ready to own your outcomes. I mean, especially when things go wrong. You know, we all wanna stand on the, you know, the Fed 100 stage when you know we've done everything right, but.
Melvin: None of us [00:17:00] want to be, you know, in front of Congress when things go wrong. And, and so, you know, you have to own that. You know, if you wanna stand on the hill and applaud you when you do do right, you know, you have to also be able to sit in the hot seat or the hot chair and answer the tough questions when things go go wrong.
Yohanna: Okay. So we're, we're almost wrapping up. Uh, before I let you go, I want to end on a quick pulse check. Short answers, don't really think about it. Just quick answer. One Habit leader should stop rewarding immediately. 
Melvin: Being always busy. Busyness without impact is just noise. 
Yohanna: Good. Looking ahead, what kind of leaders will actually thrive in the next five to 10 years?
Yohanna: Not just survive. 
Melvin: Leaders who are adaptive, ethically grounded and comfortable saying, I don't know yet, but here's how we'll find out. 
Yohanna: Yeah, 
Melvin: the future is going to belong to learners. Not the know-it-all. 
Yohanna: Good. Thank you so much, Melvin. I've learned so much from you. 
Melvin: You are more than welcome and glad to be here.[00:18:00] 
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