Missions to Movements
This isn't just another nonprofit podcast - it's your weekly invitation to think bigger, take bold risks, and create lasting change in an ever-evolving social impact landscape. Meet Dana Snyder, your guide through the evolving landscape of nonprofit innovation. She's on a mission to help change-makers like you push the boundaries of what's possible in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Each week, Missions to Movements serves as your personal mastermind session, delivering actionable insights and bold strategies that challenge traditional nonprofit thinking. Dive into revolutionary approaches to digital fundraising, discover how to build magnetic monthly giving programs that create lasting donor relationships, and learn to amplify your voice as a thought leader in the social good space. Whether you're reimagining your organization's impact or forging game-changing partnerships, you'll find the ideas, insights, and inspiration to take your mission further than you've ever imagined. Ready to turn your mission into a movement?
Missions to Movements
Building Thriving Cultures & Team Dynamics with Dave Nugent (Meet My Boss - Leadership Series)
Dave Nugent has known me for over a decade. A tech executive and serial entrepreneur, Dave jam-packs this episode with so many gems on leadership, from leadership styles and the dynamics of team building, to fostering a motivated workplace through honesty, transparency, and genuine care for team members.
When it comes to hiring, we discuss the boldness and initiative that distinguishes standout candidates, as well as Dave's perspective on cultural alignment in hiring, and the importance of crafting an authentic company culture.
In sharing one of my own personal stories in working with Dave, we unpack the importance of setting expectations and encouraging open communication, especially when it comes to working with younger staff.
Dave also shares the impactful work he’s doing with the Next League University program, which opens doors for aspiring professionals in the sports industry.
This episode will inspire you to build a thriving organizational culture and offer so many invaluable lessons to enhance your leadership approach or career trajectory!
P.S. Applications are now open for the next round of my Monthly Giving Mastermind. Visit positiveequation.com/mastermind to apply.
P.P.S. Are you a nonprofit leader running an established monthly giving program with 10,000 or more recurring donors? DM me @positivequation to learn more about my Monthly Giving Leaders Mastermind (with an in-person retreat!)
Resources & Links
Connect with Dave on LinkedIn if you’re interested in the work he’s doing with Next League.
Join The Sustainers, my Slack community for nonprofit professionals growing and scaling a recurring giving program.
This show is presented by LinkedIn for Nonprofits. We’re so grateful for their partnership. Explore their incredible suite of resources and discounts for nonprofit teams here.
Are you still dreaming about building your monthly giving program or refreshing your current one? Applications are now open for my “done with you” Monthly Giving Mastermind. Limited spots are left and we start in July. Click here to apply.
My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
Let's Connect!
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We're going to do whatever is necessary to make the team and the company successful. So we're not sitting waiting for other people to do things. We're in it and we're participating in that commitment. Our responsibility is to the health of the overall organism, the company as a whole, not to individuals, and everybody has to understand that that dynamic is important because sometimes, no matter how good you are at strategy and planning and how good you are at acquiring revenue and all the other things that matter to a business, things don't always go the way you think they're going to go and you will be faced with making hard decisions. Those decisions have to be focused on the broader health of the organization, not an individual who you like, who works really hard or whatever. And having that kind of transparent conversation with at least the people that directly report to you, I think can be helpful as well.
Speaker 2:Hey, there, you're listening to the Missions to Movements podcast and I'm your host, dana Snyder, digital strategist for nonprofits and founder and CEO of Positive Equation. This show highlights the digital strategies of organizations making a positive impact in the world. Ready to learn the latest trends, actionable tips and the real stories from behind the feed? Let's transform your mission into a movement. Hey everybody, welcome back to Missions to Movements. Today is a pretty fun episode. You're going to meet somebody who has known me for quite a long time for over a decade, Dave. You might actually be the person on the show that's known me the longest now that I'm thinking about it, so this could be scary.
Speaker 1:So you're not having your parents on the show.
Speaker 2:Actually, that would be a really fun episode, or also scary. Thank you for being here. We are going to be diving into leadership, because I thought what a better way to talk about leadership than having a series featuring my three past bosses before I decided to start this company nearly eight years ago, which blows my mind. So Dave Nugent is here. Dave, I could share your job titles. However, I would rather if you could share your non-Google-able bio, because the one that I know from dinners and plane flights of learning about your history, I think, is far more fascinating than, yes, the digital technology executive, and you're a serial entrepreneur and all the things that I look up to. You're also a dad of three wonderful kids and a husband, and I would love for people to learn a little bit about the backstory of what brought you here to this moment.
Speaker 1:So I got a real job after college. Real jobs are when you work for other people, when you work for yourself, and for about five or six years I worked in financial services and quickly came to realize that that was not going to be a long term. You know, I described myself as I was a bad employee Not that I didn't work hard, but I think the way I'm wired is, I need to move fast, and I went through a series of like well, you know that's an entrepreneurial trait, right, you don't have time to really worry about protocol or politics, and politics inside of the organization I was in was a real problem.
Speaker 1:So I have been an entrepreneur now for about 30 years and in the beginning I was an illustrator and I thought, oh, I'm going to start this business, I'm going to be a designer. I was a bartender mostly, so I was a bartender for money and an illustrator for a little bit of money, but that kind of led into. I have taken the most circuitous path to running a technology company. I was an English major in college. Like none of this really makes any sense, so I would never recommend the path that I have taken.
Speaker 2:But that's what I love is like you literally have so many different skills and traits and then you end up on this path, which you designed yourself.
Speaker 1:Well designed, would make the assumption it was strategic, and it was really more reactionary than strategic. But over time it became strategic, right. And I do think you point to, I think, a set of qualities that you have as well that are important when you're entrepreneurial, and that is you sort of need to be able to wear many hats, especially in the beginning, right. So if you have a broad set of skills and a willingness to do anything to make it work, then you can be successful. And if what you want to do as an entrepreneur is services oriented as opposed to design and build a product, then kind of from the day you hang a shingle out that's an old term, like they would say you would hang a shingle. That's like a sign in front of the place.
Speaker 1:But kind of from the day that you do that, you can find a client, right. And if you can find somebody to pay you for what you know and what you can do for them, right, and if you can find somebody to pay you for what you know and what you can do for them, then you're kind of in business. Then the trick is can you keep doing that over and over again and then ideally scale that at some level. So that's the kind of backdrop to how I got started and I did that and it went okay and then failed. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to try it again. At this time I'm going to do it a little bit different and it would succeed a little bit more. And each time it's gotten knock wood it's gotten progressively better each time. But that's kind of the journey.
Speaker 2:Amazing and I think this was one of the things I'd share, which we'll get into a little bit the story of how I met you and worked with you back in New York City at Omnigon, which we'll get into. And I want to transition to the leadership part of the conversation, because coming up with creative campaign ideas, investing in professional development and thought leadership, being able to take risks, being able to literally go after new partners and have a plan all of these things takes approval, budget support, mentorship from your leadership, and if you don't feel supported by your leadership to do these things, then you're probably, a not going to be working at that organization for very long or, b, you're also just not going to be happy in your role. And so I worked for Dave in my technically second job, and I was 23, I think, when I started working for you, and so I was so young. What would you say? And I'm sure it's evolved. But what would you say is your leadership style, maybe back then versus now, or if it's the same?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I'll start with something that you just said that I think is important. I think great leadership comes from understanding who you are and, by extension, who the organization is, right so that the team should understand strategically what this organization is and what its intentions are. I'd say, in terms of my personal leadership style, I think honesty and transparency is critically important, and I am transparent to a fault, like if anybody at any level of my organization asks me a question, I'm going to answer it honestly. I think that actually helps you get past a lot of pitfalls that you know when it feels as though there's a resistance to share the reality of the world. Now, I'm not saying that necessarily open the books to every single staff member and talk about the individual dollars and cents, necessarily. But if they have a question about, like why did we make this decision, I saw that you know, hey, we hired this person, why did that happen? Your willingness to share the reality of the world, I think, is really, really important. Not every organization is wired that way and I will say it's a lot easier for me to say that with a company that's around 100 people than it is if you're running a publicly traded business, right Like, the dynamics inside of organizations are very, very different. I think that kind of transparency is really important.
Speaker 1:I think the team understanding that you well, you have to believe this first, by the way but your team understanding that you actually genuinely care about them as people is really helpful and they have to want to do that right. You have to actually believe that, and I'm not suggesting that you're going to be friends with everyone. In fact, that's usually not great, right Like? A company is a place that people go to work, ideally has an amazing culture and people are happy with the work that they do. But they're there for a reason, right, they're there to get a check. If you decided, hey, we're not going to pay anybody anymore, but I'll see you on Monday anyway, I think you'd probably be in for a pretty big shock, right? So it's not to say that you're necessarily trying to be friends with everyone, but they have to believe that their well-being is more important than the tasks that they're going to push out that day or that week or that month. Well, I think it's also a level of respect.
Speaker 1:Without question.
Speaker 2:I unendowedly respected you and Becky, my two bosses, and wanted because I saw you both as mentors and people I looked up to and realized how much and at the time right I think Omnigon was 50 people when I started where you were trying to build and grow the company that I didn't want, as an employee, to let either of you down ever. I think that plays into it too, where you want to make your team look good and I think that is a strong sense of culture and leadership that you embodied through. I think what you're talking about this like radical transparency, whereby having that you're not in the dark, about understanding how much it matters to you, like the overall company company.
Speaker 1:It was wired the way you were wired right. Not everybody comes to work every day not wanting to let other people down. That is a great trait If you can foster it inside of your organization. What we should typically be trying to do, in my opinion, is create the sense that we're going to do whatever is necessary to make the team and the company successful, so we're not sitting waiting for other people to do things. We're in it and we're participating in that commitment.
Speaker 1:And I guess the last thing is an understanding that leader's responsibility is to the. I say this in my office. A lot people will be. If anybody at work hears this, they're going to think this is funny. Our responsibility is to the health of the overall organism, the company as a whole, not to individuals, and everybody has to understand that that dynamic is important because sometimes, no matter how good you are at strategy and planning and how good you are at acquiring revenue and all the other things that matter to a business, things don't always go the way you think they're going to go and you will be faced with making hard decisions. Those decisions have to be focused on the broader health of the organization, not an individual, who you like, who works really hard or whatever, and having that kind of transparent conversation with at least the people that directly report to you, I think can be helpful as well.
Speaker 2:Yes. So how do you find and attract good talent? So, when you're going through a hiring process, what really stands out to you as a candidate and just so. This is where the story that I was gonna bring up, and we're gonna see if we both remember it the same way.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is the story I wanna tell too. We'll say it's the same story, so this is shared.
Speaker 2:If anybody has heard your story is worthy to keynote, that I share. This is the Dave Nugent. This is the guy that I talk about. Well, I haven't even heard this keynote, you have to attend one of my speaking engagements then.
Speaker 1:Okay well.
Speaker 2:So I share that. I snuck my way into a sports business journal conference at the Marriott Marquis right after a Nor'eastern because all of my interviews got canceled Like eight interviews. They all got canceled and I was like I am not coming to New York City and not getting a job interview somewhere, and so the one session that the gentleman that like got me in was yours is where he was sitting in. And so you were. I don't remember who you were on stage with. It was like a panel discussion and I remember Googling as I was sitting there where you worked and it had NASCAR and Fox sports and all these companies and I was like what in the heck does this do these people do? And I saw a client manager role open.
Speaker 2:Now, listeners, prior to this, I had worked at a nonprofit as a director of development and marketing. Omnigon was a digital company focused on building sports entertainment products websites. Basically, the client manager role and the skill set that it was requesting was technically not something I knew a whole lot about. So I applied for said role and then I'll let you take over the rest of it and see if it aligns.
Speaker 1:This is actually pretty well aligned with the way I remember it. I forgot about the conference. To be honest, I do remember you reaching out, I do remember you being in our office and this kind of goes to, I think, when I think about the types of people we want to attract. You know, because of the way that I'm wired and because a lot of the people in our organization are wired, we love self-starters, right, we want people that like, want to own stuff and that want to run with things, and often, if you've worked in a big company where your role was very, very specific, you had a very specific set of skills.
Speaker 1:That's not always, but often that's less of a match for us in spades, and I still look at this to this day. By the way, a lot of people will use tests, myers-briggs tests and like personality tests, for like, is this person going to work? And I'm not saying those things have no value, but I look for passion, like. I'm looking for confidence, passion, and then at the end of the day it comes down to because in an interview you never know right, you really don't know. Even if you love somebody and you push them through a dozen interviews, you don't really know what they're going to be like on the job every day after a year or two years, until you're working with them. So you have to have this belief that they're going to do what they say they're going to do right, which is also something you can teach your kids.
Speaker 1:That's like a big thing with me and my kids. Like, if you say you're going to do it, you better do it. There are a lot of more mechanical things that you can do to screen staff when it comes to the kinds of things that you're looking for, but to me it's those three. It's are you a self-starter? Are you passionate and confident and when I look in your eyes, do I believe you're actually going to do what I need you to do, even if you don't necessarily know how to do it today. Yeah, that made our conversation easy because you had all those things right out of the gate.
Speaker 2:Do you, I guess, now to this day, ask questions specific towards those three things and see how people respond? Well, it's a little tricky.
Speaker 1:I'm a gut guy, not just because I have a gut, but I think a lot about a gut. By the time somebody gets to me these days, they've already gone through a bunch of stuff, so usually they only get surface to me at the end. And if I'm hiring somebody it's usually like a very senior person. But I do lean on those three things. I don't do it like literally. I don't like have a score for passion or confidence or anything like that. Those are the criteria, like have a score for passion or confidence or anything like that. Those are the criteria. Like culture.
Speaker 1:We run a services company. It's a technology services company and a services business is a human capital business. It's really just like how much talent can you acquire and how inspired will clients be that these people are going to solve a problem for them right? So at the end of the day you're really you know, do they feel like a cultural fit when you're sitting with them? Do they feel like if I put them in front of NASCAR or some big client, are they going to be like wow, thank you for bringing this person to us. I'm not to beat up on Myers-Briggs, but there are tests I'm sure that I could give them. I don't think at the end of the day, you really know, until you see that fire and until they actually have to do the job.
Speaker 2:Yes, now in my monthly giving Slack group, the Sustainers, there are more than a hundred nonprofits that share tips and tools to scale their recurring giving programs and, as you might believe, the CRM and fundraising tool conversation comes up a lot, and one that always comes up in conversation is Bloomerang. So if you're in the market to be looking at a complete donor, volunteer and fundraising management solution, head to bloomerangco. They have a very intuitive platform that tracks engagement, provides powerful insights so that you can really focus on driving your mission forward. So join thousands of small and medium-sized nonprofits that are already thriving with Bloomerang and again you can visit bloomerangco to elevate your fundraising. Today, it takes time to wade through all of the fundraising tips on the internet to find the ones that will actually make a difference for your mission. So this year, during year-end giving season, when you're up to your elbows in operational tasks setting goals, tracking performance, keeping everyone aligned and keeping your cool there's no better time than to take advantage of DonorPerfect's nonprofit expert advice. Their free year-end playbook will help you set clear goals, create multi-channel engagements and crush your stewardship plan. It is time to start ticking off boxes on that to-do list and head on over to DonorPerfectcom to get your free copy.
Speaker 2:Who wants to win a matching gift of $5,000? It is almost the most wonderful time of the year and Giving Tuesday is just around the corner. And to celebrate, givebutter is giving back $25,000 to nonprofits. This year, the five most engaging Giving Tuesday campaigns on GiveButter will each receive a $5,000 matching donation that you can use to multiply your impact this year end season. Can you tell? I'm excited you can get the full spread on GiveButter Gives Back for Giving Tuesday and submit your campaign at givebuttercom. Slash giving Tuesday. And I love that you brought up culture, because that was something from walking into the Omnigon office at that time. Culture was all over that place and it evolves right as a company grows and scales and things can change and that can be difficult. Listener, you might be growing, you might be feeling growing pains that can transition with your culture. So I mean, nextleague isn't that old. So starting a new business, how did the team, the management team, decide what is going to be our employee culture on day one?
Speaker 1:Well, we had the advantage of having run companies that looked, at least on the surface, similar to this right. So we knew because we were going to be a services company again, we knew that culture was going to be critically important and we can be very intentional about the kind of culture we were going to build Now. At the same time, at the end of the day, like as leaders and entrepreneurs, like founders of the business, you can plant the seeds of culture, but the people have to cultivate the culture. They're the ones that have to sow the seeds. So they're either going to buy in or they're not, and they have to believe that you're bought into it.
Speaker 1:It's easy to write down these are the things that the company stands for, but if it's not what the team feels every day, then it's not going to work. So the best path to a healthy culture is for it to be fully adopted by the team, because the culture is them right. It's those dozens or hundreds of people who have to manifest it. Do they like each other? Do they trust each other? Are they willing to do things on behalf of each other? Those are things that I can say that all day long, but that's not really going to matter unless they own it?
Speaker 2:What's an example of one of like the seeds of the values that you wanted to have happen and that has played out.
Speaker 1:I mean, when we thought about this business from the beginning, it really was about acquiring the best talent, but also creating an environment where people were passionate about what they were going to do. And doing something that had some form of social impact was always going to be an important part of this business. And because we were starting from scratch this is now December will be three years because we were starting with a blank slate we could be very strategic and very intentional. Every deal we do, we're going to go to the client whoever the client is and say look, now that we've got a deal, we want to take a percentage of that deal over the lifetime of the deal and give it to somebody, right, Like, tell us what matters to you and we'll tell you what matters to us.
Speaker 1:But in doing that, that's a cultural seed, right Like you're telling yourself this is not just about how much money we put to the bottom line. This is, are we doing things that are meaningful in excess of that? And that's been great. And, by the way, if you really think about what matters to a client, right, Like what matters to the other side, those things are really meaningful to them too. So even if you only do it for purely mercenary reasons, because you know you're going to get more clients, there's still a good reason to do it. That's not the reason that we did it, but that's an example of something that we thought was going to be very important from the beginning, and we've gotten publicity from it.
Speaker 2:That's very rare in an agency-based business.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, we've had the United States Olympic Paralympic Committee promote the fact that we have this partnership with them. The LPGA, the Ladies Professional Golf Association, promote TGLs and other golf associations. They're stepping up and saying, hey, look at these guys that we work with, that are doing the stuff with us that's meaningful beyond just providing great tech. So, yeah, that's a good example.
Speaker 2:What would be your advice to the listener who is a leader of an organization and they don't feel like their culture is in a good place?
Speaker 1:Depending on the size of the organization. So smaller organizations can turn something culturally quicker, right? You know, there's an old saying it takes a long time to turn a big boat. The bigger the organization is, the more that you know. Culture can go one of two ways, right, it can be very, very positive, but when it's not as positive, it has infiltrated, sort of the mindset of a lot of people. In some cases. That can be difficult.
Speaker 1:I'd say the shortest path is to A provide access to the leader, right, whoever's in charge, provide real-time access to that person and have completely transparent conversations with the team about exactly what's going on. And do that in a way where you're being very public about it, but also one-on-one, because it's common that sometimes in large groups people don't like to say exactly what they're thinking or what they're nervous about. So doing it either in very small groups or one-on-one where you say look, I know this doesn't feel great, here's what I think and this is what I plan to do about it. But tell me I'm genuinely concerned about and I'm thinking about your perspective on this Like that can help. Kind of depends on how damaged it is, to be honest, but being out in front of it. Getting a sense. Talking to people on a regular basis, by the way, will give you use your spidey sense right, because if things feel a little wonky, better to get out in front of it then than when it goes completely sideways.
Speaker 2:Yes, agreed, and I think those I mean. I remember we would constantly have one-on-ones, or when you were in town or if we were traveling. Obviously there was lots of time to have conversations about different things that were going on in the business and I think acknowledging those things quickly can help you be able to adjust. I think at one point when the company was definitely going through big changes, I think the CEO at the time did like a big slide that said it's going to be okay and then was able to talk about the direction and what was happening, but also like bringing in the. That was part of the humor. There was a lot of humor in our office and being able to acknowledge things with the personality of the person that was presenting it and not shying away from that too.
Speaker 1:There's lots of personalities. I know who that person is. I know who you're talking about. Yes, there are a lot of big personalities in that business.
Speaker 2:A lot of good big personalities.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, 100%.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So, lastly, something that you always supported with me was encouraging professional development and enrichment in career. There are typically, with nonprofits, little to maybe small budgets around professional development. How do you treat that in your organization and how much value and emphasis is there on enrichment and professional development for career growth?
Speaker 1:Well, I'll say, for the companies that I've run, and actually the company that I'm running now, it's critically important. As I said, we're in the human capital business at the end of the day, right? So the investments you make in those people being smarter or taking the next step in their career is really important. But I would also say that budget is not just about do I have money to send this person to this conference or this certification or whatever. You can donate a portion of their time. If the organization has good leadership across the board, then you can also provide mentorship internally, right, like professional development doesn't just have to be oh, I went to this thing and I got certified to be a whatever next level project manager or whatever. It's also just about allowing people to have a percentage of their time where they can seek growth, whatever that means.
Speaker 1:Sometimes that's mental health, it can be personal growth, it can be. All of those things add up to the human that is ultimately delivering on behalf of the business. So just because you don't have a big budget like a check you can write, doesn't mean that you can't a lot. Now I understand time equals money in most organizations, right? So just giving somebody a couple of hours a week does have a monetary value to it. But that's a scenario where you don't have to have a capital or operational budget dollar amount, where you can just say, hey, these people on these days are gonna go do these things for themselves. That is professional development. It can be personal development or professional development, but we believe strongly in both.
Speaker 2:I love that you brought up giving time and even of yourself or other team members. There are multiple opportunities where I remember again like listening to I was 23 years old, right, and so that you brought me into. There are numerous meetings that I remember having a seat at the table and being able to listen to some really interesting conversations about having no SOWs and doing handshake deals, to being this is bringing you back memories To flying on a first. I think it was my first flight to Los Angeles and I will never forget this. Basically, listen, I'm telling you this story because give your younger staffers opportunities to learn to fall on their face a little and then to help them pick back up. So this was a trip we took to LA. I think you and I were only people on the flight. If I remember from our company statement of work some document for a client of ours right, listener, I'm from the nonprofit space I bought one hour of wifi because I'm cautious of budget.
Speaker 1:Oh, I actually remember this.
Speaker 2:And I didn't finish the what I was supposed to be working on. But I was like one hour wifi like it's up, I can't work on it anymore, so I'm going to close my computer. So we land, we get in the car and you had asked me did you finish said document? And I said no. I don't even remember if I said anything. You are clearly pissed at me in that moment and not very happy, which is very unlike Dave's self. So we get to the hotel and I could tell I was like oh, I need to finish this. I do remember calling my dad in the hotel room and I was like I'm pretty sure my boss is really mad at me right now. I'm not exactly sure what happened and he's like Dana, I'm in Florida, go talk to him. You got to ask him why he's mad, I'm not going to be any help. And so I was like you're right. And we I think we used Slack, whatever our internal.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't even remember back then.
Speaker 2:I don't remember either, anyways, some tool, and I think I said will you meet me down in the hotel lobby?
Speaker 2:And you said, sure, like, give me five minutes. And so we went downstairs and I remember saying I don't really know why you're upset, and then you explained and I was like, oh, but your logic and what your expectations were hadn't even registered, cause I thought I was just like doing what I was supposed to be doing. And then I think the conversation was I explained I never to that point wanted to let you down and sometimes just need to be taught what those expectations are and what is the process, that whole experience, and then all the meetings of that trip were learning. I'd love to know from your perspective now, like a decade later plus 12 years later, how that was from a leadership management perspective, 12 years later, how that was from a leadership management perspective and I think this is really helpful for listeners if they're dealing with teaching, the enrichment of young professionals who might also just not have the real life experiences yet to manage those situations from your perspective of like how that played out.
Speaker 1:I don't remember being angry, but I kind of do remember this a little bit. Here's what I would say is, in this particular instance, that was totally on me, because as leaders, it's our responsibility to frame reality for the people that work for us, right? So if my expectation was that you were on a five-hour flight, you were gonna work that whole flight until and I don't even remember what. You were on a five-hour flight, you were going to work that whole flight until and I don't even remember what you're working on, to be honest. But, like whatever, if my expectation was that, then I should have been very clearly articulated but that's what I expect you to do and I definitely didn't do that. So that's on us.
Speaker 1:And this kind of goes back to this concept of leadership right? If there is a perception of failure of folks that work for us, that's our fault, right? Unless that person's lazy or whatever, which is usually not the case, right? If they do something that is not in line with expectations, then maybe you didn't set the right expectation, I think, in that particular instance. By the way, this brings up another point, which is I think I'm a pretty good leader, but I think I'm kind of a mediocre manager. And when it comes to like really framing detail on expectations for people, there's a reason that a lot of the people that work for me have worked for me for a really long time, because I don't really need to tell them what to do. They just kind of know what to do, yeah Right.
Speaker 1:So as leaders, we have a responsibility to frame that reality. What does success look like for these people? And if we don't do that and they're not successful, it's not on them, it's on us. So in that example, that wasn't on you. I mean, if I didn't, I don't again. I don't even remember exactly what happened, but you were very young. I'm going on your first real trip and I should have articulated very clearly like this is how the trip is going to go, this is what I expect to happen, this is what will happen when we get there, this is how you're going to participate in these meetings. So sorry about that 10 years later?
Speaker 2:No, but those are learning moments and experiences, right, and how, also me to be able to have conversations that you may not want to have but all end up great, and I think it ended up with cheersing with a glass of wine and we're like great, let's move on and go to the next client thing.
Speaker 1:But this goes to you know, you asked a question about what we look for or what I look for when we're hiring somebody. I look for when we're hiring somebody, the fact that you had the confidence despite the fact that you were new and I was a very senior person in that company that you had the confidence to say you know what. I'm not going to just let this fester. I don't know what happened, so I'm going to ask that's really hard for young people to do. I have a senior in college. I have two college age kids and I know that when I say, hey, if you have a question about the class you're in, go to office hours and talk to the professor, I think they do it sometimes, but usually they're intimidated right. To the extent that you can get that confidence and make sure you have those meaningful conversations, things will move much quicker. I think we made progress much faster. Again, it was my fault, right, but you fixed it at the end of the day, so it's a win.
Speaker 2:I love that. Having the boldness to ask, I think, is only going to allow you and the employee to make decisions faster and to help you progress in your career. So to the point about opportunities, I would love to wrap the conversation with you sharing about. We started pre-taping, talking about Next League University and the opportunity that you provide for youth to participate into the sports space, because it is so difficult to get into. And so, listeners, if you, after Dave, finishes speaking about this, dave, I'd love for you to share how they can get involved in it and how they can maybe contact you or somebody on your team to learn more about the program.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Next League University is another example of we wanted to have an impact on the broader industry, the sports industry, beyond the revenue we can generate and the clients that we can acquire. So something that happens a lot when you're in the sports business is people come to you because everybody has a son or a nephew or a niece or someone who wants to get into the sports industry.
Speaker 1:So when they know you're in it, a lot of people will come to us and say, hey, my nephew or niece or whoever would love to get into the business. From that was born this idea that we would bring a classroom effectively these days I think it was about 40 people this year into New York and teach two days of how the sports industry actually works, but, more importantly, connecting them to each other and to industry executives so that they actually have a shot. Because most people in the sports industry got into the industry because they either came out of an elite college program or usually it's because they knew somebody.
Speaker 2:You knew somebody, which is true in most walks of life right.
Speaker 1:So we wanted to provide a platform to provide access to folks that might not otherwise have it. Proud to say that that is a very diverse student body Next League University graduate student body and kids that have come through that program have actually gotten jobs in the sports industry. We run it in the summer every year. I think it was in June or July this year. Yeah, if anybody is interested in that program, they can ping me on LinkedIn. If you look, there's a lot of David Nugent's in the world but David Nugent Next League. You can find me that way and I'm happy to try to steer you in the right direction.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Dave, thank you so much for your time. Honored to always chat with you. Thank you so much for being here and the continuous leadership that you're giving to the current team and everybody going through the university. So thank you for joining us on the show.
Speaker 1:I will say I'm not surprised by all your success. I knew from even the story that you gave right when you said can we meet in the lobby? You had, from the day that I met you, something in you that was like just not going to fail. So I'm thrilled to do this. Hope we can catch up in person at some point.
Speaker 2:Agreed, agreed. Thank you, I appreciate that. Can you tell I love talking all things digital To make this show better. I'd be so grateful for your feedback. Leave a review, take a screenshot of this episode, share it on Instagram stories and tag positive equation with one e so I can reshare and connect with you.
