Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
From Accenture To Academia: Building Culture, Trust, And Results with Brad Englert
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We talk with Brad about shifting from command and control to caring, values‑driven leadership that scales through relationships, mentors, and clear expectations. From cloud migrations and crisis drills to vendor turnarounds and weekly check‑ins, the tools are simple and the results are durable.
• career path from Accenture partner to higher‑ed CIO
• relationships and mentoring as the engine of change
• moving from fire drills to proactive, customer‑focused IT
• designing values that attract and retain talent
• slow down to frame problems and set expectations
• collaborative leadership and accountability for results
• crisis preparedness across power, cyber, and safety
• strategic vendor management and replacing poor partners
• advice for new leaders on delegation, apology, and mentoring
• where to find the book and how to connect
I’m gonna send you a link for the show notes that will send your listeners to a sample the book, free sample the book, how to buy the book, and how to schedule time on my calendar
Connect with Ron
Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this podc...
Welcome to Unpack Podcast with your host, Leadership Consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consultant. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now, to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.
Brad’s Career Journey And Pivot
SPEAKER_02Good afternoon. This is Ron Harvey, Vice President, Chief Operating Office for Global Core Strategies and Consulting. We're a professional leadership development firm based out of Columbia, South Carolina, and we spend all of our time in our company about helping leaders be more effective and efficient at running their organizations versus the tactical or technical piece of it. How do you really take care of the people that are getting it done? All of our time is spent in that space. We love it, helping leaders grow into their new role versus what they used to be. But we paused and we released a podcast every Monday with leaders from around the world. And I'm super excited that we have another phenomenal guest that's going to share what he's done, what he's learned with you. And hopefully you walk away from this podcast today with something that makes you more effective at what you're doing. So, Brad, I'm going to invite you to the stage and I'm going to hand over the microphone.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. Thanks for inviting me. Um, I started my career with Accenture and was with them for 22 years, uh, 10 years as a partner. And most of my clients is when I was a partner were higher institutions of higher education. So uh University of Illinois, the Ohio State University, Columbia, Vanderbilt, Cal State, even Texas AM. And for a University of Texas grad, that was painful. Uh, but they were really fun to work with. Um, and then I happily retired from the firm. And uh about 18 months later, I got a call from the University of Texas at Austin, my alma mater. I went to grad school there, and the president wanted an IT strategy and wanted someone from outside the university who knew higher ed. Well, that was me. So hour a week pro bono. So they're too cheap to pay for my parking or dry cleaning, and uh typical higher ed. And that was in October. By March, I was halftime, by June I was full-time, and I was with them for eight years, seven as the chief information officer.
Managing Change Through Relationships
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. Wow. Yeah, I love how you how you said, hey, I started off pro bono and began to work and to it. But but thank you so much for coming on the show. You know, we call it Unpack, and everything that we we do is really in real time. So our audience knows that we're gonna have a conversation. We'll talk about leadership in whatever way we get there. It's totally up to you and I how we how we get there. But you had a phenomenal career, Accenture, you know, for many, many years. Um, and you think about the years that you spent in Accentura, and you think about the way that the world has changed over that those 28 years of Accentura. What do you share as the things that you see because the world is changing faster now? What do you see that you can help us understand how important it is to navigate change effectively as a leader?
SPEAKER_00Well, one thing that the firm uh taught me from day one is that relationships are the key to success. And the person that I was started with might be my boss someday, or might be a customer, or might be a peer of mine. Um, my customer, my client might become a boss of mine in the future. And sure enough, 28 years later, when I became the chief information officer at the University of Texas, the person I started with of the firm became chief information officer of a very large organization. So it actually came true. And to answer your question about managing change, you need to re need the help of others to navigate change, uh, especially uh your mentors, because they've been through it before. They can help guide you. Um, the firm had a culture of mentoring and coaching. You could, even as a partner, you had to mentor and coach people. You had to teach classes. It was just built into the culture. And uh, when I got to the university, I really enjoyed working with my directory ports and all my staff and executive leaders to really change what was a uh fire drill culture, rewarding heroics. I needed to change it into a customer-focused, proactive, central IT organization. We had 330 people,$40 million budget, but we could not be reactive. We had to be proactive. And that took about a year to make that change. Wow. Wow.
From Fire Drills To Proactive IT
SPEAKER_02A lot to unpack there. I mean, I'll start off with one thing that I'm glad you spoke of earlier, Brad, is the relationships that that that that advice that you got. How long were you then? And in how long did it take for you to realize like it was really true? Because I I'm one person on board with you there. The power of relationships is almost like I call it relationship equity. Like what's your what's your score with the person that you're going to come from? Almost like your credit score. Um if your credit score is hard, it costs you a lot more money to borrow money. But if it's good, it happens a lot faster. Same thing in relationships. Yeah. How long did it take for you to realize that the power of relationships and and how effective they work for those that are listening that sometimes burn bridges they shouldn't burn?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think it was really, you know, year three or four when I got into supervisory roles. And you know, I I realized I had to be a role model as well as uh, you know, a worker. And I actually looked at all my annual reviews for 22 years, and early on, they coached me. My my partner coached me that I needed to be a better role model. I needed to not work so hard and not be uh command and control, but be a team player, and that was like you know, cold water. Uh, but I needed it. And frankly, it's more rewarding to have a team coach approach to management than command and control. Wow.
SPEAKER_02So you you got coached, you know, for 22 years, looked at all of your appraisals. You know, first kudos, they that they actually did them every year. You know, when people got a fight, that's a whole nother podcast that you got one every year. But the reality is that they saw value in coach you early on. What role do you think that really played in who you are today?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think um they provided me stretch roles, and I was working as a manager when I was a senior consultant. I was working as an associate partner when I was a senior manager, they put me in a partner role when I was an associate partner, and that helped uh cure imposter syndrome because you're actually working in the role in a relatively safe environment because hey, I'm not a manager. If I fail, you know, I'm learning. And you know, I I um when I became the boss, you know, I looked at my directory ports and my team and you know, said, how can I help them stretch and grow? Um, help them achieve their career goals. And field promotion is a great way to do it.
SPEAKER_02Wow. I I love that you you're mentioning that they put you in the role, but you use the word that that how do you create safety for people to make mistakes without getting fired or getting a battle price? Right.
SPEAKER_00Or be promoted, and then you're in the role and you don't know how to do it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So so that played a vital role. You know, I'm a veteran, and one of the things they do is they always try to get you ready for what what what you're possible, what's the possibility of where you may end up in three or four years. How important is it for leaders that are listening that are in charge of people to create a safe space for people to grow in?
Coaching, Stretch Roles, And Safety
SPEAKER_00Well, it's very important. And you know, I when I got to the university, uh, the first thing we did was create the values of the organization because in order to change it from heroics to customer focus, we had to talk about values. And the number one value was family first. Well, why would we do that? Because I live in Austin, Texas. We have all the multinational tech firms here. I cannot compete on salary, but what I can compete on is a balance of life. And I had this network engineer, he was very talented, went to a startup, and I said, Look, if you don't like it there, I don't say this to everybody, but you can come back. And so literally two weeks later, I get the call and he goes, Can I come back? Because he had equity, but the reason they did his dry cleaning and fed him is he never got to go home. And he what he thought was going to help his family actually took him away from his family. And so uh the other values were transparency, uh, truthfulness, collaboration with our customers, uh, consistency, and no one could join the organization without going through orientation, learning about the values, meeting the management team. Oh, people try to sneak through and oh, I'm too busy to go to orientation. No, you're not. I have a list. So you come to the next next month's orientation, and then we had quarterly meetings where we talk about our values, we'd bring in customers, uh, I'd give kudos to staff who did proactive customer service. Um, I wrote a blog once a week for eight years talking about values, talking about big projects. We moved most of the services to the cloud over eight years. So when the pandemic hit, my success was able to increase VPN, increase Zoom, and 70,000 people went online to do teaching, research, and work. Now that couldn't have happened without, you know, uh all 330 of us pulling in the same direction. Wow.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you've you've gone through a lot of change. You you settle down, and like I said, it's not a command and control, it's more collaborative leadership. Can you make the distinction uh and the value of that being able to have a collaborative leadership where as a boss you don't have to have all the answers, and neither should you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, uh, you don't have all the answers. And I need the smartest thinking in the room to work through problems. And um, you know, I think there's a classic Harvard Business Review article called Who's Got the Monkey? And it was this executive in the 70s, and his direct reports kept giving him problems, and they were monkeys, and he had all these monkeys on his back, and he learned to, when that happened, to take the monkey off his shoulder and hand it back to them and said, No, I expect you to solve this. And I gave all my direct reports a copy of that article, and I said, This is how I manage. I need I need the best thinking, I need you to be accountable, you need to hold me accountable, but um, I'm not gonna solve all your problems for you. And a woman who worked for me, after she read the manuscript of the book, Spirits of Influence, she said, You know what you did? You made a slow down. Because we're chart go charging type A personality. We wanted to get to the solution right away, but you would make a slowdown. Sometimes you even advocated for intentional foot dragging.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
Values First And Culture Design
SPEAKER_00Because sometimes you have to really understand what the problem is before you scurry off to solve it. And sometimes problems solve themselves. You know, you don't have to do anything. So just be patient and uh, you know, take a deep breath before you charge off.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Brad, you you're you're you're pushing us a little bit with the world as fast as it is. You can get everything like microwave uh instant now. Everybody wants it faster, faster, faster. And you come on the show and say, okay, I need y'all to do some intentional foot dragging and slow this down. How do you get there when when the world is running 2,000 miles per hour faster than the speed of light now? How do you get us to slow down when we want everything right now?
SPEAKER_00Well, um, you have to you have to really um be good at setting and managing expectations. And I was really bad at that early in my career. I would work too much, I would never say no, I would do all that. And I had this partner who was a type A personality, and I was trying to leave to go have dinner with my wife one day, and the phone rings at five o'clock, and it's a partner. I partner, I need a white paper. Oh, white paper. And I literally said, Whoa, I didn't say no because that would have set her off like a rocket. Yeah, I said, Whoa, I said, when do you need this white paper? Oh, let me check my calendar. I need I meet with a client in two weeks. Okay, two weeks. Uh, how many pages do you want this white paper to be? Uh, three pages. I was thinking 10. Uh, do you have an example of a white paper that I can say? Yes, David, I did one on XYZ Corp. 10 years ago. Well, guess what? I went home and had dinner with my wife. Now, before I learned to say whoa, I would have called her and canceled dinner, upsetting her and me. I would have stayed up all night, delivered a 10-page paper and got yelled at the next day. A lose, lose, lose situation. So just by saying whoa gave some mental space and time to really understand what was needed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love it. And I totally agree with you, you know. Um, slow down to speed up, you know. And I think I think oftentimes we we are like firefighters, we're running to these fires all the time versus doing an assessment. And and I think what you share with this on your bright is even firefighters do an assessment. The house can be ablaze, they're not gonna just run right in without doing an assessment. They're well trained, they may do it fast, but they do an assessment. So if you listen as a leader, firefighters do an assessment and social leaders.
SPEAKER_00And they're they've been trained, you know, they they train in those situations. So at the university, we would train with the VP for public safety. What would happen if there's a bomb scare? What would happen if there's uh power outage? What would happen if there's a cybersecurity attack? How about an ice storm? And once a year we would practice that. Well, you know what? One day the power did go out, and we generate our own power, the backup failed, but you know, we had generators at the data center, you know, we had things going. Uh, we had copper wire phones in the emergency management center because if you don't have a network, don't have power, you don't have a network. Yes, and we worked it, we worked it, and uh we also had a bomb scare. I was out on the mall with my phone. I wasn't even at my desk. They wouldn't let me in the building because it's a bomb scare. We had a standard operating procedure, all his team and my team direct reports, get on a conference call, it's connected to the executive leaders, and we work the bomb scare from the mall.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
Collaborative Leadership And Accountability
SPEAKER_02When you when you think about you know the fact that that first organization had a a you gotta mentor someone, what what do you say to leaders that are not necessarily doing the evaluations, you know, annually like they should, and checking in quarterly and making sure people don't get any surprises in the evaluation? What do you say to those leaders about how important it is to make sure people get their performance evaluations and and probably quarterly check-ins? I you know, or what is the time frame that you should do check-ins with your direct reports?
SPEAKER_00Well, with my direct reports, I met with them every every week and I would meet them in their office. So their teams would see me coming to their boss, and we would talk about what are issue, what are the issues. I had one direct report say, brand new to the organization. I I have inherited this uh project. It's supposed to be done in the summer, but there's no way we can get it done with quality in the summer. And I looked at him and said, one, thank you for having the courage to ask. Two, it took us 40 years to get this way. What's another six months? It doesn't matter, you know. It's like, why would we do something that would disrupt people's lives? So I think just you don't have to even wait for the quarter or the year, you know. Uh, you manage by stumbling around. But to answer your question, they're losing valuable productivity. If a person doesn't know what they're supposed to be doing, then they're not productive. And if you're the boss, you need to use your words, you need to tell them. And if you're the directory port and you need something, you need to use your words, you need to tell the boss. And the other phrase in the book is you people are not mind readers. So if you're the boss, your people can't read your mind. And if you're working uh working with uh a boss, you can't read their mind. Yes, you gotta so you gotta use your words. Um yeah, you're just losing so much value to your organization. Uh, you know, just set those expectations, understand what their goals and aspirations are. Some people are scared to ask their boss, what are their goals and aspirations? Well, when I was the boss, I'd love that discussion. I can tell you what my priorities are. Here's what we're gonna do this year. How can you help me? Yeah, um, then you set and manage those expectations. Me know the third principal in all business relationships, genuinely care about their success. You gotta care. And when I got to the university, I met with this faculty member who I'd worked with on a project 15 years earlier, a statewide network project, electrical engineer, really cranky old dude. And I said, Okay, give me some advice. He goes, get out of the office and tell people you give a damn. And that's exactly what I did. I would get out of my office, not hide behind the screen. I'd go meet with my peers across the campus because we work together. 16 million square feet of buildings. Well, they all have IT, uh, public safety. IT is there. 100,000 people, the football stadium. My team's working the game with public safety, uh, building security, etc. So uh you need to work with your peers because they need you and you need them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love I love what you that you share with the leaders is get out of the office. And you use the word care. A lot of leaders, that's not what, you know, when I came up, you know, leaders didn't they cared, but even parents, I watch parents that that they the way they show their care, it almost is very correction and direction and and you know, very hard, you know, harsh can be harsh. How do you shift to this show you care? Yeah, okay, thanks a lot for that. Um, can you hear me now? Yes. Yeah, you mentioned the word care. That's not the leadership I came up under. Um, and if it was, it was like show you I I care about being really, really hard and very direct.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the beatings will continue till morale improves, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, yes. How do you shift?
SPEAKER_00Well, um you need to build mutually beneficial relationships, and the way to do that is to one understand what they're trying to achieve and two give a damn. So I'm I worked with a lot of vendors. We had um, you know, we spend millions of dollars a year on vendors. Well, I identified my most strategic vendors and I worked with them. I did meet with them quarterly to learn what's coming in their product line, uh, making sure we're being a good customer and paying our bills on time. Sometimes I had trouble with the account rep, so I made sure the account rep's boss was there, and that built a trusty and mutually beneficial relationship. One vendor doesn't care about us, and it was uh the learning management system, which is what all 54,000 students use and all 4,000 student uh faculty, and he'd show up once a year for his maintenance check, which was always 10% more than the prior year. And it was a clunky system that the students hated. So I worked with the vice progress for curriculum. Her team and my team went to the market, we found a modern standards-based product that the faculty and students picked, and over two years we made the transition. That company made changes to make us successful. That company's senior VP for sales would call me once a month to make sure our transition was going well. Other vendor never responded when we had problems, and it was such a wonderful day when I fired that vendor who didn't care. And, you know, he didn't even hear the bullet coming. He was so clueless, and he thought that our switching costs would be too great. So he thought we had he had us over a barrel. But we had a party to celebrate the two-year transition. I had a cake in the shape of a tombstone, and I had the company's name on there, Rest in Peace. And we just had a we had cake, pizza, bowling. It was so good to say sign or to that vendor who didn't care.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think that's an important message for those people that are entrepreneurs and business owners, and and taking for granted um what I hear in the messages don't take anyone for granted. You know, you should always make sure that you're helping them get the best out of your products or your services, which is a lesson for all of us to learn. Don't take anyone for granted. Always act like it's your best customer and treat them like they're the only customer while they're in front of you. So I think that's super important. Talk more about your book. I mean, you you you have books out there. Can you share more about your book?
Preparedness, Drills, And Crisis Response
SPEAKER_00Well, um, when I retired from the university, I knew I wanted to share 40 years of stories from Accenture in the university. And my editor said, well, just inventory them. We'll get to a whiteboard and we'll structure it. And the stories fell into uh boss relationships, direct report relationships, executive leaders, all your staff. And that was the inner sphere of influence. You're interacting with them at least once a week, or maybe more frequently. And then you have the external sphere of influence, customers, peers and influencers, and strategic vendor partners. And in all those uh stories, I talk about well, how do you work with customers to understand their goals and aspirations? How do you set and manage expectations? And how do you show you care? Uh, and I do that in all the chapters. And I, you know, the real-world crunchy uh stories, it's not theoretical, it's not academic. I did change the names to protect the guilty and innocent parties. So uh no companies were named. But um, you know, they weren't all success stories. I had a boss that had an open door policy, and the first time I used the open door, I got yelled at. And you know what? I never went back again and gave him any feedback. So just think of all that he lost in terms of valuable information because all his direct reports could not tell him anything. Yeah, that was command and control in a one-way street.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think valuable. So, so as we come to a close and we we begin to to wind down, two things I'd love for you to do if you kid on that, Brad. You know, where would they where can they find your book? And then what are the things that come to mind that you will leave a new leader that's that's that's climbing this ladder um of leadership? You know, what are three things that you give as best advice, pointers, if you will? So, where do we find your book at? Um, and then um let's close out with the tips.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm gonna send you a link um for the show notes that will send your listeners to a sample the book, free sample the book, how to buy the book, and how to schedule time on my calendar. So I'll send that to you right after this. Yes, and um you know, I I welcome the discussion. If you're a new uh new manager, that's a hard transition, right? From a doer to a deleter, same thing, manager to executive, even harder. Uh, but it's it's working through the team, not you doing all the work, and and and you need to let go and be comfortable with your direct reports making mistakes and you still you being accountable. That's a hard thing to do. But but I learned the art of apology, you know, when you screw up, you need to apologize. Yes, and when you have 330 people and quarter million devices hook into the network every day, things will go wrong, and it's how we deal with it when they went wrong that really help build trust with our customers.
Check‑Ins, Expectations, And Clarity
SPEAKER_02Oh, yes, and I love that you you mentioned earlier too, Brad, is is imposter syndrome. I mean, when you get promoted, you do have it, you know. Most people today don't, but when you walk in a room, you you're gonna you're gonna fake it until you make it or until you get discovered. Like he doesn't have a clue, and they know it already. You just need to accept it and ask for help. So I love that you you know you realize how do you get past the axe for help, be vulnerable, you know, um, and let people help you. Most of us do have imposter syndrome.
SPEAKER_00Well, and get a mentor. Um, you know, when I had a big issue at the university with a multinational tech firm, I called the partner who hired me 25, 30 years ago, and he sat on a corporate board with this company, and I got a call the next day from that company's leader, and I said, We've got a five-alarm fire. You are giving me a one-alarm response. You don't want this to be in the press. I don't want this to be in the press. And she said, We will fix it. Yes, it took a year, we finally fixed it, and then everything was great. But she flew her engineers in, they worked on it four or five times. Some of these engineers never saw a customer before, you know, they're like possums, you know, they've never been outside. Um, it's like you sit with my assistant and watch her try to do her job with that software that's broken. So, but you'd need, you know, I was in a crisis, and I just thought I just sat back and said, Who do I know over 40 years who can help me? And it was the guy who hired me.
SPEAKER_02Wow, yeah, relationships. I I tell people all the time, my relationships have gotten me more than any degree I've earned. You know, I had to know, but I can pick up the phone and make a phone call and with people with relationships. And I tell all leaders, you know, have relationships, you know, get along with everybody if you can. And I know there's gonna be some people that push buttons for you, but if you can get along with everybody that that you can find a way because you just never know that you may be working for them one day and you'll wish you had correct.
SPEAKER_00And it can be strategic and intentional, you know, you don't have to spend a lot of time with all your customers, but find your best customers and prioritize that.
SPEAKER_02I love it. I love it. Right. Anyway that um the best way to reach you is it on LinkedIn or what's the best way to reach out to you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh LinkedIn um is probably the easiest way. And uh my website is uh bradangler.com.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. I think you're the first person I've had that's been with a century or so long. I mean, I'm I have tons of questions, so I definitely got to keep your your your email and and invite you back because I mean they do a phenomenal job. The company's done wonderful um across the board. I've learned a lot and read a lot of their content, you know. So I'd love to have you come back and continue to share more wisdom that you've learned over the years of experience that you have. So thank you for joining the show. That'd be fantastic. Awesome, awesome. But everyone, thank y'all for listening and joining Brad and I today. Um, Unpack with Ron Harvey, where we have all conversations that are real, very authentic, nothing script whatsoever. We release a podcast every single Monday with leaders from around the world. Thank y'all for joining us. Um, and until next time, Brad and I will sign off, and we're happy to bring anybody that you know that may be a good fit for the show to share with our audience. Until next time, y'all have a wonderful day and be safe.
SPEAKER_01Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpack Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron Unpacks Sound Advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are or the people you serve because people always matter.
