Your Future Realized

92: Navigating the Messy Middle and the Human Side of Operations, with COO Josh Renicker

• Laura Malinowski • Episode 92

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Find the full transcript at yourfuturerealized.com/92.

"I don't have the answers... I'm the guy that asks more questions." 

That's Josh Renicker, COO of Energy Access. It's a refreshing take from someone at the top, isn't it?

Josh climbed the ladder from midnight shifts to the executive boardroom, working full time while earning multiple degrees, and keeping his boots-on-the-ground perspective all along the way. 

Recently we talked about the realities of leading operations, how messy and unpredictable it can be, and everything from navigating the AI revolution to maintaining the human touch in leadership. 

This conversation is a goldmine for anyone in ops, whether you're aiming for the C-suite or you’re already there. You’ll hear honest conversation about what it really takes to lead operations and practical advice from a leader who's been in the messy trenches for a long time. 

"I don't have the answers... I'm the guy that asks more questions." 

That's Josh Renicker, COO of Energy Access. It's a refreshing take from someone at the top, isn't it?

Josh climbed the ladder from midnight shifts to the executive boardroom, working full time while earning multiple degrees, and keeping his boots-on-the-ground perspective all along the way. 

Recently we talked about the realities of leading operations, how messy and unpredictable it can be, and everything from navigating the AI revolution to maintaining the human touch in leadership. 

This conversation is a goldmine for anyone in ops, whether you're aiming for the C-suite or you’re already there. You’ll hear honest conversation about what it really takes to lead operations and practical advice from a leader who's been in the messy trenches for a long time. Find the full transcript at yourfuturerealized.com/92.

Josh:

Thank you for a great intro. Yeah, all those things are true. It's, it's almost weird to look back and think back of my journey through midnight shifts and going to school during the Day and then switching gears and working during the day and school at night and then, still deep rooted in that blue collar mentality, really, and just not afraid to get in the trenches and do the messy middle work. So thanks for having me today.

Laura:

My pleasure. Tell us a few of the key moments that really shaped who you are today and how you lead.

Josh:

The Power of Asking Questions: How Curiosity Drives Leadership Growth

Yeah, it's interesting the influence that people will have on you when you are leaning into curiosity and somebody leans back. It’s being in a factory setting and being around a lot of people that hate their job, are there to do their 40 hours at, and then go home. And I was there. I'm like, I'm going to be here 40 hours anyway. What else can I learn? That was always my kind of mentality. And there were some supervisors even that looked at that as like, I don't really want to spend the time doing that. I'm also here to do my 40 hours and then go home. 

But then there were some that were opposite of that, where they were like, oh, if somebody's leaning in, I'm going to lean into them and start showing them what to do. And you can do it in a way that is disarming because there's also a lot of managers out in the world, middle management, that have no management training or no leadership training. So they almost see curiosity as a threat. 

So you have to lean in with some disarming curiosity so that they see you as you're leaning in to learn, not leaning in to take over the world. And that's probably a couple of times that I have leaned in. It's because I saw that in a supervisor or, or somebody I was reporting to that was like, hey, this is somebody that I could learn from and seems willing to teach. So that's what I leaned into.

Laura:

I love this concept too, of like, it really takes some political savvy. I mean, you can't just show up and be curious. There's a, there's, there's another layer. There's a whole layer of relationship building that has to happen in order so that your curiosity lands someplace that it can be effective.

Josh:

It’s amazing how you can find yourself in places that it seems that the human nature, being human centric, has been removed and if you can pick up on that, my recommendation is to get the hell out of there, because that's not a safe place to be if you can't be human. But, you can find those people.

The Human Element: Why Active Listening Transforms Teams

It's something I honestly struggle with still today, active listening. And I'm super intentional about active listening and trying to not get into a point where my ears are working, but nothing else is. And that's something that I started to notice in other people. And as soon as I felt that I wasn't being listened to, then my care stopped happening. It was like that I'm not cared about what I'm saying is not cared about. So I am going to stop caring about what they think about me. And it was the opposite effect for people who leaned in and listened and would come back and follow up on something. 

I had a supervisor early on in my career that I mentioned something just passively that I was working on. And weeks later they came back and they were like, oh, hey, how'd that thing go? And I was like, ah, I feel so hurt. That's where the power is. That's where the power is. When I got to a point where, and, and leadership can happen everywhere, one of the things I'm pushing these days is like, don't wait on permission to lead. Lead from where you are, because that's, that's how you become a better leader. And you're never going to lead from the top because there's always going to be somewhat. Someone or something if you think higher power above you. 

So lead from where you are. It doesn't matter where you are. Just don't, don't wait for permission to lead. And it's a, it's amazing to me the, the number of people that you can influence. And that's taking a fairly simple definition of leadership is. Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less. That's a, that's a Maxwell quote. And that's embracing that idea that everything that I say is going to influence somebody in some way. That's leadership at its core. It’s going to be negative, it's going to be positive, but that, that is leading.

Laura:

Often I think of leadership and I think this is really the space for operations, folks. Is that leadership is what happens when you say what nobody else is saying. And I think that operations tends to be a realm that's often invisible to people who are not in operations. It's sort of like, if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Josh:

True story. I mean, it's. It is interesting, right? It's like, hey, how's operations going? You're like, good. And the conversation gets out there because they're like, I don't know that I want to know more.

Balancing the Forest and the Trees: Mastering the COO Superpower

It's so wide. We can go into so much detail, and you can lose people so quickly when you. When you start diving into operations, that's one thing I notice is, no matter what level I'm talking to, and in my role as COO, I have access and visibility and influence over anything that happens in this building. 

And I have to keep in mind that when somebody's like, hey, how's it going? I can't hear that from my lens because they're not using my lens to ask that question. What they're asking is, how's it going? The way you view my sense of the world? So I have to answer it in a way that's like, okay, what I heard was, what's going on in operations? And I could start with the letter A and just start talking. But what I have to discern is like, what are they really asking me? And that becomes this continual interpretation and the reference. 

The best COOs, and I've met a ton now with my involvement in the COO Forum, are the ones that really get it are the ones that have this one superpower, and it's the ability to see the forest and the trees and be able to zoom in and out continually.

Laura:

Isn't that the truth? You have to be able to be 50,000 feet and 5 feet at any given moment.

Josh:

Leading Without a Script: Embracing the Messy Middle of Operations

Yeah. And be able to go back and forth. It's like, okay, somebody just asked me something at a tree level. I need to back away, be able to see how that is in contextual, and then zoom back in to answer their question. And I need to do that in three seconds.

Laura:

And so you are a COO. You've worked with a lot of COOs. You know a lot of COOs. What would say is the best way to build that muscle? Not everybody has that naturally.

Josh:

That's, that's an interesting question because that, like that muscle is different in every COO role, because the COO, is vastly different depending on the organization. So honestly, what I would say is find in yourself the three things that you are uniquely capable to do and grow those things, because it's, it's. That can become the basis for everything else. And that's kind of what I've done, is I took. And again, I took a weird path to get here. 

I had no aspirations to have C in any of my titles at any point in my life, but I just kind of ended up here because I kept leaning on and relating everything that was coming at me to where my. Where I was comfortable and where I could bring value. So it was like, oh, I need to learn quality control. How in the world do I learn quality control? 

Well, and this is, this is going to sound really weird, but I was like, okay, well, quality control. Part of that is documentation control. Documentation has to be in a effective document, has to be simple and clear. That's the same kind of principles that I would use in drafting a mechanical part. So how can I use mechanical drafting, which I'm trained in, to do quality control? And how does everything else in quality control relate back to mechanical drawing? 

So it allowed me to take something that was obscure in my mind and turn it into something that I could relate it to and then grow from there. So it was like, there's this thing, I don't know, I'm going to pull it back into something I know and then take this new path starting from there. And that's, that's probably the muscle that I would recommend for anybody who is aspiring to lead operations. 

Operations is so wide and you can't be like, oh, you know what? I'm going to be really good at procurement because you're going to, you're going to be stuck in procurement.

Because operations is more than that. I'm going to be really good at marketing. Okay, great, you're going to be really good at marketing. You're going to stick in marketing.

The Role of Humility in Effective Operations Leadership

But if you want to really lead operations, you have to be able to pull back into a starting position where you feel comfortable starting again and be as humble as possible and get the right people around you.

Laura:

I really appreciate that. I think I hear a lot of problem solving in that, and I hear a lot of humility. I hear a lot of being willing to. Willing to go back to being the white belt. Willing to ask any question from as basic as, what is. What does this mean? And I think it takes a lot of being able to step past your own ego to be leading operations constantly. Because there's actually no way to know everything across operations. There's literally, yes, you can know everything about procurement, but that doesn't mean you're actually going to know everything about what's happening. But you're still not only understanding about that but understanding how that fits in across the rest of operations and then across the whole rest of the company. Yeah, across the globe, in many cases. 

Something I hear often is like, being okay, not knowing. If you're coming from - I have got to know what's happening at all time - It's almost like perfectionism kind of starves itself when you're working at that level because you can't have your fingers in every single mess.

Josh:

I'm at a point now, and my team drives my team crazy because I ask so many questions now, and they're always asked in the same tone that they have no idea if I'm asking it rhetorically or if I'm actually asking, because I don't know and my team doesn't know. They're like, wait, are you asking me this because you don't know, or are you asking me this because you know and you want me to know?

Laura:

You're testing them.

Josh:

Yeah, they don't know. And so often they're like, okay, when we take Josh a question, what we get in return is more questions. Because, I mean, I don't have the answers. I'm not the answer guy. I'm the guy that ask more questions. That's who I am.

Laura:

But, boy, do you seem like the answer guy.

Josh:

That's the interesting thing, though, because I'm trained in technical project management. I have a drafting degree, not an engineering degree, but our engineering team will pull me into meetings just because I'm willing to keep questions going.

I'm willing to keep dialogue up. And they're like, we just like having you in the room because you, you ask a question that's like even off the wall that we would have never asked and that gets our brains moving. And then we're like, oh, there's, there's the solution right there.

Laura:

It's like you're taking that conversation down the messy path too. Yeah, it's a fruitful path.

Josh:

Yes, absolutely. Because I mean it, the messy can, the messy middle can get messier. You can get things completely derailed. I think people come to me for answers and we end up with answers without me giving them the answer.

Laura:

Yeah. And you've, we've talked about making it up as you go. It's a messy path. I don't know, making it up. And it's wonderful to have things like one year plan, a five year plan, a ten year plan, but you can't see what the scaffolding is going to be like there just yet when you're, when you're growing or when things are happening quickly. Yeah. Making it up as you go.

Josh:

How'd your five year plan go from 2019?

Laura:

How did anybody's five year plan go?

Josh:

It's like, oh, we've got this five year plan. Great. How'd it go in 2019? That's always my question now. What's your Covid story? How did you respond? And the, the folks, the leaders that were, that were leaned too hard into their five year plan did not do so well in 2020, 2021. The folks that were that had like, oh, we have this vision of what we want to be in five years and we have mechanics in place, but we are involved. We're in the trenches. We did all right. We were fine. I mean, Covid hit and everybody's like, oh, we get to lean into each other. This is awesome.

And that's something that we saw, when everything shut down, everybody's pillars went away. Like, I don't have anything to lean on. Like, sure, you, you have each other. We have each other to lean on. And one of the cool things that happened here during that time and we generally, because of the kind of business we do, some of our programs take three to five years to actually come to life. And so we had a number of programs that were up and running and within 48 hours. Eevery project that we were working on went on hold with the customers we were working with, but within 48 hours, we had everybody reassigned and we were all working on new stuff.

Laura:

How could you pull that off?

Josh:

It was the continual open dialogue. And Covid, when it hit, didn't feel like an event here. That was the big difference because it was like we were so used to supporting each other and supporting our customers that we kind of continually had an atmosphere of what's important now. If you've ever seen that acronym, WIN what's important now. And so it was like, what's important now in February of 2020 and March of 2020 was vastly different. But it wasn't when it came to the nuts and bolts of it, because the questions we were asking ourselves were the same. Where do. Where do our resources need to go? Who are we supporting? What's important now?

Building Resilience: Lessons from the Pandemic for Operations Leaders

So having that mindset allowed us to transition with very little disruption. Very little disruption. I mean, everybody had super disruption. Going home because they couldn't go to church, they couldn't go to school. They were homeschooling all the things. But in these four walls, everybody's like, you know what? I like coming in here because this feels normal to us. This feels right. And it was. It was just because we had this environment of what's important now. And so when that changed, okay, it was just like yesterday. Like, what was important yesterday is not the same thing that was important this morning. We were just able to transition really quickly…

Laura:

There’s an uber understanding of what was really important. What's important yesterday and important this morning may have changed, but what's important to us overall hasn't changed.

Josh:

Yeah, it's well being. It's that human centric piece that's like women's center. Because you lean in and you're like, what really matters? What do you really care about? And if you have that. That sense of your team in real time, then when things go awry, that you don't have to break down that barrier already. Because you can go for a while and, hey, man, things are great, things are wonderful, things are spectacular. Over and over and over and over and over again. But if you get that dialogue and even though you're like, you know what? He's always good. I don't need to ask him anymore. Like, that's a wrong move. Keep asking, keep leaving.

Laura:

You need to keep the, you need to keep that path open all the time, for sure. Constantly.

Josh:

So then, when things were like, I'm actually not doing very well. Look, you want to talk about it? You know what? Yeah, I do. That's why I have a couch in my office. It's like, come sit. This isn't the principal's office. I don't want you sitting here at my desk. Let me come around, let me shut all this stuff down. Let's go sit on the couch. Let's have a real conversation. This is human. This is what really matters.

Laura:

What's the big challenge now?

Josh:

AI in Operations: Separating Noise from Real Impact

The biggest, I mean, honestly, the biggest unknown is all the noise around AI. Yeah, that's, that's the biggest thing to navigate for us. And it, I mean, we're talking about it continually in the forum. It comes up every gosh, every meeting, something about, something about AI. I mean, the number of AI experts in the world seems to be growing as fast as AI is. And it's a lot of, it is a ton of noise. I mean, and most of what we do in the COO Forum these days is unpacking what is noise and what is real. And just because AI has become absolutely everywhere and the message is from CEOs that are squirrel chasing, we have to have AI, we have to integrate AI. We have to get involved with AI. And it's like, what does that mean?

And being able to unpack that with some other COOs that understand the role a bit is a different conversation. Because internally here, I don't have a peer that I can go to and talk about those kind of things that really understand the, the breadth of, of what comes across my desk. 

Like even the CEO here, he doesn't see as wide as I do with the nuts and bolts of things because he's, he's an engineer, he's out designing and developing the new cool stuff we're going to be able to sell. But being able to get other operations leaders in the room and not have to explain the role. Not have to explain the breadth, not have to explain the impact of me walking out and saying, let's do AI. Because everybody's dealt with that, right? They're like, oh, yeah, my team keeps bringing this to me, or I have the CEO that's like, what are we doing with AI? So being able to unpack that. And it was interesting. 

I had a meeting last month that we dug pretty deep and we found some tools that another COO for a member was using really effectively. And as soon as that came out, like, that's where the whole focus of the meeting went, because it was like, wait, you, you found something that, that matters. You found something that's actually helping you and helping your team. And they're like, yep, this is how we use it. This is what we do. These are the boundaries we put around it. And it was like, oh, show us more. And all of us said the same thing. They're like, it's so, it's so noisy. It's so, so noisy at this point. 

But that's what we're dealing with now. I mean, five years ago, we were dealing with personnel and masks and back to office and all the things. Now it's where does AI fit and how to leverage it and who and how and control and policies and all the things.

Laura:

And then around all those policies, just the generational differences, just the level, even who's inside that thing called AI. And all the complexity that it brings. It's all the human layers, too, and how different. Different roles might or might not interact with it. The different levels of comfortability. Is that the word comfortability? Given age or, or just history with computers in general, it's. It seems to be exponential how complex it gets.

Josh:

Navigating Generational Differences in the Workforce

Yeah. And it's, it's excitement to fear. You got this level of excitement with folks that are like, AI is so cool. Look at all the cool things I can do with it. Then you've got folks on the other extreme that are like, oh my gosh, this is going to take my job. I'm not going to be able to work. I'm not going to be able to do anything because of AI. So I don't want to touch it, I don't want anything to do with it. Which is a fascinating. Yeah. Now we have five generations in the workforce, which is a weird, weird, weird place to be.

Laura:

I think how I'm thinking about AI right now. Not that it is something that impacts my world very much, but it's kind of like salt. Like, how do you find the right balance of some. Somewhere we're going to find what's the right ingredient, what's the right amount, what's the right application and where and when, but it's still the humans. It's still doing the work. And we haven't quite figured it out, just everything seems salty right now.

Josh:

Yeah, it's salty is for sure. For sure. The thing I mean, I've been using just from an operations perspective, I use ChatGPT a lot. And what I use it for mostly is a companion. It's a, it's a place where I can whiteboard, It's a place I can brainstorm, It's a place where I can refine, and it's a place that helps me plan things because I'm like, hey, I need to put a calendar. I mean, my, my LinkedIn content for, for one, I, I work with Chat GPT to put together my LinkedIn content calendar. Because if I don't have a prompt, there are some days where I'm like, man, I'm not sure what to write about this morning.

Josh:

If I have that planned out. And again, I used to take, gosh, a couple of hours to put together a content calendar for each month. Now it's eight minutes. It's done. There's my content calendar. Yep. Nope. Change this around, move this around. But turn it out for me. Let's get this moving. So I use it as a companion piece. And it's phenomenal. It's almost like having a virtual assistant. Where I'm like, hey, can you type this up for me? Put this in this format, and then I can go do something else while that happens in the background. 

So I treat it almost as a VA in a lot of cases. And it's a phenomenal tool. Is it leveraging AI? I guess so. But really, it's just, it's a VA for me that, that's doing a lot of the, the grunt work in the background while I can focus on being with humans.

Laura:

Yeah, that's a beautiful take on it. Tell me a little bit more about the COO Forum. Imagine someone's listening right now who's a COO or aspiring COO, and they're curious about a peer network like that. What can they expect?

Josh:

The Importance of Peer Networks: Insights from the COO Forum

So I've been involved with the COO Forum since 2020. Joined in January of 2020. So before the timing shut down. And it's peer based, so there's not, there's not like executive coaches, there's not a, a standout individual, anything like that. It's, it's more about. And the sessions I lead are called executive sessions, which are just COOs in the room. So there's no coaches, there's no anything like that in the room. And it is a place where we can complain about our boss. Like, where else can a COO go?

Laura:

Not that you would.

Josh:

Not that I would ever do such a thing being in the role for 20 years… But if ever I needed to do that, this is a safe place to do so. But no, the great thing about the COO form, and I think one of the things actually that's probably missed by new members of the COO Forum is trends. So the one thing that I've noticed now that I've been involved for five plus years is you start to see not only trends of issues that are coming across the table, but you start to see trends, trends of personality that are today's COO.

When I joined in 2020, there was a lot of, I would say old school executive, white collar, button up, gotta do the job, gotta be corporate, gotta be standup. Like that was the title. And now we're seeing a quite a shift.

One cool thing is the COO Forum is 45% female, which tells you a lot about the COO role. But what I'm seeing is there is a lot more kind of grit and grunt work type folks that are showing up in the COO role, which is cool to see because so much of the C suite is represented by folks that haven't been in the trenches. 

And honestly, I'm starting to see more of a shift to folks who have a non traditional path to the COO role and are starting to get recognition and starting to get a seat at the table. Because when I joined there was a lot of COOs that, that didn't have a seat at the executive team table, which just blows my mind. Like how could you have the title of COO and not have a say on the executive team? That blew my mind. But now we're starting to see where folks are coming up and have worked a midnight shift and have a seat at the table. And when mandatory overtime comes up for production, I'm the first one to be like, absolutely not. That's not a thing that Energy Access does.

Laura:

Creating a Culture of Recognition and Advancement

And advocating for your people immediately.

Josh:

Yeah, because I've been there. And that's a terrible place to be when it's like, yeah, we want you to have time with your family, but not this weekend. I don't, I don't get to dictate that. Oh, yeah, have, have time with your family. That's on me. If I haven't allocated resources to take care of things when business is open.

I can't push that down to my folks. That's not fair. And I'm not going to do that because I've had that done to me. And that's a terrible. You talk about making people hate their job, other than the payday, when you get the overtime pay. But then the other issue with that is if you do that enough, then people are relying on that. That's their paycheck. Then their lifestyle changes to that. Then when you take overtime away. Now everybody's underpaid. Now they really hate their job.

Laura:

And so in the COO Forum, you get to chat with other people who are coming up against those types of obstacles. Day in, day out, month in, month out.

Josh:

Correct. And that's one of the wonderful things about the COO Forum is somebody who hasn't lived in that trench will bring that up. That's like, hey, we don't have resources. We might have to make our folks work seven days and they get somebody in the room like me who's like, what can you do to not do that?

Take care of your people. Because here's the impact that that's going to have. They're not going to hear that from anybody else in their organizations.

Laura:

But they can find that sounding board. They can find that person they trust there.

Josh:

Absolutely. And it's somebody that they see that's a peer. It's somebody you've already got respect for because we've all had a messy path to get here and we've all got these different experiences, and it's just a place where you can bring a subject and you'll hear something that a lot of times is like, not only is that a takeaway, that's a shift in perspective.

Laura:

But it's across industry, right?

Josh:

Yeah, it's industry agnostic. Which is another great thing, because some folks will be like, well, I really need peers in my own industry until you get in the room. Like, the amount of times that industry come up in the COO Forum is almost don't even bring it up. Like, we talk about what we do, we introduce ourselves, the company we're with, what our company does, and then we talk about people.

Laura:

And so if someone wants to learn more about the COO Forum, what's the next step?

Josh:

Yeah, I mean, you can go to COOForum.net. You can connect to me on LinkedIn and follow my content. I'm always talking about COO stuff. DM me. And there's a place on my LinkedIn profile, you can just book 30 minutes with me on my calendar and we can hop on Teams and talk through it. So I'm an open book. My schedule's open when it can be. And yeah, I'm available.

And if you want to, want to come and experience the COO Forum, hit me up. I'll get you a guest pass. I'll invite you to a session that I'll be in and so that you don't feel alone, and we'll get you active. It's not a spectator sport. That's the key, though. You show up in a COO Forum, there's no flies on the wall, man!

Connecting with Josh Renicker