From Chicken Farm to the C-Suite: A Masterclass in Limitless Leadership (Part II of II)

In Part I, host Stacy Joslin and Howard Richman, owner of Levelfield Enterprises and retired Chief Procurement Officer at Citrix, unpacked a leadership philosophy centered on amplifying strengths rather than fixing perceived weaknesses.

That perspective set the foundation for how modern leaders approach value, influence, and impact. More importantly, it reinforced a critical truth: when individuals are empowered to lean into their strengths, they build confidence and consistently deliver higher‑quality outcomes.

Building on those insights, Part II shifts from philosophy to execution, focusing on what differentiates consistently high-performing organizations. At the center of that difference is leadership. The environment leaders create ultimately shape how people perform, collaborate, and grow. They examine culture, adaptability, and the courage required to lead in increasingly complex environments.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Procurability's Procurement Pathways. A journey into the dynamic world of procurement told through the voices of its most trusted leaders. Here every story, every lesson, and every hard-won insight reveals how personal passion fuels professional impact and how those moments taken together shape the future of our field. Today's episode is part two of our interview with Howard Richman, former Chief Procurement Officer of Citrix and current CEO of Level Field Enterprises. To your point around safety and security, you know, thinking about it in terms of Maslow's hierarchy, right? You need to know that your job is secure and all of these things before you're able to really think about innovation. And so many people come to a job from at least one toxic leadership experience. And I've talked to so many people about this. You can have 10 fantastic leaders like yourself and one toxic boss. And that one toxic boss will do so much harm to your self-confidence, to your self-worth, to your perception of how good you are in your role. Not to mention the idea that I can go in and try stuff, you know, toss, like, like I say in my creative life, toss the spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks, right? Trying things. And so just that ability to make people understand when they come into your organization that they're safe and they're okay and they're not going to be railroaded or have a passive aggressive culture or whatever it is, just that takes time, right? So to your point that it's it's hard to bring people there, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Well, once again, they have to see it, that it actually is going to be done. Yeah. They need to understand what behaviors are going to be rewarded and what behaviors are going to be punished. And if every year you see that the people who had the most savings are the ones who are being rewarded, and the people who did all the really hard work on the really difficult categories are not being rewarded, then what do you think the behaviors are going to be? They're going to backstab each other, they're going to steal savings from each other, they're going to argue about category boundaries and which belongs to them versus which belongs to some other person in procurement. This kind of stuff, I've been through these environments many times. It's very poisonous, it's toxic, and it was continually promoted by the fact that the people who played that game the best were the ones who were rewarded for it. So the thing is you have to understand, but you know what? You have to understand yourself as a human being. Maybe you operate well in that environment. Maybe that is your fit. I'm not going to fault you for the fact that that's how you think and that's how you act. Because guess what? There's a place for you somewhere where that's going to work really well. And I'm not going to begrudge a person, but that person's not going to work for me.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

And at the end of the day, what you did, and I can, I will say this from personal experience, um, culture is all for me, right? I want a job that is going to challenge me and help me grow. But if I don't feel safe and comfortable at the end of the day, it's not, it's not worth it. And the entire time we worked together, I didn't just feel safe and comfortable. I felt appreciated and seen and heard and part of a real work community, um, dare say, work family. And that is, to me, that is excellent leadership. And the fact that I tell me which which award it was. I think it was the procurement leaders, procurement transformation award that the team ended up winning.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah, yeah. And and, you know, it brings to mind, you know, another saying that I had. It wasn't my saying. In fact, most of the things that I say were things that I learned. They weren't original. But our CEO at Merck used to say, culture eats strategy for lunch.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

And that was his way of saying that um if you change the culture, everything else will follow. All of the good things that you need to happen will follow. Strategy, though, which is counter-cultural, will not work. It just won't get executed. And I just don't yeah, I can't I just can't say it enough because um people wake up in the morning, either they're feeling good about what they're gonna do that day, or they're dreading what they're going to do that day. And believe me, when they're dreading what they're going to do that day, uh that's that you need to leave. You need to find a different culture to operate in, one that you're going to be able to be successful in. And especially nowadays, I mean, I have never seen a time in history when the pace of change is as rapid as it is today. And it brings to me um one of the key aspects of even kids who are going to college, uh, the only thing you need to learn is how to learn. 95% of what you learn in college won't be useful in your first job. And then within five years, none of it'll be useful. The only thing you really need to learn is how to go about learning and changing and adapting. Everybody today will probably go through at least two to three major changes in their career. Huge changes. And then you think about Darwinism, and most people misinterpret Charles Darwin to think that only the strongest survive. That's not true. What Darwin said was those species that were the most adaptable to change were the ones who survived. And the ability to adapt to change and to learn new things and to take on new challenges is more valuable than anything you can possibly do. Because any fact that you ever need right now is at your fingertips. Because you've got Claude from Anthropic, and you've got, you know, ChatGPT from OpenAI, and you've got every other AI tool out there. So you don't need to know anything, it seems, except knowing how to access the data, how to query the data. And then more importantly, though, you do need to know how to apply it. What does this mean? What is the best strategy for use of this? Um but learning how to learn is the key to all of that. And that's what people need to focus on when they're doing research, when they're, you know, learning how you go about doing that is an important function. How do you get to truth? How do you get to facts and data that really matter? How do you understand which facts and data really matter?

unknown 7:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

That's what's becoming important.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

You're reminding me, we went on a college visit this weekend because it's that time. And uh, this is a school that does a lot of filmmaking. It's um Savannah College of Art and Design. And great. Oh, he fell in love with it.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

SCAD. That's be that's beautiful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

So I fell in love with it too. But we're talking in their 10-acre sound stage, we're talking to one of the filmmaking professors, talking about things that he can do before he applies. And one of the things the professor, who is a filmmaker, um, suggested was to watch the list of the 21st century top 100 films. And as he's mentioning it, he says, and try not to dual device it. And I stopped for a while and I thought, well, that's an actual thing now.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Of being able to put this cell phone down and just focus on the art of movie craft, watching a movie. And it just goes to exactly what you're talking about: learning how to learn, how to study, how to research, how to ask the questions, all of those things.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah. I I I've always said one of my biggest frustrations in procurement over the years was working with procurement systems because so much time was wasted working for the tool as opposed to the tool working for you. And I think we're at a precipice now, but in many cases, we're not. Where people are still learning, oh, how do I make the tool work? And they are working for the tool in essence, as opposed to the tool working for them.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

And you need to, you need to turn the corner on that. Um, you know, I also think, once again, with human nature, um, procurement people have always wanted to excel by satisfying their clients, their customers, their stakeholders, by going above and beyond what their stakeholders ask them to do, right? And I think that's a natural inclination to do it. But I really worry about a procurement person, somebody asks them to jump, and the response is, how high?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Okay. And you're saying, well, what's wrong with that? I said, because that's not being that's not being customer service, that's being a servant. If you really want something, if you really want to provide customer service, when somebody asks you to jump, you ask them the five whys, you question their basic assumptions, and you dig deeper with them to figure out what is it that you really need. And let's find a way to get that as opposed to just doing whatever they ask. Um that's providing true customer service and value when you're willing to do that. And what kind of a procurement person does that? Well, you have to have tenacity, you have to have courage, yes, you need to have respect, you need to have curiosity, humility, you need to practice active listening. And you know what else you need to do? You need to learn how to speak from your heart and not from your head and not in cliches. You truly need to say what you truly feel and feel comfortable doing it. I learned long ago that if you actually speak from your heart, 95% of the time, it's gonna work really well for you in the business environment. There will be, there will be 5% of the time where somebody will use it against you and take advantage of you because you've done it. And I decided at that point in time I can live with that. I'll let anybody do that once to me.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

It's worth the other 95%.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

It was w it was worth, yes. And my life became much happier at work when I took that off.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

So and I I want to kind of piggyback off, and I just have two more questions after this. I want to piggyback off of what you just said around asking the tough questions, asking the five whys as a procurement person working with the stakeholder community. I think, yeah, yes, A, yes, I completely agree. And B, I think that partnership ethos works in other ways. And it's a story. I tell this story all the time. When I was first starting in marketing procurement with the first big farm I worked for in a first leadership role, we had one of those as you do, right? And farm um operational um reviews where we had to save X percent of the budget, blah, blah, blah. So I'm sitting with one of the main holding companies, one of the leads of this main holding company, and I said, We need to cut your rate cards by I'm making it up 10%, 15%, whatever it was at the time. And she looked at me, lovely, lovely human, looked at me and said, That's not gonna happen. And I said, Oh, and she said, That's not gonna happen. We can't do that because you're gonna juniorize your roles, you're not gonna have the right people doing the right work, it's gonna take you twice as long in this whole laundry list of reasons why. And then she said, but let me tell you what we can do. And just that opened the conversation around process improvement, communications gaps, all the things that, to your point, were really the big challenge, the big pain points that we would never have known had we not dug in there. So it just became so rich and wonderful without impacting what's on an actual rate card. So that partnership, I think, goes everywhere. And I would just encourage any business partner to do that, any supplier partner to do that, to really say, what if we did this? You know, I hear your point, but here's how we can how can we do this and both be whole at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

So let me build on that, Stacy. Um one of the things that we used to do in these global procurement transformations was to challenge our supply base. And we would challenge our supply base to find a way to cut costs by 20% over three years. However, the other side of the equation was to invite them to issue a white paper to us on what are all the things that would need to change in order for this to be made possible.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

And they would come up with so many ideas, but also all the costs that we had created for them by having the checkers, check the checkers, check the checkers, and having all these different process loops and checks that that were going on within the process that were creating waste, that were creating, you know, all sorts of pressures on time. And if we could address those things, yeah, they could reduce the price because they would eliminate a lot of waste by doing so. That's a way to collaborate with the supply base while challenging the supply base.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

And in the end, to end up with things that are much more efficient and effective. Um and that was always part of the equation. And what we were really saying to the supply base was we know we're part of the problem. But please help us find the right solution to this.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Please, supplier, had the courage to tell us where we have gaps and what we can do to make it. I remember that clearly. That was, I love that. I talk about all that time, the supplier that all the time, the supplier forum we had at Citrix and the white papers that came back. It was, it was very telling, right? And those facilitated sessions in the afternoon. You give a bunch of old consultants a marker and a whiteboard, and we're happy. And you know, all of the suppliers came in and gave us ideas, and it was just fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Uh and this is this is really what you call dialogue. Yes. It's just, and this is where you once again, if you go in with just an agenda and you're not listening, and you're not focusing on, you know, making them part of the solution as opposed to just looking at them as the problem. That's right. Um, if you're going in be with a hammer because they look like a nail, and you have to be open to other things. That's right. And so that's that, you know, that was a classic example of that. And it was amazing how successful those programs were. Because in the end, a third of the suppliers found a way to do the 20%. A third of them came back and said, we can't do 20%, but I think we can do 10, maybe even 15. And let me tell you how we're going to do it. Right. And then there was a third of the suppliers who said, You're stuck on us. There's nothing you can do. We're not giving you anything. In fact, maybe we'll even increase the price. You can't do anything about it.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

You're always going to have that. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Right? And so, but guess what? Um, the two-thirds of the suppliers that played ball with you um had a huge impact. And the one-third who didn't, as soon as the circumstances changed, you didn't get mad. You just got even.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

And um, but the fact is, is that when I've been in environments, you talk about really hostile environments, and I was in one for four years. And I can't stress that enough that if you're in the wrong culture and you know that culture is not going to change, you need to get out of it.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

You need to find a way to find something else to do. And guess what? There's always things to do. There are always, you just have to have the courage to pursue them. And it's and you're going to be forced to do it anyway in your career, at least two or three times now.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Absolutely. Absolutely. And one thing that everybody has said on all of these podcasts so far is access your network. People are there to help you. They just need to know that you need some support. Use your network, right? And I just I it bears repeating because there's so many people just out of work in procurement right now. Um I have one more question for you before we get into the uh the final question of the interview. And that it's a surprise question, again, shocker. What if you this is like lightning round. So for somebody who strives to be an excellent leader of procurement, what are the three most critical factors that they need to bring to the table?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

To be a leader in procurement. Um that means leading people. And it goes back to the whole thing about people are not your greatest asset, people are your only asset. Uh, I remember instances in my life where people came to me with personal prop problems and needed to take a leave of absence at the worst possible time when I had pressures to perform and to deliver. And I did the right thing and gave them the time that they needed to somehow find a way to get through those things. And then when those people came back, they were the most incredible performers because they knew that I had treated them in the way that they really needed to be treated. So I think the most important thing for any leader is first setting a culture about how they're going to treat their people and how they're going to act in situations like that. They also need to have a vision and a mission that people are aligned around. And then the third thing is to create a culture, a culture of achievement and a culture of acceptance and listening and learning that will be rewarded. And part of that is also understanding and getting them to understand what actually makes the business successful. I remember one of the things that that really changed me, especially at Citrix, was when the leader of the company came out and he listed 28 KPIs that the company was following. And I looked at it, and we, as a procurement function in its early stages, aligned with one of them. Operating margin. And that's when I said, we're going to have to make this a very different procurement function if we want to be relevant. If you actually want to be strategic and be part of this business, you can't align to one of 28 KPIs. And that's where we started getting into things like how can we help the company with revenue generation and revenue recognition and revenue growth. Not just cost, but actually looking at the things that really mattered that Wall Street was looking at free cash flow, um uh and uh you know, switching over from um uh uh licenses that were perpetual licenses to uh service, you know, to software as a service type of licensing. And uh trying to do all these other changes. And I said, well, what is procurement doing to help? Make that a success. And so we started focusing people on those parts of the business to help the people do that. We said, we've got 15% turnover in salespeople. How can we do what can we do to make sure that they get more salespeople quicker to fill the gaps? And we started working with HR and HR and sales operations on how we can do that to help make sure that we had more salespeople out in the field. That became the enabler to driving more revenue. So we totally switched the focus of procurement to not just a cost, but a revenue-based success. And that was really important in terms of aligning procurement to the strategy of the business. So those are the things that really hit. If you want to be successful, make sure that the procurement function is aligned to what actually is the strategy of the business that makes the business successful. Get people, the right balance of people for your team between SMEs and best athletes, so you can fill all the gaps and you've got square pegs and square holes, round pegs and round holes. Make sure that the culture is one where people are listening, where people are rewarded for doing the right thing and how they do it, not what they do. That's what comes to mind. And that in my mind is leadership, as opposed to being a manager. There's lots of managers out there.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Howard, that's beautiful. I'll invite everybody to rewind it and listen to that again. And that's a lived experience from one of the best. Thank you. Thank you. One more question for you today, my friend. And this is the wrap-up question that we love to ask everybody. What is one thing? And it may be something that you've talked about before this in the conversation or not. What is one thing that you've learned on your procurement pathway that might help another practitioner or colleague along their own?

SPEAKER_01 24:14

The one thing that I learned was this whole issue of speaking from the heart and not from the head and not talking in cliches. Um and this is a cultural thing, which also led to the whole boundaryless behavior and thinking of every problem. There's no such thing as a procurement problem. It's a business problem. And there's an end-to-end solution that you need to find that involves not only procurement, it might involve accounts payable, it might involve marketing, it might involve sales, it might involve revenue recognition group, it might involve any number finance, it might involve any number of people. But if you have a bad process and you say, okay, I'm going to improve the procurement piece of that process, you've actually done the company wrong because you've made it worse. Because you've just reinforced a bad process. And if there's anything that you need to do, it's say, no, that's not good enough. We need to transcend these boundaries. We need to cross across all of these hierarchical boundaries, these silos, these geographic boundaries, these boundaries between, you know, employees and communities and suppliers and managers. And we need to figure out what solutions are really going to move the company forward. And if we don't do that and focus on that, then we're not really contributing to the success of the company, or ourselves as leaders and as individuals. So for me, those are the things that were really essential and different. But being able to listen to people actively, speak from the heart, and transcend those boundaries while doing it, in my mind, um was the most rewarding part of my career. And that's the one thing I don't regret.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Howard, thank you so much for your wisdom, for your time, for all of these wonderful little golden nuggets that people will take with them. And um just thank you for everything personally as well.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Well, thank you, Stacy, for inviting me to have this discussion. And um it's always been about the people. It always has.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

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