The Customer-Driven Leader (Episode #11) ~ Rudy Karsan

Most leaders spend their careers chasing growth.

Few stop to ask what kind of culture they're creating along the way.

In this conversation, Rudy Karsan and I discuss building Kenexa from startup to public company, balancing customers and employees, the promise and peril of AI, and why the future belongs to leaders who can create both performance and joy in employees and customers alike.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey, good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Customer Driven Leader Podcast coming to you live from a very small hotel room in New York City. We are really excited to have our guest today that I'm going to introduce here momentarily. I am really excited that this is the uh the one-year episode of the Customer Driven Leader Podcast. And it's meant a lot to me that the XM Global Collaborative has sponsored this over the last year as I've been working on my book and working on thought leadership about customer-driven leadership. I've had a lot of really great guests on over the last year. There are more to come in the future, but I really invite you all along with me on this journey. It is a passion project of mine. I think that we are in a time where people really want to believe in their brands again. And I think in order for that to happen, those brands have to deliver superior experiences. And those experiences are delivered by people to people, and the genesis of that is with the leaders who actually create those exceptional opportunities for employees to do that. So I'm really excited to have my guest today, Mr. Rudy Carson. He was gracious enough to let me interview him as part of my book because uh the company that he founded, Kinexa, uh, was actually acquired by IBM. I had the great opportunity to work for that company and be a global leader for that company. And uh Rudy is a powerhouse, he is legendary. Um, he's now founder of Carlani Capital and has his most recent startup, which is called FunCon, which is about creating joyous communities through meaningful conversations and interactions. I'm I'm really excited to learn more about that. As I think about what Rudy did for Kinexa uh prior to its acquisition by IBM, I don't think that I've ever seen another company that had such a concentration of talent as in Kinexa. It was just an unbelievable ride with the most talented people that I've ever seen. And I think that starts with the leader, and in this case, it happens to be the founder. Rudy, thanks for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

What a wonderfully kind introduction. Thank you, James. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Well, thank you for being on. So we we talked about the prep session. Um, I have bookends, I start and finish the podcast the same way every time. We have some bumper rails that we'll use, but really this is just going to be informative, conversational, relaxed. Uh, but we will start with a question that I ask everybody, and that is a leader, team, or company culture is customer driven when what? Can you please finish that sentence?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

When you care. When you care. I think there's a lot of companies that are more interested in the metrics than in truly caring. So if I think about customers, most people think of people that pay to buy your product. My highest level of segmentation is customers that treat the exchange with the organization on a transactional basis, and those that really care because they want to be part of the customer community. And so that segmentation takes place at the highest level. So if you think about customer definition being anyone that pays you, I believe that it would be very difficult to drive a customer-driven organization. I think you need to do that initial segmentation and say which ones of our customers have some sort of an emotional connection or relationship with the organization. And you gather those customers in some sort of a community setup rather than being a transactional exchange.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Yeah, I I really appreciate that response, and the simplicity of the when you care really resonates with me. Um several of the guests that I've had on just recently, we I've started to notice a pattern in our conversation, and there's this kind of return to the discussion about um stakeholder focused versus shareholder focused. And you know, when it's about shareholder focus, it tends to be about those metrics and short-term profitability and putting numbers on the board. And that is important. I mean, you have you have to be able to do that. But one of the themes that we're seeing is oftentimes it's at the expense of the long game. And so you may get the numbers for the quarter or get the numbers for the year, but if you're eroding customer trust or they know that you don't care, um, that's not a long-term value proposition. My question as a follow-up is as the founder of Connexa, and you had an enormously successful run with that, how did you balance that care with also putting up those numbers that you did?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Well, the role of the CEO is understanding that you have three bosses, right? Customers, employees, and owners. And if you decide to put one above the other two, so if you decide to put the owners above the other two, uh bad things start to happen. If you put the employees above the other two, bad things start to happen. But if one leg is shorter or longer, the stool is very unstable. The trick is to keep each one of the legs having an equivalent level of emphasis. And so owners are important, customers are important, employees are important, and the need for hierarchy stems from the fact that you know Delaware State Code says that owners take precedence from some you know '72 paper by a no-name academic that said that the stakehold, the most important stakeholder is the owner. And that got enshrined in law and we're where we are today. But it is one person's academic view that then turned into code that has now created the culture. I challenge that. I challenge that culture that says only one stakeholder matters. And so that was at the basic core of any decision making, and saying life is complex, simplifying it to one driver just for me doesn't work. I'm not smart enough to make one driver work. So it was it was a choice. The choice was there were going to be three drivers customers, employees, and owners. So I remember very clearly in 08 when there was a major reduction in force at Conexa, and we increased severance and it slipped out on the street. I happen to mention it on a call or something. And our stock price plummeted below the cash value of the company, even though we were cash positive. So the the stock price was below the amount of cash we held because we showed compassion through the exit. Uh but it quickly rebounded. So those things tend to correct themselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yeah. Well, I I didn't know about that. That's a great story and uh a great example of again playing the long game. Um if you think about those as deposits, right, and you're showing that care, ultimately, I think pay off with dividends, uh, which clearly it did for you.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yeah, and you what what what ends up happening is when you're looking at customers, you I think the mistake we make is with labels, we tend to lose sight. So when we think of a customer, we start thinking of them as an entity that spends money with us and has all these needs. But the most important one we tend to forget is they're human. We're not still in the agentic world. Every buyer of our services or products or offerings are emotional creatures, they're human beings. Even if they're a corporate buyer, those decision makers are human beings. They try and dehumanize the process through spreadsheets and standards and all that kind of stuff. But at the core, there is still a human being making that decision that is an emotional being. No matter how much they try and deny it.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah.

unknown 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah. Uh we'll we'll definitely get to some of the AI and agent pic stuff here in a little bit. I think that's definitely the hot topic today. You can't not talk about it, right? Um, I I wonder maybe um, you know, between now and then, one of the things that I also like to do is to personalize what I consider to be experience management. You know, I can talk about any number of examples that I've experienced where it's been a bad situation that has tainted my love for a brand. And I can also consider opportunities where I've had an employee step in and resolve a situation for me that really made me love the brand a little bit more. Can you think of a good example of a scenario, either a really great good example or a really great bad example that actually shaped how you thought about interacting with customers?

SPEAKER_01 11:12

So, in both cases, I'll I'll use Kinexa as an example in interacting with the customers. Uh, but I'll keep on the first example, I'll keep the name of the company uh confidential because the exit happened during the time when Kinexa was no longer an independent company. There was a company, there was a buyer, a global pointy company that had purchased Connexo's products and services and were treating the employees in such a horrendously negative way that ultimately I fired the customer. I actually told them that we will no longer serve them. Wow. They went to they were one of the five, maybe ten largest customers. They went to IBM and I said to IBM, you guys can go ahead and do what you need to do. But I'm telling you that that's my decision. And then IBM tried to kind of smooth the waters out because they were a big customer in another arm, etc., etc. And at the end of the day, I said, no, these employees that continue to report into the Kinexa chain will not support this employee, uh customer. So if I look at it from the customer's perspective at that point in time, that's a bad experience from a customer's perspective. Yeah. But that's not the first time in my career that we've done that. Uh, I've done that on more than one occasion. Because there is there is a there is a line, which it's really hard to define exactly where that line is. But if enough employees are interacting with that customer on a B2B basis, that come and complain that the experience with that customer is dehumanizing. Whatever language they use, I don't have dignity. You know, every one of the people were crying, that were just they're lying, whatever words they use, when n reaches say three or four, it's time to really think about whether or not you want that entity as a customer. Because when you when you start to dehumanize the individuals that are providing the service, uh and you accept it, then you are basically accepting that dehumanization is an accepted norm within your organization. And so that was something that was very hard for me to do, but the decision was made. And uh I've done, like I said, I've done it on more than one occasion. Uh and we were fine. Like, I mean, the company survived. In fact, the company thrived. So one of the things what happens is you never advertise that, right, to the outside world. But there is a there is an in-ground network that is exists amongst the employees, and everyone that matters knows what happened. And when everyone that matters knows what happened, individuals tend to have a slightly straighter back and a bigger smile on their face when they're interacting with customers because they know the company has their back.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, I that's huge. Um out of curiosity, I I you know again, don't mention who the the company was, but when you talked about the dehumanization and the way that employees were being treated, um what did that look like? I mean, you said that some some were crying and complaining. Was this was this this insight brought through the employee listening, through the employee engagement surveys that you were learning about, or a different mechanism one of the things that I spent a lot of time on was actually talking to people.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

So the employee engagement surveys gets you the lay of the land. So if I'm the survey is a map. The conversation on what happens on the streets. The map is highly accurate, but doesn't have enough context. In order to get context, I used to walk the streets. And walking the streets meant having conversations. Not just looking at the data. So any form of data you look at is flat. Even in today's AI world, any data you look at is it's a flat file. To get context, you need to have conversations. And some of the systems are getting better and better to provide the context. But I think when you think of customers, what I was referring to earlier is that they are humans with emotions. Humans understand context without actually stating it. Because it is uh all input, all sensory inputs into the human create that context. And a lot of times it's too complex that even you yourself don't understand what's happening. So I always used to talk to people. And so the surveys kind of give you the noise, and then I would kind of pick up the phone and actually talk to people. That that is something that uh I think is really essential, where you uh actually have conversation, not email exchanges, not text exchanges, just have a conversation. It's slow, it's time consuming, and it's extremely rich. Yeah, all of those things are true.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah. Yeah, I'm very much in agreement with that, and I think that um, you know, I I really hope that the viewers and listeners really absorb that because uh to your point, you know, even with all the the insight that you can get of a gentic AI today, and it is amazing. You know, my hypothesis is that people still want to do business with other people. And yeah, we may actually see the first billion-dollar company with zero employees, you know, in the next five to ten years uh through a gentic AI. Um, but I think that's gonna miss the heart. I I think it's going to miss the caring about people. And you know, people want to work with other people is is my hypothesis. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Yeah, it's uh yeah, you know, the this thing about the storm where everyone's gonna lose their job. I'm not so sure that's true. I think like most waves that we tend to exaggerate on both ends of the pendulum. Uh and I think the people that understand and respect context, those people will still be companies will desperately need those organizations because companies themselves are going to be under tremendous pressure, like tremendous pressure. Because think about software, uh, the whole value proposition is like literally disappearing in front of our eyes. I've I've been out of the business now for a while, but I still have some friends, and a couple of them are now, from a career standpoint, have become CIOs of whatever Fortune 20 companies or Fortune 50 companies. In every single conversation I've had with them, and these are friends, right? Sooner or later, one of them is saying, we are reducing the number of vendors, we're actually eliminating contracts. Because we are developing, quote unquote, our own either vibe coding or whatever methodology they're using, they're reducing expenses on that front. And then you see what's happening with a company like Palantir, that probably the most expensive stock on the market. But what are they doing? They're doing kind of boot camps, right? They're going to the federal government and say, what's your problem? Let's have the conversation and let's figure it out. And so I think this idea of I've built this box, now you come and buy this box and I'll customize it a little bit for you. Uh AI now says I can get what I want, exactly what I want. So I think there are going to be more jobs because that creative process is going to still require humans. And will there be a company with zero employees that's a Fortune 500 company? Maybe, maybe not. But it's I the question I ask is how relevant is that in my day to day decision making, right? If I'm thinking about the customer, if I'm thinking about the employees, if I'm thinking about the owners. I want efficiency. No question about it. I I absolutely want efficiency. And I want context and I want connection. So I want all of those things. And I'm not willing to compromise one for the other.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah. Yeah. I yeah, I think that um, you know, I I said after the pandemic, and uh, you know, that I thought that we were probably going to see something of a new renaissance, and I didn't know what that was going to look like, um, being very hypothetical and and you know philosophical here, but I do think that AI is part of that equation. And I do think that as we've seen over the last, you know, in my 25 years of career, the pendulum always swings, right? I mean, it you know, whether it was the 9-11.com bust or the mortgage meltdown or the pandemic or AI, and there's always a return to humanity. And I think that uh I think we're on the tipping point of that. So it'll be interesting to see what the next couple of years brings for sure. Um so pivoting a little bit, Rudy, so you've been you started your career as an action actuary, uh, then became an entrepreneur, CEO, public company leader, now you're an investor and founder of FunCon. When you look back on your career and the companies that you built, and again, I think about Kinexa and just the concentration of talent there, what are some beliefs about leadership that have remained very constant over your career? And what are some beliefs that have shifted or changed over the course of your career?

SPEAKER_01 23:50

That's a great question, James. Um yes, I think what what has remained and become stronger, this idea of caring and compassion. I think that that notion where you care or you're compassionate is what keeps us as human. It's the yin in the yin-yang balance that nurturing, caring. Uh what has shifted, I would say, from a leadership perspective, the biggest thing is how often am I making a decision or having a conversation because of my fear? So by that I mean I am chastising a manager for their performance because I am fearful that if that practice continues, the stock price will tank. So I'm trying to have the nuance of saying, how much of this is my fear speaking, as opposed to the truth. So searching for the truth has evolved quite a bit. So basically, what has happened is I've become a little bit more patient uh in hearing the response rather than assuming I know the response from the data that has already been collected. Uh very interesting. It goes back to the way I started, which is give me more context. Because this idea that uh people uh don't wake up in the morning and say, How am I going to screw you? I mean, there are some people, but a majority of humans don't wake up in the morning thinking that. Yeah. And so if you keep that thought in mind, or if I've I've learned to keep that thought in mind in every single interaction. Now, does that mean that sometimes you make a bad decision? Yeah, but I mean if you if you're batting over 50% in decision making, I mean you are really in the Hall of Fame, right? Because when you look back, you realize that actually more than 75% of your decisions were immaterial. Like it really didn't make matter what decision you made. So, you know, if you're at over 50, you've captured, you're pretty well making 100% right decisions, even the 75% don't matter, right? So at that point in time, context really matters. So it's learning to understand. I think the evolution is learning to be more mindful and understanding of the position of the other person. Uh but I don't know, maybe that comes with age, I'm not sure. Or maybe it comes with a deeper sense of understanding yourself. I think understanding yourself might be self-awareness, might be one of the most important drivers of good leadership. And that has evolved. I never used to put that up there. Uh but I now when I look back, I realize the more self-aware the leader is, that they tend to be strong. And right now we're sitting in a very divided country, a divided world where police don't appear to be self-aware, but I think we are what is happening, I think, is that the leaders are becoming more and more extractive. So, you know, if you're the leader of a country, you want to make an extra billion dollars, you create coin, or you change the constitution if you're in China so that you can come back a third time, etc. etc. I'm going to extract as much as I can out of the system because I deserve it. I'm the leader. Yeah. Leadership is more about infusion. It's more about how do I infuse and uplift the people I'm influencing. And I think that is alien in the current leadership models that exist. And I think we might be at the peak of this very Yang style leadership model. And it I mean these things go in cycles anyway, and it's always darkest before dawn. But I do see the green shoots emerging where more and more leaders are discussing this idea of infusion, idea of being in service, the idea of being helpful, the idea of upliftment. Uh it's not happening in the it's not happening in the center, but that 1% fringe is now becoming a 2% fringe. So I see momentum there. And I've seen it, I mean, I'm seeing it in the boardrooms. I'm seeing more decisions made by love and its children, whether it be compassion, uh, whether it be curiosity, whether it be nurturing, then pure profit. Like I'm scared what the stock market's going to do to my stock if I make this decision. It still is 98.2. It used to be 99.1. So I'm seeing that behavior change. It's very subtle, but you do see it. And if somebody in that boardroom has the courage to ask that question that says, Are are we contextually, are we doing the right thing here? Are but let's not forget we are human. I think that kind of just opens up the dialogue and the discussion in a in a different manner. Simply asking the question. I sure hope.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

I sure hope so. Uh I love that that perspective that you've got, um, which is you know one of the reasons that I was so excited to have you on, is to tap into that perspective. And so if I thread a needle there, you know, you open up with care, um, then pivoted to self-awareness. I I think that's right, because essentially what you're talking about here is empathy, and you cannot be empathetic towards other people unless you have self-awareness. I very much agree with that.

unknown 31:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Yeah, and then doing the full circle back to the customer. There are certain customers that care, right? That they care that the the product or the offering that you have, they care about it. They care about the employees that you have. And they're the ones that create the community. And you see it, right? I mean, you see it even in retail. I mean, Apple was really good at creating that community of Apple buyers. You know, 30% higher price and whatever, 40% higher margins, and one point in time the most valuable company in the world. I don't know. I mean, this boggles my mind. They could create a community for a billion users, but they did it. Uh, it's really hard in B2C. In B2B, it's a lot easier because you have client advisory councils, you have connections, you have regional meetings, and you you continue that context-driven exchanges and meetups, and the customers that view you as primarily a transactional relationship don't show up there. And so you can usually predict the retention, the churn in your product based on the people that attend your community events. And so one of the things that I would suggest that if you're in a larger company or in a B2B world, instead of saying customer appreciation night, it's community building night. Because the ones that are treating your transaction are not going to show up regardless. Right. The ones that do, and then the community protects itself, right? So then if there is customer A that is thinking of leaving because of that, they go talk to customer B. Customer B goes, no, no, no, don't leave. We kind of need you, we need your insights. And then churn is protected by the community, and it's not the responsibility of the provider or the owner of the product, which is the company that does that. So it was really interesting. I was talking to, and some of these relationships have been around for a long time, obviously. But one of Kanexa's largest customers was a buyer. And like 20 years later, I'm still very close friends with her. And we were just chatting as recently as like two weeks ago in Kanexa came up. She reminded me of what the community was. She still knew the names of 15 people that she met with at the most recent Kinexa World Conference. Now, this was the largest buyer. It was Fortune 10 Company. Wow. Chief HRO, CHRO was a member of the community. And perceived herself as a member of the community.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

And I think I think that's that's getting back to that that human root, too, is creating that sense of community. You know, I I don't think we're gonna see that with a blend of uh people and AI agents uh anytime soon. It's it's gonna come back to people.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

So it is a people business.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

It is. Rudy, as you think about the people business of Kinexa um and your leadership over that very long and successful career there, was there a single leadership decision that you think was pivotal or the most important in the growth of or success of the company.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

I would probably say that I go back to that decision of firing the customers. Because I think there are two things that happen there. One is there is you're clearing the dockets, and then those events create the culture because it's easy to talk about the good things. The word spreads, you know, we fired a customer, we don't run an ad saying that, but the information is in a particular business unit everyone knows. I think that decision was made back in the very early 2000s that we would fire customers. And I remember when we did we used to do the quarterly business reviews with the business heads and the different, we had a lot of PLs, as you remember. And so I used to have a bunch of these. One of the questions that would always be on that docket would be who are we gonna get rid of? What are we gonna shed in order to create room for more growth? What are we gonna stop doing? And in that is, you know, are they like finance would get involved in it as well? Like, are the customers that are notoriously take a long time to pay us? You know, do we terminate services? Like that was a conversation we used to have, and it it stayed with us for a long time. So I think this idea of just because somebody pays you money, it means they can be abusive is not acceptable in companies that I have a say in.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Yeah, I really love that. I uh, you know, I I've been on the consulting and advisory and technology side of the equation, and you know, I've been subject to vendorization before, and it it sucks when you're trying to actually do right by your customer and they're treating you that way. And I think that you know, to your point that you made earlier, we're seeing a lot of vendor consolidation cost reduction uh due to improved security and governance right now. And and I get that, um, but that also doesn't mean that you know you should vendorize the the providers that are trying to help you, right? It's just poor form.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Yeah, and I think when it if when and it's it's really a tough thing, right? Because it's not it's not an objective line. It's I feel dehumanized, it's time to part ways. It's a feeling decision, it's not a rational decision, right? I feel dehumanized. I'm using language like your behavior is abusive. I'm using very context emotionally laden words to describe the situation. I've reached a spot of being feeling dehumanized, and it's time to move on.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, well, and I think that's clearly a function of leadership and culture, culture that was created, right? And as I look back on um Kinexa in particular, I mean, goodness gracious, I uh you missed a I I'm trying to remember, it was at least a dozen acquisitions, right, Rudy, uh, that ended up growing Kinexa over that period of about five to seven years and just being able to offer the total end-to-end suite uh of anything you know, HR talent related? Um that's tough to put all those pieces together and have a culture that is very consistent, you know, through through all, you know, like we're going to absorb you and you're going to become part of our culture. But you did it. Um was there a point where you realized that building that culture was the strategic advantage as opposed to just a thing that you measured?

SPEAKER_01 39:52

That's a great question. Never been asked that question before. Was the building of cosp culture a strategic choice, or did you just fall into it? I think I just fell into it, James.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

That's an honest answer, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Yeah, I think it I just felt right. We went exploring and it just felt right that this was the right thing to do. And then somewhere along the way, probably I think just before we entered in the 08 meltdown. It started resonating this idea of culture. I think there was calling this, somebody said that culture eats strategy for breakfast or something of that sort, and that became a meme for a while.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

It was Drucker, actually, who's attributed to that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Uh I think that kind of was making the rounds, and then we were at one of the retreats, and I think somebody mentioned and said, I'll never leave here, and they didn't know I was standing there, they were talking to somebody else. I'll never leave here because I feel like I'm home. And the other person responded, I know exactly what you mean. And that was a passing conversation, and then that got me thinking and going, like, you know what, there's something special in this soup. And then we realized that we started acquiring companies, and then the Tanexa came out, and then we used that, like we used to open every meeting, including all like every single leadership meeting began with a discussion on Tanexa, like literally every single one. Uh, it was non-negotiable, and so it was using that as a way to hone in on and share and teach and learn from each other this idea of mutually learn from each other, the idea of what makes it feel like home, what makes it feel right. Uh, and then that became culture.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Yeah, and I'm a big fan, and and probably viewers, listeners don't know what the 10x is, and just for the benefit of everybody out there, uh, this was a series of 10 core values or principles that Connexans lived by, and those would be things like uh don't do it if it won't sell, or you have the right to laugh your way through a problem. So it was basically the the cultural manifesto, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:54

So hold on a second, James. How long has it been since you've been at Kinexa?

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Oh, goodness gracious. Uh that finished up uh about ten years ago now, you know, right, right at the point where IBM started chopping it up and selling it for parts.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

So ten years later, you can quote two of the ten.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Yeah, I could probably come up with more. Uh think about that for a moment.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Think about that for a moment. How often does a company's values or a vision or mission statement is quotable by an exited employee ten years later? And you can quote, you quoted two out of the ten.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's not lost on me that you know, in looking at Carloni Capital, some of those principles are still part of your value proposition. And I think that that's I think that's huge.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah, it's uh but but the idea was that if the if the Statement was not felt and memorized, you would have lost it in 10 years. The fact that it was felt means you can recollect it and state it 10 years later, even though there's no relevance to it. And it's entirely immaterial to your current life. But you can still state it.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Well, I you know, I I'd actually disagree with that to an extent because I think that um any connection who's watching or listening to this will probably identify with the fact that um we all live those values. And that is the reason why you know that that person said, I will never leave here because I feel like I'm home. And um, even with you know what happened in the transformation of Kinexa once IBM acquired it, uh, you know, people still wanted to live those values. And I think that as I look at all the people, you know, the the the Troys and the Russes and the Dukes and everybody out there, wherever they've gone, I see them taking those core values and principles and trying to continue that tradition with where they are today. And so I think you know, you talk about a lasting legacy, yeah, you he really did it there. So nice job.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

It's funny you mentioned it because Troy's my partner, as you know, and you mentioned his name. He was my partner in Kanexa. We were just chatting like a couple of uh months ago. I would say maybe less than two months ago, and so it was really hard. Nobody ever talks about the hard things. So we were going to use the Tenexa to explain all the hard decisions and the hard things that happened. And we laughed our way through some of those discussions, and we never got around to doing it. Maybe we will, maybe we won't. But even Troy and I talking 10 years later, actually more, 15 years later, still referred to it. And I mean, we're still great friends, but now that I think about it, the customer that I told you who has been a friend now for over 20 years, can also state a couple of the nexas. The customer can say what they were. I remember that really.

unknown 46:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

That's the power, that's the power of feeling the statement. So I agree with you. I'm glad you pushed back on that. I'm really glad you pushed back on that because there's a new set of awarenesses and memories as I'm re-uh-wired my brain. But I think no, I think you're right. I do believe you're right. And I'm giving you reinforcing data to support your position. So thank you for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Yeah, absolutely. Well, well, so while we're while we're on that, you know, let's pivot a little bit. I uh you know, tell us a little bit about what you're doing at Carlani Kappa, what are you investing in, and and and this this concept of joy, by the way, not being facetious here, I'm a big fan. I think that having a joyous and meaningful life is incredibly important, but it does, it doesn't just happen. You have to actually be the conductor to make that happen. So, so tell us a little bit about what you're investing in, what's got you excited, and funcon.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

So if you look at that LinkedIn profile, right? It used to be investor, advisor, entrepreneur. Today it is investor, community coordinator, sharer of joy. I've evolved from being a business leader to being a community coordinator. Now, if you think about that for a moment, most people reading that would view that as a demotion. I view it as a promotion. Because I think what I've come to the conclusion above all else, I value community and relationship. That currency of joy, the currency of relationship, the currency of community from my perspective are currencies that we don't collect and spend wisely enough. Now you can argue that hey, really, you got a ton of money, so it's easy for you to make that statement, blah, blah, blah. Let's put all of that aside. And I you may be right, you may be wrong. But if you think about the currency of joy, right, you can never save it. You gotta earn it every single day. The currency of relationships cannot be banked forever. They have to be nurtured. So having these currencies that require activity and activation, that activity and activation in yourself, that movement in yourself, is a process by which you engage yourself in life. And so using that philosophy, this community called FunCon was created, which I'm very excited about. Uh I I mean it was it began about 18 months ago, maybe less, maybe a little bit more than that. I forget, a couple of years, a year to two years ago, and I swore this is my last startup. And and all it is is a joyous community where we uplift one another. It's still not making money, it still needs funding. Uh it hasn't figured out its revenue model. It's an invite-only community right now, it's not open to everyone, and everything is handled really slowly so that the culture is intact. So there's a difference between uh a community culture by its members and an employment culture, right? Because the internal concern uh includes the currency, the fiat currency and the metrics. In community culture, it's important, but it's by far not the most important thread in the canvas. Uh so I'm I'm really enjoying it because I'm learning so much. It's feeding a lot of curiosity. Uh and so you asked what I'm investing in, and I just said just the humanization of AI. Can you build AI agents that behave like humans? That's my most recent investment. And I'm actually spending time with the founder because the engineering is well past my capability and capacity. Just ended up talking to him yesterday for about an hour and a half about humanizing how do you human how do you humanize the agent? What is it exactly we're building here? What's kind of the north star of what we're building? Yeah. And I I think it's coming down to is it possible to develop agents that are truly independent? So then if they're truly independent, then the agents have to fight with one another because they're part of the same community. So can can can you create a community of agents where they actually argue with one another and actually fight with one another? And so that's kind of the nuances of some of the engineering that's being done. And it's a lot of fun. I'm really enjoying it. Uh it's uh it's one of the places where I'm using up a lot of kind of mind share on. Uh but the community is the one that really takes up most of my mind share and heart share.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

Yeah, I can tell. Well, really excited to see where both of these go, Rudy. Um uh I'll be following very closely. Um I'm gonna um uh we're gonna start to land the plane here a little bit. This has been a lot of fun. Uh we'll kind of do a little bit of rapid fire as we move towards close here, real quick. You ready? All right. So um in your experience, what separates companies that truly listen to customers from those who just claim to be customer-centric?

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Uh response and reaction. Like that. Yeah, so they're they're not defensive. The ones that are really listening are not defensive. They're not they're not justifying their position. One of the things I just said often uh I'm the chief grobling officer. I know how to grow.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

That's pretty funny. I like that. That's good. I love that response and reaction. All right. Uh, what is the biggest mistake leaders make when trying to build customer-focused organizations?

SPEAKER_01 53:26

Uh not understanding the customer deeply enough to segment them the right way.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I like that. It goes right back to your first answer to the first question about segmentation. I like I like that bringing it full circle. Um, okay, next up. How should leaders think about balancing employee experience and customer experience? Do you think one is a prerequisite for the other?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Think of it as the infinity sign. It feeds each other. You're going if if you're doing it the right way, each action then prepares you for the next one and it continues forever. So it's not hierarchical, but it is energetically driven for, and like I said, think of the infinity symbol.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

Yeah, that that's awesome. I love that. Um, I haven't heard that before. It's really good. So you've been involved, obviously, with uh workforce analytics, you know, long before most organizations even knew what it was. Um, what do you think that leaders are still getting wrong about people analytics today?

SPEAKER_01 54:42

That analytics alone don't tell the story, go get the context through conversation. And don't think that that is still sunk in.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

I'm in pilot agreement with that. Um so uh related to that, if you were starting Conexa again today from scratch, with all the AI, remote work, um you know, different generations working together, what would you build differently?

SPEAKER_01 55:16

I think it goes back to the question you asked, which is was culture an accident or strategy? I said it was an accident. I think I would start with culture. What I would do differently, I think not respecting it made the journey longer than it had to be and the mistakes more severe. I think the severity of the mistakes and the length of the journey would get shrunk if I started thinking about what the North Star is as far as the culture or the values of the company go. And it and focusing in on the feeling above the rational mind. So, how does the body feel with that statement? James can recite the Tanexa, he felt it. If he had only remembered it, he would not be able to do that, no matter how smart he is. Right? Because the human brain wouldn't have had the capacity to remember verbatim, a statement, unless he felt it.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

That's right. That's right. I love that. All right. Well, we're landing the plane here now. So remember we have the bookends, so we start with a leader team or company culture is customer driven when what? And now the last question is what I call two things. You can think about it in terms of like a stop, start, or continue. If you were to give one piece of advice to leaders of organizations or teams to become more customer driven, to either start or continue doing, and one to stop doing, what would those two things be?

SPEAKER_01 56:56

Start playing with your customer more. Invoke laughter, invoke connection. Because the minute you're playing, you're no longer adversarial. You're cooperative. And we all know how to play because we were all kids. So remember to play more. What would I stop doing? Stop worshipping the dollar value of the customer.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

Really love that. That puts a bow on just about everything that we talked about here today, which has been really amazing. Um, thank you so much for being on. Thank you for letting me interview you for my book. Thank you for corroborating my stories. I'm happy to say that we're now in cover art design and final uh layout, so that's going to be coming out in September. And Kinexa is focused, uh, is uh featured, excuse me, as one of the case studies that I put in the book. So really excited for everybody to read a little bit more about that. Um, Rudy, it's been an honor having you on. How can people best get in touch with you if they're interested in working with you or learning more about what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 58:20

Uh probably LinkedIn's the easiest thing. My email is is easily available. I'll just say it here r-udy.kar-s-a-n at carlani, k-ar-l-a-n-i.com.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Fabulous. Well, certainly uh you've built quite a legacy. I mean, so many of the Knexons have gone so many other places, and I think it is one of the best fraternities in the world, frankly. I mean, I can go just about to any country and I can meet up with a fellow Knexon and we can talk about what a great experience that was. So I'm really glad that I got to be part of it. Um, Rudy, thanks so much for being on. And I'd like to thank the XM Global Collaborative for sponsoring this event. It's been a real privilege and really looking forward to another year worth of podcasts. So signing off now, everybody, we'll see you in August. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 59:14

Thank you, Rudy.

SPEAKER_00 59:15

That was great. Thank you so much. I I I really appreciate that. And um I'm uh where this will be edited out, but um, I love this perspective that you have. And um I'm gonna follow up with an email and I'm gonna send you something that I think you'll appreciate. So a few years back for my 50th birthday, I did a project that I called 50 to 50, and it was the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday, and I did many things in sequences of 50, and um I I think that you will really appreciate it because it was all about perspective and joy and community and love, and um, I I think you'll really enjoy it. So I I I will send that along to you here uh as soon as we hang up.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

Yeah, I am so glad to hear that because I think there is there's a tremendous imbalance on the planet right now. Yang and fear and all these children have become 80, 90 percent of the decision making. Yeah, that's not the way we grew up as a species, right? There was a balance between yin and yang. And too much yang is how tribes got wiped out because they would eat their enemies and in the process kill themselves. You need to have that balance. You it's uh collapse, I think, is a great book by Jared Deinman that showed how too much yin, um too much yang actually killed entire societies because we didn't care enough about the planet or the island we were on, or we cut down the last tree, you know, whatever the it was. Yeah. So I'm so glad to hear that. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I um I and I'm I'm genuinely interested in in the work that you're doing with FunCon. Um, like I said, I think you'll appreciate the the perspective that I will share with you. But um really appreciate you being with me and and you know being so generous and gracious with your time as well. It's been an honor to learn from you again. So thanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

And thanks for having me, and thanks for remembering Canexa and the wonderful stories you told and and just kindling my heart. And that was you, I mean, this was a joyous hour, right? So you gifted joy. You know, like what more what more can I ask for?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

You gave me the gift of joy. So my pleasure, my privilege. So um uh I'll let you know um when the um when the episode will be ready for sharing with folks, and and typically what I'll do is I will write a summary of like four to six um key takeaways that I found really powerful and impactful, and then I'll create a LinkedIn post that'll have a link to um the session, and then you can share that with anybody as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:08

Yeah, and then I'll also reposte it or I'll I'll get Shuba to kind of runs my LinkedIn account to either put in my own language in it and so drive a little bit of traffic, and maybe we I can do it once or twice.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

So oh, fabulous. Well, really appreciate any interaction you can help us get. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

My pleasure, James. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

All right, Rudy. Have a great rest of your week. Bye-bye.