Tech Me Seriously!

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Shawn Flynn, a Principal at a mid-market investment bank among several specialties, focusing on Mergers & Acquisitions of middle-market companies, with revenue between $10-$250 million.

Shawn kicked off his career by founding, scaling, and successfully scaling a company in Beijing, China. He is also host of The Silicon Valley Podcast where he speaks to founders on a variety of topics such as building a unicorn company, raising funding, and technology trends.

Listen in as Shawn gives his thoughts on IT due diligence for M&A activities. He breaks down how different parties consider IT and compliance, from investment bankers to C-suite executives.

Reminding us that “time kills all deals”, Shawn speaks on preventing or at least minimizing the risks that can stop a purchase from pushing through, such as ransom attacks, unexpected economic downturns, and even deal fatigue amid the due diligence process.

Finally, Shawn and Sarah discuss what it will take to accomplish the monumental task of standardizing IT due diligence.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:53] Defining “IT due diligence”

●      [05:37] Whether investment bankers care about IT and compliance

●      [10:48] How Shawn got into the M&A space

●      [15:29] How CEOs consider IT due diligence

●      [21:45] Key inflection points in M&A activities

●      [26:03] What to do if the company was affected by phishing

●      [33:18] Optimizing the integration plan

●      [36:30] What it takes to standardize IT due diligence

Key quotes:

●      “It can be tied into the milestones of the company for key inflection points.”

●      “Time kills all deals.”

●      “You should be running your company as if you’re going to sell it any day.”

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Dr. Shahrzad Nooravi, author of A Powerful Culture Starts With You. She is an organizational psychologist and Master Certified Coach (MCC) who helps organizations cultivate thriving workplaces from the inside-out.

Dr. Nooravi is the Founder and CEO of Strategy Meets Performance, a business consulting firm that partners with leaders of mid-sized to Fortune 500 organizations to help them create engaging, innovative, and productive cultures.

Listen in as Dr. Nooravi discusses the mindset required to be an engaging leader that employees can’t help but be loyal to and never want to leave!

She explains why, in the new normal, it’s so important for leaders to determine the right balance between in-person and virtual meetings in the workplace, because the truth we all have to contend with is that workplace culture has totally transformed over the past two years.

Dr. Nooravi breaks down her three-part model on cultivating a great company culture, as detailed in her book. Those three parts, each an acronym, are:

WATCH IT: How do you look at your culture to determine what’s going on? DRIVE IT: How do you create a coaching culture? WALK IT: How do you create a culture where the senior team is aligned?

Finally, Dr. Nooravi gives an inspiring example of the three-part model in action and how your leadership team can begin to implement these principles into your organization today!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:36] How to be an engaging leader, and why it’s vital today

●      [04:30] Why employers need to find the right balance of in-person/virtual

●      [06:08] Switching focus from recruitment to retention

●      [08:14] Winning loyalty from your team

●      [11:54] Defining “organizational psychology”

●      [15:22] Signs that your company culture is not working

●      [19:45] The three part-model on cultivating a great culture

●      [23:41] What DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) should really mean for creating a culture

●      [28:00] How not to be a work-addicted organization

●      [33:17] How to create an aligned, coaching culture

●      [39:01] The limitations of the desire to constantly innovate

●      [41:16] An example of what can happen to an organization when the three-part model is put into practice

●      [45:49] How to start implementing the three-part model today

Key quotes:

●      “When workers have a skillset that is in-demand, they will want, at minimum, a hybrid setup; but a lot of them are looking for these virtual jobs. Unless employers get to the point where they figure out, for the right jobs, how to make that possible, it will be more difficult to bring on talented employees and to keep them.”

●      “It’s so important to create a culture where people share their voice. That is their agency. We cannot change a behavior, a culture, or a system without speaking up.”

●      “A culture is a living organism. You are tending to it like you do with any relationship that you have.”

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Ted White, CEO at Vertical Talent Solutions, a recruiting firm focused on finding great technical talent for MSPs (Managed Service Providers).

Listen in as Ted dives deep into technical recruiting and what makes finding great IT talent for MSPs different from finding individual IT talent for companies. He discusses the value of hiring a generalist as compared to specialists due to the multifaceted nature of the MSP space.

He talks about the traits of the best MSP professionals and how those in the IT space can have an edge when making the transition into MSPs.

Ted gives his thoughts on the current hiring landscape in a post-Covid world, why he exclusively selects candidates with prior MSP experience currently, and why mass layoffs do not automatically translate into a bigger pool of qualified candidates.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:46] Why does finding a candidate with MSP experience matter?

●      [05:31] Hiring innate troubleshooters

●      [08:10] Why IT professionals would want to work in an MSP

●      [14:38] How a candidate can have an edge in the MSP space

●      [18:43] Why Ted decided on exclusively recruiting MSP talent for MSPs

●      [24:19] Vetting MSPs and candidates

●      [28:59] Making phone interviews more efficient and effective

●      [32:45] The current state of the post-Covid hiring landscape

●      [35:43] Why mass layoffs do not equal more available talent

Key quotes:

●      “For people that like technology, an MSP is the way to go.”

●      “We don’t need to be in such a rush to be the first to make an offer to a candidate. Never make an offer to somebody who’s not ready to accept.”

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Robert Cardillo, Chairman of the Board at Planet Federal. He was also the sixth Director of United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), and was a Distinguished Fellow at Saint Louis University.

Listen in as Robert discusses how location science and location confidence is ultimately in service of helping people have more productive and fulfilling days.

He offers his thoughts on how much is too much when it comes to exposing your kids to the digital world, and how “the wisdom of crowds” contributes to navigation apps such as Google Maps and Waze.

Robert breaks down the latest resurgence of the AI phenomenon and the ethical considerations that latest advancements in the technology bring to the table. He speaks in particular of those intangible skills that are uniquely human and can never be replaced by robots.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:08] Defining “geospatial intelligence”

●      [06:20] How navigation apps are created through “the wisdom of crowds”

●      [12:14] Creating a “digital safe zone” for you and the next generation

●      [17:04] Technological advancements in the geospatial intelligence space

●      [24:06] Ethical concerns with regards to AI

●      [30:07] How the integration of coding and AI changes the job market

●      [32:58] The importance of the humanities

●      [44:38] Where we’re headed

Key quotes:

●      “[Geospatial location] is all about confident movement leading to better decisions that create better outcomes—a better life.”

●      “Let the computer do what the computer is good at, which is identifying three questions: what, when, and where. Let’s save our humans for ‘why’ and ‘what’s next?’.”

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Kaitlyn Allen, an expert in helping companies make strategic business-appropriate decisions regarding sustainability and energy transition.

She sold her company, Global Affairs Associates, to ClimeCo last year. In addition to working in the ESG consulting space, Kaitlyn is also the Founder of MendIt, a digital marketplace for clothing repair and recycling, connecting existing businesses and consumers.

Listen in as Kaitlyn discusses the idea that businesses prosper by innovating business models that help solve global challenges all while building prosperity. In other words, to create wealth without consuming more.

Kaitlyn shares how businesses of every size and type can create new financial instruments to incentivize the behaviors which help solve global challenges. A lot of the time, this comes down to repacking the old in new, innovative ways, with a focus on “making sustainable consumption convenient and fun.”

On the side of the consumer, raising awareness of sustainable business model innovations starts (and ends) with tiny, collective steps that eventually add up to mass acceptance of these environmentally friendly practices.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:38] Solving global challenges via innovative business models

●      [06:58] Creating a marketplace to highlight small businesses across America

●      [13:12] Maintaining convenience while switching to environmentally-friendly business models

●      [17:19] Changing attitudes to sustainability through the generations

●      [24:48] Finding ways to bring together old things in a new way

●      [29:40] Taking baby steps to make an impact

●      [38:21] How the future will look once more people embrace these business model innovations

Key quotes:

●      “There is a recognition today in the business and financial markets that there are very significant externalities which are not priced into the markets.”

●      “We don’t have to make more stuff to prosper.”

●      “How can we make sustainable consumption convenient and fun?”

Joanie Connell: The Evolution of Remote Work

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Dr. Joanie B. Connell, President of Flexible Work Solutions and development expert focused on career and leadership consulting. Her mission is to help technical experts transform into leaders comfortable with managing people and through emotionally-charged situations.

She is the author of the two books Consulting to Technical Leaders, Teams, and Organizations: Building Leadership in STEM Environments and Flying without a Helicopter: Preparing Young People for Work and Life.

Listen in as Joanie does a deep dive into leading remote teams in a post-lockdown world. She talks in particular on how to speak with introverts versus extroverts, and how leaders can create a culture of thorough communication and accountability without individual team members losing the ability to stay creative and flexible in their work

Joanie also offers tips on onboarding employees for remote teams, as well as providing feedback to employees who have fallen short of the mark.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• [01:54] Establishing Flexible Work Solutions during a time when remote work was uncommon
• [05:16] How COVID transformed work
• [07:55] Different employee types and their different needs
• [11:05] Introverts and remote work
• [14:56] Onboarding employees for remote teams
• [17:36] Joanie’s journey from engineer to leadership coach
• [22:28] About Joanie’s books and podcast, Reinventing Nerds
• [26:50] The importance of empathy in technical leadership
• [29:02] Getting “big picture” leaders to appreciate the details
• [30:26] Managing introverted and extroverted employees remotely
• [34:15] The importance of accountability and setting expectations with employees
• [38:56] How being hyper-focused on numbers negatively impacts culture
• [44:03] How to check in and give feedback to employees that need improvement

Key quotes:

• “Flexibility isn’t just about managing family responsibilities. People in San Diego want flexibility so they can surf in the morning! You have different generations of people with different challenges and interests.”
• “When onboarding people, one of the things that is really challenging in any context, but especially remotely, is giving people tacit knowledge: unwritten rules about your company culture and norms.”
• “As a leader, the best thing you can have is a good reputation to attract other people to your team.”

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Angela Masching. Her expertise lies in building scalable, successful, sellable businesses, with a particular passion for high-growth organizations and transformative global impact.

Angela has held various corporate governance roles and has a wealth of experience on what it takes to make a company successful.

Listen in as Angela unpacks the idea that everyone has a boss, no matter one’s role in an organization. She discusses the four major stakeholder groups that make up the governance chain in your typical small-to-midsize company.

Angela explains how to decide whether to hire a COO, or to put together a Board of Directors. She gives her thoughts on how executive leadership can best work alongside the Board, how CEOs and COOs of differing personalities and strengths can create a productive relationship, and her crisis management tips should major disagreements flare up among the leadership team.

She also speaks on the drastic cultural changes taking place across many organizations to this day as a result of the pandemic, and how leaders can cultivate a powerful company culture in spite of the turbulence in today’s economy.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:52] The various players in the governance chain

●      [04:04] Deciding when to hire a COO

●      [06:32] The role of the Board of Directors and how to construct one

●      [11:50] How the Board of Directors work with executive leadership

●      [15:25] Respecting the scope of your work depending on your role

●      [19:34] Core leadership principles to avoid or minimize conflict

●      [23:43] The importance of having a system to fall back on

●      [25:41] Leading by example and building a great company culture

●      [28:49] The rise of the collaborative company culture

●      [32:49] How technology has changed corporate culture

●      [37:14] What’s next for Angela

●      [39:18] The different types of CEOs and COOs and how they work together

Key quotes:

●      “You want to be careful and thoughtful about whether you need a Board of Directors or whether you just want an advisory board. You can get that compliance expertise through an advisory board or through your professional network without giving away control of your company.”

●      “Comfort with failure and comfort with agility are two key skills. You have to have them on the Board of a startup just as you have to have them on the engineering team.”

●      “One of the ways we can build that culture of psychological safety is by checking our own ego as a leader. Failure happens. Accepting failure gracefully has to be a part of your culture when you’re growing a company, no matter its size.”

●      “It’s really hard for leadership to set the culture. Culture comes from the team; it comes from the ground-up; it is a grassroots thing; it is organic. But leadership can mess up a culture if they don’t respect it nor embody its values.”

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Craig Weber, author of Conversational Capacity and Influence in Action. He is on a mission to create more healthy, engaged, and adaptive organizations.

Craig’s books provide concrete actions you can take to transform your company, and even your personal relationships.

Listen in as Craig shares the keys to building up your conversational capacity and ability to produce psychological safety in the workplace. He discusses the evolution of managerial styles from a widespread acceptance of a command-and-control approach to one that embraces more creativity, autonomy, and flexibility.

Craig dives deep into the mindset and skillset required to optimize your conversational capacity as a leader, as well as how to complement the power of high conversational capacity with high diversity in your organization to maximize productivity and engagement.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:33] Defining “conversational capacity”

●      [04:00] Operationalizing emotional intelligence

●      [05:29] How Craig found himself on his current path

●      [07:23] How philosophies and practices toward building effective organizations have shifted in the past decade

●      [12:22] Promoting autonomy appropriately

●      [17:34] Finding the conversational “sweet spot”

●      [21:02] The benefit of having a “trigger journal”

●      [28:36] Why good intentions do not necessarily lead to good actions

●      [30:50] How to start building conversational capacity in your organization

●      [31:56] The role of mindset in building conversational capacity

●      [35:11] Achieving high conversational capacity and high diversity

●      [36:23] Building your conversational capacity skillset

●      [41:55] The future of work as conversational capacity enters the mainstream

Key quotes:

●      “Conversational capacity is a discipline, and just like any discipline, practice is key.”

●      “Conversational capacity is, in essence, operationalized emotional intelligence.”

●      “It doesn’t do any good to spend a ton of trouble getting the smartest people you can find into your business if you can’t access their smarts when it matters.”

●      “Nothing lowers conversational capacity more predictably than the presence of authority.”

Links:

https://weberconsultinggroup.net/

https://weberconsultinggroup.net/what-is-conversational-capacity-and-why-does-it-matter/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/conversational-capacity-psychological-safety-craig-weber/

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Anne Bisagno, CEO at Xantrion, a managed cybersecurity and IT support firm tailored to mid-sized businesses based in the Bay Area.

Xantrion has been consistently named as one of the top managed cybersecurity service providers, and as one of the best places to work in the Bay Area.

Listen in as Anne speaks on her motivation behind developing a diversity, equity, and inclusion practice at Xantrion as she reflects on America’s long and ongoing path to greater representation in information technology and the workforce as a whole.

Anne shares how the aftermath of George Floyd’s death served as a major point of inspiration for Xantrion’s DEI strategy and push for a healthier culture, igniting a flurry of transparent conversations between everyone at the company that painted a clear picture of the right way forward.

Finally, Anne talks about the benefits of having a DEI program and the most important factors to consider when structuring one for your company.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [03:18] Anne’s journey and the backstory behind the founding of Xantrion

●      [06:26] The path to greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workforce

●      [14:07] Creating a DEI strategy at Xantrion

●      [19:17] How the Black Lives Matter movement changed Xantrion’s company culture

●      [23:31] Putting a pause on hiring for two years and dealing with the fallout of the pandemic

●      [26:59] Being deliberate about your DEI strategy as your company scales

●      [29:41] Using data to manage your DEI program

●      [32:23] Attracting more minorities to the IT industry

●      [36:42] Optimizing your KPIs for performance and business management

●      [41:05] Training your recruiters to look for customer service experience

●      [43:54] The benefits of having a DEI program

Key quotes:

●      “Culture is an important thing for an organization like ours. It’s at the top of the list of who we are and how we operate. It’s our secret sauce.”

●      “One of the things we’re working hard on recognizing and managing is: Conversations around DEI can be difficult. They can make some people really uncomfortable.”

●      “As you get larger and larger, you have to get super deliberate with anything you do—whether it’s business goals, team priorities, performance management, or something like culture and DEI.”

●      “We’re not so worried about when and how and where you do your work, but where it gets done. KPIs really enable that kind of culture and management and performance process.”

●      “I can teach people technical skills. But what’s harder to teach is the desire to be helpful.”

In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Maria Dion, who has a long career in project management of the built environment.

Ten years ago, in an effort to develop a better relationship with money, she read The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist, and then participated in a workshop digging more into those concepts.

Those experiences led her to coach on transforming mindsets from scarcity to sufficiency. To learn more about this work, go to Maria’s website, www.mariadion.com.

Listen in as Maria explains why we never feel like we have “enough”, and why having more seldom equates to greater peace and satisfaction. She speaks of money as a representation of your values—as energy flowing through your life.

Maria discusses why you shouldn’t be afraid to talk about money and that you should, in fact, actively seek to have productive and inspiring conversations with others in an effort to improve your relationship with money.

Finally, Maria talks about switching from a mindset of “scarcity” to that of “sufficiency”, and how such a transition positively influences every aspect of your life, and even the lives of those around you.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:59] How one figures out how much is “enough”

●      [05:09] Being a “consumer” versus being a “citizen"

●      [10:44] Transitioning from the mindset of “scarcity” to that of “sufficiency”

●      [15:12] Practicing gratitude

●      [18:43] Why it’s important to talk about money

●      [21:23] How to be a good steward of your money

●      [27:17] Looking beyond your current circumstances to find solutions

●      [34:52] How your life changes once you switch from a mindset of scarcity to that of sufficiency

Key quotes:

●      “You can’t get to peace and satisfaction through the doorway of more.”

●      “Sufficiency is love. Scarcity is fear.”

●      “The way you do money is the way you do life.”

●      “Sufficiency touches every part of our lives. It’s not just about money.”