631: Bert Bean & Sam Kaufman - Obsession, Grit, Growth-Mindset, Winning in a Tough Market, Hiring for Potential, Running Ultra-Marathons, and Caring For Your People

23:40Like, I just can't. And fortunate that we've got great financial sponsors, Harvest Partners, and Leonard Green that were like, yeah, got it. Understood. That's how you guys want to roll. Great. You know, fine. They didn't say that exactly. I was going to say, from what I hear, that's not how those calls go. But they were very supportive. Very supportive. But what's nice, though, is that when you have a company like ours and great people like ours, they make those questions really easy because there's no, there's no quit on our people. I mean, they are all fight. And so they're like, let us bring the fight to this recession.

24:12Like we got you. And so actually we grew 8 % in revenue that year, which like, you know, you totally don't even have to have the layoff discussion if you're able to go out and find growth and find demand in a time where there seemingly is none. And so, yeah, it's, it's easy to bet on our people and we bet on them again and again and again. it's such a cool part of the story and it's inspiring because you know, like, Hey, we faced like literally hopefully a once in a generation thing and we didn't go there. We didn't do that. So like honestly, to, to Bert's credit, the flip side, he did the opposite.

24:44He was like, how about we lock those salespeople in who lost their commissions and pay them a little bit more? Cause when things come back, they're going to know that that's who we are. And I like, we did that, you know, you did that. That was a huge decision that you made. And for people that were in our business, you know, 2020 and before that saw that, you know, a lot of people wouldn't know that because that happened after they joined. Right. And you know, we've hired a lot of people in the last four years, but for the people that were there for that, I think there's a lot of reasons to just know who the people are and the values are that we want to run this company by.

25:17Yeah. Bert, you've said to me before that the whole world is getting soft. When you mentioned somebody who's - We're not all running to work. Who is, well, you mentioned somebody though, who I think she's in Canada, who is not soft. Wait, Is Laura Downey, is that where she is? Laura Downey is not soft. So I just like this idea of being a beast, of being the opposite of soft when the whole world's going that way. Can you share more about that? Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, what I love where you know you have hope in humanity is you meet people. Because I think every generation is so calm. Every generation is like the one after them is soft.

25:51They're terrible. I know. I hate that. When people say that, pisses me off so much. every, like the generation before you said that about you, you know, whatever. But also you not see people doing wild things out there. Like those kids exist. You just don't have them. But, but it's nice when it's in, when it hits you in the face. And so we hire people right out of college. And so we have, you know, generation, tons of Gen Z here. I think almost Gen Alpha now, but yeah, Laura, Laura, Laura Downey. I am a CEO. Laura, Laura Downey is, She's been here. She has been here about six years or so. Maybe eight years now.

26:25But she's up in Canada. And, I mean, she is so hardcore. She's so driven. She's that type of just, you just want this person in your organization. And, yeah, she called me last week. She was like, how do I get people to, like, you know, she's frustrated. How do I get people to retain the knowledge that they need to know so they can sound better in front of customers? How do I get them to be obsessed about the work as I am? And it was funny. I was like, oh, Laura. Yeah. So you're just, you have the curse of the high achiever. So let's, I'm sorry, but like not everybody runs it at your speed. Don't, you know, that's so just let me level set some expectations.

27:02You don't change, keep doing you, but you know, here's how we can kind of talk through that. And I think you can actually still bring a lot of people along and help them out. I mean, it does start with, you got to paint the vision and what does the opportunity look like? Okay. So if I can understand what that is, okay, that's interesting. I'll sign up for that. Okay. Now we got to set expectations. Okay, this is what I need from you. This is what I expect from you. This is what you can expect from me. Let's make that contract together. Now I'm going to teach you how to hit those goals, how to meet those expectations.

27:30And now I'm going to follow up like crazy. And I may even have to follow up to make really tough decisions, but I'm prepared to do that. And I think that if you can teach those just amazing alpha high achievers how to sort of lead in that way, then, yeah, you can create a lot more people around you in that same way. That multiplying effect. Sam, I noticed in your office you have a quote of the man in the arena. What does that quote mean to you? It kind of goes best. I mean, yeah, it really is fantastic. It just goes back. I mean, marred with blood and sweat. I mean, I just love it so much. But it comes down to what I said actually at the beginning.

28:05I'm not here for your judgments. And if you have them, you can go. Yeah. You can go. To that other place. To that place, though. I won't say it. But you can go there. Because my world is not for you. And I don't care. What I care about is the work I'm doing. And if I'm giving it my all, and if I am, then that's it. And that's that whole speech distilled down into a simple comment, which is, that's the man in the arena that is to be respected. And everyone else that is the critic is kind of not. And I live my life by that. I want my people to know that's all we should care about. And if we can do that, and sales, by the way, is the most amazing teacher of this.

28:48Because sales, people that don't have a sales career don't understand what it's like to call people that don't know you. They don't want to talk to you. Or don't want to talk to you. And put yourself out there for them every day on blast for a number of years. And just do that on repeat. And the more you do that, the more you just realize, this is just, I just need to do my job well. And people will see that I am someone that will be a great partner to them. They will see that I really am here to do a great job. They will see that I'm a person they can count on when they need them. And that's what sales really is.

29:21And that's what sales will teach you. And so for my organization, if I want my people to see that, I want them to learn that. Because again, it's the most empowering, freeing thing for your whole life. Man, I love talking sales. My dad was a lifetime sales leader, wrote books on sales, led 1 ,500 people at one point in his career. So he's my idol. But one of the things you said about sales, Sam, you sent this to me in like a letter two or three years ago. Sales is not about deception. It's about depth. It's working for others. It's being the light to the world around you. And I think that is a great transition, Bert, to what Be the Light means and why it's so important to you.

29:55Important enough to maybe even decide to put it on your body. What is Be the Light all about? Well, for me, it does come from a piece of scripture that I came across, Matthew 5, 14, just before COVID, just before the big world fell apart. and I really liked it and I was it just wouldn't let me go it was rattling around in my head and I thought boy that's really interesting language how do I use that and and I also was sort of there was this I'd read this Simon Sinek book called called The Infinite Game which is a great book I mean it's it is probably my favorite book of his he only I don't know why he doesn't write he only wrote like four books but anyway Infinite Game is great and in there he talks about how these great companies have what's called a just cause.

30:42And a just cause is like this like bigger purpose, this bigger thing that you're really striving for. And, you know, it's so annoying because I'll like read these books and I'll tell myself like, well, Simon Sinek's not, he's not CEO doing my job. But then I'm like, he's right, I think. And it's so annoying. How dare he say something smart. Yeah. And then we were actually at a, we were at a, our conference, our company-wide conference in January, 2020, right as I came across this piece of scripture I love so much, right as I I read this book and I meet Johnny Efferfield. I don't know if you've read the story.

31:15And he actually, he comes up to me like in the bathroom and you just got to know JU. He's like, hey dude, have you read some intentional book, Infinite Game? I'm like, yeah. He goes, do you think we have a just cause? I'm like, Johnny, not right now. Like I got to give a speech. Like, no, okay. I don't, well, I don't know. It's like, I don't have it. This is like living rent-free in my brain for like two months. And so whenever COVID happens, so much of the world was trying to, I felt a real sense of everybody was wanting to know, well, what part can I play? How can I fight back against this? What can we do?

31:49And we're lucky that we're a staffing company, and we actually have a wonderful opportunity to work incredibly hard to help other people find work. And a thing where you're about to see millions of people be laid off. And so the call I had with the company on March 12th where we sent everybody home, I was outlining, okay, we're definitely going to have a recession, but don't worry. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to combat it. I'm private equity-owned. And so I've got to have this. Every time we go through a cell process, everybody's like, what are you going to do in a recession?

32:13So you've got to have that answer cold. So I was like, we're going to be fine. Here's what we're going to do. But I knew, aside from the tactical, people wanted this bigger thing to shoot for, this bigger thing to be all about. How can we fight against this? And this is where I found the perfect place to insert that language from that piece of scripture I read. And it was, I told everybody, look, we have a moment and an opportunity to work as hard as we can to help millions of people find jobs again and to be the light for them. And that really stuck. And people really love that and rallied around that.

32:46And it was like, it just taught me so much around, boy, if you can find the right sort of purpose to drive an organization, to get people to show up, they will show up in mass for you. They will do crazy things to try to like reach for this and be part of this bigger purpose, this just cause, if you will. And you tattooed it on your body. Yeah. So then I said, yeah, so, so I had to be the light. So every Wednesday, every Wednesday, yeah. Every Wednesday for the next like 63 weeks, I did our be the light call with a company where I shared, you know, how we were doing and the moves that we were making, the decisions that we're making.

33:20I shared a be the light story where it was talking about our people doing these incredible things for their people in terms of helping them find jobs, amazing stuff. And, uh, and it really stuck. And so I, I decided I've been wanting to get a tattoo for years, but I've always been like too scared. And my friend Eli was like, hey, man, what he sort of like incepted this in me. I felt like it was my idea, but it wasn't. It was his idea. He was like, what if we did this event where we raise like see if we raise$100 ,000 for our Be The Light fund, which we had, which is we have this like financial hardship fund that we kind of created in COVID as a way to help our 30 ,000 contractors, consultants or internal people.

33:58If they find themselves in harm's way, the Insight Global Family Foundation can step in and make a grant to them. But we got a lot of people in the company. So we were worried about running out of money in that. And so I said, all right, if we can raise$100 ,000 for that fund, I'll get Be the Light tattooed on my arm and I'll live stream it to the company. And so I did it right there. Yeah. I would have done it for free. Yeah. So yeah, now I'm tatted up. You're all it. You haven't got a second one yet, though. I want to. Bad. What's that? I keep thinking you got it. I've got two I've thought about.

34:26And I'd like to get it on the quad because I'm in my running era. Right. So it'd be kind of fun. But I like the idea. California view. It is. Well, I like people to not know, what is Bird? Is he, where is he from? I don't know. Yeah, you keep us guessing. Probably new, yeah. So I like the idea for a term that I kind of have discovered from this running thing I'm in called suffer well. That would be really fun. Suffer well tattooed on my quad. Or an eastern bluebird. And that, yeah. What's that? Yeah, that one's just for me. I can't. Is that a private? It's sort of private, yeah. Yeah, that's amazing that those are the two you're considering.

35:04You might as well do both. What does suffer well mean? Well, I like the idea that, you know, again, kind of back to this thing in endurance sports. Like, again, most people don't ever choose their own suffering or go into it on their own free will. And I do believe suffering builds endurance and endurance builds character and character builds hope. the apostle paul said that not me but but i i think that's a it's a powerful thing to to get to sort of do that and experience that and and do it on your own terms and and to see what you learn about yourself through that process and so you know every time you do some of these long for me it's a it's an ultra marathon but for others for other people it could be just a hard job that you have it could be being a single parent you know it could be it could be anything financial problems financial problems.

35:55And so whatever it is you're suffering for or having to suffer with, how do you do that? But through that process, learn a lot about yourself and learn what you're capable of. So that's good, right? I think I should do that. Well, yeah. Are you going to do it? Maybe. I don't know. You don't have any, do you? I don't. Yeah, you got no any. That's surprising. That's surprising, right? You got all the muscles. You should throw something. If I had your shoulders, I can't get anything else in my arms. and everything. I like the quad idea. I see basketball players. I'm like, that's where the new band is, I think.

36:30Yeah. I feel like, you know, it used to be on the bicep. Now it's like, I mean, my bicep is like that of a 12 year old boy. You run a marathon, work your quads. Those things are ripping. Sam, I did a 360 for you, I don't know, three or four years ago. Yeah, I remember. And dude, it was pretty good for the most part. No, I actually, it was an awesome experience for me because I got to talk to so many people. I mean, I did it for everybody on the team. So I did, I don't know, 50, 60 interviews over the course of six months or whatever. That's when I remember Bert and I got a lot closer doing your 360.

37:03We had a couple hour long conversation. But the word that came up the most, which I think you could probably guess, of all of those people above, well, there's only one, but beside, below, was care. And I think that is such a cool word if you had to embody one word for a person. And I have to think that made you feel really good. It does. My Timothy Chalamet moment. What does care mean to you? I mean, well, I'll say I think I grew up, a little bit about me, I think I grew up sort of isolated. My parents were divorced. I played a lot of soccer. Soccer was like my outlet. But I wasn't like friends with people on the team.

37:46I was the best player on the team, and they liked having me because I helped us win all the games. but they weren't inviting me to hang out. I remember I went to one or two of the pasta parties and I was like, I don't belong here. And I just remember, I remember being a little bit socially awkward. I remember in college, I studied electrical engineering. It was not an easy subject to study. I studied, I buried myself in my work. I like, I was social, but it was like, not, I was a little awkward. And, and like starting in sales, like that was way outside of my comfort zone. I say all this to say, I guess I've always wanted people to know how much I care about like being a great teammate or doing great work and impacting the people around me.

38:28But I don't think like socially, I've always been really good at it. Like there's people around me that I'm like, oh my God, they're socially like just exceptional. There's just so naturally confident and connect. I mean, Greg Murray and Tommy Cat and all these guys around me that I'm like, they're so fun. They're so witty. They can do every accent in the world. They're so good looking. I'm like all these things. I'm like, it's so annoying that you have everything. I just have to. You got me with you. I don't know. We just work for it. We just suffer well. Yeah. We just, that's what we do. Good.

38:57Yeah. But why I guess that really resonates for me is I've just always wanted people to know that I will do everything I can do for other people to be successful. But I don't know that I've always been the most communicative and that's my journey. but I've always wanted people to see that and know that in my work. And so when I hear that, I just really appreciate that feedback because it tells me that people notice that I'm working hard for others and they see that. How do you bring that to life? What does that look like? Like a practical application of care? Like I care so much about my work, about my people, about my career, about my, about Jenna, about my kids, about everybody.

39:32For me, it's just an intense focus. If I'm at work, I am so intensely focused on the work. If I'm at home, I am so intensely focused on my kids. If I'm on a date with my wife, she's like, can you chill a little bit? But I would just say if I'm doing it, it's going to be it's probably going to be pretty intense. And I don't know, like at times people are like, yo, chill. I'm like, yep, you're probably right. Chill a little bit. But I think I show it through. I think I show my care through intensity. As someone that watches Sam, it's everything. It's it's all the little things. It's it's sort of never taken a playoff.

40:05Right. It's you're showing up. I mean, intense focus is great, but it's just always on. And that's not for everybody. That's not for everybody. But that is what obsession looks like. And there's a reason why Sam helps me run this company and why he leads an organization of almost 2 ,000 people. And so that's what that means and that's what that looks like. But it's a million things. Why do you have this picture of Noel and Ryan bloodied hanging up in your office, Bert? Oh, yeah. So, yeah, that's one of my favorite pictures. Yeah, so I just think that just epitomizes grit at its core. I mean, that's the back story in that picture.

40:44Bo Jackson, who's my favorite player of all time, he grew up in Alabama with a stutter. So did I. He went to Auburn. So did I. We were both great tailbacks for Nolan. Just him. Yeah. That's where the story ends. That's where it ends. Yeah. But anyway, no, he was at bat, and he had just hit a comebacker to the line. It was like a two-hopper and busted Nolan Ryan right in the face. and you can see he's bleeding down his lip, you know, out the side of his lips on a shirt. And you watch, you go back and watch the YouTube of that, and he gets hit in the face, he picks up the ball, he throws out Bo, and he just gets back on the mound and keeps pitching.

41:22And they took that picture, and that is, like, so cool. You are going to get punched in the face. You are going to be bloodied, and you are going to be bruised sometimes. And sorry, man, sometimes nobody cares. sometimes you just got to pick up the ball and get back up on the mound and keep going and that is just so badass i think i mean right yes i mean that is just that's it and yeah what like let's go i'm looking he's so focused on the next picture he's like let's do this and i just love that so much and i and i hope that i can like live my life as a ceo like that moment i think that is that's such a great embodiment of you're going to get punched in the face all the time, especially in the senior leadership jobs like you guys have multiple times a day.

42:09And nobody really cares. Nobody feels sorry for you ever. But you know what, every leadership job, in fact, every contributor job, like, you know, just calling customers. I mean, I can say I probably got hit more in my entry level job than I do in my job today. Yeah, there's like bigger decisions we have to make. But I just think people in every, there's just no, nobody's doing a job that they're like, my job's just easy all the time. And it's just, it's just rainbows and sunshine. People need to know like the matter of factness of stuff's going to be hard and you can handle it. If I could give my kids that I'm like, they're going to be fine.

42:46Yeah. Bert, I read recently this quote from Ben Horowitz about the most important skill for a CEO. And I'd be curious to get your thoughts on this. Most important skill as a CEO is getting to the truth. It's really hard because it's really scary. Normal humans find every excuse not to deal with harsh truths. What do you think of that statement? I think it's a really important one. I don't know if it's the most important one. We could probably debate that, but it's definitely something I strive for constantly is getting to the real answer, getting to the truth for a couple of reasons. One, you never want to be the emperor that has no clothes on.

43:20Two, there's so many there's so many people and there's so many layers between a CEO and the front line there's so many people trying to keep bad news from you yeah yeah and it's it is not there they're not wrong for doing it and it's nobody's fault but everybody's just trying to kind of like take care of the issue and solve it and maybe brush it under the rug and so there you are really insulated as a CEO in that way yeah and that's dangerous because a big part of your job I think like 50 % of your job as a CEO, my opinion, for what that's worth is to be a strong communicator. People need to know what's going on.

43:57How are we doing? You got to communicate to them. And if you're communicating a message that shows you're out of touch and you're not in touch with the truth, people are going to be like phony. Don't care. You don't see me. This is BS. You don't, you don't know what's going on and you are a fool. And I don't ever want to be seen that way. I don't ever want to feel like I'm giving some inauthentic message just because I don't know the truth. And so, yeah, that can really erode support for you as a CEO in that way. So I travel to our offices constantly. I probably get to two offices a month to spend time with our newest recruiters, our newest salespeople, our newest leaders, just to see how they're doing, see what's going on, and to get to the truth.

44:36Yeah. And Bert's also exceptionally good in every meeting at cutting right to the truth. I mean, it's amazing how quickly he can be like, oh, I see what you're doing there, and I'm going to jump right past that. Now we're going to talk about something else. And all of a sudden you're like, now we're really talking about it. This feels like an important skill. Let's pull the string a little bit. How are you good at getting to the truth quickly? Well, I think part of it is just play the movie forward. Like every leader needs to learn how to play the movie forward. And if you're trying to solve a problem or you're trying to come up with a new strategic direction, or you're trying to make some decision, don't just, okay, we'll make this decision.

45:12That's it. No, play the whole movie forward, Play it all the way through. And I like to skip to the end in that way. Okay, well, if we do this, it's going to cause this, which will cause this, which will cause this. So what we really have to solve for is this the outcome that we want? What do we do if this happens? And I do think it helps if you have spent a lot of time, in my case, growing up in the organization or spending enough time on the front lines to really know the truth and really know what's happening so that you can just cut through all the BS. And that's, I think, a really tough problem in big companies now is that there's so much gobbledygook being talked about in meetings and big words.

45:48Yeah, official term. And I went to this business school, and so I really know it. No, stop. I'll stop all the just posturing. And I just know what are we really here to talk about? What are we really here to solve? And I like doing that. It's not that I haze people, but I do sort of like to call out the BS when I see it in the meeting when people are just posturing or they're talking about things that don't matter to get right to like the heart of the matter. Just be direct and ask. But I would, I would also say Bert is exceptionally good at taking complex ideas and making them simple fast. That's something you do really well.

46:23Also reading people exceptionally good at that. Cause a lot of people, they, it's not like there is the like posturing and all that, but there, there are certain, there's just people that are just really positive and almost like too optimistic where you're, you're sort of trying to get a real read on what's happening and they're just telling you in a really positive way like it's going really well like but your nature is to tell me it's all going well what's the opposite of that and i think like he does really well at knowing always who he's talking to and sometimes the paranoid people in the room he has to talk past us for the optimistic people and so i just think skills that you bring to every meeting we have our read of people are you know the ability to distill things down.

47:06I mean, there's oftentimes where I'm like, oh, I thought we were talking about this thing, but he's actually making it clear to me we're talking about this thing. And that's taking a really complex concept and actually making it simple. Because once you do that, you realize, oh, it's not about this decision around the strategy. It's actually around, are the people going to implement it? And he's just really good at navigating that, which I think a lot of people don't. It takes a lot of work. It comes from playing the movie forward. But also, you know who I really learned that from was watching the private equity guys.

47:33We've had a bunch of different private equity owners the private equity guys are the best in the world at taking complex ideas and cooking them down to the simplest form because they have to look at thousands of companies a year to invest a finite amount of dollars. If they get one of those investments wrong, it's bad. If they get two of those investments wrong, they can go out of business. So it's like a big deal. And so they are constantly getting to the simplest sort of, well, how does this company make money? How does that really work? And, yeah, that's certainly where I learned it, and I think they're masters at it.

48:02One of the things I think new leaders struggle with that you guys are both really good at is when you're newer, especially if let's say you get promoted within the company. This is me early in my career. This is Insight Global. Everybody gets promoted from within for the most part. Sometimes it's hard to hold people accountable, right? They're your friends. You've hung out. You grew up together with them. Maybe you got promoted a little bit faster. I don't feel like you guys struggle with this, at least from what I sense maybe you did at one point. But I'm curious, since a lot of your social lives are intertwined with your work lives, like so many people here, your core friend groups work here.

48:39For the most part, the people you run races with, right, Robbie and the others, they work here. How are you good at both having these social relationships, friendships, but also holding people accountable to really stretch goals, tough, high-demanding plays? Yeah, I mean, the person who holds me to the highest standard in my entire life is my wife. And so, yeah, you think it's Bert, but it is not Bert. He's a cupcake compared to Jennifer Kaufman. My wife expects me to be my best all the time. And we have the best relationship in the whole wide world. So that's one of my greatest teachers. And also, it's like, if you want real relationships with real people, I love the show Severance right now, because it's not an outer world and an inner world.

49:26And so much of corporate America, it's like, that's how it's treated. Here's who I am at work and here's who I am at home. I'm just who I am. And the standard that I live my life by is going to be the same. And the relationships I want to have with people, I'm going to hold them accountable no matter what. Yeah, we can have fun together, but we can still at the same time hold each other to a really high standard and confront each other because that's actually how we'll have a real relationship. I just think that's foolish to think you would have a real relationship with someone if you're not going to be hard on them.

49:54But a lot of leaders take a long time to learn that. I can give you two answers. Maybe one nice, be the light CEO answer, then one spicy answer. So the one is everything Sam said. The better relationship. You're saying mine was the cupcake answer? Well, no. Kind of. He feels like it. He's holding you to the standard as we speak. That was cute, Sam. The better relationship you have with somebody, like real relationship, not just you go to happy hour with them. So the real relationship, I actually think it is easier to hold them accountable. It's easier to have the tough conversation because, because it's real and it's authentic and they know that you care about them.

50:29You care. The other answer is what kind of question is that? Like you want to be a leader and you can hold somebody accountable. Like, what are you doing? What game do you think you're in? Like, this is the game of leadership. If you are being held to a standard to get a job done and you're counting on your team to do that and they're not delivering and you're too afraid to hold them accountable, you are in the wrong role my friend you are not a leader yeah so i think about that how many times do you think we fight a week what ballpark number it doesn't maybe maybe six maybe maybe ten twice a day feels right legitimately fight yeah twice a day sometimes in front of people sometimes just by ourselves in front of people you guys feel like you're like brothers oh it's in a weird way yeah we come from very different places which makes it even more unique i would say i feel like though you can't fight healthily unless it's someone like, I feel like that's what I do with a relationship.

51:24There's still a level of this. You fight with your wife, dude? There's still a level of this is my boss. You have disagreements. I don't really fight with my wife a bunch. Ever? Well, I mean, I do. You don't fight. You have disagreements. I don't wait. You just lose. Let's just say this. I'm hypercritical sometimes with Sam's. I know it can be. With my wife, maybe I've got more grace. I don't know. You don't hold her to high standards. You're a smart man. No, I think that you still have to be professional at work. There's still an element. I want people to like me at work, but there's an element of if you're not getting the job done, I have to make hard decisions.

52:03And when I make those hard decisions, that's going to hurt our relationship. You can't take the humanity out of that. So you do have to live with the idea that it's not going to be like we're just brothers. You know, there is an element of, I think in another world, we could be best friends, but we also work together. And so there's an element of, well, you got to remember that all the time. And I think people who understand that are able to have the best relationships at work. I think there is also another thread here, though, for where the more senior leader can really help the junior leader.

52:35And so if you've got the junior leader, let's say, that's trying to hold their people accountable, that's trying to lean in and do that, their leader has to recognize that. and praise them for that and keep encouraging that and keep supporting that. Sometimes we're afraid of turnover, performance, whatever, and that can cause a junior leader to pull punches. It can cause a junior leader to not go all the way there and not make that tough decision that they need to because it's going to make them look bad. That senior leader can say, don't you worry about that, man. I got your back. You make the tough call.

53:05You do it. You are going to totally unlock that person, and that is a really important responsibility of the senior leader. Yeah. I mean, I find more often you're letting the person down when you don't. Yeah. Right. Like more often, those are the regrets I have looking back where I'm like, if I only told that person what they needed to hear at that moment when I didn't, I think it could have gone differently. It's actually an incredibly selfish act to not tell somebody, to not let somebody always know where they stand. It's putting my comfort in front of trying to help you. And so I think it's a very selfish act if you can't do that.

53:42And I think thinking of it that way, actually, if you truly care, right, makes it better. In one of your Burt's Reports notes, which I love that you publish your thoughts every week, you said, things I look for when I'm promoting a leader. There are three things, hard decision-making, strategic bets, and simplifying complex problems. We talked about simplifying complex problems. I like to go a little bit deeper in the idea of making strategic bets. What does that mean to you? When you're looking to promote somebody, you want to hire a leader, you want to help them rise up within the organization, what does it look like to make strategic bets?

54:17You can make strategic bets on new lines of business you want to launch and get into or just on promoting people from within. I think the leader does have to live with one foot in the present and one foot in the future. I think that's how you become that transformational leader. All leaders have to do the same thing, and it's called growth. I don't know of any leadership roles where you don't have to grow at all. Financially, personally, professionally, no growth. You have to grow. If you're going to grow, that means you're going to be pushing into uncertain territory all the time. You've got to plan for that.

54:50You've got to make strategic bets on how to take advantage of the future, an uncertain future. That's with the people you're elevating or that's with maybe strategic places that you want to go. And I think a lot of leaders, we do them a disservice as senior leaders to not remind them that that is their responsibility. And that's where you get these sort of transactional leaders that just sort of show up to work every day and they just make the donuts a certain way because that's all they're supposed to do. And they don't know that they should actually be working on like a croissant recipe because the market may be moving to that.

55:21And so we have to be thinking about always how what are the next. It doesn't mean don't be like great at your core. The Jim Collins famous hedgehog principle. Yes, be great at that. You have to be. But how are you pushing and evolving yourself? Because it is a changing world. I do love that. I believe you just brought the cronut into the strategic leadership segment. I did. Yes, correct. I'm going to think of the cronut forever. One of my favorite. Talk about hiring, Sam, and something you'd written and sent to me a few years ago. We talk about potential over experience. And you said if you want to build a culture of commitment and care, you have to choose potential over experience.

55:58What does that mean to you? I was really going to try hard to work a pastry into this answer, but I don't think I have it. I don't know that I'm going to be able to do it. Potent. Yeah, I think. That's true. Because this is a strategic bet. Because it's the experience. You can say, Bert, I hired him because look at their experience. Whereas if you hire somebody who doesn't have experience, you're making a strategic bet. Yeah. Well, I'm going to try. So like if you have dough, you can shape the dough however you'd like. And you can cook it to exactly the temperature you like. if you have old bread it's gonna kind of be old bread and it's gonna be hard it's formed it's made you know you're getting bread yeah yeah but it's kind of crunchy yeah yeah it's not that good that was an attempt when you take bets on people they will almost always prove you right number one and then when you take bets on people and they do prove you right they also are like that's your gang that's that's your like that's your squad yeah because like nobody else took the bet on them, but you did.

56:58If you want a group of people that want to really go to work for each other every day as part of a team, I think when you sacrifice a role to the outside, when that person was close enough that you give them that shot, I think the more you take chances, there's certainly roles like our chief legal officer, where I'm like, I'm not promoting an entry-level recruiter to run our legal organization. But there's a lot of roles where I'm like, they're close enough. Like they could figure that out. And we have promoted a lot of people in different capacities to completely new roles. And I've just watched them for many years show up and do amazing work.

57:34So I just think, and when they do that, you guys have like a special bond around like what you were able to do together. Because it was hard, but we like figured it out together. So I just think that's a special way to look at building your business. And people put too much stock in experience. I mean, like define experience. Like your experience is so much relevant to this job that you've never had before in my company. How? Like, I mean, so I would much rather take the person that is in it, that's one of your people, that will give you everything they've got and then some. It's funny you mentioned chief legal officer.

58:06I know that was just an example. Our chief legal officer, we did promote from within. Her name is Ariel Zion about a year ago now. She was one of our senior attorneys, our former chief legal officer, retired, great guy. And this is a big job, right? We're a big company. And so we had and we interviewed a bunch of candidates, a lot of great candidates. But Ariel had never been a chief legal officer before. But it was just like, man, I think she just I'm going to go down swing. I want to go down swinging with Ariel. Like she she's one of our people. She's got it. And it is every time I think about her in this role that we promoted her to, I just smile because I'm like, it was so the right hire.

58:42It was so the right hire. It was so the right promotion. Yeah, I guess it's a strategic bet in a sense, but it was so obvious to me. I want to talk about being together. It's one of the reasons why I'm here in person. I like the idea of being with you guys. But you do the be the light calls oftentimes in an office sitting literally shoulder to shoulder touching others. And you can see you have this rapport. You're just kind of like one of the guys, but you're also the CEO at the same time. How important is it to you guys both? I'm curious about being together in person, whatever this R2 or return to office type stuff.

59:17We're almost like past that. Like we need to be together. What do you guys think about that? And why is it so important? I just think it's really important. And it's how it's like, it's how, it's how humans have lived for a long time is together, not in isolation. Work is hard. I mean, whether you're still in staffing or making donuts, I mean, work doing really good, exceptional work well is really hard. And I think you need the support of people around you, period. And yeah, I love doing the be the light calls and off, you know, in the pandemic, I did them by myself. And even if a little after that, I did them by myself.

59:47And it was always just me talking for like 30 minutes. And I'm a funny-looking bald guy. It's hard on the eyes after a while. So I like going to offices to our people and really like – I like going there a full day before and getting to know them and getting in on all the inside jokes and all the nicknames. So by the time the call comes, I mean, we were just like a unit. Yeah, it's like annoying for all the watchers. We're like, what is he talking about? Oh, we're so fun. We're kind of a little jealous. Yeah, we're jealous. I was just like – I saw the Miami one recently and you got bad bunny plan.

1:00:18And it's like, Bert, I think he's like one on spring break with this. It was so fun. And so, but I love that camaraderie reminds me when I was a recruiter, when I was a salesperson or a sales manager in our field offices, which is like the best job. And, uh, and I just think it's important, man. Like when you're like, again, it's sales, but it's also any, you have bad days at work. You, you have customer shoots you down. The boss says, I don't like this. you need a support system of people around you that can be like, dude, that sucked. Are you doing okay? You need to be able to laugh and let the pressure out of the room.

1:00:51You need to be able to hear, I love how Sam said that. I'm going to steal that and do that next time because that was really cool. That is just huge. And so I understand that's not going to work for everybody. Yes, there are people that are in remote roles. Yes, there are companies that have more remote workers and that works for them and that's fine. But at our company, we're going to be the type of company that does work together. One of the other commonalities about Insight global that is not common other places I've gone is the high level skill of communication amongst the leadership team.

1:01:16When I think of Jess Calzereta, I think of Sam Burt, you know, you strep a Dowling, Greg Murray, just watched this speech in Chicago. They're just killer after killer after killer. Even account managers that are newer in the company get up on stage and just crush. I'm just curious, is that intentional? Do you guys work on this? Where does that come from? the fact that so many people are, they could be like professional speakers for a living if they weren't doing this. I would say our posture is to push people out there. Get them out there, you know, put them on stage, have them say something, get it.

1:01:49You'll, you'll figure it out. And that's, that's, that's promoting them to sales the first time that's having them speak. I mean, we would much rather say, you'll probably be fine. Right. And, and we know that like, they probably will be because they care and they're obsessive and they want to get it right. And they're going to practice and they're going to work hard. They're not going to sleep for three weeks. and they're going to go crazy and they're going to kill it. But that's because we just believe in them. And every time we've brought in guest speakers to come in and give a speech, I always laugh.

1:02:17I'm like, yeah, that was fine. They gave a good speech, but it doesn't connect as well as our people because they don't quite sound like us and they're not like how our people just get up there and totally let it rip. Yeah. What do you think? I mean, yeah, same thing. I was just thinking about Ashley Pye. I was just thinking about all the speakers from Chicago. but just watching a group of people that like I've gotten a number of reps there now like I've had to get up in front of that group a number of times that was their first time and I would say my three favorite speeches were the three people who'd never done that before and I would say my three favorite moments from that entire conference was asking them afterwards how they felt and just seeing the light inside of them the the feeling of I did that the feeling of achievement that they did for the suffering that they had for the last month to rep that and practice that.

1:03:08And I saw them nervous and strained and anxious. And I watched them in the 48 hours leading up to it, pacing and not in a single conversation that they're in because they're pretending, but they're actually in their head worrying about this moment on stage the whole time. And then the relief that comes afterwards and the joy in their faces. And I'm like, that's it. That's all I ever want. That's the coolest thing. That's the juice. That is the juice. It's the best bird. What's that? What's that baseball about? Can I hear that story? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So this is also, you should know Bert has props all over his office.

1:03:39Yeah. My office is like a, it's like a tree house of sorts. I love it when really like important investors come or whatever. I'm like, it has my office. They're just, they, they're so office. They're like, who is this guy? What's it? What's the CEO office supposed to be? I don't know. Maybe more mahogany. Less paper. Less little kid stuff. But anyways, yeah. So I'm a huge Atlanta Braves fan. So I keep this baseball on my desk to serve as a reminder of something. And I'll share what that reminder is once I tell the story. And hopefully I don't get any negative blowback from the Braves organization.

1:04:15It's all right. But the Braves are starting off really bad. And quite frankly, it's because I love Alex Anthopoulos. He helped us get a World Series, but he didn't make enough moves in the offseason. and we don't have that great of a lineup, and so we're struggling. I'm a season ticket holder for the Atlanta Braves. I've got some decent seats, and I love taking my kids, Ellie and Will. I mean, every game they love going. It's such a great dad, daughter, son moment. And because I've been a season ticket holder, they recently sent me a signed baseball as a thank you, an autographed baseball from an Atlanta Brave player.

1:04:45Now, I go to 50 games a year, 60 games a year. I know all the players, and this baseball that was signed is from one of our relief pitchers named Jacob Webb. He's actually no longer a Brave. He left a few years ago. He got cut a few years ago. This is baseball. It's probably two years old now. Jacob Webb, unfortunately, is not one of the best relief pitchers. I mean, I'm sure he's a good guy, I'm sure, but he's probably like the worst relief pitcher that we had on the team this season. They sent me this baseball. And no knock on him, but I'm like, wait, Atlanta Braves. I'm this season ticket holder.

1:05:19I kind of have to pay a lot of money for these tickets every year. and you're going to send me an autographed baseball thinking I'm going to like that, but it's from this guy that's not very good, that's a BS gift. Don't even send me that. Send me a hat or send me a letter. Send me a handwritten card. I would much rather do that. But don't ask this poor relief pitcher. I've probably got better stuff to do. Sign a baseball to send to Burt Bean. That's inauthentic, I think. I think that's not real. That's not going the extra mile. That's not being obsessive as to think, okay, what do our best season ticket holders, what do they really need to get that's going to be a nice token of appreciation?

1:05:57That somebody said, oh, have a brave Cinematograph baseballs. And that was poor execution there. And they dropped to some intern that chased around and found whoever was in the clubhouse that day. And it happened to be Jacob Webb to sign a baseball to send to me. And that is BS. That is not taking something all the way through. That is poor execution. And it backfired. And so I want to make sure that I keep this base baseball on my desk to make sure we don't inadvertently do things like that in our organization for our customers. What would that look like? What does sending the Jacob Webb baseball look like at Insight Global?

1:06:30I think a good example of it is you promote salespeople out there and you give them inadequate training. You give them inadequate training as to how to talk about our services, as to how to talk about, you know, we're doing a lot more internationally. We're doing a lot more selling professional services. I mean, one of the reasons why we've grown, Ryan, the last couple of years in a huge way is our big investments in professional services. You know, the staffing industry is big, but you get out of staffing and end up into selling bigger and more complex deals that are called professional services.

1:06:59Companies want to invest more in AI. They want to move teams to India. You have to know how to speak that and show up in that way. And if we don't do a good enough job of showing our salespeople how to speak in that way and training them in that way, making the right investments to carry it all the way through, then they don't show up well in front of the customer. And they feel terrible. The customer is like, oh, you say you can do this, but I don't believe you. You're not investing in me to help solve my problems. I think that's just one example. We've got to run a little bit, but I have one more question I'd like to ask both of you guys.

1:07:27Sam, you can go first. You hire a lot of people right out of college. I actually spoke with one last week, Jack Matheson, University of Georgia graduate, who has high agency, very gritty, very curious, asked me a ton of questions, sent me this beautiful cold email asking for advice on how to get a job here. I already had other offers for other companies, offering them more money, by the way, did the interview. Jack's going to do well. Jack, yeah, killed it, killed the interview, got the offer. Congrats, Jack. And accepted it. Very happy for him. But cool stories like that. I love looking at people around that age range and seeing their trajectory.

1:08:04And so I'm curious if you were trying to help someone increase their velocity of that trajectory, Sam, who's in that recent college grad range, what are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to them? Yeah, I mean, that's pretty standard stuff. But I think especially early on, you don't know that it's okay to show people you don't know. And the number one thing that you are is a person that doesn't know. And so the biggest piece of advice I give every entry-level person is you got to let it rip when it comes to the questions. And you got to also not have to ask four or five, six times.

1:08:42So ask a lot of questions. Show everyone. I'm so sorry I have to ask you so many questions right now. I'm so lost. I'm going to ask all of them. Also, you won't have to say it another time because I'm going to take great notes and I'm going to listen and I'm going to be ready to apply it. And it's like people that just start their careers knowing I got a lot to learn. I'm going to soak it all up and I'm going to work hard to learn it and learn it as quickly as I can. I think that you just start there and things are going to start working out really well for you. People that don't show up that way, I think it just gets harder faster.

1:09:12Yep. Bert, what do you think? Don't ever give somebody a reason to fire you. Glenn Johnson, our founder, told me that when I was first hired. Sort of an intense thing to hear on your first day, but he was like, hey, buddy, don't ever give me a reason to fire you. And I was like, yep. That's good advice. So what he means, and I love it so much, your work ethic just can carry you so far. Your ability to ask questions and to take good notes and to care and to lean in and to be obsessed can take you so far. And when the chips are down for a company, they've got to make a tough decision. they're going to fire you last, if ever at all.

1:09:50Love it. I just want to say to you guys, both of you guys, we've been working together now for five years. Our first meeting was supposed to be in person, March 17th, 2020. The day before, I remember you said, I think the world's shutting down. Are you sure you still want to come? And I said, yeah, yeah, I'll be there. I want to do this in person. I was like, I don't think Ryan watches the news. And then I think like four hours later, it's like actually, I don't think I should come down. So anyway, it's been five years now, which is insane to think about that. And I just loved it. It's even better today than it was, I think, in 2020 as far as just getting to know so many amazing people and getting to hang out in leadership circles and compass retreats and all the cool things.

1:10:28So I'm just really grateful for both of you guys. Thank you for everything you do for the company. Of course, man. I can't wait for the next. We love your podcast. It's the best one out there. If you're an aspiring leader, please listen to this. I mean, this show, I truly mean this, taught me so much about how to be a CEO in my first year. I mean, I love your podcast so much. Dude, that means a lot. That means a lot. Thank you, guys.

1:10:49It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note. Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Burt Bean and Sam Kaufman. A few takeaways from my notes. Holding people accountable. I loved Burt's spicy answer to this one and how he looked at me kind of sideways and said, What are you doing if you're not able to confront someone when they aren't meeting the standard? That's the job of a leader. If you can't do that, you can't lead. And this idea of having high standards and holding people to them, I think, is so, so important.

1:11:29And then Sam's hiring style and willingness to make bets, strategic bets on people. And he prefers potential over experience. And he said, if you want to build a culture of commitment and care, you have to choose potential over experience. But this is the harder path. This is tough. This involves coaching. This involves caring for people. This involves being with them to help them grow and improve. And Sam is one of the best in the world at this. And then a through point for the entire conversation was obsession. I love obsession. Being obsessed with caring for people. Being obsessed with doing hard things like running 20 miles to work, which Bert did this morning.

1:12:12Being obsessed with how prepared you are for a big meeting. Being obsessed with your standards. Holding yourself accountable to high standards as well as those you are serving. the leaders who sustain excellence over an extended period of time are obsessed with their work, their growth, their craft, their people. I love obsession. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Burt Bean and Sam Kaufman. I think they'll help you become more effective leaders because you continue to do that.

1:12:48And you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you subscribe to the show. and you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review. And by doing all of that, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.