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🎙 Welcome to Rarified Air: Stories of Inspired Service, a podcast that takes you on a journey into the DNA of InterSystems. I will be your guide as we explore how our unparalleled commitment to customer service fuels limitless human potential.
🤝 Join us as we dive into the culture of InterSystems and share the stories of the people who make it all possible - our customers, partners, and employees. From helping healthcare providers improve patient outcomes to powering the world’s most important institutions, we’ll show you how our dedication to customer service excellence is in rarified air.
[00:00:00.170] - Female Narration
Welcome to Rarified Air: Stories of Inspired Service. Our host, John Paladino, head of client services at InterSystems, will use his 40 years of experience to show you how to build a successful customer service program and highlight stories of innovation with customers.
[00:00:19.090] - Female Narration
Join us as we explore the past, present and future of service, from AI's promise to the enduring power of the human touch. This is part two of a conversation with Stephanie Mitchko, former CTO at charter Communications.
[00:00:36.670] - Female Narration
We pick up the conversation as John and Stephanie discuss how leaders should be using AI and the qualities of great leadership in times of change.
[00:00:46.270] - John Paladino
Let's talk about leadership for a few minutes because I think leadership, especially when you're dealing with change, change is happening all around you, true leaders can really step up. Tell us a little bit about your views on leadership?
[00:01:01.430] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
That's a great question because through my early part of my career, I was very focused on the details as an engineer, and I did great things and I had a great run of it, building technical products and having teams. It really became apparent to me when I got to a certain level about the VP level in a big company, that to get to the next step, it wasn't about the technology that you know, it's not about how many facts you can put together or how much you know in the really gory details. It's really about how to put a team together.
[00:01:36.780] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I had some great mentors early on in my career. I had some really big failures as well. That taught me, like, okay, you can't do that anymore. That's not going to work.
[00:01:46.120] - John Paladino
That's how we learn.
[00:01:47.060] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
It's exactly how we learn. I think failure is a great thing. I talk about failure all the time because you learn so much, to your point. My leadership style grew out of a bunch of little things where I just became extremely vulnerable.
[00:02:03.510] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
For most of us in technology, and I know you will appreciate this, our systems are complicated. Technology is evolving faster than we can think about it, and you have to acknowledge that and that makes you humble because there's more that you don't... There's so much more that you don't know than you do.
[00:02:20.370] - John Paladino
Yeah, it's really about teamwork, too, and understanding team dynamics, understanding that people are different, and understanding how to get the best out of people is really, really important.
[00:02:32.380] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Yeah, I love that. It's so true because everyone on your team contributes in a different way. It is the leader's obligation, it's their job to identify the right communication style with each member, to understand how to motivate them, to communicate maybe three different ways, the same objective to the team so that the whole team actually gets on board.
[00:02:53.910] - John Paladino
I think a core element is trust.
[00:02:56.600] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Absolutely. Trust and being seen. People want to be acknowledged that they're part of the team and that they contribute. I'll go back to trust for a second.
[00:03:08.170] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I've observed teams where entire groups of people don't trust a leader for whatever reason. They don't give them the right credit. They say something in a meeting, and then they go off and do something different, so trust gets deteriorated over time. What happens there is those people actually start sabotaging that leader's ability to lead.
[00:03:29.000] - John Paladino
The saboteurs. Yeah, I think for a good leader, it takes humility, gratitude. What are some of the other elements? Or you can speak to those two elements.
[00:03:38.460] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Yeah, I think you nailed it. Gratitude is a big one. I think authentic, empathetic leadership is the new norm now. People ask me about that, they go, "Oh, Stephanie, everyone says you're so nice." I'm not really that nice.
[00:03:54.190] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I'm not saying that to be facetious, just that I'm fair, I'm honest with people, I tell them what I expect of them, and I treat them fairly and with empathy, of course, but I also am a bit of a, "We need to get stuff done right. Sometimes it's nice to get to know people. I love to understand what their personal situations are, what their lifestyle is like, so we can adjust if we need to."
[00:04:19.400] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
People will tell me, "Oh, you care about everyone." I do. I empathetically care about my teams, but there's actually something in the book called Big-Hearted Boundaries. The reason we chose to write about this, because a lot of leaders want to be liked.
[00:04:36.450] - John Paladino
Let me stop on that point for just a second. One thing I failed to mention in the beginning is you co-authored a book called Mind Skills. I read your book. It's an amazing book. I recommend it, and we'll make sure we put the link in so that our listeners can read it, too. Tell us a little bit about some of the key elements of your book?
[00:04:57.310] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Sure. Well, first of all, I never set out to write a book. I've been in technology business for a very long time. I actually co-authored this book with a friend of mine. Her name is Linda Bjork, and she's a mindfulness trainer.
[00:05:10.390] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I met her in Stockholm, Sweden. We were both speaking at a conference. She did the opening keynote. It was a women's executive conference, and it was about international business. I was the closing keynote, and I talked about media and how we do media differently in the EU versus the US.
[00:05:27.460] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
We wound up sitting at the dinner for the event that evening next to each other. Within five minutes, we were talking about the same things, the same challenges in business, the same challenges with leaders. I had her come in and talk to some people on my team, and I realized that as a leader, empowering the team to get better, and this is a sign of caring as well. When you help your team learn, when you help your team get better, was really, really good for me and for the team. We decided to take everything we had done in, I guess, most of our lives and put it down on paper, which was a huge challenge.
[00:06:06.560] - John Paladino
I'm so glad you and Linda shared all the things you've learned in all your experiences in small companies, engineering, all the way up. It was excellent.
[00:06:17.420] - John Paladino
There was one part of the book that really got my attention. It's a term called stop, unleash, and lead. Could you break it down for us? What does that mean?
[00:06:26.270] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Sure. The original tagline was going to be stop doing what doesn't work. We realized through editing and whatnot, that really didn't resonate with people. So we came up with these three words, stop, unleash, lead.
[00:06:41.180] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
When you go through this process, the first one is the most important. Stop doing things. Busyness is a badge of honor in the US. People, I'm very busy. We say busy is the new stupid.
[00:06:55.590] - John Paladino
I like that.
[00:06:56.600] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Yeah. The first part of that little phrase just means stop, take a breath, really take a look at what's going on, what you're doing, why you're doing it, what's in front of you, what are your challenges. Once you get settled in, that unleash your real intelligence because it comes from a place of stillness.
[00:07:16.240] - John Paladino
That really resonated with me because I know, speaking for myself, I get email, phone calls, meetings. There's so many things that come at us, not just me, but all of us. Just stopping all of that, so you can think and figure out your plan going forward and start down that path.
[00:07:36.790] - John Paladino
I think that's really great advice. That's one of the things in Mind Skills, your book, that really jumped out.
[00:07:42.150] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Thank you. I appreciate that. It's important. It's hard to do because as you move up in your career, there's more demands. You have to be in more places. You have to multitask, as you just mentioned, but there's practical ways to manage those things.
[00:07:56.390] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I'll give you a little anecdote in what I did with my teams. I would go in their calendars. They all had to share their calendars with me. They didn't like that.
[00:08:04.650] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I would go in there, and I'd see that they were booked in meetings from 8:30 in the morning. I had teams kind of across the globe, London and LA and other places, and every minute of the day was blocked in a meeting, not just talking to one person, but in groups.
[00:08:21.070] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I challenged them to take 20% of their time and block it, so they could stop, so they could think, so they could read. It was a challenge for a lot of my up and comings. They thought that, hey, if I just work harder, if I'm better, faster than everyone else, but that's not what helps you in your path.
[00:08:39.760] - John Paladino
Stephanie, I saw something on LinkedIn last week that really is pretty well aligned with this. The CEO said if he receives an email that has more than three people cc'd on it, he just deletes it because it's an announcement, it's not a request.
[00:08:55.540] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I love that. I'm laughing both internally and externally, because I actually have a whole section on email management in the book because I used to say, if there's 25 people on an email, and I'm included in all that, no one's asked me for anything, I'm not responding, or I delete it.
[00:09:12.900] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
On the flip side, what I've done as a leader is I've gotten diligent about how I send emails because I know if I send an email, certain positions I've been in, people feel they have to answer right away. I will say in the email, there is first line, no need to respond. I am just getting this out there because next week we might have to have a meeting, and I want to put it in your mind, or this is the person I'm asking, and I need this information right now that I'm cc'ing these three people because they might be able to help you get that information.
[00:09:42.120] - John Paladino
Yeah. These are all symptoms of things changing around us very rapidly. People's expectations are going higher. Customer expectations are very high compared to where they were even two years ago.
[00:09:54.030] - John Paladino
I think Covid taught us how to accelerate, kind of lean into things, make change faster. That was great. As leaders, there's a lot on our minds right now about how we can continue to stay ahead, not just keep up, but to stay ahead.
[00:10:08.980] - John Paladino
One last thing about leadership that you talked about in the book that I thought was also excellent was about ego. Could you spend a few minutes on that, please?
[00:10:16.330] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Sure. First, I'll just tell you a story, and then we'll talk about what the ego even is. I mentioned that I had Linda come in and coach some of my teams.
[00:10:26.460] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Now, these are senior vice presidents in really big roles. Each one of them could run a piece of a company. I had a leadership meeting, and I said, I'm bringing in a coach because I want everyone to just spend a little time thinking about being mindful. Everyone equates this with meditation.
[00:10:44.180] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
One of my very senior engineers, extremely talented, extremely valuable in the company, and a really nice person. He was a really nice guy, but he gave me such a hard time. He's like, I don't want to come to that part. I'm not going to sit there and close my eyes. Really, really defined, did not want to do it.
[00:11:02.310] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I said, look, you have to come to my offsite. It's my tech offsite. You have to come. I expect you to be in the room for this one hour. Close your eyes, put your ear pods in. I don't care, but you have to show up.
[00:11:13.130] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
He shows up, and the whole time I'm nervous because the presentation is going on and people have their eyes closed. I don't know if you've ever tried this, but try closing your eyes in a room with 20 other people. Nobody likes this. Like, what is that other person doing? Do they have their eyes open? Do I have my eyes closed? It was very difficult for the team.
[00:11:31.480] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Long story short, at the end of the night, we had a dinner. This particular engineer came to me, senior guy, and said, you know what, Stephanie? I realized that my ego has been in my right.
[00:11:43.220] - John Paladino
Interesting. How so?
[00:11:43.720] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
He realized it. He's like, he was thinking more about his position, how he looked in front of a team, how he was going to present information to senior management, which is usually, how do I better myself. He said, I realized that I'm missing the point with some of the people that are working with me. I realized that that instant, that this type of training was really important for executives.
[00:12:08.290] - John Paladino
It was an epiphany.
[00:12:09.420] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Yeah, it was really important. Other people have said the same thing over the years, but the ego is just a thing. It's just a story in your own head.
[00:12:18.060] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
It's about, I need to stay in control. I need to be in power. I need to know what's going on all the time. If you could settle that voice, the real you comes out. That's what I'll say. The real you comes out.
[00:12:30.380] - John Paladino
That's great advice. One aspect we haven't talked about, Stephanie, is the emotional aspect of transformation. Not just generative AI, but as you mentioned, there were emotional responses to past innovations and transformations. How do leaders navigate through the various emotions around transformation?
[00:12:52.210] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
This is probably the harder than talking about the AI, talking about humans because we're so complex. People don't like change. Emotionally, I've noticed people get attached to their own creations, especially in technology. I've developed this, and now I have to keep it going for some reason.
[00:13:10.330] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I think leaders have to be super authentic. I'll give you a little example of what I did, and people came back to me with feedback, which I had no idea had any type of impact.
[00:13:20.930] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
We're having a big teams meeting, and I was a little late, and I came into the room, and I was with somebody else, and we were on the screen, and I was sitting there. I said, everybody, could we just stop for a second? I just want to let you guys know that I had a really rough morning, and I'm not thinking straight. I'm a little stressed out, and I don't want to give you any input or anything. It's not that I don't love you guys and you're my team. I know that I'm not in the right place to make a decision or talk about this.
[00:13:50.090] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
That vulnerability is transparent and vulnerable. What it really was, the only thing was I recognized that I was in a bad state, and I don't want to make a decision when I'm in a bad state.
[00:14:01.630] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I think the emotional response that happens with teams, what happens with these huge changes, has to be managed by clear, calm, centered leaders. I joke like this because I'm a mom of three, and when a baby's screaming and having a fit, you don't go over there and have a fit. You are calm. You're like, "Don't worry about it. We're going to get through this." Whatever that perturbation is happening, the leader has to be emotionally sound, intellectually sound, and centered, so you could help people get to the next level.
[00:14:31.190] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
The other trick I have is make them a part of it. Let the team be the change. Let them want the change. Help them want the change.
[00:14:39.150] - John Paladino
That's an excellent point. Engagement, get them engaged. One way I do that, especially for people that it's not their personality to embrace change is to derisk it. I'll tell people, if this is a failure, it's on me. It's not you. How can you help us get to where we need to go?
[00:14:57.980] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
You just hit on it. That's exactly right. People are so afraid to fail that they either do nothing or they resist. They either sabotage, do nothing, or just disappear because they don't want to fail.
[00:15:10.150] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
I think opening up to failure, setting expectations around how much failure you will accept the collateral damage to failure, is a conversation I have all the time. It's great to fail, but you have to fail at a level that we can respond, learn from it, and then make a change. You can't fail when we're jumping off the cliff, and we have no shoots.
[00:15:30.780] - John Paladino
That's like what it's like with AI. People are afraid that they might fail. They might put their customers or the business at risk, but you have to fail small, fail fast to learn because if you don't learn, you're never going to get there.
[00:15:46.430] - John Paladino
Stephanie Mitchko, this has been an amazing experience. Thank you very much. For listeners, Stephanie Mitchko's book is called Mind Skills. There'll be a link associated with this podcast. I'd highly recommend reading it. It's a terrific book on both leadership and the transformation we're navigating through today. Thank you, Stephanie.
[00:16:06.860] - Stephanie Mitchko-Beale
Thank you so much, John. This has been a lot of fun, and I hope we continue the conversation.
[00:16:11.040] - John Paladino
To all of our listeners. I hope that you enjoyed our discussion with Stephanie. Just before I say goodbye, I just want to say it's great to have a past. It's even better to have a future. I hope you get a lot out of this podcast, and I thank you for listening.
[00:16:27.530] - Female Narration
Thanks for listening today. If you have any questions or want to hear from a specific guest, email us anytime at inspiredservice@innersystems.com. When you're ready to unlock the potential of your data and experience the transformative power of support done differently, go to innersystems.com.