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Welcome to the Opkalla IT Matters Podcast, where we discuss the important matters within IT as well as the importance of IT across different industries and responsibilities.
About Opkalla:
Opkalla helps their clients navigate the confusion in the technology marketplace and choose the technology solutions that are right for their business. They work alongside IT teams to design, procure, implement and support the most complex IT solutions without an agenda or technology bias. Opkalla was founded around the belief that IT professionals deserve better, and is guided by their core values: trust, transparency and speed. For more information, visit https://opkalla.com/ or follow them on LinkedIn.
Aaron Bock: Op Welcome to the IT
Matters podcast hosted by
Opkalla. We're an IT advisory
firm that makes technology easy
for your business. Our vendor
neutral technology advisors work
directly with your team to
assess technology needs and
procure the best IT solutions
for your organization. On this
podcast, expect high level
expertise from our hosts, plus
experience driven perspective
from the leading experts on
topics like AI, cyber security
industry focused IT solutions,
strategy and more. Now let's get
into today's discussion on what
matters in it,
Keith Hawkey: and welcome to the
it matters. Podcast hosted by
Opkalla. At Opkalla, we help IT
teams understand the busy
marketplace of technology
strategy and services with a
data driven approach. On this
podcast, we invite technology
leaders to discuss the
challenges facing the modern IT
department. My name is Keith
Hawkey, technology advisor at
Opkalla, and today's guest is
someone who embodies the idea of
great technology leaders don't
just think in system frameworks.
They think in stories. I'm
joined by Troy Penny global,
Vice President of it at Harsco
rail, where he leads the global
IT strategy. Troy also has spent
his career operating at the
intersection of enterprise
scale, public sector
transformation and leadership
development, advising senior
leaders modern, modernizing
complex organizations and
teaching the next generation of
project and IT leaders. But
here's where Troy really stands
out, alongside publishing
serious IT leadership and
leadership books. He's also an
author of children's stories
about cats that go on adventures
and occasionally saved the
world. So today we're going to
talk about enterprise, IT
leadership, governance and
strategy, but also creativity
and storytelling and why the
ability to explain complex ideas
simply might be one of the most
underrated skills a technology
leader possesses. Troy Penny,
welcome to the it matters.
Troy Penny: Podcast, Thank you,
Keith, it's my pleasure.
Keith Hawkey: So before we
begin, Troy, there's your
tradition on the it matters.
Podcast, where we play two true,
two truths and a lie. Have you
ever heard of such a game? I
have, and since you have a
unique background and have
written a couple children's
books in recent years, I
thought, why not do two truths
and a lie around the OG
children's book author, Dr
Seuss, okay, how familiar are
you with the life of Dr Seuss?
Troy Penny: More familiar with
his works than his life? Okay?
Keith Hawkey: Well, I think this
is mostly about his work, so we
might be in good shape. So two
truths and a lie. So you are
trying to identify the one lie
out of these three options. So
let's start the first one. Dr
Seuss created the word nerd,
which first appeared in if I ran
the zoo. Second, Dr Seuss wrote
all of his books standing on one
foot to keep the rhythm playful.
Number three, Dr Seuss wrote
Green Eggs and Ham using only 50
words after accepting a bet that
he couldn't write a book with
fewer than 60 you. So those are
three options. I can re read
them if you'd like.
Troy Penny: No, I think the lie
is probably composing his books
on one foot. I just couldn't
imagine doing that.
Keith Hawkey: You're correct,
Troy, there's no, no knowledge
that Dr Seuss wrote his books on
one foot, however, much to my
surprise, he apparently created,
invented the word nerd,
Troy Penny: which I had I had
heard that, or thought I had
heard that before, and and when
you gave that as the first
option, I thought to myself, I
think that's true, and it
surprised me also when I'd heard
it the first time now, and as
far as the 50 words in Green
Eggs and Ham, that doesn't
surprise me. I actually used
green eggs and ham to teach my
first child how to read, because
they're. So few words in it, and
the words are repeated so often,
that he began to recognize the
shapes of words. More so than
sounding out the word ham, he
just knew what the word ham
looked like. So he got to where
he could read a combination of
memory and pattern recognition
most of that book at a really
early age. So that part didn't
surprise me.
Keith Hawkey: Yeah, well, you,
you're successful in identifying
the lot. I maybe I should make
these a little bit more, a
little little harder. Writing on
one foot, I thought writing on
one foot with a book like green
eggs in hand. This 50 words
wouldn't be too much of a
battle, but there's probably a
lot that goes into that he'd
have. He'd have some sore
ankles, for sure.
Troy Penny: Yeah, it certainly
sounds like the kind of thing
you could imagine him doing,
especially if you're familiar
with his books. But, but I
thought having written a little
bit myself, I just couldn't
imagine being very creative in
that stance.
Keith Hawkey: Yeah, that's a so
let's, let's dive into a little
bit of your story. Troy, what
can you tell us, a little bit
about how you got into it, some
of the early days. How did you
get get on this trajectory, this
career directory?
Troy Penny: Well, I actually
began college at a high school
on a music scholarship, and
there came a point in time where
I had sort of an epiphany, that
I'm either going to be a famous
musician or a high school course
teacher. And I thought the
latter was far more likely, and
that didn't align with kind of
where I saw myself, so I left
the music department, and when I
did that, I lost my scholarship,
so I joined the military to help
pay for the remainder of my
college, which it did, and I
ended up spending a little over
a decade in the US Air Force as
an electronic warfare systems
technician, and what we did was
jam radar, which doesn't have a
direct civilian application.
Most airports don't want someone
to jam their radar. So what I
could translate however, was the
engineering and technology
skills involved in that career
field. And at the time, this was
the early 90s, I got out after
the the Desert Storm campaign,
and at the time, it had only
just begun to separate itself
from engineering, and it was
still very, very hardware
technical as well as well as
software technical. Personal
computing wasn't much of a
thing, yet everything ran
through big data centers. So it
seemed to be the right fit for
me as a civilian. And started
out really doing just technical
documentation and some ingress
programming, and then worked my
way up. I was fortunate to catch
that technology curve in the 90s
that sort of culminated in Why
2k and the.com era and all of
that. And I was able to move up
through the profession, and
found that I really enjoyed it.
Keith Hawkey: So midnight, 1999
December, 31 What were you
doing? That's, that's the big
question in my mind.
Troy Penny: I was relaxing
because I didn't believe planes
were going to fall out of the
sky. Probably the worst that
would have happened was your
bill wouldn't get printed, or
you would receive a bill that
showed you were 100 years
overdue for something most
machine systems weren't, I don't
think, as vulnerable, and maybe
I was naive, but they didn't
appear to be as vulnerable as
some of the stories would have
led you to believe. Plus, I
think, thanks to the people at
Gartner, we had pretty good
preparation for it, a good
runway to to to get the critical
systems up to date. So I felt
pretty good about it. We had
replaced our legacy ERP system
at Johnson Controls, is where I
was at the time, and, you know,
we felt pretty confident that
that the new system was going to
perform, so I wasn't too bit out
of shape about y 2k
Keith Hawkey: you mentioned
Gartner in that equation. I so
I'm 37 years old. I wasn't I was
young when y 2k was a thing.
Certainly wasn't in my career.
How did Gartner help promote.
Pair organizations. I'm curious
about that.
Troy Penny: So I don't know the
whole story, but I do know that
they were one of the early
identifiers of the Y 2k bug, and
they had forecasted at the time,
I think, almost a trillion
dollars in global remediation
that was necessary. And Gartner
has that niche in projecting
future technology and various
pitfalls and things you needed
to prepare for. And they were
probably the premier analyst for
y 2k and a lot of people would
consider them maybe a little bit
of a fear merchant at the time.
But I think, you know, they
rightly pointed out that people
have been very short sighted and
how they program date fields
using a two integer Date field.
So they were probably at the
forefront of advising
remediation plans and
contingency plans and that sort
of thing, and certainly were in
a leadership role in both
identifying and helping to
resolve the problem.
Unknown: Yeah, that's, that's a
fact. How has Gartner been
around?
Troy Penny: You know, I
couldn't, I couldn't tell you,
Keith, probably 40 years. Yeah,
I'm just guessing,
Keith Hawkey: yeah, I'm most
familiar with Gartner when it
comes to the magic quadrants and
how they rate vendors as that's
very near and dear to what I do
during my, you know, for my day
job. But going back to your your
career, you've been in IT
leadership for a lot of your
career. What experiences do you
think is foundationally shaped
the way that you approach it
leadership today?
Troy Penny: That's a good
question, and you know, so many
of them are really woven
together to make anyone who they
are today. You're a sum of your
experiences, but there's a
couple of things that stand out.
And one, I think, was fairly
early on in my career, when I
was implementing an ERP system
for a manufacturing organization
that had several plants in a
corporate office, and the
corporate office, as they often
do, made the decision for the
plant community that they had to
implement an ERP system. And
until then, each of the plants
sort of had their own homegrown
manufacturing systems that were
exquisitely tailored to exactly
how they did business and a
custom made suit, if you will.
So they were naturally, I think,
a little resistant to having a
one size fits all common core
system forced to fund them. And
as the leader of that
implementation, I found myself
in the position of having to
convince these stakeholders to
get on board, because we needed
their input. Obviously, we
needed to understand their
requirements, and needed to make
sure that they were engaged in
the project. And that was a
little bit of an eye opening
experience coming from the
military. If you're given a
directive, it's passed down by a
series of orders, and people
salute and obey the orders. In
the corporate world, it was a
little bit different. You had
stakeholders with a lot of both
formal and informal power within
the organization, and a plant
manager is, as you probably
know, is very much the king of
their their own feudal kingdom
there and runs that plant and
runs everything about it, and
knows everything that happens
there. So these were powerful
individuals, and I needed to get
them on board. I met with one of
the plant managers. We'll, we'll
call him Tony, it's not his real
name. And when I went in there,
I immediately was met with a
cold shoulder, with a resistance
I was the enemy from the
corporate office coming to force
this thing upon him, and I, the
first day I met with him was
really a little bit of a
disaster. I felt like we far
from having a meeting of the
minds. We've had sort of an
adversarial conversation. So I
was there for a few days at the
plant. I came back the next day
with a little bit different an
attitude, and tried to see. It
through his eyes, and frame it
from his his point of view. So
the second day, I said, Tony,
everything you said to me
yesterday makes sense. I thought
about it. I think there is a lot
of risk involved with this. I
need you to help me identify
what these risks are, and to
help me go to these other plants
and identify their risk so that
we're making sure that that you
don't have something foisted
upon you that isn't going to
work, and that we're protecting
your key functions and your key
capabilities you have. So that
really turned him around. I
think, knowing that I was
looking at it from his
perspective, and by recruiting
him to help me with this, I
think it, it changed his
attitude a little bit. And he
eventually sort of became the
plant champion on the project,
and I found more and more him
sort of shifting sides a little
bit to where he was becoming the
ERP champion, also to the plants
and helping to communicate, to
gather requirements, to identify
risk, to come up with
mitigations with all the other
plant managers. He became an
invaluable ally on that project.
And I think what I took away
from that, and how that shaped
me was an early learning that
you have to look at it through
the eyes of the business. You
can't approach it as a
technologist, maybe you can to a
certain level, if you're just
coding from a design
specification or something, but
if you're going to be in
leadership, you have to be a
business person, and you have to
think like a business person,
and you have to understand that
the deliverables you create all
have to tie back to capabilities
that are important to the
business, and ultimately those
tie back to to a strategic
objective somehow. So it was a,
I think, a key learning I had
early on, even though it was
probably the hard way to learn
Keith Hawkey: it, you bring up a
great point, Troy and and that a
lot of the evolution since the
early days that you started
managing it was very hardware
focused, very technology
focused. The further you advance
your career, unlike, well, I
guess there are some, there are
some career paths are like this,
but it's particularly striking
in technology, where you really
are married to the technology,
and you love technology, and
that's why you're in the
business. To you are only as
valuable as your relationships
within the company. At some
level, it's your your personal
relationships with being able to
bridge the gap and meet such a
plant manager that enabled you
to accomplish your mission, able
to com, accomplish the project.
I certainly think that's one of
the that's one of the skills
that most IT leaders that are
getting in, that are starting to
get into leadership, maybe they
become a manager, and they're
trying to become a director of
it and move up. It is one of the
hardest skills to learn,
especially if it goes against
your personality, because a lot
of the times you think that
you're getting into technology,
to be away from people and to be
closer to computers, right?
Troy Penny: Yeah, I've had, I've
had developers work for me in
the past that honestly love what
they did. They wanted to have
their hands on the keyboard
locked in a room writing code,
and that's fine. I mean, that
was their niche, and that's what
they love doing. But I tell my
people, if you ever want to be
in a leadership position, there
comes a point we have to start
thinking like a business person,
and and it doesn't mean you you
give up your skills,
necessarily, but you add skills
to those, and at some point, you
become more of a coach and a
mentor and a teacher and a
translator to the business. Then
you are a technologist. You have
to be able to make that
evolution,
Keith Hawkey: I'm sure in your
your your career, there's been a
time or two or an IT initiatives
gone off the rails as
Troy Penny: well. Oh sure.
Keith Hawkey: Like, here's what,
what failed first, the
technology, the process, the
people, what did you learn from
it? What's, what's, what's the
memorable experience of
something going awry.
Troy Penny: So you know when,
when something goes off the
rails like that, it seems like
it's rarely the technology and
processes. You know, processes
are as good as as they're fit
for, for the culture they're in.
Processes really reinforce
proper behavior. But. But proper
behavior sometimes has to be
adjusted. You can't always go
back to a process. So in the
early days of it, we didn't have
great processes, particularly
for projects. I mean, our models
for projects were basically the
NASA model that got us to the
moon, and everyone thought that
was pretty good, and we followed
those things as closely as we
could, but NASA was a government
organization with unlimited
money, and once again, they had
directives that vendors had to
follow, et cetera. It was a
little bit different in business
where your assumptions are
different, and some of the
decisions you make early on in a
project can come back to haunt
you if they're the wrong ones. I
was working for a company that
had a series of tugboats that
went up and down the Mississippi
River towing barges, and they
were headquartered in Nashville,
Tennessee. And the people in
Nashville needed to know where
these boats were and what they
were doing as close to real time
as possible. The current process
had the vessel captains filling
out log books, like every boat
captain does, and then mailing
copies of the log to Nashville,
which was okay, but Nashville
was getting real time events A
week later, and really didn't
have the visibility they wanted
to the activities of the
vessels. So we developed a
satellite tracking system that
we would adopt to work on the
vessels themselves, and a
computer console would be put on
the bridge of the ship. And then
for every log event that the
captain had, we assigned it a
code. So if you got gas, you
typed in 150, if you dropped off
a barge, you typed in 323, there
was a different code for every
activity you did, went through a
lock, changed rivers, etc, and
we had talked to the captains a
little bit, but really never let
them see The system that we
thought we were getting their
input, but what we didn't get
was hands on, real-world
engagement with the system and
the first boat I remember like
it was yesterday, we put the the
computer console on the bridge
of the ship that was about 10
o'clock at night, and we turned
on the monitor, big, red, white
and blue, company logo flashed
up and immediately destroyed the
captain's night vision. So he
had to get the first mate, or
whoever he was, the other guy,
back from below decks to take
over on the bridge while he went
to a dark room and restored his
night vision for some period of
time. It never crossed our minds
something like that, because
it's something that we didn't
deal with in our environment. So
we had to go back and reprogram
everything in red and black, you
know, submarine colors, so it
was low light and would protect
night vision, so the vessel
pilot could see the river at
night. So it was a little bit of
a reset for us. And the lesson
learned there was we thought our
stakeholders were the people in
Nashville, the corporate people.
They're the ones that wanted
this capability. And we thought
we would gather some
requirements and get some
knowledge from the captains of
the vessels and the pilots of
the vessels, but we never
engaged them to the extent that
we should have to really
understand their jobs. And the
lesson learned from that is the
people who set strategy aren't
the people that do the job every
day, and those people matter in
how a system is designed, how
the system is used, what the
constraints and controls in the
system have to be. So you have
to engage everyone. You engage
them to the lowest level,
because that clerk out there
that no one thinks about is
doing something specific that
the Vice President will never
even consider when he gives you
his requirements. So it really
taught me a lot about
stakeholder engagement and how
inclusive that needs to be to
develop a good solution for a
business
Keith Hawkey: that reminds me of
two of the books that you have
written on it, achieving the
Nexus. Sustain the Nexus. Do you
discuss any of these stories and
in either of your either of your
books? That seems that's
definitely one of the more
interesting it stories that I've
heard Troy, to be honest.
Troy Penny: Yeah, well, it's, it
was a school of hard knocks,
which, you know, always tell
people it's a great school, but
the tuition is really high.
That's right. So, yeah, I allude
to that. I believe in the first
book that particular story, the
the first book achieving the
Nexus. The word Nexus just means
connection, or sort of a causal
melting of two things, excuse
me. And what I was looking to
communicate with that is that
you have to achieve that
connection with the business as
an IT organization. I kept
seeing the same pattern repeated
across different companies and
teams where the IT teams would
work incredibly hard deliver a
major system. And on paper,
everything looked great. The
project was successful, but the
business didn't end up really
getting the value it expected,
and what they did get wasn't
persistent. So the central idea
of this first book is that real
success happens when the
strategy, the people, the
processes and the technology all
meet, and if one of those is
weak, you may be able to deliver
a project, but you're not going
to sustain results. So it's all
about achieving alignment with
the business, sharing goals,
sharing ownership, sharing risk,
understanding how the benefits
chain connects from the lowest
level deliverable all the way up
to the strategic objective, and
how it can enable
functionalities that help an
organization achieve objectives,
but only if they understand
them, and only if They have a
seat at the table and play that
catch ball with the various
functional areas within the
business, to understand their
pain points, understand what
they're trying to achieve, and
be able to communicate how
technology might enable them in
doing that, I rely heavily on a
lot of Peter Drucker's ideas
there that organizations that
you know share values and
behaviors and beliefs are
probably more successful even
than those that that rely
entirely on formal processes,
because, again, a process is a
means to an end. It's important.
I mean, it trains people, it
creates consistency, as long as
they're followed. But you can't
write a process for everything.
Eventually, people are going to
face ambiguous situations,
situations that may be
unpredictable, and they really
have to understand how the
business works, to know when to
deviate or when to turn right or
left on a project.
Keith Hawkey: Yeah, now that's
that's I think it's incredibly
important. It's funny enough. It
makes me think a lot about my
own company, upkalla, and how we
look for technology advisors
that meet a cultural fit above
everything else, honestly, and
when you're looking for the the
professionals that are going to
be servicing your user base and
going to be really going to war
with you, Troy, I mean, you want
that right mindset that probably
goes above and beyond any other
process and is that first mode
of action?
Troy Penny: Yeah, it's really
all about culture. Keith, it's a
culture of alignment, and it's
also a culture of excellence
that you want to create. And
culture is it's like chemistry.
People talk about it. They know
it when they see it, but it's so
difficult to achieve it. And to
me, a good culture is created
when it's it's agnostic to who's
leading it anymore. People can
come and go, but the culture
persists. You see it in sports
organizations like the Boston
Celtics or the New York Yankees
that had these internal cultures
that just transcended players as
they came and went, the
organizations were still
excellent. And I think it's it's
very similar to how you instill
values in children. You can't
prepare your children for every
situation they'll encounter. You
can't give them the right answer
to every question, but what you
can do is instill a core set of
values in them that will enable
them to make the right decision.
Education on their own, even
when they're faced with a unique
situation and culture within an
IT. Organization is all about
establishing those core values
of alignment with the business,
of ethical practices, of
collaboration, just a set of
things that become
institutionalized
Keith Hawkey: and speaking of
culture, I'd love to hear more
about the culture of these
adventure cats that that are
saving the day when they feel
like it.
Troy Penny: So I never saw
myself as a children's book
writer, and honestly, it was
kind of accidental. I used to
make up stories about our cats
and tell the grandchildren
stories about all these crazy
adventures they would go on. And
it's sort of almost the same
thing as we're talking about
before, because these are two
ordinary cats. They're They're
brothers, they're there. They
talk in the books. So they're a
little anthropomorphic, I guess,
but they have been given a set
of sound values in their home
about courage and curiosity and
loyalty and leadership, and, you
know, doing the right thing even
when it's hard to do it. And as
they're thrown into this world
of pirate ships and ghost ships
and evil wizards and everything
else they encounter, it's
probably a cross between Indiana
Jones and Johnny quest. Maybe
what they encounter, you know,
they run into some crazy
situations for two ordinary
house cats, but again, they rely
on their values. They always
come back to what's the right
thing to do. They always trust
each other. They always work
together. And the culture and
values they have usually end up
having them make the right
choice to get out of situations.
So I'm not trying to be heavy
handed or lecture children, but
I want them to accidentally
learn things not only about
values and culture, but also a
little bit about geography and
some you know myths, and you
know legends and things like
that that I try to weave into
the stories. Everything in the
stories has a basis. At least in
myth, I didn't make up any of
the places they go or or
situations they run into, they
all have a basis somewhere, so
I'm hoping that they can read a
good story and be entertained by
it, but accidentally learn
something along the way.
Keith Hawkey: And there's three
books today. Is there three or
two?
Troy Penny: There are three.
They're waiting on getting the
illustrations finalized. As I
was writing the books, I was
kind of drawing my own pictures,
and then later, towards the end
of the last book, I experimented
with using some AI image
generation. Wasn't really happy
with the results, so I had to
hire an illustrator, and she is
working on completing the
illustrations for the books.
I'll probably release all three
of them at the same time, once
the illustrations are complete,
probably later this year.
Keith Hawkey: Well, we'll make
sure to update the show notes on
this podcast, to link that then
Deborah Troy and we're coming up
on time. Really appreciate the
time you spent with us this
afternoon, and with the
incredible storytelling and
finding out with your you know,
your other passion, passion with
fighting for the younger
generation. Is there anything
you'd like to leave with, is
there a message that you think
is not that would differentiate
the successful technology
leaders from the rest we have a
younger audience listening
sometime.
Troy Penny: Well, a lot of what
I said I think helps to
differentiate successful
leaders. I think culture values,
people, business, alignment, all
those things are critical. But
if I had to think of one thing
that's often overlooked, I think
it's understanding what your
North Star is. Understand what
what is guiding your business.
If someone asks you, Why are you
in business? The answer you'll
hear most often is to make
money, to create shareholder
value, all those kinds of
things. But maybe I'm often left
field here, but I've always kind
of considered those things
necessary byproducts of what
you're really doing. Think about
it. Why does a hospital. Will
exist. They want to make money,
but they really exist to provide
good care for patients and
improve the quality of life for
people that need doctors. Why
does Harsco rail exist? Well,
we're here to provide safe,
reliable, environmentally
sensitive infrastructure that
supports transportation of
people and products all over the
world. If you look at that as
the reason for your existence,
that means something that's more
than just hitting a revenue
number. It motivates people. I
think the way a profit target
never will. It gives importance
to your job, and that's everyone
in the company, from the
security guard up to the present
president. So I would say that
understanding your North Star,
and even if, if you're not in
business, if you're in business
for yourself, if you're retired,
if you're still looking for the
right job. What is your personal
North Star? What? What is the
reason you're doing what you're
doing? Is it to have a family?
Is it to you know, improve
yourself? Is it to you know,
reach a certain freedom in life?
So whatever that North Star is
always keep it in mind and
always keep centered on it, and
let that be your guide. Let that
be your your measuring stick for
everything you're doing.
Keith Hawkey: It's incredibly
well said. Troy, again, really
appreciate your time. Encourage
everyone listening to find your
North Star, and we will see you
next time on the IT Matters
podcast, Thank you, Keith.
Aaron Bock: Thank you for
listening, and we appreciate you
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