Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Best Ever Podcast with Scott Eblin is your insider’s guide to what it takes to lead at the highest level at work, at home, and in your community. Each week, Scott sits down with remarkable leaders for real, revealing conversations about the mindset shifts, self-management habits, and everyday routines that fuel extraordinary leadership impact. Drawing on his 25 years of experience as a top executive coach, Scott brings a coach’s lens to every episode to help you bridge the gap between intention and action.
Scott - 00:00:10:
Welcome to Best Ever, the show where we explore how effective self-management creates the foundation for positive leadership outcomes. I'm Scott Eblin, and in every episode, I sit down with notable leaders to uncover the routines, mindset shifts, and strategies that have helped them lead at the highest level, and the difference that's made for their organizations, families, and communities. Today, I'm excited to be talking with digital innovator and leader, Donagh Herlihy. Following a stellar career as a Senior Executive and Chief Digital and Information Officer in companies like Wrigley, Avon, Bloomin Brands, and Subway, Donagh is now drawing on all of that experience to serve as an advisor to Incept, a company that is deploying artificial intelligence to streamline the ordering process for restaurants. Originally from Ireland, Donagh has established a global reputation as a transformational leader who leverages technology to improve the customer experience, employee satisfaction, and drive growth. All right, Donagh Herlihy, welcome to Best Ever.
Donagh - 00:01:14:
Hey, Scott, thanks. Great to be with you after 15 years since our last conversation.
Scott - 00:01:19:
Yeah, the audience should know that I first met you when I was working on my book, The Next Level, and you were kind enough to give me an awesome interview for that book, which is still out there in the world today as part of the book and your insights. And so great to have you here and be a guest on Best Ever, my newest project, so to speak. So I want to start kind of at the beginning with you. You grew up in Ireland and studied industrial engineering at Trinity College. I've had the opportunity to go to Trinity College, beautiful campus. What was the path that led you to the U.S. and a career in... Being this technology innovator that has focused on transforming the way companies do business. How were there early experiences or mentors that set you on that course?
Donagh - 00:02:04:
As a degree, serendipity is a college kid in Dublin. I went to Boston the last two summers I was in college and I worked, I actually worked in a shipyard, which no longer exists in Boston, but. Refurbishing U.S. Navy frigates. And I was struck by the cliche being true, the land of opportunity, working with blue collar people, great lifestyle, good standard of living, their kids going to college, two car families, taking vacations. And, you know, I looked at the U.S. and I went, this is really a great place to build a life. And so years later, after about a decade working in the UK in the automotive industry, and then for, you know, a big, ironically, a big Boston company, Gillette, I said to the leadership of the company, hey, if and when the right opportunities come in Boston at the global headquarters. I'm interested, sign me up, I'll take a chance, I'll go over. And so, you know, about 12 years into my career in the UK in the late 90s, I was running technology for a division of Gillette in Europe, and they called me and they said, hey, we have an opportunity for you in Boston. The opportunity wasn't even a sideways move. It was really a step back in terms of level. Um, And, you know, unlike, I think some folks I went, okay, I'm not thrilled. It's a step back in level, but it gets me to the right place. It gets me around the right people. Um. I'll do it, but I want to do more when I get there. And so, you know, I was in Boston for about a year doing a staff job, actually outside of technology, working for the head of manufacturing, doing a staff job in planning and Gillette bought DuraCell. And. Probably because I kept reminding people I had spare capacity when they moved the CIO of Duracell. Out into a different role, they said to me, keep the job you're doing, but I want you to go down to Connecticut and help us integrate Duracell. Take on the role as the CIO of Duracell, which I did. So I ended up double-heading, but You know, looking back, it was, a willingness to put building a career and experiences ahead of, next paycheck or the next job grade. Right. I was open to the opportunity, despite the fact that, initially it wasn't progress.
Scott - 00:04:46:
Like you said, that's unusual. Why do you think you took that approach? What was the long-term view that you had to step back occasionally to go forward?
Donagh - 00:04:56:
My overarching desire was to live in this land of opportunity to work with these people. You know, if you think about... English culture and English business culture in the 80s. We had executive dining rooms that were separated from staff dining rooms that were separated from the factory floor, the blue collar working cafeteria. We had an environment where you would talk with and meet with your own boss, but you rarely saw the people above your boss. It was very hierarchical. There was a, I call it veneer of politeness. I felt suppressed issues, business issues. People were being too polite around problems. And then, you know, when I started working for Gillette, albeit in the European headquarters, I started seeing... Business leaders coming over, American business leaders, extremely informal, very direct, inclusive. Um, and I went, that's the way I want to work. If there's a problem, call it out and you know, let's not be political or polite, let's get together and solve an issue. And that's kind of how I'm wired. So I wanted to be in that environment. And I trusted that if I got into the environment, I could make my way into a role that was fulfilling.
Scott - 00:06:20:
Was your childhood family blue collar or were more of my collar?
Donagh - 00:06:24:
My mom was a teacher, a high school teacher. My dad was a scientist working for the Irish government. Middle class, well-educated parents. They believed in education as, you know, the route to prosperity and fulfillment. So, you know, from that point of view, I was privileged. But I hankered for a working environment where I could really be myself.
Scott - 00:06:50:
Yeah, that's really interesting because one of the questions I wanted to ask you, you know, be yourself, where you just landed a minute ago. Over the course of this long, very successful career, you've had lots of different industries, lots of different companies. Very senior levels, what do you think the top three to five words are that... People who worked with you, people that were on your teams. Have used to describe you as a leader in a person, you know, just, Donagh is this, that, and the other.
Donagh - 00:07:25:
Fun. Sense of humor is critical. So definitely fun, impatient. We can never go too fast. But, you know, as I've gotten older, I've gotten, I've understood the. Unintended consequence, the shadow of the leader better in terms of, you know, driving sense of urgency. I think they'd say I always have their back. So it's safe. If I'm leading a function or a team or a geography, it's safe for the people in my team to screw up because I'll own it. Obviously, I think that also say he's decisive on talent. So, and part of owning it is, is really understanding the capabilities of the team and making the changes you need to make. But they'd say I have their bank. And that I, and that I, you know, I think another thing they would say is he comes at tech from the front lines of the business.
Scott - 00:08:30:
Hmm.
Donagh - 00:08:31:
And I think that goes back to starting my career. As an engineer on, you know, factory floors in the automotive industry and then later on in supply chain management using technology before actually went into technology as a practitioner, I always felt I brought a lot of value to my teams by bringing, um, the issue and articulating the issue or the problem to be solved through, through the eyes of the end user.
Scott - 00:09:05:
How did this is something I actually wanted to talk about a little bit later, but let's just jump to it now. We talked before we started recording and following you for the last several years on LinkedIn when you were the chief innovation officer, I believe, and digital officer for Subway. Do I have the title right?
Donagh - 00:09:22:
You've expanded it, but yeah, chief technology officer.
Scott - 00:09:27:
Okay, good. You'll take the innovation piece.
Donagh - 00:09:29:
I'll take the innovation as well.
Scott - 00:09:30:
Yeah. I remember a photo that you posted on LinkedIn, I believe, of you and a few other senior executives from Subway. And you were making sandwiches, right?
Donagh - 00:09:40:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:09:40:
You were behind the counter. You were a sandwich artist for the day.
Donagh - 00:09:44:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:09:44:
And I thought it was a great photo. And a lot of times you see photos like that. It is kind of a grip and grin kind of photo op on LinkedIn. How often did you get out to the front lines at Subway, and what were the particular benefits of that?
Donagh - 00:10:01:
Yeah, well, the photo was actually me and other sandwich artists. And it was before I joined Subway and when I agreed to join Subway and I got the usual, you know, our head of HR sent a very thoughtful orientation plan and the usual meet and greets with the executive team and other key staff. And I said, look, before I go there, before I walk into the building on day one, I want to work in restaurants for a few days. So one of the franchisees in St. Petersburg, where I live, was kind enough to. Let me into his restaurant, didn't tell the other staff what my role was. And I went in there as a trainee and I learned how to the point of sale. I used how to baked bread, I learned how to make a sandwich, I learned about the health and safety and cleanliness regime, everything. Really fun. And of course, it gave me a lot of insights as to friction in the experience for the guests, friction for the experience of the sandwich hours and the frontline worker. And so it was a really easy way. And it's something I do time and time again when I'm starting with a company. I want to arrive that first week or two with good questions about why do we do things certain ways? And I come at that through being the guest and being the frontline worker and having those insights and bringing them into the conversations.
Scott - 00:11:31:
You know a lot of other people that have had roles like yours in different companies. How usual or unusual is that approach in your experience to spend the first week or two out on the front line?
Donagh - 00:11:42:
Look, I think now it's quite common. For leaders to go out and, you know, in the restaurant industry, you'll sometimes hear this term, listening tour. So go out, visit restaurants, talk to managers, have conversations. That's super valuable. And that's something that myself, my team would do several times a year is get out there and be with our franchisees in the case of Subway and our consumers. I find it even more valuable though, versus listening or observing is actually doing the job. You know, it's more visceral when you're doing the job and you have a, let's say, a lunchtime rush and you're struggling over how to redeem a loyalty member's reward on the point of sale.
Scott - 00:12:34:
Punch the card.
Donagh - 00:12:36:
And it's no longer punch the card. It's all digital. And there's 15 people and you can't find the right screen on the point of sale to complete the transaction. You don't have to take notes. You're going to remember that for the rest of your life. It's visceral and then the energy and the insight that you can bring back to your team with these visceral experiences, I think is super valuable.
Scott - 00:13:01:
How important is it to refresh that perspective? And what's the right cadence for refreshing that frontline perspective, do you think, for a senior executive?
Donagh - 00:13:10:
Look, I think... We think in quarters a lot in business, and I think quarterly is fine. How fast is the world moving? But you're always going to get new insights. You're always going to get new insights.
Scott - 00:13:27:
Yeah. A few minutes ago when I was asking you to describe or to check off how other people describe you, the first thing you said was fun. And then I think you used the word again in the sandwich artist experience story. So that's obviously something that's a big one for you. What does it take? What's the role? Let me ask it this way. What's the role of fun in leadership? That was your number one answer. How does that play out? The practice of leadership.
Donagh - 00:14:00:
Humanizing people You know, it's a tremendous way to humanize a leader. We mentioned, prior to the call, you mentioned that you knew John Chidsey. John was the CEO at Subway. John recruited me to Subway. John, as all CEOs do, intentionally or unintentionally, John created the culture at Subway. It was a function of his style, his priorities, his preferences as a leader, conscious and unconscious. He did it very consciously. And John brought four core values to Subway. One of the core values was fun. Hmm. If you're gonna do the work and you're not having fun, it's not gonna be your best work. So fun's important from that point of view. For me, it just humanizes. It de-risks the relationship. Between people if you can get past just the transactional business part, have fun together, understand each other, build relationships, build trust.
Scott - 00:15:07:
How do you make fun feel authentic versus the forced fun that we sometimes see in a corporate environment?
Donagh - 00:15:14:
Oh, and when I say fun, Scott, I'm not talking about, hey, everybody must go to Topgolf on Friday afternoon. We all must be together for three hours. That has its role. Hopefully it's organic that's organized by the team and not the boss. Um, for me, the, the fun is in the humor. I have drive with the, thankfully most Americans do understand somewhat, but I have a lot of humor and informality when I'm working with people in meetings and, um, people get to know me that way and they see the human side.
Scott - 00:15:54:
Is it sort of take the work seriously, but it'll take yourself seriously? Is that perhaps a summation?
Donagh - 00:15:59:
Exactly. That's why you're a coach and I'm not.
Scott - 00:16:06:
Pithy summaries. That's my specialty. I learned that at Davidson with John Chitze, liberal arts. So, talking about agility. How do you cultivate agility within teams? What have you learned about that over the years? And I'm really curious about, are there learning strategies that you have both for yourself and for the teams that you've led over the years? To stay agile and and flexible.
Donagh - 00:16:39:
Great question. And it's not... It's not to me about processes or agile ceremonies or certain roles like scrum masters or tools. It's really a mindset. A mindset of experimentation over analysis paralysis. It's a mindset of, you know, open, transparent communication across people and teams. It's a mindset of empowerment for the team, but the team also being willing to take accountability. And it's not easy because especially if you're in a culture where let's say it was more paternalistic or hierarchical or command and control in terms of management style, and you're trying to create empowered, self-directed, more autonomous end-to-end teams to pursue certain missions. People embrace the words, but then having been trained to go to their boss, to get their direction, to get their... You know, priorities or whatever, to switch that mindset in a group of people to, you know, here's the mission, but you've got to sequence the work. You've got to plan it. And you've got to build the plan. You've got to own the plan. When you hit obstacles, you've got to adjust the plan. And you've got to take that empowerment that actually takes some training. Training is an accelerator at times. You learn on the job, but you learn faster if you're brought through a process. And that's where I think there's lots of firms out there who can do that work to shift people's attitudes and mindsets to a mindset that is compatible with being agile.
Scott - 00:18:40:
Yeah, the phrase that came to mind was you're describing the challenge of this as culture change. Does that... Land?
Donagh - 00:18:48:
Yeah, it really is culture change. It's very hard to... Do agile in a silo. And so, you know, if your enterprise... Has a certain command control traditional structure and culture. And the CTO or some other functional leader wants their team to operate as an agile team, there's going to be constant friction between the team and the rest of the organization.
Scott - 00:19:19:
What was the biggest culture change you had to lead in your career, kind of related to everything you've just said? And what was the outcome of that? Where did you start and where did you end on the culture change?
Donagh - 00:19:31:
Well, if I take Subway as the most recent and freshest. Transformation and if I boil it down to what we did in. The technology organization. Subway was lagging restaurant, you know, fast food, QSR restaurant competitors in their use of technology. The team had been moved around between different leaders. Um, it had gone through a couple of, um, layoffs. It had gone through a big outsourcing process. So when I got there, there was a lot of. Skepticism. The remaining team about any new direction or any new leader because they had several leaders over the years with shifts in direction you know, the... The unfortunate reality was a prior leader had done a round of layoffs and said that was it. And I'd come back six months later and said, you know what, we got to go again. And it's that mistake you see made over and over where you promise something you can't deliver on. And so all I did at the beginning, my first town hall, my first day, I said, Hey, this is me. This is my family. This is my, what I value. It was May, May 2021, and we were losing. You know, our team was about 150 people internally, 1,500 externally. We were losing about five a week. We had 40% open positions. And so it was bleeding talent because the talent didn't trust leadership and didn't trust the direction yet. And all I said at that first meeting is, it's going to be a good year. We're on track to hit our budget. Please give me till next March and stay for the bonus. And if you still don't like it in March, leave. Leave it my blessing. And so I begged people to stay. And of course, people kept leaving, but in lower numbers. And then what I started doing, my whole focus that first six months was hiring. Bringing in really good leaders. I changed out all of the leaders except one who reported to me. I brought in new leaders who I'd worked in many cases I'd worked with before. That was a tremendous advantage. So I knew and trusted them. Then you entrusted me, but they, they had a similar value set. And, you know, we just worked through a process of then bringing people through the organization. Every two months, we'd have a town hall. We'd have a slide. Here are all the people we promoted since the last town hall. Here's all the people who have new jobs since the last town hall. Here's people who have new certifications. And we instilled a culture of gratitude. Um, and I'm, I, my inner critic is loud in my head all the time and every day. And I can therefore be critical also of. Things around me um We brought a culture of gratitude. We would have shout outs where team members in town halls would stand up spontaneously, thank another team member in another function for work they did or how they helped them get a job done. And we just kept building on, we're going to be grateful for the effort. We're not going to be critical.
Scott - 00:23:09:
That's such a powerful idea. How did you land on gratitude? As the glue, really, that brought everybody together.
Donagh - 00:23:18:
I just knew that gratitude made me better.
Scott - 00:23:21:
Mm.
Donagh - 00:23:23:
You know, if I went into the office and I coached out of curiosity and gratitude versus criticism, if I went into the office and I made it a priority every day to thank people for what they did. Which doesn't come naturally. I, it, it's not innate, but it's a habit. If I make that a habit, then other people start doing it. Other people in my organization start doing it. It's the shadow of the leader. It’s the, the force multiplier of that habit. And... It's so important because we all want to feel a crescent.
Scott - 00:24:04:
How did you keep yourself honest on that effort of gratitude? Did you have a personal scorecard or chart that you were using? Like how many times you've said thank you today? I mean, you said it's not natural for you, but it sounds like it became natural.
Donagh - 00:24:18:
Not that structured. Yeah, not that structured, but actually, I'll fess up. It was a repeating calendar entry at 8 o'clock every morning. First thing I'd see in my calendar would be that word. And I learned from my own outside work, my own well-being. I have a practice now, look, I'm 61. So As anyone at my age, I've had some ailments over the years. I start each morning. Thanking God, for the resolution of various physical ailments. And then I thank him for the relationships with my family, and then I thank him for our health and prosperity. And so, I find if I start the day, with that mindset it's better for me. If it's better for me, it's going to be better for the people who interact with me, and then the other thing, for me in terms of being my best self. You know, exercise in the middle of the day, you've had a morning, you've had a bunch of meetings. It might be starting to wear you down. You might have a big issue. You might be grinding on something or stressed about something. Going to the gym at lunchtime. Disconnecting from the problem, getting a different perspective by not thinking about the problem, by focusing on something completely different. Like, can I do a plank for however long? And coming back, re-energize physically, but also with a better perspective, a broader perspective in the afternoon. So very simple tactics, which I'm a believer in the power of habits.
Scott - 00:26:01:
Mm-hmm.
Donagh - 00:26:02:
You know, I never think about going to the gym. There's no internal debate. There's no mental friction. I pick up my bag and I go on autopilot. Same thing with my morning gratitude or other things I do. If I can make it a habit after a week or two, it's unconscious. I'm just doing it.
Scott - 00:26:20:
Yeah, I mean, you're touching on something so near and dear to my heart. It's really kind of the premise of this whole show is the... Connection between self-management and routines like the daily workout routines, like the daily reflection on what you're grateful for. And the impact that has on your leadership. So since we're already talking about it. So daily workouts, daily gratitude, reflection, what else? Probably small, simple things are you doing on a regular basis that you find? Have helped, not just now that you're retired, but I want to talk in a minute about what you're doing with Insep. Over the course of your career, what other personal routines have you had that you think have made an impact on the way you've shown up for your team, but also your family and friends and anybody else in your world?
Donagh - 00:27:10:
Yeah, I mean, I really enjoy socializing. With my colleagues.
Scott - 00:27:16:
Mm-hmm.
Donagh - 00:27:17:
Um, yeah. Made easier in some cases, you know, when I was working at Subway. Our two headquarters were Connecticut and Miami. Well, I don't live near either. I'm inevitably going back to hotel room most nights of the week. Um, so easier for me, but a lot of team dinners or happy hours at the end of the day, just getting together, um, being convivial, getting to know people, getting to know them outside of work. Is another habit. And it's a fun thing to do.
Scott - 00:27:52:
Yeah. Yeah. I've thought a lot while we've been talking, Donagh, about the idea of psychological safety. You know, you used the word safe a little while ago.
Donagh - 00:28:01:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:28:02:
You know, it sounds like whether you were using that, it's from Amy Edmondson at Harvard. I think she's usually credited with coining the phrase psychological safety. But it sounds like you've really done that a lot throughout your career, try to make it safe for people to. Take a risk and fail and learn from that and so forth. And sometimes, though, especially in technology as big as an enabler of growth and customer satisfaction and employee experience and everything else that it can help. Sometimes it can lead to really big fiascos. I'm thinking of Sonos. I have a Sonos system in my house, and they updated their app, I think, a year ago. And just, I don't know how many hundreds of millions of dollars they've lost since that app was updated because it just basically froze people's system for months on end. So there's a big risk associated with this as well. I'd love to hear, has there been like a big miss or a near miss in your career as a technologist? If there was, how did you recover from it? How did you keep your team feeling like? Going to be okay. We're going to get through this and it's going to be better on the other side.
Donagh - 00:29:14:
Yeah, I mean, before I answer that, going back to... The agile mindset as opposed to the agile processes or procedures. We came up with a hashtag we used, #safetotry. So sitting around a table discussing a solution or a feature or a product or a strategy or whatever. Instead of slowly analyzing an endless PowerPoint in meetings, what's safe to try? The beauty of digital is most things can be created as an experiment. Right. So one example, I'll go back to subway again, more as, as it's more recent. One example in, in the context of fast food restaurants, we see now in most fast food restaurants, kiosks in in-store kiosks, you go up and you no longer talk to somebody, you tap away at a large screen, you pay, you go, um, they bring all sorts of advantages to the retailer. There was a strong belief in Subway. The kiosks were not a good fit to our brand. You know, smaller stores. Smaller staff. Very customized product, not a fit. We could have spent the next three years debating it back and forth across the executive table, trying to find proof points, bringing in consultants. Instead, we created a low-cost experiment, an experiment that didn't need an investment, where we found a vendor, we found some willing restaurants in Europe, as it turned out. And we got the vendor to put the kiosks into our restaurants, and then we essentially faked the experience for the guests. The kiosk wasn't connected to the point of saying. We had a wire running to a printer that printed out every kiosk order beside the point of sale, and it was being rekeyed.
Scott - 00:31:26:
Uh-huh.
Donagh - 00:31:27:
That allowed us to quickly test the concept from a consumer benefit. Without investing in engineering. Without taking six months to build all of these APIs and test them and scale them. So my challenge is always, how do we do a low cost, reasonably high fidelity experiment? And that gets you to agility. Now you're unblocking decisions. Is this safe to try? Yes, we can go into 40 restaurants. We can run wires, buy 40 printers. It's not that expensive. We can test the process. Let's put it this way, the kiosk was a winning proposition.
Scott - 00:32:09:
Okay.
Donagh - 00:32:10:
So then we brought it in house. We built our own kiosk platform.
Scott - 00:32:14:
All right.
Donagh - 00:32:14:
Fully integrated.
Scott - 00:32:16:
There you go.
Donagh - 00:32:17:
Tech leaders have plenty of misses to talk about. It's a bit like being a hitter in baseball. You know? Um... And so that whole notion of How can you make a lot of small bets? Or small tests and then searches the winning product, the winning feature, the winning content, the winning idea, strategy, whatever. That's been a huge benefit in the latter part of my career. Going back to your questions about agile and an agile culture and an agile mindset. Versus, you know, I started my career when tech projects were monolithic things. You bought a mainframe, you wrote a ton of code, you stood up a system, it either worked or it didn't. You didn't know it worked till it went live. And so we've had the benefit of cloud computing that unlocks a certain amount of scale up, scale down, test and learn capability. And then that married with, you know, the agile philosophies, de-risks it. But um... I, context, I'll give you one personal example. Earlier in my career, when I was in Gillette in London, we built for our European business, essentially a sales data warehouse, what we would call today data warehouse or analytics platform. But it was at a scale that was leading edge for its day. We built it. Our European leadership was thrilled. Um I got an email from the CIO of Gillette in Boston and the CFO of Gillette saying, Hey, we'd like you to come over and present this to us. And, you know, I basically went over to Boston and take a victory lap of, Hey, we built this great platform and you know, everybody in Europe loves it. And. You know, this is, this is a win and. An attaboy and what i got instead was i was rebuked i was rebuked because in parallel with the effort that i led in europe entire corporation at a corporate headquarters level global headquarters level was down the path to build a similar capability for the enterprise. And I was rebuked and I was shocked and it was, I was rebuked because I had duplicated effort. Right. And so the lesson for me was lift yourself up and broaden your perspective. What is the enterprise? What's the mission? Who do you need to be talking to to understand if there's something you can reuse or you can share resources and collaborate? And, you know, that lesson stood me in good stead because about a year later. The Gillette company decided to shut down data centers all across Europe. There were data centers in every country. It was back in the days where, you know, the general manager of France had his data center with his mainframe. In Italy it is and so on. And other colleagues were resisting this. It was giving up a piece of turf. I remembered the rebuke. I went, I'm with the program, how can I help? I volunteered our division to be the first division to collapse and centralize. And we did. That was, quite later on I understood I got the job at Duracell. That big moment was this guy's team player. He's going to collaborate. He's got the good of the enterprise in his heart not his silo of his geography his function.
Scott - 00:36:06:
You used to work for another person I interviewed for the Next Level, Lucien Alziari at Avon. And one of the things that Lucien shared with me in my interview with him years ago for The Next Level was the people who succeed at the executive level are the ones that could have a business first, function second kind of mindset, which is exactly what you exhibited in that story, right?
Donagh - 00:36:30:
But I had to learn the lesson the hard way.
Scott - 00:36:32:
Yeah, yeah.
Donagh - 00:36:33:
I had to learn the lesson. We had this discussion at Subway, and it surfaced an interesting concept for me. And the question that was posed is, who is your first team?
Scott - 00:36:46:
Right. Talk about that.
Donagh - 00:36:51:
You know, in my case as the CTO, was my first team. My technology leadership team. Or was it the executive leadership team? And the unlock was, it's the executive leadership team. That's my first team. My second team is my function. My first team is the enterprise and those relationships.
Scott - 00:37:14:
Mm-hmm. Sounds like an obvious question, but I'd love to hear an answer. What's the benefit of having that mindset? What outcomes are possible by taking the first team approach?
Donagh - 00:37:25:
Well, it makes me or any of the member of that leadership team just a better conduit, a better representation of the issues, the priorities, the dynamics of the whole enterprise for your function. Your function is just a better function. It's like having the CEO leading every function. If their lieutenants are, you know, executive team first, cross-functional, enterprise first, it's not about my project. It's not about my budget. You're a much more powerful leader to your team. They understand why we're doing things as opposed to what we're doing.
Scott - 00:38:08:
It's a lot easier to get more meaningful things done too. Right. Yeah.
Donagh - 00:38:13:
And everything is so cross-functionally collaborative, Scott. Mm-hmm. You know, and especially in my world, but I can't think whether you're the chief legal officer or the head of sales or the head of tech, it doesn't matter. We all touch every other function. We can all impair or accelerate the progress of every other part of the business. And so if you're not just woven into the business cross-functionally. You're not an affected leader. You're creating an effective silo, but you're not creating an effective engine for positive change.
Scott - 00:38:50:
I am so glad you brought up that idea first, team. That's such an important... Worldview to take and way to operate. I want to come back. This is actually a pretty decent pivot off the subway kiosk story and bringing technology into the ordering process. You've recently joined the board of advisors at an artificial intelligence-based company called Incept. I've got a follow-up question here, but just to set the table, what's the big idea behind NCEP? If you could explain it for us in a minute or so.
Donagh - 00:39:23:
Yeah, Incept.ai is the company, a great startup, two very good founders, good pedigree. The problem they're trying to solve... Which relates to the industry I've just left, the restaurant industry is high fidelity and AI chat bot for voice ordering. Be it, I'm phoning in a pizza order, I'm... Sitting in my car at a drive through talking into a, um, a microphone and an ordering in that mode. The challenge and There have been solutions released over the last several years to this opportunity. The challenge, one of the challenges for those solutions is order accuracy. And the biggest impact on our accuracy is background noise and, and distorting. The bots understanding of the conversation because of other background noise. And the secret sauce these guys are developing, have developed, is a way and a set of algorithms that manages and filters out signal from noise better than anyone else.
Scott - 00:40:38:
Okay, so it's sort of like noise-canceling headphones for the ordering system.
Donagh - 00:40:43:
Yeah, exactly. And so with that, and of course, then if you have also, it feels natural, it feels professional, it feels friendly as you're interacting with this chatbot, which it does. And it always asks the right questions. It always asks the suitable upsell or cross-sell questions at the right time. And it's always accurate. That's a better experience for the guest. And it's obviously a better experience for the restaurant owner who's getting incremental revenue. And by the way, it's not all about labor saving, but labor is expensive. And if you can deploy humans to do more interesting work than sit with a headset listening to... Drive-through orders all day long. Run a better restaurant get them to do something that improves the proud hood You know?
Scott - 00:41:35:
Yeah. I felt like, so we're recording this in April of 2025. And I think back to last year, 2024, and I... Concluded pretty early last year that it was the year of artificial intelligence. Every client company I was working with, that was the conversation all year long last year was AI. This year, probably the same thing, just more of it. How do you think AI is going to change the practice of leadership, or for that matter, self-management? I mean, you're a person that's been around technology your whole life professionally. Sure you've thought about it. What's the human impact? Good or for bad related to AI as it relates to leadership and everything else on the human side.
Donagh - 00:42:23:
So many, and I, I remember when I was at Avon. We were in an executive meeting and we uncovered the Asia region. So Avon was a big global company. We had supply chain and manufacturing and sales and distribution all around the world. There was a supply chain problem and the folks in Asia figured out how to solve it. But it was a solution that the rest of the company could use. We didn't know about it and it came up, you know, in a conversation. The head of sales sat there at the executive table and said, If only Avon knew what Avon knew. And it stuck in my mind and it was a way of articulating, all it, what if we all knew everything that is to know within that, just within the four walls of our companies. If that knowledge and experience was instantly discoverable. You could query it. You could learn from it. What force multiplier would that be? And so, I mean, that's in our hands right now. We can do that now with, with AI, we can put AI engines over our content. It can reason it, it can deliver to our people. And so, you know, that's a very short-term incremental change to business, but it's going to make people's lives, easier and it's going to make solutioning problems faster. Nothing is groundbreaking as, you know, developing new compounds for to cure diseases, which is, you know, the other end of the spectrum, but what's probably more exciting. And on self-management, imagine, you know, I've been privileged since. In my late 20s, I've always had an assistant. Manage the calendar, set up the meetings, book the flights and hotels, whatever, screen the phone calls, react to non-urgent emails if needed. Everybody can have that now. Everybody can have agents that will be even more effective than our EAs traditionally were. And well. you know, so, you know, as somebody coming into the workforce now, it's going to be very different experience.
Scott - 00:44:49:
Yeah. The phrase I've heard-
Donagh - 00:44:51:
In terms of the existence, you know?
Scott - 00:44:54:
The phrase I've heard a lot in podcast interviews and elsewhere lately is AI is the worst right now that it's ever going to be.
Donagh - 00:45:03:
Exactly.
Scott - 00:45:03:
You know, it's just going to get better and better from a... Efficacy standpoint. What's your favorite way to use it personally? You just talked about the scheduling and all that, but in addition to that, what's your favorite personal application of AI?
Donagh - 00:45:20:
I'm generally trying to discover how to do something. So for example, yesterday I'm buying a car in Florida. I want to ship it to North Carolina. It's going to be registered North Carolina. I don't know what the process is, but it's very easy for me to go into an AI bot and go, hey, this is what I'm doing. I don't know how to do it. Tell me how to do it. And it's a beautiful thing. And then of course, I discovered, you know, I have a great plan because it's given me like the seven steps I need to follow. And, um, I call the dealer and it's wrong on one of the steps. So to your earlier point, um. You know. It's not perfect, but it removes so much friction for me in my life for discovering how to do something I don't know how to do, or even something simple. I met with an entrepreneur. This week who wanted my input on, on, um, their business and their product. It was nice for me to go and say, Hey, I know, I know certain things I want to talk to this entrepreneur about, but. Remind me, what are the 10 things I should probe if I'm looking at a new business venture? I was like, okay. I knew eight of those. They were in my head. Oh, those two things I'd forgotten about. I should probe those.
Scott - 00:46:51:
Yeah.
Donagh - 00:46:52:
You know, so it's an extra brain and an extra piece of memory for me.
Scott - 00:46:56:
Yeah, I find the same thing in my work. Kind of on that point, and we're just about at time, I want to honor that with you for sure. You know, AI is the... Biggest and newest topic of conversation in the technical space, technology space. What advice would you offer to non-technical executive leaders who want to spark transformation, digital-based transformation to organizations like... They don't have the background that you have. They haven't had the experience that you've had. But are there specific skills or mindsets that they should cultivate in themselves? Maybe in their teams to... To make the most of that opportunity, that digital transformation opportunity.
Donagh - 00:47:41:
We've talked a lot. In my career about change management.
Scott - 00:47:46:
Mm.
Donagh - 00:47:47:
Mm-hmm. And transformation is not change. Change is incremental. Change management principles, we've all studied them. Transformation, when we say transformation, it means to me it's going to impact. In a fundamental way the enterprise. It's a business model shift. It's a change in strategy. It may... Be visible as a digital platform? But the digital platform is just the surface of this bigger change, a change which If it's not executed well, it's going to derail. Business. And so my number one question, when people are going into that transformation would be, is the CEO the sponsor? Is the CEO driving it? Is the CEO making it a top three priority? Is the CEO committed to the funding and the resourcing? Is the CEO committed to the testing? Is the CEO understanding, that there will be disappointments and failures along the way. But that's part of the process of test-learn iterate, um, and, and if you're not seeing that, it's going to be still born sooner or later. There will be a bad quarter, reality that it's not the top priority will become apparent when you're asked to pare back or delay or cut scope. Digital transformation is like culture. It's inevitable. That it has to come from the very top leader and then the one team, that executive team also has to be bought in.
Scott - 00:49:37:
Starts at the top. Yeah.
Donagh - 00:49:39:
Right. Because if not, inevitably, there are tough moments in digital transformation or any transformation. There are tough moments. And when the tough moment comes. If the very top of the organization isn't committed and everyone else isn't rolling in the same direction, it's going to become, Hey, this isn't working, let's change course.
Scott - 00:49:58:
Yeah. Yeah. You've had this quite amazing, exciting, sometimes demanding, sounds like most of the time, fun career. Now you're into a different phase. Your next chapter is what are your hopes or intentions in different arenas? You're still active professionally, but also... Home life, community life, what is good to great look like for you over the next 10 years?
Donagh - 00:50:25:
It's uncertain, Scott. I mean, I'm three months into my second retirement. What I'm doing this time is giving myself more space for serendipity. You know, the first time I retired, I... I schedule myself heavily. Days for investing, days for nonprofit work, days for other work or advice. So I've taken on a couple of advisory things. So far, it's about relationships. I spent a month in Australia with my wife in January, having been away from home so much recently. That was great. I've had two trips home to Europe to see family in February and March. It's a lot about that. And then... The reality is living in St. Petersburg and with a second home in Asheville, North Carolina, I live in two communities that have been. Tremendously disrupted by hurricanes and are still recovering.
Scott - 00:51:26:
Same hurricane in that case, right? I mean, you got St. Petersburg first and then moved up to North Carolina.
Donagh - 00:51:32:
Yeah, Helene, you know, so my neighborhood, about 50% of the homes are empty. Because they got flooded and they're still remediating. And you know, Asheville is in a different, and Western North Carolina, different situation, but equally bad. And so the opportunity to help and give back and volunteer there is compelling. And, you know, I love business. I'm going to stay connected with business.
Scott - 00:51:56:
Yeah.
Donagh - 00:51:56:
Just not full time.
Scott - 00:51:58:
Yeah, I love it. So my last question I always like to ask folks, kind of an off-the-wall question, what's been in your ears lately? In other words, are there... Podcasts or other resources that come through your earbuds that you're listening to, inspiring your thinking, shaping your thinking.
Donagh - 00:52:16:
Yeah, I just finished the... So I do a lot of Audible. And I do podcasts, but I listen to a lot of audio books. Um, so I just finished yesterday on my walk. The book on NVIDIA, The NVIDIA Way.
Scott - 00:52:34:
Oh, wow. Okay.
Donagh - 00:52:35:
Which is tremendous. Well written, very engaging. And I'm going to sound geeky now. They're not all about tech, but I've just started Source Code by Bill Gates, which is his autobiography.
Scott - 00:52:49:
Yeah, that sounds like a fabulous book.
Donagh - 00:52:50:
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott - 00:52:52:
What was the big takeaway from the NVIDIA book for you? What did you learn that you didn't know?
Donagh - 00:52:59:
I learned the courage of. And going back to your question on digital transformation, what he's done is digital transformation on the greatest level maybe we've ever seen. But NVIDIA was a successful graphics chip manufacturer, designer manufacturer. And growing nicely margins, growing nicely public company. He had the courage to invest in the software CUDA, which is the power of. Their business and their GPUs now, took their margins down. Wall Street was screaming. He had the intestinal fortitude to stick to his vision. And instead of being a niche provider of graphics accelerators, they're the backbone of artificial intelligence for the globe.
Scott - 00:53:56:
Yeah.
Donagh - 00:53:58:
And he did it because he believed in his vision and he was willing to profit less and fight off investors for a period.
Scott - 00:54:06:
Yeah. I can actually say that I have bought an NVIDIA chip because my now 35-year-old son, when he was a 15- or 16-year-old gamer and building his own computers, wanted an NVIDIA graphics card, right?
Donagh - 00:54:19:
There you go.
Scott - 00:54:20:
Yeah.
Donagh - 00:54:20:
And that would have been the bus- If Wall Street had their way, that's the business they'd still be in.
Scott - 00:54:26:
Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.
Donagh - 00:54:27:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:54:29:
Well, listen, this has been such a fabulous conversation, Donagh. Thank you so much for taking the time and for sharing so much wisdom that you've accumulated along the way and along the years. Thank you.
Donagh - 00:54:41:
Well, it's lovely seeing you, Scott. Really good to see you. So yeah, best to knock on record.
Scott - 00:54:53:
So it's time for this episode's coachable moment segment. Things that stood out for me from the conversation with Donagh was this idea of psychological safety. It's not a term that he used, but when he described it early in the conversation. How he thinks other people would describe him. And the first word out of his mouth was fun. The next phrase, I think, was having his team's back. And there were other things that he mentioned like that that create an environment of psychological safety. And when people feel safe... They take more risk. They learn from their mistakes more quickly and thoroughly, and they get bigger and better things done. And he's very clearly a leader who has used that concept to its fullest over the course of his career. So how did he do that? That leads to the second theme that really came up for me. He is a very intentional leader, especially around the concept of psychological safety and team leadership. He noticed... When he was talking about Agile, for him, it's not about the process and all the jargon like scrums and everything else that goes with... The Agile of, method of working that we read so much about these days. More it's about how people are led. And one of the words that he used to describe this culture change that you have to lead to help a team be more agile in practice and not just in the theoretical construct. Very first word he focused on, I believe, was gratitude, which honestly, that surprised me. That's not what I was expecting to hear in a conversation around Agile. But... It's like, what am I grateful for? What do we need to be grateful for? What should we be grateful for? And if we're feeling grateful, we're going to do better work. And so he was really intentional about saying thank you. He was really intentional about encouraging other people to say thank you. Stand up at a town hall and thank that team across the way, that team that's part of the bigger team, for what they did that helped you and your team get your work done. And I asked him, like, How did you, he said, this is not a natural thing for me to be somebody who expresses gratitude. So what did you do? Did you have like a scorecard or a score sheet that you used, scoreboard? And he said, no, not really. But then he said something really interesting. He said, I actually put it on my calendar. And at eight o'clock in the morning, the first thing I saw on my calendar every day was gratitude. Go express gratitude. So that's a great way to systematize an intent. He had the intention of encouraging a culture of gratitude in his organization. That starts with him as the leader. Therefore, especially if it's not a natural thing for him to do, he had that daily reminder. Be grateful and to express gratitude, which I thought was brilliant. And then finally, the third concept that really stood out for me in the conversation with Donagh was when he brought up being a member of the first team. And there's your functional team that you lead every day, day in and day out. And then there's the team that you're a part of, the leadership team that you're a part of. That's the first team. And we talked about a gentleman he used to work for at Avon back in the day named Lucien Alziari, or worked with, he worked with Lucien Alziari. At Avon. And Lucien told me in my interview with him for The Next Level years ago that leaders who succeed at the highest levels are those that have a business-first, function-second kind of mindset. And so when you're on a leadership team in an organization... That's the team that's your focus. Those are the outcomes you're focused on first. What do we need to do together to move the business, the enterprise, the organization forward? Honestly, you'd be surprised as an executive coach over the years how many leadership teams or leaders I've seen. Don't do that. You know, they take a function first kind of mindset. You know, whatever my team and I are working on is the most important thing simply because we're working on it. And that's a limiting... Worldview. And you don't get the biggest possible results. And honestly, Your career doesn't go nearly as far. Donagh has had a very successful career for lots of reasons. But one of them, and he told several stories that illustrate this, is because he took that first team mindset. Pretty early on in his career, and he looked left and right and diagonally. About what's the bigger picture. And not just up and down, up to his boss and down to his team to get things done. So psychological safety, acting with intent, scheduling what you're intentional about. And if you're a member of a leadership team, taking... That first team kind of mindset, the leadership is your first, leadership team is your first team. And then once you've got that, pivot and say, what do we need to do as a function to contribute to the bigger picture? If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to follow Best Ever on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review and a comment on this episode. I want to know what's landing with you and your engagement really helps others discover the show. And if you're looking for more on how self-management fuels lasting leadership impact, connect with me through eblingroup.com. I've learned it takes a village to make a podcast. Thanks to executive producer Cee Cee Huffman and editor Mark Meyer, both of Wavestream Media. And thanks to my other team members, Lindsey Russell, Mary Motz, Sophia Shum, and Diane Eblin. Best Ever is a production of the Eblin Group. Thanks for listening to Best Ever. And until next time, keep taking those small steps that lead to your best ever outcomes.