“The Gap No One Prepares You For: Executive to C-Suite” - Dr. Mitch Stevison, CEO, Frontgrade Technologies | U.S. Army Veteran

On this episode of Executiveland, Elizabeth Freedman sits down with Dr. Mitch Stevenson, President and CEO of Frontgrade Technologies, to explore what it really takes to lead through constant change. Drawing from his military background, Mitch shares why transformation is no longer a long term initiative, it is happening in real time.

He offers a grounded perspective on navigating uncertainty, managing change fatigue, and building organizations that can adapt quickly without a clear playbook, all while staying anchored in strong leadership principles.

Key themes include:

• Why the best laid plans rarely survive first contact, and how effective leaders adapt in real time
• How military leadership shaped Mitch’s approach to contingency based leadership and managing risk and opportunity
• The role of authenticity and self awareness when leading without a clear roadmap
• Practical ways to address change fatigue while still moving the organization forward
• The value of empowering external change agents and investing in continuous improvement to drive lasting change

This episode is a reminder that if you're navigating change in your organization or stepping into a leadership role without a clear roadmap, you'll find a practical and honest perspective to help you move forward with clarity and confidence.

For more tools, insights, and strategies to lead with clarity and credibility, visit Elizabeth’s website, take the C-Suite Readiness Assessment, and subscribe to Executiveland on  Apple Podcasts and Spotify and so you never miss a new chapter of the unwritten playbook!

To learn more about Dr. Mitch Stevenson, www.frontgrade.com/people/mitch-stevison.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hi, and welcome to Executive Land. I'm Elizabeth Friedman, and this is where top leaders go off script to share straight talk and the unwritten playbook about life in the C-Suite. For more ideas, visit eastuiteleader.com. Now let's dive into today's episode. Well, hi, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Executive Land. We are in for a good discussion today because I am joined by Dr. Mitch Stevenson. And Mitch, we're going to get all into you, your world, your background, but I want to give our listeners just a sense of who you are, and then you're going to pick it up from here. And so I want to first let everybody know, Mitch, that of course you are the president and CEO of Front Grade Technologies. And one of the things that I've come to appreciate about the company is that, as I understand it right, you're not just designing and manufacturing mission-critical applications, but the kinds of things that have to really work in the harshest environments across a range of industries. So that would be aerospace and defense and medical and industrial. And, you know, one of the things that I know about you, Mitch, and I would say for other executives in your industry is your background is also military. And so I know you served in the US Armed Forces. And so we want to hear about that. And of course, you've really spent time throughout your career in this world. You know, Lockheed, Raytheon, Mercury Systems, across the worlds of strategy and growth and performance. And so maybe I will pause there. I know there's much more to the story. Mitch, what else would we say in terms of how we can introduce you to our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Well, yeah, I mean, um I think that you did a pretty good job of it overall. I would say this, you know, um, when people ask me what do, you know, what formed you or what um, you know, what was the real underpinning of your uh career, it would it was no doubt my military time. I mean, it you know, the things that I learned as a leader there, and I think the military does a tremendous job at really developing leaders. They take young people very raw, um, and and they put them in very stressful situations very early in their career. Um, and and through that, you're you kind of uh are developed into a leader that can um be very um different under very different circumstances. There's a lot of perceptions about military leadership, you know, harsh, some harsh perceptions from the old military, I would say. But overall, they do a great job of really, I think, expressing and teaching what I would refer to as you know, kind of contingency leadership. You know, every contingent, every situation requires a little bit of different leadership. And that's what at the heart of my leadership, that's where it was formed at. I I tell everybody, you know, even the company today, I'm like, look, I'm a program manager at heart. Um, you know, that's who I am and what I am. I mean, I can think of myself all day long as a CEO and a you know, a president of a company, and that you know sounds really cool. But at the end of the day, my job is to manage risk and opportunity, uh, the same as it was when I was running very small programs, either in the military or uh in my early industry days. So, you know, you captured the big picture parts of me, but at the heart of who I am, that's really it. Military form of my leadership skills um and uh the program management part of me, managing risk and opportunity is really what I see my most important attribute to the company today being.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yes. Well, you know, I think when we, you know, meet people who have served in the military as we should, we always thank them for their service. And, you know, I think one of the other thank yous for leaders from the military who are now in the corporate environment is to thank them for bringing just what you said into that world. Because find me a company or an organization that does not have to navigate the level of risk, constant change, maybe threat from the outside, you name it. And so, you know, Mitch, on this podcast, we talk about the fact that this is the unwritten playbook of the C-suite. Kind of a cute name. But what we're really saying is what didn't they tell us? What don't we know? And so maybe weigh in on that if you would, and and maybe through the lens of, you know what, they here's what they taught us in the military. They don't teach us in executive school, and maybe they should. What would we say there?

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yeah, I mean, uh a very interesting question. And I love the title, by the way, because I think there is so much that is unwritten and can never be truly written because it's a uh, you know, it's a very dynamic uh leadership task in the C-suite. I I would say this, you know, what you know, we had a saying, it's a very common saying in the in the military that I think is very applicable to what you're talking about here with respect to the title of this podcast. You know, you know, the best laid plans only stand first contact. Uh, and that is very true in any leadership situation you're in. But I think in the C-suite, it really is uh overtly true in that um, you know, we can have the best plans, and we we do tons of planning and we uh do our best to be very precise in that. And you know, we hire companies to help us look at the market, and we hire companies to help us look at different products, and we bring in a lot of talent to support the C-suite. Um reality is none of it works out like we think, and you have to be able to adjust on the fly. And I really think that that term unwritten, really people need to embrace that if they want to be a C-suite executive, because there is no playbook for some of the things that you're gonna be hit with. And um, and you've got to be agile, you've got to be flexible, and I think that that really I I would even use the term, you know, the real different differentiation for me is transformational. You have to think transformational because um, you know, tactically, um, you know, we'll do what we do, but you have to think through everything that happens in the company um, you know, from a transformational standpoint. So that could mean that there is no precedent, a precedent that you can really rely on to uh to uh make the next move that you need to make for the company. And and that is the at the heart of what we try to do in developing our leadership team, our C-suite team, um, in moving without that comfort of some playbook.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Well, and so maybe I'm just gonna ask the wrong question here, which is yes, what is the playbook when you don't have a playbook? So, you know, that's the intent anyway, behind where I want to go, Mitch, because I I couldn't agree more. So, how do you how do you lead transformation in that way and get other people to kind of think through that lens? And so what what what are some simple things, or maybe not simple, but sort of core to that? Is it proactive? Is it big picture? Is it agility? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

There are certainly a lot of buzzwords out there that you could apply to this. I uh I tend to be a little bit more pragmatic in the way that I think about it. I uh, you know, I I look at um, you know, the you know, the term strategy, the term tactical operations, the you know, what all you know, whatever you do, it's how you spend your time and your day in dividing up those things that really you know are the difference. And clearly not try to solve tact tactical problems with strategic thinking. That doesn't help anybody. Um, you know, I mean you really have to help teams solve tactical problems tactically. You know, it just needs to be ones and zeros of getting it done from uh you know from a uh tactical standpoint. But when you really talk about the transformational aspects of this, the big picture pieces of it, I I think you know, I rem I have to remind myself, by the way, all the time, because you know, I get I'm in a lot of different forms and a lot of different talking to customers, talking to investors, talking to you know others in the ecosystem. Um, and when we're trying to talk through these big picture things, um I don't try to overly complicate it with a lot of stuff. I try to be very authentic to who I am because at the core, you cannot do these unwritten things, or you cannot think your way through transformational um activities if you don't remember who you are and what you really can build from from. What what benchmark, what you know, what platform are you really building from? Because if you do something different than that, you'll get out over your skis and then you'll find yourself out there going, Oh my goodness, I you know, I don't exactly know where I'm at right now. Um and we and we all do that, by the way. We do that despite the fact that we think through these things. And sometimes that does extend us a little bit and make us better. Um, you know, uh, but you know, I try to always start with who I am, what are my strengths, what are my capabilities to really extend the thinking into the strategy of what we need to do for the business, or these transformational things that are unwritten by the current construct that I'm within. There's always examples out there. I think that's the other part of it. Uh, when I talk about bringing in talent, bringing in externals, bringing in um you know, new talent to the organization, it's all about learning from them and bringing their core capabilities, the real authentic pieces of them that make them strong, and then piecing it all together to be able to put the best strategy we can forward for the future and deal with transformational things that we you know we have to do. I mean, speed, this is when we say transformation, the term, by the way, in my opinion, um transformation is a very different term today than it was 10 years ago or 15 years ago. We used to think of transformation um you know as a a long, you know, a long stem program. You know, it's gonna be something that we're gonna do over several years. Well, that's not the time uh constraints that we have today. Uh, transformation is really about how do you make massive change in the shortest amount of time that you can and manage through that because there's gonna be chaos created, there's gonna be uncertainty created, there's gonna be all of those things that we as human beings don't like created. How do you manage your way through that? Um, and and and importantly, what I'm learning um, you know, two years into this job is how do you measure that? You know, it it because if we don't measure it, it doesn't matter. That's still an axiom that holds true in whatever we do. But you know, in transformational activities, because the speed requirement is much faster today than it was 10 years ago, we've got to be able to put some pretty clear measurements in place to say, are we being successful? And then how do we be agile to change? And we will have to change as we're making these transformations. How do you do that quickly in an informed way? And and look, you're no one is perfect at this. No one is there's gonna be mistakes made, there's gonna be things that happen. You know, you have to be acceptant of that if you're willing to really move into this kind of transformational regime that we're all being asked to move into today.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Well, Mitch, I I would say that, you know, in spite of ourselves, we have created a little bit of a playbook here for the unplaybookable, if if I can put it that way. And so I want to um say what I think I've I've just heard you say, because this combination of we we don't take our eye off the ball. And so that sort of we still got to pay attention to the tactics and the kind of day-to-day business as usual, what's in front of us. But this idea of, and I don't know if you put it this way, but kind of bite-sized, not getting out too far in front and scaring ourselves half to death. I think remembering who we are, but using that as a basis to say, you know, where do we need to drive transformation in the way that you've defined it, which is not a once-in-a-lifetime, a once an occasional activity, but given the dynamic environment for us, the, you know, our competitors, our suppliers, the whole ecosystem, how do we do that in a more kind of routine way? And, you know, if I think about that list and the emotion then that has to be overcome, maybe within ourselves, but also the kind of resistance I'm guessing that you would face in the face of leading that kind of transformation. How have you navigated that? Because I'll tell you, I work with a lot of companies where wow, the change fatigue, the skepticism, the resistance is so high. And the energy that we can spend just trying to get people to acknowledge like, do we see that we have a need to change, uh, let alone take on the behaviors and sustain those behaviors? So what have you found there?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah. I'll let me give you an anecdotal uh example, or not really an example, but a comment that, you know, I uh I heard from a very um senior CEO that had been a CEO of a many multi-billion dollar company, um, you know, and and he was asked in a um in a leadership forum, um, you know, how we you know, how do we manage all this change? We just can't do it. We we you know, I mean, that was literally the term that we we can't do it, was you know, was uh was uh was spoken in a big form that he had to respond to. Um and I and I and I'll pause and I'll go, okay, well, number one, but this was all employees of that company, by the way, leaders in that company. So it took a lot of guts for that person to stand up and you know and kind of throw this out to the CEO in front of all these leaders in the company. Um and you know, he was very, I would say, grandfatherly. He thought about it for a minute and he just said, you know, maybe you're not in the right place. I mean, you know, it was just that direct. I mean, it was like we're all sitting there going, oh my goodness. And then, you know, he kind of came back around and said, we need everybody, and you know, all of those things. But what he was saying is the only constant today is change. Um, you know, and technology is, I mean, and we're in a technology environment, right? We're a tech company. Uh, it's in our name, right? So technology moving so fast, um, you know, the tools associated with technology when you think about AI and other things like that that have become buzzwords today as well. Um, quantum computing. I mean, we think about all these things that people use these terms very readily today, and not many people really understand what that means to the speed of change and and what's going on. But I I uh, you know, I I'm gonna come back now to the answer to your question. When I said that there's a lot of unwritten playbooks, um, I I really have to say what I rely on, and I really think many leaders rely on, is there's there's plenty of experiential pieces where there are playbooks that that may not fit the situation, the contingency, as I call contingency leadership, um, may not exactly fit the contingency, but it's something as a guide. You know, so we're not flying totally with no playbook. I mean, we're we're we're understanding how to adapt, maybe that's the right word, multiple playbooks, multiple experiential pieces that we all bring to the equation. And this is why I'm a firm believer that it's not about individuals. And you know, on leadership teams, what has been promoted over the years has been a lot of people who could individually make a lot happen.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

But that will not deal with the speed of change that we that we're going to experience getting even faster as we move through the next several years. You know, we have to have really strong teams of, yes, people that can that can operate individually and can operate somewhat autonomously at times, but that they realize that to deal with the speed of change and to deal with the change in the organizational structures that we're putting together today, they have to rely on others very, very distinctly. And there is no um there is no individualism that's going to be successful, or there will be burnout. I mean, when I hear people come to me, and by the way, I'm just gonna be very transparent here. The number one piece of feedback that we get when we survey our employees is is change and change fatigue. I mean, that is you know, that is at the top of everybody's list. Um, and and I constantly, number one, I have to listen to that because it's true. You know, we we are changing. There is a lot going on in the organization. Um, you know, but I also have to kind of challenge to say, okay, I got it. What do we do differently? You know, how do we do it differently? Are we using all the tools at our disposal? Are we doing the same job today in the same way that we did it 10 years ago when we didn't have the tools and we didn't have the automation? And, you know, in some cases, not all cases, I'll be very clear about that. There are some places that we really need to make some change to alleviate the change fatigue.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

So, you know, Mitch, this is the dynamic that we are seeing across all at least every company that I work with. On the one hand, we have people feeling the change fatigue that you've described. And that might also sound like we don't have enough resources, the goals are too challenging, this won't work in my market. Uh, you know, we don't have enough people, whatever the case may be. And on the other side, as you described, really trying to get people to recognize, you know, how can we evolve our ways of working? Are we leveraging the tools and sort of our opportunities to collaborate and sort of take advantage of what we've got across our company and so on. So that said, what are some of the other obvious logical places that we can look to help people embrace change? Because I always feel like there are some go-to areas, some pockets where you might have found, Mitch, this is where we have to start. This is where we should look first when we're trying to drive change, whether it's how we communicate, whether it's our processes and systems, what would you say?

SPEAKER_02 17:52

You know, you really have to have change agents and you need to empower those change agents. Because at the C-suite level, uh just to be honest with you, you're not going to be very effectual uh as a change agent at some site that is a thousand miles away and you know uh has a long history in some ways that that is longer than the company's history of the company that you've created through these acquisitions and other things that happen over the years of creating companies today. So these change agents are very, very um important in that process. Now, how do you get those change agents? Um, I'm just gonna give you again my experience, it's not one size fits all. You know, it's very hard to find change agents from within. Um, I'm a firm believer that you have to go outside and find change change agents that you know have the ability and the credibility. I think that's very, very important. The credibility to bring into the situation externally, win over that population of employees, um, spend time with them, uh, you know, be empathetic, understand their their uh their basic needs uh as employees of the company. We need to take care of them, and they need to feel like we're taking care of them, but then be able to work in here's how we need to be different, here's the things that we need to adapt to. And this is not an overnight process, and we struggle with it. You know, we need to listen to them, and and that's hard for C-suite people who are you know trying to really focus on big picture and do you say you talked about the tactics of the business. If you miss that and the tactics of the business, and remembering that you empowered these sweet, these these change agents, um, but yet you won't support them with the resources they need, you know, you're you're gonna make them, you know, uh, number one, struggle, but more importantly, you're gonna lose their enthusiasm about the change. You're gonna lose their um you know their uh belief system in that you really meant when you hired them to make change. So that that that investment, though those resources are are critical to the change agents out there at the very tactical level. And again, um C-suite people sometimes lose the focus of of change at the very lowest level in an organization is where real change happens. It doesn't happen from, you know, we say all the time, we in the C-suite, we have to set examples, and we should. Absolutely. If if we're asking people to work um, you know, on weekends, we better be willing to come in on weekends. If we're asking them to work late, we better be willing to work late. Uh, if we're asking them to travel and do a lot of things that take them away from their family, we better be willing to do the example pieces are important there, but real change will only take place at the lowest level in the organization. And then you create a cultural change, not just an effective leadership change.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Oh, wow. Uh, we gotta like highlight that on the social medias, Mitch, because that is just everything. I would argue, absolutely the number one job, in my opinion, right, of any executive team. It's creating the conditions to allow what you've just described and being very serious about that and even the role models for change, starting with how is that team themselves changing. But I want to just underscore what you said because I think this idea, and I think this is kind of an interesting approach that I have not heard discuss, certainly on this podcast, if anything, but the idea of change agents from the outside coming in. You know, I often see organizations appoint change agents, but they are homegrown folks, and maybe they they could still get the job done. But I think this idea, and I I would agree, Mitch, of what's needed, particularly when we've got some of this intractable, deeply entrenched sort of belief, what's gonna shake that up in a way that can be absorbed? Uh, that outside person who has all those um that attunement, that resonance, those other type, that humility, the ability to listen. Not just come in and march in. I'll just add maybe one other detail because I really want to help companies listening to this think about the practical ways that we do this. I'll tell you, I'm working with an organization, they want to drive a lot of change across a region. And they're doing, I think, some of what you've described, or rather maybe not the opposite, Mitch. And by that I mean number one, people are leading this change off the sides of their desk. So there's just very few resources dedicated to this, and yet it's a massive job, right? Um, and then of course, the other element of putting in sort of targets, goals, and expectations, right, against this assumption of the future structure being able to achieve that, right? But all the change that's going to be required to achieve the goals that have already been set, um, it's not there yet.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Yeah, look, I I think that, you know, it's, you know, I want to be very clear and transparent here. It's not necessarily that I think that we're, you know, we're killing it here. I mean, I think that we're we're learning and we're evolving. And this is the nature, I just have we're privately private equity-owned company. And so speed is it's not just you know, it's not just our ultimate customers and the environment that we're working with in the market that we're working within that's demanding more speed. You know, it's it's private equity. And and um, you know, you know, change is is something that um you know that just becomes synonymous with private equity. But I I would say, you know, this, that you know, where I think that we got off to a slow start was it will it wasn't the fact that we weren't putting in change agents, we were doing that. I think where we got off to a slow start with really effectively making the change happen was that backed resource piece of it. And so what you know, and and and by the way, resources is not just money, right? I mean, it is, it can be, that can be a big part of it, but you know, it's really thinking about the investments around capital, the investments around um, you know, around internal, you know, development, research and development things. But I think one of the things that we've done that is that I'm most proud of recently is we've started hiring dedicated continuous improvement experts in the business. And it's gonna pay off for us. And I and again, I I say this, you you get on us, you get on a task like this, uh, you put forth a you know a strategy to say we want to change the business. We know we need to change the business. Um bringing in people that are dedicated to continuous improvement, and this is operational improvement, this is going to be tool improvement, this is going to be uh it it actually supports those change agents that are now part of the business in trying to uh in trying to speed up that that pace of change. And I actually just before this uh this call, I was interviewing or talking to the person who we just hired to be the head of continuous uh improvement for the entire entire company, a direct report to me now. Um and what she told me was what in what interested her the most about this job was that we had the foresight to dedicate someone to just do continuous improvement. Uh and I think that you know that really when she said that I hadn't really thought about it in that way, but I I did wonder how we hired her because she was that she's a very talented person, could have gone anywhere in the world that she wanted to go if she wanted to make change uh in her career. Uh, but what enticed her to come to us was that we were going to have dedicated, continuous improvement leadership in the company that uh that can help accelerate the the need of change that we want for the company as we support our our customers um and the national ecosystem with respect with respect to aerospace and defense.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Yes. And I say this with respect to our leaders that have deep functional expertise, finance, HR, IT, whatever the case may be. But you know, Mitch, it makes me wonder if the C-suite of the future is gonna have a lot more of that type of talent, continuous improvement, you know, real deep experience leaders, real sort of change agility leaders, those kinds of things, more so maybe than just representing a functional need. Uh certainly those skills are already present. We would hope and think on an executive team, but having, I think, more dedicated minds driving that, setting strategy in direction and helping a company there makes me wonder.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Yeah. I mean, look, you know, I'm I'm gonna go back to you know, before we made the decision to to really employ these uh employ these resources, um one of the things that we did was, okay, how are we gonna how are we gonna measure success? And um, and ultimately, you know, we we at the C-suite level want to immediately go to success as dollars and cents, and that is very true. Um, you know, we need to flow through um you know returns for these investments that we're making with the with these uh continuous improvement experts. But the the reality is there's some other things up front that we're gonna measure, you know. I mean, and some of it is gonna be in the feedback that we get from our employees. And you know, do they see this? You know, are they really seeing us now? Um, you know, with all of this feedback that we've we've gotten from our from our surveys of, you know, we're we we feel overworked, you know, we too much change, you know, do they now see us investing in this continuous improvement uh capability that should alleviate some of that, or at least, you know, it's not gonna take it all away, but should relieve that. I think if we start getting that feedback, that's gonna be the first uh the first measure of success. Now, just to be very transparent, I did flow through you know operational return expectations to the businesses to say, you know, we also want to see true um, you know, true returns. But I think the initial things that we're gonna see are much softer, and and we've got to pay attention to those uh to be agile enough to you know change a little bit. There was a formula, a very simple formula that was I was introduced to uh when I first became an executive that you know that that the company I work for, you know, they put it up everywhere. And it was just very simple. It was you know it was operational excellence plus continuous improvement equals profitable growth. And uh, and I have referred back to that in my mind. That's the simple piece of it. But if you know, we can be operationally efficient and good, but if we're not improving, we will not keep up with the environment and uh not just the competitive environment, but the needs that we're seeing from uh from our customer base to say, I need you to be not a year faster, I need you to be two years faster. I need you to be uh less costs, I need you to be all of these things that we're being hit with uh right now, that you know, as that person who served in the military, I I embrace it. I think it's it's needed, it's real, but if we want to do all these things, you if you miss that continuous improvement piece, you you will not ever meet the expectations that the uh the market is demanding today.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

On the idea of measures, you know, um, this idea of how do we help the organization see we are making progress and it is working. And so there's the ways that you know you've touched on how you will understand how continuous improvement is being experienced by employees. But what have you found is useful sort of in the interim? In other words, whether it's those leading indicators or ways that we help employees and give them that confidence that um, again, we're we're turning the corner, that we're making the right decisions, that they are contributing to that. What else have you found to work there?

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Well, you know, I kind of mentioned the softer pieces of this as what people are going to see first. And and sometimes those aren't um, you know, for our investment community, there that those aren't what they want to talk about, and those aren't um, you know, things that they look as you know successful measures, and that's why us in the C-suite have to, you know, have to continually um explain and be thoughtful with our investment community on you know why we're doing these things. But uh you know, the the number one thing uh for any for any company you know today is if you can show um you know leadership uh in you know if you're a tech company, if you can show leadership in tech, if you if you're a manufacturing company, you you can show leadership in what you're doing there to bring new capabilities to bear, to think through what the future needs with respect to these these type of uh constructs, that that will get people's employees, that will get their attention uh with respect to okay, change is is happening. You know, you can't spend you know just money, you know, uh very indiscriminately to get all of this because you'll put the business in jeopardy somewhere else. But it really is about when you start these things, and I'll give a very this may seem like not a big deal, but I believe you know, to our employees at one of our sites, it's a big deal. You know, I just walked into this uh site and I'm like modular capabilities and a little bit more modern uh aesthetics so they feel a little bit better about what what they have and that we're putting some time into them and then build into that some collaboration centers, some places where they can sit together and just talk or you know, do other things. Uh, and then there there is an you know another phase of all this that we're gonna do some things uh beyond that to uh you know to help the aesthetics and make people feel good about where they are. Yeah you know, what is the return on that? I mean, you know, people would look at it and say, well, there is no financial return on that. Well, I I actually disagree. It might not be measurable, but if I can keep people in the office space longer, I'm gonna get more productivity. If I can keep them, you know, if I can create environments for them, even if it's only 10% of the employee base that's using it, if I to use these little collaboration centers that we, you know, these little collaborative areas that people can set together and talk, not meeting rooms, little collaborative areas right in the middle of the work environment. Um, if I can get them to use that and it it sparks um innovation, it sparks that won't be immediately measurable, but long term it will be measurable. And so I think that these sort of things we we've got to look at and not let um the financial return, you know, one plus one equals three that that comes to be expected today. Um don't let that drive you for those sort of things. But you know, the other part that, you know, Elizabeth that I think is very important is communication, how we communicate this to the employees, because you know, we can make changes at, you know, again, companies with multiple sites, um, you can't address every issue everywhere. Again, we've got to be financially solid in what we're doing and make the right decisions on the priorities. But you know, if you're not communicating, I've found that that you know it's not just about what we do at one side. It you know, I've got so much feedback when I travel around and talk to people, and they were like, man, I was really glad to hear about what you were doing at that site. I was, you know, I was really, you know, you're making these investments. You know, we we really turned the company of about a year and a half ago um back to what the heritage of the company was, a products-based company with a lot of self-investment to be able to develop these new products. Well, we didn't we didn't have the ability to immediately, you know, turn these investments equally to every site. But I've got feedback that said, you know, what you know, I know that that investment, that big investment that you're making in this next uh evolution that you want the company to to stand out in in the ecosystem, and that is mission processing, you know, we we we get that, and it may not affect us, but it's we just feel good about you making those investments. It tells us that that you want you have a vision and a strategy and a mechanism for the future of the company, and it gives us a sense of security that we're gonna have you know, we're gonna have good jobs if we want to be there for a longer period of time. And it's not easy because you know, the the turnover in businesses are higher than any of us want these days, and um, you know, but I believe that we've seen a downturn in our turnover be and it in all of our sites, we've seen downturns in our turnover over the last year. Um, and it's probably that's the leading indicator of these things that we're communicating and these things that we're making investments in uh are really starting to people are seeing it. They may still believe the change is too fast, they may also believe that there's they're overworked in areas, um, but they're believing a little bit more that we're moving that right direction. Now, this next evolution of continuous improvement focus and all of these things that we want to go through, I believe, will continue to to drive the trend down and retention will go up, and um and uh we'll we'll uh you know we'll be in a better place for it financially in three or four years.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Yes. Well, and I love this idea too that you're emphasizing, Mitch. People may not, we have to be explicit about the changes that are happening in the company, even if it's not in your own backyard, employees may not know. And so to your point, just having that awareness and hearing about it from someone like you has a major impact. And moreover, I think this idea of um listen, there's a balance in an exchange. Not to suggest it's even, but if it's always continuous improvement and change, and yet those other aspects aren't ever addressed or looked at, I think that just makes that environment so much more challenging to create change. So whether it's improving sort of an environment or an office space, it's making, you know, targeted investments across the company, all that I think is part of how that balance is achieved. Um, you know, and I have to, since Mitch, you know, it would be wrong of me before we wrap up to not discuss some of the other aspects of how we help leaders, how we help teams, whether we talk about coaching or leadership or any other things, certainly in the world that I live in. So in the spirit of continuous improvement, because I think having leaders come in and get coached or having some program come in can feel like, frankly, a big waste of time and money and a distraction if we're not really smart about it. And if it's not so tied to, for example, how do we build up the relevant capabilities that matter more in a continuous improvement environment, for instance? So, how are you leveraging some of those kinds of tools right now in those smart, effective ways to help help your employees?

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Yeah, well, look, I I uh, you know, I do think, and I'm a big huge believer. I mean, I I would tell anybody, you know, without the effective mentorship that I've had over my career, I would not be where I'm at. I mean, um, it started in the military, but uh it has continued. And I often say, you know, it's that it there have been formal mentors, but probably the most effective mentors that I've had uh are those that were more informal. Um because there was no expectation of a transactional relationship, right? They were just they were there to you know help me when I needed it and and to mentor me and give me very, you know, you know, very uh uh direct feedback on you know how I can be better. Uh with within side of front grade, I you know, I think that that we have done a little bit of what I would say all the traditional things are uh with respect to um building those um I would say functional bonds um you know between leaders and employees. Um you know, I I would say that we have a ways to go on creating that right um you know that right context around what you said that you know often people see this as um a waste of time. You know, I mean, you know, uh you know, I don't want to do this, you know, uh, you know, but you know, we're we're starting with the basics of team building, um you know, building you know, collaboration amongst teams, you know, building then the relationships um you know that are more hierarchical and and trying to do away with the fact that on an art chart they'll be they'll be hierarchical, but but to try to you know make those lines blend, you know, whether they're dotted or hard lines or whatever, but to develop those next generation of leaders, we we frequently at the C-suite level, um almost every meeting, have have conversations around, you know, are we developing our talent the right way? And we do have talent, you we have, you know, we have all of the what I call the standard things of you know what is there, but I I must admit very transparently as we're going through all of this, we've got a ways to go to really bring in that next level of development of people. Um and and particularly, you know, and you, I mean, I'll just say this. You were my coach, you know, uh several years ago. I mean, I'll say that, and and that was something that you know that I'll be good again when when when it all kind of played out, I was on an executive path, and and you know, they want people to have coaching and you know and do all of that, and you know, and I uh was like, yeah, yeah, whatever, I'll do it. You know, um, but I came out of it a much better, a much better leader, and and I thought about things differently after that coaching that you and I went through. Um, and I I want to bring that to front. I mean, I'll just admit that we're trying to do it internally right now, and and uh and we're moving 90 miles an hour, and sometimes these things get get put off. And I would I would venture to say that most of our leaders, kind of those mid-level uh and maybe you know early executive leaders, would would tell you that that we needed to put a little bit more time in this because it is a big it is a big gap between being a you know a executive leader and moving to a C-suite position. And we want the ability to be able to promote from within. That is my my big thing. We've we've hired so many people as the company has evolved, and you know, there's a lot of reasons for that. I mean, uh we were you know we were not an entity, we were a carve out of a much bigger company, and so we had to go in and hire a lot of external people to understand how to operate in a standalone company. And so all of that, but the the real goal in the future is promote from within and build that up. But if we don't put the right training in place and the right mentorship in place, uh and the right uh coaching in place, uh we will, you know, I fully realize that that won't be a reality for us in the future. So that might sound a little bit like, man, you're you're condemning yourself a little bit. And I think that it's just about, you know, we took the the entire C-suite team, and by the way, the entire company, all leaders in the company went through you know, Franklin Covey speed of trust.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Oh, great. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

Um, and so I'm not, you know, we are doing things to develop leaders, but you know, that that foundational training, uh, one of the things that I knew I needed to work on, you know, after we went through that training, and and the coach that we had there for our executive leadership team was a really good guy. And the reason I loved him to death was, you know, he had been a CEO before. Um so he's he's not just a consultant, he had been in my seat before. Yes, and uh, you know, but you know, he's he he challenged every one of us to find you know that those these things within that speed of trust context. What are you gonna work on? And he followed up with us. Um and my one of my biggest ones was confront reality, confront reality. Um, and I have you know, it's at the forefront of my mind um you know, every day of am I really confronting reality? And that's why I'm willing to be very transparent here and say, you know, yes, we we do training things, and yes, we do mentoring things, and yes, we do um, you know, coaching, you know, at internal levels, but to really be that next level company, um, we we got to do better. And it's something that um that I want to confront you know, the reality of, you know, we need to start identifying a few people and and get them coaches and and work through that and invest the money in it uh as we kind of evolve the company.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Mm-hmm. Well, so on that note, continuing to confront reality in the year to come. And Mitch, as we wrap up, maybe tell us what else is ahead for you for Front Grade, but what are you personally looking forward to this year given, look, change is going to continue, working through that speed is not gonna change. So, what are you optimistic about?

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Hey, look, I uh I'm very proud of the leadership team that we have uh assembled here. And um, and whether it's the C-suite or whether it is that next level of executive leaders in the company, uh, we've we've assembled some really good talent. Um, and I want to tell you what I'm most looking forward to in 2026, and I I say this, I said this, you know, and I say this to our leadership team all the time. You know, we made a foundational commitment to change this company, you know, 14, 15 months ago. Uh, and as part of that, you know, I I say I bet my badge on these investments that we're making in. Next generation products for the ecosystem, not waiting for someone to tell us, can you develop this or that or this capability, but going out, self-investing. Those products are coming to market right now. And I am so excited to hear the feedback from customers going, wow, you know, this is awesome. Um, and you know, as more of these products come to market, this 2026 for us is such a pivotal year for front grade technologies, in that where we made those bets, you know, 14, 18 months ago, the reality and the proof in the decisions, the hard decisions we made will come to fruition in 2026. And I'm confident, you know, that we have the right leaders. I'm confident that we have the right products, I'm confident that we have the right thought processes around engaging customers the right way uh to be not um not a just a customer to them, but to be a partner to them. And uh and we we've made those necessary things, and this is the year. I mean, this is the year where we're gonna start seeing that growth curve go way up. And and while we have grown the company the last two years, you know, we want to be part of the ecosystem that is not just growing with the ecosystem, but is that is growing for the ecosystem. You know, you know, again, you can measure yourself by whatever the norms are in growth, and you know, now's earnings season, so we're seeing a lot of our customers reporting what their growth is and all that. I don't want us to measure ourselves by the growth of the ecosystem. Uh I want us to measure ourselves in growth for the ecosystem. Yes. You know, are these products being put on strategically important platforms that are that are not just you know protecting our warfighters or making aircraft safer or making satellites more communication friendly or more bandwidth or whatever those technology technical things that we want to measure ourselves by, but that we are contributing to uh you know to the national construct of security. That we're you know, we're we're we're contributing to um the national construct of our economy and what we want to do here domestically in the US and in our European facilities as well. So that is that is kind of where I want to measure our success. You know, I need it to come through on the bottom line and top line, obviously. That's that's my job, and that's every C-suite member's job. But, you know, first and foremost, I want to continue to hear from our customers that you're making a difference. And if that happens, the rest of that stuff is going to take care of itself.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Agreed. Agreed. Their success is definitely our success. And uh here's where it gets fun, Mitch. Well, congratulations, right? Everything that's been behind you and what's to come. And uh thank you so much for the conversation today with us. You gave us so much to learn from. Thank you. Thanks, Elizabeth. Well, that's all for today in Executive Land. Thanks for listening. And if you're looking for more, check out my website, eSuetleader.com, where you'll see all kinds of free resources and take the free executive readiness assessment. It shows you exactly where you're strong and where to focus next in your own leadership. And don't forget, subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. I'll see you next time in Executive Land.