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Show notes:

Craig Anderson:
Well, I've worked for over 30 years in the higher education finance space working with colleges and universities, working at colleges and universities, as well as for-profit and not for-profit companies. I've even run my own company called Student Connections, which helped colleges help students repay their loans. And the themes in my career have really been about helping students achieve their dreams, but over time what I've really begun to focus on is helping employees grow. And after selling my last business, I've moved into a corporate coaching and consulting business to help people become the leaders they aspire to be.

Lou Quinto:
Who's Lou Quinto? Well, a lot of people ask that question. And one of the things I always like to say is I've been a consultant for over 30 years working with companies and not for profits in the area of strategic planning and implementation in addition to training as well. And so one of the things I find most rewarding in that particular job is that I get to see people grow, I get to see organizations grow, but most importantly I get to see them be successful.

Craig Anderson:
I think the best boss I ever had was the one who was willing to take the time early in my career to sit me down and help me figure out the small details that would make me a better professional, the things that would help me appear better, present better, and taught me how to deal with people, deal with difficult clients. But I think in my late 20s, he really sat me down and explained a lot of these rules to me, and it helped make me a better leader as I progressed through my career.

Lou Quinto:
Best boss I ever had was my very first boss. And I can probably sum him up in three words, and that would be humor being very important in the organization, customer service, and collaboration. He was an individual who really brought some people together and was able to create a culture with his humor and with his customer service to be able in that very early stage in my life to really shape what I do going forward. And for the last 30 years is making sure I do everything with customer service in mind, humor, and a lot of humility as well. But also the collaboration piece is important.

Craig Anderson:
I think the worst boss I that ever had was a good boss in many ways, but the real difficulty he had was handling difficult conversations. And when I knew the difficult conversation was going on, it was really awkward because he didn't want to tell me the thing that I needed to hear. And for all that, it made what was a really good professional relationship a little challenging because when I needed that feedback, or when I needed to know bad news, he really struggled to share it with me. And I couldn't do everything I needed to do as a result.

Lou Quinto:
The worst boss I ever had was an individual who had a small firm, and even though he wanted you to be creative, to expand what you were doing, to help the organization, he was very stickler for policies and procedures. And so he never took into consideration time that you were out of the office traveling, doing things that needed to be done, and putting in those extra hours, but yet it was 8 to 5. Showed up at 8:15, and he'd walk by your office, and he'd sort of look at his watch and look at you and just walk away. And so it was one of the times that I really found that when it came to culture, even though he was talking a big game for having a cooperative and a collaborative culture, he was a stickler for the details and micromanaged and really created a culture where there was a lot of competition and not a lot, of teamwork.

Craig Anderson:
I think the most significant career experience that really turned me into the leader I am today was in around 2004, I had a team of about 70 employees, and our group was a division of a larger company that was trying to get insourced by another large company. And what I really learned through that experience is the power of the team and the power of keeping the team together, and also the importance of transparency as a leader to help people have the information that they need, share everything you know that you can share to help them make the decisions they need to make. And I think that experience made me a much better leader than I was before it.

Lou Quinto:
Probably one of the most memorable events in my career happened probably 10 years into my career when I was working with a coal mine out in Colorado. And I was working on a project with them. And one of the things as we were talking was to truly understand the mentality and also the life of a coal miner. And the manager of the organization asked me if I'd like to spend a day in the coal mine. And so for an entire eight hours, I went a mile underground and actually watched to see what these individuals did while they were working. And it really was probably the most rewarding experience that I carry on throughout my entire career since then is to not come in as a consultant and be able to automatically give advice, but to take time to truly understand the situation, the culture. And in addition to that, the way people who are in the organization, the way they think and live before I even open my mouth with advice because I always like to consider that advice is off the shelf advice. But if you really want to make an important impact, that experience of spending a day in the coal mine, I mean that you need to take that advice that's off the rack, and what you need to do is you need to tailor it to fit it to the organization and to the individuals, or it's not going to work.