I've never felt more sicker than my stomach.

We had worked two to three months going after a 200 million proposal.

There was a deadline Monday morning at 9am and we weren't able to submit.

Had to make some really hard choices.

That failure was a huge catalyst for where we are now.

It was with a client that we had established relationships with over, you know, eight, nine years before that.

I remember vowing to my son that this was never going to happen again.

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Welcome back to lead the team with number one best selling author and in demand corporate trainer, Ben Fanning.

On this podcast, the world's most innovative senior leaders share their top success strategies to motivate your direct reports, cultivate your top leaders and accelerate your career.

Let's get started.

Ben.

Hey there Lee.

The Team Nation.

Welcome back to another great episode.

Today I have for you Pinheikin Patel, who is the CEO of IT Concepts, an IT services and consulting company based in Vienna, Virginia.

He's been there for 13 and a half years where he actually started the company with his team from scratch and now they're projecting $375 million in revenue.

Truly a tremendous growth story and one of value.

His organization creates innovative technical solutions that enable federal government customers and the private sector to modernize faster and deliver results.

They have a few key values, core values that are central to their company culture that we'll dive into.

Also their customer centricity, teamwork, innovation, integrity, and a drive to deliver.

He has an Ms.

In Management of Information Technology from the University of Virginia and a BA in Computer Science from Rutgers.

He's got a family focus and a happy father of two.

Holy smokes.

Panakin.

Welcome to lead the team, sir.

Thank you for having me, sir.

Man, what a track record you've had.

So over these 13 and a half years, what have you learned?

Wow, in a nutshell, yeah.

The most important thing in the services industry are the folks that are working there as well as being able to build trust.

Very important.

With the leadership team and the executive.

Team yeah, keeping the focus there.

Now, you're known for the phrase, bring the thing with wills to the thing without wills.

What exactly do you mean by that?

Very early on in my career, I was fortunate enough to be in the military.

And right after college I did the whole ROTC thing.

And my first assignment was at McDale Air Force Base in Tampa.

There was an F16 crash that happened near our base.

Fresh out of college, was leading a team, about 30 folks, 2530 folks, to basically comb this crash site, which was in right near Orlando.

So a little bit of swamp land.

I'm leading from the front and I'm running through of exactly how we're going home.

The area.

The sergeant that was there assisting me was just standing there and was just more or less smiling and laughing while going about this 120, 130 degree weather.

And all of us are picking up parts and so on and so forth.

And we had developed this nice little daisy chain to get all the parts and things back to the dumpster.

So maybe he let me go about an hour, an hour and a half and we're all super hot.

And I noticed the sergeant sitting there laughing at me, more or less.

So I walk over there a little bit bitter.

I, I, it's great.

Must be nice to be sitting here just laughing at all of us while we're all working.

He's like, lt not laughing at you, but just take a look at what you're doing.

And I had created this awesome daisy chain like I said, but the, the dumpster had wheels.

There was, there was no need for me to create this big daisy chain and go about the way I was going.

Plus, leading from the wasn't able to see the entire picture from where he was standing.

I was taking the team right into a big swamp, like right into a big ditch.

Would have been a pain in the butt to recover.

So very early on, one of the first lessons I learned in the Air Force was always bring the thing without wheels to the thing with Wheels.

I held that through for my teams and thoughts of momentum and thoughts of energy and thoughts of when something has wheels.

Bring the thing with wheels to the thing without wheels.

So so many things in that a lot there one is like, I can imagine, I mean, it's a plane crash, right?

It is somber there.

There was a human element to it.

There was the mechanical piece.

There was probably avoiding alligators in the swamp of the people.

And it's sometimes it's hard to sort of see the forest for the trees kind of metaphor like, hey, the dumpster.

We could bring the dumpster on over here.

But instead we're like, hey, we got to get it done.

I've got all these people.

I know, I know.

We're going to daisy chain.

We're going to hand this off or we're going to get it done.

And we just miss.

And I was trying to quickly cover as much as possible right from a big space.

So we're trying to go across as well as this way with multiple teams.

But yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

And it's like.

And also you do have all these resources, like you had all these people there and you're thinking, okay, I've got to utilize the talent I have, which is probably a lot of brawn.

Right.

A lot of strength.

We get things done quickly.

And a couple of things that, that you mentioned are really important in your leadership.

One is the importance of culture and the other is the importance of mentoring.

Maybe take one of those and share where this really comes up for you as a leader and where you're leveraging it to help move your team forward.

Yeah, culture is huge for us.

Right.

I think being able to understand that we're in a services organization and constantly we're just good as the folks that are within the firm itself.

Very early on, when we first started, as you indicated, we started from zero.

The very early on I was begging friends and colleagues I had worked with in the past to join the firm and help me build the company.

So that got us started with a certain group of folks that there was a unique trust that was already built within the firm and we capitalized on that trust as well as that culture that we built very early on of the small business feel of this family oriented, more or less company that's grown to about a thousand plus net folks now.

But I think that very early on that foundation helped us establish this growth minded gratitude culture that pulls on the possibilities as well as the idea of delivering more or less what I call a nice little tie between the art of the possible as well as predictable.

And I think that that that bland and that that dynamic of pull of between the two has, has created this unique culture within our firm.

So it sounds like the trust emerged with you and the team and your culture early on because you knew each other, you guys work well together.

But now you got a thousand employees and so what are you doing?

So you're.

I mean, hard haul a thousand at least know them well and build trust.

What are you doing?

Or how do you just think about sort of scaling the trust of that core group 13 and a half years ago to, to make sure that it's having a positive effect on the 1000 that you've got now.

Yeah, I think within, within the government, federal government space our, our engagements are usually about four or five years long.

So every four or five years it, there seems to be a new set of employees that are coming in outside of what we're constantly doing for attrition or getting new additional work as well.

So that that culture has got to be a constant feed for us.

So very early on we, we, we we jumped on a couple of things.

One was a gentleman named Edgar Papke who's wrote written this design design thinking as well as a couple of others books that basically helped us align not just our brand but, but our leadership team as well as our delivery style, the way we want to interact with our customers.

So we took a long time, about two to three years just focusing on that alignment and then we developed our learning strategies and so on so forth and delivery strategies and so on and so forth of how we really interact with our.

The second thing we started doing very early on was teaching everybody design thinking principles.

So we outsourced to a firm that was doing it for capital one.

Actually I was fortunate enough to take this innovation class and we're teaching all of our consultants design thinking, active listening and that fundamental skill of being able to listen first before jumping into solutioning, before understanding of how we may want to solve the problem.

We're also building things like from a culture perspective making sure that there's just enough of fun within the work that we're doing constantly as well.

And then the last of obviously I talked a lot about trust and then making sure that there's a space for that collaboration to happen freely as well.

Yeah, it's really not sure I answer the question.

Well, I'm making the connection of what you're saying is that hey Ben, we teach design thinking but we also and I want to come back to design thinking but teach listen first and a company that has a listen first culture I think naturally will gravitate towards being a more trust based organization.

The one thing that sometimes happens I think is we get so good at listening to our customers but we forget to do it with our own team members.

But if we can make that connection, I can definitely see how that would help drive trust.

Yeah, no, totally, totally agree with you.

And you know, I think to build that trust we came up with a simple, very simple approach which was seek and understand first.

And we've Got a set of activities where we take our consultants through as well as the organization to make sure that we have that.

And then second, a set of activities.

Exactly what you're saying.

To build trust and then glasses to deliver.

But yeah, and all of those.

Yeah, communication has been, has been what's been able to keep everything going.

And so for those listeners who are not familiar with design thinking, how would you summarize it in a nutshell?

Being able to solution with an open mind with a true understanding of what the, the, the problem set we're trying to solve as a group is.

So we, we go through sessions with our clients as well as with our employees and our teams to be able to, to kind of do these design thinking sessions and planning for them.

But like, like you said, if you don't have the problem or those things identified very succinctly early on, then it's hard to.

Hard to do that session.

And that's why listening is very, very key to be able to understand exactly what we're walking into and what we're trying to solve.

Yeah.

So what I hear is, hey, we listen first the problem and the design thinking comes in because we're trying to design a solution to make sure we're addressing and fixing the right problem.

And y'all, I mean every single leader I know, myself included, has been a part of the team where we worked really hard.

We did a great job of solving the wrong problem.

Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right.

Our, our thought is to, is to, to listen, to empathize to design and solution after.

But totally agree.

What role has mentoring played in your career and how.

How's it been helpful to you and your organization?

Wow.

I'm.

Personally, I, I come from India.

I, I came here when I was 8, 9 years old.

English is a second language to me and I.

Mentoring perspective.

Yeah, I, I am accumulation of all of those that, that have assisted me to, to get to where I am.

I'm a constant learner and I would say from that perspective, I've had some, some great mentors from, from my first assignment to second to third to now.

I, I've always relied on friends or mentors to, to assist, to, to go through ideation, to be able to, to talk through issues and to problems.

But yeah, I can give you 15 right off the top of my head and tell you how each one played a very vital part into building the leader that I've become.

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And right now, when you're thinking about it for your 1000 person team, how does mentoring come into play?

I think as you alluded to Ben, we started the firm with zero.

Right.

So we constantly have this hero complex, right.

We're all trying to and we're a small business within a large government business space where Booz Allen, Deloitte, so on, so forth, right.

So very early on all the experts that we had within the firm were doing all the work.

So it became where we had a bunch of heroes everywhere, which was great.

Right?

It's a great story, it's great to stand up.

It makes everybody feel great as well.

But we quickly learned that in order to scale appropriately, we need to make sure that we're teaching the hero tactics I call them, as well as being able to systemize eyes the way we deliver, the way we teach, the way we mentor.

And that's really where we're moving into over the next year or so and taking this newer leadership team that we've been able to develop and really having mentors understand our culture to be able to push all the way down to the folks on the various projects that we've had and create that stickiness within the team itself.

Yeah, so good.

The mentors, the heroes, you gotta teach the hero tactics.

I like that.

How to go out and solve the problem so the original team's not having to carry the load.

And it's so fulfilling to really solve a problem for a client.

But if you're always that person, I don't know how you can lead a team a thousand without that's that's been.

Really the key to our success is being able to identify the value that not that's just identified in a statement of work what they're asking us to do, but over time work with the client to be dive deeper and deeper and pull the real value that they're looking for for the agencies as well as the service to the American people that we provide within these agencies.

When's the time you had an unexpected twist or failure in your career and how did it lead to your success or growth on down the road?

There's been several failures that, that have, that have helped build to where we are as well.

One of the early on failure that I had was we had worked two to three months going after a particular proposal and there was a deadline Monday morning at 9:00am that it was due.

I, we worked three months, like I said, tired this Lee to go after something.

Ran into a snafu on a night, Friday, Saturday night, try to recover from it.

We weren't able to, and we weren't able to submit.

I think at the time it was about 300 million, 200 million proposal.

I, I've never felt more sicker to my stomach.

But that's when I realized that I can't be a hero anymore.

I shouldn't be the one writing these proposals.

I shouldn't be the only one that's seeing them or there should only be two of us.

We needed to scale and, and that was, that happened about three years ago.

Three, four years ago.

And that was really the ideal point where we transitioned and brought in the leadership team and restructured the executive team as well and just had to make some really hard choices and really hard decisions at that time as well.

But I would say that failure was a huge catalyst for where we are now.

Wow.

Yeah.

And you're projecting 375 million in revenue.

And that was a $300 million proposal.

So that was a deep, painful lesson.

Yeah, it was a six year, six year effort.

Okay.

Over six years, 50 million a year.

So it was spread out a little bit.

So it was spread out.

So maybe not.

That was huge.

That was our entire firm at the time.

And it was with a client that we had established relationships with over, over eight, nine years before that.

And so what was the first step you took to, to change things?

Was it like yourself in the basement.

The remainder of the day?

And I wrote down notes, if I wrote down notes.

And, and, and yeah, I remember, I remember vowing to my family, my son particular, that this was never going to happen again.

Not something that I knew we, we had such a great chance to win.

We, we weren't going to be in this shape again.

And we started making notes and we started, started attacking the bringing in additional talent that we knew we needed.

And then we also let some talent go and that was really hard.

I would say that's probably been one of the hardest things is making those adjustments.

Yeah.

So how do you go about doing that when it's the right decision to let people go?

Because it just, it just has to happen.

How do you think through that, that.

Moment, one of the, one of the good things I learned very early on in my career as well from great mentors.

So after the military, I went to work at Booz Allen and then Northrop Grumman for, for a bit.

And at Grumman, my vice president was huge on, on planning and building out goals and objectives for the year.

So we've been doing that since the inception of the firm.

We do OKRs, objective and key results.

So when we start missing those consistently, whether it's by quarter or by year, we look at ourselves and we make the changes that we know we need to make as a firm.

And our entire executive team understands that.

And the first thing I did at that time was I brought in a new president.

I, I gave up my title thinking that, that a shakeup was needed very quickly.

We realized that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do and had to make some more adjustments.

But that was the first big thing.

Wow.

So the first thing you did was look at your, look at yourself in the mirror.

That's a bold move and that's one of the hardest.

And then being, being able to take action on that.

And it sounds like through that hardship, you guys have found your way to having a lot of success.

Yeah, I would say with that plus the true alignment.

Right.

And, and, and ensuring the alignment between our leadership team or brand, our delivery, our culture was, was all aligned or is aligned or continuation or trying to always stay aligned has been key.

Both of those things.

Well, a huge congratulations.

So starting to, starting to wind this up.

I love that story.

I love it when a leader is like, you know what?

I'm not perfect.

And I'm going to share with you one of the most painful times I've had at the company and how I grew through that.

And what I'm hoping when, when listeners hear that is it's going to inspire them to take a look in the mirror too when you know, when they have a problem and then be willing to take bold action.

And sometimes the, the best and most deep lessons that we can have in life are not those from our master's program.

It's from, I guess what some people call the school of hard knocks.

Yeah.

And I think the other thing it did is it taught me very early on as well.

Right.

To have transparency.

And transparency is a good thing.

It's not necessarily, you know, when, when everybody knows what's happening under the covers, it maintains the morale very, very well and builds trust not just with the executive team, but down very quickly.

Transparency piece is important.

Share your Learning share what's going on.

And yeah, people feel included in that.

Like there's.

People aren't hiding things and that they're part.

And then they can be part of the solution.

Part of the solution.

That's right.

So we covered a lot of things.

Pinocchin, what.

What's your parting thought for our listeners today?

Wow.

No, I think for us, I think one thing that's assisted me as well as the firm is continuing to have that active listening, the design thinking, and then really the growth mindset.

As employees and as people that are within our firm, we want to be able to challenge each person of.

Have a set of learning opportunities for them to grow, not just their technical skills, but as people to be able to be open, be able to be transparent.

I would say that that would be the biggest thing that I hope that our employees get as well as our customers see.

Yeah, it's really cool to be a part of a firm that's growing like you are.

But also it really sounds like you're thinking of the growth of people that are working there too.

We do fun things as well.

Right.

We're not just constantly just working and design thinking all the time.

We have a suite at Capital One where employees are able to take family and, and and their team members to, to go to concerts, the games.

We do dinners.

We do.

We did a prom last year.

You know, I was telling somebody, we did.

We did a prom.

The small business space and, you know, growing into a large firm.

So we, we.

Yeah, we threw a por.

And you know, we've.

We've been doing holiday parties as well as summer parties for a long time.

And one of the, one of the, the things I heard last year that I took for granted, I never really thought about much was at every company party, the dance floor is packed and this is a company party and we celebrate and we love the music and dancing and so on and so forth.

So I think that tells me the amount of trust and the camaraderie that's innate within our team and our company.

Wow.

A prom where the company is getting on the dance floor a little bit.

Sounds like a fun.

It does sound like a fun place.

Fun place to be.

What is your preferred dance move?

So, so you're getting out there.

Do you for.

And also, do you feel a little bit encumbered because people are looking at you like, oh my God, this CEO guy.

I'm the first one out there.

You easily.

What are you.

What are you dancing when you go out there?

Anything.

Yeah, I'll do.

I'll do 90s hip hop to.

To tour, rave to Guns N'ROSES Sweet Child of Mine.

Yeah, I'm art a country.

Yeah, it depends what we're listening to, but yeah, I'm all about the music.

Do you.

All right, so you.

Man, that.

That's pretty cool.

So it sounds like you're a little.

Do you get to.

Do you get to have the call in the playlist or do you turn over those responsibilities and delegate them?

You know what, for the prom, actually, we created a playlist and we added.

We added on.

On Spotify, all of our executive team, as well as some of the leaders, as well as some of the.

Some of the junior folks on the team.

So, yeah, we, we had, we had.

We had a good, good playlist to go from, as well as the dj.

So, yeah, I don't.

I don't control the music by any means.

That's a bold move, man.

You're turning your debt.

You're even delegating the playlist.

Yeah.

You know, if I just thought about this.

So a fun thing.

Have you ever done a Spotify blend?

Have you heard about, you know about this where you.

You send invitations to other people and they give you an updated playlist based upon the preference of the team?

Are.

Do you have this with your team or are you thinking about doing this or your family or how do you approach it?

Yeah, we, like I said, we love music within the company.

We actually have a playlist that we publish.

There's our vice president of business development and capture and proposals and growth, Enrico Cardamon.

He's phenomenal.

Has a playlist that he publishes every week on Spotify.

Okay.

Is this a public playlist?

Yeah, yeah.

ITC playlist.

Okay.

It's under ITC Playlist.

People can go check it out.

All right, y'all.

Yet leaders, check it out.

Like, this is a way that you can leverage a tool that so many people are using, but companies aren't necessarily harnessing maybe the benefit of.

And you might get a good playlist like ITC for your next prom.

All right.

But I can.

Thank you for coming on.

Lead the team.

It's been a fun one.

Thank you, sir.

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