This is my first leadership position.

Probably about 20 years ago, I wanted to move into management and our CIO came and said, hey, we have this position, this team, a really critical team, but they haven't had a manager for a while.

Would you like to take on that assignment?

And I was so excited.

This team, they gave me a chance.

They knew, hey, this is Ryan's first management gig.

Let's help him.

For the next several months, I worked to earn that trust.

When I did some of the work myself and really got in there and understand how critical this was and the pressures that they're under, that was a tough lesson.

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Welcome back to Lead the Team with.

Number one, bestselling 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.

Here's Ben.

Hey there.

Welcome back to Lead the Team.

Today I have for you Ryan Keene, who is the Chief Information Officer over at tql, AKA Total Quality Logistics.

They are one of the largest freight brokerage firms in the nation.

Prior to his current role, he served as a senior executive over at the Kroger company.

And he has a terrific track record of building great teams that have successfully executed some major transformations.

He's also active in the CIO leadership community, including Central Ohio CIO Advisory Board, CDO Magazine's Global Editorial Board, and the 2024 Ohio Orbi Award finalist.

Ryan, welcome to Lead the team.

Great.

Thanks, Ben.

It's great to be here.

I look forward to our conversation.

So what do you, what do you think are some of the most important traits that a leader can have?

Yeah, I'm.

I love the idea of having mentors.

And there's the mentors you get to talk to every day and then there's the I'll call mentors from afar, the people you never meet but you always get to learn from.

And one of those that I'll never get to meet, I'm sure.

But is Alan Mulally.

And so Alan Mulally, legendary CEO, executive at Boeing, legendary CEO of Ford, and he really talks about empathy and humility.

And these are two traits that I think are absolutely critical in leadership.

And I talked to my team about these and I say empathy is all about trying to have that understanding of someone else's experiences.

I'm never going to understand.

Your experience has been, I'm never going to know what you've gone through, your daily struggles, whatever that happens to be.

But I can try to understand, I can listen, right?

And then the humility.

If I go into every discussion with the thought, you know, what I can learn in this discussion, I don't have all the answers.

But if you and I together, coming together, pitching different ideas, having different discussions, what we're going to come up with is going to be so much greater than what either of us could come up alone.

And so when you combine these two things together, empathy and humility, I think that just, you know, kind of supercharges your leadership potential.

And so when's the time at work that you needed to foster that and bring those two items and what kind of result did you get?

Shoot.

You know, looking back over the last several years, Covid was a time everybody had to have empathy and humility.

Right.

Because you never knew what people were going through on the day to day basis.

Right.

Within their family, within their community.

There was a lot going on there.

And so just being able to learn to listen, learn to step back, take a breath, listen and connect with your associates was so important and you had to be humble through that entire thing.

So it isn't just going again, it's just kind of having that take charge.

I need you to do this, this, this.

You need to listen to like what's going on, what's going on in their lives, because it's complicated right now.

And how do we do that and support them and learn from them so we can come up with a solution that only serves your associate, but also you're serving your customer.

Ultimately, that's what you're trying to do within your business.

And do that in such a way that you're trying to lift everybody up in the process.

Yeah, well, I like that.

And it does feel like in a crisis, the leader needs to come in and just tell people what to do.

Do this, do that.

And sometimes you've got to play that role.

But there's something way more powerful in approaching it with listening first.

Hey, what's going on?

Are you experiencing it?

Is there a question that you like to ask or kind of default to, to sort of open up the empathy listening piece?

There are a lot of ways you.

Could take it, but I mean, there's really no.

Nothing magical in how I do it.

It's really just asking what's going on.

Ask them about their family.

Asking, you know, not just about how work's going, but trying to have that connection of everyone's life.

There's a lot going on there.

And the more that you understand with that, you can, I think, lead better and connect better.

Ultimately, they're going to get more invested in your leadership, your organization, your mission, because you care about them.

And so really just starts with having that human conversation so that less direct and the more of, like, let's actually sit down together and talk about what's really going on.

Yeah, I like that.

And there's so much verbiage or leadership articles about, hey, engaging your team, engaging your employees.

And it's way more engaging for them to be asked or answering questions versus being told what to do if the result, like, if you want to engage your team.

Yeah.

Ask them what's going on.

Get into that.

And maybe there'll be more problem solving mode, in creative mode than just waiting for you to tell them what to do.

Yeah.

And it can be hard, Right.

Because ultimately you have a lot of pressures on you.

And when you get in there, there's times when you just like, you know what?

This is what we got to do.

Let's get it done.

Sometimes you have to take a breath.

Right.

You got to step back.

These are logistics.

Right.

The world's always on fire with logistics.

Right.

Always going.

Right.

It's always changing.

There's always disruption.

But sometimes you have to take a breath and really kind of better understand the bigger picture.

Yeah.

Because you got to move the frame, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

Why is he asking how I'm doing?

Why?

I just want to get this thing like, hey, we got it.

We got to start with the human side at some point here.

Now, you are well known for talking about how tql on your team.

You want to make your team a talent destination, which I think is kind of a cool approach.

How has this been helpful to you and your team?

Yeah.

So one of our strategic pillars within technology here is make TQL technology this talent destination.

And what we mean by that is we want our team to be one where everybody, they're.

They're energized to come in.

They don't want to leave Our team and we have a line out the door of people that want to try to get in and be part of our team.

And that's a work in progress.

That's always a work in progress.

Create the line out the door to get on your team.

I like it.

Hey, these are aspirational goals that you have to shoot for and, but you have to kind of set up the system to provide for that.

So how do you do that?

You, you always have to be competitive in the table stakes, right?

The comp and the benefits and all that.

That's, that's table stakes.

Everybody expects certain things but really then we focus on or three things that we think differentiate us and that's number one's our culture.

TQL's culture is amazing.

We've won tons of awards nationwide within it.

We've been the best places to work on our computer world list for several years now.

The last two years we've been number one in terms of enterprise companies for employee engagement for technology.

As we really focus in on the culture and make this a great place to be.

Number two is all about having meaningful work to do.

We're going through a massive transformation.

We've deployed or in the middle of deploying a new ERP system.

We're rebuilding our core business operations system that is a multi year huge investment.

And to do that we're retraining everybody across our, our technology team and technologies and process and how we work and how we talk to our customer.

It's soup to nuts that we're making changes and it's meaningful work.

Right.

We can directly see how that impacts our brokers, how it impacts our shippers and how it impacts our carriers.

And the third thing, Ben, the third thing's all about we want people to know that we're investing in them, we care about them, we want to see their growth.

We have an internal learning and development team within technology that is focused on building learning paths and creating learning experiences for all of our people.

One of those great ones that we have we call tech track and tech track is a live.

Every about six or so weeks we get together and we have about six sessions and those people sign up and we have two tracks.

There's a technology track and maybe you're going to learn from one of our architects talking about new pattern or a partner will have come in.

We talk about new technology but then we also have a business and leadership track and that track's all about coaching and presenting skills and building personal plans really to help our associates kind of build themselves up to be those future leaders and have that confidence.

And then one of the other things we did we do is every month we just had one yesterday we have a session called let's Talk Leadership.

And let's Talk Leadership is a lunch and learn where we have leaders across technology and our business partners that will come in and talk about their personal journeys.

We'll have 80, 100 people on every one of these active and asking questions, getting in the chat and sharing stories.

And it is awesome to watch because there's so much that, that fire and that passion, that personal development, that growth mindset.

We want to cultivate that.

So, you know, when we think about that town destination, all about those three things and we see progress there, we're not where we want to be, but we're, we have aspirational goals and we're going to continue to invest in it and make it better.

Yeah, I like the bigger vision and also like the actual physical representation of a line.

And think about how much money you have to spend on recruiting new employees.

Well, what if they were already there waiting to come in?

You'd save money.

When people love what they do, what do they do?

They go tell their friends.

And so your most powerful recruiter are the people sitting in those chairs today, your associates, the level, what they do, Bring in their friends and be part of the team.

Yeah, that's, that's cool.

And yeah, it's a, it's a great way to do it.

That was my next question, which is, well, you're, you're doing all this stuff.

How do people know?

How do you get the word out?

And it says like, hey, we depend on the people that are here having a great experience and they're going to be way better ambassadors than a LinkedIn ad.

Sorry, LinkedIn.

That's.

We definitely post a lot on LinkedIn as well.

But having the brand ambassador and our associates out there talking, having conversations like this and let people know what we're all about, we find those to be really effective channels.

So what was your experience going from the grocery business into the logistics business?

Yeah, it, Kroger is a, it's a huge enterprise.

You know, it's Fortune 20 company 100.

And when I was there, I think we're 120, $130 billion company and you had the opportunity to kind of move around to supply chain as part of merchandising, retail operations.

And so there was a lot of experiences that I was fortunate to have as I worked there, kind of going from that large public company.

So we are a growth, privately held, founder led organization.

So there, there's a lot of differences between those.

And so that transition coming in was trying to best understand the culture, how that entrepreneurial spirit, which after 27 years, this company is amazing.

We've embraced this entrepreneurial spirit and is, it is absolute part of the core DNA.

So how do we go fast, how do we experiment, understanding that not everything's going to work out, but then make rapid pivots and move forward?

The similarity between the two though, I think actually is sometimes greater than the differences.

And that is this absolute obsession with the customer.

And to me that's one of the most important things.

Whether it's a big public company, a privately held growth company, or any interaction that you have day to day with your associates or internal partners, external customers is that core obsession with how does your investments, how do the experiences that you're creating translate into this differentiating experience, that customer?

And so, you know, I've been fortunate in both organizations.

That is the core foundation of both.

And so when I had the opportunity to come and be part of this amazing company, it was all about, all about that customer.

And seeing that customer being the core of our culture and feeling like, okay, that's, that's familiar to me, that aligns with my values.

Let's go.

All right, well, I like Kroger.

Been there.

TQL seems like a cool company.

So, yeah, it sounds like the lining on the customer is working out pretty darn well for both of them.

So thinking back on your career, Ryan, what advice would you give your younger self or something you would tell him to try?

Yeah, I'd say there's a, probably a couple things here.

Number one is you should be that person that, that asks for the work that nobody else wants.

Okay.

And then you have to be excellent at it.

Right.

So it's, I've, throughout my career I've looked for the opportunities when there might be struggles or there might be challenges and go ask to take that on.

Make the stuff that when you hear people talk about it, they're like, oh man, that thing over there, that's where you want to go.

That's what you want to lead.

Because that gives you the growth opportunities to stretch and grow and not all of them are successful.

That's the reality of it.

But you go over there and you learn and you do your very best and the next one you're going to be a little bit better.

The next one you'll be a little bit better.

So that'd be the first thing, do.

You have a favorite one?

Well, maybe you didn't end up trying that, did you?

Did you end up biting off one that you're like, people don't want to do that.

And I'm willing.

I did have one in a previous life.

It was a very large program and that it was, it was struggling for a while, and I had the opportunity to ask for the opportunity to go over and lead it.

And I would say we got to a successful completion.

Now, was it successful completion exactly how success was defined at the beginning?

Probably not.

But we were able to deliver incremental value and positive ROI on something that was very much a huge challenge.

Yeah, I really think that that's probably an underutilized.

I'll say.

Strategy.

You're like, man, that isn't.

Things are not going well.

Okay, if I go try to take a shot at it?

Yeah, I mean, it's.

You'd be surprised how many times that people say, yeah, go, go, have at it.

You gotta, you gotta be ready, though, because if it doesn't work out and it's really bad, it's still on you.

Right.

Just because it wasn't great in a great position before you got there, you're still accountable and responsible and you're committed to its success.

So if it still fails, it's still, it's still on you.

It's still on me on those situations and took that very personally.

The second thing I would.

I would tell the younger self is don't be afraid to ask questions.

I remember early in my career, I would have questions that I just simply didn't ask, and it was because the person was more senior to me.

It would make it look like I didn't know what I was talking about or I was ignorant about something.

But the reality is, as I've grown, the vast majority of people, they're there to help you.

Right?

They welcome the questions.

And I.

It's so awesome now because when people will stop me and my associates, they'll be like, hey, can I ask you this?

Can I ask you that?

Or can I have time?

Like, yes, let's do it.

Right.

Part of that goes back to humility.

Reality is, I'm going to learn from that too.

It's not just somebody asking a question to me, but I'm going to.

I'm going to learn maybe about technology.

I'm going to learn about maybe some.

Something within our culture.

There's so many opportunities there, but you have to be open and ready to ask those questions and not be afraid.

Powerful Advice.

And I think everyone listening can relate to that.

Like, I don't want to look dumb.

I don't want to ask that question.

But sometimes it's worth the risk.

And, you know, if you.

If you.

You might look a little naive, but just, okay, I guess.

That willingness to be able to do it, I mean, there's a lot of power and growth in that.

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What's one trait you wish you could instill in every employee and why you think it's so important?

Ooh, that's.

That's a great question.

I think a lot about that relentless obsession with the customer.

I think that gets lost, especially within technology teams.

Sometimes I get to work with technologists that enable our sales and our sales support teams with these amazing experiences.

But as a technologist, it's easy to fall in love with what you're building and kind of lose sight of the why behind it.

And so being able to go up to somebody and just ask them, how does this impact the customer?

And different organizations refer to customer differently.

For us, that could be our internal business partner, it could be our shipper, it could be our carrier.

But ultimately understand how is it that the solution that you're creating or the function that you serve ultimately brings a positive impact to that customer.

So that's something that I think that everybody should kind of spend the time to reflect on, is, why am I doing what I'm doing?

Why is it making a difference to the customer?

And then ultimately, that should help the commitment, and that should help.

I want to focus on quality.

I want to be.

Have that attention to details, because I want that to be great.

If you put that in.

If you put yourself in that customer's shoes, you want that great experience.

And so it's helping people kind of move beyond just building something, creating a widget, and understanding the why.

Yeah.

Understand the bigger picture is so important, and a lot of times we don't understand that.

And it's time to stop.

And to your first point, ask the question, why are we doing this?

I don't understand or be willing to ask the customer what, what's the value?

And sometimes you might be surprised at the response you get back and your customer.

And you're probably using it in this way, I'm assuming, Ryan, like, sometimes your customer is the internal customer from an IT standpoint.

Right.

It's not always the ending customer.

And looking at it that way, you can derive a lot more benefit.

You can get a deeper understanding of the business and become a more impactful leader.

Man.

Absolutely.

Great, great advice on that front.

Over the years, what's been the biggest source of your inspiration and when's a challenging time?

It got you three.

Yeah, this.

I had a mentor quite a long time ago.

Again, not somebody I ever met in person, but I had several phone calls with them, and one of the questions that they asked me once was, hey, Ryan, tell me about your personal values and how did those come through in your leadership?

And I had never thought about that.

And this was ten plus years ago, and it's not even.

I didn't even know what it meant.

Right.

So I spent quite a long time thinking about that.

And I put, kind of wrote this list of, here's 8 or 10 of how my lines of how my personal values apply to my views and my leadership.

And those have morphed a little bit over that course of that time, just based on my experience and my maturity, but really, they're really close to where I started from.

And so as I've gone through a lot of the challenges that I've had in my career, and there's plenty that were situational, and I would say, Ben, there's plenty that I brought on myself, but I will go back and I'll reflect on my day and I'll say, you know what?

The way I led today, the decisions I made, how I communicated, did it line up with my values?

Did it.

Is it reflective of how I want to lead?

And if it did and things didn't work out, I can still feel good about it because that's how ultimately, deep down who I am and how I want to show up.

I used to.

My kids were smaller.

I would kind of use the test of saying, if I went home today and told my kids how I acted at work, the conversations I had, maybe how I talk to people, would they cringe?

Would they say, oh, dad, if that was the case, then immediately I would know, all right, that's not how you want to be.

That's not how you show up.

So really getting in touch with my personal values and understanding how those apply to my leadership has been really game Changing for me.

And it's something.

That list.

I share that with my teams, and I asked them hold me accountable when I'm not following this, because I'll fail every day to hit these marks that I set for myself once you call me out on it.

Right.

Help me be better.

And so I give them permission and I ask for that help.

I've asked for that feedback again, back to the humility to get better and to hold me accountable for that bar that I'm setting for myself.

Yeah.

Humility and leadership don't always seem to go together.

Yeah, that's.

Well, I mean, obviously there's.

There's often some powerful value that comes along with it as well.

Right.

Yeah.

How does.

How does humility show up as a value at work and with your team?

Yeah.

So one of the.

A couple of them that I.

That I think about a lot is one is understand that you're in a place to serve and understand that responsibility.

So that's.

That's a big one for me.

I say always make.

This is a line that one of one of my mentors when I was a child had.

But he said, always make sure the tongue in your shoes follows the tongue in your mouth.

So it was a walk the talk.

Right.

So you got to walk the talk.

You got to do what you say you're going to do.

Understanding that you're serving others and then communicate and understand communication.

Is that listening?

Right.

And it's also speaking.

So to me, that's some of those ways that those come through in my daily interactions.

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

Yeah.

So I'll hit on one I like to share with new leaders in our organization.

This was my first leadership position probably about 20 years ago.

I made it known that I wanted to move into management, and I was a new visual contributor working on technology stuff.

And our CIO came and he said, hey, we have this position, this team, a really critical team, but they haven't had a manager for a while.

It was like months that they've been between managers.

Would you like to take on that assignment?

And I was so excited.

And I'm like, yeah, absolutely.

I'm really on fire for that and get this opportunity finally.

Well, between that conversation and when I actually did my transition in that team, other people learned that I was going to take this role, and they started to impart upon me their wisdom.

Here's all the things that are wrong with this team, and it's the people and it's the process and it's the technology and it's.

It's everything, right?

And.

And I would hear the same thing multiple times.

And so by the time I made that move over into the team, I thought I knew everything, right?

I took all this great wisdom from these people that, you know, wanted me to be successful, and I.

I sat down with the team, I said, well, here's.

Here's all the things that's wrong, and here's what we're going to do to fix it.

And it was.

The reality was I never talked to them.

I didn't listen.

I didn't shadow them and watch them work.

I didn't understand how hard they work and how committed they were.

You know, to say that I was not a leader, that would be the most accurate statement that you'll hear.

I was a very, very poor manager.

And I was so.

I was so blessed, though, then, because this team, they gave me a chance.

They knew, hey, this is Ryan's first management gig.

Let's help him.

And they were patient with me.

And we, for the next several months, I worked to earn that trust.

And I sat with them and I learned more about what they do, and I did some of the work myself and really got in there and understand how critical this was and the pressures that they're under.

And it took time for me to earn that trust back.

But when we did, we.

We built great things, collaborated, built a strategy, executed it, and really helped the organization move forward.

That was a tough lesson, right?

It was like getting knocked down day one, and it was all my fault.

And so I share that a lot with new leaders in our organization to let them know when you land, listen, right?

Ask questions, watch people work, do some of the work yourself, and that's how you grow and you learn and ultimately, hopefully get off to a much better start than, you know, I did back then.

Oh, I love that story.

And it reminds me of some early leadership roles.

I'm like, oh, man, I got so much great advice, or I've read so many books about this, and I'm going to come in and we're going to revolutionize this team, and you're going to love it.

And it's like, so much, right?

Yeah, I'm here to lead you.

Yeah, I'm here to lead you, everybody.

Yeah.

That was back when I thought that leadership and management were synonyms, right?

And they were the same.

Different words for the same thing.

And I've definitely come to learn that very different.

Management is a title.

Leadership is earned, it's given, and it can be lost every day.

Right.

So it's something.

It's something you have to daily show up to.

And it doesn't.

Doesn't require a title to be a leader.

Everybody can be a leader.

And what a great story.

Yeah, I just.

What a.

What a painful lesson, but one that I've grown a lot from.

Yeah, y'all, that's an MBA right there.

Like, learn from the people you're leading.

Not just everyone else has done it in other places and what their opinions.

And it's easy to fall into.

All this advice is how I should be doing it versus just listening and relying on your own powers of observation.

And there's just so much value there, man, I love that story.

And so it's great insights for new leaders and also great reminder for leaders who have been doing it for a while.

Yeah, you get complacent and kind of forget about it and make it more like that.

You're just in this motion that you're going through.

And it's more than that.

Yeah.

When you've been doing it a while, probably the pitfall can be, well, I've seen this problem a million times.

Hey, you just go do this, because this always works versus trying to bring some fresh eyes to it.

What are three success strategies that every employee needs to understand?

Well, first we talked about, and that's that focus on the customer.

Really understanding that customer.

And that I call it line of sight to the customer.

It's the line of sight of my work to the customer experience.

I think the second is a focus on details.

I really get on this a lot.

I love John Wooden's leadership, his teachings.

And when he was a coach at ucla, he would teach his team to put on their shoes, to tie their shoes, to put on their socks.

Now, why'd he do that?

Because he knew, like, if you.

If you had a wrinkle in your sock, you're going to get a blister.

If you didn't tie your shoes right, it's going to come untied.

You could get hurt during the game or hurt the team during the game.

It was that super focused attention to details that helped drive that success.

And so I love attention to details.

And so I ask a lot of questions around, are we thinking through the details?

And then the third one I'd say, is that the realization and the accountability around commitments.

So to me, commitments are.

That's your word.

Right.

You go back to my personal values and Integrity.

If you're not following through on your commitments, it impairs your integrity, and that's part of your personal brand.

One of the things that I love to hear my teammates say is the word will.

To me, will is a powerful word.

The word will is a word of commitment.

I will do something.

I will follow through.

I will build this for you, and you're going to love it.

I think it's so much more powerful than try.

I think try is just an assumed effort, right?

Hey, if I try to do something.

Well, of course you're going to try to do it.

We're all going to try to do things.

But will you do it?

Will you do it?

Because will is that movement between.

I'm going to put forth an effort to.

I'm going to do what it takes to get this done, and it's going to be awesome for you.

So those are three big ones for me.

And that, my friend, is the language of leadership.

It's not.

It ain't the language of try, it's language of will.

And if you don't believe us, go ask Yoda, because that's what toys.

Yeah, a little bit of a play on that.

I won't do it.

Right.

But he's like, hey, Luke's saying, hey, I'll try.

There's no.

There's no try to do.

Just do it.

And it's a mad.

And that ties back to your point around integrity.

Your values dune.

Just doing what you say you're going to do and then executing, man, it's just such a powerful part of walking the talk.

Having your tongue match the tongue of your shoes.

Yeah, it's a little.

It's a little folksy, but, boy, I've held on 40 years, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

What.

So wrapping this up.

This has been a phone.

Ryan, what.

What's your party thought for the listeners today?

I think the biggest thing that I look at leadership in general, and I believe the number one job for a leader is to create more leaders.

I think leadership in general across the world is.

It's a scarce resource of great leadership.

And so.

And it has a multiple.

Multiple.

It's a multiplier.

Right?

You create a leader, they'll create a leader.

And so it's really making that investment in your people.

Be very intentional about it.

Every single day you have this amazing responsibility, regardless of your title, to have a positive impact on people, to lift them up and to create this leadership chain.

And it ultimately, when you look back in several years and you think about the people that you've touched every single day, that's your legacy, right?

And when you watch them flourish and grow and go on to do amazing things, ultimately that's, that's a testament to your leadership and how you have positive impact on that person and your community and really just the broader world in general.

So I, I think it sounds big, it sounds bold.

But the number one, the number one thing that a leader needs to focus on is building more leaders.

Everything else will fall in line.

They'll follow through on the commitments.

They'll make great experiences for the customers.

Right.

They'll develop other people.

Because why?

Because if you're a great leader, those are things you do.

So, you know, make that your priority.

Thanks for coming on the show today, Ryan.

A lot of fun.

I really appreciate it, Ben.

Thank you so much.

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