A couple of weeks ago I welcomed to the UNSCRIPTED podcast Tim Spencer, VP of North American Operations at Interblock Gaming for what turned out to be one of my favorite conversations to date. Tim is well known in the field service space for the work he’s done innovating within the service function at companies like BUNN, Scientific Games, WMS Gaming, ACCO Brands and Taylor.
What I’ve always appreciated about Tim is that he stands out from many of his peers – older, tenured leaders – in that he has little interest in the status quo. I’ve watched many of his peers speak on stages and belabor the challenges of actually innovating or defend their decisions to continue “doing what’s working” in a variety of areas while Tim gives insights on embracing new technologies, modernizing the talent approach, and finding new ways to meet today’s customer demands.
So, I was excited to welcome him onto the podcast to discuss what, in his view, enables a long-time leader to avoid falling into the warm embrace of the familiar and instead push ahead to continue to evolve. Within our discussion, Tim humbly shared his views on what aspects of service and leadership have stayed the same over his career, what’s changed, and how he’s worked to remain relevant and impactful over his long career.
Valuing What is Timeless
Tim’s insight can be roughly divided into two categories: knowing and valuing what is timeless and keeping pace with change (as a leader and for your business). Number one in the timeless category is the criticality of good communication. “One of the keys to success in service is communication. Always has been. Always will be. Won't ever change,” he emphasizes. “I’ve found that in my career, every challenge I ever had with a customer was resolved one of two ways. Either by better understanding expectations or by better communicating. Or both. So, if I learned what they expected and they learned what I could deliver, we aligned those expectations.”
Effective communication is a building block of any relationship, and the importance of being able to build and nurture relationships is the second timeless skill. “Generally, this effective communication helped to build a good relationship. If the relationship came off the rails, it was because we didn't spend the time we needed on the communication,” says Tim. “And the keys here are timeliness and candor. Again, I've rarely had a customer who said, I hate the bad news you're giving me. Usually what they say is, why didn't you tell me sooner? Maybe I could have reacted. We could have worked something out. We could have done something differently. Timely and honest communication are crucial.”
Customer centricity came up next, and not only in the sense of creating customer intimacy but for obtaining insights to fuel innovation. “When I was very young in my career, the President of our company put me in a sales leadership role for two years to develop my understanding of our customers,” shares Tim. “So, first sales call ever, the customer says, ‘oh boy, another new guy. What are you going to do for me?’ I said, well, I don't know. What do you need? And he said, ‘No salesperson's ever asked me that. They’ve always said, here's what I'm selling.’ That was something I've incorporated since that moment, is to ask my customers, what do you need? What do you need me to do? How can I help you grow your business? How can I change to help you be better? That informs and fuels whatever you need to do next to be successful.”
Tim also shared about the timeless value of learning, especially from peers. “As a leader, if you're not finding a way to reach out to other people and learn and grow by association, you're missing the boat and you're doing yourselves and your customers and your employees a disservice,” he says. “Finding ways to tap into the ideas and thinking of others is a great source of new ideas, valuable connections, and inspiration for innovation.”
Keeping Pace with Change
It might not surprise you that one of the things that’s changed most since Tim’s career began is the use and role of technology in service – and he hasn’t shied away from rolling up his sleeves to understand what’s available, its impact, and to put to good use technology to modernize service in many of the organizations he’s led. “One of most obvious changes over my career is technology,” Tim says. “You know, you think about your grandparents and wonder what changes they saw in technology over time. Well, I'm now one of those grandparents! I spoke about the innovative launch of our first handheld device back in the early 2000s and that was nothing compared to where technology is today.”
With the volume of technological innovation Tim has witnessed, I was curious how he prompted himself to keep pace and determine what investments were best at different points throughout his journey. “I never implemented any technology in any of my roles just for the sake of technology; I did it because I wanted to solve a business problem,” he shares. “I had an issue. I had to solve it. And I looked to others and experts and technology to try to figure it out. Find a solution and try and implement it in my business to make it better. Then you could innovate or iterate on that, innovate and iterate again, or find the next business problem and go find a solution to that. So just always being on the hunt, I guess, for the next problem to solve. Not being complacent, saying, I don't have any problems because that's stupid. Everyone's got a business problem somewhere.”
We also discussed the evolution of the role of service within the business – it’s shift from cost center to profit center and everything that shift has brought about. “I mentioned that I cut my teeth in the manufacturing side of the business. Product companies for a long time made all their money on the product, skinny margins, and gave away the service. And most companies now have figured out that the inverse is actually the key to success. The margin opportunities are in service; the opportunity to really continue with a revenue model that's repetitive, that's on the service side. That's something that's changed a lot over the many, many years that I've been slugging away at it,” Tim reflects.
The one area that Tim and I debated a bit is just how much has changed – or not – when it comes to leadership styles. “I thought about your question on leadership a lot and at first thought, I don't think leadership styles have really changed or evolved. Then I thought, and I thought, and I thought, and finally I said, well, maybe they have,” he says.
What we ended up coming around to is that Tim has naturally inclined toward a leadership style that is being demanded more in today’s landscape. So, while it hasn’t changed for him, we uncovered in our conversation that it has indeed evolved as a whole.
There are elements of leadership, of course, that have been and always will be foundationally important. “The things that haven't changed relative to how we lead, are things like fairness, equity, and honesty. And one I'll throw out there that many people might not agree with, but I really love, which is inclusiveness. I've never been the smartest guy in the room. I've never been the expert, but I know where to find those people, tap into their experience and knowledge, and have them be a part of the solution. Not only do I get a better solution, but I get a team that's excited to participate. So, I think that leadership style never changes,” he says.
When it comes to what has evolved, it is tied to the elements of leadership I see as outdated like control, ego, and even fear. “What I came to think about that might be a change is the ability to adapt your style beyond the very ‘command and control’ kind of leadership,” says Tim. “I remember an early encounter when I was a supervisor at a plant with an executive who said, ‘I don’t get ulcers, I give them.’ I thought, Wow. Okay. That's aggressive. And throughout the early years of my career, I had a lot of leaders like that who would often say to me, ‘you know, you're not mean enough. You're not tough enough. You're not kicking butts.’ But that's never been my style.”
While that’s a testament to Tim and not only his values but his ability to recognize an approach that’s ultimately more effective, it’s a positive change that “his style” is becoming more the norm. “I think that finally that style has found its home. In our current environment – our employment environment, our work environment, our leadership environment - it's okay to have a little bit softer, gentler approach to leadership,” he reflects. “It doesn't mean that you aren't still tough, that you don't follow guidelines, metrics, and principles to hold people accountable. But it does mean that you can still find joy in the process. You can have some camaraderie and good spirit and mentorship and an approach to leadership that understands and appreciates that your people have lives. If we think about our employees' environment, we can adapt and change ourselves to make it a much better, sweeter work environment for them. And a place that they'll want to come back to the next day and a place they'll want to maybe work harder for.”
The evolution of leadership style ties in, at least in part, with the rapidly evolving talent landscape – and the two topics are inextricably linked. “Today, there’s more of a need to do the right thing. Then it was the right thing, to do the right thing. Now you need to do the right thing in order to attract the workers that you need. And if you're not thinking creatively about ways to make their work-life balance better or to appeal to whatever it is that floats their boat, someone else who's more innovative is going to get the talent,” Tim cautions. “You're either going to not get enough people or you'll get the less talented. So, I think innovation relative to our approach to work, our approach to our people, our approach to hiring and retention, innovation is the key. You've got to be thoughtful. You've got to think outside the box. You've got to be smarter than the other guy who's recruiting the same people. You've got to be thoughtful about what does the employee need in their current environment and what can I do as a company leader to try and help solve for that need.”
Managing Vs. Leading
In Tim’s view, part of the role of leadership is to look for the opportunities to change. “I used to tell young managers that there's a difference between a manager and a leader. A manager manages the process and doesn't change anything. A leader looks for ways to change the process. And I always encourage them to be more leaders than managers,” he says. “What I tried to do in my career was to always be thinking, okay, this feels pretty good, but what am I missing? What's next? And where's the next opportunity to change something? Because not changing is backward movement in life. Staying put is the same as moving backwards.”
Leading well relies on two important factors: one’s willingness to keep learning and one’s ability to be kind. “You can never stop learning and growing, no matter where you are in your career. As part of that learning and growing, look for ways to innovate and then iterate,” Tim says. “Lastly, I'm convinced after 35-plus years, a kind leader can and will prosper. Don't think that you can't be a kind and caring leader. Don't think that you have to be the guy that's kicking rear ends down the hallway. We need to find joy in our leadership. Other people need to find joy in our leadership, and have it not be a burden to work for us. There are ways to do that and still accomplish the mission of the job.”