What happens when you propose leading a transition project—and instead get promoted to President overnight? In this episode of CXO Conversations titled “Creating the President Role for Yourself at 32 Years Old,” Stephen Brown shares how a bold memo at Travelers Insurance changed his career forever. Thrust into leading an older C-suite generation at just 32, Stephen talks about overcoming self-doubt, continuously learning, and preparing himself for responsibilities far beyond his years. Today, as a seasoned CEO, he reflects on the advice 55-year-old Stephen would give his younger self, offering lessons every ambitious leader should hear.
For the full interview: Creating the President Role for Yourself at 32 Years Old
10 Min Clip Transcript
Stephen Brown: [00:00:00] Part of me was thinking there’s this slim chance they would see this make sense? And the other part of me was like, I had really prepared myself for the next level of responsibility. Well kick it.
Michael Mitchel: CXO conversations, talks with C-level executives and how they reach the C-suite, and what advice would they give those who want to be one. Hi, I am your host, Michael Mitchell, managing director of OC National Search Today. Steven Brown joins us. Steven is the CEO of Rio Health in 2000. While working at St.
Paul Travelers at three, two years old, Steven recognized an opportunity. He became a company president and CEO. He’s been a CEO ever since. Well, I’ve heard many different paths to become CEO over the years. This is a new one. Steven passed go and the $200 and went straight to the big chair. Welcome to the conversation, Steven.
Stephen Brown: Thank you. Good to be here, Michael. [00:01:00]
Michael Mitchel: Uh, it’s year 2000. What’s going on?
Stephen Brown: 2000. There’s a lot going on in the market. It’s, there’s a lot going on with technology. It’s a big move in that space. Um, the economy’s growing. I’m in working for a large insurance company that has a history of having leadership that is fairly mature and growing up in a, uh, big company that time.
Michael Mitchel: So what you, what are you doing at, AT Travelers? What’s your role?
Stephen Brown: So my role at that time was I was a director and I had jumped a couple of positions there. I started out as a trainee in the company. I actually graduated from college. Started out as a trainee kind of lowest level that you could start in the organization, and I recognized that I.
Really had a career path that I wanted to be part of, uh, leadership. And so I had, um, changed jobs, moved from Colorado to Minnesota where [00:02:00] their headquarters were located. And at that point in time, I was ma uh, director of third party administration for them.
Michael Mitchel: So how did you go from director at Travelers to being the president of a company?
Stephen Brown: So that’s a great story. Um, for me, the background there was that I was managing all the different relationships that they had with third party administrators. The insurance industry at the time was consolidating, so most of the insurance wasn’t really growing organically. There’s mostly doing mergers and acquisitions of other companies.
And so the company that I worked for, St. Paul Travelers at the time, had completed an acquisition. Of a company. And three months before we completed our AC acquisition with them, they had acquired a couple of companies in California. They were third party administration companies. So I was brought in and asked to evaluate those businesses.
What should we do with them? Since they were third party administration companies, they, the, the question for [00:03:00] me was, what should we do? Should we keep ’em? Should we sell ’em? What should we do with them? And they wanted some guidance back to the executive suite on what we should do.
Michael Mitchel: And
Stephen Brown: what did you say? So I went and did an evaluation of the companies and I thought that they should be put together.
They were separate entities. I thought if they put the companies together, it’d create a stronger, uh, organization. And so I, I went back and I made a. I would guess risky proposal. I don’t know. At that point in time, pretty, pretty young guy and I went back and I, my proposal to them was that they should put the companies together, create one entity, and that it should report to me.
And so I thought, well, you know, as a TPA director, you know, why not? Why not have. This request, and I either thought, they’re either gonna look at me and, you know, send me, send me out of the, uh, packing or, or they would consider it uhhuh. And so I, I thought it was risky, but not so risky that I, I didn’t think I’d get [00:04:00] fired.
I just thought they would just think. What is this kid thinking?
Michael Mitchel: Look at what’s the, look at the moxie on this guy. Yeah, look at this guy. He comes
Stephen Brown: in here and this is what he thinks. So, um, fortunately they said, you know, well let’s think about this. And so they did. And it was a week probably or so, and I was, you know, a little nervous, frankly.
Does. You know, here’s the time going by. I wonder what they’re talking about. What are they thinking? And so I went back, kind of
Michael Mitchel: drafting up your termination. Exactly. Right.
Stephen Brown: Right. What’s gonna go happen? So they came back to me and they said, listen, we thought about your, your recommendation that you made to us and, uh, and, and what you’re, you were proposing, and we wanna one up.
You. And I said, uh, what do you mean? How do you wanna one-up me? Well, we think if you believe that this, these companies should be put together and. We report to you, we think you should move out to California, put the companies together and lead this as pre president of those companies. Create a new brand, do all the work, bring the team together [00:05:00] and, uh, be the president of that company.
Michael Mitchel: Now, before you finish, how you respond to that? Well, I want to go back a little bit because when you, when you drafted up this proposal, when you came to that summary at the end and you made this recommendation. What were you thinking when you were typing it up?
Stephen Brown: You know, part of me was thinking there’s this slim chance they would see.
This makes sense. And the other part of me was like I had really prepared myself for the next level of responsibility. So I had done a lot of work in all the other areas in the insurance industry. I’d done the training program for actuary and for underwriting and working with the the risk department and working with the brokers and with claims.
And so I felt like I had done a variety of other learning and I even created my own. Um, program where I would meet like a mentorship program where I had picked out people on [00:06:00] each of the different executives in each of the different areas and disciplines. And I met with them like once a month or once every other month.
I had a list. And so it was a mentoring program that had set up myself.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: And so for me, I felt like I was doing work to understand how. These leaders thought about things. I was doing work to make myself both visible in how I made decisions. Um, because really leadership is about trust. And when people bring into one of these roles, it’s do they trust you to either take their baby and move it forward, or do they trust you to make good decisions that will grow, mature the business and keep it around for a long time.
Michael Mitchel: So you’re a director of Travelers,
Stephen Brown: right? And Travelers is how big. At the time they were like 222 on, um, it was St. Paul at the time. Mm-hmm. Uh, on the, on kind of the fortune, you know, 1000. So they’re large enough. Right. How many employees?
Michael Mitchel: Uh, at that time, maybe 15,000. And [00:07:00] between in your director? Yeah. And how many l how many VP levels, SVP levels are there between you and the present level?
Yeah,
Stephen Brown: there’s, uh, vp, SVP. EVP, exact EVPs and then C-Suite.
Michael Mitchel: And C-suite.
Stephen Brown: Yeah.
Michael Mitchel: So you kind of said, you know what I’m putting, I’m right, I’m typing this in.
Stephen Brown: Yeah. Yeah. So it was definitely a jump and I thought, well, maybe, you know, it’s not a, it wasn’t a huge company compared to what their organization was, and part of me thought also is that they.
Um, you know, maybe it would take a risk on saying maybe this is a development opportunity. I didn’t think they’d come back with the one up.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: Right. I really didn’t think that
Michael Mitchel: you thinking it was gonna be, I just thought they
Stephen Brown: would either say, no, it’s gonna be its own unit. It doesn’t need to report to you.
Or, sure. They’re, they, they can report up through you. You can, you can work with them on, on the work that we’re doing now and, and have that be that way. So I didn’t, I, I [00:08:00] really wasn’t thinking. They would send me out and, and ask me to run it, but they knew you had career. Aspirations. They knew I had career aspira aspirations and I was identified as they had a, a program of high potentials.
And so I was on the list of high potential candidates within the organization.
Michael Mitchel: And you had pretty much declared out loud that you wanted to be a CEO?
Stephen Brown: Yeah, very, very early in my career. Um, it was an industry story. We had, uh, a program where they were identifying people, what they, what was your career ambitions?
What do you kind of want as your career path? And I was a lowly adjuster in an organization. And, um, I completed that paperwork. And one of the things I put in there is I put in for, you know, what was, what’s your ultimate job? Mm-hmm. And I put in there as CEO. So a few weeks later, um, passes, time passes by, and my, my manager comes to me and says, Hey, you know the work that you had doing this, we got some feedback on it.
Um, it wasn’t a joke. [00:09:00] You know, to put information. And I said, what are you talking about? What do you mean a joke? He said, well, you responded that you wanted to be the CEO. He’s thinking you’re not taking this seriously. He think I’m, he thinks I’m just kidding around, right? And, um, I said, no. I said, that’s what I want to do.
That’s what I want my job to be. And I, I’ll either do it here or do it somewhere, but I’m doing it. But I, but I, that’s what I wanna do. And so he, and later years later he said, you know, that was the moment I knew that I’d probably end up working for you. And he did. Um, so it was kind of an interesting, um, transition.
Michael Mitchel: So a week goes by, they, they up you and say, we want you to relo out California. Yeah.
Stephen Brown: Right.
Michael Mitchel: And what was your initial reaction?
Stephen Brown: Uh, wow. Okay. I need to talk to my wife, my kids, because it, we’ve got this relocation. I’m in Minnesota at the time. Yeah. My wife is working for the company, and this means a big change for her.
So there’s both a family change and then a major career change. And, and my other part was like, hmm. [00:10:00] All the, and I’d met with the members of the team, the two different companies out there, and so. I was thinking to myself, I’m my age, young thirties. You’re 32, right? Yeah. And I’m gonna, and I’m gonna have, everyone who’s gonna report to me are, have been in the industry for years and years and years.
They’re in their fifties and sixties. And so that was gonna be an interesting piece. I realized I didn’t have the experience, um, that they would have having done the job.
Michael Mitchel: So this literally is the definition of be careful what you ask for. It is, yeah. But I also
Stephen Brown: think you should also ask for what you’re looking for, right?
I think it’s important to let those know in your organization what your aspirations are, and then to demonstrate that you’re moving yourself towards those aspirations. Lots of times you see people say, here’s my aspirations, and you never see them doing any work to do that. They’re just looking for. [00:11:00] You know it to be handed to them.
And I think why I felt like it was, they took a risk on me. I would agree with that. Yeah. Um, to see how it would turn out. I think that I was demonstrating all of the other things to say, look, I may not have had the years of experience, but I’m making good decisions, managing things for you, and trying to, to better myself to be in the position to be able to do this.
Michael Mitchel: So when they presented this. Counter proposal, for lack of a better word. Yes. Right. I don’t want, uh, a promotion or maybe we should, whatever. Um, oh, it was a promotion. Yeah. Well, it was. Yeah, but I mean, you, you literally just made it your own. Um, you had to say yes right then and there. I mean, did you say I, how’d you respond?
Stephen Brown: Um, they, they actually asked me, they said, you know, go talk to your, um, your family about it, your wife, about it, um, since it was a move. Come back and, and tell us. And I did that and I said, look, this, this is on track. This is what I’ve wanted to do. I really wanted to have. More decision making authority.
And, um, to be able to do this would’ve [00:12:00] been, for me, was just like a fantastic opportunity. I realized what an opportunity it was. So then it was just kind of working out how do we handle the new stuff? So next morning at 7
Michael Mitchel: 59, you’re going, yeah. Yeah. Just
Stephen Brown: going in and kind of working out the details. What does this mean?
And, you know, all the kinds of things, um, that go from moving from Minnesota to California, which is a different marketplace.
Michael Mitchel: Yeah. But look, I want to, I wanna also. Go back to when you said these two different companies, everyone is, you know, in their fifties and sixties.
Stephen Brown: Yeah.
Michael Mitchel: And they’re thinking, okay, the company that just bought us is sending us this kid.
Yes. And so how did you handle that?
Stephen Brown: So for me, I recognized that I couldn’t go in telling people or exercising authority because of my title. Right. I needed to earn it. And that had to be through making decisions, and I also needed to leverage the experience that they each had many times. What I [00:13:00] found after that and through that process is that you have coming into an organization, you have some great people.
You have some people who are gonna try and block you. You’re gonna have some people who are great at what they do. You have some people who are in the wrong seat on the bus. No, I can only imagine. They gotta be put in the right seat. No one’s done that for them before. Yeah, there’s lots of moving pieces to figure out.
So it’s really about. How do I establish a team that works together that is cohesive and that can withstand the challenges of growth? I, I can
Michael Mitchel: only imagine the policy intrigue because you’re gonna, you, you, you probably had a one or two people, if not more, who are like, okay, I’m just gonna, you know, and run this guy.
I,
Stephen Brown: including the prior president who reported to me and the founder of one of the companies who had made. Lots of millions of dollars on selling the business to to them, and was still involved in the business. Oh, he still involved. Still involved in the business. How big is the, the combined two companies, the combined entity was about 26 million in [00:14:00] revenues.
And how many people, oh boy, back then, um, two 60, something like that. Maybe.
Michael Mitchel: So what was your first year like? I mean, obviously you’re dealing with, you know, you’re dealing with the selling the management folks and executive, executive family. Yeah. The first year
Stephen Brown: was around having people understand the vision of what we were going to accomplish, and combining the companies both legally creating a new brand and a new image for the business, and working through those pieces along with establishing.
The appropriate financial discipline needed for it. Understanding the metrics that they had as an organization and what metrics maybe we had gaps. Understanding the client relationships and the importance of each of those and where we were working with those. So there was some understanding of their business particularly.
And then also really driving towards having people a shared vision. You gotta win hearts and, and you know, to win minds. Mm-hmm. They have to understand. What it is you’re, you’re going for. [00:15:00] And there, in any of those situations, there’s some people who will remain and some people who will leave. Do you feel, and some people who you have to help leave or, or really fight to retain
Michael Mitchel: through all this, do you feel like you had the support of, of headquarters?
Or were they more like, well wait and see what this, this kid does? Yeah. You know, we
Stephen Brown: were, we operated as a true remote subsidiary. Oh, did you? So, um, they, they were not at all in any of the, I mean, we’d report back to them, report monthly financials. We would purchase benefits through them, but, um, they were not in our day-to-day business operations or providing feedback for that.
Michael Mitchel: What were some of the major decisions you made? In your first year?
Stephen Brown: Wow. We had some tough ones. Uh, we had, um, we had a client that was unprofitable or not as profitable as we needed to be, and everyone was afraid to address that issue for fear of losing the client. [00:16:00] And that meant that we had to have information to go and talk to them about the cost of, of providing the service of their program, and then having a real discussion where you’re willing to lay your chips on the table.
And risk losing the client or winning the business back and having them agree. And that was a really big one. It was a big part of the business. If it would’ve been a loss, it would’ve been a significant loss for the business. And that was one where the organization was not ready to have that discussion, and I just said it needs to happen.
Michael Mitchel: So most executives, c-suite executives or you know, VPs leaders, they have experienced a draw upon when making decisions and looking at strategy and mapping things. You really didn’t have that, uh, luxury at this point. I mean, 32, that would be a luxury. Right. So how did you, what did you lean, what did you draw on?
You know,
Stephen Brown: I read everything I could get my hands on. I thought, and I knew this. [00:17:00] That you don’t have to have experience in everything. Mm-hmm. You can read and learn from other people’s experience. I’d learned that early on in life and recognize that there is a way to gain experience and it’s through the experience of others.
You don’t have to have it happen to yourself in order to be good at doing that. So I. Read and listened and I, on my commutes to work, I would be listening to books both ways and, and, you know, on the weekends and reading on my, you know, I’m on a, a trip, uh, with my family and I’m reading a business book, or I’m solving the problems.
And I would typically do that based on the problem that I was experiencing at the time. And I’m sure at times that came across to some of these seasoned folks as really textbook.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: Because I didn’t have the experience for that. But the question really came was, is this, is this the right decision for the organization?
And part of that was communicating and talking to them and helping them understand and for me to be clear on what I wanted as the outcome of the decision. [00:18:00]
Michael Mitchel: When you look, when you look back on at that first role Yeah. As president, ’cause he, then you became CEO of the company.
Stephen Brown: Right.
Michael Mitchel: What were some base hits and some strikeouts and what’d you learn from ’em?
Stephen Brown: You know, one of the things that happened at first was around decision making, and what I recognized at first was everyone would push the decision to me, because then it was. Easy to point a finger and talk about it being Steven’s fault.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: Right? And so at first I was like, well, this seems like an easy decision to make.
This is what we should do. And then I realized, wait a second, there’s no accountability. If I’m making all these decisions, all the accountability is pushed to me. I’m fine with that, but it didn’t keep other people in the game as being part of the decision, and so that was one that I had to actually made a goal, made a personal goal, and my personal goal was to not hold it, to ask people I need to hear.
You know, what [00:19:00] you think are the alternatives that you thought about? What, what are you recommending? And then if I could see that their recommendation was in the bandwidth of a good decision, or was not quite mine, but close enough, then I would say, it sounds like we’ve got a good decision that you’ve made and put it back.
And that really helped, particularly with the difference in age that I was dealing with, was that they felt like they weren’t being told. But they were able to demonstrate their skill and influence over this, and then also be accountable for the decisions. And when I didn’t do that upfront and people just came and made the decisions, that always came back to kind of bite me.
And it works so much better when I include them in the decision making process. Right, because there’s a difference
Michael Mitchel: between management and leadership,
Stephen Brown: right?
Michael Mitchel: Anything you wish you had? Done differently. Like, I mean, we all have, I, I don’t wanna call ’em regrets, but you know, ’cause then when you get in a similar situation, you can apply that as a lesson learned.[00:20:00]
Yeah. But when you look back at something, you’re like, eh, if I had another out bad other one, I would’ve done this.
Stephen Brown: You know, I’ve always been, and I still struggle with this today, a little slow to make a change. I believe in people and I wanna see the best in people. Mm-hmm. And I also believe people should be given a chance.
I mean. I was given a chance, right? And so I sometimes you can go too long on giving people a chance and doing that can hurt the organization or the culture of the organization. So I would say that one of the things I regret at times was not being quick enough in some of those personnel decisions that were critical.
Michael Mitchel: Hmm.
Stephen Brown: And that’s a hard one, particularly in, in the role ’cause you’re impacting another person’s livelihood. It affects their family. There’s all these reasons why you don’t, and they’ve, they’ve helped get the company to where it was at that point in time when you come in. And the challenge usually is [00:21:00] they may not be the right.
To take it to the next level. And that’s really hard to determine quickly which ones will be able to continue forward and which ones won’t.
Michael Mitchel: You’re not the first person who said that, especially on the show. Uh, Raphael, um, Raphael, uh, Crawford Marx, the CEO Boley, he was on a podcast earlier this year and we were talking about going from, uh, founder to CEO of the company, and he talked exactly to that issue.
You know, you get this far, but then they’re the person for the company at, at this step, but not three steps later.
Stephen Brown: Right.
Michael Mitchel: And it’s he’s, he just looks back. He’s like, yeah, you just, you need to be able to identify that and then make that a hard decision. Make that hard call
Stephen Brown: and that, and that’s exactly it. I think at first that was probably a much harder decision for me.
Michael Mitchel: Yeah.
Stephen Brown: Recognizing and. Where they were and they knew so much information, but they may not have been the right fit moving forward. Yeah. So if I look back, that’s probably where I took too much time in some [00:22:00] cases. And once I started making those decisions, it also changes the mentality of some of the people who are staying.
Mm-hmm. Um, and part of that change and shift in their mentality is, oh, I see that you really do want to do this. You’re taking actions to do that, and you are doing that in a way that’s very visible to everyone else too. Yeah.
Michael Mitchel: Stepping out from the conversation. For a brief moment, I would like to thank CXO conversations, sponsor a CG Denver for the support of this podcast.
As a local program chair, I am proud of Association for Corporate Growth in its role as the hub of the middle market business community for quality networking, education and advance connections are made, deals are formed, and thought leadership is exchanged. In fact, that’s how Steven and I met. He’s a board member of a CG Denver.
That’s right. Thanks Steven. So, um, going back to the conversation, um, you, you, in your, your employee feedback, you said, I wanna be a CEO. When did you, when did you want to be decide you wanna be a CEO and [00:23:00] why?
Stephen Brown: I rec recognized that that’s what I was looking for probably four years into my career. So it was pretty early.
Mm-hmm. I realized that I wanted to take a management track and would needed to figure out how to. To do that. And what skills? I think one of the things that was most important to me was volunteering and people would say, what do you mean volunteering? I would volunteer for different cases, different every job I had.
Mm-hmm. I looked for ways to, something had to be done, a project had to be completed. I would volunteer for that, that volunteering. Exposed me to things that I would not have been exposed to. Had I not done it, it did create more work for me. No doubt about it. There’s no easy way to say that. You gotta put in the work, um, and, and the knowledge and, and gain it somehow.
But that volunteering really helped me solve problems differently because I got exposure to different parts of the organization [00:24:00] that I was in. I got to solve different kinds of problems and lead and demonstrate leadership in areas that may. Be more visible to others besides just my manager.
Michael Mitchel: I don’t think I’ve ever met a CEO who was asked to be a CEO.
The common denominator in all the executives I’ve ever interviewed is they became a C level executive because they raised our hand, not because they were ready to be told to do something. I,
Stephen Brown: I totally agree with that there. If you’re waiting to be told on it, and I think this goes back to the, the, the ask.
Mm-hmm. You have to, to take a decisive action for what you’re looking to do, and that means that you need to let people know what you’re. Objectives are, you need to demonstrate the skillset to be able to do those objectives. And then ultimately there is, there’s a little bit of, there’s some luck involved with that on timing or the company or people that you meet with.
I, I would totally agree with that, but I think that I would’ve become, gotten to that position [00:25:00] someplace at some point in time in my career for sure.
Michael Mitchel: What was, um, what was your first board meeting like as CEO?
Stephen Brown: The board meetings are interesting. I, I had kind of read up and, and I didn’t really have direct experience with it, so I kind of, I read all of the board meeting notes for the prior years that I could get my hands on.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: And so all of that documentation I read through. I mean, just volumes of that stuff. Um, to understand how the structure was, to understand each of the board members to understand what the principles that they were looking for were, and then what did I, what were they supposed to present? And, um, that, that did rely on my, my CFO obviously, who had been there at the time and had had that experience before me.
So, um, they’re, they certainly, they’re your boss in a, in a way, everyone has a boss. Yes. Right, and so the key is both managing the information that needs to be, they need to receive, [00:26:00] and then also talking to them about the, the challenges, not so much just exploring, it’s not a whiteboard session with your board.
It is helping them understand here are the challenges we’re dealing with. Here are the, what we’re doing to take action on those challenges and ask for any feedback on things that they see that you may not. Sometimes that’s hard. It’s hard as a CEO to get feedback. You’re use of your own worst critic.
Mm-hmm. Most CEOs I find I’m, I’m my own worst critic. Someone will say, good job, and I’ll think, Hmm, I don’t think that was my best. If I felt like it was then I agree. Right. Yeah. Thank you. I agree, but I tend to be my own measure for. How good was that or how bad was that? And it is helpful to have that feedback from ’em, but I definitely felt a little nervous.
I think that’s appropriate just because I wasn’t sure what to expect and I felt like I had prepared for what that was and it went very well, but I didn’t know what to expect
Michael Mitchel: during this time. Did you have a mentor? Or mentors?
Stephen Brown: I had [00:27:00] mentors within, um, the parent company that I had developed when I was there.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: And I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have a group or anything like that. I, I just, I read a lot. I, um, just tried to figure it out. Um, was fortunate that I was good about talking to the people that I worked with and gaining insights and experience from them, and that was very helpful. I listened. And so that really helped, uh, for me instead of the mentality that, well, I’ve got this big title, I just know best.
Um, that’s different.
Michael Mitchel: So yeah, there’s, there’s some FTE make it thing going on here. Yeah. But at the same time, you’ve got moments where you, I’m sure you had serious self-doubt. And how did you get through that? Wow. Because it sounds like your, your network Yeah. Was somewhat limited.
Stephen Brown: It was. I had people in different areas, but I didn’t have a mentor that was a CEO that I was talking to.[00:28:00]
Mm-hmm. I did not have that. So I, I based that off of my experience and the work that I was doing, re reading books of other CEOs and other individuals was how I gained any experience around that. And then. Doing, and so I would certainly modify the work. I would modify my responses based on what I learned all the time.
So I was continuously learning and continuously changing.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: To make sure I was responding to how and what I was learning.
Michael Mitchel: Did you ever expand your mentor network as you, as you went through your career, because now we’re looking past your first CLP? Yeah, you bet.
Stephen Brown: I, I, I did. I, I found people who were experienced in, in a lot of different areas, whether that was legal or accounting or, uh, private equity or other areas.
And I found people that I felt were. Uh, great to give me advice. Mm-hmm. And so as I had things come up, [00:29:00] I’d say, Hey, give ’em a call. Let me get your advice on this. What do you think about it? And that was very helpful. So I had more of an informal, um, and there’s things that you can talk to your board about.
There’s things maybe that you’re exploring that you’re not gonna talk to your board about and, and you’re gonna talk to ’em when you’re, when you’re ready to talk about it, but you really wanna get some feedback from others.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: And I, I definitely use that and develop people. Everywhere I was that had a skill set and would bounce things off of them, and that was very helpful.
I do think you need to communicate with others to ask and get feedback and opinions. You’re making your own decision, no doubt about it, but there’s something to be said about learning from the wisdom of others.
Michael Mitchel: What would 55-year-old Steven say to a 3-year-old Steven? Advice wise,
Stephen Brown: I would say advice wise.
Hmm. I think one of the key pieces for, for me, and that I would say to myself at that age is [00:30:00] continue to listen, leverage other people’s talents, and it’s so important to, to rely on yourself and have confidence in yourself, but ultimately it’s all about team building.
Michael Mitchel: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Brown: Old business model was one where everyone wanted to have access to the CEO ’cause he just made all the decisions, or I say he could have been, certainly could she, but predominantly it ended up being Mel and, and that’s how it was.
And it’s not like that today. There’s this diversity of people that are making the decisions and people want to be part of the decision making process. And so it’s one where you’ve got to get information and advice and have. A group of people helping make that decision. ’cause ultimately there’s a sense of accountability, there’s a sense of ownership, there’s a sense of, I made that decision, let me make that happen.
Michael Mitchel: So what advice would you give to someone out there who is about to fill out their personal performance scorecard and they’re [00:31:00] gonna about, they want what they, what advice would you give someone who wants to be in the C-suite?
Stephen Brown: Yeah, I think. The key for me was to think past the next step. And I tell this to people all the time when they’re interviewing interview for two levels up.
Hmm. So if you’re interviewing someone for that particular job, I don’t think you’re doing the right interview interview for the capability for them to take a job that is two levels above what you’re interviewing for. And I think that’s really important in identifying attitudes and attributes and you know, it’s not just that people are smart, it’s, you know, how do they do that?
How do they communicate? How do they work with others? What kind of emotional intelligence do they have? And thinking about those, those things I used to have in my cube. I can remember I had a. A, a thing that said attitude, not aptitude determines your altitude. And that was posted in my cube. Mm-hmm. And that was, and I was, I don’t consider, I’m a, [00:32:00] you know, average smart person, I’m probably better than average at emotional intelligence.
But I, I would outwork, hustle, I would work diligently for it, and I would learn. And I, and I never really took myself that serious. And I think that helped me.
Michael Mitchel: Okay. Going back to 2000. So did you ever figure out one, who was the person who said, let’s make him the president, and do you know who that was?
Stephen Brown: Yeah, I do. It was it, it was this, uh, Michael Conroy was the individual’s name.
Michael Mitchel: And so fast forward x amount of years. Did, did you guys ever talk about it? Did you circle back around and did he say, I certainly
Stephen Brown: afterwards thanked him and, and appreciated him taking a risk on me. And what, and I remember kidding him a little bit and saying, didn’t it work?
It worked out pretty good for both. Right. And, you know, we had had great success as an organization and. Each of the ones that I’ve participated in have been successful. And so that’s been very rewarding for me. Mm-hmm. I know that doesn’t always happen that way, but that’s been rewarding for me to [00:33:00] be able to do that.
So, uh, he probably felt good that he made the right decision and I felt good that he made the decision.
Michael Mitchel: Did you guys stay in touch all the, throughout the years?
Stephen Brown: Um, yeah. He retired shortly after, so I didn’t, I didn’t stay as in touch as much after retirement for him. But, um, yeah, I, I still have a great appreciation for someone giving me a chance to, to prove myself.
Michael Mitchel: Uh, there was someone who gave me a, uh, chance, um, in, in the mid nineties when I was with UPS, you know, parcel service. Um. I think one of my regrets is I never circled back around and thanked her. Um, she passed away, um, in 2013, I believe. And that kind of, when I learned that it was, I learned after the fact.
I was kind of, I was disappointed in myself for not reaching out to her. ’cause she gave me a chance when other people were like, who the hell is this guy? Right? Yeah. Right. Because I was kind of, um, uh, you know, just. I just did it. Uh, I’m a big believer in, [00:34:00] um, forgiveness versus permission. Yeah. Um, and I kinda.
That was my MO at UPS and I had fun recruiting people and I was like, wait, this is a, you can get, this is a career giving people jobs. And I just kind of went for it. And so she was always, she always had my back. So it’s, it’s, it is, it’s important that we all have that person in our lives, in our career.
Stephen Brown: I would agree.
Yeah. I, I do remember doing, you know, this is certainly during the time period. Most of the, most information was communicated via email and certain, but I, I, I did a handwritten card. Yeah. And I remember sending that to, to, to Michael and, and Mike and, and also thanking him when I, when I saw him. So yeah, it’s, uh, it’s great to, everyone has someone to help them get to where they are.
It’s not just you. Right.
Michael Mitchel: Yeah. Um, you know, and this kind of, this kind of is one of the reasons why I asked this question. Because it, it’s so, uh, for many folks, it’s, um, part of who they are, where they’re at in their careers now, what was the worst [00:35:00] job you’ve ever had and what’s something out of it that you still use today?
I’m a half
Stephen Brown: glass full kind of guy, right? So for me, I, I remember I was in college and I was like, I need to get some work. Um, and I, I took off a job board and it was for a work doing. Construction. It was, it was doing concrete work and so I went to do this job and I’m, I’m. A physically active individual.
And so physically I thought this would be fine. And I went through this job and, and I didn’t know much about it. And so my role was basically moving this dirt to that spot and taking that dirt from this to make it level and, and then waiting for the trucks when they came to help get everything ready and pour the concrete.
And it was a physically demanding job. It was, um, I didn’t use. A lot of decision making. Mm-hmm. And for me, it was a driver for me to do [00:36:00] well in school and to make sure I was working hard to, to grow. ’cause I, I felt like I didn’t. I would do better if I could make decisions with my brain instead of my hands.
And some people are better making decisions with their hands. And, and I was, that was not, that was not mine. But what I learned, I remember passing, we did this big gas station, uh, as one of the projects that we did, and still to this day, I’ll pass that and tell my kids, yeah, your dad laid that concrete over there.
So there’s some satisfaction in that. But it was, uh, I have a great appreciation for people who do that job every day, day in, day out, a career in that Wow, they’re tough.
Michael Mitchel: I’m always amazed when you see a, a high rise being built that that corner way up there match. They all came together. ’cause if it was up to me that there’d probably be a, a gap.
So I totally get it. Well, look Steven, I’ve really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Stephen Brown: Thank you Michael.
Michael Mitchel: Uh, and I want to thank you, the listeners for, for tuning in. If hopefully you like the show, give us a five star rating on, on [00:37:00] iTunes so others can find it more easily.
It really does make a difference. If you wanna find me on LinkedIn, it’s Michael Mitchell with one L outta Denver and the one l. That’s the test. Uh, I wanna thank John Crossland for allowing me to use your amazing music on the show and a special thank uh, thank you. And shout out to my engineer, Kyle Moore.
Thanks for listening.
