Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: UKG CEO Chris Todd

I recently interviewed UKG CEO Chris Todd on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam:  My guest today is the leader of one of the largest private software companies in the world. Chris Todd is the CEO of UKG, valued at $22 billion with 15,000 employees, and a customer base of 75,000 organizations across more than 150 countries. Chris, thank you for joining us.

Chris: Thank you for having me, Adam. It's a pleasure to be here.

Adam: Pleasure is mine. You grew up in Marion, Ohio, where your dad ran the local YMCA?

Chris: I did. Mom was a high school math teacher.

Adam: My mom was a junior high school math teacher.

Chris: Oh, very good.

Adam: Can you take listeners back to your early days? What experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Chris: You're right, I grew up in Marion, Ohio. I moved around throughout the Midwest a little bit when I was young. I was in third grade, and my little brother was in first grade. It was a small town about an hour north of Columbus, but 25,000 people in the county, much less the town. Got there in the late 70s and grew up there through the 80s. So for people who are a certain age and a certain generation, they'll remember it was a time and a place. And it was certainly a different time than it was today. And far fewer options, whether social media, regular media, or anything than what people have today. So, we lived a pretty quiet life and a pretty tight community. Life revolved around our friends and the seasons and whatever the high school I happened to be doing that weekend, and it was a fantastic place to grow up, a very strong community. In hindsight, I realized I was surrounded by a group of adults who cared for me, molded me, directed me, and pushed me a little bit. And it was teachers, people in the community, coaches. And it was great. I knew I was having a wonderful time when I was there. And in hindsight, it was a tremendous way to grow up in a way that I think shaped me, potentially sort of profoundly in terms of who I became.

Adam: The power of community, the power of mentors, the power of people around you who are a little bit older than you. It could be teachers, could be friends of your parents who were willing to guide you, willing to show you the way.

Chris: They were fantastic. I can remember the specific conversations I had with specific teachers who encouraged me to try new things. I remember specific conversations with coaches, sometimes hard conversations with coaches, about what to do, how to practice, and what I should do differently. I do remember that it was a town where the adults knew me, the adults knew almost all of the kids in town and paid attention to them. And I benefited early from being able to watch my parents as well. As you mentioned, my dad worked for the YMCA, he was the executive director of the Marion Family YMCA from 1979 till the early 90s. When he moved elsewhere in Ohio and took over another YMCA. And I understood then that he had an important role in town. It wasn't a prosperous role. But at the time, it was important. The YMCA was the center of the community activity in the town. Before you got to middle school and high school sports, they had all the sports teams, they played football, they had soccer, they had baseball, et cetera. They had all the after-school activities. And that's where people went. And so between my dad and the high school principal and the chief of police, they had a pretty good handle on everything that was going on in Marion, and they had a handle on all of the kids. And so I knew the role that that institution had in the community and how important it was. I was fortunate even to realize this at the time, I was able to see the impact of work at a very early age from my father. He was a hard worker who took his job seriously and took his responsibility to the community seriously. For those people who are listening, and who know what YMCAs are today, the YMCAs at the time were much more community centers, many of them were still dormitories, much less like the health clubs that they tend to be today. And as a result of that, some people lived in the YMCA. And in many instances, the people who lived in the YMCA were one step away from homelessness. The YMCA was so cheap and so affordable. They would take you no matter what, that was the place you went when the next step was homelessness. And so I knew how important those dormitories were to those individuals my dad knew from very early in his career that those individuals who were living at the YMCA, potentially get up to no good if they didn't have anything positive to do with their thoughts and their hands and the time. And so he took it upon himself to make sure that they worked. And he gave them jobs. And by giving them jobs, he connected them to the YMCA. And when he connected them to the YMCA, they were connected to the people who came into the YMCA. Once they were connected in that way, you could see the individuals transform, they became more confident, they became happier, and they smiled more, instead of being people that I just saw at the YMCA, you would see them at the high school football game on a Friday night and on and on. And he made those people feel valued, he made them feel important, he made them feel seen through the power of the work that he gave them and through giving them responsibility and giving them something to do every single day. And that was meaningful to me then. Now obviously, given the role that I have now, deeply meaningful for the role that I have, and the company that I'm fortunate enough to work at. And you fast forward to 20 years from then, my dad is having his retirement party. When you work in the YMCA, you have your retirement party in the gym. They put out some chairs and a table and some punch and people tell stories. There were three people at that retirement party, who were not my brother or me, who called my dad "Dad" because of the impact that he had had on them through the work that he gave them and through the work that he gave them. It was the connection they had to the community. And that left a deep impression on me and something I'll never be able to never forget and never should forget.

Adam: I love it. And what you're sharing speaks to a topic that I love talking about, which is what is your definition of success? Your definition of success could be completely different than my definition of success could be completely different than the definition of success that your friend has, that your brother has, that your sister has, that your son has, that your daughter has. What is your definition of success? What does success mean to you personally? And your dad's definition of success, as you described what he did. Not a financially prosperous role, but an incredibly important role, the impact that his work had on the lives of others, having other people in the community, think of your dad as a dad, talk about a way to live a life.

Chris: I know. We're fortunate that he's still here, my mom's still here. In many ways, a completely blessed life that he's led. And I know to this day in a way that's deeply meaningful to him. He's incredibly proud of what he's done. And he should be proud of what he's done. And he knew that it was important, and he still knew that it was important to know the value. And to answer your question directly, I think my definition of success is very similar to what he was. I want to have a positive impact on the people who get to work here at UKG. And how I'm able to sort of lead and manage this company, the employees of UKG can have active fulfilled lives, both within the metaphorical four walls of UKG and in the communities and neighborhoods in which they work and live. I think I will have been a small part of enabling something incredibly positive. And we are fortunate enough to be a company that can provide for our employees in that way. And individually and collectively, they do incredible things in the communities that they work in, in terms of their involvement with nonprofits in formal ways, and the informal things that they do with people that they know, and it makes me happy. And when I hear stories from our employees about the things that they're able to do, because of how UKG cares for them, that makes me happier than anything, it makes me happier than quarterly performance or financial performance or anything, because that's a real and lasting impact that will pay off for years and years and years to come. In addition to that, UKG has human capital management software, and workforce management software that if we do our job enables the organization to utilize our products and services and to have a more engaged experience with their employees. And if we can enable that, what we're doing good as a company so that they have more engaged employees, so that they can have the same butterfly effect that we're trying to have here, that's motivating. That's energizing for me every day and that's my definition of success. That is what motivates me every single day.

Adam: Chris, what were the keys to rising within your career and what can anyone do to rise within their career?

Chris: It's an interesting question for me. I think there have been a couple of threads. I've always been and I try to continue to be intellectually curious. I'm always looking to learn something new, I try to ask a lot of questions, and I try to listen carefully. I think a lot about what I don't know, and how I can learn those things so that I can become better at what I do. And so I find myself continually chasing the learning of new things. And early in my career, as I was progressing through different companies in different roles, in different parts of software organizations, I think that served me well. So I think one characteristic that I have had and continue to try to develop every single day, I've worked hard over the years at developing my EQ, to work with people better, communicate with people better, and collaborate with people better. The better job that I can do along those lines, the more effective I'm going to be as a leader, as a manager, and as an employee. And that's an area where I've put a lot of conscious thought and a lot of conscious energy. The last example, and I did it as recently, as earlier today on a call, is I'm continually seeking feedback. Tell me what I did well, tell me what I could have done better. How did that feel to you? And that enables me to continue to adjust as I go. And I think those are some of the characteristics. You have to pick up functional skills as you go and think about the softer skills that have enabled me to continue to move throughout my career. I think those are some of the throughlines.

Adam: What steps did you take to develop, improve, and enhance your EQ?

Chris: Well, believe it or not, I did the simplest thing you can think of in the beginning, pick up a book. I read the book, and I took a bunch of notes. And I thought deeply about what I read in there, and how that matched up with how I thought I was doing. Then the second part of it was I did begin to seek feedback and learn some really valuable lessons as I went through that. In particular, one of the lessons that I learned that I think is difficult for anyone to learn as they are progressing through their career is that as people continue to progress, they tend to find, and I for sure experienced this myself and had to learn how to manage it and I've seen it in others. People progressing through their careers learn how to manage, and they tend to do that well. They tend to learn how to manage teams pretty well. So you can get good reviews from your team. And your manager will say that you're doing a good job, the real skill and the real art is being able to work with your peers collaboratively, and cross-functionally across any particular system to move an organization forward. I learned some lessons early in my career that taught me that I was good at managing up and managing down, but not very good at managing sideways. And to be truly effective across scale, you've got to be able to manage the sideways. That was a real learning. And that's an area of practice. And that's hard for all of us. That's something that I continue to practice every single day. The third thing that I do along the lines of EQ, which is important and was important as I went along and continues to be important in this role, is to make sure that I have a small cadre of people who I trust implicitly, who will always tell me the truth no matter what, to make sure that I continue to stay centered and grounded and that I'm showing up in the way that I want to show up and I think I'm showing up.

Adam: What do you look for in the people who you surround yourself with, whether they're the people in your inner circle, who you look to for the advice that helps guide you, helps center you, or whether they're one of those 15,000 employees that comprise your team?

Chris: We think across the 15,000 U-crewers I'm always looking for a certain set of characteristics. I want people who are high energy, who can energize others, and who have enough of an edge to make kind decisions. I want you to be kind, you need to treat people with respect, but have the edge to make a decision and take a stand, people who can execute. And then if you take those four E's and wrap them in passion, and real enthusiasm, we can do anything. And when I get to meet new people, and when I have the opportunity to interview new people, those are the characteristics that I'm looking for. And so when I'm talking to them about what they've done before, what they want to do in the future, those are the traits that I'm looking for. If people show up with energy and personality, they can energize others with high passion, then we can do amazing things here together. And I look for that broadly. To answer your question specifically for someone who is one of those truly trusted advisors and as the CEO sometimes it's hard to make sure that people will always tell you the truth in all instances. There, you look for people who have both a strong enough ego, to always know that they can tell the truth and at the same time, be thoughtful enough about what the organization means to know that it's not about them and it's about the furtherance of the organization. And so I'm always looking for that balance of enough ego, to lead, but little enough ego to realize it's not about any one individual, it's not about any one particular group. It's about where the organization is trying to go. And so as I look through the senior team that we've built, it's really around the balance of those two getting that right, so that we can continue to lead together and support one another as we go.

Adam: You want someone who's self-confident, but is team-oriented, team team-focused. Someone with high energy someone with an edge to them, someone who has passion, and enthusiasm, is not afraid to make a decision, and can execute can get things done. What we haven't mentioned is you did your undergraduate at Harvard, you went to law school at Yale. You didn't say that you're looking for someone who went to an Ivy League school, you didn't say you're looking for someone who had a 4.0 or is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. You're looking for someone who brings the intangibles to the table. And that's what it's all about.

Chris: The intangibles matter. And at some level, the intangibles determine almost everything in the outcome. You're right, I did go to those schools, and I was very fortunate to go to those schools. That said, plenty of people who didn't go to those schools have had unbelievable careers, and have achieved things that I will never achieve in my life. And we have incredibly talented people at UKG, who went to all manner of colleges, we have incredibly talented people at UKG who didn't go to college. We have incredibly talented people from all walks of life, all geographies, all backgrounds. It's about what you make of the innate skills that you have, not where you went to school. Part of what we do here is we try to look through all of that to find those innate qualities of people. Make sure that they'll have those characteristics that line up with the mission statement of UKG to be united and kind and growing. And we'll get those matched. We're off to the races.

Adam: What advice do you have for leaders on how to assess whether the person sitting across from them has those intangibles and whether the person sitting across from them has what it takes to execute on the job?

Chris: I have a little bit of a backward process or some people would consider it a backward process as I'm getting to know people and assessing whether they would be a good fit for UKG. Generally, when you're meeting someone new, interview, start with "Tell me about yourself, and where you're from", getting to know someone at a personal level, I've found the most effective way for me to get to know someone, in particular, to see if someone is a good fit for UKG. So in my first conversations, I don't do any of that. What I want to hear about is what work you do, what hobbies you have, what passions you have, and how you talk about them. In what detail do you talk about them? How enthusiastically do you talk about them? And that's what I'm looking for. Because I've found that one of my weaknesses, as I'm getting to know people and interviewing people is that I like people, and people are generally friendly, and they're nice. And my tendency, if we get to know one another at a personal level, is to like someone and I found that when I begin to like someone, I don't make the right decisions for UKG. And so I flipped how I interview. So I'm all substance, in the beginning, the second conversation is more personal. And so that I identify that energy and that enthusiasm and that passion. And then if that's all there, we're lined up on the interpersonal stuff, in the United, kind, and growing, then we're off to the races. I've just found for me, I need to reverse them or I am not as effective as I could be.

Adam: Chris, you bring up something really important which is being aware of your biases. Self-awareness is essential to effective leadership. In your view, what are the key characteristics of the most successful leaders? And what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Chris: I've thought about this question a lot. I find that people that I consider to be exceptional leaders, and that has nothing to do with where you are on an organization chart, but people who are exceptional leaders have a spike, something that they are exceptional at. That can be a functional spike, it can be an emotional spike, it can be an intellectual spike, it can be any of a variety of things. But to be an exceptional leader, you need to be exceptional at something. The best leaders know what that is, and figure out how to utilize that for the benefit of the organization, I've had the benefit of working for two extraordinary CEOs over the past 20 to 23 years of my career. And they were both wildly successful CEOs, they both had very deep spikes in specific areas, but in completely different areas. I've been able to work for two CEOs who operate companies in completely different ways but had a similarly positive impact on individuals and the business. And I've been able to see an incredible number of credible array of leaders here lead and be successful in different ways. And that's the primary lesson I've taken out of all this is to have a spike, be self-aware enough to know what that is, and figure out how to utilize that for the benefit of the organization.

Adam: We all have a superpower. What is yours?

Chris: I think about this all the time. And it's funny, you asked me that question. My immediate reaction is I don't have a superpower. And the reason I say that is I try hard to bring a level of humility to this role every single day. And to know that every single day, I could have done a better job. And I could have done better on behalf of UKG and the employees here, and everything that we're trying to do here. And so I try not to tell myself that I do have a superpower. That said, I think I've learned to do a couple of things pretty well over the years. Given the nature of this role and similar roles that I have, I am pretty effective at compartmentalizing, identifying what needs to get done in a whole variety of areas, and making sure that I make progress in those areas every single day. That's one skill that I have. I am skilled at being prepared and thoughtful. I have a structured process around how I make sure I'm ready for my week, how I make sure I'm ready for every single day so that I show up to every single interaction in a way that's meaningful and helpful to the person that I'm working with. I do believe as it relates to communicating to large groups of people, I've been successful in the past and taking relatively complex issues, and communicating them to a broad population in a way that makes sense. And so a lot of what goes on and an organization the size of UKG is complex and is large. We have a large business. And sometimes it's not simple to explain exactly why we're doing what we're doing, or the long-term impact of it, I tend to be pretty effective, like boiling issues like that down to their essence, and being able to communicate that back to the group in a way that can be both understood and motivational for the organization. And then finally, I work hard at building the teams that are around us and enabling them to work with one another so that they can be effective both with me and without me.

Adam: It sounds like you're good at a lot of different things.

Chris: I try.

Adam: Which is why you also lead a $22 billion business. One of the things that you mentioned that you're good at is being able to communicate effectively, being able to take complex issues, simplify them, and clearly communicate them. What can anyone do to become a better communicator?

Chris: Practice. That's what I tell my kids. Communication is hard. Public speaking is hard. Learning how to speak to a group of five people is different than 100 people, is different than 1000 people. It's practice. And I found that the more I practice, the better I do, the more I do it, the better I get, the more comfortable I get. And so communicating is a skill. It can be learned and the more individuals can do to practice it and by practicing it, they have to put themselves in uncomfortable situations, take risks, and try some things that they've never tried before, to learn how to do it. It's like any other skill. You just have to practice.

Adam: Chris, for all of the success that you've enjoyed throughout your career, what do you consider to be your most significant failure? What did you learn from it? And what advice do you have for anyone listening on how to navigate the setbacks, obstacles, and failures that they face in their lives and their careers?

Chris: I've had a ton of failures. I would put them in a couple of categories. Some of my largest failures earlier in my career were around the issue of not working effectively with my peers. And so I got good at running a function, I got good at managing what I was doing. But sometimes that was to the detriment of the people around me. And sometimes it wasn't as effective for the entire organization, as it could have been. And so I learned a whole series of lessons around that as I went through my career, that's a large category. Another category is other mistakes I've made when I've tried to cut corners and made a bad decision, made a bad acquisition, or decided to do something for the business that didn't work out as well as it could have been. And sometimes when I go back and deconstruct what happened, it was because I didn't do the work I should have. I didn't do my homework. I didn't ask that extra question. And so I do try to make sure that I don't make those mistakes. And it's part of the reason, as I said at the beginning, is I ask a lot of questions, I try to learn, I try to identify where the weak spots are. Because in those instances where I haven't done that, those have been some of my bigger mistakes. And so it's learning how to work across an organization, a lot of mistakes, and not finishing the work and not doing my homework and asking that last question that led to some of the failures.

Adam: A key theme here, which has been a key theme throughout our conversation, is the importance of being honest with yourself, looking inward, and looking outward. You mentioned early on that one of the keys to your ability to rise within your career, one of the keys to how you got to where you are today was your continued desire to seek feedback. Ask others, what is it that I need to do to take that next step? How can I get better?

Chris: It's incredibly important. It's incredibly important. But anyone who wants to go on that journey has to be prepared for the fact that it hurts your ego every once in a while. But if you're going to ask people for feedback, you have to want the feedback and be willing to act upon it. And I've learned to be able to separate people's honest feedback from how they feel about me. They can love me personally, doesn't mean I'm perfect, and in every single instance that I worked with them or interacted with them. And so I worked hard to try to separate the two so that I could learn from the lessons without it becoming too close to home, too emotional, too personal.

Adam: Do you have any tips for anyone listening on how to get great feedback, good questions to ask, and good people to ask? Anything that you've done over the years that you think would be particularly valuable.

Chris: I tend to be just blunt about it. I mentioned earlier that I had an experience earlier today where I asked someone for feedback. It was an instance where I led a meeting. It was the first time I'd led a meeting like that. I was very aware that the person on the other end had received hundreds of meetings like the one I was delivering. And I had the opportunity to catch up with that individual privately on the phone afterward. I just asked the person, "How did I do? You give me some feedback for next time? What did I do well? What didn't go as well? What feedback do you have for me?" Then I thanked the person for it, you need to thank them for the feedback, you need to play it back to make sure that you heard it correctly. And you need to be able to do something about it. When I have conversations like that, I take very good notes and try to take very detailed notes so that I can reflect on them, so you don't lose it in the moment. And it's important that when you ask someone for feedback. The next time you have an experience with them, play it back. Say, "Did I do a little bit better? How did that feel? I tried. I thought about it." And then you'll get into a positive learning loop and off you go. But sometimes you just start by blurting the question out and seeing where it goes. You do have to make sure that the person on the other end of the question knows that you're asking the question from a place of improvement and that it's safe for them to give their feedback. You don't want to accidentally put people in a situation where they feel like they should not tell you the truth. You need to make it safe for them to tell you the truth.

Adam: UKG has a customer base of 75,000 organizations. You can't have that many companies who are buying your software without having a customer-centric business. How can leaders create and sustain customer-centric organizations?

Chris: You have to do it every single day. To be customer-centric, it has to be more than the words on the page, you have to wake up every day and say, what can I do to make a customer happy today? I say that to our employees here at UKG all the time. When we have State of the company meetings, more often than not, at some point in there, I will say, if you're not sure what to do today, do something to make a customer happy. And we live it every day. We discuss it every day, what gets measured gets done, and we have metrics that we track to see how we're doing. We talk about them all the time. When they're not as good as we want them to be, we're honest about why they're not, we put plans in place to make them better. And that's in an aggregate sense. In a specific sense, when I run across customers who aren't as happy as they should be, I follow up personally. I answer every single email I get from every single customer as fast as I can get to it. And you prove it by your actions. And so the company level we talk about all the time, we track it all the time. At a personal level, I make sure I'm following up so that everyone else in the organization knows that they should follow up immediately on customers and honestly set this intention that every single day, you should do something to make a customer happy. And if you do at the end of the day, it's probably a good day.

Adam: The buck stops at the top, can't underestimate the power, and the importance of leading by example and being personally invested. When you as the CEO, make this your number one priority, personally responding to customer emails, that sets the tone. Everyone in your company, all 15,000 people is going to understand, this is what our company, this is what our organization, this is what we are all about.

Chris: There is no meeting on my schedule that you can't cancel in lieu of talking to a customer. If a customer has an issue, or we need to do something with a customer, I believe everybody I interact with in the organization understands that. And we try to act like that across the business. And it works. It pays off.

Adam: Another big area of focus for you as a leader is your culture. It's something that you're personally invested in. In your experience, what are the keys to building a winning organizational culture?

Chris: We care deeply about our culture, we care about it for a couple of reasons. One, it's just this company we want to work for. I don't get to work for a lot of companies in my life, so why wouldn't I want to work for a company with a great culture, with employees who treat each other great, and where we try to live behind United, Kind, and Growing every day? It's also strategic for us for a couple of reasons. The better our culture is, the more potential employees we'll track, the easier it will be to recruit, the easier will be to retain, and the better job we will do providing the customer service that we were talking about a couple of minutes ago. And then finally, given the nature of the market that we're in, human capital management software, I deeply believe that we need to have an extraordinary culture so that we know how to deliver culture through our products and services to the customers that we serve. If we don't understand what it means to have a great culture, how can we build the products that organizations will use to deliver that culture to their organization? It's vitally important to us across all three of those metrics. I mentioned earlier that we relentlessly track our customer satisfaction across a variety of metrics, we do the same for our employee engagement, for our manager engagement. We survey the entire organization twice a year, we deeply inspect those results, we put action plans in place to address those areas where we're not living up to our expectations, and the employees tell us that we can do a little bit better. And we manage our culture, just like we manage any other part of the business. And we treat it as important as anything else that we do. And that works. And we think and talk about it all the time. We ask for feedback all the time so that we're continually improving on that culture because of what it can do for us as a business. And because, as I said in the beginning, it's the place we want to work. Why wouldn't we? We've got choices. We have wildly talented people, we have choices. Why wouldn't they want to work here?

Adam: Chris, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Chris: Keep an open mind. Keep learning. Be curious. Be thoughtful, be sensitive. Treat people with kindness. And if you put all those things together, you get a pretty good recipe.

Adam: Chris, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Chris: No, thank you. That's a real pleasure. I enjoyed this.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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