Tommy Ogden, co-founder and agility and analytics lead at Activia Consulting. Tommy shares his journey from a financial analyst with a side hustle to a leadership role in a boutique management consulting firm focused on the future of energy. His diverse experiences, including an unforgettable weekend chauffeuring international soccer stars, underscore the humility and team spirit at the core of effective leadership.
Tommy emphasizes the importance of humility, teamwork, and adapting to roles as needed, drawing parallels between his sports background and professional endeavors. He discusses the transition from a small firm to being acquired by Accenture, highlighting the value of personal fulfillment over comfort and the known. Ogden's approach to consulting—maximizing credibility, reliability, and intimacy while minimizing self-orientation—serves as a model for fostering trusted partnerships and achieving successful outcomes.
Want to learn more about Tommy's work? Check out their website at https://www.activeraconsulting.com.
Connect with Tommy on LinkedIn at https://linkedin.com/in/tommyogden.
Key Points with Time Stamps:
- (00:00:51.10 - 00:01:32.27) Introduction of Tommy Ogden, co-founder and agility and analytics lead at Activia Consulting, focusing on leadership lessons.
- (00:02:57.20 - 00:04:51.09) Tommy's unique experiences driving international soccer stars and the leadership humility learned from these interactions.
- (00:05:33.13 - 00:05:57.24) Insights into effective teamwork, humility in leadership, and the importance of treating team members with respect.
- (00:15:12.16 - 00:17:11.01) Discussion on the transition from a small firm to a larger corporation (Accenture) and back to entrepreneurial pursuits.
- (00:27:08.04 - 00:29:08.25) Explanation of the trust equation in consulting, emphasizing credibility, reliability, intimacy, and minimizing self-orientation for successful leadership.
Transcript
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.
00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.
00;00;51;10 - 00;01;21;07
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Tommy Ogden. He is the co-founder. He's also the agility and analytics lead at Activia Consulting. It's a boutique management consulting firm based in Houston, Texas, focused on the future of energy for. He actually is. This is not his first rodeo. He started one with some buddies that got acquired by Accenture and some point they decided, you know what?
00;01;21;07 - 00;01;32;27
Craig Andrews
There's something about small that we prefer over big. And that was the beginning of the active era. And so looking forward to learning more from Tommy. Welcome.
00;01;32;29 - 00;01;36;18
Tommy Ogden
Thank you so much, Greg. Really appreciate you inviting me on.
00;01;36;20 - 00;01;57;10
Craig Andrews
Thank you. so when we were talking, you know, it's it's really interesting when when people are breaking in, you know, when they're starting their careers, they end up doing all sorts of interesting jobs. I mean, at one point, there was one time I had a part time job as a janitor. Just because, you know, I needed, money.
00;01;57;17 - 00;02;11;27
Craig Andrews
Sure. I think you had a side hustle that was a lot more interesting than picking up other people's crap. But in some ways, it was picking up other people's crap. What? What did you do now?
00;02;11;27 - 00;02;30;11
Tommy Ogden
You got it. and there was a lot of crap to go around, let me tell you. So I did have a full time job. I was a financial analyst, with, heating and air conditioning manufacturer at the time. But in order to make extra money, like you mentioned, I was working a side hustle on the weekends for a local, TV station in town in Houston, Texas.
00;02;30;11 - 00;02;57;18
Tommy Ogden
And, essentially what they were filming was those judge shows, right? Similar to a Judge Judy. And so my role was to actually go pick up plaintiffs and defendants from the airport, drop them off so that they could do their their filming of this judge show and then take them back to the airport. And so, you can imagine, in certain instances, if people lost their case, they weren't so happy to get back into the car with me.
00;02;57;20 - 00;03;17;12
Tommy Ogden
and we'll just leave it at that. But, a very interesting thing that that happened to me, while I was working that side hustle was someone came up with this idea. It was back in 2010. They were going to rent out the football stadium here in Houston. The really big one. And they were going to have a soccer competition.
00;03;17;17 - 00;03;44;08
Tommy Ogden
It's called the Free Kick Masters, and they were going to invite international soccer stars from all over the world to participate here. The prize for the best striker was $1 million, and the price for the best goalkeeper was 500,000. So it actually drew a lot of really top name talent. And logistically, in order to make that happen, he needed drivers to go and pick up people from the airport, drop them off at the hotel.
00;03;44;14 - 00;04;07;23
Tommy Ogden
And so he tapped this studio that I just happened to be driving for at the time, and I haven't mentioned it yet, but in in my undergraduate, I actually majored in Spanish, and I took Portuguese and I took French, and I was really big on the romance languages. And so I was sort of a hot commodity when it came to drivers and being able to pick up all these international soccer star.
00;04;07;23 - 00;04;28;27
Tommy Ogden
So, you know, my claim to fame is at 6 a.m. one Monday morning, in a minivan, I show up to Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, and I pick up Lionel Messi from the airport. him and his cadre of folks. to be fair, he wasn't that talkative. I think he had taken the the redeye flight from Argentina.
00;04;28;29 - 00;04;46;13
Tommy Ogden
but, you know, we were able to, to converse a little bit. He did end up signing, my shirt at the time. And I had a lot of interactions that week. And I took Ronaldinho, who is a big Brazilian soccer star, back to the airport. I engaged with Rafa marquez, one of the big Mexican soccer stars.
00;04;46;13 - 00;04;51;09
Tommy Ogden
And, you know, overall, it was a very interesting and tiring weekend.
00;04;51;11 - 00;05;09;21
Craig Andrews
Wow. Yeah. What, you know, in that in the course of doing that drive, job driving all these people, around, what would you say is the biggest thing you learned? Something that would surprise people. What was something you learned that caught you by surprise?
00;05;09;23 - 00;05;33;08
Tommy Ogden
So I would say, both from a positive and a negative perspective. I would say from the positive side, people are generally pretty humble, right? I mean, I, the folks that I were, engaging with and that I were taking back and forth, they they would talk to you, right? They weren't above you. and, you know, I think there's a leadership lesson there around how you work together with a team.
00;05;33;13 - 00;05;57;24
Tommy Ogden
In this case, for them, it would be a sports team, right? It probably doesn't behoove them to be this, you know, non humble super soccer star because they've got to pass with other people and they have to support them and they need their teammates to support them in turn. and so I was actually surprised by the humbleness, and the ability that these folks had to engage on a personal level, with just, you know, General Joe Schmo.
00;05;57;26 - 00;06;18;03
Tommy Ogden
so, so I would say that would be a positive thing. I learned. The negative thing I would say is, honestly, that the individual I had mentioned previously who had this idea and kicked it off well, after the show was over, you know, we worked our tail off that entire weekend, and we weren't the only ones, I mean, to put something together like that.
00;06;18;03 - 00;06;39;27
Tommy Ogden
You've got logistic crews all over the place. Well, unfortunately in this, in this case, there was, a failure to pay, all of these contractors. luckily, the studio that I was working with had a bit more clout behind them and put some pressure on the guy to get the drivers paid. But not everybody was so lucky.
00;06;40;00 - 00;07;01;26
Tommy Ogden
and so there were a lot of delinquent payments, and I think there were civil court cases afterwards, etc.. And so that would be the anti leadership example of, you know, actually taking care of the people that are working with you and for you. And so I saw the negative side of the house there as well. So two sides of the coin.
00;07;01;28 - 00;07;26;29
Craig Andrews
You know, it's that that is something it's really interesting because presumably whoever put that on would look to put on things in the future. And it seemed at least to me it seems very short sighted, you know, just deaf people on this job. Because if you develop that reputation then just becomes really, really hard.
00;07;27;02 - 00;07;31;28
Tommy Ogden
And let me tell you Craig, it never happened again. That was the one and only kick masters.
00;07;32;01 - 00;07;53;03
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well you know, and you know, we were talking a little bit about my history. I, you know, I told you I had freelancers that were reaching out to my team when I was in, in a coma in the hospital and the what I would say is the, you know, I decided years ago about how I, how I would treat freelancers.
00;07;53;03 - 00;08;19;26
Craig Andrews
And I had a specific strategy, that recognized the day was coming when labor would be scarce. Labor was abundant at the time. I was like, this will not last forever. Labor will be scarce again. And so what am I going to do to make sure they return my calls when I need them? Right? And it's a shame that this fella who put on that event didn't think that way.
00;08;20;00 - 00;08;21;25
Craig Andrews
I think that's a losing mentality.
00;08;21;25 - 00;08;23;24
Tommy Ogden
I completely agree.
00;08;23;27 - 00;08;34;17
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So you were so during the week you were doing, financial analysis for, would you say, exact.
00;08;34;19 - 00;08;37;10
Tommy Ogden
Yeah, exactly. Heating and air conditioning manufacturer. Yep.
00;08;37;12 - 00;08;45;23
Craig Andrews
Oh, wow. I mean, so what does that mean with, you know, financial analytics? What what does that mean in lay language? what?
00;08;45;25 - 00;09;21;15
Tommy Ogden
Yeah, yeah, I know that can be like, it's very wide ranging and variable, where that can go. So essentially the company I worked for, they, they built these air conditioning systems and they had dealers all over the country, and I think 40 different states. And what I was doing in the finance department was the air conditioning manufacturing company would have a rebate program so that if a dealer sold X amount of equipment in a month, then they could apply for, sort of a volume discount, if you will, post sale.
00;09;21;22 - 00;09;44;22
Tommy Ogden
And then the company, the manufacturing company would then rebate that dealer a certain amount of money based on the volume that went through that dealer. And I was responsible for managing the relationships with those 40 different vendors, gathering up all of the information around the their sales for the month, and then determining what the rebate was, that the manufacturing company would pay them.
00;09;44;24 - 00;09;50;24
Craig Andrews
Okay. That's cool. So how did you get into consulting?
00;09;50;27 - 00;10;17;13
Tommy Ogden
Sure, yes. So, I was a career switcher. what I just described to you, did not jive with my undergraduate degrees, which I mentioned earlier around Spanish and Portuguese and French. So unfortunately, though, I was good at my job, I kept getting passed over for promotions by folks who had a financial background. Right? Folks who had majored in finance or had master's in finance.
00;10;17;13 - 00;10;38;22
Tommy Ogden
And, you know, to be honest, it wasn't really my passion. And so I was thinking, what am I going to do? Right? I can't can't do much with a Spanish degree. I can maybe go into teaching, maybe go into the United Nations, but I need to do something else. I need to figure something else out. and at that time, I also got engaged to my now wife.
00;10;38;22 - 00;11;00;06
Tommy Ogden
And so, you know, talk about epiphanies that you have from your experiences in your life. I was thinking, my gosh, how can I how can I support this woman in a in a future family is as a financial analyst. And so it really got me thinking. I should probably go back to school. and so I did that, I actually did a dual degree program.
00;11;00;06 - 00;11;28;09
Tommy Ogden
So an MBA at university of Houston and then an MGM, which is a master of Global Management from the Thunderbird School of International Management out in Phenix, Arizona. And that allowed me to not only find my passion of consulting, but it also allowed me to take my previous passions around languages and international cultures and incorporate those into into business.
00;11;28;12 - 00;11;53;18
Tommy Ogden
And so, I really changed my entire career trajectory by going back to school. And once I found consulting and I realized, hey, you can go in, you can work with a team of people, you can solve problems. You can help folks not only personally but professionally. That that was it. That was it for me. And so, I focused everything I had in consulting.
00;11;53;18 - 00;12;12;00
Tommy Ogden
I got it consulting certificates. I took consulting courses where you actually worked with folks in the in the university ecosystem and companies within the city to solve problems for them. and then right out of school, I went straight into a boutique management consulting firm and never looked back.
00;12;12;03 - 00;12;22;21
Craig Andrews
And so, I mean, consulting is a big area. So when when you were consult, how are you? How were you helping people? What was the nature of what you were doing?
00;12;22;23 - 00;12;44;20
Tommy Ogden
Sure. So the big companies that, you know, you talk about Accenture's and the Deloitte's the KPMG's and, you know, the list goes on and on. They do a bit of everything, right? I mean, they do all different industries and they'll do, you know, project management and change management and strategy and operations and, and analytics. And they just do everything.
00;12;44;22 - 00;13;11;06
Tommy Ogden
When you talk about a boutique management consulting firm, there's a focus there. And our focus has always been IT advisory for the energy industry. And so a lot of our experience of those co-founders, is in that realm. most of us are Houston based. And it's the, you know, the world oil and gas capital. so a lot of our clients are here, and that's just really where we've built up our network.
00;13;11;06 - 00;13;35;04
Tommy Ogden
So for us, it's IT advisory. When you when you hear it consulting, sometimes you think, you know, networking and infrastructure and hey, can you fix my laptop? that's not really what we do. It's it's more of going to like the, the chief technical officer or the chief information officer or the chief data officer, and that individual will have a number of different projects and programs running to progress the company.
00;13;35;06 - 00;13;40;02
Tommy Ogden
And we would help, make those successful and accelerate the business outcomes.
00;13;40;05 - 00;13;46;23
Craig Andrews
Okay. and what's I mean, like, what's an example of a project that would you'd have underway.
00;13;46;25 - 00;14;10;02
Tommy Ogden
Yeah, sure. So one of the main things that we do is, is, merger integration. So perhaps you've seen in I know you're in Austin, I'm sure you get some news related to the energy industry. you've seen a lot of M&A, right? So people Exxon's buying a company, and Chevron's buying a company, and companies are either being acquired or merging together so that they're a bigger company.
00;14;10;05 - 00;14;37;27
Tommy Ogden
Right? After that happens, you essentially have two separate technological ecosystem items that need to be intertwined somehow without any disruption to the business and with the fastest adoption rate possible. And so that's what we would help with. that's one example, right. So we would come in after the announcement has been made. There's a bunch of pre day one activities around how is the project team going to look like.
00;14;37;27 - 00;15;03;15
Tommy Ogden
What is the governance structure. What about a due diligence checklist and assessment of both of the systems. Then there would be a execution phase right where you're actually trying to run the projects to merge the different IT systems. And then there would be sort of a hand over to operations with, you know, rationalization of the different applications and, and just making sure that there's longevity and sustainability.
00;15;03;17 - 00;15;06;25
Tommy Ogden
between the new company,
00;15;06;27 - 00;15;12;14
Craig Andrews
Got it. So that obviously ran pretty well. And then what, Accenture acquired you guys.
00;15;12;16 - 00;15;37;05
Tommy Ogden
Yeah. Surprise. Out of the blue. Congratulations. Accenture is taking you on. So that was a bit of a change. Going from 100 person firm is what we were at the time of the acquisition to I believe I looked just a couple weeks ago and they were at 743,000 people at Accenture all over the world. And, interestingly, I told you, these big firms do everything.
00;15;37;10 - 00;15;40;13
Tommy Ogden
Well, you know, the the Netflix show Stranger Things.
00;15;40;16 - 00;15;41;04
Craig Andrews
Yes.
00;15;41;07 - 00;16;07;14
Tommy Ogden
Yeah. So Accenture actually did the visual effects for Stranger Things. They have a whole department that's just dedicated to visual effects. you think of Accenture and Consulting and that's probably the last thing on your mind. But as you mentioned previously, consulting is so varied and wide ranging. There's lots of different types and flavors of it. So that's just to give you an example of what we were walking into, right?
00;16;07;14 - 00;16;34;22
Tommy Ogden
This giant behemoth of a company with tentacles all over the world. It's a very different feel than that, that smaller boutique sort of culture and community and camaraderie that exists, at that, at that smaller firm. And so, you know, we we did it, people went different directions. Some stayed at Accenture, some went back to boutique, some went into independent consulting, some went into industry and joined some of our clients.
00;16;34;24 - 00;17;01;02
Tommy Ogden
People took different paths. But, I always had this sort of entrepreneurial spirit or mind where I wanted to do that. I wanted to contribute in that way. and it never really left me. It was always just so, hey, when is the opportunity going to come along? And, and after spending a few years at Accenture, realized, I think this is the right time.
00;17;01;04 - 00;17;11;01
Tommy Ogden
let's do it. So that's, that that was the shift to small to big and back to an entrepreneurial small organization.
00;17;11;03 - 00;17;24;11
Craig Andrews
You know, and I imagine there's someone out there listening that's like, been waiting for the day that they would get hired by Accenture. sure. And, you know, because it's a huge name, it's a nice thing to have on your resume. But when your thing.
00;17;24;13 - 00;17;48;11
Tommy Ogden
Yeah. And that's, that's I can tell you that I was that person. In fact, just candidly, when I was graduating business school, Accenture is one of the places I applied and I didn't get in, right, I was denied. And so I was actually really wanting to join that company. And tell the truth. There's a lot of really good things about that company.
00;17;48;11 - 00;18;06;10
Tommy Ogden
I mean, I, I loved the smart people that I worked with. I was doing challenging work, I can say a whole lot of positives about that. And like you said, for certain people that could be their grail, right? And that's what they want to do and that's where they want to be. People spend their entire careers at Accenture and they love it, right?
00;18;06;12 - 00;18;26;02
Tommy Ogden
But for everybody, it's different. And I did a little bit of soul searching, towards the end of my, my tenure there and thought about, what do I want to do, do I want I've got 25 years left, let's say, in my career. Do I want to pound the the pavement as an Accenture company man for the next 25 years?
00;18;26;05 - 00;18;48;04
Tommy Ogden
I personally didn't. Right. Do I want to go into industry? I had been working with one client for literally a decade. I could probably have gotten a job there, but I knew what that was. That was comfortable. That was comfortable, right? That was unknown entity. There's something about waking up every day and being excited about going to work.
00;18;48;04 - 00;19;11;05
Tommy Ogden
And I and when I thought about that and how much excitement I felt internally in this idea of starting my own thing or co-founding it, at least, I couldn't say no. I couldn't say no. And so everybody's got to figure that out for themselves. About what? What gets them excited. And in my case, you're right, it wasn't working for a big company.
00;19;11;07 - 00;19;36;07
Craig Andrews
now, one thing that you said was, if I heard you correctly, you know, so there was 100 of you that got acquired by Accenture and sound like a fair number of people didn't stay for the long haul. Yep. And, you know, that's something that I've seen. I've been through an M&A. I lasted I think, three months, had to push a really big check back across the table.
00;19;36;09 - 00;20;09;13
Craig Andrews
Sure. And and doing M&A is is hard. And so if I think about the listeners, you know, Accenture isn't listening to this podcast, but there's business owners who, who are looking at growing their midsize business and considering a, you know, M&A to do that. I've seen so many times, they just don't work out. I think the majority of times they don't work out.
00;20;09;15 - 00;20;12;06
Craig Andrews
Why do you think that is.
00;20;12;08 - 00;20;36;20
Tommy Ogden
It could be either from the strategic side or from the tactical. And so strategic wise you're trying to make a good decision about if we acquired this company, how is it going to supplement our current portfolio. Right. That would be one of the strategic concerns for oil and gas companies. Right. They're looking at acreage. So we think, you know, shale is really big out in the Permian Basin and Midland, Texas right out there.
00;20;36;23 - 00;21;00;26
Tommy Ogden
What can we do to increase our acreage so that we've got a larger footprint and we can produce more oil and gas? Right. That might be one of the strategic ideas they have, around, around acquiring a company. And that may be based off of a number of different variables, including the future price of oil and gas, the operational efficiencies that you gain from bringing these two companies together.
00;21;00;26 - 00;21;20;23
Tommy Ogden
Right. Maybe one has a really good drilling and completions practice, and the other one has a good land management practice, let's say. And if we could bring those two together, then, you know, it's going to be it's going to be amazing. So there could be missteps from the strategic perspective. Maybe Covid happens and and oil oil prices hit -$40 a barrel.
00;21;20;23 - 00;21;41;13
Tommy Ogden
Right. And, you know, you didn't see that one coming. And so from a strategic side, maybe it was the wrong acquisition. That could be one thing that happens. But also from a tactical implementation side. we talked through just a briefly, some of the execution things that you would do to put systems together. Well, it's not just systems.
00;21;41;13 - 00;22;08;23
Tommy Ogden
There's processes and there's people. Right? There's technology involved. If you're not incorporating those things effectively, then you can see a delay in the value that you're expecting. And it could be considered, a negative thing that you acquired this company. So I think there's just too many variables and facets to make a determination as to why something would fail versus not because it could come from so many different directions.
00;22;08;25 - 00;22;27;28
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And one of the challenges I see, you know, so I'm technically a consultant, I'm a fractional CMO. and one of the challenges that consultants have is going into someone else's company and leading, providing leadership within someone else's company.
00;22;28;00 - 00;22;28;20
Tommy Ogden
Sure.
00;22;28;22 - 00;22;34;09
Craig Andrews
And I think that's that's a potential minefield. have you run into that?
00;22;34;12 - 00;22;39;24
Tommy Ogden
Yeah, absolutely. I think when you say minefield, what I hear is politics.
00;22;39;26 - 00;22;40;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah.
00;22;40;17 - 00;23;00;23
Tommy Ogden
because, you know, especially if you're consulting for big organizations, but it could be small ones and, you know, nepotism maybe from, like, a family house. but in these really big organizations. Right. You do have those political minefields. And it does behoove you, to come in and sort of get your context right, get the lay of the land.
00;23;00;23 - 00;23;25;16
Tommy Ogden
Where are we in this this organizational hierarchy? who are the stakeholders that could potentially torpedo our initiative? Right. And how do we get in front of them early and get early feedback so that we're incorporating that feedback into whatever project we're progressing? so that they don't become detractors later on. Right. Like, oh, you didn't consult me and I'm never going to use this.
00;23;25;16 - 00;23;47;20
Tommy Ogden
And people can torpedo things. We've seen it time and time again. so I think one of the ways that you can lead is, is by proving the value to your client of doing a good sort of stakeholder analysis, stakeholder engagement model and a communication plan, which we wrap into, what we call change management as a whole, as a practice.
00;23;47;22 - 00;24;11;03
Tommy Ogden
And doing that effectively can identify some of those potholes, that that leader might fall into. And at the end of the day, we want them to be successful. That's how we lead, right? We want them to be successful professionally as in have a successful project. But then what does that what does that result in? Typically a promotion or visibility.
00;24;11;06 - 00;24;33;12
Tommy Ogden
Right. And that can help their own personal goals for their career. And so we want to make our clients look good. And by doing by leading by example, we can do that most effectively. Right. So we we've got a set of tools, a set of skills that we utilize to help our clients look good. and really do that lead by example.
00;24;33;14 - 00;24;53;24
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You know, I think there's something really key in there of making the clients look good. You know, when, you know, I run into people that in their marketing they try to make themselves look smart. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Your goal is to make your buyer, your customer look smart.
00;24;53;24 - 00;24;56;19
Tommy Ogden
Absolutely, absolutely.
00;24;56;21 - 00;25;04;01
Craig Andrews
Do you have any practical tips for how to do that for somebody who's going in and providing consulting to another company?
00;25;04;03 - 00;25;24;02
Tommy Ogden
Sure. So I'll I'll say a couple things. I'll, I'll give you a, a tip, from my own experience. But I'll also talk to you about the trust equation, which is a big thing in, a book for consultants called The Trusted Advisor. by master. so first is the tip. I've. I've come up through organized sport.
00;25;24;02 - 00;25;46;29
Tommy Ogden
I played rugby for 15 years. I played American football before that for about six. And one of the things I've learned is you are working as a team to accomplish a goal, right? And in certain instances, you just need to step in and do what needs to be done for the team in that moment. Right? Forget about your role.
00;25;47;02 - 00;26;10;29
Tommy Ogden
Forget about the expectations. If you see something is amiss or you see something that needs to be done, really just stepping up for the team and pushing it across the line. And I would say as a as a consultant, being team oriented and team minded, is incredibly important, right? You you shouldn't be above mopping the floor if that's what the team needs.
00;26;10;29 - 00;26;27;04
Tommy Ogden
If you see a spill in the kitchen floor and you see a mop next to it, you're worried a teammate might come in and slip, grab the mop and mop it up. If the team is lagging because there's a huge deadline and everybody needs coffee, they'll run down the street and pick up a bunch of coffees for the team.
00;26;27;07 - 00;26;46;14
Tommy Ogden
You know, I've run across too many people in my career that are, you know, director levels or partner levels and and they're just not willing to go down to the level of an underling to go get coffee or to mop the floor, do what the team needs to be done. They play their role, and that's where they stay.
00;26;46;17 - 00;27;08;02
Tommy Ogden
And nobody, nobody likes that, that person. Right. they may do well in their career. They may sell a bunch of, of work and make a lot of money, but they're not going to be respected by the their, their peers and their, their team members. So I would say stay humble like we talked about with messy. And there's there's other soccer stars.
00;27;08;04 - 00;27;32;03
Tommy Ogden
and just make sure that you're being a really good teammate or a good lab partner. so that that would be my tip. Now, as it relates to the the trusted advisor comment, it goes to what you were saying about self orientation. So in consulting we have this equation where the numerator is credibility reliability and intimacy. Okay.
00;27;32;05 - 00;27;55;15
Tommy Ogden
So credibility is you know are you good at something. Are you a subject matter expert. Right. I was talking about merger integration earlier. Right. Are are we credible in that space. Am I as a consultant credible. Can I talk about it? Do I understand the intricacies of it right. Am I credible am I reliable? Is do I do I do what I say I'm going to do?
00;27;55;16 - 00;28;21;05
Tommy Ogden
Do I meet deadlines? Do I consistently have high quality? Am I reliable consultant? And then intimacy is all about getting on that personal level, understanding the context that we were talking about earlier and and how an individual will benefit your client will benefit from, from something like a successful project. Okay. Those are the things that you want to maximize in the numerator.
00;28;21;07 - 00;28;46;00
Tommy Ogden
The denominator of that equation is self orientation. So if you're really credible and you're really reliable and you have great intimacy with the client, but you have super high self orientation, you've just reduced your equation. Right. Because you've got a really high number in the denominator. What you want to do is maximize those things in the numerator and have no self orientation.
00;28;46;07 - 00;29;08;22
Tommy Ogden
And then from that equation you are considered, a better trusted partner from a client. And so that's, that's really an equation that, that we take to heart, not only that active area, but I think in consulting generally, that should take that to heart and do the best things that you can to maximize the numerator and reduce the denominator.
00;29;08;25 - 00;29;32;08
Craig Andrews
That's, that's very that's very clever. That's very smart. And I love how you brought around back to the beginning. Massey. Just having that that humble spirit and the yeah. Because those are the people that you want to be around. You know, I always think about Phil Jackson when he had when he had both Michael Jordan and, Dennis Rodman on the team.
00;29;32;10 - 00;29;54;21
Craig Andrews
Sure. I was like, whatever they're paying him, it's not enough to get these guys to play together. Although Jordan, I think generally was better at it. It's more of how do you integrate Rodman? Rodman in that team. Right. but that's really sage wisdom, Tom. And that appreciate you bringing it to leaders and legacies. if people want reach out and contact you, what's the best way?
00;29;54;24 - 00;30;05;23
Tommy Ogden
Sure. So we have active air consulting.com. Very easy to Google, but for me personally, I'm LinkedIn.com slash Tommie Ogden. Also fairly simple to find.
00;30;05;26 - 00;30;11;00
Craig Andrews
Excellent. Well, I do hope people reach out to you. Tommy, thanks for being on Leaders and Legacies.
00;30;11;03 - 00;30;14;23
Tommy Ogden
Thank you Greg. Have a good day.
00;30;14;23 - 00;30;43;19
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this episode on social media.
00;30;43;21 - 00;31;07;03
Craig Andrews
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00;31;07;05 - 00;33;17;19
Craig Andrews
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