MEL #013 | From Problem Solver to People Developer with J.R. Simmons

SIMMONS: As an engineer, took satisfaction in the work that I did and the results that came from it. As a leader, I take satisfaction in educating my future leaders and then the results that they’re able to accomplish doing what they do. And lately I’ve found that that is more satisfying to me than actually going through and solving the problem myself.

ADAMS: In this episode, I speak with JR Simmons, a flight director and civilian with the United States Air Force. JR’s path to engineering was unconventional, starting as a janitor before pursuing computer science based on his father’s research. He bounced between roles in private defense contracting and eventually moved into a stable government position where he advanced from hands-on computer science roles into leadership, discovering a love for working with people along the way. In our leadership segment,

JR discusses how, as a newly appointed flight director over a struggling team, he initially took on too much himself, driven by a strong desire to fix problems. Over time, he realized the need to step back, empower his project directors, and listen more strategically, both to his team and the customer, to ensure success. JR offers a wide range of advice to aspiring leaders. Start planning for leadership early, pursue additional education, learn human-centered design, and develop soft skills like giving feedback and managing conflict. He also emphasizes the importance of delegation, strategic thinking, time management, and always remembering that employees are people, not just resources. Without further delay, here is my conversation with JR Simmons.

Hi, JR. Welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership. How’s it going? It’s good to be here. It’s going great. And I’m so glad to have you here.

Can you start by telling us how you got into engineering as a career path?

SIMMONS: Absolutely. So my intro in engineering is a little bit, it’s non-standard. The funny thing is, is that I left high school without a real plan. I started up as a janitor cleaning, cleaning elementary schools. And then, but I did have a plan to go to college. I just, had no idea what I wanted to do. I went to one semester of college and then I served a mission for my church where it was two years to go out and to just focus on teaching about, about the gospel. During those two years, my dad was busy at work back at home.

And he was researching what what career paths would be good for a kid that doesn’t know what he wants to do. And but what he found was that computer science, that’s where the money was at. And that was a good career field to raise a family. And I came off of my mission after two years, just focused on one single thing to the point of distraction almost. And he says, you know what? Computer science is how you’re best going to be able to support a family. And I signed you up for school. you start in a month. And so love it. It was back in the time where parents kind of took care of their kids. And and and but you know, I didn’t have that. I didn’t really take that option to go around and explore other fields. I just I went to computer science because that’s what dad said. However, it was it was interesting as I jumped into that field at that point like that was back in I graduated in 2005. Back then, master’s degrees for something that were completely optional. I came out of school and I came out thinking I’m never going to do any more school. I jumped into a couple of internships right at the end of my schooling. And then after I had wrapped up the internships, I started bouncing jobs. It was it was in a time and I think that I think that the industry still feels like this. But it was in a time where You could stay with the job for a couple of years, get a couple of small raises, but then you’d bounce and you get that big raise until you kind of got to where the salary was feeling comfortable. And then you could settle into a career. However, as I was bouncing, I went to a couple of private contractors that were DOD contractors. And I had a couple of job scares. One was the day I got the keys to my new house, they gave me a two week notice and that scared me. 

ADAMS: Wow. 

SIMMONS: Yes. And then I had another similar job scare. but that second one, I was working on a project with the government that the government wanted me to continue on with that project. And so they brought me in as a civilian. took a little bit of a pay cut, but it kind of balanced out with all of the benefits that you get as a civilian. And after those two job scares, I had had young kids at that time and I decided, you know what? I don’t need that high salary. I wanted a little bit more of that stability.

That was when I decided on settling in with the government. And for quite a while I worked as a computer scientist with the government. I started out in a branch called engineering and managed a website. And then I moved into the system program office And while I was there,

I was kind of the jack of all trades. I was their only computer scientist. So they just had, they had me manage applications. They had me manage software. They had me manage computer hardware. Just I would, if it was anything computer, they threw it at JR. And for years, I told myself when I entered the government, I told myself, I will never manage a government employee. I will stay technical my entire career. But as I, as I grew up, as I got a little bit older and figured out what I wanted to do, I realized, you know what, maybe maybe management is something that I could try. I bounced over to the software engineering group, which was full of computer scientists. And I started there as a systems engineer and advanced into management from there. And I’ve been a manager for about just a little over two years.

And I will say that I’ve enjoyed every second of it since I’ve had more fun as a manager and as, as just figuring out those kinds of puzzles that then, then I even did when I was in the technical field.

ADAMS: Well, that’s great. So first of all, lots of of times people say, my journey into engineering is unique. And then they’ll say something and it’s like not unique, but you you so far you get the prize for having the most unique entry. But but I am curious, did you have an aptitude for math and science or for coding or I mean, were there any signs that this was going to be something you could even do? 

SIMMONS: That is a great question, you know what? I was okay at math. I was never great. I always looked for shortcuts. my high school was all about music. like my senior year in high school, I was in two choirs. I was in two bands. I was in theatrical productions. I was all in on music.

But I never even thought beyond high school. I was just so focused on what was in the moment I ended up taking to it. and what I found out is that there was something really satisfying about computer science. I loved the immediate satisfaction, you know, the immediate reactions you could get when you would write some code, you run it through the compiler and then seeing the, the results pop up immediately helped me to see that, what I’m doing is making a difference. if you would have, if you would have talked to me in high school and said, Hey, you’re going to be a computer scientist for the rest of your life. I would have probably laughed at you, but it ended up being what worked and what was best for me.

Now let’s talk a little bit about the management side of things. what drew you to management in the first place? What made you think, yeah, I might want to try this? when I was a kid, I had my little small group of friends and if you weren’t in it, you weren’t a part of it. And then I started doing theater, just a local community theater.

And I started hanging out with people that that that kind of attitude wasn’t acceptable. They forced me out of my shell whether I wanted to come or not. And I started to discover, do you know what I like? I like working with people. I like being around people. that that charges me that they kind of I feed off of that energy as I grew into my field, I saw the talented individuals that would come in, I realized, you know, there’s stuff that I can add. I have, I have good ideas. obviously I had education and training that I needed to have, but I work really well with people. And that’s what I found that I’ve really liked best about it. So when you ask about that transition into management, I think it was probably years in the taking. years of having good and bad managers, having micro managers and absentee managers. then seeing, you know what? this is almost like a problem, a puzzle that I can can solve, you know, and it really has been since then. I management if anybody tells you that it’s not engineering, they haven’t done it because it is all about solving puzzles. It’s just solving a different kind of puzzle. And I’ve really, I really enjoy that. I enjoy working with people, trying to bring out the best in people. Some people that don’t want it or have no desire for it and trying to find out how, can I click with this person? the more that I, I grew professionally,

And the more that I spent time in the government, the more I felt like, you know what, there’s something that I can add here.

ADAMS: All right, JR, what leadership situation are we going to be talking about today?

SIMMONS: Okay, I thought about this one. And I think I’m going to address the most recent issue that I’ve been dealing with. I’m a flight director. And that really what that is, it’s a first line manager that deals a lot with more of the program management. they have to make sure that the customer is supported. They have to make sure that their people are taken care of. They have to make sure that their projects are on track. They’re the ones that are ultimately responsible for that. And so I took this position as a flight director over flight that’s responsible for range systems within the government. And what that is, it’s the systems that do training simulation for pilots. Out in the field, we have certain ranges where like if you ever seen Top Gun and you’ve seen Tom Cruise flying through there and he’s just going in and you know, they’re flying and they’re in the desert in the middle of nowhere, he all of sudden starts talking about missile lock and how they got this. What it is is it’s just these pedestals that are out in the desert and they’re beaming up radar signals to the plane. And that’s what I support.

That’s the program office that my flight works for. And we provide support on those pedestals for the master control groups, for a bunch of these different systems within the range systems environment. as I started with this flight, I started thinking about what is our role and what are we supposed to be doing and what’s our future?

It’s something that hadn’t really been thought about for a long time in my section. And it took me a long time to come to come to the realization. I jumped in and it really, I mean, it was described to me by my squadron director that, you know what, this is a problem flight.

To give you little background on that, I had just started a master’s program with the University of Tennessee and I was, and it was paid for by my group. And so I had regular reports with my group office and Ryan’s like, JR, you would be a good fit for this position, but you have some major eyes on you. Are you sure you can take this?

Before I was managing a couple of sections that I just considered golden sections. There are no problems, no problems at all. And so when this opportunity came, I realized if I’m going to grow as a leader and as a manager, I have to be able to experience those problems.

So I volunteered for it. But I did step in and I saw, we were a bit of a mess. And so I started diving in and JR, the engineer wanted to go full in and started figuring out all the problems. And, you know, I reorganized the team so that I could get a little bit more accountability.

And I started spreading that authority out a little bit because I needed qualified team leads that could lead these teams. and you know, over and over again, I would have to pull a piece from here to move it over there. And it was just like what we talked about before. It was a constant puzzle and it was fun. But I started to realize that I was trying to do all this myself. I was too far in the weeds. I was pulling the authority that I had granted them, I was pulling it back.

I started realizing that, if I wanted to go from being a good manager to a better manager, I needed to empower my people and then let them do their jobs. And that’s what I started to figure out. I, I started realizing, you know what, I have to take a step back from these projects and let my project directors figure this stuff out and not try to always put my hand in there and go take care of things.

It gave me some more time for thought.

And as I took that step back and I really started to listen to my customer, I actually went to an engineering work group with our customer where it was in a planning increment and I listened. And I found out that you know what? As much as I wanted all of these great things for my flight to be able to do, it wasn’t what my customer needed.

What my customer needed is they needed a validation, a verification shop here on Hill Air Force Base where the program office was. They needed this lab to be functional so that we could validate things and fix things and then make sure that they stayed, those fixes work down the field.

And I listened during this working group and I listened to program, like just members of the program office that would talk about, there was just a little bit of uncertainty about their own jobs. And then what I really discovered is that range systems is slowly winding down. They don’t need hotshot developers to step in there and fix all the problems. They need the maintenance because what’s coming is that slowly, I mean, back when they developed these weapon systems or this range system environment with these radar pedestals and everything, planes couldn’t support the software to do all this training on the jet. They had to go through these simulations that way. But now pilots and planes, the way they develop planes, I mean, they’ve got super fancy computers in there.

And so I realized I’ve got, I got to figure out.

Not only how do we better support our customer, but I’ve got to figure out a landing place for my people because if this support and this need for support starts to wind down, I’m going to have people that don’t have work to do. And so I started really thinking about that. And I had conversations with my supervisor and we talked about it and he provided me with what he felt like were two options.

Number one is I could stay and remain in our squadron and try to find that next hotshot project that would keep us alive for another 10 or 15 years. Or I could make up for what for our flight, what for our flight is a pretty big and pivotal move. And one of them, if I, if I would, if, I find that big hotshot problem, I’m going to look like a hero, but it’s very risky proposition because if I don’t find it, then all of a sudden my guys are out of work.

And then my other option was to move my squadron or my change squadrons and take my flight into a squadron that better fit and provided a future for my, for my team. And I looked at that and I really evaluated it because I love being a hero and I want to be a hero, but I don’t want to be a hero at the expense of my team. And so I really went in and I evaluated that and I started thinking, I went and I spoke with the other, the other squadron director where we would land.

And I mean, as, as I researched it, And if I, if I made this move, I could put my team in a position where they could transition it as the workload died down with us. They could transition out and into this fun new workload.

that was very software intensive and will provide them that landing place. another flight that he supports is called Comet. And what they support is they support a lot of hardware on the F-16 plane.

And I could move the guys that were hardware, very hardware centric. could move them into the comet labs. And then if for some reason, the sky fell and we ran out of support, my guys would have a landing place and there wouldn’t be that uncertainty. And so I, I spend some time evaluating, do I want to be the hotshot or do I want to have that, that security blanket for my team? And

I ended up going with the security blanket. I’m still working through this process.

ADAMS: This is a really a great example, JR. And there’s two, themes that I’d like to follow up with you on. I’ll name the two themes and then I’ll ask you the two follow up questions. One is you discovering early on when you first got into the role, that you were super gung-ho, you were really wanting to solve all the problems yourself, and then you realized, I’ve got to empower my team to take on more accountability to try to solve some of these problems as well and get their buy-in and get their ideas and all of those things. So that’s one theme. The second theme is when you recognize that the work that you’re doing is no longer meeting the customers 

primary needs just because that’s the way innovation works. Things change, priorities change, technology changes. And so your decision to kind of figure out, what am I gonna do with my team as maybe the need for them in their current embodiment and the current types of tasks that they work on starts to ramp down. What do I think about doing with the team? So those are the two themes that I got out of the example that you gave us, which was great.

So if we go back to the first one, I’m curious, what were some of the signals that you got either just internally yourself or feedback you were getting from your team that was like, okay, you need to give some of this to us. You need to let us take on some of this accountability.

SIMMONS: That’s a great question. You know, I tend to be one I like to fix fires. I like to put out fires and I like, I mean, I’m an engineer. I love to dig in and find and figure out solutions. And so I’m going to take you back to when I was a section chief And that’s where I first became a supervisor.

I had these knee-jerk reactions. For example, I was managing a team and it was really, really difficult to deal with the program office.

And, you know, they came in and they said, yeah, you’re not reporting, right? They talked like this to, to my flight director. And so he came out and he says, look, we got to change up how we’re reporting and how we’re doing this. And so I, I immediately went to my team and said, okay, we’re going to do this. We’re going to fix this. And I went to him and

I was in a meeting that just blew up. Like I had team members just straight up revolt saying, are you saying that the SPO doesn’t even think that we’re doing any work? And it just, got out of hand very, very quickly. And I talked with a fellow supervisor about it and she had some of the best advice that I’ve ever received as a supervisor. So at least so far, I’m pretty young in my career still, but what she said is JR.

You gotta, you gotta take some time to think before you react. I asked her, well, what did you do? She’s like, I haven’t done anything. I didn’t, I didn’t say a thing because this could flip around and it could go in an entirely different direction. And I brought my team in and I apologize. And I was just like, but I felt it get it. I lost a little bit of credibility with my team because of it, because I had had a knee jerk reaction and I tried to fix a problem that probably wasn’t all mine to fix. And so I still go back to that and I still have that tendency because I get excited and when I get excited, JR is like, it’s like a, is a boulder rolling down a hill and you better look out. what probably the realization for me was I was in and I would bring my project directors into my, into my office and we would have these big sessions where we draw out what we were doing on my whiteboards and it, and man, I love those sessions. Those are so much fun, but that is JR just going off the rails and doing JR’s thing. And I watched, and one of my project directors would kind of, he started just kind of sitting. He didn’t contribute a whole lot. And I realized I’m kind of still running the show, even though I put him into that position, I gave him that power. And then what I found out that he would do is he would just go and execute what I said. I wasn’t helping him to grow at all. And it caused me that like I sat there, as I was mid-explanation watching him as he would just kind of nod his head and I was like, JR, what are you doing? And so I, I, after that meeting, I took that step back and I was like, that’s my future leader right there. that’s who I want to run this project. Is that how I want to train him? Is that, is that how I want to build him as a leader? And those hard doses of reality really, they’re not fun to take in.

But I really, I’m going down the wrong path here. I’m not building him up. I’m just bringing him in and then making him a stooge. And I wanted, I wanted him to come in and I wanted him to take ownership of the project. And so I remember after thinking about it for a little while and after just sitting back and realizing what I had done, I brought him in and I actually took my keys out of my pocket. I realized what I’ve done and I owe you apology. I told him, I was like, I’ve taken away your authority and, I get that you’re growing into this position and you’re going to, but you have to feel like you can make these mistakes and I’m not going to get mad at you for mistakes, but I got to give you that, those opportunities to fix things. And I took my keys. I was like, these are the keys to the kingdom, man. And then I dropped them in his hand and I was like, these projects are yours. I’m going to take that step back. I’m going to make sure your people are okay, because that’s my job.

But you’re going to make sure that this project runs and I’m going to get, I’m going to get my hands out of it so that you can do your job and I can go in and I can tackle the things that I need to do rather than trying to be JR, the busy body. it was, it was hard for me. It’s not easy and I still find myself occasionally doing it, but I tend to be able to pull back a little faster now. you know, after I had done that, I mean, the very first thing I said, you don’t get to keep the keys. took, I took the keys back, but symbolic.

It was a symbolic representation. But what it did is it started him and you know, he’s still a little bit quieter. And I do have a project director that’s a little bit more vocal that I brought in because he had a little bit more experience. But by taking that step back, I’ve watched the two of them work together and they do great things and it’s fun to see. that’s part of satisfaction I get out of it is, you know, I I always as an engineer, took satisfaction in the work that I did and the results that came from it. As a leader, I take satisfaction in educating my future leaders and then the results that they’re able to accomplish doing, doing what they do. And lately I’ve found that that is more satisfying to me than actually going through and solving the problem myself. If I can help somebody and they can solve the problem, there is there is something about that that just gives you the warm fuzzies.

ADAMS: Absolutely, I agree.

The second theme that you talked about was you recognizing through sitting in some customer meetings, recognizing that even though you really wanted to maybe work on the software, because that’s your area of expertise, that’s what gets you fired up, but you’re recognizing that that’s not necessarily what the customer is interested in, and also you’ve got some strategic point of view that a couple years out that the kind of work that your team does now may be less needed. And so you had to kind of think through, what do I do as a leader with that? whether that’s potentially moving them around within different organizations. I imagine there could be some upskilling or re-skilling or things like that.

Because it’s actually not uncommon for those sorts of things to happen. early stage businesses pivot. When it’s called entrepreneurship, we call that pivoting.

But even legacy businesses, so I worked in the aluminum industry for a company that was over 100 years old. And we routinely would have to pivot just because business dynamics changed or new technology came on board. And we needed different skills. And so this idea of needing to adjust the the workforce to go with the workflow is a real thing that leaders face often.

Just curious if you can talk a little bit more about just a little bit more about your thought process around. 

SIMMONS: Absolutely. So this was this was an interesting one to come to me. I started out I started out my leadership journey being and as most engineers will a very more of a tactical thinker rather than strategic. And what I mean by that is tactical is all about putting out fires, fixing the problem of the moment or strategic is you’re looking for the problem that’s down the road. And it’s hard to shift that mindset. It’s not an easy thing to do.

I started last November in this position and up through about August, September, I was still in that mindset of I gotta go out, I gotta find, I gotta dig through this customer and find the work that they’re gonna, so that they’ll keep paying me money. And I didn’t even look at the picture that, you know, what is it that they need? I was only looking at what I needed and what my flight needed. But then I started, I really started looking in and thinking, my flight is part of something bigger.

And that mission is something bigger than what we are and what we stand for. I mean, at the end of the day, what, what my team does is they bring pilots home. They give them that training so that they bring pilots home. And that’s, that’s the mission. The mission is notto keep this project alive.

I also look to the fact that I am, I’m not, my flight is not by itself. It’s not its own little kingdom. And that’s something that I see a lot in business and in organizations is it like sub-organizations try to build out and carve out their own fiefdom, their own kingdom.

I’m a small part of something bigger and my employees, they’re not going to be with me. don’t want employees that just want to be satisfied with staying with me for their entire career. I want employees that want to come in, make things better than want to grow and want to go and experience something else.

So I started to listen to the customer a little bit more rather than, then sending my PDs in guns blazing and then PD project directors. I started listening. I started seeing, you know, they don’t want the big software, the web development solutions that I want to create. they want somebody that’s going to support their hardware and make sure.

The things are up and running and those training simulations can be run. And as I continue to listen, I realized, you know, they don’t see us as software developers. We had not built that reputation with them.

You can get, you could get up to eight, spend two to three years getting up to 80. And then to try to get to that last 20%, it could take you 20 years and, and millions of dollars. And, and the SPO just doesn’t have that. But I just, as I’ve realized that what the SPO needs from me is more of that consistency. That’s that, that legacy support, they don’t need that, but what my engineers need. And if I’m going to continue to bring in the kind of talent that can even provide that, that legacy support, I have to provide them with a way forward.

And so I, that’s where I decided to become more of a, factory where I could bring engineers in. I could bring them up to speed quick. could give them new skills, let them go. And as long they spent their time making that position better and easier to fall into for the next engineer. And that’s how I decided I wanted to develop us. And so hopefully that answers your question.

ADAMS: Yeah, absolutely one of the things I wanted to to emphasize is you you talked about Really being a strong tactical thinker and and as you rightly point out I think that that is tends to be a strength for engineers the analytical side of things the tactical side of things problem-solving and that to get yourself out of that mode or to get yourself to grow into a more of a strategic Thinking which is something that leaders, you having both is really the ideal situation, being able to do both, is that it sounds like you really started to think about, what is the overall mission of this whole organization? So not just my team, but this whole organization. And I like what you said about bringing pilots home safely. So that’s one, is making sure you’re connecting to the broader mission at the highest level of your organization.

And then the other thing you said that I think is really important to emphasize is you talked about listening. So you talked about listening more to your customers. You also had mentioned you’ve talked to and listened to some other supervisors in different areas, so you know that there could be some interesting innovation happening in other areas that your team might fit well into at some point. And so the other piece to strategy is listening to other stakeholders and what their needs are, what they have available, what they’re working on. And so I just wanted to emphasize those two pieces that you talked about because I do think it’s really important. And it is very common for engineers to get the feedback that, you’re too tactical, you’re not strategic enough. And so there are real strategies that you can employ to kind of help you develop that strategic thinking. And you describe them very well in your example here. 

SIMMONS: Well, thank you.

ADAMS: All right, JR, as we wrap up, what advice would you give to engineers who want to move into leadership roles? 

SIMMONS: Sll right. I’m going to apologize in advance, so buckle up. 

Because I took a lot of notes for this one.

Because there’s so many, that you can, you can build yourself out. you know, the very first thing is, decided later on in my career that I wanted to be a leader and I was, I was lucky. I lucked into it. But what I’m finding out is that if this is a path you want to take, it’s very, very different than a technical path. Now you need the technical path to sometimes to get there, but your preparation to become a leader is much different then if you were gonna prepare to become a subject matter expert or a specialist. And so you have to, you gotta kind of determine which path do you wanna go down? Sometimes, like especially within the government, it can take years to set yourself up for leadership success. so know where you wanna go. That’s the first thing that I felt like is just determine if that’s something you wanna do.

I decided a couple of years, this is where I wanted to go. But I also realized that I’m probably about four to five years behind where I should be in my career if I wanted to be a leader. If I had determined that sooner and started making those plans, I would be further along towards my eventual goals the second thing that I’ve kind of discovered is that lasting process improvement, it requires buy-in from those that are going to be affected by the change. If you get a chance, I had the opportunity to study human-centered design and human-centered leadership with my master’s program at the University of Tennessee. I would definitely recommend that if you want to be a leader, look into it because human-centered design, the concepts and the philosophies behind that are all about bringing people along with you in your process improvement. Use whatever process improvement tools are at your disposal. Use, if you want to use Lean or if you want to use Six Sigma or whatever you want to go with, use those tools, but bring the people with you. Sometimes if you really dive into process improvement, it can be a lot easier to take the humanity factor out of the process improvement and just go with and just streamline the process. But if you don’t have that buy-in, with the people that are going to be using that process.

It won’t last. It won’t last long term. It doesn’t matter how good your process is. It doesn’t matter if people don’t use it. And so I suggest you take a little bit of time and look at a little bit of human human-centered design. Figure out how to keep empathy and that empathetic factor in your process improvement because it makes a huge difference down the road for lasting change.

Another thing is about learning the tricks on how to interview where you’re looking to promote. You know, if you’re promoting in the private industry, then learn the tricks and if you can, talk to people that work there. Find out how the interview process works for them.

If you’re working for the government, you better know how to interview because it really is a points game. And if you don’t, if you don’t know how to, work that system, you’re competing against people to do. And you’re just, you’re not going to have it. You have to know your audience when it comes to the resume creation. You know, I mean, if you’re working with the government, you may need a six to seven to eight to 10 page resume, where if you’re in the private industry, mean, standard standard is unless you have like 10 to 12 years of experience.

You shouldn’t have any more than a page. Know your audience. And if you turn in a six page resume for a private industry position, they’re going look at you and say, yeah, no. But if you turn in a one page resume in the government, they’re going to look at yours and they’re going to say, well, that’s not near enough experience. I’ve got all these guys that gave me eight pages worth of experience. Know your audience. Prepare for your interviews early.

Another thing is, is as you go through those figure out how to pull out results and impacts out of your actions out of your professional experiences. If you don’t know how to do that.

You’re not your interviews, your resume just won’t look as strong. Figure out how to pull results and impacts. mean, bottom line is the more you can pull out, this is how much money I saved the company or this is how much time I saved the company. that’s that’s going to set you up the best for success.

In addition, I would say learn the soft skills. I know I know those technical skills are important, but when you get into leadership.

You’re not working with a process. You’re not working with a computer. You’re working with people and you got to know how to work with people. You know, learn how to talk to, learn how to talk with employees. One of my favorite, one of my favorite books I read was Radical Candor and Radical Candor, give a, a four grid quadrant where they put in these different, this different ways to approach, approach conversations. Obviously the worst, the negative, negative quadrant is is called, it’s called manipulative insincerity, where you go in and you, you are only out for yourself. You don’t care if you lie, you don’t care who you hurt, you don’t care if you’re, if you’re, you’re sucking up, whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it for yourself and whatever, whatever that is. Then just, just to the right of that, you’ve got obnoxious aggression where you are willing to be honest, but you’re a jerk about it. And then you have at the top, you’ve got, you know, people that are very empathetic but they’re so empathetic that they don’t want to hurt feelings and so they don’t tell the truth. Radical candor is all about knowing how to give feedback, how to have a conversation where you can be honest with somebody and not be a jerk about it. And it’s super important. Learn how to give and receive honest feedback. Learn how to receive it without getting defensive. You can do that kind of stuff and it will help you because you know what? My employees are smarter than I am.

And if I go into this thinking that they are that everything I have all the answers and I’m not willing to accept feedback, I’m not going to grow. Learn how to receive that feedback, learn how to take it. And even if it’s hard and it’s thank them for it. Learn how to have those conversations, know how to hold crucial conversations, know how to, how to deal with a difficult employee or, or a difficult coworker, learn how to learn how to deal with conflict because it’s not easy. You can’t, you can’t let people walk all over you.

But at the same time, if you just force your opinion down people’s throats, it’s not going to help either. You’re not going to help anybody else grow. Learn how to hold those crucial conversations. figure out how you’re going to deal with your discipline, handle discipline. What kind of a disciplinarian are you going to be? How are you going to handle it? It, hard to figure out until you get put in that situation. But if you go in there with a plan, I mean, obviously there’s the Mike Tyson quote that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Right. 

But it’s better than not having a plan at all. If you know a little bit of how you’re going to discipline and, and cause you’re going to, if you step into leadership sooner or later, you’re going to deal with an employee that is not, that is not doing what they’re supposed to do. I mean, figure out now that, Hey, it’s not the personality.

It’s not them. It’s the attitudes and what they’re the behavior that they’re exhibiting. That’s what has to be corrected You’re not correcting the employee. You’re not telling them you’re bad You’re saying what you’re doing is bad and we’ve got to correct that if you can go in and handle discipline in a positive way It it’s gonna set you up so that you enjoy your job a lot more and so the people enjoy enjoy working for you a lot more.

Another big one and this is a big one that I’ve struggled with for the last couple of years learn time management.

Man, when you step into management, you will have a billion different directions you need to go in. Learn how to prioritize what’s important. Learn how to budget your time. I mean, if you’re a manager that just sits there and I mean, you could be the kind of manager that you have that little bit of obsessive-compulsive where you can’t have an email that’s not answered in your inbox and you spend all your time just every time, every time you’re in the middle of something and an email dings, slip right back to that.

You could be that kind of a manager where you’re losing so much time with that task switching, or you can be the kind of a manager where you just have thousands of unread emails in your inbox and people just know they can’t communicate with you like that. I mean, there’s so many different spectrums, but learn how to budget your time. Learn how to know that, all right, I’m going to set some time aside for this and then dedicate yourself to it. Then move yourself to something else. One of my favorite expressions was what I learned from Bill Peterson this year over Lean BP. He came in and he taught us process improvement.

But he also taught us and the expression that he really likes is that multitasking is worse than a lie. I love that. I think that that is hilarious. And but it’s fantastic multitasking. If you’re trying to do that, you are flipping your brain in so many directions that you’re not able to really dial in and give the focus that you need to any issue. And so learn how to avoid multitasking and to devote your time to specific responsibilities. Learn how to go above and beyond.

You know, like if you’re looking to get into management, they are looking for the people that don’t wait for work to come to them. They’re waiting for the people that if work doesn’t come to you, you go to it and you go figure out what needs to be done and you go get it done. That’s the type of individual that most companies are looking for when it comes to management. Be the go getter. Don’t be the one that sits and waits, twiddles your thumb waiting for something to happen. Go make it happen.

I’d also recommend learn some project management. This is a gap in my education and I’ve noticed it.

If you can, go take a project manager position so you understand what it takes to manage a project. Because then when you’re a supervisor and you’re a leader and you’re a leader over people that are managing projects, you’re gonna be able to relate with them. And you’re gonna be able to help and assist where you need to assist. You won’t overstep the way I do because I wanted to go be a project manager and a supervisor.

You’re going to know where your role fits in. I feel like that’s pretty crucial part of leadership. Know that you can’t do it all yourself. You got to learn how to delegate responsibility. I talked about this earlier. You can’t do everything by yourself. And if you try to do it, you’re setting yourself up for failure. And again, like I mentioned earlier, don’t undermine the authority you grant to others. If you grant that authority,

Let them have that authority. Let them go out and make the mistakes and figure out what’s wrong and go solve the solutions.

Those are some of the best things that I’ve found that have really helped me.

But figure out what works for you and just remember that your employee, they’re people. Yes, they’re resources as well, but they’re people. 

ADAMS: Well, JR, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us. 

SIMMONS: Absolutely. This was a lot of fun. Thanks, Angelique. I really appreciate you.