Ep. 71: Jeremy Behler - Leading for Innovation and Change

Contact Jeremy:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremybehler/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:00)
Welcome back for episode 71 of Count Me In IMA's podcast about
all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your
host Mitch Roshong and I will be previewing our conversation
between my cohost, Adam and Jeremy Belhar, the CFO at Sargento
foods. In this episode, Jeremy discusses the importance of
leadership when seeking to innovate and facilitate change. He
shares some of his personal experiences and talks about how
innovation and change does not necessarily need to revolve around
technology. As a matter of fact, a big leadership quality he
emphasizes in this episode is trust. To hear everything else he
shared with Adam we're going to head over to the conversation
now. 


Adam: (00:49)
So to get started, I just wanted to ask you what leadership
characteristics have enabled you to climb to such a high
leadership position within such a well known organization? 


Jeremy: (00:59)
Well , I think there's a few things. First and foremost, you
know, I think it's important to note that there's not a one size
fits all approach to leadership nor to achieving career success.
It's one of the things, when I came on board early in my career,
I looked at some of the leaders that I aspired to be, and it was
at times a little bit challenged in terms of differences of what
I saw versus what I felt and knew my core, personality, and
beliefs and, and overall approaches were. And so for me, I've
taken it a point to really be authentic and sincere first and
foremost, because you can't be someone you're not and be
successful and be, consistent throughout an entire career. So for
me, what I try to do is I try to one, always be open minded and,
and I have a general view of abundance. I always believe that
there's always newer and better ways of doing things about
thinking things. While I would characterize my thought process is
largely databased, I also recognize that if it was as simple as
that, we wouldn't need, leaders in positions cause we could just
write programs to interpret data, and that's not as easy as
there. So it's balancing the data piece with the judgment and
understanding how to navigate in the gray area, where, the more
senior you get that tends to be more of where you play. And I
think the other, the other area that's been important is as you
move up in the organization, I didn't appreciate as much the need
to stay connected to what's really going on. I like to think of
myself as a pretty approachable person, and have a very open
communication process with most of my teams, but even with that,
as hard as you can try, there are a lot of times where
information just doesn't make it to you, because of your level,
regardless of how you approach that. And so I've made it a point
to, have deep relationships and set up processes so that I can
have better insight into what's really going on, and understand
when that may be inconsistent with what I believe, or I'm being
told it's going on. 


Adam: (03:33)
You know, it's a really interesting insight to be able to find
that connection between what's really going on and what you're
being told is going on. And how do you, how do you cross those
together? Have there been innovative ways that you've been able
to do that, to make that connection? 


Jeremy: (03:49)
Well, I certainly, from a reporting technology standpoint, the
more democratize data is the easier it makes that, in, you know,
if you go back 20, 30 years ago, when we didn't have the rich
powerful, ERP systems that we currently have management and
executives would rely upon reports that they get from their teams
without a real efficient way of validating that. And that's not
to say that people are intentionally mischaracterizing data, but
certainly there is a level of interpretation that comes with
communicating, results and data, and if that is done in a manner
that is intended to frame it in a positive light versus a
negative light, you may not know that. And so being able to have
access to more data, more timely data,  and data that
doesn't maybe go through as many filters, certainly allows you to
have a little bit more insight in terms of when the information
that's being shared may not be the entire truth. It may be
accurate data, but the information that that data is
communicating, perhaps isn't consistent with what your objectives
are or intents are. 


Adam: (05:15)
That akes sense. So when you're, when you're a leader in any
organization, it requires you to be innovative, to kind of come
up with different ways to, to run the business better. Are there
any innovative things that you've come up with that you can, that
you've adopted to make your business more effective? 


Jeremy: (05:34)
Well, sure. I mean, I think innovation is one where it's a little
bit of this just magical word that means so many things, and a
lot of times, I believe innovation is mischaracterized as being
technology. And while technology is certainly an area that has
seen, a very high level, of innovation, it's not the only area
and, you know, innovation, if you get to the core of it,
innovation is just a new idea and it could be a product, it could
be a way of doing something, it could involve people, it can
involve technology, it can involve process, and so for me, being
able to embrace technology is really about being able to embrace
change. And I think that in my career, one of the things that
I've seen that really differentiate how effective, differentiate
how much technology and innovation can have on a person or a
group of people is very highly correlated with their openness to
change. And, you know, for me personally, I've always hungered
for new and better ways of doing things, and so inherently I have
a very open mind to change, and I know that's not true across the
board for everyone and it's not right or wrong. We're all right,
you know, wired differently and their strengths and, and
opportunities to each of those, but for me, it's never been a
challenge because I, I really embrace it. And for me, how I've
tried to utilize that with my teams is, to show examples of why
that change is going to benefit all of us collectively, and in
most cases, all of us individually as well. Certainly there are
some new innovations that can have a negative impact on an
individual, you know, maybe takeen to the extreme. Maybe there
are certain roles that will be obsoleted by that, and I think
that's why there's a lot of this inherent fear about innovation
is. But what if you take the longterm view to that if you embrace
that change, you're also going to embrace the opportunity that
while your job may go away, your management team, your executive
team, will see how you respond to that. And if you embrace the
fact that your job is not going to be needed in a year, and you
proactively identify that and work to resolve that, yeah, they
may not need you to do what you're doing in the past, but what's
more important is that you are seen as a thought leader that can
lead future changes and future improvements and future
efficiencies, and your team is going to want to keep you around
for that. And you're going to have shown, that you have that
mindset to be able to do different things and not look out purely
for yourself, but look out how we can be better collectively. And
I think that's something that, you know, throughout my career in
the coaching and mentoring that I've done,  has been
something that's been, a really clear differentiation between
those who are embracing of new approaches versus those who see
them purely as a threat. 


Adam: (08:53)
So you mentioned a little bit, some of the things you’ve done to
help folks with change, embracing change, how, as a leader, do...