One of the many beauties of the office technology sector is the proud tradition of leadership that has been passed from family member to family member within many organizations. That was on full display during last month’s Executive Connection Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the progeny of industry stalwarts brought the topic of next-generation leadership into focus.
The next-gen torch bearers and future leaders of noted luminaries—the Stramaglios, Hannas, Akerviks and Goldbergs—took to the stage at The Scottsdale Resort at McCormick Ranch for a panel session called “Leading the Way: A Generational Shift in Leadership Styles.” Proctored by GreatAmerica Financial Services guru Jennie Fisher, these second-generation leaders helped to share insights into the sometimes-significant gaps in processes and thinking that have proved a challenge in many facets of business management.
Taking the stage with Fisher were Distribution Management’s Sarah Custer, daughter of Barney Kister; ConnectWise’s Jenna Stramaglio Miner, daughter of ECS founder Mike Stramaglio; Blue Technologies’ Lauren Hanna, daughter of founder Paul Hanna; Marco’s Aubri Akervik, daughter of Trevor Akervik; and Greg Goldberg, a partner at Barta Goldberg and son/successor of BTA general counsel Bob Goldberg. We’re including a sampling of the responses to certain questions.
When you bring new people into your organization, what are the skills, traits and characteristics you’re seeking?
Custer: Adaptability has always been a key trait in helping businesses grow and change. That was really strained during the pandemic. At the rate that things are changing, all of us want our businesses to adapt, and that starts with employees who can do the same.
Hanna: Interpersonal relationship skills. It’s so important to learn from each other and that’s a very strong quality that we look for when we’re adding to the organization.
Akervik: As a recent hire myself, I feel there is a challenge for Gen Zers entering the workforce. They fall into two categories: super social people who want to go in and love office environment. The other is those people who want to stay behind their computer at home, don’t want to interact, just want to get their work finished and be done with their jobs. Personally, I prefer to talk to my peers and work with older people who can share their knowledge with us.
Goldberg: I can tell if we’ve made a good hire in the first few days by the types of questions people ask me. If I hand out an assignment, and the person mills around my door for 30 seconds and says “I’m stuck and don’t know what to do,” then I’ve made a bad hiring decision. That’s not a resourceful person. On the other hand, if someone does research and says “I’ve looked here, here and here, so this is my question,” that’s how I know I’ve found someone good. We want people who have potential for the business as opposed to being a time suck and needing to be taught everything.
Stramaglio: The whole generational question comes down to initiative; that’s a key when we’re looking to hire. If you need to figure it out, Google it—you have that phone in your pocket. Like (dad) Mike has said to me, you walk how you work. If you walk slow, then you work slow. If your head is always down, you’re typically not going to come up with new ideas. Very simple things, and it all can be boiled down to initiative.
The next generation of leaders, based on everything we’ve read, is more open to innovate business and embrace change. Any perspective on why that is?
Custer: I think a lot of it has to do with the timing of technology as we were starting our work lives. When I went off to college, we had those walkie-talkie Nextel-type cell phones. We grew up with that technology, and so it didn’t feel odd to start using it and adapting it in our lives. We have had so much access to more and more information at our fingertips, and the perspective of so many people and communities and ideas, because it’s not just the group of people around us in our office, right? You can get the perspectives of anyone in a moment’s notice. That wasn’t available for our parents.
Hanna: The world is a lot smaller for our generation, particularly with the internet. I could FaceTime my kids every day from the show, if I wanted to.
Akervik: I grew up with phone, always had that connectivity with my friends, always texting. We’re being open to all of that information that’s available and having it surround you.
Stramaglio: To Aubri’s point, we have Gen Zers who were born on the internet. I’m not in that group, but most of us have grown up with tech in our hands. We have dealer principals who have hustled and grinded, boomers who have grown very successful businesses. The knowledge in each mind is something that needs to be translated to the next generation to make sure this industry can propel and be successful as it moves forward.
Do you think your organizations look different under millennial leadership?
Stramaglio: Absolutely. We’re much more open in terms of diversity in thought when it comes to what normal looks like going forward. I worked in an office from day one until COVID, and now I’m not. Aubri’s generation is demanding that we reinvent what normal looks like when it comes to working in an office—whether it is hybrid or not. You can accomplish a lot when working from home, and everyone in this room is working today. I’m poking fun at our industry a little, but every organization really wants people to come back to the office. I think there’s a happy medium between the Gen Zers coming up and the mix of millennial leadership and Gen X. I think it’s going to look a lot different.
Hanna: I think it has to do with the flexibility piece. We don’t have the same stressors, the same worries. We’re not worried about how we’re going to make payroll. We’re not worried about who we’re going to bring on to take this business to the next level. We have that foundation that’s been established for us and we’re very fortunate. We have other stressors, but we have that security piece that will allow the trajectories of these organizations to grow through these tumultuous times.
Custer: DM is really lucky, we haven’t had a changing of the guard. We’ve grown our leadership team and it covers all of the generations…we get to leverage the best parts of all the generations.
Goldberg: I think it’s important to bridge the gap between the old and new guard by developing a sense of trust. During the pandemic, the 9-5 work day flew out the window for a lot of people. It really solidified that you could show up to work whenever you wanted and leave whenever you wanted , especially when where you work is 10 feet away from where you sleep. That doesn’t sit well with the older generations who are used to the 9-5 work day, even if they work weekends and nights on top of that, too. As the transformation from one generation to the next happens, it’s important to remember that work can take place any time of day, any place. Profitability is a much broader lens than looking at the minute by minute, wondering where everybody is sitting and if they’re staring at their machines.
Are you back in the office?
Hanna: Yes. I believe there is a benefit to being in the office as well. I’ve learned so much from people that I can’t put into a training manual. I learned production print when my rep left 10 years ago. I learned from my service technicians, and learned from Konica Minolta. Flexibility, though, is important as we add different people into our leadership and workforce. We gain the benefit in seeing it from multiple perspectives.
Akervik: Marco is hybrid; we’re required to come in Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I get to talk to people, which is nice, as you can ask questions and advance through your day. Marco has a great resource, a trainer who has been in the industry a really long time. He walks into my office and says, “OK, when are we going to role play today?” It’s beneficial to have that wisdom and he shares a lot of valuable information.
Goldberg: Not all remote work policies need to be created equally, depending on the size of the organization and the responsibilities of the individuals involved. If you’re willing to be flexible with people, you can use remote work as an incentive and keep them happy over time. As long as that person proves they can remain productive, you can gradually expand it as an additional incentive. Post-pandemic, that incentive can be just as valuable as a bonus.
When you look at the long-term success of your organization, what changes do you see coming down the pike? What changes would you make?
Custer: DM has had a long history of adapting and I don’t think there’s any huge change I would make tomorrow. I would continue listening and understanding every level of the channel. As a distributor, we really need to understand the needs of our dealers and their customers. We will continue to adapt, and as we focus on print, I think we will continue to see the logical adjacencies around print and how can we continue to help our customers expand. We’re starting to see more diversity in our channel. I think it’s not just a DM thing; were starting to see more women, but true diversity means more than just women and people who look like us.
Fisher: What’s awesome is that as we look around here today and see all the women in this room. Ten years ago, it would probably be about 20% of what we have here today.
Hanna: I think the hardest thing in this industry is that we’re still so focused on the clicks. I think we have to reimagine the clicks. So much of our model is based around that. I think we need to embrace the evolution—not change, because change has a negative tone. We have to accept and embrace this evolution mindset. Recapturing the clicks…I see opportunities such as scanning as a service. If you walk around a traditional business, you can see that security is huge. So I think we need to reimagine the clicks.
Stramaglio: There’s going to be turnover and change. Gen Z is the one generation that will have a higher rate of turnover and the channel needs to embrace that. I would challenge all of you to look at Gen Z and ask, how the heck can I get more out of this worker and this employee, knowing that person may leave after two years? You need to make the time to invest in the younger generation, younger employees. They’ll teach you more than you could possibly Google.
