Welcome to Hiring For Good, a podcast presented by Acumen Executive Search exploring the transformative power of leadership—and what happens when the right person takes the job. In this episode, co-hosts Suzanne Hanifin (President, Acumen Executive Search) and Tanis Morris sit down with Andy Nelson, CEO of Ride Connection—a nonprofit that provides over 1 million rides each year, connecting the Portland metro area’s most vulnerable neighbors to work, health care, shopping, and each other.
Topics Discussed:
-From service to leadership — Andy Nelson’s journey as a high-energy social sector leader, volunteer, and coach, and why he believes communities thrive when the needs of our most vulnerable neighbors are met.
-Ride Connection’s impact — how the organization provides over 1 million rides each year across the Portland metro area, connecting people to work, health care, shopping, and each other.
-Leading with purpose — Andy’s approach to building strong teams, fostering collaboration, and never taking opportunities to serve for granted.
Ride Connection’s Website: https://rideconnection.org/
Andy Nelson’s LinkedIn: / andy-nelson-34aa321
Hiring For Good Website: https://www.hiringforgood.net
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/288s2ur…
Acumen Executive Search Website
Tanis Morris: Director of Business Development at Acumen Executive Search Email: ta***@***********************ch.com
Suzanne Hanifin: President at Acumen Executive Search Email: su*****@***********************ch.com
Hiring for Good is presented by Acumen Executive Search. Acumen Executive Search is the leading certified woman-owned Executive Search and advisory Firm on the West Coast. Acumen sources, attracts, and qualifies world-class executive and management talent for organizations to support them in achieving their organizational goals. Due to their focus and local network, which is both broad and deep, they are able to leverage best practices across a broad range of industries. They employ an equity lens throughout the recruitment process.
Hiring for Good Transcript
0:00 Well, hi there. I am Suzanne Hanifin with Acumen Executive Search and once
0:05 again I am with my lovely co-host Tanis Morris. Hello Suzanne. Hello. And we are excited today to have
0:13 Andy Nelson with us at our hiring for good podcast which you know is a podcast
0:18 on leaderships and lessons learned. So welcome Andy. Psyched to be here.
0:24 Yes. So Andy is the new Ride Connection CEO. Ride Connection provides access
0:31 responsive transportation alternatives in Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington
0:36 counties. What makes Ride Connection such an amazing organization is their ability to
0:42 innovate and to pivot. They see holes in services and are daring enough to find
0:50 the solutions. Prior to Ride Connection, Andy spent the previous 10 years with
0:56 Impact Northwest, a social services nonprofit providing housing, education,
1:02 senior care, and early childhood services in the Portland metro area. As
1:07 the landscape continues to change, innovation becomes more critical to nonprofits.
1:14 We are hoping that Andy will share his leadership journey and how Ride Connection and through his leadership
1:21 are shaping the transportation conversation and innovation in Oregon. So again, super excited, Andy.
1:29 Thank you, Suzanne. I’m going to turn this conversation over to you to really kind of walk us through
1:35 this journey and how you became the CEO of Ride Connection now.
1:40 Yeah. How did I end up here? Right. That’s the that’s the question. I think everybody uh probably at some point
1:46 stops on the mountain and says, “How did I get here?” Yes. And like a lot of us, I didn’t really take the trail, you know, I kind of kind
1:52 of worked my way my own way up. And um you know, I think for me, I think about how I I got where I am. And you know,
1:59 it’s a it’s a some some luck and some good fortune, but there were moments of clarity when I made some purposeful
2:06 decisions. thinking even back to my first job out of high school uh or out
2:11 of college actually where I was a newspaper reporter for five years. Super cool way to learn about your community
2:16 and learn about stuff. What I learned was that wasn’t for me. Isn’t that funny?
2:21 Was that your plan? Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah. Well, I didn’t really have a plan, right? So, I I I had done the college
2:26 paper in I paper in college. Super interesting. Our college president had resigned with a scandal. So, good news
2:32 stuff. And I kind of got a bug for that. And five years out, in fact, I remember
2:38 this distinctly, I was at a new homeless shelter in East Hartford, Connecticut. I grew up in the Hartford area, Hartford,
2:45 Springfield, Mass area. And that was noteworthy. It’s the late ’80s. That was noteworthy because this first time a
2:50 homeless shelter had opened up in like a suburban area. Um, you’d seen you would see shelters
2:57 were sort of new then. Can you imagine that? It was like a new idea. And I was there. I was um I show up on a Tuesday,
3:05 sort of dark, there’s um six or seven guys waiting to get in and here comes
3:10 this young Vista volunteer who’s running this place by herself. And I introduce
3:15 myself and I’m thinking this is great. It’s going to be a great story. Uh I’m going to shed a light on a social issue
3:21 I think is kind of interesting, you know, also like not surprising. I was interested in that kind of stuff. Uh,
3:28 and her response was, “You need to get out of here because if these guys talk to you, they’re not going to come back.”
3:34 And I’m so I go back to my car and I’m like, “Wow.” Like, I that was that
3:41 really like stopped me in my tracks. Anyway, one thing led to another. I made this really intentional decision that,
3:47 you know, I need to be I need to be doing something. Not that being a newspaper reporter isn’t doing
3:52 something, but I wanted I knew enough for myself that I wanted to be like like
3:58 like what she was doing. Uh making a difference, filling in the gaps for
4:03 people who didn’t have those resource resources in their life. And that just has become a theme for me. I mean, this
4:10 is almost 40 years ago, I think about it. And um yeah, and then another big
4:15 decision I made was I got tired of living in the Harford Springfield area. I guess everyone sees the grass is
4:22 greener from their hometown, right? So, literally, you know, threw a a dart at a map and it was Portland, Oregon, showed
4:28 up here 30 years ago. It wasn’t entirely by happen chance. You know, this was a city that my perception worked. We had
4:35 some things like transit that were really happening that was a little more
4:40 um interest in the greater good and in building a a community that worked for most people. So, I was really drawn by
4:47 that and um I’ve had a number of great opportunities to contribute. Um really
4:54 fortunate. I feel like this is a a city where you can kind of show up and if you’re willing to dive in, you can you
5:00 can find purpose and meaning here. Well, hang on because I’m curious. So, you were a reporter,
5:07 right? And and then you know that really spoke to you when you were like, “Wow,
5:14 I’m here to get a story and she’s thinking about these people’s like emotional well-being and you know that that did something to your heart.”
5:21 When you came to Portland, were you already working in nonprofit? Yeah, I had made the transition, but
5:27 just a little recently before that. So I I I sort of decided I just needed to go
5:32 cold turkey and get a masters in social work. Uh, and I did that and you know kind of worked and um I was actually uh
5:40 my the job I had I was stationed at a child center working with the parents.
5:46 So I was like a parent organizer which was super cool. I just back before I had kids and really knew anything about it.
5:51 Here I am like you know uh organizing parents who nothing about parenting. It was a um low-income neighborhood in
5:58 Hartford. Super exciting. I learned so much and so I had I was in the game a bit and came here and and uh it just
6:05 fell into more of the administrative side of things. I think that was more of a a match for my skill set and my
6:11 experiences. Yeah. And so once you did the plunge and you jumped into the world of nonprofit,
6:17 how did you go from being that coordinator into that leadership position and what were kind of the steps
6:24 that really were pivotable in in getting you to where you are? Yeah, great
6:30 question, Suzanne. And I think about all the mistakes I made. That’s where I go. That’s how you learn.
6:35 I go, right. But I think I always had a drive, you know, and I always had a I was here intentionally and I really
6:41 wanted to to make a difference. So, I found myself with organizations, well-meaning organizations.
6:46 Um, had a lot of good things going on, but I think what I was able to do was help them. Uh, initially was raising
6:53 money. That’s how kind of how I cut my teeth. And nonprofits still do that. It’s all part of it.
6:59 um but but thought about more about like hey what’s the impact we’re having what’s the strategy how are we different
7:05 sometimes it’s super hard to differentiate well any business right and um and these these business problems
7:12 came up and I found it was interested in those and dove into them and I found that that was appreciated that it was
7:19 there was some interest in that and then in the early odds I had a chance to uh go to a startup called hands-on Portland
7:27 this was right after 9/11, really different time. Um, but there was a huge ethos about giving back in
7:34 response to what had happened. Um, millions of Americans were interested in giving back in their backyard, in their
7:40 own community. So, we in Portland, of course, uh, a chapter popped up, Hands-On Portland, modeled after
7:46 Hands-On Atlanta. Super successful, really exciting time. Um, there was, you
7:53 know, 20 of us in the nation. we were doing a similar thing. We’re sort of galvanizing this ethos of service. That
8:00 was super exciting. That really got me into nonprofit management and leadership. And we were just a brand new
8:07 organization. You know, I think the year I started, we had, you know, $90,000 of
8:12 income and hundred thou and $80,000 of expenses. So, you know, going the wrong direction.
8:18 Uh, and so you learn quickly what it takes to create a sustainable organization at that point. Well, and
8:25 jump ahead because I think this is where it gets really interesting. For people who don’t know, Ride Connection is about
8:32 a $90 million, right, nonprofit. It started off as a spin-off
8:37 from TRAT basically or TRAT services. Yeah. But it has really grown into its own
8:45 organization. But before we dive into that, I kind of wanted to get your sense of the um
8:52 ecosystem of nonprofits today, right? Both on a national basis and on a local
8:58 basis because it’s changing, especially with our current administration.
9:03 Yeah, it’s a tough time. There’s some serious headwinds. Uh whether or not a nonprofit gets federal funds, that
9:09 dictates in many ways that federal funding how the industry is going to do. But even if they don’t, a lot of the
9:15 county states who then distribute the money to them. So either directly or indirectly, it’s
9:22 right. Whether or not you get direct funding, what’s happening in DC is going to really impact the industry. And it’s
9:29 and it’s it’s massive right now. There’s just chaos as you know. There’s fear and anxiety. There’s real money being cut.
9:36 There’s nonprofits that part of this community and this is probably the case in every major metro area. they’re
9:42 really on the verge of going out of business. And to your point, Suzanne, that is really it’s a really imperative
9:47 that we see more consolidation probably. And like what we’ve done at Ride Connection is we think outside of the
9:53 box about how we can create a sustainable business model. We can deliver on our core mission, but also
9:59 begin to operate in areas that serve the mission and serve the organization at
10:04 the same time. Um, yeah, it’s it’s uh it’s some serious headwinds out there right now.
10:09 Oh, absolutely. And so as you were sharing your background and you did talk
10:14 about some formative experiences, right? But you know of shaping who you are as a
10:21 leader today, can you share with us some of the stories? Yeah, thanks for that. And uh gosh, I
10:28 remember like three or three years after having started at at hands-on, I mentioned we had a year where we were in
10:33 the whole 90 grand, right? So here we are. We’re finally successful. We’re in the black. We’re making money. We’re um
10:40 it’s working. People are showing up to volunteer. We’ve got um we’ve got fundraising happening. Everybody in the
10:47 office though is upset. Uh it was, you know, bewildering to me at the time, not
10:53 in retrospect. What do I realize though is um while I had those things going on, I hadn’t really put any effort into
11:00 creating an organization and really that people side of things. I always think that when it comes to
11:06 running a business, it’s what’s your strategy, how are your operations, and how are your people? And I took for granted that those folks
11:12 were going to be okay. It’s like, hey, what’s the problem? We’re doing well. Well, the problem was they had a
11:18 different relationship with that that organization and what their needs were. And I was somewhat blind to that. And
11:25 that was a huge wakeup call for me. I mean, we had we had infighting. We had folks who were feeling uh overlooked uh
11:33 who just weren’t engaged. And so um yeah, I remember that was a look in the mirror moment of saying I’ve got to step
11:38 up and I’ve got to be a different kind of leader now. I can’t just be the startup guy if this organization is
11:45 going to hang around. You know, we’ve got to be a real leader of people as well. So I I’m so interested by this
11:52 because um I think that you’re giving voice to something that you know early
11:58 like entrepreneurs and early business leaders face which is you know just getting the company fiscally viable
12:04 but but then you know when you look in the mirror and realize like here’s this
12:11 gap how how do you like support your own personal development as you’re already
12:17 the head guy like you know like do you mind talking about that? That is so formative and so and it’s absolutely
12:24 tricky thing to navigate. No, great question. Right. And so I had to get help, you know, at least I had
12:30 the the self-awareness to say that I don’t really know how to do this. So fortunately, I found some really great
12:37 help. I found um a small firm uh really
12:42 anchored by this pretty amazing consultant who came in and really helped me understand what it meant to be a
12:48 leader and then helped our whole organization really um differentiate who we were, what we brought to the table
12:54 and what we were looking for and what our values were. Values are huge and I’m not talking about like vague things like
13:02 community and innovation like really getting down on that. What do we really stand for? What are our non-negotiables?
13:08 I mean, this kind of conversations we had ahead had like you’re saying, like it’s typical startup stuff. If you want
13:13 to be sustainable, you got to know who you are. What’s your DNA? What’s going to make you last? And
13:18 and that those are painful lessons. Um, but I’m I’m glad at least I had the the moment of realization that I needed I
13:25 needed help with that. I needed to bring somebody in. And you know, here I am now. I’m still using some of those
13:31 lessons, right? every organization on some level has those same strains
13:36 between um the balance sheet and the people and how we’re actually delivering
13:42 uh on our mission and I’m still using some of those lessons from you know 30 years ago. You mind giving voice to what some of
13:48 them were like you you spoke about you need to take care of your people but what more specifically were the lessons?
13:54 Yeah, I think a big one is and I know that you hear this a lot and know you both embody this is that leaders, you
14:00 know, we can buy into the hype that as leaders we’re supposed to be the u the
14:05 powerful all- knowing entities who who um who are the heroes of our organization who make those decisions.
14:12 That’s why we’re there because we know more than everyone else. That’s completely false and that’s a paradigm
14:18 that I’ve been working to turn on its head. this idea of distributive leadership. It’s where it’s all about
14:24 and that’s exactly what we’re doing right now at Ride Connection. You know, the people that should be making
14:29 decisions are often the people closest to the issue. For example, um we have
14:34 choices in terms of where we provide service, what service lines we have. Is that my decision? Well, I suppose you
14:41 could look at it that way, but I think it’s the people who are closest to that work every day. My job is to create the
14:47 conditions for their success. That sounds super vague, but um what that means to me is being again goes back to
14:54 really being clear on like what do we value everybody? Like what’s important to us? And reminding them that over and
15:00 over and over and also making them aware of like what are we where are we going?
15:06 What is um where is this organization headed? And who are we? One of the things I like to say is that we move
15:12 people like no one else. And that has like kind of a double meaning. We do that literally. We provide these
15:17 specialized transportations, but there’s an emotional component to that. This is not a transactional experience. This is
15:24 not just a ride from point A to point B. You’re riding with a person and if
15:30 you’re the driver, there’s a person in your vehicle and you have a kind of connection relationship with them.
15:35 That’s the kind of rocket fuel that’s someone intangible that really is going to make us go. Yeah. and listening to you and I’m going
15:42 to bring up values in a minute, but I wanted to share this with you and I want to say it’s been going on for seven
15:48 years now and the number one trait of a good leader according to Harvard
15:53 Business is humility and and it’s been again the number one
15:59 of employees like to work with leaders that are humble and
16:04 and I think that was a huge learning for me too is asking for help and saying,
16:11 “I don’t know what I’m doing.” And are people going to notice that? And are they going to think less of me
16:16 because I’m because I don’t know what I’m doing? And it’s our insecurity, right? And also being told a strong leader is,
16:25 you know, like almost untouchable, stoic, is stoic and all knowing.
16:31 Come on, who’s that? Yeah. And and so again knowing that humility is really where you come, you
16:39 know, place that you come at um in leadership, what other values as you
16:44 grow and shape an organization that you really operationalize and how have you
16:50 operationalize those values? Yeah, I think it’s such a great question and I think really um similar to that is this
16:56 idea of gratitude like don’t take anything for granted like you know I really appreciate where we are and I can
17:02 see the path we’ve been on even myself personally um that goes a long way cuz I
17:07 think that the other side of that is like expectation that oh yeah you know this is how it
17:13 should be but it’s like no it’s just one day at a time gratitude for that success we’ve had those choices we made even
17:19 those mistakes we made that we learn from uh that’s a big one and I think for
17:24 me like going back to those those days when I was a reporter I was just gravitating to articles about like
17:31 things that were important for most people the common good that’s a really important value to me I think there’s
17:38 there’s plenty of money and in this country um people can be fabulously
17:44 wealthy we can still meet the basic needs of everyone and that’s always driven me and I’ve always been driven to
17:51 causes that do that and that’s what ride connection does. It’s less known. This idea of mobility isn’t as well known as
17:58 where I was before. The idea of housing insecurity is more well known. But um
18:04 this idea that we can all win. We can all and I think I take that into my management structure too and in in the
18:09 places that I’ve led is that we can all be successful. We can all meet our get our needs met even if they’re different
18:16 if we just look at the world in terms of being abundant and not scarce. And that’s that’s a paradigm breaker too,
18:22 right? Because we get so many messages about the scarcity of resources and the competition.
18:27 Well, and and I think that’s a great segue into innovation because it’s easy
18:32 to innovate when money’s flowing. Yeah. You can take risks, right? You can kind of try things,
18:40 but again, knowing what I know with Right Connection, you’re coming up with solutions that are really innovative.
18:48 So, how do you balance that riskreward with the limited
18:53 resources? Yeah. Well, you know, I kind of feel like unless you’re putting something on the line, um, your business isn’t
18:59 growing. You have to have some amount of risk that you’re being willing to take. And, you know, that can be calculated
19:05 and well known and well vetted. But if we’re not if we’re not doing that,
19:10 that’s I’m always kind of concerned about that because then it’s like we kind of lose our edge and our sense of
19:16 purpose. So, um, at Ride Connection, for example, we’re launching an ambulance company later this year. Now, not a
19:24 traditional ambulance company. This is for folks that need transportation in an
19:29 ambulance to medical appointments. So, non-emergency medical transportation. Um, huge need for that. Uh I think in a
19:37 lot of metro areas, certainly in the Portland Vancouver area, if you it’s hard to get a ride and these are folks
19:44 who really need uh stretchers and specialized care to get to get into
19:49 their appointment. So um do we have to do this? No. Uh we could be perfectly
19:55 fine doing the things that we’re doing, but we we feel like first of all, it’s a huge need. Um who better to do it than
20:02 us? And there’s also the potential for it to be quite successful both for our
20:07 customers and for us. So, um it was worth putting something on the line. You know what it’s done is if it’s it’s
20:13 given us kind of this this u this energy um this a little bit scary uh in a way
20:21 that we can handle. But that’s good. That means we’re growing and we’re learning and we’re continuing to innovate in that world of of the
20:28 unknown. Susan, you’re so right. I think about the times when I didn’t have
20:33 resources. Those early days at hands-on, we had to figure out how to do it. Yeah. And and people really rallied for that.
20:39 They got super motivated by that. The fact we’re plugged into a network of people doing that. When I joined Impact
20:45 Northwest a few years ago, we had to be about something. We were doing good work. Um but there was a we were we were
20:52 lacking a sense of urgency. And that’s when we came up with the idea that what we did and what we do is prevent
20:58 homelessness. Those are folks who are one paycheck away from losing their housing. That was the focus. We had to
21:03 figure out how to do that and how to line up all our program and services to it. So, I really um I really think
21:10 you’re you’re spot on about that. Now, you can you can take on too much risk. Yes,
21:15 we’ve seen that all the time, but in our sector, that’s not usually the issue. It’s usually that we’re we’re a little
21:22 risk hesitant. Well, and I think in the nonprofit world today, and I’m sorry, Tannis, I just hearing this
21:29 interrupted you, that there’s a lot of small nonprofits, especially here in Portland, that are all doing the same
21:35 thing. Yes. And you mentioned earlier that you see that there’s going to be some um
21:41 Oh, good golly, all of a sudden merging and and coming together, right? as a
21:46 transportation leadership, are you looking at organizations to fold in to
21:52 write? Yeah, potentially. You know, it’s interesting because we’re we’re really the only organization nonprofit that
21:57 does what we do. Uh actually in the nation uh really there’s not Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There’s
22:03 not really cuz typically it’s a public sector service, but this being Portland, we’re really into transit, right?
22:09 Uh this is one of the things that we’ve really invested in, so it kind of makes sense. Um yeah, I I think I have I sort
22:16 of have two thoughts about it. I I there is an entrepreneurship that happens in the social sector here that’s pretty
22:22 outstanding. People come here and they want to start their thing. They have a personal passion and that’s great and
22:29 some of the you know certainly that is the case at ride connection. Yes, it was supported by trime was a couple of
22:35 people’s passion that really made it happen. And so we wouldn’t want we don’t want to quell that, but the reality is
22:41 the market can only handle so much of this. We see see it a lot in the youth development space. There’s a lot of and
22:47 it’s great because our kids need all the support they can get. The question is how sustainable is it? I think our
22:53 region is known for having maybe more nonprofits than a lot of cities, but uh yeah, I think it’s going to shake out. I
22:59 think we’ll see some mergers, acquisitions, and consolidations um at least in the next few years. Um, I
23:07 just hope that doesn’t quell that that social entrepreneurism that we’ve I think that’s been to me somewhat under
23:15 reported element of what makes this such a great community to live in. Oh, I agree. Yeah. I’m I I think that um
23:24 I’m just going to move forward. Yeah. No, no, no. You know, all these are really um
23:30 there’s so much to think about. Honestly, I guess the next question that I would
23:35 have for you. So, you’ve spoken quite eloquently about um some of the values
23:41 that really inform your approach to your work when it comes to building teams. I
23:48 would be really interested to hear kind of you’ve mentioned how you operationalize your values. how what do
23:55 you think are the you know key indicators of you know success when when
24:00 you’re thinking about building teams and how much does that have to do with the values that you’ve mentioned? That’s
24:06 kind of part one of the question. Yeah. And then secondly, I’d love for you to tell us a story about a hire that went
24:13 well or didn’t kind of based on some of those indicators. Yeah, it’s just bingo on the team
24:18 building. I mean I uh we we talked about it before but I you often hear about like oh teams need to have trust they
24:25 know how to know how to resolve conflict but what does that really mean and I think it’s important for organizations
24:31 to really get down on that and have these agreements you know I think there’s there’s sort of two sets to me there’s process agreements how are we
24:38 going to share information you know how are we going to run our meetings those kind of things those are important often
24:43 focused on but what about those behavioral agreements and even even calling that is probably a huge turnoff
24:49 to a lot of people, but it it is like how are we going to act around each other? And the reality is everyone in the organization is looking at us.
24:55 So, we have to have our act together. And so, we’re we’re actually a right connection right in the middle of that
25:01 getting down on what does it actually mean to build trust? What does that look like? And actually, isn’t engaging in
25:07 conflict a way to build trust with someone? Mhm. You know, that’s that’s a that’s a distinction we’ve come up with that the
25:13 the the ability to actually have a difference of opinion and be able to talk that through another person is
25:20 probably one of the better ways to then trust them on the other side. Otherwise, we’re not really going to do this. And
25:26 so, we’re trying to get really authentic. I think like a hallmark of my leadership, what I’ve
25:32 really tried to do is is be authentic about about values and about expectations. I’m thinking about my time
25:38 at impact and we had a set of values which were fine and they were things like diversity and compassion. Not
25:44 that’s great but couldn’t you say that really about every other nonprofit in the world? So we we ended up with four
25:50 and they were things like we see the beauty in people like okay what does that mean? It takes some explanation, but the value there is
25:56 that anybody who shows up um at our door in need of service, we see them as a
26:03 beautiful person, not as someone in need or a liability as they often are in our
26:10 society. You they’re seen as a as a a cost center. So, we try to flip that on its head. You know, this idea that um if
26:18 we really understand ourselves and our DNA, that can make a massive difference. And that and that is an approach I’ve
26:24 tried to take to to team building. Um, and it’s okay to come up with some initial things that everyone else has.
26:31 But what’s really different about Ride Connection? What really makes our executive team work based on the
26:37 individuals and the needs that we have that might be different than another place that you that you’ve been or you
26:42 work at? And can we really articulate that? Once we do that, then I know we’re really humming. Yeah, we I love that. And we talk about
26:49 it all the time with our nonprofit clients. Yeah. Because you go, why should somebody right
26:55 come to work for you? And they always go back to the mission and you’re and we always go stop
27:02 every nonprofit. Yeah, I was cringed. I always cringe. It’s a great cause. Right. But really, it’s about that value
27:08 proposition and the an the question should be why should you quit your job
27:14 and come to work here? There you go. And if you cannot yeah articulate that in a succinct way,
27:21 you have not identified your core. That’s that’s a great way of putting it. I want to ask another question because
27:26 the the other kind of interesting part of of this particular question for you
27:32 is that you know you are a fairly new leader to this organization.
27:37 That’s right. And so, you know, I’d be curious to hear
27:42 I will share that we did have firsthand knowledge of, you know, have, you know,
27:48 supporting you and joining that team. And I guess we can even back up a little more and say that at Acumen, we we know
27:56 that if there’s not cultural alignment between values, you know, between the candidate and the organization, it’s
28:03 just never going to work out. I would love it if you would speak to the experience of inheriting a team, right?
28:08 Uh versus, you know, leading one from from early on like you did at uh was it
28:14 hands-on hands-on Portland? You’re the early leader. Now you joined a team. Let’s really talk about the difference
28:20 between inheriting a a leadership team and not only a leadership team,
28:25 but one that’s been there for a long time, right, with some new newer people versus
28:32 building that leadership team from the ground up, right? Well, as I mentioned before, I didn’t do a great job of building it
28:38 from the ground up, but I learned a lot how how to do that. And it is a different situation, though. And I think the first thing that I’ve done is tried
28:45 to really be open and build trust with that team about like who is this guy, right? I knew everyone was going to ask
28:52 that who is he and not to mention the staff. So, um I’ve tried to be really
28:57 open and forthcoming about who I am, what I what makes me tick. I started doing videos and um Suzanne, you’ll
29:05 appreciate this. I went out on a number of rides and film myself doing it and
29:10 then found a way to get that to the all staff to say, “Hey, here’s I appreciate what you’re doing. I enough to take time
29:16 out of my day to go do it.” Uh, and um, and so I think building trust also looks
29:21 like followth through in a lot of ways. um you know it’s really common to have
29:27 um you these great conversations about who we are we want to be and then Monday morning comes and we get wrapped up in
29:33 all the operations and that gets forgotten. So I’m really being persistent about saying hey everybody we
29:39 want to involve this team and we’re going to do that at different moments over the next few weeks and months. I’ll
29:46 be tracking those for you and I’ve really tried to do that and make sure there’s continuity because we have to
29:51 run the organization can’t sit around and imagine what our team might look like. So that’s been huge too that
29:58 persistence and and the other piece of that is is um is really letting people
30:03 make decisions uh who are best equipped for that. There’s no better way to build trust than that. And um for example
30:11 um one of our leadership team members came to me recently and said I know we had decided on this but I I see it
30:17 differently and I think we should do this. And I’m like well who am I to get in your way? I mean that that makes a
30:24 ton of sense. I’ve been here 2 months. You’re the subject matter expert on this. Uh yeah I’m keeping an eye on
30:30 things, right? I have a point of view that’s unique in my role. But those are some of the things. uh and you know and
30:37 I think that um also uh a lot of the members of the executive team already
30:44 know uh what they value and what the uh agreements they want to have as a team
30:51 are. The conditions for them to bring those out haven’t been created yet. So that’s what I’m doing. It’s like I’m
30:57 setting the table inviting them to sit around. I think that once that that’s probably about 80% of it.
31:02 Yeah. And I think what also is unique about you, Andy, is that you came in,
31:08 like you said, a few months ago, but you took over from a CEO who has been there
31:13 for like 21 years. 21 years, right? And so here believing that it is tone at
31:21 the top that that it is the leadership responsibility to set what is acceptable
31:27 and what’s not. That’s also an interesting dynamic. What have you learned? Yeah. Well, my
31:34 predecessor was a fantastic leader and an amazing human being. Uh had been there for 21 years. So really started a
31:40 lot of the programs was a expert on on many of the things that we did. And the the first thing I did was honor
31:46 that and also say that’s not me. I I don’t have that. That isn’t my that isn’t I don’t see that as my job. Uh I
31:54 think my job is to get us into this maybe 3.0 you know, this new operating system after years of rapid growth from
32:00 a 16 to a $90 million budget, we got to focus now on building this organization
32:06 uh and building some of the processes and structures and articulating the values and mission in a way that gets us
32:12 to that new that new area. That’s what I’m going to be focusing on. And I think that was really helpful. And I but I
32:18 noticed people kept coming to me for like very technical things. I’m like, well, of course, Julie would have handled this. I made a lot of sense, but
32:24 I’m not touching it. I might have a point of view on that, but it’s not really appropriate for me to do that. And I have to like kind of
32:30 hold that line. And there’s some there’s a vulnerability though because in those first few weeks,
32:35 first few months, the question might be, oh, what is this guy doing? Right? Like if he’s not doing this stuff and
32:41 he’s not at that meeting, what is he doing? And uh so it’s important for me to produce some results and and
32:49 articulate some of these these um bigger core foundational pieces soon enough
32:55 that will explain yeah okay that’s what he’s doing. He’s creating conditions for us to be successful.
33:00 It sounds like a very um tr like I would imagine that the trust that you’re showing your team is so impactful. I I I
33:08 would think like it’s I hope I mean I I I think so. I think that if you want to be trusted, you trust other people. That’s like a
33:14 relationship 101. I mean, it certainly works in our friendships. I think it can work on an institutional level, too. And
33:20 it’s, you know, it’s not for everyone. I think that you mentioned Suzanne, we, you know, we grew up with these ideas of leadership and we realize that that’s
33:27 not going to work, but we all still have them. And there’s moments, you know, I still have my moments where like, oh,
33:33 maybe I should have been more decisive or definitive about that. Um there’s some vagueness happening right now, but
33:40 it it I think letting it work out and you know, right, we all have to step in when we have to step in, but that
33:45 shouldn’t be our our MO. Well, it’s interesting, you know, when when you were first discussing just your
33:51 own closely held values, what what I really heard coming through, however you want to put it, you know, we we love
33:57 people or we care about people, you know, it’s really coming down to respect. And so it sounds like respect
34:03 is is a really core principle of yours. however you choose to define it and it’s
34:08 showing up in your leadership role now and it’s shown up in the past even like when you
34:14 had that moment from that early you know nonprofit lady that told you to get out of there the people would feel bad
34:20 that’s respectful of those other people that’s what resonated so that’s really interesting that’s good that’s a great point and I
34:26 think there’s like a power thing we should talk about here too right you know um when it comes to working in the social
34:32 service world the people we serve have the lowest level of power. We have more power than they do. This as an
34:38 organization, we have to be cognizant of that. Um, and in my role, like I am the CEO. I have a lot of power and with that
34:46 comes responsibility of how I’m going to use it, right? And I have to be really aware of that and think about um how I’m
34:54 acting and decisions I’m making and am I uh following what I said we’re going to do or am I am I just, you know, doing
35:00 things that work for me? And people notice this kind of stuff. So, I think being in this sector has helped me kind
35:06 of get down on that a little bit about power dynamics and be able to um that’s
35:12 another value that I’ve been able to to navigate and have the opportunity to over the last 20 30 years.
35:17 And I think again that’s that’s such an important thing that we all learn as
35:23 right hopefully good leaders have learned that. So, when you look back, Andy, um, over your career, what advice
35:31 would you give your 20-year-old self? And what advice would you give the next 20-year-old?
35:36 Yeah, thank you for that. That’s a great question. Yeah, I think, you know, I think a lot of it is trust trust
35:42 instincts. You know, I would say to myself, trust your instincts. If I think about some of these aha moments I had
35:48 then still serving me now. You know, believe in yourself. um those gut
35:54 feelings you have are probably right. Um you know, look, we’re all trying to kind of wash out some some old ideas and old
36:02 paradigms out of our hair, right? Leaders are constantly doing that. And um you know, and it’s, as you both know,
36:10 it’s somewhat lonely sometimes. You find uh I would say find uh a community of of
36:16 like-minded people. I ended up doing that. I didn’t have that in the early years. I would really been beneficial
36:22 because no matter what industry you’re in, leaders face common issues and
36:27 common challenges and find people who share your values and and and rely on them and that can take you really far.
36:35 Um the reality is at this point in my life I probably won’t be working in 20 years but at least not in the same
36:41 capacity. But um I’d say like the thing to me and that gets into
36:47 uh just be you know I I think we got to flex with the times like these um I I
36:52 get a I get a lot of uh kick out of and a lot of energy from some of the anybody
36:58 who’s I call younger is younger than me but we’re talking about now having what four generations in the workplace. Uh so
37:06 you know this this Gen Y that that’s come into the office has some really exciting values that are really relevant
37:12 today. So being open to that you know being able to to to to um flex with what
37:20 they’re bringing in terms of their leadership they’re the future get with them. Sure I might have some things that
37:26 I can um that I can show them or explain to them have worked for me but they’re
37:32 going to lead differently. The world’s going to be different. And so, yeah, I I just hopefully I can just continue to flex with that, learn from folks that
37:40 are coming up, and if I have an opportunity to provide some some support to them and some ini insight, that’d be
37:46 really that’d be really cool. Absolutely. That’s wonderful. Well, our final question is, what does hiring for good
37:53 mean to you? Yeah. Well, of course, in our industry, it it it it means absolutely um someone
38:00 who believes in what we do, shares our values and wants to, you know, make this
38:09 world work for more people. Um and I think also it means hiring pe for me
38:16 personally it means hiring people that are different than I am who bring really complimentary skill sets life
38:23 experiences who are going to look at an issue and see it differently. I’m really proud of
38:28 the our ability at Impact to have put together a a team of really diverse folks and that created a lot more create
38:36 better solutions like I know what I know. Um and um the other folks knew
38:41 what they knew and when that was working right that was incredibly powerful. So I’m a big believer in that and that I
38:48 think is also a huge part of hiring for good. Perfect. I cannot thank you enough.
38:54 Oh thank you. It’s been great. I tell Yeah. Everybody check out Ride Connection because again I think it’s
39:00 the nonprofit nobody has heard of. Yeah. Yeah. Potentially right. Yeah.
39:05 Exactly. And thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you both. Super appreciated our time together.
39:10 I know our audience is going to really get a lot out of this conversation. Thank you. Thanks for joining us today
39:15 at Hiring for Good. If you were inspired by our conversation, don’t forget to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you
39:21 get your podcasts. And if you want to learn more about our executive search services, check us out at
39:27 www.hiringforgood.net or our company website, Acumen Executive
39:33 Search. Thanks so much and don’t forget to join us next time for another in-depth conversation about 39:38 transformational leadership. Until then, have fun