IAM1858 – CEO Offers Thought-Leadership in Digital Transformation

In this episode of I AM CEO Podcast, we get to hear from Staci L. Redmon, the President, and CEO of Strategy and Management Services, Inc., an information technology organization.

Transcription:

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Staci L. Redmon Teaser 00:00

We were making decisions on and it just impacted me in such a way that I thought, okay, there's gotta be a better way to do this.

And I was open to exploring it and took that leap of faith at which led me down the road to creating Sams.

Intro 00:17

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:41

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, or what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focused on leadership, management and coaching. When we think of leadership management and coaching, we often think of doing all of the other things, but often it's a person that's able to build up their team, that's able to cultivate a creative and innovative culture so that people can excel and actually be their own leaders. So that's why this month we're focusing on those 3 big topics because they make a huge impact on the organizations that we're part of.

Now, you'll hear some of those topics this month, of course, some really great perspectives on how people are even defining leadership, which I think is extremely exciting. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. And I have a very special guest on the show today at Staci L. Redmon of Strategy and Management Services. Incorporated. Staci, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Staci L. Redmon 02:02

Oh, it's so great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 02:05

No problem. I'm super appreciative of you taking some time out to hop on the podcast. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Staci so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

Staci L. Redmon is the president and CEO of pioneering information technology organization, Strategy and Management Services Incorporated.

Stacey brings her 20-plus years of experience, a DOD experience to the forefront of the digital transformation by applying military grade processes solutions to the information technology innovations panorama within excellent understanding of information technologies role in the modern organization.

Staci offers thought-leadership in the most complex and current problems of the digital era. With a dedication to serving and a passion for learning, Staci looks to the future with the goal of staying ahead of the curve and finding success for those organizations that need it the most.

Staci, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Staci L. Redmon 02:58

I am. Thank you.

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Gresham Harkless 03:00

No problem. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Staci L. Redmon 03:07

Oh, wow. So I think for most CEOs, everything starts with the passion. So as a former army sergeant, I would say the skills and experience that I gained were significant in my decision to start my own business.

I realized a need for the services that I was able to provide, and in 2008, I began my SAMS journey. I was sitting at the Pentagon going through a weapon systems review and basically watching budget decisions and investment decisions being made and realized that there may be a better way to do this, especially when I was in uniform, hoping to get some of this equipment that we were making decisions on.

It just Impacted me in such a way that I thought, okay, there's got to be a way or better way to do this, and I was open to exploring it and took that leap of faith which led me down the road to creating SAMS.

Gresham Harkless 04:01

Absolutely. I love that. Thank you first and foremost for your service. I know that it takes an incredible amount of discipline to do that and to be in the military.Do you find that it translates over to what you're doing today, where you have that that discipline when having a successful business?

Staci L. Redmon 04:17

Oh, absolutely. There are so many attributes that we either enhanced or learned in the military that translate to entrepreneurship. I often have the opportunity to speak to veteran business owners, especially those who are just starting off and help them correlate some of those things such as, for example going into austere environments and making decisions with little or no information, but having to make them quickly and make them just based on your intuition.

That's a lot like entrepreneurship is. So there's a definite correlation there.

Gresham Harkless 04:53

Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to hear a little bit more about what you're doing with SAMS. Could you tell me a little bit more about how you guys are serving the clients you work with?

Staci L. Redmon 04:59

Sure. So SAMS is a life cycle technology solutions provider. We serve clients who are looking to transform their environments through automation, digitally enhanced technologies and other technical capabilities.

Gresham Harkless 05:13

Awesome. Is there like a certain segment that really resonates with most? I feel like technology is really transforming literally every single industry, but do you find that there's more that are apt for you guys working with?

Staci L. Redmon 05:23

It's funny because it is touching so many different industries in many different ways. I think that's the nice thing about being so specialized in this domain is that it is industry agnostic and we're looking at that and certainly exploring those opportunities across those different market segments.

So it's nice to be able to take those capabilities to markets other than the federal space, which has been really instrumental in growing our business.

Gresham Harkless 05:52

Yeah, I could definitely imagine that. So it's definitely great to hear that you're on the cusp or ahead of the curve, it sounds like with a lot of these things.

Staci L. Redmon 05:59

Yes, we're all connected in some way. Everything's connected these days.

Gresham Harkless 06:04

Exactly. I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce and this could be for you or it could be for your organization, but what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Staci L. Redmon 06:13

I think the thing that sets us apart and makes us unique is really these client relationships. We really strive to, to do more and to take those additional efforts, and that's been a founding principle of SAMS since we began. Our values are that we're committed to our people, committed to our clients and committed to our community.

Those three pillars are the tentacles of our success. We really live those values and, demonstrate those values and everything that we do.

Gresham Harkless 06:43

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And let me ask you this, so when those people, you are doing things in the community with, how would they know that they would need to call SAMS? Are there any types of indicators that help an organization, a business owner, a CEO to understand that they need to call you?

Staci L. Redmon 06:57

It depends on the situation. There are certain things that we're specializing in, especially as the technology is changing so drastically. So we are learners and we're entrepreneurs and we drive that spirit here in all of our people. We believe in the value of continuous learning and we have to, especially as technology is changing so quickly these days. So we're seeing different solutions come about to different challenges, especially in the market space.

But what we do is we take those opportunities and we share those stories with our clients. We try to instill some of those, and I hate to use this word because sometimes it's so overused, those best practices. We take those across our different clients because usually if it's happening to one client in one industry, it's happening somewhere else. Such a security or how do I make decisions about cloud? I don't want to put everything in the cloud. So I'm looking at a hybrid. How do I evaluate those alternatives?

So we do a really  good job at documenting those methodologies and taking those good practices out of each of those solutions and then driving those forward to each of our clients, helping them leverage some of those best practices that we've learned from other engagements.

Gresham Harkless 08:13

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So a lot of times you have to have somebody on your quote and quote team or somebody within a phone call sometimes that you can reach out to because you're trying to figure out, like you said, how to create a hybrid so that everything's not in the cloud.

And some of it is in you know, in a more secure environment or how to secure what's in the cloud and all those different kind of moving parts that sometimes you don't have enough time to be able to be expert in yourself.

Staci L. Redmon 08:37

Yes, because many of the times you are reacting to a security challenge to an environment challenge to a regulatory challenge, and you have to move quickly. But you've got to do this smartly and with the best information at hand, so.

Gresham Harkless 08:54

Absolutely. So that's why you make sure that you have experts at your fingertips, I guess you could say so that you can reach out and make those correct or as close to correct decisions as possible. So I appreciate it.

Now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app, a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Staci L. Redmon 09:17

So you know, I thought about this and I thought, what do I do differently that other CEOs might not do out there? And I really didn't come up with things that aren't different, but just really some founding principles.

The first one I have is learn how to say no. It's okay to say no without sounding derogatory. Only accept what you can do and what you want to do. Otherwise, it's okay to say no and to pass that opportunity to someone else. You don't have to be everything to everyone. I think sometimes we try to be and that's when we really put ourselves at risk.

Gresham Harkless 09:54

Absolutely.

Staci L. Redmon 09:54

Then my number two hack is delegate. We hire great people to make our lives easier. Let them do what we've hired them to do and they'll thank us for it. Let them be successful.

Then my last hack is stop checking email. It's distracting. So limit it to a couple of times a day for a certain period of time. If it's that important, the person will call.

Gresham Harkless 10:17

Absolutely. I love those CEO hacks, especially the last one. I've tried to make it a point to do a lot more time blocking so that I don't get caught in the email trap because you could easily spend your entire life there because there are so many emails that you're getting in.

So it's important to make sure that you delegate a certain time. If there are any big emergencies, like you mentioned, somebody will call, and then the power of saying no and, empowering, of course your team is and that's kind of like combined because a lot of times, by saying no or not yet, you're allowing other opportunities to open up or realizing it's not the lane that you should be in.

Maybe you have a team member, maybe it's for somebody else to do, but it allows you to be a lot better at what you do.

Staci L. Redmon 10:55

Absolutely. So I think again, not anything new, just general reminders about some really great rules.

Gresham Harkless 11:03

Absolutely. Absolutely. I always say success leaves clues. So, thank you for sharing some of those clues with us and we would definitely implement those as well.

Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Staci L. Redmon 11:20

Oh my goodness. My younger business self. Wow. I've learned so much, there are so many things that I would probably tell myself. I would say, definitely find your passion first and foremost. Find your passion, do what you love. When you do what you love, it's not work and pay attention to the blind spots because there are blind spots and be prepared for them. They're going to happen. There are setbacks, but ultimately everything is a learning experience.

I always try to take it just as that, that every opportunity there's something rather positive or if you didn't have the outcome that you desired, there's a learning experience. So it goes back to that continuous learning that we strive for here at SAMS. Everything is a learning experience, and you just take that as an opportunity to do it better the next time.

So, don't beat yourself up too bad and just continue to do great things.

Gresham Harkless 12:18

Yeah, failure is never final unless you stop or unless you quit. So making sure that you take whatever might seem catastrophic sometimes, sometimes it's not as bad as it seem because we can learn from it. We can pivot, we can learn to do better the next time.

So a lot of times we just take a lot of that information in and then continue to do better and get better. You never stop doing.

Staci L. Redmon 12:39

That's right. It's a journey. It's a journey and we should enjoy the journey and take the experiences and knowledge gain from it and improve upon it each time we go.

Gresham Harkless 12:49

Absolutely. I love that. Now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on this show.

So Staci, I want to ask you what is being a CEO mean to you?

Staci L. Redmon 13:01

That's a good question. First it's leadership. Everyone is looking to the CEO. You are responsible for setting the direction of the company. You're responsible for the livelihood of not just your employees, but the families as well of those employees. So, I take that very seriously and I always have, even throughout my military career, being responsible for not just someone, but a family of someone's. That's important. At the end of the day, building that trust, setting those expectations so that trust can be formed and that those relationships are at their peak, to me, that's a CEO

It's a visionary. It's someone who works and operates on a day to day on a minute to minute with genuine care and concern for so many, not just the employees and the families, but the people that they're serving. What I mean by that is the clients that you're serving. There's so much more that goes into it than business. There are personal relationships that happen and evolve and that aspect has to be part of it. That genuine care and concern has to be part of it because for me, when you're coming into an engagement, you're coming into it with passion.

I think you get much more out of it that way than just looking at as a business opportunity and numbers.

Gresham Harkless 14:34

Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely echo that and I appreciate you sharing that definition. A lot of times we forget that when you peel back the onion, so to speak of business, it's made up of people and those people have emotions, they have families, they have so many different things.

So when you are making decisions, like you mentioned, having that vision, just understanding all those different stakeholders and everything that's involved with that, is definitely important to remember as a CEO.

Staci L. Redmon 14:56

Yes, you're interacting with so many people on so many levels every day and never forget that every day you have an opportunity to make an impact on someone even just by a simple hello that you may have just made someone's day.

So, don't forget that the little things make a difference.

Gresham Harkless 15:15

Absolutely. Absolutely. Staci, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out. I truly appreciate you for giving your insight and your expertise as well. What I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can tell our readers and our listeners and then how best they can get ahold of you.

Staci L. Redmon 15:31

I thank you so much again for the opportunity and it's so nice to meet you this way. If anybody would like to reach out to me, I'd highly encourage it. I'm a huge advocate for mentoring and partnering and just sharing lessons learned with others. So I would welcome a dialogue.

They can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm very easy to find there or they could email me and the email address is sredmon@getsamsnow.com.

Gresham Harkless 16:03

Awesome. Awesome. We'll have those links and that information on the show notes as well too, so that people can follow up with you easily. But Staci, thank you so much again and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Staci L. Redmon 16:12

You too. Thank you.

Outro 16:15

Thank you for listening to the IAMCEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. IAMCEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Subscribe and leave us a 5-star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co This has been the IAMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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