#37 - From Military Police to Global Ops: Lessons in Leadership from Darek Kochman, Global Legal & Compliance Operations Leader at Kimberly-Clark

Hello everyone and welcome to Pearls on Gloves Off. I'm your host, Mary o'. Carroll. Today I'm thrilled to be speaking with my friend and seasoned global operations executive, Derek Kochman, who comes from a very diverse background, from soldier to CPA to technology consultant, and now Director of Global Legal Operations at Kimberly Clark Corp. Where Derek established the company's first legal operations function. Kimberly Clark is a $20 billion global personal care company with brands that we all recognize like Kleenex, Cottonelle, Huggies diapers, Scott Kotex, and so many more. Derek there partners with the Chief legal Officer and legal leadership team to define the global legal organizational strategy, effectively stewarding financial resources and driving transformative projects to enable the organization. I invited Derek on the show because like so many of us, he comes from a non traditional and non legal background. He worked previously at KPMG where he served as a director of Data and analytics and launched their first global alliance with Microsoft with a focus on analytics and AI. Prior to that, his formative years as a leader were spent serving in the United States army as a non commissioned officer, military police corps. His tenure was highlighted by the honor and privilege of working for the Commander in Chief, United Nations Command, US Forces Korea and Combined Forces Command, where he flawlessly executed hundreds of security missions in service of key officials and dignitaries. Now, Derek has always seemed to me to be someone who enjoys challenges, drives innovation, and excels in optimizing operations. During our conversation today, we talk about how reinvention and leadership have been consistent narratives throughout all his roles, both in what he's learned from others, but also how he has personally grown as a leader over time. He outlines three leadership imperatives that we dive into. First, how culture is key. Then how to maximize learning velocity and its importance, and finally, what Derek calls selfless service. With that onto the show, thank you for coming on. I was really looking forward to this conversation because I wanted to dive into your background. Ever since the day we met, you had introduced yourself as the head of legal ops, but you came from a background of management consulting and I think some accounting and then military. And so for those who have been following me for a while, you may know that my favorite people to hire are ex consultants and military or veterans. You were, you had all that rolled into one person, which makes me very confident that you're good at the role that you have today. But I wanted to kind of get into your background and learn about how maybe some of that has shaped your approach to your current role in Legal Ops and how it's helped Because I'm sure it has.

Yeah, no, it's been. It's been an exciting career thus far and one filled with a lot of variety. And I think a lot of the people I meet in the legal ops industry come from so many different backgrounds and professions. I mean, we're still such a young and budgeting community, and I think that all those skills and experience really lend themselves to legal ops quite well. So excited to talk to you. And I think before we start, I was actually listening to scrolling through social media and I landed on this, like, really cool Charlie Munger clip. And he was talking to this reporter and she was like, what's basically the secret to life? And he's like, it's really pretty simple. You keep your word, you hang around the right people, you spend less than what you make. And he went on and on, right? He like, hit it, 1, 2, 3. And the woman looks at him and she's like, when were you. How old were you when you first realized all this? And he stops, stops and looks. Looks at her blankly and says, seven. And I say that because I feel like when we have these kinds of conversations, a lot of the things seem pretty obvious. And, you know, it's not until you kind of pair them with personal experience that it really makes for meaning. And so I'm really excited to just talk a little bit about my background and hopefully help a few people out in the community.

Yeah, I often say just because it's obvious doesn't make it easy. Right. So there's things that we know we should be doing that are harder to put into practice. Now, how long have you been in legal Ops proper?

Five years now. So I've been in this role at Kimberly Clark for five years. First in role. So a lot of fun time setting up the program and the function and working to build a solid base.

And then you were similar to me in that you came from this, not as an attorney, no legal background, hadn't worked in a legal department or a law firm before. I have to ask, what was like, your first impression coming in working with lawyers? I'll share with you. Mine was like, what? Why do they not understand, you know, how to run things this way? And why is this so foreign, these concepts?

Yeah. So two things jumped to mind immediately. So I had the great opportunity within two months in a roll to go to clock 2019. And I just remember walking into that convention hall and having come from tech, like, tech is not intimidating to me really in any way, except for when I walked into that convention hall And I looked and I was like, holy cow, there's just about every kind of legal tech you can imagine here. And just the. The diversity in solutions and, like, providers, it was just all very overwhelming. And having come from consulting, I think I took just about every single call anytime a vendor called me before I got completely wiped out and exhausted. And then I guess the second bit is it didn't take me too long to realize that clearly we have a huge opportunity in terms of speaking the language of business within legal. And I can sincerely say that the leadership team that I work with and the people I work with have a profound understanding of that, and they really played a win in this business. First mindset. That's always a growth and development opportunity within the function to tell our value story.

I know one thing that definitely we want to talk about today is leadership. And that's been a big theme across all the roles and the many roles that you've had in your rich history. How has your background. I guess if you want to talk about your specific experiences from the military to being a CPA to being a consultant, has led to your approach and your leadership philosophy in legal ops. I'd love to hear a bit more about your background and journey to becoming a leader in this space.

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, it's definitely been an adventure. And it's been a mixed experience in terms of the opportunities that I've gotten along the way. And I would say across all those different experiences, what I've really had along the way is this insatiable appetite for change and learning and just sort of taking advantage of opportunities. And that's required me to be really adaptable. It's not easy to make a transition from being in the military to doing something like accounting work. And it's not easy jumping from that and going to technology. And so each one of those steps has really been like another chapter in my career for me. And there's been just a tremendous amount that I've learned about leadership along the way.

So, yeah, so I'd love to hear about those. Those stories and the lessons that you've learned. Cause you're right, those are different chapters. They're very different roles and industries. And I always like to hire people who come from outside the legal space because they bring such great perspective. And I'm sure you've learned from each of your experiences and shaped kind of how you are today.

Yeah. Where I first started was in the military, and I spent five years on active duty in the army and working within the military, police Corps. And I just had a variety of different experiences there. Being a young guy, I was actually going in pre 911 thinking this would be a great way to pay for college. Obviously, things change and the world moves quickly, and so you're faced with a whole new set of experiences and challenges and being in the military, I really had to focus on the culture piece, right? So I can remember a time when I first hit my first duty station. And I remember there's like this World War II barracks type environment where they do all this in processing. And you kind of go through, you get your uniforms, you make sure that you're the first survivors, get your benefits if something happens to you. And I had the sergeant sitting next to me, and I'm pretty sure that I was just kind of talking nonstop. And the guy looked at me and he's thinking, geez, this guy's not gonna make it the first week. But he gave me some really sage advice and wisdom that stuck with me and that really helped me along my entire career, frankly. But in that moment and in the weeks that follow really gave me a boost. And it was all around culture. He said to me, look, when you show up to your first duty station, when you meet your platoon sergeant, the first thing you gotta say, it's two things. So first, I want to go to Air Assault School. Just say that Air Assault School is really a skill set and sort of a trade, and that is really around rappelling from helicopters. And it's been a tactic that's been used within the military and has been associated with the 101st Airborne Division. So you can imagine the sort of rite of passage that it takes to earn your aerosol wings, right? So showing up on day one and being like, hey, I get it, I get the culture here, I get what's going on. Send me, right? Send me to the school I want to be part of. It is really sort of a great first impression. And then you said, the second thing is tell them you want to go to the Soldier of the Month board. And that's really where you said, just like in front of this panel of senior officers and leaders, and they essentially grill you on, hey, how well do you know your job? How well do you know your weaponry? How well do you know your tactics? And I remember those two things coming out of my mouth and just looking at my platoon sergeant, and it was like he couldn't believe it that he had gotten somebody who on day one, moment one, knew exactly what this organization was about, knew exactly, you know, how to make A contribution and how to be part of this whole. And to me, that always stuck with me because culture is such a. An integral part of making a difference in an organization. Right. If you know the culture and you know the vision and where the organization is headed, you have a much better opportunity at making an impact because there's a language behind it, there's an honor, there's a point of pride behind it. And everywhere that I've gone, that's really served me well. Just saying, hey, send me. Right? And just really demonstrating that I'm here, I'm with you guys.

Yeah, that's such a great mentality. And just goes to reconfirm why I love to hire vets so much, because that is the culture, it is the send me. I can do it, I have the confidence, I can execute. And there's no sort of wait and see or dilly dallying. So I, I really do appreciate that culture and mindset. And have you brough that into your first week, first month of the job on all the future roles that you've had, have you sat down with your manager and basically after absorbing the culture that's around you saying the equivalent of send me?

Yeah, of course. I mean, in my role today, obviously I support our chief legal officer and the legal leadership team. And a big part of that is understanding the direction of the company and where we're going and what's the CEO's vision and what makes for business results, how do we deliver value and getting alignment to that and working and supporting a leadership team to tell that story is integral to our success. And so, yeah, in a similar way, I've worked in that capacity and worked with the team in order to move the organization forward. Right now I'm an individual contributor. I sort of play in this role where I support the leadership team and at the same time, I'm also delivering on special projects that are transformative in nature. Right. That help to enable the organization. And it was sort of the first time in my career where influence was a huge part of the job description and we could talk a little bit about that. But yeah, for the time being, I really rely on my business partners who are tremendous across the organization. And of course, we have sort of a distributed legal ops model where we do have legal ops practitioners, but they're embedded in our core function. So we still work as a cohesive unit to drive results.

Look, every legal ops function looks different in every organization as we are still nascent and there isn't a set best practice and uniformity across the industry yet. But to your point, I think culture is probably even more important in learning how to work across teams and across lines. And having that collaborative, not inter company competition sort of for work is really critical to getting stuff done. How do you think about that and how are you successful in kind of working across lines when these are not individuals that necessarily report into you when you've got the strategic vision that you want to execute on?

I'll tell you, this was probably the one most challenging point for me coming into role for all the reasons that I mentioned so far. But yeah, coming from consulting where things are very clear, I mean, for the most part you're at least starting from an established foundation of what needs to be accomplished. I mean, you have a statement of work that's like the holy grail. And yeah, there's a lot of things you have to traverse once you get into day one and you start working the engagement. But it's relatively clear what direction you need to head. The resources are allocated, everyone's incentives are tied to reaching the same goal and that's pretty predetermined and you can move quickly as a result. And I think being in house is a completely different animal. For all of the advantages you have within consulting, you have similar challenges on the inside. Right. Because what you're trying to do is you're trying to shift the organization either through transformative initiatives or through business initiatives that are meant to drive results. And that alignment isn't always there. And so if you've read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you're always having to look for that win. And I'll say I wasn't always successful at the start. Frankly, that was tough. Right. It's hard to figure out who's who. You really have to get good at understanding where do your interests align with mine. How can we do this for the greater good and keep that momentum going and to stay committed to that? So I'd say that's the biggest challenge coming in and we keep each other motivated in that respect. We're always looking for the win.

Yeah. Have you. Are you willing to share some of the missteps or lessons learned along the way?

And one thing comes to mind, I think sitting with a consultant within the first week or two, and I just remember being like, okay, now I'm on the other side of the table. Consultants are in and now I, I know how that side of the house works. Now I'm in here and I got big plans, guys. We're going to do X, Y and Z. And then looking back, it was, it was ambitious. Right. And humbling as a result, and probably too many to count, Mary, honestly. But we've come a long way and we've made great strides over the last several years.

So I think that's what I wanted people to hear. And I had a conversation with another amazing Legal Ops leader this morning who said, I'm later in my career now, but I can't tell you how many missteps I made along the way. And she's coaching her junior team and that's how we learn. We're all better for it, but you've got to kind of go through a little bit of that growing pain and stumbling here and there and coming out of the meeting and going, wow, I really messed up the delivery of that. I've learned something, I'm going to take that away. And the next time I get in front of senior leadership, I'm going to do this a little differently. And that's how we get better.

That's right, yeah. I mean having an organization that's committed to the mission, the Legal ops mission, and we sure do, really helps, really helps.

So another sort of leadership principle or imperative that you mentioned before as we were prepping for this is maximizing learning velocity. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, I think I've all heard the saying all great leaders or readers or something to that effect. I think what that phrase is trying to say is the more sort of information you could take in and the better you understand the surrounding circumstance of any problem you're trying to solve and the more you can absorb and the faster you can do it, your chances just get incrementally and much better. Right. When I think about learning velocity, we have a number of opportunities and problems at the same time. So first of all, there's no shortage of information coming at us constantly. So one thing is like I mentioned with the taking every consultants meeting the first week on the job, like there's no shortage of information or people trying to help. Right. Your ability to sort of filter that is critical, but equally as important is staying curious and continuing to consume and seek out information that's really critical. And when I think about my time in consulting, I remember I actually made a transition from working at EY and I was a CPA at the time, just starting out and really made a decision like, hey, this is great, this is an awesome profession, but I want to do something that's a little bit more open ended in terms of consulting and especially tech. And lo and behold, an opportunity came along and KPMG was building their team on their Microsoft account. So I moved up to Redmond, Washington and started working there. And mind you, looking back, I really underestimated how little I knew about tech at the time. But I was hungry. I was super hungry. I remember sitting in a meeting with a president of one of their business units at one point and I was really playing like a project management role, helping the technology team that was supporting the product and building new features and functionality. And I would go in meetings every week and sort of status update meeting and I would sort of take notes and then feed that back kind of the role. And I remember being so awash in new information that I furiously took notes. But I would spend hours studying. What did they mean when they said sdlc, right? Oh, it's software development lifecycle. Okay. You know, just endless amounts of information that were just so foreign to me. But I was hungry and I just said, I'll spend the time. And I just spend countless hours learning and understanding the business. And I think it really did me well at some point a couple years later, KPMG started their first global alliance and it was with Microsoft. And I was really humbled when I got the opportunity to be part of that team and standing up that alliance. And we had tremendous result. And looking back, I'd really made leaps and bounds. But if I sort of caved to all this information or wasn't able to stay laser focused and really eat through it, then I may not have gotten those opportunities. But that's what I mean by learning velocity. It's really pivotal.

I, I can totally relate to that. And I think that's part of the reason why I love hiring the ex consultant. And having come from that world, what I learned the most was how to listen and observe well, because every client you go into, right, is often a different industry, a different space, a different set of problems in the sow that you're faced with. And they're the experts, they live this every day. And you're coming in, I'm sorry, tell me how a hospital works or tell me how manufacturing works here. And you're learning on the fly and trying not to look too stupid while you're listening and observing. But at the end of the day, the business principles are the same and you're trying to think about, okay, I come with a certain skill set. How can I listen? Learn everything about what's happening here and add value and contribute in a way that is helpful and also discerning what they're telling you. Because obviously they hired you to bring in a new perspective. So I keep telling people, don't do as you're told. They're not bringing you in to do execute on a specific thing. They want you to give some advice and bring that outsider's perspective of what you're seeing versus what they're seeing and hearing, which I think is a really critical skill for legal ops, because we, in a lot of ways, are internal consultants to our departments.

Yeah, absolutely. There's always something to learn, and the environment's changing so quickly. And the leadership lesson in that really is in order to be a good leader, you have to have the sensational appetite to learn. I mean, your team depends on it. We owe it to our people to have this sensational appetite to learn. The knowledge that we're able to process and making it as simple as possible is one of the most important things that we could do, especially when we got so much coming at us.

Yeah, yeah. It's funny, my daughter, she's 13, and she's always asking her teachers, does this count towards my grade? Does this count towards my grade? And they're like, we just want you to love the process of learning, not just learn, because it goes towards your grade. And so I'm trying to instill that in her. I'm just curious, in your own life, do you try to carve out time to. To read? You mentioned some books already or listen to things or go to things. Like, how do you sort of make sure that you' outside of the on the job learning, that you are continuing to be curious?

Yeah, reading is definitely in there. I wouldn't say that. I've always been a great reader. I love podcasts. I love the Pogo podcast. There's a few books on leadership that come to mind that I do really like. They're really short, but they're succinct. Peter Drucker's Managing Oneself. I mean, you can't be a leader unless you can manage yourself first. Right. Lead yourself. And then the other one is how Successful People Lead by John Maxwell. And really the fundamental point there is it's not about role or station or title. It's much more than that. That's only like the first of many layers of leadership, the pinnacle of which is really creating other leaders. I try to weave in reading, but mostly podcasts, and there's a lot of good ones out there.

Yeah. I want to pick up on something you just said about the last book you mentioned, which is leading, essentially leading without authority, which is, I think, a really big theme that's come up in a lot of conversations I've had lately and that's so important. You touched in already with the unusual structure that you've got there at Kimberly Clark. But so much of our job is not a top down. We are change agents, but we have to do it in a way that requires a lot of storytelling, a lot of influencing, a lot of consensus building and bringing people to the table. How have you thought about that? Are there experiences in your varied background that has.

Yeah, I mean, this role in particular, I mean like I said, the military background and the time in consulting, it was very structured and kind of come with a built in team. So in this instance, in this position that I have now, it's really been entirely about influence. And influence can come across and I think that's probably the most important leadership lesson is this concept of selfless service.

I love that. Yeah.

You know that I obviously I learned quite a bit about that in the military, but in some ways I've learned more about it here and in this role than I ever have. This is the primary challenge of an individual contributor, right? It is. How do you influence and still get things done? How do you do it with grace? How do you do it thinking about people first? Because there is no win unless you have other people involved. I mean, that's the general leadership lesson, isn't it? So, yeah, it's really been the big learning opportunity, I'd say, and leadership opportunity since I've been here.

Selfless service. I think that's such a great term. And it is absolutely what we're here to do is to help the larger organization. And you're basically putting the organization first, then your department, then your team, and then yourself last. And. And that's not something that everybody comes to the table with. So I think that again is. This is a really great mentality and it makes collaboration and teamwork just so much better. When everyone has that state of mind.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's like the big lesson in it is that leadership is not about your station. Leadership is about taking advantage of circumstance and taking advantage of the moment. Because anyone can step up and be a leader at any moment. There's countless heroes out there from all kinds of professions that they saw the opportunity and they take it. Sometimes I look at young professionals and I can spot a leader right away. Now they're the ones who aren't afraid to call a spade. They're the ones that aren't afraid to say, I don't know, they're the ones who are asking all the good questions, frankly, they're not the ones that are kind of sitting back saying, yep, got it, and show up a week later and they didn't get it. There's something about being humble and definitely taking advantage of the moment and becoming a leader in the moment. That's the job.

I think that's a great observation. And I'm curious your thoughts. Do you think that's an innate quality or is that something that can be learned, that mindset?

Definitely. I mean, if you like Andrew Huberman, you've learned about neuroplasticity in the last year or so, more than we'd ever known. So, look, I think it's definitely a learned behavior. It's a skill like anything else. I would also say that every learned behavior skill needs the right environment to flourish in. It's the traditional leader's responsibility, I'd say, to harbor that environment of safety, speak and speak up, and to kind of have this open dialogue or collaboration and then know as a leader when to say, okay, got it. Here's the direction we need to go. But in the meantime, you have to set up that environment for your team to really flourish and speak their mind. And that's actually something that we do really well here in our organization. I think everyone feels like they have a voice and there's tremendous power in that.

Yeah. Psychological safety was a big tenet when I was at Google of what makes a really effective team. And an effective leader is creating that feeling. Do you have thoughts or tips about how one can create that sort of feeling as a leader?

Talk less. That's not always easy. Right. Especially if you see the win. Actually, I've learned that kind of gives me comfort to just shut up. Right. Like, if I think I see the win, I've been there. I kind of understand what's happening. Especially in those moments you're not there to compete with your team, you're there to listen with to your team and see what novel or new perspectives might be brought. And I think knowing when not to talk. I think there's some. Some leaders I've listened to have often said, I wait till the end of the meeting to talk. I set the agenda, let folks know what I'm trying to get out of this. But I wait. I think that was a big thing of Bezos, actually. I heard that recently on some podcasts.

Yeah.

But I think that's one thing that. That he does, and I think that's really effective.

Yeah, I. Yeah, I've heard that too. The thing not to do is to say, I'd love your thoughts. Here's what I think. But I'd love your thoughts. It's, yeah, start the other way around.

We've all been guilty of that. Right. It's really easy to sit here on a podcast and say all the obvious things and try to sound like a genius. And full disclosure, I'm not perfect. I mean, when it comes to leadership, we're learning every single day. Again, it's. I really believe it's a matter of circumstance. There's like a lot of variations that could come in terms of testing your leadership based on the circumstance or the situation. I think it's staying humble and grounded and that allows you to continue to grow.

Yeah. I can't tell you how many times I. I'm thinking in my head, I know the answer. I've been here, I've done that. I know what we need to do. And the team is going down a different path and they're excited about it and they're telling you how they're going to see. And everything in my body wants me to say, no, we're not going to do that. Let me tell you how we're going to do it my way. But you've got to bring them around and give them the space to share why they think that's the way it should go and collectively come to the right decision. But also be thinking, we've got to do this fast and efficiently. We don't have all the time in the world. Like all things, it's good to be conscious, at least of how you're presenting yourself.

Absolutely.

Speaking of neuroplasticity and learning mindset, having gone through all the rich experiences that you had, what advice would you give to the younger, aspiring leadership folks who are early in their careers?

Take advantage of every opportunity that's given to you. Stay open in that respect. Sometimes what doesn't look like an opportunity really is right. And just don't lose yourself. I think as we get older, there's great power and richness in our experiences and we can really get caught up in the work. There's been times in my career where I've lost my leadership voice. Right. Because I have either been insecure about what I know or what I don't know, or there's been other personalities that take over. Right. And you sort of can feel small. I think it's important for you to reflect often and say, build on those wins and those experiences you've had throughout your career to maintain that sort of leadership. Voice and just like I said, keep taking every opportunity that comes your way because every one of those is another opportunity to learn and to increase your learning velocity, if you will.

How did you fall into this Legal Ops role? I don't think we covered that because it wasn't a linear path like none of our.

Yeah, I mean, there was a point in my time at KPMG where I was really focusing on chief compliance officers and data and analytics and I think through a number of different house calls and then eventually getting the opportunity here at Casey, there was a recognition that hey, we want to do more in this space. And that was sort of the entry. But like I said, every opportunity leads to so much more. I didn't know I'd really began to work with the leadership team in the capacity that I am and honing a whole bunch of other skills, solidifying my consulting skills in terms of like building frameworks and helping to structure a service oriented organization, working within strategy and really driving towards the goals of the organization. Yeah, that's really how it started. But it ended up being so much more.

And did anything surprise you about this role or either in a good way or not?

It's just such a new profession and the best thing that we have going for us and what was a real surprise is just how open the community is to sharing information. We obviously have our luminaries such as yourself and others who we look to because you definitely have a solid perspective and great experience in the area and you give so much, but so do others. Right? Like I've never met someone in Legal Ops that isn't willing to take a phone call or just talk through a problem because we all like to think we have unique problems. We don't. And this community is very open in that respect and sharing and helping one another out. So that was really surprising, but delightful. I mean, there's a lot of energy in this community. You go to our events or you, you talk to people and we're just young and new and really start learning. Just the beginning of the journey.

And I think no one's an expert. Everyone's trying to figure it out and there's no best practices or playbooks, so we really do need to rely on each other, which I think is why the community is so strong. But you know, and you and I came from this, from the outside. We didn't have legal background or legal experience. And I guess my question for you is also, do you think that there is anything unique to the role that makes having legal background necessary? Important is that something that if you were to build out a team you would hire for or is it just a nice to have at this point?

I mean, there's certainly a huge advantage to understanding the various functional processes within a legal organization. I mean, that's tremendous. But I would also say there's no shortage of people who know those processes already in the legal organization. I mean, not all of the legal practitioners. Right. And they're. We have tremendous subject matter experts and I think we have a goal to keep building out that diversity. Right. Of experience and professionals because it's a great compliment. We all know the stats on what it means to have diverse teams. And like I said, while it's an advantage to know the ins and outs of legal, it's not a necessity. What's more important is that we're adding the diversity of skills and experiences into the profession. And I think that makes for a great combination. If you've read the book Range by, I think it's Epstein. He talks about the power of intersecting multiple skills, and he talked about it from an individual standpoint. But obviously when you could bring multiple skills to the table, it just adds for a really dynamic combination.

Yeah, that's great. What are you reading right now? Is there anything that's on your nightstand?

Yeah, actually, I'm. I've kind of come to the point where there's a lot to be learned in terms of leadership and corporate leadership. But I think what I'm really focused on is learning how to be a better leader at home. There's a blending occurring in my life right now. I've, like, really, in my career, candidly, just tried to kind of keep a division between church and state.

Yeah.

And when you're trying to balance personal life and career, it's a challenge. It's a challenge. And there's leadership lessons to be learned on both sides. I'm personally in a season where I'm learning how to be a better father, how to be a better spouse. And that's like the orientation around books that I right now, if I'm being honest. Right.

Yeah. That's fantastic.

But it's amazing, like how the corollaries back to work. Right. I mean, it's just. There is a blending. There's a blending going on. I think it used to be really dogmatic around this is work and this is home. But I mean, I don't know how many of your guests have mentioned Covid in the last hundred episodes. But like, that all went away. That all went away. And we like, we really have to understand how to be more fluid, and I think that's where my next leadership challenges is, just continuing to be fluid in my leadership and understanding those opportunities to be a leader in any given moment. So that's where I'm at.

That's fantastic. Such a great growth mindset. And yeah, I think the the hardest job I have right now is trying to figure out how to be a better mother. So I totally relate to that. And thank you. I've learned so much from you in the last hour or so, Derek. So appreciate your time and your experiences. So rich and so diverse and so interesting. So I know you bring great perspective to your current role, and we thank you for your time.

Thanks, G.