Episode 154: Winning at Business and Life with Dr. Joe Perez

This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.

Well, Professor Pete, uh, it's an honor to be here with you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Joe Perez, and I'm a senior systems analyst and team lead for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. I've worked there for 3 years. Before that, I was a business intelligence specialist at NC State University. I worked at the university for 25 years after having been a school teacher having earned my doctoral degree in secondary education, was a schoolteacher for 10 years, rose up through the ranks at NC State. I was— that I unexpectedly ended my career there after 25 years, and I say unexpectedly because Health and Human Services recruited me away from NC State. Wasn't even looking for a job and they wanted somebody, so I became their senior systems analyst and team lead. And I absolutely enjoy my job with DHHS.

Joe, it's so great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?

The best thing about working in my industry, I would say with all the neat things that I get to do as a senior systems analyst, I get to liaise between high-level business people on one side of the spectrum and high-level technical people on the other and bring them together utilizing my communication skills and technical skills and negotiation skills to get them to agree upon solutions that'll work for everybody. While at the same time understanding that I'm doing this for the people of North Carolina, for those that are the most needy. Now, it isn't a direct thing because, you know, I'm not the social worker who takes care of the children. I'm not a behavioral scientist who develops an action plan for a kid with ADHD. I am not the field worker that delivers meals to needy families, you know, but I do indeed provide the data that the decision makers use and knowing how to deploy those valuable resources and knowing that I had a part in making it happen by ensuring that the data gets to where it needs to be. Well, you know, that's something you can't put a price tag on, and I have to remind myself of that. It keeps me going, and when people in my team don't remember it, then, you know, I I encourage them to think about that and that'll help keep them going as well.

Great perspective. Thank you so much. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?

That's a good question. I would have to say the chapter, um, the chapter would be Eat Your Own Dog Food. And use your own stuff. All right, now that sounds silly, but I'll explain. You know, people need to take ownership for the things that they do. Okay, they will tend to give you the best product if what they're doing is something that they believe in and if they know that they're going to be held responsible for the things that they do and for the product they produce. Now, That seems like a pretty radical departure on, you know, what the normal interpretation of that phrase is. But if you think about it, the way you eat your own dog food and use your own stuff is essentially taking ownership for the things that you do and knowing that what you do and the way you do it makes a difference, makes an impact in your customer's life.

Mm-hmm. I really like that chapter. Great suggestion. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?

I'd say it's the same thing that I told a group of HR professionals that I talked to when I was speaking at the SHRM conference this this past summer. I would say to them, it's important to view your employees not as a cost to be justified, but as an asset to be invested in. See, no matter— it's not so much how much they're getting paid or how nice their office is or whatever perks they might get, but in how much they are worth to to you personally, okay? People tend to enjoy their jobs more when they feel valued. And nothing says you are important to this organization more than giving, having a manager who's going to listen to you, who pays attention to your needs, your opinions, your ideas, your goals, okay? And the other thing is empowerment. People who work for me need to know that they have both the means and the ability to do their jobs, okay? Touching a little on education here, okay? As an educator and an IT professional, you know, making sure folks have adequate training is really a big deal with me. And when you do that, okay, right, showing your people that they are a vital part of the success of your organization and treating them accordingly, man, you'd be surprised as to how hard they'll work and how loyal they're going to be. All right, um, it's like Richard Branson said, train your people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.

And what you're saying is so much in alignment with research that I, I did many years ago on trying to retain and attract technical professionals, and hands down, well over 60% of the people who would leave their job did it because of a poor relationship with their manager. So it's totally in alignment with what you're saying.

Mm-hmm.

Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?

I have to say, narrow it down to two. Matt Crump and Sherri McManus. Okay. Matt Crump is an absolute dynamo. I mean, he's a life coach, he's a speaker, author, host, he's a counselor, he's a family man. I mean, you name it, you know, he's done it. Okay. He's full of integrity, life, excellence in what he does. He perseveres in spite of any adversity that he's gone through, and he really knows what he's talking about. He's got what he calls grit, all right? If you don't know what that means, just ask him. He'll tell you. It's a trademark. You can't go wrong with Matt Crump. Secondly, I'd have to say Sherri McManus. Sherri is also a phenomenal leader. She's into leadership training, helping businesses improve their processes. She does executive coaching, a whole myriad of things. I mean, she's a great speaker in her own right. I've got to say, she's a really neat combination of both being practical and professional together at the same time. I mean, she is just as nice as the day is long. I mean, she does everything with finesse. And you're going to thoroughly enjoy interviewing Sherry McManus. She's a real jewel, and at the same time, she's the real deal.

Wonderful. I'll reach out to both of them. Thank you for those referrals. And our final question, question number 6: please tell me about your first job.

My first job, um, well, you know, like most, most other kids, um, I worked in a, in a restaurant, uh, bussing tables, cleaning up the kitchen and that sort of thing. I cleaned up the buildings and school where I worked and even sold frozen freezer food plans over the telephone during that time. But my first real job, you might say, full-time job was as an adult in my college years. I worked for the North Carolina— no, excuse me, the Florida Department of Agriculture. I was a citrus crop forecast survey technician, something like that was my title. Me and a couple of other college guys would ride around in the back of the Jeep that was driven by our boss, Mr. Forrest. He was a wonderful man. We'd go through all the orange groves in the state of Florida. Well, not every single one of them, there's so many. Designated ones, designated trees, designated limbs on the tree, and our job was to count the fruit. But not all the fruit in the tree, that would take forever. It would only be a certain branch that was marked. It was really interesting the way they figured out what branch to mark. It was all kinds of scientific formulas and things that they would use to mark those branches ahead of time. It might sound boring to some people, but it wasn't easy. You didn't get to pick the limb where you count the fruit. And you had to keep track of your count, okay, because your count and the count of all the other members of your limb count crew would be tabulated together with all the other limb count crews all over the state. And by the end of the summer, they would tabulate everything, put everything all together, you know, and come up with the forecast survey. That is, they would forecast what the citrus crop was going to be in the state of Florida. Believe it or not, they were pretty accurate. It was above 90-something percent. Now although it sounds like a boring job, it was exciting and it was fun and it was really hard work too, you know. And lessons that I learned there would stay, you know, through the rest of my life, okay. I learned perseverance and being really patient because it wasn't too easy to count the limbs, excuse me, the fruit on just one limb, especially if it's intertwined and tangled up with another limb, you know. You'd have to trace it out all the way to the end and not lose count, not lose track of where you're at. The determination and dependence upon other members of your team, especially when you're up high, 10, 20 feet up in the air, some cases. In other groves, there's this one grove that had trees in it that were built, that were planted before World War I. In the case, they were grapefruit trees, and some of those limbs were like 40 30, 40 feet up in the air. You have to depend upon your others because when you're 10 feet up in the air on a swaying trunk, you know, you have, if you're having a hard time getting down, you depend on your other team members to help you. The perseverance of going all the way to the end of the branch, especially when it's hot and you're sweaty and a branch snaps back and you get smacked in the face with a bunch of powdered pesticides. So, but it was a great experience and especially the patience and the firmness and the kindness and the encouragement of our boss, Mr. Forrest, went a long way. Matter of fact, we're— my family and I and his family, you know, stayed friends for decades thereafter. So wonderful experience as a limb count crew member.

Great story. Thank you so much. And Joe, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you? Sure.

Well, they can find me on LinkedIn. Look me up, Dr. Joe Perez. On LinkedIn, my handle ends in JW Perez. You can find me on Sessionize at sessionize.com/joe-perez. And then my own personal website is drjoeperez.com.

Wonderful. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.