<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=429271514207517&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Skip to content

Lessons in Leadership: Geraldine Gray’s Path to Success

on • 34 min. read

Lessons in Resilience and Leadership: Insights from Geraldine Gray, CEO of NDM

Overview

My most recent Scaling Clean guest has been at the helm of her company for 16 years. Geraldine Gray runs Endiem, a Salesforce practice based in Houston. Her company works to help companies drive commercial growth by aligning their strategic goals with their Salesforce options. She has served clients in a wide number of sectors, not just in cleantech.

Geraldine has also been very public about her successful battle with cancer, and I want to acknowledge her courage in sharing that story on LinkedIn. From several friends of mine, I've learned that overcoming such a challenge often brings an exceptional level of perspective and wisdom.

Here are Geraldine’s B3P’s:

  • 2:16 - There’s no “easy” button for making your business successful. You need to be resilient and just grind it out, looking for continuous improvement. The search for continuous improvement comes with challenges, so be okay with accountability and negative feedback.
  • 19:10 - Working in cleantech is different than mature industries. People in the renewable industry tend to have several roles over several companies, while those in the oil, gas and chemical companies tend to stay at one company for a very long time. The benefit is that they bring a broad range of experience and knowledge to a project, but it’s hard for them to see what’s possible in the future vs. what needs to be done today. People in the renewables industry tend to have a broader mindset.
  • 28:00 - Success in a business depends on how a leadership team executes its strategies. Tactics is doing things right. Strategy is doing the right things. You must have strategic marketing, strong sales and business development executed by people who care, not just have an engine that's generating leads. Don’t pursue opportunities that are a bad fit, with no strategy behind them. 

Thanks for coming on the show, Geraldine.

 

Also listen on Apple, Spotify, Radio Public, Amazon Music, iHeart, and Google Podcasts.

Introduction

Mike Casey:
Hey, cleantechers, here at the Scaling Clean podcast we like to interview dynamic clean economy CEOs for usable lessons on building and running companies, managing growth, and facing challenges. My guest today has been at the helm of her company for 16 years. Geraldine Gray runs Endiem, a Salesforce practice based in Houston.

Her company works with organizations to align their strategic goals with their Salesforce options to drive commercial growth. I'm particularly interested in talking with her because one of the things that we evangelize here at Tigercomm is more closely integrating B2B marketing and sales, something I suspect Geraldine has some thoughts on. She has served clients in a wide number of sectors, not just in cleantech, so I'm confident she's going to have a wide perspective to benefit this cleantech audience.

I also know from several friends of mine, including Tigercomm Senior Vice President Melissa Baldwin, that being a cancer survivor often leaves people with an exceptional level of perspective and life wisdom. Geraldine's been very public about her successful battle with cancer, and I would acknowledge her courage in sharing that story on LinkedIn. Geraldine, welcome to the show.

Geraldine Gray:
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

The Importance of Resilience in Leadership

Mike Casey:
Let me start with your background. How would you summarize your career as a company leader?

Geraldine Gray:
This is such a good question because it's really difficult to answer. It's really challenging. But I think if I would summarize it in one or two words, I think you've really got to be resilient. And what do I mean by being resilient? To stay in business for a long time, you have just got to grind it out. There's just no way around it. You've just got to grind it out some days, some weeks, and some months.

Mike Casey:
Say it again, sister, for the people in the back.

Geraldine Gray:
Yeah, you just got to grind it out. It is what it is. There's no easy button for making your company successful and having fun at work. And then I think you need to be ready for change, and you need to be OK that change is going to happen. You need to look for continuous improvement within your own organization because that's what we do for our customers, and that's what we have to do for ourselves. And so one of the ways in which we do that is we will often say, in this process that we execute on projects, part of the methodology, how can we make it 1 % better, 1 % more accurate, 1 % more efficient, save 1 % of the budget? 

And that continuous improvement is challenging. So it also means that you need to be able to be okay with accepting accountability if you get some negative feedback and listening to other people's views on your work and what you've put out. And you need to be accepting when you do something wrong because everyone's going to know about it. 

For example, you have a customer that has given you a program of work across several years and maybe something changes on the customer side with their staffing or they get project fatigue because you know it's been a big transformational project or they decide that they want to use a much much bigger partner than Endiem and it's going to hurt your feelings, it's going to hurt your budget that's for sure. And it is what it is and you have to be okay with it. 

You can nurture your hurt feelings for a few days or maybe a week or two. It does hurt your feelings when you lose a customer, it really does. And then you've got to pick it up, you've got to shake that money tree, see what other projects you can fall out of the sky for you, and get on with it and grind it out and go back to being resilient. If you can do that, I think that's not a terrible place to be able to summarise your career.

Learning From Early Career Experiences (Appirio)

Mike Casey:
Were there things in your upbringing or early in your professional life that kind of pulled the slingshot back and launched you to doing something like this?

Geraldine Gray:
Yeah, so I came out of a company called Appirio. So I always refer to it as the Appirio stable. A big Salesforce partner and very well known for doing difficult projects and doing the things that nobody else had done. And if you came out of Appirio, it kind of gave you the golden boss stamp, that's a good thing to have. You came out of that team, people know that you know what you're doing. They know what you know, what you're talking about, and that you're technically very sound. 

And I think that has made all the difference to the success of Endiem. And I still work with four people on a daily basis who came out of that same team from the early days. And there is an alumni of us who hang out and stick together. And we refer work to each other. So perhaps somebody else has to do some work and it's not really our industry and so we know exactly who to hand over to and I'm always like, okay, well, let me hand you over to somebody that I know is going to take good care of you. So yes, if you came out of the Appirio stable from the early days, that's a good slingshot.

Mike Casey:
What was it about Appirio that made it a slingshot? What about the culture or the way it was managed?

Geraldine Gray:
It was very transparent. You knew if you were doing well, you knew if you're not doing well, you knew if the company was doing well, if your team was doing well, or if your squad was doing well. And people were open to taking negative feedback, not all feedback is negative, but sometimes you just have to say how it is. Our customers knew that we were working with challenging technologies, doing stuff that nobody had ever done before. 

One story, Salesforce had sold the customer this particular product called Live Chat or Chat. This was 14-15 years ago. And nobody had ever integrated it with Salesforce. So apparently it did integrate. And we could not get an answer from the Live Chat team. We just couldn't get them to answer the phone. And then we worked out, well, they've been bought and now they've all gone on holiday for five weeks. So in the middle of our project, we figured it out.

We always had the most tremendous amount of fun, really just super fun. Everybody had a very strong work ethic for doing good work, working hard, not complaining about work. And nobody wants to hear the expensive parentheses consultant complain about how hard their job is. Nobody wants to hear the consultants complain about how hard their job is. It's hard, it's what you get paid for. Suck it up.

Facing Personal Challenges: The Impact of Cancer

Mike Casey:
Alright, if you and I were to split-screen footage of you managing people for the first time in your career and how you manage and lead now, what are the differences that we would see?

Geraldine Gray:
You really gave me some difficult questions. How do I answer that one?

Mike Casey:
Hey, this is a show for CEOs. We're not throwing beanbags here. Hey, come on, we can't go easy on you all.

Geraldine Gray:
Yeah. Okay. Well, I would say that I only have one version of myself and I may have matured over the years and I may have more experience, but I'm ultimately the same person. I try to lead with my heart and my head and sometimes that can cause a bit of internal dialogue and a bit of an argument inside my own brain. But ultimately, and I think this is why we've been successful, is that I will do what's right for the team or what's right for the customer in almost every situation.

And if I think it's not right, I will basically give people a ‘C.Y.A.’ I'm saying that this is a bad choice, but you made it, I'm just telling you now that I don't agree with it, but we'll do it because you asked us to. And so I think the split screen, I might look different, but I think I'd be saying the same theme. And then if I sort of think about my screen right now, 2023 meant that I had to step out of the business for the best part of the year when I had treatment for breast cancer. 

And it started off with, I should be out for a few weeks. And it ended up being a whole year. And the team just did an absolutely amazing job without me. In fact, we are a better company because they took the reins and I don't interfere. And I've learned to be a much more hands-off CEO and let people get on with their work. And we're even talking about it today. We have a company conference coming up in about two weeks and I said I'm not going to participate in this session because that's not my job and everybody laughed and like yep stay out of it.

Lessons in Managing Change and Challenges

Mike Casey:
All right, we're jumping ahead a little bit, but first off, congratulations on successfully fighting cancer. I've heard from several friends that battling cancer leaves you wiser, among other things. What life lessons did you take away from your experience, particularly as it shows up in your role as a CEO?

Geraldine Gray:
Well, as it shows off in my role as CEO. On a very shallow and vain note, I looked much better with short hair. Cancer may have taken a few years off my life, but it's certainly given me a few years back on my look, so I'll tell you that. And I would never have chopped my hair off, given a choice, but I didn't have one, so there you go. So I had a very short little cut. I think that another thing about cancer is that you realize that it's very unfair.

Mike Casey:
Okay.

Geraldine Gray:
On a personal note, I'd lost 40 pounds to reduce my risk of cancer, to give myself more energy, to be able to keep up with children and my husband and be more sporty back to where I was a few years ago. And then I got cancer and I gained 27 pounds back with the anti-cancer drugs and it is just super unfair. It's so unfair. So unfair. But anyway, that's a battle for a day. As a family, it really gave us an opportunity to pull together.

So my lovely husband never left me alone for about eight months. He was at every appointment, every scan, every blood draw, always there, always with the doctor. Because I couldn't travel for work, I had lots of time with the children. And so I'd save all my energy for being with them and being with my husband, Brian. And so our Facebook posts, or my Facebook posts, would be me and him and the twins every weekend. So to the world, it looked like I was out and about, but actually I was just saving all my energy for that one basketball game or that one baseball game or both of them doing basketball together. 

And I think it taught me that I have an amazing community of friends. So the kids go to a school called Grace School and they organized a meal train and all of our friends signed up for that. So that meant that every Monday after a full day at the hospital, it was a very full day at the hospital, we'd walk in the door and somebody would have made us dinner sitting there on the counter. That was really impactful. And on Fridays as well.

So it meant that we were so lucky because Brian could then concentrate his energies on me and the children and the dogs and the cats and not have to worry about what's for dinner that night. And he loves to cook, so it was quite hard for him, but it was also lovely to be loved. My friends were absolutely brilliant. They would take me out for a few hours once a week and refuel my laughter bucket. Cancer is pretty grim, so you've really got to have a big sense of humor about it.

You can't make yourself ready for it, so you just kind of have to roll with it. And you learn to accept the help. I think that cancer is a process. And if anyone tells you at the beginning what your journey was going to look like and how terribly unwell you would be for so long, when you were first given your diagnosis on that first day, I think an awful lot of people would just walk away and say, I'll just take my chances with life because I just don't want to feel that awful. Nobody tells you that, but it is really hard.

Mike Casey:
Wow.

Geraldine Gray:
And the team that took care of me at Methodist Hospital in Houston could not have been better. I can't imagine any other team that could have looked after me. The surgical oncologist, my medical oncologist, you have a radiation oncologist, all absolutely top of their field. And then the supporting staff, the oncologist nurses, even now, once a month we have yoga, restorative yoga, for cancer patients. And that's just a really lovely volunteering activity that they do for us. 

So it would be hard to do at the back. What else can I tell you about cancer? But I think this will hopefully make you laugh because it's sort of tongue-in-cheek. But somebody asked me if cancer was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I was like, no, I think being married is harder than having cancer. Because when you have cancer, you follow the path, right? Somebody else tells you what to do. You follow the path.

Geraldine Gray:
But when you're married it can be up and down within the same half day, the same minute, the same moment, right? Whereas cancer doesn't really give you much choice. And being married is harder. Having a family is harder. All of those things are harder because you know that you're going to get through this cancer thing and it'll be done at some point. But life is never going to be done. 

And you're always going to have to be changing and moving and switching up whatever it is you're doing and especially if you have small children, one day they can't read and then magically they're reading billboard signs and you're just, where did this come from? Yeah, and I think as a CEO, nowadays, I'd like to say I'm much more inclined to partition my work and life, but truly when I'm with, so I have eight-year-old twins, boy, and girl, because you know, I'm very efficient at that.

Mike Casey:
Nice. Okay, gotcha.

Geraldine Gray:
So, knock it out in one go. Yeah, super efficient. Efficient in all things, lazy and efficient. So, when I'm with the children, when I'm with Brian when I'm with my friends, I'm with them. I'll look at work to see if something important is coming in. So, for example, something came in at 8.05 last night, like quickly dealt with. But if I'm with the children or I'm with my family or we're doing something that's not work, then it's not work.

And this has really taught me that the company absolutely does not need me in their business every day. They don't. People are able to do their jobs very effectively without me. And I'm needed. I tell them I'm not needed and they say, no, no, you're needed. I'm needed as a cheerleader. I'm needed to talk to customers. I'm needed to talk to the folks at Salesforce. I'm needed to be the face of the company for sure. But I'm not needed to do other people's jobs.

Mike Casey:
Gotcha.

Geraldine Gray:
And if you have a really strong team, everybody will do their job so well. I think it's very hard going through cancer, but for me, from my experience, life can be harder than that process.

Key Mentors and Their Impact

Mike Casey:
Thank you for that wisdom. I really appreciate that. Alright, mentors. One to three mentors. Who were they? What'd you learn from them?

Geraldine Gray:
Gosh, so yeah, I think that's a little tough too. I would have to say that one of my most important mentors was my customer for a long time. Her name is Dulce Borjas and she was the CIO of Engie and she is now the CIO at Linde. What I learned from her and I think maybe we learned together, because we did some very tough projects together, was that you should be serious about work. You don't necessarily have to be serious about life.

We always had a super fun time working together and there would be just two of us, two females in the room full of technical guys and we could just catch each other's eye and know exactly what the other person was thinking and she'd be furiously texting me her opinions and I'd be trying hard not to laugh because I'm supposed to be the consultant, right? And lots of eye-rolling. It's unusual to have a female CIO.

Mike Casey:
Hahaha!

Geraldine Gray:
And then also she sort of taught me that it's okay to say no, that you should trust your gut, it's probably right. If a project doesn't feel right, it's probably not right. And sometimes it's okay to put the brakes on. So Dulce has been a huge influence in my life and she's super fun. And then I think I would say, Laurie Williams, who was one of the leaders at Appirio. She taught me, she's a very compassionate person and very kind person, but also very business-wise.

She taught me to know your numbers, know your numbers so that you can make data-led decisions, and know your numbers so that you can make decisions across multiple quarters, and multiple years. So I can always tell you what is in our pipeline, what our sales are booked, what our work is that's been billed, and what our numbers are being paid. And I can always tell you how much cash on hand we have and what the pattern of that looks like. 

And so Laurie was a really great mentor and she's also a great friend. And then I think, these are picked two or three. So the third person I would talk about really is Kristi Chickering. She was the founder and CEO of Sirius Solutions and just an incredible human being. And she taught me that it is very possible to lead your company with compassion while still focusing on the financial wellness of the organization. Because if your organization is not financially successful, then everything else goes out the window. 

And Endiem has been very fortunate, we've always done very well. But sometimes you would make a decision based on your heart, not on your head. And for some decisions, you've got to use your head and that's okay. And you can use your head and still lead with compassion. Kristi was an incredible human and she led Sirius Solutions for 25 years, very sadly she passed away at the end of last year from cancer. So, but yeah, it's really sad. She always had time for people, always. Unbelievably kind, incredibly clever woman. Very inspiring.

Mike Casey:
I'm so sorry.

Differences in Leadership Across Sectors

Mike Casey:
Your company serves clients in a range of sectors. I would like you to tap your powers of observation and ask you if you have noticed differences in running a clean economy company versus a company in a more mature sector. And if you have noticed differences, what are they?

Geraldine Gray:
Well, definitely. I think I could say that the folks that we work with within the renewable industry and renewable areas, tend to have had several roles in several companies and not all necessarily within the energy industry. So they've had more of a squiggly career. And yeah, squiggly. So there's actually a book called the squiggly career. They've had more of a squiggly career.

Mike Casey:
Okay, gotcha.

Geraldine Gray:
And then the folks that we've worked with in the very traditional oil and gas and chemical companies often tend to be a lot more stayed. I sort of refer to it as stayed and paid. So they'll stay in one company for a long, long, long, long time. The benefit is that they can bring a broad range of experience and a broad range of knowledge to a project. But it's much harder to get them to see what's possible rather than what needs to be done today. And so the folks from renewables, just tend to have a broader mindset, although they may have less broad experience within one big company.

Aligning Marketing and Sales in B2B Companies

Mike Casey:
Given what you do, do you have any thoughts on how B2B companies can better align their marketing and sales operations?

Geraldine Gray:
Yes, and I think this ties in actually very well with your earlier question about the what's the difference between clean economy companies versus more mature sectors. And to answer the first question more fully, I think it's going to give you the answer to how marketing and sales can work best together. So clean economy companies tend to be much more innovation-focused, more collaborative, more entrepreneurial, and they're more mission-driven, and they have the agility and ability to adapt. They're more likely to take risks. They have a higher risk threshold for financial decisions and investments versus retaining the status quo. And I think you really see this in some of the marketing and the communications that come out of cleantech companies. The organizations, generally what I've seen in renewables is they have shared goals and metrics.

And those goals are shared by a forward-thinking CEO across the whole organization. For marketing, they have an agreed buyer persona, and they tend to have some very sharp marketing folks in-house who know exactly what the buyer persona looks like. And whereas in bigger, more traditional oil and gas, they know what their customer looks like and they never plan on shifting it.

In newer forms of energy, they know that the buyer persona can be more niche. And that gives them a better predictability about what the lead score is gonna look like. It gives them more ability to leverage that data that's coming into their Salesforce.org and use those analytics and to share them out across the entire organization rather than just keeping them to marketing or just keeping them to sales. And the companies tend to be very good at using technology to bridge gaps. So what do I mean by that? 

Marketing does not sit in its own niche department. It truly works with sales enablement, who truly works with sales, who truly works with delivery and installation, and then works with actually servicing the customer and then ensuring the customer is continually updated and given the right information at the right time. You really see that modern use of data and that modern use of technology working well in renewable companies. 

And because the teams tend to be a bit more, should I say dynamic, they seem to have a more open dialogue. They're very open to change. They might not like it, but they know it's inevitable. And they look for continuous feedback. So they'll do more open research and discussions with their customers about what they're doing well.

Facing Doubts and Defining Success

Mike Casey:
Okay, a question is not on the list. Was there a moment in you grinding this out at your company when you thought, I don't know if we're gonna make it? Was there a moment that like was almost the dark night of the soul equivalent? And what did you do to address it?

Geraldine Gray:
Was there a moment when I thought Endiem wouldn't make it? No, actually there's never been a moment when I didn't think Endiem would make it but there have not been moments when I thought I didn't want to do it anymore. 

So a few years ago a key person left and they left for a good opportunity. It was the right thing for them. I just felt like I didn't want to do it without them. Even though they weren't an owner of the company, right? It was all my company and they hadn't been there from the beginning. They'd only been there for a couple of years but they were so integral to everything that happened in the business and they were part of my life outside of work as well because they also had small children and so we were sort of friends and when they said they were leaving I just remember thinking I don't know that I want to keep doing this and then somebody reminded me, you own the company, people will come and go, you're the one who's going to stick around. 

So I never thought that Endiem would never make it we've always been pretty fiscally conservative we're quite good at banking cash and keeping it on hand but there have been the odd times where I thought, I don't know that I want to do this or, or there's also been time when somebody, an employee or a customer has let me down so badly that I felt like this is not a good day. We actually have an Instagram channel. There are two of us. We have an Instagram channel and we call it, Work sucks 2023. And there are two of us in this channel. There's only two of us and.

And all we do is send each other memes of people doing things at work. I mean, it's all cat memes, right? Cats having conversations in the bathroom or whatever. But this is a really good way to get some of those eye-rolling moments out. You know, those eyes totally just say moments. We said that was a terrible idea. And so, yeah, having the work sucks 2023 channel is quite hilarious. And there are no words in it. It is literally just cat memes, and dog memes, sometimes the other person puts a CEO meme in there. Usually of an interfering CEO. 

Mike Casey:
Gotcha. All right. The inverse question. Was there a moment at some point in the company where you're like, this is going to work? I've started this thing. This is going to work. When was it? Take us to that moment.

Geraldine Gray:
So we do a lot of work in the manufacturing industry and we landed a customer about four years ago with one relatively small project. And then they called us up and they said, Hey, so we want to take that Salesforce and put it through the whole organization. I mean, this is a dream job. Anybody would fight for this. And they just said, can you give us a roadmap about what it's going to look like? How much do we think it's going to cost, how long it's going to take? 

And at that point, because I'd been trying to work with these manufacturers for a long time and they're a dealership. And when that happened, I just thought, this is brilliant. This is what I've been working for. It took me four years to land it. So yeah, so that was really good. And then it's not a secret, Engie is our customer and they've been our customer for about seven or eight years. 

Mike Casey:
Nice.

Geraldine Gray:
There are a lot of people that have rolled through their teams and their departments and we're the folks that are still standing and having delivered, gosh, at least 50 or 60 projects, well then maybe more, every time we get a new project from them I still get a thrill that they trust us to do that work and that they know that we're going to do a good job, and they have been a fabulous customer to us. 

Mike Casey:
Great feeling. It's a really great feeling.

Geraldine Gray:
They are very respectful of us as a partner and mindful that people who work at Endiem have families and lives and such and they're super innovative. The stuff that they're doing with their marketing automation and their data is really interesting and it's very sexy if you like that sort of thing. 

Mike Casey:
And we do. We do here.

Geraldine Gray:
And I love working with them. I love seeing them at conferences where they're talking about their technology. And also their internal technology, so not just Salesforce, but their actual internal technology is really progressive. It's really interesting. They have some really good work going on there.

Strategic Leadership: What to Do and What Not to Do

Mike Casey:
Nice. Is success in a business more reliant on what the leadership chooses not to do or chooses to do? In other words, is pairing down and focusing more important, or is the doing of it more important?

Geraldine Gray:
No, I think you've got to have the idea and the strategy and then you've got to be able to execute it. So there's a random quote that I have heard of. I think it is, tactics are doing things right. Strategy is doing the right things. 

Mike Casey:
Love that. That is so good.

Geraldine Gray:
I don't know where that came from, but it's true, right? So you must, if you are us, Endiem, in the Salesforce space, you must deliver value. You have to execute your work brilliantly and be very proud to execute good work. You have to have strategic marketing and strong sales and business development by people who care, not just an engine that's generating leads. As an organization, we have to have strong financial management and we have to have an appetite for risk. 

And so I think if we were talking about what's your appetite for risk? Every year we put aside about 5 % of our margins and we go, this is like play money. We're going to try something new this year and let's see if it works. It doesn't work every year to grow the business, but we've had some pretty good success with it. 

And then kind of thinking about your tactics and your strategy, things you shouldn't do, like don't overextend beyond your core competencies. So if you do Salesforce, do Salesforce, be really good at it. Don't move over to another technology and just kind of dabble half-hearted in it. Either you're in or you're out. You've got to do it well. Don't pursue opportunities that are a bad fit. So if a customer comes to us and calls us at 5.30 on a Friday afternoon or 4.30 on a Friday afternoon, it's the intern asking for a price for Salesforce Quick Start project. And they're based in California and they're in food services, we know that that is not a good opportunity for us. And there'll be other partners they should use instead. And so we can just immediately say we're not the partner for you, but let me see if I can find somebody I would recommend. 

I think you need to make sure that you don't burden your team with bureaucracy and silly work or gray work, right? Work that doesn't really bring value, but has to get done and use your technology to do the heavy listing. So a lot of integrations will take that away for you.

And then I think that you should have a no-asshole policy. Everyone should have a no-asshole policy. And for Endiem, that means that as soon as I see something, I deal with it. I may not see something going on right away, but as soon as I see it, I can't turn my eyes off. And then listening to the team, because you'll find that you come across people who are very, very good at managing up and horrible at managing down or cross sideways or any other way, right? But they're very good at managing me. And so listening to the team that's been in place and trusting them will allow you to stop that toxic culture from spreading beyond that one human that is trying to bring it in.

Mike Casey:
I wrote a post a while back and we have it up on our new website. It's called the 3D rule. No drama, no dysfunction, no dishonesty. And it's a tribute to a friend of mine who passed away from cancer nine years ago. 

Geraldine Gray:
Sorry about that.

Mike Casey:
And yeah, thank you. And the same thing. It's a no-asshole policy. It just really stood the test of time and applies to clients, vendors, staff, and me. So I don't get to be a jerk. Okay.

Geraldine Gray:
Yeah, I've had to apologize once or twice for being a bit of a pill. I would say I'm more of a pill than an ass. Pill. And I know when I'm being unreasonable. Fortunately, the people around me, just roll their eyes at me and they know I'm being unreasonable as well.

Mike Casey:
Me too.

Hiring and Firing: Building the Right Team

Mike Casey:
Okay, hiring. Everyone who comes on the show says it's one of the toughest parts of the job. What have you learned about hiring? And that you would advise others, like a younger version of you, what have you learned about hiring?

Geraldine Gray:
Actually, I think hiring is really easy. But hiring the right people is really hard. Yeah, like you can hire people but then are they really the right people?

Mike Casey:
Okay, all right, I gotcha. Fair enough. I gotta say, you had me bug-eyed for a second there. All right.

Geraldine Gray:
Man, do we have some brilliant bad hiring stories? So I was actually told not to share them on the podcast, but if you give me a few drinks I'll tell you some amazing stories. Yeah, I think every company has some bad high stories, right? Yeah, there's a lot of people in the world. You've got to find the people that are the right fit for your organization. And that's actually something Kristi taught me. Finding the right fit is hard. Hiring people is easy. 

So I think it starts off with accurately defining the role so that you understand and they understand exactly what you're looking for and not promising like, well, this is really a technical role, but you don't need to be that technical because if you're working for us, you do need to be that technical. But sometimes we downplay it because we're working with other people who are so much more technical than I am or so much more technical than Will is, and they're absolutely brilliant. Their level of technical expertise is a whole other level than ours. So you've got to be super accurate on what you're hiring someone for. If you're hiring people from your network, which is very common across our teams, make sure you're hiring diverse, not just people who look like you.

Look for people who need an opportunity. Focus on that cultural fit. So don't underestimate the soft skills. They may not have the technical chops, but you can teach technology. You can't teach people to be nice. You can't teach people to be decent though. They're either decent or not. Be prepared to pay for expertise and experience and have a pretty transparent package and benefits. So at Endiem, our ranges are super tight.

So if somebody comes in and they're asking for 20 grand more than the other people in that role already, it's a flat no because we've done market evaluations and even though we're a small company, we make sure that we do market rate adjustments frequently and that may be as much as twice a year in the Salesforce world. 

And making sure that the packages and the benefits we're offering are competitive and fair because it's got to be fair for us. We've got to be able to afford them. It's got to be fair for them. It's got to be worthwhile, then moving they've got to be able to fill a gap. I think that you can screen candidates really thoroughly and be as honest as you want but sometimes you get it wrong and it's just so much better to break up sooner rather than later and you know for Endiem we work really hard. We don't work really long hours, we don't, but we do work hard and if people don't want to work hard then we're not going to be a great fit for them.

Geraldine Gray:
So if their idea is that they'll roll into work at 9 and then they'll have a coffee and then they'll sit around and talk to somebody until 10.15, it's just not going to work. We sit down at our desks and we work and then we're finished on time.

Mike Casey:
Gotcha. Okay. It's very British of you, by the way.

Geraldine Gray:
What, just like work in, get your work done, get out. So, yeah. It doesn't need to be hard if you're working hard. But also it should be fun. And work is fun. We hire people for intellect, integrity, passion, and compassion because you have to be very compassionate to your customers because it's hard for them too. This is a project.

Geraldine Gray:
We are known amongst a few people as the company that always has the after afterparty. There's the party, then there's the afterparty, and we are the ones that are still hosting the after afterparty at three o 'clock in the morning, that's us. 

Mike Casey:
Everybody going to RE+, just look for Geraldine's invite. It's going to be the most desirable invite at the whole trade show.

Geraldine Gray:
Yeah, we're pretty good at the after afterparty. So, and conversely to that, when we're hiring people, we make sure that they know what our company is like. Not everybody in Endiem drinks. So we ensure that the first night of anything we do is non-alcoholic. So there's always an alcohol-free night. We don't go out and create horror stories. It's just not cool. And if you are one of the folks that stays up till 3 o 'o'clock in the morning you are still going to have to get up for work at 7.15. Too bad, so sad. It is what it is.

Mike Casey:
Fair enough. Just go back to that list for a second. You rattle off the list of qualities. How do you communicate that to candidates? Is it like is it written down? Do you have it up on the wall somewhere? How do you tell candidates that?

Geraldine Gray:
Yeah, we have it on our website. We have it in every offer letter that we write to people. And these are real values, right? It is how we live. So it's the passion for work and for doing the right thing. Compassion for your customer and knowing that their project is not going to be the only project that you're working on. Intellect, so we hire people who are really sharp and who have integrity. As soon as we work out, if people don't have integrity, then it's gonna be gone. And knowing how to do the right thing, which I think is all of those things put in one. So you work hard, you do a good job. It's relatively easy. We'll do everything we can to nurture and nourish them. At the same time, work's work gotta do your job. If you don't do your job, you're not gonna last very long.

Mike Casey:
What's your guidance on firing people?

Geraldine Gray:
I don't know. We've only ever hired brilliant people. I've never hired anybody that I've ever had to fire. I don't know what you're talking about.

Mike Casey:
That chuckle there was a very good preamble to this answer.

Geraldine Gray:
Okay, guidance on firing people. See it, deal with it. It's never gonna get any better, it's only gonna get worse and you're just gonna make it harder for everyone. Have a script, so that you've said out loud a few times, so write it down. Be direct with them and ask them at the end, do you understand? That means you have to be well prepared. And, please, just be compassionate and gracious because the person that you're firing knows right when they're not doing a great job, but if you have to fire somebody, you're making a life-impacting change to them and the least you can do is be gracious and kind and understanding. This it's hard. It's really really hard. So remember it's a human on the end of it. They've got to buy shoes for their kids and they've got a car payment. They've got a mortgage

Mike Casey:
Yep.

Geraldine Gray:
You're giving them a life-changing decision, so make sure that you're treating them with kindness because you hired them for all the right reasons in the first place. And if it didn't work out, it didn't work out. But just be nice.

Maintaining CEO Performance

Mike Casey:
It's one of my favorite questions I'm about to ask you. How do you maintain your performance as a CEO? Stuff you do at home, stuff you do at work. I love the variety of answers we get. I get up at 5.30 every morning. I work on antique cars. I go to the opera. I hike every weekend with my spouse. This is an endlessly fascinating question to ask. So I'm interested in what Geraldine Gray does to maintain Geraldine Gray's performance as a CEO.

Geraldine Gray:
Gosh, I wish I had a secret source. I don't have any secret source. I think I let the team do their work, but I make myself available. So I'm always available to a customer. They can text me and I will jump right on it. Possibly one of the reasons why some customers have stayed with us for so long is that if you've got a problem, you ping us and we'll get to it right away. 

But then, and what I've really learnt in 2023 having breast cancer and trying to come out the other side of it is that when I'm with my family, I'm with my family. So I'm not trying to do kids and work at the same time. That's not to say that there are never children in the background. I mean, we have an office, I go to the office two to three days a week. 

If I need to be available when I'm at home with them, I will jump on the call and do something. But whatever is my priority that day is my priority. So if invoicing is the priority, financial reviews, writing a statement of work, getting through MSA, interviewing somebody or writing an offer or reviewing the offer the HR team has put together, sales and marketing calls, that's my priority for the day, that's my priority and not the kids. 

But if I'm at home with my husband and the dogs and the cats and everybody else, or we're on vacation, that's my priority. So I don't get up every morning and run 5K in the 108-degree Houston heat. I used to, but I don't anymore. Yeah, and lots of rest, especially this year. So I said that the year 2024 was my year of recuperation and 25 is my year of recovery. They put a lot of stuff in your body when you're dealing with cancer. So it takes much longer to recover from it than you would think.

Mike Casey:
Yeah.

Climate Optimism: Looking Toward the Future

Mike Casey:
Last question. Has your work in a clean economy left you a climate optimist or climate pessimist and why?

Geraldine Gray:
I'd like to think I'm a climate optimist.

But I think this is something that's going to take generational change. So there are a lot of changes in technological advances that some companies are taking advantage of, renewable energies carbon capture and storage, and sustainable practices. But it's just sad that you don't see more companies embracing this just in that sort of 1% improvement mode. If you just had 1% more, what would it look like?

I think global awareness and cooperation matter, that's a world-leading challenge. And the urgency of addressing climate change. I don't think it's going to happen as fast as it needs. So, I don't know. I'm optimistic. I'd like to be optimistic. But I don't see enough collaboration, enough agreement, especially among emerging countries where they simply can't afford to put those changes in place.

I am very optimistic about the policy changes that most governments are making and implementing to reduce emissions promote clean energy and protect ecosystems. I think that makes a big difference.

I think it's one thing for the government to do, but humans need to do it too. And then I think if you look back in time over the thousands of years that humans have been around they have a history of innovating and adapting to challenges. Are they going to adapt and make the best of a bad situation as climate change becomes more and more apparent? Or are they just going to move inland or migrate to somewhere else where it's less of a challenge? I don't know. But I think it needs to be a concerted effort and I think it's going to take generations to make this different. I hope that my children don't sort of go, well mum, why didn't you have a hybrid car? I do. But I don't want them to be finger-pointing, but I'm sad to say I think they might be.

Final Thoughts

Mike Casey:
Geraldine Gray, I have loved this conversation. As they say in Good Will Hunting, you're wicked smart. They were really great answers. Super, super wise. And I really appreciate the courage and openness with which you have shared the life wisdom you've accumulated. It's inspiring. And I think it's really useful. 

Geraldine Gray:
Thank you.

Mike Casey:
And that's what we're trying to do on the show is to sort of pay forward useful distillations of the accumulated wisdom of the leadership class that's moving through the clean economy and you're part of that. And I just want to thank you for coming on and talking with me. Really appreciate it.

Geraldine Gray:
It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and listening to me ramble. And I hope that if anybody is listening, they've learned one thing. And the one thing I know about myself is I only have one version of myself. So wherever you talk to me, wherever you meet me, whether it's after the afterparty or whether it's at 7.15 on booth duty or on a customer call at eight o 'clock in the morning, I'm always the same person. So thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.