Transcript
Mario (0:00)
In my mind, what ego is? You think that you're so good at something that you stop learning?
Shane (0:10)
How does a software engineer end up as the CEO of one of the largest trucking companies in the world?
Mario (0:19)
Well, I think engineering gives you a very good roadmap and a very good framework on of solving problems. I have young kids and I always tell them whenever we have something that gets broken or something we want to build, I always tell them, what do engineers do? We say they build things and they fix things. And I think in the world of business, you're dealing every day with either problems or goals you want to accomplish. And an engineering mindset gives you a framework of how to solve for these problems. If you think of the engineering design process, it's based on one identifying a problem or a goal. Then it's about collecting a lot of data around that particular problem or goal, then defining your requirements, then designing and building a solution, and then eventually testing it for what the outcome would look like. And that discipline and rational thinking and data driven analysis actually helps you in being able to run a company. Now the other side of that though is around people skills. Because when you run a company, you're effectively, you have teams of people and your goal is to make sure that they are the best versions of themselves. And applying engineering principles to that also helps a lot. So then you, your team becomes very data driven, your team becomes problem solvers in terms of how being able to go from point A to point B, or again, whether it's a goal, whether it's a problem you want to solve as well. So I think these are some of the early innings in terms of, as I grew in my career, engineering gave me that framework to be able to solve problems and achieve goals. Couple that with people skills. This is what has enabled me to effectively run a trucking company.
Shane (1:53)
But wait a second, how does that engineering mindset help you as the CEO?
Mario (1:58)
As a CEO, your first goal is to actually figure out what is your overall strategy. How are you going to be able to create a lot of shareholder value? Are you going to be able to create a company that can grow earnings, that can and ultimately deliver a lot of shareholder value? To be able to deliver that as you define your strategy, you have to have a framework by which you define a strategy. Now once you have your strategy, you have certain elements associated with that, where you have certain KPIs that you are monitoring on a daily, weekly, monthly basis of whether you are achieving the levers of the strategy. Then from that, for every KPI in terms of being able to define how you go from one value to another value, you need an action plan, you need a solution for that. So that engineering mindset is a problem solving mindset. And whether it's defining strategy, whether it's executing on levers of your strategy, an engineering mindset set is going to enable you to deliver on those outcomes over a period of time. So I think that discipline and grounding your decisions in data does help make you an effective CEO. Now, that, on its own goes at odds with being able to manage people, because as an engineer, you're thinking perfection, you're thinking the process has to work just right, but the reality is people don't operate that way. So I think engineering on its own gives you a framework. However, how you can transform or translate that framework and how you manage people and love people and believe in them, and believe what's invested in them is the other ingredient to be able to then enable you to deliver good outcomes.
