Navigating Apex Experiences: Mark Hadland

00:00:01:29 - 00:00:26:02

Narrator

At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity. How do you navigate forward? This podcast focuses on making smart choices in a rapidly changing world. We investigate the challenges of being at a crossroads and finding opportunities that arise out of disruption. Listen in on future forward conversations with the brightest luminaries, movers and shakers. Let's navigate forward together and create what's next.

00:00:26:04 - 00:00:52:06

Lisa Thee

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Navigating for Podcasts. My name is Lisa B and I'll be your host today. I'm excited to bring the most forward thinking luminaries, movers and shakers to help us navigate forward during these uncertain times. And today I have the honor of interviewing Mark Caitlin Marcus, the CEO of Level 11. He has a background from corporate America in places like Microsoft and Accenture, but also in government from the Department of Defense.

00:00:52:08 - 00:01:04:09

Lisa Thee

So he brings his competencies in electrical engineering and computer science as a background to leadership and driving innovation and culture at companies. And we're really excited to talk to you today. Thank you for joining us, Mark.

00:01:04:12 - 00:01:07:14

Mark Hadland

Thank you. I'm very pleased and happy to be here.

00:01:07:17 - 00:01:14:26

Lisa Thee

Okay. So Mark, can you tell me a little bit about your background? Where are you from and how do you think that influences what you do today?

00:01:14:28 - 00:01:38:18

Mark Hadland

Well, I'm actually a native of Seattle. I grew up in the Seattle area. I went to the University of Washington, very proud of the Northwest and obviously were very, very tech centric here from the early days of Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon. And, you know, now we're a technology center that rivals Silicon Valley. And I think certainly from a global perspective, a center of innovation.

00:01:38:18 - 00:01:50:13

Mark Hadland

So, you know, I view myself very much as a homegrown product here. Try to represent, you know, both from a national perspective and a business perspective and a cultural perspective.

00:01:50:16 - 00:02:03:06

Lisa Thee

Very cool. So for somebody that doesn't know a lot about entrepreneurship, do you mind giving an overview of what you do that brings the magic to life that maybe somebody who's not technical could understand.

00:02:03:08 - 00:02:38:06

Mark Hadland

You know, from an engineer respect? The super interesting because I really started my career in the corporate world, joined Accenture straight out of college and went on to kind of a traditional, you know, ten plus year career path, which was the norm where, you know, you don't change jobs very often. And I think if you look at today, it's pretty frequent to see people changing jobs, you know, every two years, even sometimes more frequently, you know, in part because people have become consultants in kind of the truest sense of being an entrepreneur.

00:02:38:07 - 00:03:00:28

Mark Hadland

Like, you know, they're launching their own company as an individual, maybe building a firm around it. And that's kind of what happened with Level 11. I started independently consulting on my own almost 12 years ago, and you know, grew it into a nice, you know, mid-market sized firm, you know, had up to over 100 employees at one point in time.

00:03:01:01 - 00:03:18:28

Mark Hadland

And it's interesting because, you know, entrepreneurship, I was kind of the accidental entrepreneurship because quite honestly, I literally needed to pay rent. So I figured, well, what could I go to do? So I just started consulting and and kind of selling my skill set to the marketplace. And, you know, in early on it was as an individual, an individual contributor.

00:03:18:28 - 00:03:51:00

Mark Hadland

But I met a lot of people along the journey and a lot of people that joined me at Level 11 through that process who had and who are also not part of the launch family as navigators. And and I think, you know, really part of would be an entrepreneur is about just being, you know, innovative. You know I don't want to say thinking outside the box because it's such an overused term, but I think that really it's about, you know, looking for opportunities where they're not really clearly visible or I think even more importantly, being able and willing to take risk.

00:03:51:02 - 00:04:15:25

Mark Hadland

And I think that that really is the one thing that will distinguish an entrepreneur from anybody else, is being able to, you know, risk either, you know, financial risk, you know, putting your own money at risk. And it's also opportunity cost. You know, people can take the safe option of getting a job at a large corporation like Amazon or Microsoft or whatnot, and do quite well or you can, you know, take the risk.

00:04:15:25 - 00:04:43:27

Mark Hadland

And I think not only is it, you know, for me, it's not just about the potential upside financial gain. I think a lot of it is about the freedom and flexibility as an entrepreneur to really kind of determine how you spend your time with clients and customers. How do you build your team with? I think those are really important things and I think actually apply some of the greatest rewards of being an entrepreneur is really being able to kind of create that that kind of work environment.

00:04:43:29 - 00:05:03:13

Mark Hadland

That's really a reflection of the things that you're passionate about, are also the things that you can probably move the needle most in terms of bigger economic game, societal impact, do good, do well, you know, and just be of course agent of change and and good things out there in the world.

00:05:03:16 - 00:05:24:20

Lisa Thee

Yeah, I can very much relate to your story, Mark, in that I spent eight years in corporate America and and become an entrepreneurial founder till 40 either. And so in that route, I think that a lot of our listeners are probably people like us that were maybe more entrepreneurialism, right? They saw opportunities that maybe weren't handed down and goal setting actions from the top leadership.

00:05:24:20 - 00:05:44:04

Lisa Thee

And we're creating new opportunities within a large organization. And I think that's probably why we're both very much drawn to launch and that we can bring some of that innovation and some of that culture change into larger organizations to keep them innovating and moving forward in a very fast paced environment of digital transformation, as well as the data age that we've all stepped into.

00:05:44:08 - 00:05:51:01

Lisa Thee

It's an exciting time for companies to learn how to emerge and go faster and take a little bit more risk, right?

00:05:51:03 - 00:05:52:11

Mark Hadland

Yeah, absolutely.

00:05:52:13 - 00:06:05:23

Lisa Thee

Cool. So you've used data and technology to accomplish some of your goals, and do you mind sharing some of the things you were able to tackle by leveraging better data and better technology and infrastructure to solve business problems?

00:06:05:25 - 00:06:31:12

Mark Hadland

Yeah, I think what's interesting, you know, my background is logic consulting, so I maybe haven't invented the technology per se, but it's like, you know, it's really more the application than the use of technology. And so that, you know, I think primarily through, say like level 11 days, you know, we were kind of the vanguard and leaders in Iot when we first started working with Disney in the Magic Band project.

00:06:31:12 - 00:06:57:21

Mark Hadland

You know, Iot wasn't even a term in the marketplace and wearables were just brand new and we were kind of on the the very leading edge of it. And it's interesting as you're working on something and it gets a name in the marketplace and you realize you're kind of an accidental participant or accidental creator of things. You know, we we built really at the time and probably today, one of the largest consumer facing Iot platforms ever.

00:06:57:23 - 00:07:35:03

Mark Hadland

So as I think is really, you know, exciting to kind of be in the moment and then really kind of realize, you know, an hour an our goal was really about significant transformation and in the context of of Disney and really, you know, kind of a customer experience, but the experience economy, you know, we were literally the engineers, I would say the experience economy at that time frame and really helping a very large known global brand, you know, transform from the experience of their business and just creating something that they termed magical.

00:07:35:03 - 00:08:04:22

Mark Hadland

And it's not about customer improvement or things like that, but the words we used for a sentiment was, are things like happiness or are people really happy out there? And there's actually a magical experience as a completely friction free. You don't have to worry about things. And so, you know, we're really into the domain of thinking like that and really kind of how does one leverage technology to really just create emotional connections for people to a brand?

00:08:04:24 - 00:08:27:22

Mark Hadland

And I think that that's really about the apex experience, if you will, of being part of the experience economy and really leveraging digital transformation, at least the way that I think of things and and where I like to spend my time and believe I have influence is really creating that experience there, the apex experience such that it really creates that that emotional connection.

00:08:27:25 - 00:08:34:17

Mark Hadland

And that's how it manifests with people in the real world. And that's kind of that's kind of where I think about the whole space.

00:08:34:20 - 00:08:54:29

Lisa Thee

And an example of that could be having your Disney magic band on and Mickey Mouse knowing that your child was in the park and it's their birthday and roughly where they are and coming and greeting that child personally and wishing them a happy birthday. Right? Those are the moments you can enable with a little bit of tech and a lot of thought and that human connection, right?

00:08:55:01 - 00:09:02:20

Mark Hadland

Oh, absolutely. And people mean at the end of the day, they're going to remember like Mickey knew my name and said happy birthday to me. I mean, that's what it's about.

00:09:02:22 - 00:09:35:26

Lisa Thee

Absolutely. So creating magical experiences and being human centered and your application of technology is tricky. Are there any tips are are recommendations that you have having navigated these waters with big brands like Disney and Carnival and Philips health Care and many more that you'd like to spare people from wasting time on? What are the things that just never work, that you want to get people out of their own way?

00:09:35:28 - 00:10:04:03

Mark Hadland

You know, first of all, I think that it's going to be difficult for a lot of companies to to maybe accept as you can't put like a financial ROI on some level of innovation or transformation. I think that there I think the CFO role absence to be a part of it. But innovation sometimes now is complete table stakes for a brand to remain relevant or for a company to even remain in business.

00:10:04:05 - 00:10:29:26

Mark Hadland

And so I think that the company and the organization needs to kind of culturally embrace change at such a level that it's going to change every element of the business and not just for the for their own customers. But so much of the work we do is really about employee enablement and employee engagement, particularly with Carnival Corporation and the Ocean Medallion program.

00:10:29:26 - 00:11:02:19

Mark Hadland

So much of the technology and the solutions that we have built to enable the Apex guest experiences are really about providing tools for crewmembers so that they can provide, you know, this personalized meet and greet so they can leverage technology like location, intelligence and facial recognition to validate that you're an existing passenger on a cruise ship as you change international destinations so that they also know where you're on a ship and you've ordered a beverage and you're on the leader deck and it can be magically delivered to you.

00:11:02:22 - 00:11:25:25

Mark Hadland

There's a lot of things there that I think we like to think about in the context of the experience. It's it's elevating a transaction into an interaction and it's providing capabilities and tools that really enable and foster relationships. And I think that's a really key thing there. So I think there's kind of two elements to to kind of close it for you.

00:11:25:27 - 00:11:38:27

Mark Hadland

It's really you got to fundamentally change things so that it comes really around to to relationships. And then in addition, you really have to kind of rethink the financial investment and how you want to measure success.

00:11:39:00 - 00:11:58:03

Lisa Thee

I love that. And a lot of it is even beyond the delight of the customer, but making the things that have to happen be frictionless, right? For example, if anybody's traveled on a cruise ship before, perhaps you've had the the delight of doing the safety drills on the boat to make sure that you know what to do. In the case of it.

00:11:58:06 - 00:11:59:20

Mark Hadland

That must be drills. Yeah.

00:11:59:23 - 00:12:23:21

Lisa Thee

Yeah. And so being able to apply new innovative ways of creating a frictionless experience for passengers that don't require them taking an hour of their time to meet the mandate, I think is another cool application of technology right now. Absolutely awesome. So what emerging trends are you seeing? And the Iot field that you think we all should be paying more attention to?

00:12:23:24 - 00:12:44:11

Mark Hadland

You know, at at some level, you know, it's interesting. You know, Iot is somewhat saturated, but I think that the reality is it's just it's just, you know, pervasive and it's everywhere and everything is connected. You know, I have a very connected home. I've got a Nest thermostat, I got a few light bulbs, I've got voice activated stuff.

00:12:44:13 - 00:13:10:02

Mark Hadland

And that already kind of seems old. I think it's you know, but the reality is like the key thing there, though, from an Iot perspective, I think that people need to be mindful of security. You know, we've got all of these devices and so many of them weren't designed or built for security out of the gate. And we've had incidents, I think recently in terms of a gas pipeline was hacked in on the East Coast or whatnot.

00:13:10:04 - 00:13:40:24

Mark Hadland

I think, you know, infrastructure needs to be secure and security is super important in every element. You know, you even talk about a data security and keeping people safe online, I know is a big focus of yours as well. You know, and to prevent, you know, you know, bad actors and things like that, I just think that that just because you can do stuff with the technology and so could you as I think a holistic understanding of the impact, I think the impact on society is super important.

00:13:40:24 - 00:14:18:02

Mark Hadland

The impact on culture, you know, how it influences, you know, you know, not everything from, I would say, politics, you know, but even just, you know, like weather and all sorts of stuff. I mean, we just don't know the full impact and downstream implications of of, say, enabling a lot of transformation. And so I think that just having a lens of being mindful of of what that could be in a more I just think in terms of of you know how how do we do well and good by society and the things that we try to do to transform either to to make money or to make it easier or making more friction free.

00:14:18:04 - 00:14:30:11

Mark Hadland

It's just kind of being mindful of that and what the impacts could be and is like a lot of, you know, non-obvious causality that one should be aware of and mindful of.

00:14:30:14 - 00:14:58:02

Lisa Thee

Yeah, I really I couldn't agree with you more. I think some of the better thought leaders in this space are coming out of the Center for Humane Technology and really thinking through the second and third round impacts that nobody really anticipated of digital transformation. And, you know, one of my favorite things to remind my team of as a leader is, you know, if if we develop this tech and it's spot by a foreign agent with nefarious purposes, what could they do with that?

00:14:58:05 - 00:15:01:29

Lisa Thee

You can't always control what you invent and where it goes eventually, Right.

00:15:02:02 - 00:15:27:07

Mark Hadland

And that even goes down to it's interesting. I saw some stuff on 60 Minutes about Chinese companies investing in a life insurance companies or the DNA tech companies. And, you know, obviously, I think Kobad brought to light just the impact of not only disease, but just DNA and and and all this other biometric and stuff. It's like, you know, security on your own personal DNA.

00:15:27:11 - 00:15:47:09

Mark Hadland

And so, like, you know, blood tests and things like that, you know, things of the DNA test or 23 or ancestry. There's a lot of data out there in data security. Going back to data is, I think, probably one of the most utmost things. And it has to be really great governance around that to protect people's privacy and potentially the national security.

00:15:47:11 - 00:16:17:14

Lisa Thee

Yeah, it's a collaboration between the policy folks, the engineering teams that build tools and the operations people that ensure that the policy is being applied in tech. It's a multi key system to make sure that we're thinking about the right things upfront and doing safety by design, right? That yeah. So what is your why Mark what what inspires you on the days when maybe you wake up groggy and you need to bring your best self forward, but that wasn't the feeling you woke up with.

00:16:17:17 - 00:16:34:26

Mark Hadland

You know it's it's interesting as my, you know, transformation over my career and, you know, becoming a leader over time, you know, I, I found that, you know, not intentionally, but I, I inspire a lot of people. I'm a role model for a lot of people. And I think that I have a responsibility to just show up in life.

00:16:34:26 - 00:17:02:21

Mark Hadland

And whether it's work or for my family or my friends or, you know, my community, I think that's like one of my my big things is showing up in a way that's meaningful and positive and is a great reflection of your personal brand. And so, you know, I, I wake up and maybe I'm groggy or didn't have my coffee or whatnot, but it's like I go, there's actually a lot of people who look forward to showing up, and I'm not really be aware of that.

00:17:02:23 - 00:17:21:05

Mark Hadland

And it's not even like a brag thing. It's just like, you know, I'm at this point and a level and it's like I just tell myself, Dude, you just got to get up and show up and put your best face forward because there's like a lot of people who care about, you know, what I may do or how I show up or respect things that I can do.

00:17:21:07 - 00:17:47:27

Mark Hadland

And so it's just about, you know, there's like a level of responsibility there that I take very seriously. And the the tenet of stewardship has always been super, super important to me. You know, I'm an Eagle Scout. I was a Boy Scout. So kind of being a good steward of things like that, at least of nature. My first company, Accenture, was very big on stewardship and growing people from within.

00:17:47:29 - 00:18:03:17

Mark Hadland

You know, I brought that through as a core cultural element of Level 11, and I bring that forward through now with launch as a navigator and, you know, leading change. But really it's about being the steward of all of our navigators, our people within the company.

00:18:03:19 - 00:18:22:03

Lisa Thee

Yeah, I can definitely relate to a lot of that. I think service leadership is incredibly important and I think it's going to be the new way of doing business over the next 20 years. I think we're at the cusp of it being a tipping point where it's a leadership expectation and not a nice to have.

00:18:22:05 - 00:18:33:05

Mark Hadland

I couldn't agree more and I really take that the notion of steward leadership very, very personally and something that I own and and work very hard every day to show up with that mindset.

00:18:33:07 - 00:18:56:03

Lisa Thee

Yes, absolutely. And I didn't know we also had a background in and scouts together. So I'm a Girl Scout troop leaders, so we can talk about that another time. But where do you go to keep learning and growing, Mark? I mean, everything in tech moves so fast and how do you make sure you stay current and how do you make sure you're bringing and the right thinking into your clients and the places you go?

00:18:56:05 - 00:19:22:19

Mark Hadland

Yeah, I think, you know, continual learning. I can tell you education is is super, super important, you know, being relevant. I think, you know, there's there's lots of resources online. You know, you got to read a lot. I mean, the reality is, is like the pace of change is just insane. COVID, you know, I think accelerated transformation and digital transformation for so many businesses at a pure necessity.

00:19:22:21 - 00:19:48:28

Mark Hadland

And I think it's interesting is when you have a true forcing function, you know, I think that the reality is our generation has never really experienced any hardships. You know, like, you know, our my grandparents had World War Two. And, you know, the reality is we haven't had anything on a national scale to really galvanize people, at least into action to go solve a pretty big problem.

00:19:49:00 - 00:20:12:11

Mark Hadland

So I think that those types of things drive accelerated innovation and change. But I think from a learning perspective, you know, we are in the heart of of a technology community. And a lot of it is, you know, just spending a lot of time with other companies, with other leaders. And learning has changed as well. I mean, I think I think not so much learning.

00:20:12:11 - 00:20:44:19

Mark Hadland

You know, it used to be reading books or taking courses. Everything's online so much as virtual, you know, So many of our children now go to online school content is readily available. You can consume it. But I think the the challenges is really getting great quality in how they curated content, whether it's the educational content for our kids or our educational content for ourselves to build our profession or increase our skill sets.

00:20:44:21 - 00:21:07:06

Mark Hadland

You know, I think that that's you know, that's part of the challenge. What's interesting is at launch is we have a fantastic practice around learning and development. So I think that we are great navigators and guides for companies and businesses about some of the best practices around educational development learning programs. How do you train your workforce? How do you keep that relevant?

00:21:07:06 - 00:21:35:19

Mark Hadland

How do you do it when they're remote? So I think that that's, you know, one of our core strengths as a company is really enabling that. But again, it all comes down to content. And I think, you know, for myself it's about finding the leaders and the companies, the business of the space. I mean, you know, whether it's, you know, blockchain type technology or what's happening in those types of spaces and how is that technology really kind of the foundation enabling lots of new business models, for example, just one.

00:21:35:21 - 00:21:48:26

Mark Hadland

But I think that there's like lots of sources out there and and I think it's more community driven from my perspective versus, say, academically driven from a particular organization or an institution.

00:21:48:29 - 00:22:18:10

Lisa Thee

Yeah, I can relate to a lot of what you're talking about, and I think that's one of the luxuries of being in a consulting firm like ours that is interacting with the leading edge healthcare and technology companies, as well as people that are doing Apex experiences for their brands, is you get to really be immersed in the bleeding edge of what the art of the possible is and can be the honeybee to cross-pollinate industries, because a lot of times they're dealing with the same kinds of challenges.

00:22:18:10 - 00:22:39:18

Lisa Thee

I know that these in the theater for good practice that I lead a lot of the intersection points come around confidential computing. How do you bring data from the public and private sector together in a responsible way to solve big, hairy problems that neither sector can solve by themselves independently? And I'm sure with a lot of the work that you do, it's reflected that way as well, right?

00:22:39:19 - 00:22:47:23

Lisa Thee

Being able to be on in the room with the people that are breaking through the barriers that have not been crossed before right.

00:22:47:26 - 00:22:49:26

Mark Hadland

I could not agree more. Lisa.

00:22:49:29 - 00:22:59:10

Lisa Thee

So, Mark, what do you do to recharge your batteries? A lot of innovation. It can be exhausting at times. How do you build yourself back up if it's another day?

00:22:59:12 - 00:23:22:21

Mark Hadland

I have, you know, two great passions in life are climbing and cooking. So with that, I'll start with cooking first. You know, my grandmother and actually it was just two days ago I took her to birth to dinner for a birthday as my eighth birthday. But my grandmother, you know, World War Two, she worked in a factory. My grandfather was in the Navy.

00:23:22:23 - 00:23:43:04

Mark Hadland

She had a gigantic backyard and garden and grew lots of vegetables and her favorite thing to shoot always grows beets. And actually, as a child, I like beet greens a lot, but she'd always produce like these fantastic holiday meals. So Thanksgiving was always about the turkey and then all the stuff around it. And Christmas was always about a bone in prime rib roast.

00:23:43:07 - 00:24:03:28

Mark Hadland

And, you know, Easter was always about lamb. And so I've always had this type connection, emotional connection with food and holidays and family. And, you know, over the years, you know, I've got two teenage sons and I love to cook and I love to eat. So I launched a blog called Cookbook Eat, Eat.

00:24:04:00 - 00:24:05:11

Lisa Thee

For Food.

00:24:05:14 - 00:24:29:19

Mark Hadland

And the reality is it really started as I wanted to kind of curate all the recipes that I was making over the years, not just holiday recipes, but just even, you know, stuff during the week so that they could kind of have like a memento. And I wanted to publish this cookbook and all this great stuff. And part of it's, you know, the thing recipes, you know, mostly recipes that I've, you know, borrowed or stolen from elsewhere.

00:24:29:21 - 00:24:35:08

Mark Hadland

But, you know, things that just really kind of make up our family. And so in our household.

00:24:35:10 - 00:24:39:08

Lisa Thee

It's it's tradition, it's connection, it's all the time.

00:24:39:11 - 00:25:04:00

Mark Hadland

And I'm very big into that. And so I launched the blog and just started using that as a way to to kind of codify and collect recipes. And I've had a lot of fun with it and gotten more into photography. So, you know, you can check that out online. But also on climbing, I launched a blog called Hiking with Headland, so I was in the Boy Scouts and we went hiking a lot.

00:25:04:00 - 00:25:24:23

Mark Hadland

So I, you know, did the whole Wonderland trail around Mt. Rainier, like 100 miles as a Boy Scout, like I was 12 years old. I love the mountains. I always wanted to climb them. I started climbing and kind of the mid-nineties and then kind of took a break when I had kids, but then kind of really got seriously into it about three or four years ago.

00:25:24:25 - 00:26:01:09

Mark Hadland

So I'm a member of the Mountaineers here in town and and have a some of our peers and colleagues even here at launch are my my climbing partners. But I just like to write trip reports and have objectives there. And then when you're in the mountains, I think it's really a great way to not just escape, but just be present in the moment of where you're at and make it in reality is when you're climbing can be very dangerous and in that kind of forces you to focus very much and be hyper, hyper present and then really everything else disappears that you're in the moment.

00:26:01:09 - 00:26:25:18

Mark Hadland

And taking a look at either a glacier traverse or crossing a crevasse or a hard rock move or placing some protection, being mindful of the environment, being a situation where it's like nothing else matters. And then I get up in the mountains, really, everything just vanishes for me. So I spend a lot of time outdoors. I like to get above the treeline and love the glaciers.

00:26:25:20 - 00:26:48:21

Mark Hadland

Saddened by climate change only because I see the impact very dramatically, not only in terms of just receding glaciers, but it even affects safety. If you're out there certain times of the year and changing conditions. And so I'm aware of it, mindful of it. But, you know, I you know, if you want to find some great hikes or some great climbs, check out hiking with paddling.

00:26:48:21 - 00:27:03:08

Mark Hadland

And I like to bring colleagues and friends on trips and and kind of to share some wonderful experiences. And so for me, I've got two big apex experiences that I like to go create and pursue it. From a personal perspective. It's climbing and cooking very good.

00:27:03:08 - 00:27:22:15

Lisa Thee

And I can't agree more that nature is so grounding to our senses. I'm reading a book right now called Chatter, and it talks about how much of our time in the human condition is spent in your mind and then in the future and in the past and not necessarily grounded in your body. And I think that you're spot on with the hiking experience and having that focus.

00:27:22:15 - 00:27:33:21

Lisa Thee

You can't you can't afford to be drifting off into all different spaces. It's like, what's three feet ahead of you and three feet behind you and making sure you're really in tune with your environment, right?

00:27:33:23 - 00:27:36:00

Mark Hadland

Very literally.

00:27:36:03 - 00:27:44:18

Lisa Thee

Yes. Yes. So with that in mind, what achievement are you most proud of at this point in the game?

00:27:44:21 - 00:28:05:13

Mark Hadland

I don't know. You know, I would say that's certainly evolved. You know, as you get I at the time, Eagle Scout was a huge deal with 2% of the scouts are that that was a teenager. And I think, you know being the first person to graduate college is a big deal. You know, as you know, winning 500 awards for my company business was it was a big deal.

00:28:05:16 - 00:28:36:05

Mark Hadland

I think the reality is I kind of circle back to steward leadership. You know, for me, it's about seeing people who I work with and being part of my company and culture just be successful and prosperous, both from the career perspective, but also a personal perspective. You know, I like to see that we had a company was really kind of a vehicle, I think, for people to pursue their passions, for them to be, you know, well-compensated, to enjoy their colleagues very much.

00:28:36:05 - 00:28:57:19

Mark Hadland

And I think as a career, you want to kind of make sure you have those three things right by doing great work. I love working with people. I care about love and, you know, making a good earning. And I think those things are super important, you know, from a from a mindset. And so I think I'm most proud that I was able to do that for over ten years and create an environment where people could thrive.

00:28:57:21 - 00:29:25:24

Mark Hadland

They're very proud to be part of the culture, very much looking forward and have been doing that with our merger, with lunch, bringing in the same cultural tenants and creating kind of the the environment where people can grow and thrive and do great work, you know, be the navigators of transformation as who we are and just, you know, grow very successful as people with their families.

00:29:25:26 - 00:29:28:18

Lisa Thee

When waters rise, all boats float, right?

00:29:28:21 - 00:29:31:27

Mark Hadland

Yep.

00:29:32:00 - 00:29:43:04

Lisa Thee

I would be remiss if I didn't ask a successful entrepreneur, what was your biggest failure and how did you navigate through it? Because I don't know about you, but I've learned much more from the things that didn't work out than the things that did it.

00:29:43:04 - 00:30:02:12

Mark Hadland

My career is littered with failures and backwards, and that's why I say the reverse. So small goes through that windshield. You know, it's hard to say. I think a lot of it is, you know, some of the challenges. I'm trying to think failures.

00:30:02:14 - 00:30:11:13

Lisa Thee

Lessons, right. Sometimes it is hard to frame it in that space of the time. It feels like a failure, but usually course correct you to go where you're supposed to be going, right?

00:30:11:16 - 00:30:33:04

Mark Hadland

Yeah. I think, you know, from a business perspective, it's realize you're running a business and it's not just a fun place to hang out or work or do cool stuff. I think a lot of companies go out of business because you're not mindful of say, you know, profitability. I think a lot of companies could benefit from improved operational discipline.

00:30:33:04 - 00:31:03:22

Mark Hadland

I think that's one of the things I learned the most. I think we were really great at technology and entrepreneurism, but there are some important elements and foundational things just about running the business from an operational perspective. And jobs isn't always very fun, but those are the things that really keep the business healthy. It keeps you accountable to your shareholders if you have them and ensures that you really have the right runway for success, particularly for unplanned things.

00:31:03:22 - 00:31:30:10

Mark Hadland

I think, you know, COVID really knocked a lot of businesses sideways, a lot of businesses went away and some it didn't matter how prepared you were, not, you know, some hospitality companies were particularly hit hardest by the inability of people to travel or to move or whatnot. But I also think companies that were, you know, just had fiscal policy or had a lot of reserve in the tank, you know, things like that.

00:31:30:10 - 00:31:58:03

Mark Hadland

And I kind of planted the rainy day and that is being mindful of operations. And then also realize, I think that sometimes you have to make some very tough decisions in business that impact people. Personally, I think that's probably one of the hardest things to do as a leader that to deal with and understand, you know, the decisions you make for the health and importance of the business may come at a consequence of an individual.

00:31:58:06 - 00:32:10:15

Mark Hadland

And so there's some challenges there, lessons learned. And I think I think part of it is also just how one handles those situations with empathy is super, super important.

00:32:10:17 - 00:32:28:09

Lisa Thee

Yeah, that's what delineates hobbies from careers, right? And it has to be profitable and it has to be sustainable for the long term. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Mark. For people that are inspired to follow you from a career standpoint, we know where to find your recipes and now we know where to find your hikes.

00:32:28:09 - 00:32:35:05

Lisa Thee

If anybody wants to find you. In terms of keeping tabs on consulting and innovation, where should they look for you?

00:32:35:07 - 00:32:46:12

Mark Hadland

Well, I should be somewhere on launch dot com launch CD dot com. That should be me as a navigator there. I'm also on LinkedIn.

00:32:46:14 - 00:32:50:12

Lisa Thee

Thank you for spending the time with us today, Mark. I really appreciate it.

00:32:50:14 - 00:32:55:26

Mark Hadland

Lisa, I always love chatting with you. You're just a joy and a pleasure and I was there a lot. So thank you for the time.

00:32:55:29 - 00:32:57:23

Lisa Thee

Thank you.

00:32:57:25 - 00:33:08:27

Narrator

Hey everyone. Thanks for listening to the Navigating Forward podcast. We'd love to hear from you. At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity, how do you navigate forward? We'll see you next day.