Ep.107 How to Develop and Multiply Leaders with Cory Wilburn, CIO at the Texas General Land Office (GLO) & Rheda Moseley, CIO at Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission

Joe Toste [00:00:01]: Hey, what's up, everybody?

Joe Toste [00:00:01]: This is Joe Toste from techtables.com, and you're listening to the public sector show by techtables. This podcast features human centric stories from public sector, CIOs, CISOs, and technology leaders across federal, state, city, county and higher education. You'll gain valuable insights into current issues and challenges faced by top leaders through interviews, speaking engagements, live podcast tour events. We offer you a behind the mic look at the opportunity unity's top leaders are seen today. And to make sure you never miss an episode, head over to Spotify and Apple podcasts and hit that follow button and leave a quick rating. Just tap the number of stars that you think this show deserves. And to continue this darn good conversation, head over to the Q a section on Spotify.

Joe Toste [00:00:39]: All right, well, today we have two more special guests. Corey Wilburn, CIO at the Texas General Land Office Glo and Retta Mosely, CIO at the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission TABC. Corey, welcome back to techtables. Thank you, Retta. Welcome to Techtables.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:00:54]: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Joe Toste [00:00:56]: I love this. So today's podcast is titled how to develop and multiply leaders. I'm very excited for this podcast because Retta used to work for Corey. For those of you in the audience, and when the opportunity arose at the TABC to become the director of innovation and future CIO, Retta was hesitant and ducked the opportunity. And she ducked my podcast for a while. But now she's here at the Commodore. So this worked out great until Corey nudged her off the diving board. So I love that.

Joe Toste [00:01:24]: So let's, Corey, let's start with you. I didn't even know. Did you hire?

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:01:27]: Did not you know, but I wish I had. So she started at the organization in the finance department, and I was a lowly it project manager at the time, and we were kind of paired on the same project. I actually first thought she was there to spy on me for the business, to see how's this project really were.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:01:44]: I was.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:01:46]: So we were colleagues, and then I don't know if she knows. We had a vacancy in the IT department, and I actually recommended her for that vacancy in the IT department that she was eventually selected for. So she moved into it and ran all of, started out running all of our budgeting and things like that, right?

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:02:02]: Yeah, I did contracts, procurement, all it related training budget.

Joe Toste [00:02:10]: So what did you see in her to want to make know?

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:02:13]: We've always had a great working relationship. Retta came in and didn't have an IT background, but was really quick to want to pick up as much as she could. She wanted to learn, she wanted to understand what was going on. And she represented the business, but wanted to really make sure that the things that we were doing were the right things for the business unit that she was a part of. And so she just dug in with both feet and lots of late email back and forth until 1030. About what, about this? And how's this going to work? And are we sure this is going to deliver? And she just had a great energy and we clicked from the start.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:02:44]: Can I add something there? So one of those late night back and forths, he sent a status report, and I was like, I corrected it, sent it back to him, and I got a phone call. He was like, who are you? And why did you correct myself? I was like, it was wrong. It needed do. But I need help, too.

Joe Toste [00:03:04]: Don't worry about it.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:03:05]: I need a mean. He knew that I meant it in all good humor, right. But we clicked pretty fast with that.

Joe Toste [00:03:13]: I love that. Okay, so, Reta, when you were at Glo for over eight years, that's a long time. When you look back, what were two to three lessons that you had learned that you took with you to TABC?

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:03:24]: The thing that I really picked up on there and I would say developed, I first learned it growing up. I have very outgoing parents and very social, very involved in their community, et cetera. And communication was always a big deal for us. And so what I was able to hone there at the land office and take with me is a three way concept on communication. Four ways, really, because you have to count communicating with yourself. Right. You've got to be honest with yourself. But when you communicate to people who are at a lower level, for lack of a better term, you always speak to the, in a way that brings them up.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:04:02]: Right. Because you want to bring them up to the vision and to the playing field where you are. When you're speaking with, in my case here, peer directors, you have to make it inclusive. You want to bring them in. And then, of course, I joke when you speak up, you do it with colors and bullet points. Right. But what you really are doing is looking at it from their viewpoint. One of the things lessons that I did at land office was we did the project governance, put it into place.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:04:30]: And when I would put together reports and get everything ready for presentation, what I would do is, okay, our chief clerk, how is she going to look at this? What questions is she going to ask? Right. And I would put myself in the chair going around the table. I do that same thing now, but it's to five commissioners and executive director. So those are the things that I took with me that I think have helped me succeed.

Joe Toste [00:04:57]: Yeah, communication is a big one, so it's really great. Corey, when it comes to developing leaders like Retta, how has that developed you.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:05:04]: In know, I think when I started on the journey as a leader, I got into leadership and management because I thought I had all the answers and I was a control freak and I wanted more control. I wanted to put my hands on it and drive it and make the decisions. But what you gradually learn over time is that you need help. You can't do it all by yourself. The ideas you get when you involve multiple people and perspectives are better ideas anyway. And then the more you can involve others and give away some of the power and some of the decision making, the more they're invested and the more they have skin in the game. And so it just really kind of builds on itself. And like I said, I started really just wanting to be the one calling the shots and realized once you get in there, it's about the team.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:05:49]: It's about building a cohesive vision that takes on multiple perspectives, and it's really more about giving away power to get your teammates vested and everybody going in the right direction. They'll fight those battles for you if you just give them the ability to do so.

Joe Toste [00:06:03]: Yeah, no, I echo that. I love that. Giving it away. Personally, even with the podcast, I'm trying to figure out how. I think it was kind of a lesson I learned, but it's not like show. I need to find people who can help me, not how I have to go do everything. And then when you reflect on if you're doing too much, which right now this is a little much, but I probably could have done a better job of reaching out. But there's a great team that manages everything, right? And then they make you look good.

Joe Toste [00:06:31]: Like the camera guy over there doing all the great work.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:06:33]: It's a lot of work to make Joe look good.

Joe Toste [00:06:37]: It took me five years to get Jamie to say yes. Let me tell you some serious persistence. Yeah.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:06:43]: And I'm going to add here, I watched Corey make that transition, right. He and I were co directors before he went up to CIO, and it was interesting to watch. So that was probably another lesson that I took with me.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:07:00]: Right.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:07:00]: Because we're both type a personalities. So needless to say, we occasionally would butt heads and then go, okay, I'll do it your way. This time. Right. But to watch him make that transition and that transformation was really inspiring and it was cool to watch and be a part of.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:07:16]: Thank you.

Joe Toste [00:07:17]: Okay, so you said something right there. Okay, butt heads. Yeah, it happens.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:07:21]: Oh, absolutely.

Joe Toste [00:07:22]: Yeah. Anyone who's been married for more than a hot five minutes is going to butt heads. So how did you overcome that? Did you go to Terry blacks?

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:07:30]: I fed him sandwiches at lunch.

Joe Toste [00:07:32]: Okay.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:07:33]: I did.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:07:36]: I feel like we always had that 80 20 relationship, maybe 90 ten. So 80, 90% cooperation. We're pulling in the same direction, but enough conflict to keep it interesting and make things better. I mean, the conflict made it better. And when you have, I run it, but so little of my job is about technology. Right. It's really more about the people and the relationships. And you have those relationships with people where you're all working on the same thing.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:08:02]: A little bit of conflict can bring a better idea or a better approach or a better concept. And as long as you've got that relationship underneath it, the conflict doesn't hurt. You just come right back together and you move on to the next thing and it's healthy conflict.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:08:14]: And I'm going to add to that also. You have to have that mutual respect because even when I walked out of the room, eat your own sandwich, I don't care what you do. But I always knew that either I would go back, he would go back, or we would meet in the hallway. Right. Because we always thought through what each other was thinking and presenting in the argument, and sometimes we just agreed to disagree. Right. But for the most part, you have to have that mutual respect or it just doesn't work great.

Joe Toste [00:08:49]: So have the relationship, then you can make those adjustments. Anything that you would do differently. Corey, if you knew you were going to have Retta back for another eight.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:09:01]: Have, I would have given more away faster. Anything I would do differently is more about my own evolution. You look back and it's like, man, why couldn't I figure that out sooner just to go back and be able to do all those things sooner and have it take less to get there? But it was a great relationship. And I know I learned as much or more from her than she ever learned from me, but I remember the day that she got the opportunity. She got the opportunity to move to a new role at TABC, and she first comes and tells me about it. And I went home, and on the drive home I'm thinking, how can I stop this? How can I stop her? She's too important to the organization. How can I keep her from going, what can I give her to entice her? What can I call and threaten somebody? What can I do to make this not happen and go home and have a couple of glasses of cab on the back porch? And by the time it's time to go to bed, I had come back around to see this is a great opportunity for her. This is what she needs to move forward.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:09:57]: And I just needed that time to be able to make that turn and say, that's ridiculous. I don't need to hold her back. It's my job to help her move forward. And I think having that realization with somebody who was such an important part of the organization, it was a hard step for me. But once I made it, it was clear it was the right choice. I just felt better about it. It's like, no, this is the right thing to do. And I think being able to see those things sooner not be such a hard way, a hard time to get there.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:10:25]: I think you would have nightmares, though, if he had eight more years of me that bad? Because I'm more hard headed now than I was when I was there.

Joe Toste [00:10:33]: Corey, let's finish up with multiplying leaders. So I think Retta is a great example of a leader that you were able to start to multiply. She will then have folks working for her who will start to multiply. And I'm just kind of curious, like, for you and your team right now, how many more leaders do you have that you're looking to pour into with your time right now at Glo man?

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:10:59]: All of know, I think, everybody on the team, you're always looking for somebody who's got those qualities and somebody who is willing to invest in themselves and move up in the Organization. I know we've got a number of great people at the land office that I think have the opportunity to move up, and investing in them is one of the most important things that I do, because not only does that help them grow within our organization and help us here, but when they go off and they become leaders at another organization, while we may have temporarily lost that skill set and that knowledge, we've gained a connection. And so now when there's a new state law that's been passed, I can reach out to Retta and find out what's happening in her Organization. If I'm interviewing a candidate that she knows, she can give me tips on it. And so there are things you lose when they leave the organization, but there's so much that you gain from those additional perspectives that you can kind of reach out to and latch onto. So I think developing those leaders, investing in them and helping them, once you run out of opportunities to help them grow or once it's time for them to move on, helping them make that just, it's like the whole pay it forward thing. I mean, it comes back to you in the end.

Joe Toste [00:12:04]: That's great. And Retta, now at TABC, who's the next retta that you're looking to say?

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:12:09]: I actually have a couple of different people vying, openly vying to have the chair, and I am working with both and making sure that they have every opportunity to learn all the aspects. Sometimes I do it because it gets up off my plate and I'm like, you need the experience. Go ahead and do this report. A best is fine. Go into it to anyone who knows that one. Right. But it's really rewarding to watch their enthusiasm and their interest. And I remember when that was me, when I was wanting to learn those things, whether it was in private business where I used to be, or when I went into the land office, the interest that they take in it and the willingness they are to put in the work.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:12:53]: I set the stage and then I give them parameters. I give them the, these are the mechanics. They get tired of me going. But when Sao comes calling, and they will, you want these things in order. But I'm telling them because I was on the end of an audit where we didn't do a, b, and c correctly. And so I try to teach them the mechanics of that and then give them lots of space. I call it space for success. And then you have to have grace for the failures.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:13:18]: Right? So that's what we're doing and trying to work through right now.

Joe Toste [00:13:23]: That's great. Do we have any questions from the audience around multiplying leaders? Kevin's got a question. No question. Kevin looks like he wants to hire some of your people. That's what he's really, that's why you.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:13:34]: Asked about who are we developing? I was about to start naming people off, and I thought, there's way too many people in this room for me to start naming names. I'll give you initials.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:13:44]: So for both of you, if money was no object, procurement laws, nothing else, if you had one thing that you could do to change something, whether it's a culture thing, that you would change, workforce issues, project, what is something that you would love to achieve.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:14:02]: That is really tough? Any other time you would ask that question, I would answer mission related. I would think about our mission and I would focus on mission. But right now, I would do something workforce related. I know, just retaining people, and especially in Austin, the market's so crazy. And so I would love for salaries to no longer be a fight that I always lose. Like, as part of government, I go into every battle knowing I'm going to lose that. And I would love to wipe that off the table and let me compete against Google and Elon and everybody else with mission and talking about the importance of the work we do and how it matters. I think I win nine times out of ten.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:14:40]: And so today that would be my answer.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:14:44]: So we actually touched on it a little bit earlier. We have enforcement. Half of our culture is enforcement, and we have auditors and licensed folks. Right. And everything's been very siloed. And if I could figure out a way to. And Covid helped. Right.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:15:03]: I mean, all of a sudden, people needed the technology, and they were willing to pick those things up. But if I could find a way to knock down those walls, and I have a boss who is very good at doing that. Right, but it's very time sensitive. Or not time sensitive, but time consuming. Pardon me, but I would love to be able to open that because I like what Rick said earlier about, you shouldn't have to think about the technology. Right. It shouldn't even be an afterthought. So if I could open up that culture and move into that space a little bit more, it or not, that's where I think we make our wins, is because then everybody's on the same page.

Joe Toste [00:15:45]: Yeah.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:15:45]: Summer, what are some of the key characteristics you look for when you're picking up a leader?

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:15:51]: Right. You go into the room, and what.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:15:53]: Makes you say that person's worth investing?

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:15:56]: So I actually had an opportunity when I first went to TABC, I was watching a lady who had just come over from the licensing division as a project manager. She went and got her know, and it took a couple of conversations, and I was like, because we knew we were getting ready to do a large transformation initiative. The agency hadn't done anything, I think, since 1935 when they were formed. I think it might have been the early 2000s. But she was bright. She studied her surroundings, she studied her audience, and you only had to explain something to her once. She only made mistakes once. Right.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:16:36]: But she was very self educating and self reliant, and she could talk and collaborate with people in a way that I didn't really care what her technical skills were as far as project management, I cared that she brought that into a room and made it all inclusive. What I was saying, right. She can bring those divisions together. I can teach you how to move the widgets around, right. But I can't teach you necessarily those qualities. And so that's what I look for. And she's my shining example of that.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:17:08]: I think that's a great answer. And I would say something, I would say soft skills and eq more than anything else. I think if you can find those, then you can probably train them on most of the other responsibilities. But great question.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:17:21]: I have one. Is there anything, any lesson or good surprise that you had with the pandemic about the people that work for you?

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:17:33]: You can have that one first, I'll go second.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:17:36]: I would say it was all good from the perspective of, I knew I had good people working for me, but going through the pandemic now, I know I had great people working for me. We just came together. We're so good at a crisis. I mean, when there's a problem, we love to solve it, we love to fight the fires. And so someone else said earlier, talked about how the pandemic really helped us eliminate a lot of the fear. You could just move forward on projects all of a sudden that used to take lots and lots of time, communication and change management, whereas we could just really let it rip and put some things in place to help business. And my staff was invigorated by that. And so we had people just falling all over themselves to get things out the door as quickly as possible.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:18:15]: And so it was a huge positive. And I felt even better about my team afterwards than I did before, and I wouldn't have even thought that was possible.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:18:24]: Probably a very similar experience. We were already about 75% mobile, which helped us. We were able to go fully mobile in about three weeks. So that part of it was a no brainer for us. I actually had to go back to a lot of my people. They weren't on the road anymore, right. 2 hours an hour each way plus. And I actually had to go back to them.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:18:49]: And it's like, you need to cut back your hours, right, because they were sitting down earlier and they were staying there longer. But the level of dedication that they brought to the table was very overwhelming and it was very satisfying. And my job as a leader became much easier because they were very self motivated. I think part of it might have been, I don't want to lose my job, I want to be visible, I want to make sure that they know I'm pulling my weight. But at the same time, I think that's just how dedicated they were to their jobs.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:19:24]: I think that's a great thing about public service. It's amazing how many people are motivated by making a difference and when they know their work matters. You don't have to ask people to do more. Most people are just willing to step up on their own and do more. And so I think that's why that's such a big part of our culture, is reinforcing how much the work we do matters, how much it impacts people's lives. I think it makes the job more fulfilling, and it seems to make people buy in a lot more.

Joe Toste [00:19:51]: That's great. Any other questions?

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:19:54]: I have another comment for Mandy.

Joe Toste [00:19:56]: Okay. Yeah.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:19:58]: So you didn't ask the question this broadly, but I'm going to give you, if I had my druthers, and I know it's not a magic wand you carry around, but I want to just address it. If I could work in this type of job and not have to have a Magic ball five years out to ask for funding, that's going to be short the next year. Right. And I don't say that to you as in your position on that. Right. It's a battle we all fight. And so I think if we can ever make that turn and find a different way to approach it, I think it would make such a huge difference, especially for, I mean, he talks about salary woes. I'm like, blah, blah.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:20:40]: Right? Because try being a GR agency, right? Because it's totally different. So if we can ever find a way to do that would be, I think the state would benefit in a huge way. But that's the other side of my answer for you.

Joe Toste [00:20:58]: I'm looking forward to the next podcast with Kevin and Mandy, because when we get to the Q a session, I think Reddit over here has got her eyes on Mandy. Yeah, Reddit. You sit right there. Awesome. Any other final questions? We're good. Awesome. Well, Cory Retta, thank you for coming on tech tables. I really appreciate it.

Cory Wilburn, Chief Information Officer, Texas General Land Board [00:21:17]: Thank you.

Rheda Moseley, Chief Information Officer, TABC [00:21:18]: Appreciate it.

Joe Toste [00:21:18]: Hey, what's up, everybody?

Joe Toste [00:21:19]: This is Joe toste from techtables.com, and you're listening to the public sector show by techtables. This podcast features human centric stories from public sector, CIOs, Cisos, and technology leaders across federal, state, city, county, and higher education. You'll gain valuable insights into current issues and challenges faced by top leaders through interviews, speaking engagements, live podcast tour of sense. We offer you a behind the mic look at the opportunities top leaders are seeing today. And to make sure you never miss an episode, head over to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and hit that follow button and leave a quick rating. Just tap the number of stars that you think this show deserves. And to continue this darn good conversation, head over to the Q a section on Spotify.