From A People Perspective

Martin Hauck (01:13)
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of from a people perspective. I'm Martin Hawk. And today we have LDK from Illumio. He is the chief people officer there and he's a chief people officer many times over. ⁓ really excited for this conversation and I'm not even sure where it's going to go. Welcome to the show. Thanks LDK.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (01:33)
Martin, thanks for having me. really appreciate it. It's great to be here and thank you for what you do, your podcast, your guests, the topics that you raise for discussion. It's really helping us to drive the dialogue forward in the people business, which I really appreciate just on behalf of my colleagues. And I'm sure all your listeners feel the same way.

Martin Hauck (01:49)
No, I appreciate it and happy to. is a gift, ⁓ being able to do what I do. ⁓ and, and that's kind of just before we started, that's kind of how you alluded to the profession that, that you're in in an innovative of itself. ⁓ but before we dive into, ⁓ how you got to where you're at currently, ⁓ just a couple icebreakers for the guests. ⁓ if midnight rolls around and you still can't sleep, what

What are you going for in the fridge?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (02:21)
Uh, that's a question. I am a night owl, so I'm usually still very much awake and most of the time working at that hour. Um, so yeah, uh, if, I'm going to the fridge, it's going to be some grapes. We always have grapes in the fridge for some reason. There are these, there's cotton candy grapes that they literally taste like cotton candy. And I'll fire those babies right down. I'll go through a half a bunch of them in one night if I'm not paying attention.

Martin Hauck (02:33)
Yes

I've had those and I'm like, do they take syringes and inject sugar into these because

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (02:48)
They must there's

definitely some genetically modified organisms going on there that I'm okay with whatever they're doing to the great people of the world. If you're listening to this podcast, please keep doing what you're doing. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (02:57)
nailing it. ⁓

All right. stranded on a desert island. But before you go, you get to choose one album to play and listen to for the rest of time or until you figure way off the island. What are you What are you listening to?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (03:12)
Ooh, it's the Beatles and it's gonna be the white album. Yeah. The white album, I mean, that is like, you know, yeah, that's just.

Martin Hauck (03:15)
white album. is the second time I've heard that. it's

at

any song that sticks out that you'd be like careful not to ruin kind of deal.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (03:25)
⁓

⁓ you know, I think the Beatles anthology, I think they had 176 songs that published over time. Like if you really press me on just one song, ⁓ Rocky Raccoon. Rocky Raccoon. just I just I think it's it really the storytelling in it. The music college, like just it's just it's right there. And it was it's not like they're one of their most classic, you know, songs ever. But I think it just really embodied their ability to tell a story.

Martin Hauck (03:41)
Okay. Rocky, Rocky.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (03:57)
and weave a narrative, which is obviously the heart of great songwriting.

Martin Hauck (04:01)
True, true, true. All right, let's go. Let's go back. So before you got into the world that you're in, ⁓ the last kind of icebreaker, but the great segue for the rest of the conversation, what was your first gig?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (04:14)
My first gig, I worked at Arby's. I was the curly fry guy, loud and proud. And my mother saved my name tag. I still have it. I don't have it here in my office, but she recently sent it to me. So I have my very first name tag that I ever had. So.

Martin Hauck (04:17)
Barbies. Curly. Nice. Nice.

Nice. Nice.

Arby's we only have a couple of those up here now and there are they still big in the U S or waning.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (04:39)
there? No, they're waning. They used to be a lot more

of them. They're waning. You got to really look hard for them. A couple companies ago, my team surprised me with a little farewell tour we did a little boat cruise and they went and found an Arby's that morning, right when it opened and brought Arby's for the whole team roast beef and curly fries. I mean, the sandwiches were all cold, but it tasted like heaven. So that was that was my first like

Martin Hauck (05:01)
You

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (05:04)
paying W2 job, but I started my career in consulting. So was a management consultant for the first 13 years of my career at Accenture and Booz Allen. And I started out as a systems integrator. So I was implementing PeopleSoft, HR and financial systems for the first 13 years. And then I kind of moved into org design, change management, leadership development, coaching, did my master's in orgsci. And that's what kind of brought me over to the people business ultimate.

Martin Hauck (05:10)
Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, but it sounds like you started like implementing the software that affects people like you that's that's right in the from the get go as well, right?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (05:33)
Yeah, I didn't know that I was a SAS guy. But I was

I actually didn't I didn't even know what consulting was when I got into it. I was it was my senior year of college. I was coming back from the sociology department. I saw a sign that said Anderson consulting free dinner. And I was like, I'm hungry. I was out of points on my meal card. I literally stumbled into the room. I got my little plate of food and I sat down and they were talking about consulting. Well, consulting is I'm a I was a politics major.

And lo and behold, I applied got got the interviews and got the job and found myself as a management consultant. You know, almost happenstantially and that kind of got the marble moving and they needed people in the the PeopleSoft practice then so

Martin Hauck (06:15)
management consulting is an interesting one. Cause from all the conversations I've had, and every time I've had to work on a chief of staff search, or every time I meet people in the people operation space, there is this level of, I wouldn't call it prestige, but it is a strong signal that these folks know how to, to just pick up stuff and run with it. And I have my own understanding and

assumptions as to why but I'm curious to like get your take on on why management consulting is like a great place to start or like just arms you with all the tools you need.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (06:52)
Yeah, I think the what really started out ⁓ for me from that career perspective was two things. First of all, ⁓ being able to think on your feet. part of when you're at least an Anderson Consulting Accenture, I'm sure they do the other big ones as well, is you're teaching your analysts how to interact with clients. And they're going to ask you questions you don't know the answer to deliberately, they're going to try and trick you and stump you. And how do you show up in that moment to give them confidence that you're going to understand what they're asking?

Martin Hauck (07:08)
Hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (07:19)
go put a framework together to figure it out and then bring them a series of solutions or recommendations that then will have measurable, you know, success metrics against it to know if it's working. So you kind of start framing the young analysts minds right out of college to teach them how to think about a problem, not to have the answers, which if there's anything that I know today, Martin is most of us don't have the answers. Our job is to ask really good questions and put frameworks around it to try and find the right outcome for our people and our organizations, our customers, our shareholders, our stakeholders.

⁓ So it started out there. So that's kind of part one. Part two is ⁓ when you're working billable hours, you've got to deliver value every single hour of the day. And just because you're at your desk doesn't mean you're doing a billable hour of work. early in the morning, early in morning, early in my career, really galvanized forming the idea of driving to add value at every turn. And if you're not figuring out how you're going to do that, because that hour might not be billable back to your client. So I still kind of think about myself.

I'm still kind of a management consultant at heart, ⁓ that I work billable hours. And I think about, did I do eight hours or more of billable value add work, you know, in a given day for my company, ⁓ that it needs to be outcome based, not just kind of punch the clock, you know, presenteeism. So it's helpful in consulting to get that ground in your head early about ⁓ what does being billable and staying billable mean.

Martin Hauck (08:18)
Mm-hmm.

You

Anything that still stays with you to this day is like, had I not had that experience, like things would be really different.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (08:48)
Yeah, I think ⁓ having exposure early on to the dynamics of organizational change was really helpful because that was the discipline that I was in in consulting. I was helping clients go through times of change. And if there's one thing that we do as chief people officers, as people, people is help organizations go through change now. Oftentimes it's technologically driven. Sometimes it's culturally driven. ⁓ So me having an early appreciation for the fact that human beings tend to myself included.

Resist change because that's something that could be painful and most of us are driven toward pleasure and away from pain And change can be painful even if on the other side. It's a good thing We need to take a journey through those moments and not just be forced into them So I learned early on to really think about that to put myself in the shoes of my stakeholders to think about how is this occurring for them and then Make sure that we're articulating outcomes and value propositions in a way that resonates that helps them move through at their own pace on their own journey

Martin Hauck (09:47)
Right. So you spend a healthy amount of time in management consulting and then, then, then where do you go? How do you get to today?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (09:54)
I was hoodwinked. was hoodwinked. ⁓

No, Salesforce called and they said, we want to talk to you about this job in employee success. I said, what's that? And they said, it's what we call HR. And I said, I'm not an HR person. And with my nose probably pretty high in the air, because I'll tell you a story about that, but I didn't think very highly of HR at the moment, that moment in my career necessarily. And so they said, no, we're thinking about doing this differently. And we want to talk to people who have different profiles.

And so was recruited to Salesforce and on board there to lead the HR business partner team for the go to market function. What was interesting was I was on a Salesforce project in consulting, implementing Salesforce service cloud. And so I walked across changed badges from a Friday to a Monday. And all of a sudden, the people I was selling with into my current client site became my clients ⁓ in consulting in HR proper. So I became their HR business partner. ⁓

which was kind of fun. So I knew the space, I knew the domain really well, because I had sold the software they were selling, which gave them a sense of, okay, this guy really knows what I'm doing. So he can understand where I'm trying to take the business and he's here to support me. And that resonated with me because as I said, I didn't have that high of an opinion, frankly, of at least the HR business partner support I had been getting in HR at the time. was a little frustrating. It seemed like my HR team was always showing up for me on their terms, like,

Martin Hauck (11:11)
Mm-hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (11:19)
you know, with their clipboard and here are the projects and the programs we're running and you got to think about all these HR stuff. And I'm like, I'm trying to run a business here and carry a number and build a client group and make my path to partner. Those folks didn't seem to be on my agenda, they were on their agenda. And that always just kind of sat weird to me. I'm like, wait a second, you're a cost center. And, and I'm supposed to be a profit center. So can we like enable the profit center to drive value for the business and then also manage, you know, the GNA part of it.

When I switched over, kind of made that commitment to myself that I was going to try and show up in a way to the business that resonated with them that they knew I was there for them, not there for myself.

Martin Hauck (11:55)
Right. Right. Was, uh, I mean, there's, there's a bit of a shift there, right. And I'm a bit of a, cause to your point, right. You didn't even consider yourself as part of HR. What compelled, I mean, apart from, suppose Salesforce to a certain extent, but like what compelled you to make the change and take the jump.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (12:13)
Yeah, I think it was ⁓ looking at where I was spending my time. And anybody who's been in consulting, this will resonate with them. You start out your career and you're 100 % client facing. And you then get more senior and more senior and more senior and you've got more things to do inside the firm. And you've got to do more administrative tasks and management and those kinds of things that aren't necessarily client facing. And so I reached that moment in my career where I thought, okay, I'm 13 or so years in what do I really love doing? What gets me up in the morning?

And as I thought about that, it was working with clients that fills my cup every time when I'm helping a client think through something or drive positive change in their organization that gives them an outcome. That's what I love. So when I really started to think about it and got into investigating this opportunity that I got pulled into, I was thinking, wait a second, I get to work with clients, like almost 100 % of the time, that's the job. I was like, sign me up. And then I had to shape, okay, how do I want to do that job in a way that's authentic to me that I think drives value for the business. So I've gotten to

have now clients, internal clients. I don't have to bill them for hours. I just get to be of service to them. And that feels really good. And it gets me up in the morning.

Martin Hauck (13:21)
Nice. The, ⁓ the, and obviously you did great at Salesforce moved up the ranks. I'd love to know any sort of like stories that stand out to you from, from those years. And, ⁓ as we go through the roster.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (13:38)
Yeah, we saw the saw the growth during my time at Salesforce from I guess we were probably I want to say 10,000 or so maybe a little bit below that up to 35,000. So saw the company kind of triple in size in the time I was there. ⁓ But I had three jobs in the whatever it was six or seven years I was there. ⁓ So HR business partner leading the business partner team for sales go to market, then pivoted over ⁓ to serve our co founder and our chief product officer leading the HR BP team for the product engineering group.

⁓ And then the third job was leading HR strategy and operations. So I had global shared services, employee relations, ⁓ analytics, data science, et cetera. ⁓ And that really interestingly got me back to my consulting roots of the operational side of just run the machine, optimize the machine. And I'll give the chief people officer, Robbins, the world of credit there that I think she saw me in her organization. She said, okay, I got to keep giving this guy new projects to work on because that's kind of what he's done for his career.

And she was spot on because every year and a half, two years, I got a new client group, I got a new project, something new to put my brain on and add value to the company. So that was a lot of fun and enjoyed every moment of it as we saw the company grow. And obviously it's gone on to amazing things. Now there are 70 or 80,000 people, think.

Martin Hauck (14:56)
They're the part that stood out and we don't, mean, the community just in itself, like natural demographics are like members that work at companies, like 50 people all the way up to a thousand. don't get too much into the, like the enterprise world, but I'm curious, like, and just from your experience, like, are there some like universal truths that you've seen? Okay. Like, okay. When a company scales from 10,000 to 35,000, or when a company goes from like a thousand to 5,000.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (15:07)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (15:25)
What are there like, and you talked a bit about change, but like, what sort of universal truths do you do have you taken so far?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (15:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I'm definitely so I moved on from Salesforce, I got recruited to be the head of HR for MuleSoft. And so came into, you know, recently public much smaller, we were, you know, whatever 1000 1500 people. And I've kind of stayed in that sweet spot now in the 500 to, you know, 3000 people the last several companies I've done this job in. I love that space. Like I loved enterprise. It was great. I love that part. I really like the grow. I think it's a lot of fun to say

Okay, Monday morning, I wake up, there's some problem or challenge or issue the business is facing. And, you know, by Tuesday, we have a straw purse draw man straw person. And then by Friday, it's implemented. And by Monday, we're seeing value in it. Larger companies that week process can take a month, a quarter a year. I'll do respect because you got to move a battleship that way. I really enjoy the speedboats. I was in the Navy for for eight years as a reserve intelligence officer. So I know a little bit about boats.

Yeah. And ⁓ yeah,

Martin Hauck (16:29)
All right, pause for a sec. Yeah.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (16:32)
so know about boats and while the battleships are super valuable in the fleet, ⁓ the fast boats are also a lot of fun as well because you can move them, move them quickly and do some cool things. So ⁓ the truism is to your question though, Martin, there are these inflection points that companies reach. And I think being mindful about what those are, and I'll give sort of general numbers, these are not hard and fast, but when the company goes from

100 to 250, 250 to 500 to 1000. It's almost at those doubling points. There's this moment of reckoning that the organization, the culture has. And I think it comes in two flavors. The first flavor is the workforce itself looks around and says, do I know everybody here? Because back in the day, I used to know everybody's name. I knew their name, their spouse or partner's name, their family's names, their dog's name, whatever.

Martin Hauck (17:17)
Mm-hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (17:25)
And and do I still feel the ability to connect to my colleagues? In a way that is meaningful to me that I feel like I belong here even if somebody's been here five or ten years if it's very easy for them to start disconnecting from the culture and not feeling like they belong because it hasn't been thoughtfully done But how do you keep people connected to each other into the culture? So that's one the second one that happens each those inflection points is the CEO him or her themselves they also go through this point where

⁓ they used to be able to go like this and just kind of know what's going on in the company. They can like catch the vibes, right? And they reach a point when this company doubles again, doubles again, and the CEO goes through this moment where they say, do I still have my arms around the company I founded or the company I was brought into to lead ⁓ at these inflection points? So it's really important, I think, to be in dialogue with our CEO about how they're doing in their journey, which sounds funny that I'm like checking in with my CEO.

Martin Hauck (18:11)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (18:24)
But if the big boss isn't dialed in and feeling good about the thing, they're not able to lead in the most effective way. So giving them that point of check-in with their people leader I think is super important. And then identifying how do we make sure that we remain true to who we are and how you founded the company or what your intention was, especially for the founder CEO support teams out there like I am, to make sure that they're getting what they need out of the journey. And it's aligning to what their vision is because it can kind of slip away. And then all of a sudden, you've got a whole new thing in front of you.

Martin Hauck (18:55)
You've been that person for the CEO a number of times. And I know a lot of members of the community are sort of, especially ones at smaller companies also have to go through that experience, but have never necessarily coached or supported or even had access to the CEO in that capacity, or maybe they are getting that access. guess what would like, what's the crash course you would give that person be like, okay, listen, you're about to go through this inflection point.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (19:14)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (19:25)
⁓ your CEO might be going through these things. How do you raise that with them without sort of bruising egos or tarnishing the relationship and just actually building trust with them as well.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (19:36)
Yeah, well, Martin, I see your your Callaway ⁓ sweater that you're wearing. So I'm to use a little golf analogy here. I'm a terrible golfer, but I love the game. ⁓ The the guidance I would share and I try and do this myself and I'm not perfect at it by any stretch, choosing the right club for the right shot. And that goes for you know, so many different things in life and sports and activities that we don't always use the same tool for every job. So we've all heard the phrase, you know, don't be a hammer looking for a nail. ⁓ I think where

Martin Hauck (19:42)
You

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (20:06)
people teams can get kind of sideways is when we think our job is to go tell the CEO what they should do. The number of times that I've done that, I can probably count on one hand. The number of times I've gone to my CEO and said, you should do this. And I reserve those for very, very precious moments when it's a hyper critical moment when I know that there needs to be real strong point of view that I've built enough trust with my CEO.

that he or she knows I'm on their agenda, not on mine. And I've got to say, this is a critical moment. I'm taking, you know, now whatever, 26 years of experience being in the people business, looking at this stuff, and I'm telling you this is we should do. I can count on one hand the number times I've done that. Most of the time, my conversation with the CEO, and I think for us as people teams, is, you know, how's the business doing from your perspective? What's standing in our way? Where can we help? We have some ideas. Which of these do you think...

Martin Hauck (20:37)
Mm-hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (21:04)
should or could be the highest priority. And then when we're successful, what does that look like? So again, back to kind of maybe my consulting roots, it's asking the right questions versus having the right things to say. Where I've seen my colleagues get sideways and sometimes when I get asked to come into companies, ⁓ the CPO who's exiting or has exited already ⁓ perhaps got a bit too directive in saying, well, this is the playbook or this is what we have to do or this is what you should do. And the CEO, think,

reflecting on that says, Wait a second, ⁓ I'm leading this company, I'm guiding this company. ⁓ I want you to be in service to that not to tell me how I should run the company. ⁓ So that's a long answer short question. But I think again, choosing the right club for the from your bag for that shot. It's not always a driver. You know, we use the driver 18 times around, you use your your irons and your short irons way more than that. So most of the shots that we take are touch shots. You know, they're somewhere between, you know, five and

Martin Hauck (21:51)
you

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (22:02)
75 yards from the cup.

Martin Hauck (22:05)
Right, right. Now, also, no, no clue why I pay so much to get angry at myself. That's that's for sure.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (22:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I call it

chasing a little white ball around a big green yard.

Martin Hauck (22:15)
Yeah. So yeah, why help help me understand how you got to Illumio.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (22:24)
Yeah, so I actually have two bosses at Illumio. ⁓ One is the CEO Andrew Rubin, our founder. The second boss is one of our investors. And I have dinner with her every night at home, because she's my wife. ⁓ My wife Erin, ⁓ she actually is in cybersecurity herself ⁓ in the same industry that I am now. But previously, she was in Andreessen Horowitz, who are one of our key venture capital founders, funders. ⁓ And so early rounds, Erin was on

Martin Hauck (22:26)
Okay.

Hahaha. ⁓

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (22:52)
part of the deal team and the scale team that was working with Andrew and his senior leadership team to do some funding and help build out the company. So my wife Erin knew about Illumio even before I did and knew knew my boss before I knew my boss. ⁓ So that's kind of that part. Then our head of the audit committee, Mike Corey ⁓ is a CFO amazing world class CFO in his own right. He was the CFO that we onboarded at velocity previously. So he and I sat on staff together.

And then he became our head of the audit committee. So he had put my name in Andrew's ear also. I said, hey, you should talk to Kingsley and go check in, see what he's up to. So it was kind one of those things when the universe just kind of came to me and said, this is your next opportunity. And ironically, I think when we sit back and listen to the universe, it tells us where we should go next and where we should be. So I try and not have too much ego about that. just, I'm waiting to kind of get the signals for where I'm meant to be in service next.

Martin Hauck (23:46)
You're kind of getting go with the flow vibes from you.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (23:50)
It is, think, you ⁓ as I've gone through life and I'm a dad now, so we've got three kids, so ⁓ almost seven, almost six and three years old. ⁓ And an 11 year old dog and a new puppy. Like I work in San Francisco. I live in Southern California. My wife's in cyber also. Like life is just kind of messy and the most beautiful of ways. And I've given up the idea that I can control life.

Martin Hauck (24:15)
You

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (24:16)
It's going

to happen. think of it, I don't surf, but I'm surfing analogy of like, you can ride the wave or the wave is going to ride you and it's going to crash you and toss you around or you can figure out how to get on balance, get on your surfboard and ride that wave through life because the waves are going to keep coming. It's just how you deal with them.

Martin Hauck (24:23)
Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. Now I'm in a similar similar life stage, not three. I've got two and they're they're all six and six and four and two fish.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (24:42)
Yeah, I'm

not. Do you steal Teddy grams from them for your for your snacks out of the pantry? They're not looking. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (24:46)
Yeah, yeah. 100.

Yeah, I've, I've learned I like, early on, I was like the finisher. And I'm like, Nope, no, you're finishing your food, because I cannot consume all your non consumed calories. So that's that was it.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (24:56)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yep, that's it. I have not

learned that lesson yet. I that's a reason my pants are getting tight. think Martin

Martin Hauck (25:05)
Yeah. Well

that, and I mean, talk to Lumio about the Froyo machine. think there's, there's.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (25:09)
No, hey, don't, no, no, no, no, no, that's sacred.

Don't touch my fro-yo. But it's like those chicken nuggets, they're so good. Like I can't resist. It's like just one nugget, you know?

Martin Hauck (25:19)
I don't understand how they don't finish them. there's only four. You should finish all four of them.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (25:23)
Yeah,

they're only going two or three of them. I have a question for you though. I know you're supposed to ask me the questions. ⁓ McDonald's chicken nuggets or dino nuggets?

Martin Hauck (25:33)
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. You know what? I, for myself, it's just McDonald's cause we don't make dino nuggets. And I think if we ever bought dino nuggets, it would be like Pandora's box for us. Yeah. Yeah.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (25:46)
Yeah, yeah, it is Pandora's box of Dino Nuggets. There's not that

many in there. Just I urge you don't look at the servings because I like the whole box left my own devices and that's like four servings. But yeah, I just dipped the Brontosaurus head in the so good.

Martin Hauck (25:55)
No, no, no ignorance is bliss.

You,

you touched on, ⁓ you just glazed over eight, nine years in, the Navy. ⁓ haven't had a chance to double click on lessons from, from military service and, ⁓ what that brings to the people in culture space. I have a ton of respect, ⁓ for those who have served in those in the military, Canadian national and international. Otherwise what

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (26:27)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (26:28)
What do you like, maybe kind of give me your take on how you've transferred skills from there?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (26:34)
Yeah, well, thank you for your support, first of all, and shout out to all the veterans if they're out there or family members of veterans. It's it's an honor to serve and to be part of military families. And ⁓ to your point, like international safety and security is a huge priority of mine, which is part of why I'm in cybersecurity now. I still feel like I'm connected to the mission. So ⁓ that was the space that I was in in the Navy. Also, I was in NCIS in the Navy ⁓ when I started out, I got recruited into the intelligence service.

for the Navy there. the pieces that I've really kind of carried forward that I think are helpful. I'll ask you a question first. What do you think is the number one most dangerous threat to a Navy ship?

Martin Hauck (27:18)
This so ignorant, but I'm going to say submarines.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (27:21)
Okay, possibly that's a common answer.

And you're right, it's a big threat. The number one threat to Navy ships is fire. It's fire. So an electrical fire starts in a closet because a wire got hot, somebody tripped over something, like literally just a fire, like a fire in your house kind of fire on a ship. And you can imagine fire on a ship when it spreads can be catastrophic because it could literally take the ship down. And that threat is persistent and it's every day.

Martin Hauck (27:28)
Okay.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (27:49)
Torpedoes and enemy ships and all that stuff. Yes, those are there obviously lurking always fire is the most present one So every person in the Navy the first thing you learn how to do no matter if you're junior enlisted or a direct commission officer You learn how to fight a fire literally the first thing and so you're learning what kind of fires are there? You the chemical fires electrical fires, etc What do you use to fight that fire and how do you put it out? You know the whole sweeping motion thing if you look on the side of your fire extinguisher It'll tell you that so we actually practice putting out a fire because

fires the greatest threat to a ship. So if all of us in the Navy are aware of what the most dangerous threat is to our ship, and we're always looking out for it, we're gonna protect ourselves in the best way, knowing that if a fire starts, it's everyone's job to put it out. It's not like, let me wait for the fire specialist to get here. It's like, no, you are the fire specialist right now, and you're gonna put that fire out. How many times in organizations have we seen something that starts off?

Martin Hauck (28:34)
Mm-hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (28:45)
And we're like, that seems off or that seems like something that we should be mindful of or that could really turn into something bad. But we either don't feel equipped, empowered, or engaged enough to do something about it. And next thing you know, it becomes a wildfire inside the organization. So the analogy is not too far afield there about taking care of your ship and the Navy and taking care of our organizations that fire is there. So that's my first one. I have one more, but I'll pause for a question.

Martin Hauck (29:11)
Uh, you know, you see that I have one. So what would you say is the equivalent of training people to fight fires at a company? Cause that's like, what's the greatest threat to a company? I mean, revenue.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (29:21)
Yeah, think. Yeah, it actually dovetails

exactly with the second one, so it's a great tea. That in the Navy, we talk about the importance in the Navy of what we take care of is ship, shipmate and self. You look after the ship first and we take care of the ship. We all get home safely, generally speaking. Ship first, take care of the ship.

Martin Hauck (29:36)
that

ship first versus shipmate that that feels

that feels I'd love to yeah sorry go ahead

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (29:47)
Yeah,

ship made a second and yourself is last. So if I see something on the ship that's not right, like piece of rust, right, so let's say something's something's deteriorating or corroding, and that rust goes unaddressed. ⁓ It grows into something bigger, all of a sudden it becomes a hole. All of a sudden we now have literally a hole in the boat, because someone didn't say, hey, I got to take care of the ship first. The ship is what gets us all to home port safely. If our ship lacks integrity, if the hull's not sound,

If the systems aren't operating right, we can't get home. So we take care of the ship first. And it's not too hard of an analogy to think about company first, right? We take care of the company first. We think about our team second. So make sure to take care of the ship first, then our team. So my team needs X. My team is in charge of this part of the business, this part of the organization, this part of the thing. That's my second order of business to do what my team is brought here to do. And then third is thinking about myself. So.

Martin Hauck (30:25)
Mm-hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (30:45)
The team, the shipmate, the person to your left and right, that's your second priority. So thinking about your team, team or teammate, and then yourself last. When we think about ourself last, and we're thinking about our shipmate or our teammate or our team second, we know that someone's got our back. Someone's looking out for us because they're thinking about me before I'm thinking about me. ⁓ So it's this idea that ⁓ we're all looking after the one thing that gets us home safely, then we're all looking after each other. And then we're thinking about what do I need, what's right for me.

which is sort of an inversion sometimes in how we show up in society and organizations and cultures, because we're in kind of a me, me, me, my, my, my world now, where everything is tailored and personalized and my Instagram feed is just giving me gobble, gobble, gobble stuff I never want to put down, because it knows me and it's all about what David wants. Dino nuggets just every day.

Martin Hauck (31:20)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Dino nuggets and you know,

that's what my mind immediately went to dealing with emergencies on the plane and like the mass coming down and the rule is like mask mask yourself first. But in the way you've described it, I think you've convinced me that your analogy is way better. ⁓ I

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (31:45)
Yeah. Yep.

Yeah, I mean, on the

airplane, there's not a lot you and I can do on an airplane. Unless we have some secret pilot things. I do not. ⁓ But, ⁓ you know, yeah, but the idea of putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others. ⁓ It's sort of it is an interesting ⁓ analogy, because yeah, you're taking care of yourself first. But you're doing that in service to someone else. I can't help someone else if I'm not checking with myself. And there's a there's a subtext there. I'm actually on the board of directors for a mental health company called Novati.

Martin Hauck (32:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (32:22)
And we talk a lot about mental fitness and mental health, ⁓ that I've got to make sure that my cup is full that I'm balanced before I step out of my virtual office to go help other people, if I'm truly others focused. ⁓ So taking care of yourself is not selfish, if you're oriented in the right way. So I think the analogies can live in harmony.

Martin Hauck (32:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. ⁓ and before we started recording, we definitely dove into just kind of like, more of the high level philosophy stuff with regards to the work that that you do the work that people people do. ⁓ What's front and center on your mind, like, in terms of how work is evolving and how you're trying to show up for you, you know, Illumio and your team and everything.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (32:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think it starts, you know, all respect and appreciation for Simon Sinek when he does the start with the why. I think that all of us need to start with our own why, on almost a personal level before we even get into the professional level about why am I here on this earth? Why do I exist? I was here to do what? ⁓ And for me, my why is I was here to help other people up the mountain, virtual or otherwise. I'm not a mountain climber, but I guess I could learn.

Martin Hauck (33:17)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (33:38)
But help people up the mountain help people on their journey be of service. And so I try and orient myself in that way every day. And sometimes being of service to someone means giving them a difficult message. That's hard to be of service to someone when it might not feel great. And you know, you're doing the right thing for that person or for the organization or for the company. So be of service is kind of my why. ⁓ Then bringing up one level kind of organizationally into the people business. ⁓ I take a real place of

honor that we get to help other people actualize themselves in their lives in their career. We get to talk to people every day, certainly people in your direct business, ⁓ on the talent acquisition talent side to say, what is it you're looking for in your career? What what makes you tick? What do you love? What are you great at? And then finding a company, an organization, a team and opportunity that aligns to that. When we get that right, it's it's chef's kiss. It's just magic because that person gets in there. And they're they're humming, they're just vibing with their job.

They're doing great work. They're contributing. They feel self-actualized They go home virtually or physically at night to their families friends loved ones. They're better family members They're better citizens because they're feeling like they know they're contributing to something bigger than themselves I do think we as humans are wired that way to be part of community now I'm actually an extroverted introvert I Recharge my batteries, you know kind of alone at the same time though. I know that I I want and need to be part of

a collective that's doing something to feel fulfilled in my life. And we in the people business get to do that every day. Like, how cool is that? That like someone pays, like, Andrew pays me to do that job. I'm like, this is amazing. I get paid to do this job where I get to help other people in their careers achieve what they want to do. So I think re grounding ourselves in that why is really important because the world is changing so fast right now. I mean, we're we can go down the AI path for you know, I'm sure you've done multiple

conversations on just AI generally, but the world's changing so fast. Our people are having to adapt to it, adopt new ways of working and adopt new ways of thinking. If we reground ourselves in why are we here and why do I exist in this company? ⁓ I think make sure that we're in the right spot to be of service and to be of help.

Martin Hauck (35:34)
You

Mm.

I'm, you strike me as a super positive individual, like somebody that not, it's not hard for you to get fired up in a good way about something. And that's been awesome. It's a great energy for the conversation and, and it's, contagious, right? ⁓ I'm sure you know that. And I guess. I think just recognizing and appreciating that like not everybody's built that way. And also.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (36:02)
Yeah.

I hope.

Martin Hauck (36:22)
knowing that like, it's a tough time out there in the market. What's what are some of the things that you've that has helped you kind of like stay optimistic, even when things are like at their most grueling ⁓ to help some of the folks kind of like, kind of see the magic that you're talking about and see the like, the there is this gift to the profession that you get to help people realize and self actualize all the time.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (36:25)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (36:51)
⁓ But then they're going through hard things as well. And so I guess I'm curious to like, no, I'm sure you've seen it and been there and influenced people to kind of like shift their perspective. But what's what's your approach in that moment?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (37:03)
Yeah, it's a great call out Martin. And I think that, you ⁓ there are probably people listening to us right now that are going, okay, this guy's like puppies and flowers and roses. And you know, what do you put in his coffee this morning? And you're absolutely right, all of us in our personal lives, certainly go through the things that other people don't see, right? Before someone walks into that office, virtual or otherwise every day, they might have been dealing with something that we don't know they were dealing with. And first of all, making sure that people know that we're able to make space for that is really important.

that I'm never expecting my colleagues or my clients or anybody around me to be perfectly optimistic all the time and everything's great. And you don't have to fake it. And it's a safe space to be able to talk about that. Hey, I'm going through something. I think when people know that we're in service to them, they're much more likely to say, hey, I'm going through something hard right now on a personal level, professional level. I just want to let you know that that creates the space in the conversation where we can meet that person where they are. ⁓

Martin Hauck (37:56)
Mm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (38:02)
So that's the first part, I think, that we're called to do as people, people, people, to let folks know that we embrace the entirety of their humanity. The hard parts, the warts and all, like that's just part of being human. It's not always easy. And as we, that analogy on the waves, the waves crash on us at weird times, sometimes that we weren't expecting. So I think that's the first part. The second part, and I've really kind of embraced this in my own journey when I've been going through, know, evolutions, some that were self-driven, some that just happened.

⁓ without my knowledge or warning, ⁓ that I pivoted to kind of this perspective of that this is happening for me, not to me. And in most circumstances in life, not all, but most, we can find a way of whatever circumstance we're in to say, there's something for me to learn in this moment. And so I tell my teams, especially when we're going through times of great change and

Martin Hauck (38:42)
Hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (38:59)
I've when I was at Salesforce, we acquired, think, 20 some companies. I've been acquired twice myself. So going to your people team and saying, hey, folks, you know, we were getting acquired and our jobs are going to change. And in some cases in acquisitions, know, jobs go away. ⁓ So I always kind of encourage myself and my teams to be a student of the moment that we're in, of what can I learn in this moment of something I've not learned before? And how do I find that thing? Because this situation is is in fact happening.

for me to learn and grow and improve, not to me. That I'm not a victim of this moment, I'm a student of it. And just having that mindset shift. ⁓ Now there are a few obviously very critical things that someone can go through in life when that just can't apply, ⁓ you know, fine. But I'd say 98 % of things that happen in our lives, we can pivot and say this is happening for me, not to me. And how am going to learn from this and incorporate it into the person I want to be as I go forward?

Martin Hauck (39:39)
to go.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (39:59)
When you just shift that mindset, think it was Wayne Dyer used to say, when you change the way you think about things, the things you think about change. We just have this, we have this power inside of ourselves to literally bend the universe for ourselves by the way that we think about it. I know that's pretty West coasty and you know, I'm an East coast guy who migrated to the West coast. Maybe I got too much West coast stuff, too much yoga. ⁓ But I think that really can apply and be helpful.

Martin Hauck (40:07)
You

Yeah.

That's my...

No, appreciate that. ⁓ Would really love your take on as a CPO, what, what you're keeping an eye out in terms of the future and whatnot and can be AI or not, but what's, what are you most like, Hey, I got to study this or I got to pay attention to what's going on here. Kind of passing that, that your sort of signal to the rest of the listeners.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (40:52)
Yeah, I think there's just two things. One is pretty basic level kind of stuff that I think some of us are looking at and dealing with and one is a little bit broader. The basic one is the fact that certainly in my sector in software right now, the SaaS business is evolving very quickly in terms of valuations, how companies are perceived, how they're thought of. That influences total rewards and compensation.

And so I'm starting to think a lot about how do we make sure that we're paying competitively to the market for the work that our people are doing while at the same time, not getting over our skis and burning through too much cash or equity that, you know, harms the company overall. Again, company first, team second, self last. Let's take care of the company first at the same time, make sure that our people are rewarded properly. ⁓ you know, the old days of like, you know, our, the compensation vendors that send you a pack every six months.

Martin Hauck (41:23)
Mm-hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (41:46)
we're having to get a lot faster on that now the market is just moving faster. And are we making sure that we're being good ground sensors about where the talent market is from a rewards perspective and really paying attention to that. So and that obviously has implications from a financial perspective, you know, you know, just from a cost, cost accounting on on on stock based comp, you know, there's lots of, you know, nerd cave things I could go into on that front. But we got to pay attention to that because the investors care, the compensation committee cares the board care. So I'm thinking a lot about that.

Martin Hauck (42:09)
you

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (42:16)
on a tactical level inside the organization. And then ⁓ you took your hand to it on a strategic level. ⁓ The advent of AI is very much upon us. And I was just presenting at a conference earlier this week. And the diversity of point of view in the room on how people are using AI is all over the map. It's literally there are folks who are like, I opened chat GPT once, and then I closed it because it scared me.

And you know, it's gonna take over the world to, hey, I'm vibe coding in cursor in my off hours. Like dad used to go in the basement and do woodworking. literally that entire, that room had the entire spectrum of like where people are on that journey and acknowledging that that's okay. And we got to bring everybody along that journey. How do we do that? Knowing that our brains physiologically have not changed for like,

Martin Hauck (42:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (43:12)
millions and millions of years. We're still kind of the same homeless, apian brain that we've had for a while. ⁓ But the technology that's coming in is changing so, so rapidly. And the nature of work is going to evolve and shift. And so we have to think about that as people, people, how do we help our employees, our clients, our colleagues go through this journey that's gonna be very different in the world ⁓ as this thing evolves. And we've to be present to it. We've got to have a point of view. We've got to help lead. ⁓

And I think that's very much top of mind for me on a kind strategic sense. I don't have all the answers. I have a lot of questions. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (43:48)
for sure. Fair, fair. And,

⁓ no, most, most people are in the same boat. like that juxtaposition between, know, I tried GPT once to, I'm vibe coding cause that very, like very much feels the way it is. And it's, it's something to definitely pay attention to and feels like a learning and development problem. Like that's where, like, how do you, how do you bring up, skill everybody within the organization? So there's a, a nice mean to that as opposed to the disparity. So.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (44:15)
Yeah.

Yeah. And how do you give a how do you give a framework back to the consulting thing about how do you give a framework for how are we as a company or a culture going to address this? How are we going to engage with this technology that people have sort of guardrails and they know the do's and the don'ts and then here's the trade space like where's your playground? The roads over here the forest is over here don't go on the road don't run into the forest. This is the playground and want you to be creative and make up games and do all the things you want to do over here. I think that's what our organizations are asking for they want to know

Martin Hauck (44:33)
Mm-hmm.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (44:45)
what those boundaries are, and then also have the freedom to be creative. mean, when you unleash human creativity, it does such amazing things. ⁓ We got to create the conditions for that though. And that's where I think we should be on the leadership perspective.

Martin Hauck (44:56)
Yeah, we've we've all been at town halls where somebody's like, we want so and so to present this thing they cooked up in their off hours. And it's usually a dev and now literally everybody in the organization could be that person that's like, I made this game changing thing for our business on the weekend. And it's like giving people the time and space to do it. And to your point, ⁓ you just like understanding what those limitations are. ⁓

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (45:04)
Yes.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I've done that with

our team. mean, everyone on our team has their own agent now. And they had to name their agent. And they had to give it a cheeky name. And I was the arbiter of cheekiness. So they had to bring I had to bring all their agents and name them. And then I gave some feedback. I'm like, No, that's not cheeky enough. Go try again. But everybody on my team has it, we're actually going to put Martin them on the org chart also. So it's going to be person and their agent who literally works for them, helping them accelerate their work.

Martin Hauck (45:25)
Hahaha

Okay.

Hahaha.

⁓

Yep.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (45:48)
in what they're doing. So we're we're, kind of trying lean forward there.

Martin Hauck (45:51)
All right, spill the beans if you can. If I need to sign an NDA, I will, but what are some of these cheeky names as we sign off here?

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (45:56)
⁓

My mine is called C2PO. ⁓ I'll love the Star Wars fans out there. ⁓ We've got one ⁓ our chief product officer his name is Mario. ⁓ And so the the agent that one of our colleagues has on the talent team. ⁓ It's it's a me Mario. So it's a little Mario Brothers character. ⁓

Martin Hauck (46:01)
You

Hahaha.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (46:22)
So one of my other guys, my head of talent business partners, his is called K to Sherpa, because his name is Keith. So about climbing the mountain and how you help me up the mountain back to the analogy we're talking about. so the folks came up with some really creative names ⁓ that I like a lot. And what I wanted to do that was make it personal. Like this technology is happening for you, not to you. So if it's happening for you, how are you going to shape it and drive it and own it and make sure it delivers value to you and your work?

Martin Hauck (46:28)
Okay. Okay.

Yeah, 100%.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (46:51)
⁓ that starts with ideating on it and giving it a name. So it's sort of basic stuff. At the same time, how do we help people along the change journey? We invite them to be part of the change versus have the change happen to them.

Martin Hauck (47:04)
Right. Perfect. No awesome place to end LDK. Thank you so much.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (47:09)
My pleasure, Martin. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Martin Hauck (47:11)
Appreciate it. All right.

L. David Kingsley (Illumio) (47:14)
Take care.