Praeger and Thean Discuss “The Journey to CEO Success”

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MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Welcome to The Power of Change, the podcast that delves into the intersection of leadership and technology in the finance world. I’m your host, Michael Praeger, the CEO and co-founder of AvidXchange. In each episode, I dive into the leadership topics and industry trends with business leaders, partners, and customers who embrace the power of change. 

Our guest for this episode is Patrick Thean, CEO and co-founder of Rhythm Systems. Patrick is a renowned speaker, CEO, coach, and serial entrepreneur, as well as friend. Best-selling author by USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. And in 1996, Patrick was honored as E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, as well as number 151 in Inc. 500 and a similar award that I received in 2019 from E&Y. So we share that in common as well as other things. And, currently, Patrick’s CEO of Rhythm Systems, which is really focused on guiding CEOs towards really transforming breakthroughs of common failures to help them achieve their dreams in their business. Patrick is also the author of Rhythm – How to Achieve Breakthrough Execution and Accelerated Growth as well as Execute Without Drama and Predictable Results. And then the one thing that we all know about Patrick is that he is a Cornell university alum.  

1:19  
PATRICK THEAN 

Yes.  

1:20 
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

With a master’s engineering and a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. So lots of engineering in Patrick’s background. The most current thing that Patrick and actually myself did is we curated our journey together 20 plus years, uh, actually closer to probably 30 plus years since we started interacting with each other and wrote a book together called The Journey to CEO Success, The Seven Practices for High Growth Leadership, which you see right here. And I’m sure we’ll talk more about the book as the podcast goes on.  

We’ve known each other for kind of a long time. You’ve always been a kind of a serial entrepreneur ever since you decided to leave Cornell and become a computer scientist or computer engineering with Oracle, but maybe share with us a little bit about what point in your academic studies did you become interested in entrepreneurialism and how did that kind of translate to what excites you most about working with entrepreneurs today? 

2:19  
PATRICK THEAN 

So Mike, first, thank you for having me. This is fantastic. I’m so thrilled to be here with you. I would say that I’ve always been selling even in my high school days, in my Cornell days. So I never thought of entrepreneurship as something I was going to do. I just always had fun in life. And this serial thing about multiple companies. 

I never thought I was going to do that. Frankly, when I was at Cornell, I loved Steve Jobs, like most tech folks did. And I thought I was going to build one company and have it endure forever. And so that did not happen. I sold my first company successfully. And that started my journey towards this thing called serial entrepreneur. 

2:56  
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

So let’s talk a little bit about the book and, you know, in the book, we have seven practices for high growth leadership. Can you share with our audience and our listeners here about how we develop these practices and you can even work in the breakfast, lunch, dinners that we had leading up to formulating these seven practices. 

3:26  
PATRICK THEAN 

First of all, you said earlier, these seven practices were curated over the many, many sessions that you and I have had. And when I work with you, I always think of the image of Steve Jobs with his coach kind of taking walks and thinking through issues, whatever issues that they came up with and whatever solutions they could come up with together. 

So in our 20-plus, 30 years relationship. That’s how it’s always been. And in that we curated seven key items. The first thing I would say is, is I always believed, and this is proven to be true in all my work that we have to first start with us. So you’ve got to first start with yourself. So the first two practices are about helping you and other CEOs be as great as you can be. 

Then the next two practices are about. Taking care of what you’ve given or what you have. So I call this execution, whatever you have that’s in your company, in your business, you want to do it well. You want to execute well. So the next two practices are really about making sure you don’t get surprised and you execute well with your team. 

Then once you’ve done that, you want to make sure you’ve taken care of the people around you so they can do well. And finally, last practice is about strategy. Strategy around your best customers. And so I would say, start with yourself, move to getting whatever you’ve done well, even better. Then make sure your team is well fed, well prepared, and then take care of your customer. 

4:38 
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

All right. That’s pretty well said. So, um, you’ve interacted with lots of CEOs, mentoring, coaching, 20-plus years. And one of the things that we talk about every time we get together is what lessons learned have we experienced since the last time we had breakfast? So let me turn it back on to you. Across all your CEOs you’ve worked with, what are some of the key lessons learned that for you has helped you become a better mentor? 

5:01  
PATRICK THEAN 

So I will give some of the book away. So that people will look forward to getting the book. I would say the first practice is about being curious. I believe that curiosity is really the key cornerstone to everyone growing and to CEOs or leaders being better. For example, I’ve been coaching with you for actually 25 years. That’s like a long time. That’s a long time. And, Michael, I can tell you that when I come to visit you in your place, I am not bored. I’m not bored because I’m asking myself this one question. What is it about Michael Praeger that I don’t yet know? And I expect you to teach me something.  

5:50 
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

And you learn that much.  

5:51 
PATRICK THEAN 

Yes. Right. And I expect you to teach me something that day that I don’t yet know about you. So that is, you can call that my mental Jedi mind trick or something to keep myself fully interested in the person I’m working with. You know, I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve got coaching relationships. Not as long as yours. Yours is the longest. I’ve coached people for 10, 15 years. And what I’ve realized is part of my secret of being very engaged and being very excited, literally, to see them. By the way, that also works in my marriage. I mean, I’ve been married 34 years. And my wife’s name is Pei-Yee. I’ve applied that to our marriage. I’ve said like, okay, what is it about Pei-Yee that I don’t yet know? And I want to seek to learn something about her that I don’t yet know. So I found that that one thing helps me be a much better mentor.  

6:28 
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Okay. Let’s lean into a little bit of a curiosity question and, uh, you know, in the role of curiosity and being a really effective leader maybe talk a little bit about the counterbalance of fear versus curiosity and the importance of kind of leaning into curiosity versus fear and becoming a better leader. 

6:43 
PATRICK THEAN 

We write about this in the book because often times when people go through change, most people say, “Hey, you know, I love change. I can deal with change.” But the truth is most people are a bit scared of change. And so we tend to pause a little bit. Gather ourselves and figure out how to adapt to the next change. 

Something I’ve observed is that what stops you from changing is actually fear. You’re scared. You’re, you’re afraid of what is coming that you don’t know. By the way, our society teaches us that, right? Like all these sayings, like “Better the devil you know, than a devil you don’t.” What the hell, man? I don’t even want any devils around me, but people say that. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” 

So I found that If you can just take that fear and, and change it around and go, “Well, I don’t know. What is it about this that I don’t yet know?” You could replace the fear of curiosity and then you could go quicker. And in my experience, you tell me what’s your experience. In my experience, I’ve found that when I jumped into something, it was usually not as bad as I thought it was, right? 

So usually we go in and go, “Oh my God,” and that stops us. So if we can replace that with. curiosity and stuff. “Oh my God.” with now we go “Wow.” You know, by the way, most of us were born as kids with this thing I call wonder. We see something for the first time and we go “Wow, that’s cool, that’s wonderful.” As we get older, we’ve seen it ten, twenty times before, a hundred times before we kind of lose that wonder, so I’m also hoping that the mindset of curiosity will help us rediscover some of that wonder and replace fear with a combination of curiosity, And wonder never done that before. Never seen that before versus thinking, “Oh my God, that’s scary.”  

8:18  
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

No, I think that’s really well said. 

8:40  
PATRICK THEAN 

So speaking of mindsets, you know, one of the mindsets that we have here at AvidXchange is around customer obsession. And you talk about putting customers first in your business. So kind of foundationally, when you think of structuring, organizing your business, what have you done in order to make sure that customers are first? 

So I would first say that not all customers are first. I know that sounds shocking, but I would say that we have the concept in the book of the core customer. Core customer is the customer that you can’t live without. The one that grow with you into your future, where they will be. Their success will be maximized and they’ll grow with you and help you be maximized as well. 

I think those are the most important customers. I think those are the customers that you’ve got to design your product around. You can design your customer success journey around. You’ve got to design everything around those customers. I think that as companies get larger, you’ve got tons of customers and you’ve got customers pulling at you from all different directions. 

How do you know which ones to say yes to and which ones to say no to when they ask for feature enhancements and all kinds of things. And, I think that really understanding who’s your core customer, saying yes to those guys and gals, and then designing processes around them. I think that’s the key to success. 

9:37  
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Be really intentional on kind of product market fit. Very intentional.  

The one question that I was thinking about all day is Patrick has been so instrumental in helping me at AvidXchange create rhythms around our business rhythms. Rhythms around our meeting rhythms, week in-sync type rhythms to stay aligned. And the importance, I kind of call it is rhythms is the key piece to creating organization out of chaos and by definition, in a high growth company, there’s lots of chaos, right? So maybe turn it back to Patrick. You’re kind of the architect of rhythms across all your customers. Talk about you personally. What are some of the personal rhythms that you’ve had that enabled you to reach success over the years? You know, whether it be a weekly, monthly, daily type of rhythm? 

10:16 
PATRICK THEAN 

Well, I think you’ve, first of all, done a great job at AvidXchange and yourself personally with rhythms. I think you embody that. What I’ve realized about rhythms in general is that it is a suspension for your company. So this is why when I want to learn something, I put a rhythm in it. When I want to get to know somebody, I think about how I can do something that’s more of a rhythm because I’ve learned that one event doesn’t create any long-term change. For long-term change, you need to continue.  

So I guess my favorite rhythm or my most important rhythm is how I get myself ready for the day. So I call this my daily open. This is one thing that sounds really simple, but I found it’s really hard to do. So my daily open is I open with prayer and I’m grateful to God for two or three people that he’s brought my way. And then I think about what were my victories yesterday?  

And if I don’t have any victories, then okay, what was something that didn’t go very well yesterday? I want to learn something from yesterday. And then I think about, very intentionally, one of the three most important things I’m going to get done today. 

I do that well some days, I don’t do that well some days, but that’s my intention. And then the second one I would say is, it’s how I close my week. So when I close my week, it’s a very similar rhythm, but the intention is very different. I want to close my week with again looking for victories that happen. 

Now I want to see what has happened that I can learn something that I can do a little bit better, something that worked really well. And then finally, what are the three most important things for me to do next week? I do that on a Friday so that I have the weekend to let it kind of sit in my subconscious brain. And then on Monday I confirm it. That’s how I have a great week, every single week.  

11:57 
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Well said. So last kind of bonus question I’ll ask you is kind of in the same vein, and this is going to throw you for a loop because it’s not part of any of the prep items – is let’s talk about mentorship a little bit. And I know for all of us, there’s been people that have been in our lives at different stages whether it be early on to kind of early in our careers to kind of later in our careers, who has some of these people been for you and what impact did they have? 

12:24 
PATRICK THEAN  

Wow. You did throw me for a loop. So I think there are three types of mentors I have. And you may not even know the answer to this question that you asked me, even though we’ve known each other for 30 years. I would say the first one are what most people call the idols, you know, Steve Jobs. Those are the guys I don’t really know. And I try and study them and try to pick out some key things from them. And then there are the people around us. You know, my dad was, was a real – these are people that provided really good role models for me. By the way, you’re one of them.  

12:54  
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Well, thank you for that. So you have to share – what did you learn from your experience with me along your journey? 

13:03 
PATRICK THEAN 

First off, I’ll tell you that of all the CEOs I’ve coached, you have the best ability to kind of level up. So in the book, we talk about leveling up and what you’ve been able to do, Mike, is when people give you negative feedback, you’ll be like, “Okay, so what do I do about that?” Most people go through, whatever you want to call it – multiple stages of denial, fear, whatever. 

You don’t kind of go through that. You kind of go, “Okay, so how do I get better? Help me get better.” And initially, I used to think, that’s just an act, right? But if it’s an act, it’s a good one because it’s been 30 years. And that is, I’ve noticed that. So what I’ve learned about you is you learn faster to level up than most CEOs I work with. You go straight to, how do I get better? Yeah.  

14:57 
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Well, it goes back to having curiosity. I have curiosity. Why would this person give me negative feedback? So I need to seek to learn, seek to understand and learn.  

15:05  
PATRICK THEAN 

And then the third type of mentor, uh, coaches. I’ve been grateful to a couple of people that have actually been coaches to me. And in the book we talk about, I don’t think I gave his name in the book, but Richard Giordanella is one of my early mentors. And there’s a story about him and where he helped me save my company. So I would say don’t be shy to go out and get coaches or mentors that can really dig in with you and be with you through thick and thin. 

15:19  
MICHAEL PRAEGER  

Well, this has been awesome. Super excited to have you here today, Patrick, our Power of Change podcast. It’s doesn’t happen every day that a Georgetown guy partners with a Cornell guy, writes a book called the Journey to CEO Success, lots of good nuggets throughout the book in terms of our journey together and, uh, what you learn is, uh, what we’ve curated and working with lots of, other CEOs, the experience I’ve had in building AvidXchange, the seven practices for high growth leadership. It’s a great read. And I’m sure our readers and listeners will enjoy reading it.  

16:06  
PATRICK THEAN 

Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you.  

16:15 
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Thanks for listening to The Power of Change presented by AvidXchange. If you like what you’ve heard, subscribe to our channel and leave a five-star review. While you’re waiting for the next episode, head on over to avidxchange.com for our latest research reports and business insights. And if you’re interested in learning more about accounts payable automation from AvidXchange, click the link in our show notes to connect with our experts. Thanks again for listening to The Power of Change. We’ll see you next time.