Bridging Innovation and Culture with Casey from HARTING (Automate 2024)

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All right, welcome to another segment here, live recording at Automate 2024.

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You've got the automation ladies and our second interview of the day with another automation, lady Casey, welcome.

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Thanks for sitting down with us.

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Thank you.

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Thanks for having me.

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Guys like most of our recordings when we actually like the people we talk to and we have a great conversation.

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We could have probably talked for another hour about the innovations, but they also pointed out that hey, why don't we talk to you, the VP of Development and Innovation?

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Did I get that right?

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Yes, that's correct.

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It's a very cool title and I would love to hear A like.

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I know this is not an Automation Ladies episode and we don't have an hour, but since we're just meeting, can you just give us a little bit of background story as to how the heck did you get so into innovating and connectors?

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Yes, so actually, I had a chance to listen to your podcast on personal branding and you described your career as a series of happy accidents.

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So by happy accident, I ended up at Harding.

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It wasn't a brand I was familiar with before I joined the company, but I really had the chance to start at what was the beginning of a big growth period and bring in project management and engineering into the company, into the North American company.

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We're very strong in our German headquarters and the growth that we've been able to achieve has allowed me to really grow my career and do things that I didn't think would be possible.

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So about four years ago I spoke with my manager, who's John D'Souza he's the CEO of North America and he said, hey, we'd like to start up product development in the Americas.

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Yes, please, that's actually for a German company.

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It was huge.

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That's not too common.

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No, I think they generally like to kind of do things from their headquarters and dictate down to the rest of the world how they like things done.

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Yeah, absolutely, and so what we're seeing in the US market is that our customers are innovating so quickly you cannot possibly keep up from another continent, and you need to have the cultural appreciation of how Americans innovate.

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Americans innovate, fail fast, fail quickly, fail first.

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Failure is a success.

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You've learned something that's not part of German culture.

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No, it's very different.

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German engineering is very pre-planned, very focused on quality, and that's why they make amazing high quality products, like Harding cells, you know, like BMW, audi.

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These are very famous German brands.

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That's not fast, though, so it's a different approach to innovation, and they're really focused on highly complex, highly secure products.

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If you want to do quick iterations and derivatives, you need a different type of culture in your development team, and that's so purpose-built for the American form of innovation.

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So four years ago, we started development it was right before COVID, so that sort of changed our plans.

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A years ago, we started development it was right before COVID, so that sort of changed our plans a little bit and we had to be nimble.

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And then, just a few years after that, we implemented a new strategy globally where we built up these innovation teams.

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So now we have two here in the US that have been tremendously successful for us and it's just been a blast.

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It's not anything I would have expected that I was going to do when I started at the company, but it's been so much fun and getting to build this team of elite engineers that really know how to fund and we innovate all day long.

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But it's not like we have a particular passion for connectivity.

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We have a passion for developing new things, working with our customers, and that translates to any product that you want to make.

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And connectivity is really just such an integral part of an ecosystem that, even though it is kind of a specific part of it, you can see all the downstream and upstream like things, the innovations that it's enabling.

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Totally.

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And so I would say, if I'm at a, I hate when people are.

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You're at a party and someone asks, oh, what do you do?

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That's like the least important part about me.

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But if someone says that I'm like I work in a lot of data center applications, because that's what I do, I empower data centers through connectors.

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Or you might empower semiconductor machine making automation robotics.

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The connector's one piece of that, but I see myself as an extended part of their team.

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Yeah, I mean essentially part of you can say connector, and connectivity innovation has enabled the super high speed, high bandwidth, you know, internet capabilities that we have now that have enabled all this AI innovation.

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Absolutely, they're all linked in a way, because you can't do one without the other, and the physical infrastructure obviously is really important for all these nebulous cloud software AI applications that everybody is super excited about yeah, and we see the back end of that, where AI is driving power consumption.

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Yeah.

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So 2% of the US's power consumption is coming from data centers and we're powering the data center.

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So it shows how important the technology that we're doing.

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If we can be more efficient with our technology, if we can help data centers, we're actually saving energy.

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We're improving CO2 reduction.

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That's like all of the things that make my heart sing yeah, efficiency, improving CO2, right, and you're doing it through a connector, which is something that a lot of people don't think about.

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That's how I feel good about what we do every day.

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It's part of what I love about your company's general feel.

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I see that you guys have invested in doing marketing differently.

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You brought someone from outside the industry with a fresh look at things, not this hey, this is how we've always done and we're just going to continue doing it.

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I've also seen a lot of companies from overseas fail at growing as much in the US as they would like, and I think a big part of it is they haven't embraced the fact that they do have to do things a little bit differently here.

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Yes, you guys opened an innovation center right.

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Where is that located and can people just come like visit it?

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What has that done for you guys?

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So a lot of global brands are opening innovation centers where it's like a look and feel type of thing, where you come and interact with the product.

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Ours is a lab right in the heart of these tech epicenters on the East Coast and the West Coast where we're doing co-creation with these big universities and with these startups.

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So we kind of went the opposite approach and the reason for that is to look and feel at a Harding product alone, without context, makes no sense.

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But you know what's really cool when you walk over to the FANUC booth and you see Harding connectors powering those robots that are doing dancing right now.

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So when you integrate our products with our customers' products, that's when the story becomes real.

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And that's a big part of our marketing journey here in the Americas as well is realizing that at headquarters in Germany people know the Harding brand and here marketing is so different.

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The way that you interact with somebody is different, the kind of references they're looking for.

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I don't think there's anybody, you know.

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Think about the cultural differences.

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I don't think there's anybody in Germany sitting in a trade show with a lady in a purple jacket and a cowboy hat talking about automation right.

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This is like such a cool, like American thing that we're doing and we're embracing the differences and really respecting what each country brings to the table that's unique too.

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That is a really good point.

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Uh, I used to think sometimes that, like we were really behind in the us on certain things, um, compared to europe.

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But I think on this front actually, we are innovating more or having more fun with this, like new styles of marketing, having conversations, communities.

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I know they're doing some of that in Europe as well, and some of our colleagues have gone over to like Hanover, mass and stuff like that.

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But I think we really are a little bit more at the forefront of that and it's great to see the bigger companies, the behemoths like the Siemens and the Rockwells, start to embrace more of an ecosystem mentality.

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I'm sure a company like yours you work closely with all of them, right, you're not going to be only in one side or the other, but seeing different partnerships at these shows and then being able to collect.

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It's so much more fun when you're like, hey, you can go see Harding, yeah, come to our booth, but you can also go to 10 other ones, yeah absolutely Just see them in practice with different partners, different friends.

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For me, maybe as a younger person, I think that that's more fun.

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It's a more fun way of working.

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Yeah, and I think it's important to have also the traditional routes as well engineers that want that catalog.

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They want to flip through it and pick out the part numbers or they've got your part numbers memorized and keeping everybody in mind, I think that's a really big challenge for marketing, but also innovation, Because the number one thing I ask customers is like what challenges are you facing?

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Don't talk to me about connectors, that's like the third conversation we're going to have.

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What are the challenges you're facing with your robots?

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What are the challenges you're facing with your conveyor systems?

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And then trust me to translate that back to how can I be ready for you with the next generation of connectors?

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And, um, different generations express those problems differently, Right?

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So what I find is in in now, somehow, as a millennial, I'm like sandwiched between I.

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I'm now realizing I'm not the young person in the room anymore.

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I know we used to be the youngest one right it feels like not that long ago.

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God, I have three kids and a mortgage.

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I am not young anymore, but I'm finding that millennials and Gen Zs are more comfortable sharing problem statements.

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Yeah, and I think for some of the generations that trained us in the workforce that's almost like that's private.

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We're not going to tell you what challenges we're facing.

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So it was harder to extract voice of customer and you go talk to a younger engineer and they're like well, let me tell you, I got all these problems and maybe you can help me solve them.

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And sometimes you can and sometimes you can't.

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But even the networking that we're doing now, we're building up the networks to say, actually I've got a great person for you to go talk to over here at this company.

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Maybe they can help you out.

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So it's a totally different system.

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I will say that millennials and Gen Z will not pick up the phone and call somebody.

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They don't.

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We don't want to.

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No, thank you for reinforcing that.

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Yes, I've been saying that for a while, and the truth is, though, like you're right, some people, if they've gotten the catalog down right, they know where to find things, they know how to look for it, they've been speccing things like that for years.

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Don't take that away from them and say, oh, now you have to go on this online thing and figure it all out from scratch and you know, oh, it's better for you, right, like, leave the legacy options as long as you can support them, because, ultimately, time is money, right, and people invest time in learning how to do things a certain way, and unless they need to, you know, not everybody has to change their ways constantly, right, but at the same time, like, there is a huge difference between what the new workforce expects Totally different, and they will not be told to go learn how to read the catalog and spec things the old way.

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And you have to be willing to offer the experiences that the customer wants, right, right, in different ways, and we were talking earlier I think it was when we were with Sandro, with Festo and and harding, providing those kind of self-service configurators, but then you have to be able to answer the phone.

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As soon as somebody wants help, yes, and they want you to be very, very, very efficient.

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And people do not want to be sold to no right absolutely not.

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They want to feel like you're very genuine in their interaction and so that really changes the way you go to market.

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Right, you have to deliver.

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It's not just about beautiful messaging, which I think is more relevant on the consumer side, on B2B, it's a whole different ballgame.

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Yeah, it's all about.

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How can you actually be there for me as a valuable supplier, provide the information I'm looking for without BS and feeling like you can actually trust what you're hearing from a supplier?

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Yeah, exactly, and yeah, and feeling like you can actually trust what you're hearing from a supplier?

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Exactly, and I think, honestly, the most successful companies today they think of their suppliers not, as you know, as kind of a part of the team.

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Right, it's an, it's an ancillary support, it's part of your ecosystem and if you treat your suppliers with respect and you realize they bring value, you share enough to let them help you.

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Right, instead of, yeah, this old way of like, well, I'm not going to tell you my problem, but you sell me and I'll tell you whether or not I want it.

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Yeah, it's like.

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Why are we?

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We're wasting everybody's time with that.

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Yeah, and I think, to build upon that, if you're a young engineer coming into the workforce, it's going to be a lot more fulfilling for you in your career If you truly feel like you're helping your customers solve problems that are real and you're not fabricating a problem to sell your product.

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So being able to go walk your customer's production floor, see the problem yourself, or even find it yourself and the customer didn't realize it and say I can solve that problem there's no better way to be inspired to innovate and create something totally new.

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I will say too, would you say, for innovation, like and I've read some reports and studied this for a while but diversity really helps spark innovative ideas, and that's diversity of all different types, but I think also like having some broad experiences.

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So I am a huge advocate of people like in their careers and I think Allie will say as well, take different types of jobs.

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If you can, yeah, like go do field install work for a systems integrator or an OEM, and then maybe you work at a plant, like go do field install work for a systems integrator or an OEM, and then maybe you work at a plant, like there's different ways, but you kind of all those different experiences, the more dots you can connect that other people generally don't, that's innovation.

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Right, then you can come up with solutions or kind of off the beaten path things you can learn from one sector and bring it into another.

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Yeah, can learn from one sector and bring it into another.

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Yeah, do you guys see that you know this cross, this collaborative kind of effort, that as you work with customers, does that bleed into how you help other customers?

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and then the products that you build.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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I think diversity, experiences and getting that real hands-on experience is so important.

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That's why every you know junior engineer they need to go out to customers.

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They need to have an emergency that happens that they have to solve.

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I mean, one of the best things that happened to me in my first year of working was I got a call.

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Who can be on a plane in an hour.

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I need you to go to San Francisco and reinstall 30 printers that were installed incorrectly.

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Okay, I'm going to go out there.

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You learn so much and you bring it back to the workforce and you also have an appreciation for the person that's using your product, because if all you ever do is interact with a keyboard, you're never going to solve a customer problem.

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And I think it's hard to really understand customer problems if you've never been in their shoes, not even a tiny bit.

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Right, allie?

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I'm sure you have something to say about this.

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What no, my well.

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So I'm going to tag you in.

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Okay, so I used to work for a German company and we were the American version of it, and I definitely you touched on this earlier but talking about, or what we would say is that like, yeah, the Germans can't produce for the Americans on an American timeline, and so is there other differences, because you've talked about some of them.

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But what are some other differences that make what we do in the US different?

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Yeah, I think that I see a big difference on the consumer side and that actually pulls through to how we do development.

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So the German business mindset is very planned far forward, which is great.

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So that also means when they need a new product, they don't need it yesterday.

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Like we always joke in the US, I'm going to need this product in two years.

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Our product roadmapping process is very robust, so that the culture is harmonious and that it all works together.

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And then when you interject a US customer in there, I need this and I need it yesterday.

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Um, being a sub supplier also, people don't think of connectors first, and that was like a hard lesson learned for me when I started.

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It's like, oh shoot, we need a power connector and we did it yesterday, so we have to be fast.

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Um, we always joke here that you know by the time the customer makes up their mind and everything gets settled.

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It took the same amount of time as if it had been properly planned, but I actually think this way working is a lot more fun.

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If you don't acknowledge the differences right away in the beginning of the conversation with someone in a different culture, then you're constantly just battling each other.

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So no matter if you're working with Germany, china, romania, india.

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We have offices in Brazil.

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Everybody has a different culture and sometimes you just start the conversation with saying I know you guys think I'm the crazy American cowboy because of the speed.

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I want to work.

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This is the motivation and then, if we can survive this, let's do it differently next time.

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And you hope that you have an opportunity to do it differently next time.

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I actually have an international business degree and I never thought that I would necessarily use it, but I realize now a lot of that stuff indirectly I end up using right In these situations.

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I've worked for German companies, I've worked for Japanese companies, I've worked for American companies and there are these differences in knowing how to you know communicate the other person's language or at least understand how they're going to perceive what you're saying differently, based on knowing where they come from.

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Knowing these cultural differences is really important.

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But I think the other thing is just like we talk about technology, right, and you can go over email or with spec sheets or whatever, but if you actually have a little bit of background, you understand that person a little bit before you have these conversations, even if you know like one or two personal facts about them.

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Being able to start with that point of connection so that if and when misunderstandings happen or clarifications need to be made, it's a lot easier to deal with when you kind of feel a little bit more of a connection with the person on the other side.

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And although we are culturally we have differences and all that stuff, we're also kind of all the same and you end up learning to make those translations weird, as that sounds yeah, um, for sure, whether it's like yeah, metric to imperial, or an actual translation of intent, I think that's also something that, like sales and engineering, can do really well together.

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If done well.

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Yeah, instead of butting heads, it's like we actually can help each other.

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We need each other to help translate um, sometimes you have to translate between sales and engineering, even within the same company, same country.

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You know it's a different language, different set of motivation.

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It makes a huge difference, doesn't it?

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And I'm sure in that innovation role, like a lot of what you do, could be considered that right You're translating customers' problems and requirements back to engineering teams and say, hey, this is why maybe we should build this right.

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What motivates that?

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Do you think that they would be as successful, if you like?

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Took your product engineers and the customers and put them together without the translator?

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We try to put them together as often as possible, but sometimes you have to give the context.

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So I'll train my engineers to say you're talking to a customer and you feel like you have to deliver bad news, you can say I know I'm being the engineer in the room, but I think that's going to take a little bit longer than expected.

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So you're giving your salesperson an inroads to say I don't agree and I'd like to talk about that in private before we commit to that.

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Or you're giving your salesperson to say actually, you know, that's a really good point.

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So once again, you're like contextualizing your presence in the room.

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Yeah, I think the bigger challenge is that if you have a engineer that doesn't like to be in front of customers, they may not feel comfortable like jumping in and interjecting into a high, fast paced conversation.

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And that is where we really hire for soft skills and for technical skills.

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You can grow technical skills, but you can never make somebody be like a super outgoing engineer.

00:18:21.069 --> 00:18:27.768
So you kind of find the way to make people feel comfortable in a situation, because that's where the great ideas are happening.

00:18:27.768 --> 00:18:31.567
And just because you're a quiet person does not mean that you don't have a million great ideas in your head.

00:18:32.180 --> 00:18:44.542
Yeah, that's why I try to make sure to give Allie an opportunity to talk, because I will, Otherwise I'll talk the whole time and she just sits there she's like, well, I didn't get a turn.

00:18:44.542 --> 00:18:52.830
I think partnership dynamics just you can get so much more out of a quality partnership, like where people can actually play their strengths together.

00:18:55.080 --> 00:18:59.220
And as a people manager, you have to understand people's strengths, because it's so easy to just see people's weaknesses.

00:18:59.220 --> 00:19:04.970
But what do you think your strengths are and do you feel like you get a chance to shine in this work environment is?

00:19:04.970 --> 00:19:06.884
Do you want to go do more trade shows?

00:19:06.884 --> 00:19:10.643
Like if I had an engineer that said, my gosh, my dream would be on to be on automation.

00:19:10.643 --> 00:19:16.425
Ladies, let's make it happen like, just because it doesn't fit with your job title doesn't mean that can't be something that you get to experiment and do.

00:19:16.425 --> 00:19:24.604
You guys met with mackenzie reed earlier, so he was on my team and he said I have a, I have a passion, I want to be a business owner.

00:19:24.604 --> 00:19:26.248
He still supports Harding.

00:19:26.248 --> 00:19:31.690
He's part of the Harding team for like two or three hours a week and it's scratches that technical itch for him.

00:19:31.690 --> 00:19:35.250
But he wanted to grow his career and had nothing to do with Harding Connectors.

00:19:35.270 --> 00:19:41.670
And you go, okay, please go shine fantastic and also just the ability to for your best people to go, learn and come back if they want to.

00:19:41.670 --> 00:19:50.718
Yeah, hugely Shutting the door on somebody that has a passion they want to follow and take it as a slight like oh no, now you've offended us and never come back.

00:19:50.718 --> 00:20:13.165
Right, I think you're closing the door to a huge opportunity of having someone with all of your knowledge right, all the background on your products go out, experience stuff in the real world in a different way, right, and then potentially come bring that knowledge right back, whether it's as a partner customer, somebody that comes back to work for the same company but maybe in a different role, or they don't even come back, but they're just your biggest promoter.

00:20:13.446 --> 00:20:15.750
Absolutely, because they're just like, look how cool this was.

00:20:15.750 --> 00:20:17.554
And everyone's like, yeah, that is cool.

00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:21.770
Yeah, and I think it's no different than talking about your personal branding.

00:20:21.770 --> 00:20:37.144
Right, you guys, you have a personal brand outside of what you do in your day jobs, but you are using new skill sets that will help you back in your regular day jobs, and so we might find that somebody is an innovation engineer, but they also have this beautiful knack for marketing.

00:20:37.144 --> 00:20:40.590
Yeah, let's let them grow that, even if they don't want it to be their full-time job.

00:20:40.590 --> 00:20:50.770
And that's what's great about working for a fast growing company is like there's so much opportunity for us, there's so much room to grow the brand that we can really do whatever we want.

00:20:50.830 --> 00:20:58.839
Is your favorite part the technological innovation, or innovation in like how you work and how the people around you work?

00:20:59.161 --> 00:21:01.067
It's the people hands down for sure.

00:21:01.067 --> 00:21:01.890
I love working with the people.

00:21:01.890 --> 00:21:04.847
I love finding new ways to approach problems.

00:21:04.847 --> 00:21:06.112
I love working with our customers.

00:21:06.112 --> 00:21:12.846
I've been with Harding for almost eight years now, so we know everybody pretty well and we've built a really good story together.

00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:15.367
Yeah, and you guys are doing a great job showcasing it.

00:21:15.367 --> 00:21:39.633
I feel like now I see you guys, you have not just a product but a brand that I can feel more yeah, and probably that has to do with because I've met some of your people right, and then I feel that kind of same vibe from more people that I've met and for me as a, as a like millennial or I don't know like I, that that plays a big part for me, like the technology needs to be solid.

00:21:39.633 --> 00:21:43.866
Yes, I know that the german engineering like you're not getting, I know that the German engineering like you're not getting a junk product.

00:21:43.980 --> 00:21:47.986
That's like the foundation of the brand is like we don't enter the room unless you have a good product.

00:21:47.986 --> 00:21:51.248
Yeah, but when we're in the room, let me tell you about why we're a good company to work for.

00:21:51.480 --> 00:21:53.027
And then it's who do I want to work with?

00:21:53.027 --> 00:22:04.442
Who do I know will?

00:22:04.442 --> 00:22:05.667
I'm SOL and I want someone to help me.

00:22:05.667 --> 00:22:07.434
Uh and yeah, I love that you guys are facilitating conversations like this.

00:22:07.434 --> 00:22:08.298
I want to say thank you to Amanda again.

00:22:08.298 --> 00:22:15.201
Um, you know, you guys just are willing to go the American way and take some risks and try some stuff and have some fun with some people.

00:22:15.423 --> 00:22:18.169
And I think that you know it's paying off in a big way.

00:22:18.169 --> 00:22:30.911
And, uh, we're going to have a lot of fun tonight the Manufacturing Happy Hour with our other friends, gray Solutions, which have a very, for us, from the outside similar vibe of working together, collaborating, innovating.

00:22:30.911 --> 00:22:36.346
So is there anything more in particular you want to say about either Connectors or innovation, or what you're doing?

00:22:36.346 --> 00:22:41.647
Before we sign off to try to have some more conversations here, this show is packed.

00:22:42.059 --> 00:22:44.563
Yes, this is a crazy show, I would say for anybody listening.

00:22:44.563 --> 00:22:50.468
Feel free to call us not last, but maybe earlier on and we could make your product move a little bit easier.

00:22:50.468 --> 00:22:58.132
But the real thing is connectors are everywhere and until you work for a company like Harding, you don't realize it, but they are everywhere.

00:22:58.132 --> 00:23:00.260
So we always play the game spot the connector.

00:23:00.260 --> 00:23:04.844
The weirdest place I've seen connector was at a rave powering the sound system.

00:23:04.844 --> 00:23:10.307
You see them on roller coasters, you see them on trains, wherever you are, they are truly everywhere.

00:23:10.307 --> 00:23:12.669
It's one of those brands that's everywhere and you just don't know it.

00:23:12.669 --> 00:23:20.874
So I hope everyone gets a chance to interact with the product in some way, and maybe it's a good sign if you haven't heard of it, because it means they never fail in the field.

00:23:21.275 --> 00:23:25.176
Right, okay, well, thank you so much for having a chat with us.

00:23:25.176 --> 00:23:26.157
Yeah, thank you for having me.

00:23:26.157 --> 00:23:33.070
Yeah, like I said, if you meet those, if you have those people that are like we want to be on Automation Ladies, bring them on.

00:23:33.070 --> 00:23:33.732
Absolutely, please Will do.

00:23:33.732 --> 00:23:34.536
Thank you, thank you.