Aggie Legends Podcast S2E3: Roxanne Orsak ’88

Roxanne Orsak:
Go beyond the data. And go find the heart and the soul of that company. What’s truly in their soul that makes this company so powerful.

Ben Wiggins:
Welcome to Aggie Legends, where we talk with founders, CEOs and other successful Aggies about the lessons in leadership they’ve experienced throughout their careers. I’m your host, Ben Wiggins Mays MBA class of 2018. And today we are visiting with Roxanne Orsak. Roxanne, how are you today?

Roxanne Orsak:
I’m doing great. It’s always a great day when you’re at Texas A&M.

Ben Wiggins:
Gig ’em. Roxanne is a Texas A&M class of ’88 graduate who earned her degree in agricultural economics. She has spent more than 37 years rising through the ranks at H-E-B, now serving as president and COO. She became the first woman president in H-E-B’s 120-year history and helped lead major innovations including H-E-B Plus and Joe V’s Smart Shop. Roxanne, you grew up on a working farm with hard-working parents. What lessons from your upbringing most shaped your path toward attending Texas A&M University?

Roxanne Orsak:
Thank you for that. My parents were great, hardworking, faith-based parents who valued hard work. They valued family. They valued their Christian beliefs. And they were small town people and enjoyed community. And so when looking for a place to go to college, A&M just felt like home to me. It felt more family-oriented with very strong ethics, morals. And I knew that I would have to work hard here, and I knew that that would be appreciated. And it just felt right.

Ben Wiggins:
Was there a particular thing that you feel like kind of locked it up in terms of that’s where I’m going?

Roxanne Orsak:
As a kid, I somehow got motivated by things that people told me I couldn’t do. And I’ll start with an interesting story. On Sundays, we all went to grandma’s and it was very traditional. You go to church, you go to lunch at grandma’s. And then we were a big softball family. And so out in the cattle cow pasture, we played softball. And be careful what you slid into because you never know what it was. And my uncles formed a softball team, mixed men’s and women’s. And I was really young, like eight years old. And I wanted to play when they formed this team because they were going to go play in leagues and different things. And my mom said, you’re too young and we don’t have time to take you. Well, my cousins were talking about, they were going to play in town. And again, I was very young, so I took my glove and I had my own ball, and I started walking. And town is eight miles away. But I didn’t know, I was a kid. And thank goodness, one of my cousins, who lived right down the road, saw me and picked me up and I went. I went to practice, and I went to the game with them. And I got in a lot of trouble when I got home. But, you know, we didn’t have cell phones back then. Mom didn’t know where I was. But they, you know, everyone knows everyone. So got found out pretty quick. But then she let me play. So telling me that I couldn’t do something and proving that I could just gave me incredible motivation. When I was in high school, we didn’t have counselors at the time. So your high school principal was kind of the person who would help you with college and that sort of thing. And I didn’t really have much help with college because I had three older brothers, they didn’t go to college, my dad didn’t go, my mom went to a little junior college, so I needed help. And so I went to my high school principal and I said I’d like to apply to Texas A&M. And he said, I don’t think that’s a good idea. And I said, well, why not? And he goes, well, you know, I, I don’t I don’t think you’re smart enough to go to a big college like that. And, you know, it’s expensive and, you know, your parents don’t have a whole lot of money. Why don’t you go to a junior college first? You do that for a couple of years, you can stay at home and save money, and then if you do well, then you can transfer.

Ben Wiggins:
Sounds like can’t.

Roxanne Orsak:
Yeah that was the no that said oh my goodness, I’m going to A&M. So I took the application, took it to my best friend’s house. His mother was a teacher. She helped me fill out the application, and the rest is history.

Ben Wiggins:
How then, did being here, how did Texas A&M culture impact your experience as a student figuring out your future?

Roxanne Orsak:
It was hard to know what I wanted to do growing up with, you know, my dad was a farmer and a carpenter, and my mom was a nurse, and my mother would have loved for me to become a nurse, but I didn’t like blood very much. And I was like, I’m out. But there was something kind of burning in me, like I was intrigued by business owners in our small town and how they ran a business. And, that kind of felt like something I was interested in. But I had deep roots in agriculture. I was in the FFA, I raised animals and woke up every morning and the work we did, I didn’t even know it was work. You know, you fed the pigs, you fed the chickens, you picked the eggs, you made hay, and worked cattle. You did all those things, and it was just what we did. So knowing that I was coming to a university that was agricultural-based, it just kind of made sense that I would go into the agricultural field, but I wanted a business type of degree. And so I kind of got the best of both worlds with agriculture economics and was able to take some classes in the business school, and it worked really well for me. So as I, I thought about what I wanted to do after graduating, again, wasn’t really sure, but wanted to stay some way connected to agriculture, to farmers and ranchers who did the work. And I never really connected the dots that a grocery store would kind of be that place until I got into it. And then I found my next home, which was H-E-B.

Ben Wiggins:
What was the moment that you knew that was where you were going?

Roxanne Orsak:
I interviewed with five different companies and I got some great advice here at A&M. And that was when you go interview ask to speak to the people that are doing the work, the people on the floor, they would call it. And so of all five companies, a couple didn’t even let me do it. And what I found about when I went to H-E-B, I went and they asked me, well, go overnight and go see the overnight stockers, because that’s where the hardest work is. And you’ll see, like, do they like their jobs? And I thought they were like a test to see. Would I have the ambition to go overnight? But I did. I showed up at the store at 10:00 at night and started asking the overnight stockers and, you know, they would talk about how, you know, the pay is good and the benefits. But there was something else. And they said, you know, my store manager works with my schedule, I’m a student, or I have kids that have to go to school at a certain time so they let me off on time, they’re very flexible with me. And you could just get the sense of like caring. And then I went to work with some checkers and that’s a tough job. And they were just again, people work, my leaders worked with my schedule. They helped me on things that I’m having problems with. And it just felt like it was more than just a job. I didn’t get that sense in the other companies. So when I came back here, I sat down with Dr. McGrann, who I worked for on campus with the Ag Extension Service. I had worked with him all four years I was here, and he said, well, what do you think? And so he laid out this fun little grid, just like he would, and we went through all the pros and cons of each one of the businesses. And he said, you know, Roxanne, I know this one is your highest pay. And when you’re a very modest farm kid that like, I should go where the highest pay is. And he said, no, you really shouldn’t. He said, think about what was it about that company that got you excited? And I said, well, not a whole lot except the money. And he said, well, what about H-E-B? And I said, oh my goodness, the people are incredible and they’re very humble and they’re kind and they seem to take care of each other. And he said, what you’re describing is a culture, and I didn’t really understand what that meant back then. He said, it’s just a culture. And he said, that’s the culture you want to work in. And we went through privately held versus publicly held, Texas-based versus national versus worldwide. And I’m a Texan, a fourth generation Texan. I want to be in Texas. My fiancé wanted to be in Texas. So, and we wanted to work for a privately family-owned business. And that’s how we made that decision. And he told me, Dr. McGrann said, it’s never about the pay, worry about that later. It’s about, are you a part of something bigger? And that’s what I realized, that H-E-B is something it’s hard to describe, but it’s not about selling groceries every day. It’s about taking care of people and putting people first. And that, I felt it when I went and worked with that overnight stock crew and met with those checkers. And we feel that today.

Ben Wiggins:
Absolutely. You see it on the shirts like, you know, be the, you know, be the change you want to see in the world. Those kinds of things that’s not stuff you always see at a grocery store. Can we talk a little bit, you mentioned the privately held aspect of it was important to you, why did that matter so much?

Roxanne Orsak:
You know, I never worked in a publicly held company. I know a lot about it now, but it was more of, it was a very family-oriented company. And when I interviewed with companies that were publicly held, it felt more kind of a like a machine a little bit to me. And where H-E-B feels like family, we take care of each other, and it’s not about quarterly results it’s not about short term results, it’s about the long term. And we’re here to stay. And we are Texans serving Texans. And we don’t have to answer to anyone except one person. And that’s pretty remarkable. And the Butt family has always had a deep history of investing in Texas and investing in our communities. And it just makes such a big difference in how you think, how you plan. Because we don’t have to plan for next quarter’s results. When we’re thinking as an executive leadership team, we’re thinking about the next ten years. And in fact we have an upcoming board meeting and we’re talking about ten years from now and who we want to be and and what type of company we want to continue to be and who we want to serve, and those sorts of things. That’s why we stay private and want to continue to always be private.

Ben Wiggins:
Love that. Tell us a little bit then, if you would, about your early career journey and rising into leadership roles, especially as a woman in an environment often dominated by men.

Roxanne Orsak:
So when I started with H-E-B, I started in Austin in what was called the store management training program. The intent was to take young leaders straight out of college or younger leaders who had grown up in H-E-B, and we would go through about a nine-month program and learn every part of operating a store. And the intent of that program was to create future store leaders. So you would be a store manager in about seven years. And I found that to be incredibly satisfying because I am not one person to do one thing. I’m not one, I’m not a person who likes to sit in an office, I get actually quite anxious about it. I want to be out where the people are. I want to be getting my hands dirty. I want to be, if they would let me, I would be baking the bread, but they don’t let me anymore. Probably because I burned too much. But I want to be there with the partners who do the work. And I found that so incredibly fun. So I got into the work. And the more you get into the details, what I learned is retail is detail. Every little detail matters. The experience we want you to have, the experience we want our partners to have matters. And so within about five years, I became a top store leader at our San Marcos store, which was fantastic. Great, great team there and a lot of college students that needed to work. So it felt again, a little bit like A&M. And I only got to do it for nine months and they kind of said, that’s enough Roxanne. Probably hoping I wouldn’t mess something up. But in all seriousness, went on to do several different roles at H-E-B from going into advertising and marketing to manufacturing and procurement. I just had a real blessed career path of being able to experience many, many different roles. But I will tell you, there was a point in time when I returned to Austin as a district manager and I supervised 17 stores. I was probably nine years into my career, and so all the store managers, they were all men, and they were much older than I was at the time, and I really struggled. It was a time when Austin, the state, was struggling. There was a real estate bust in the early 90s and sales weren’t great and people were struggling. And so as a company, we were struggling and I had a hard time with it. And so when times got tough, I got tough. And I was trying so hard to be like one of the guys and have them like me and be part of the team, but I wasn’t. And at some point, H-E-B decided to reorganize and I was moved into a new role. And I had a new leader, and her name was Suzanne Wade, and she had only worked with me for about three months. And so it was time for performance appraisal time. And so she didn’t know me that well, so she interviewed all 17 of my store leaders, and I got some really tough feedback. And the feedback was, she’s all work and no fun. She only cares about the results, not me. And if I didn’t have to work with her, I probably wouldn’t. And it was devastating. I was hurt, I thought I was doing the right thing with these guys. I was fighting for them. I was, you know, we’re trying to make our numbers. And Suzanne gave me some incredible, incredible advice. she said you know, Roxanne, you’re trying so hard to be like the guys, but you’re not. You have such a big heart, but you’re not letting it show. Relax and just be you. That’s all H-E-B ever wants. We don’t want you to be someone you’re not. We just want you to be you and bring your best self to work every day and let your heart shine. And you know it was the first time anyone had ever told me that. And so it took a bit, but I started to relax and I just started to be me. I started to love on the partners again, getting back into the work with them, having fun with them. And you know, four years later I became a vice president of the company. And, but that type of advice was game changing for me. And having those hard conversations with people feels hard, but it transforms people’s lives. And she did that for me, and I hope I continue to do that for a lot of young men and women in our company and in the state.

Ben Wiggins:
Thank you for sharing that story. Specifically as it relates to work life balance, you know, as, as part of, you know, bringing along the whole person and not just the worker or the asset or whatever. How do you think about that time at work, time at home, those kinds of things?

Roxanne Orsak:
First of all, work-life balance doesn’t resonate with me. For me, it’s just life. And there’s in life, I’ve chosen to be a wife, I’ve chosen to be a mother, I’ve chosen to have a career. And it all kind of intermingles for me. And when you absolutely love what you do, it’s not a definition of work for me. So my kids grew up at H-E-B and that’s all they ever knew was H-E-B. I can tell you some funny stories of when they went into other stores, like mom. Do you know there’s another store that carries the same stuff you do? I’m like, yes, honey, I know, get out of there. Don’t ever go back. But, you know, it’s it’s where you want to place your energy. And what I learned in early in my career is to get really clear about my priorities and what were my priorities. And early on in my career, I got it wrong. And I would prioritize. You know, I’m a mom first, I’m a wife second, I’m an H-E-B employee third, and my faith was fourth. And then, if I were lucky, I would be number five. And what happened in that, because I put all my energy, which I think a lot of young parents do, is into being parents and trying to have a great marriage, they forget about themselves. And during that time, I had to recalibrate and say, this isn’t working. We laugh in our family, say when mom’s not happy, no one’s happy. That was what’s happening. And I had to take a step back and say, what are really my priorities? And I had to put myself first and say, I’ve got to be healthy physically and mentally, and I’ve got to have joy and happiness. And when I can bring all that, who I am every single day, whether it’s at H-E-B, whether that’s in school, whether that’s with my children, with my husband, when I can bring myself first, everything works. And that’s when you start learning how to balance your time between all that better. But I didn’t miss games. I didn’t miss shows. You learn how to make it work. But if you don’t put yourself first, it’s never going to work. And that’s hard. And we get off track and that’s okay. But recalibrating and rethinking. Am I really putting myself first to make sure that I’m bringing the best version of myself every day so that I can be a great mom, a great wife, a great employee, a great leader, whatever it is.

Ben Wiggins:
What did it look like to put yourself first? Specifically, what did you start doing differently?

Roxanne Orsak:
The first thing is I needed to acknowledge that, to my family, that things weren’t going well and that I wasn’t very happy. I don’t think my husband was very happy. The kids, it was kind of chaotic and we all sat down together as a family and I said, guys, this isn’t working. My husband and I both had full time jobs. We also ran a cattle ranch as every day off, that’s where we were. So we kind of both had two jobs and the kids weren’t getting what they needed. And so I said, but first off, before we do anything, I’m not healthy and I need to get healthy again. So, I’m going to get up super early in the morning, and I’m going to go to the gym, and we’re going to completely change the way we eat. No more fast food, we’re going to cook at home, and we’re going to do the grocery shopping together as a family. And I said, look, I need your help and I need you to help with this. And if you can’t tell me, but just don’t block me from doing it. And they were amazing. And the girls got excited. My husband was like, okay, we’re going to get up at what time in the morning? And I’m like, yes, we’re going to do this. So I started an exercise routine and started, I worked for a grocery company, I should grocery shop. And we started as a family, going to take the time to go shopping, to prepare the meals. And, just as part of putting myself first, I engaged with them in being a part of it. And it got to be their choice. And we all started eating healthier, and we all started exercising and getting back into that routine. And it’s amazing to me how efficient we became and how much more family time we created, because in the past, I would have run to the store by myself while my husband took care of the kids. Now we all went together and it was family time and it was fun because they all got to participate. We’d go to the gym together and, it ended up, I ended up at the gym by myself. Let’s be clear. But over time, I was able to even be more productive at work in less amount of time because my energy level went through the roof. And when I had such low energy, I was spending more time at work trying to get the work done and I couldn’t do it. So having high energy, being physically fit, being mentally fit changed everything. And that’s how I went about doing it.

Ben Wiggins:
You’ve spent 37 years there. Was there ever a time you considered leaving?

Roxanne Orsak:
You know, I ran into a situation where I had a leader that was not great, and it was really difficult working with him. And I thought about it. And our president at the time, his name was Fully Clingman, who was a great mentor to me. He knew I was struggling and probably heard through the grapevine that I may be looking, and he pulled me aside. He came to see me and he said, don’t let one person dictate your career. And he said, you can, you can out, out work him. You can outperform him. You’re going to be just fine. And thank goodness. And it worked out. But that was probably the only time because I’m home. I’m home.

Ben Wiggins:
What I keep hearing here is it’s all the people. Like when you had a leader that it was not the right fit. It was, you know, like you started to consider other options. And then when someone came in and like, showed genuine care for your situation, that kind of brought you back. It’s interesting. You also completed elite management programs at USC, Harvard Business School. What drove you to pursue those experiences and what did they give you that on the job learning didn’t ?

Roxanne Orsak:
I’m a lifelong learner, and I just had this incredible curiosity and you know, growing up in a small town and kind of a small world, I wanted to see the world. And H-E-B had this great program at the University of Southern California called the Food Industry Management Program, It still exists today. It’s different, but it still exists. And I wanted to go for a couple of reasons. One, any type of education I could get I just always wanted it. And I wanted to always learn something new and different, but also to be amongst other people in a similar industry. So other companies would send their leaders there. And what that gave me that I couldn’t get on the job, was so many different perspectives. Companies that operated out of California or operated out of the East Coast or any, Florida wherever, how they worked with their customers. And there some were union, some were not union, all those different experiences just elevated my thinking so much more. And I would say the same when I went to Harvard, was the opportunity to be amongst elite leaders, and in that program, I was the only retailer. It was businesses all over the world and very global. So now, I got to spend time and we actually lived together in the dorms for 16 weeks, learning each other, our cultures, different perspectives. And it just continued to broaden my thinking and helped me understand that there’s so much more that I can learn and do every day.

Ben Wiggins:
Absolutely. H-E-B has changed a lot in the time since you’ve been there. What were the most exciting or challenging evolutions that you’ve been a part of?

Roxanne Orsak:
Well, I would say the one thing that’s never changed is our people first culture. And that’s what has been the beautiful part. The mechanics of our company has changed dramatically. We’re not a little hometown store anymore. But I think the most challenging things is when you’re successful, it’s hard to get people to see that we have to change because the future is ahead. And how do you see the future? How do you see around the corner of what’s to come when things are good? It’s pretty easy when things aren’t good to say we have to change because things aren’t working. But when they are working, but you see that may not continue if you don’t pivot or advance or innovate. Those are the big challenges. And I think the way we have this, what we call relentless dissatisfaction in this company, we actually it’s pretty funny. If we do something really well, we give ourselves one clap and then we go, go on. Because we’re always nervous, but we get one clap every once in a while we’ll do two or three, but one clap, and then we move on to the next thing, because customers are changing all the time, and you’ve got to go where the customer is going, and you’ve got to get a little bit ahead of the customer and provide them the things that they never even knew they needed. And that creates the loyalty that you want. And so how do you do that? And part of what we do, we send our people all over the world to try new foods, to try new products, to innovate on things, to create our own. And we encourage our partners, all from the lowest level hourly partner, to bring their best thinking and best ideas. Some of our most amazing innovations start right in the store by an hourly partner. You just got to know. You got to ask the right questions, and you got to see what they do, and you got to help them bring it to life. And when you’re connected to the partner and you put people first, you can do that. And that’s how we work this constantly.

Ben Wiggins:
What you’re talking about staying one step ahead of the customer. That sounds like an extraordinarily difficult balance to strike. I don’t even, like I’m not even sure what question to ask about that, except to say that I’m so curious about, you know, you need to be in the customer’s DNA, so to speak. You need to understand what they’re thinking about, you know, managing the relationship with the partners in the, you know, in a very hands on way to help them be able to do that and to stay one step ahead. Man I wish, I wish I knew kind of the right next place to take that part of the …

Roxanne Orsak:
Here’s what I’ll tell you. So again, we’re, we talk about Texans serving Texans. And it may seem like a slogan to most people, but that’s not what it is. So we will go sit down with customers at their kitchen table and we’ll talk to them. What’s working? What’s not working? Many years ago, we realized that the amount of food purchased in your home, the majority, was now shifted away from a home, and you were now shifting your purchases to fast food and quick serve because you’re busy. Busy moms, kids playing soccer, whatever. So what was happening to the grocery industry? It was shrinking. And what was growing was fast food. But what moms didn’t like was that it wasn’t necessarily healthy. They wanted a healthier version for their kids. And so when we saw that, and here’s what I’m going to tell you, we’re going to get it wrong a lot. So we decided, hey, let’s get into the restaurant business, let’s put the restaurants in the grocery stores and we’ll solve both their problems. We’ll give them a healthier, faster option for dinner tonight, or they can buy their traditional groceries. We have pictures on walls of our most miserable failures, of trying to open restaurants, because it’s much harder to open restaurants than it is even to run a grocery store, which is also hard. And we got it wrong a lot, but we kept at it and kept at it. But what came out of that was learning how to run a restaurant. Taught us she wants it quick and simple. Why don’t we create what’s called Meal Simple? And let’s just create this tray. That idea came out of a store with an hourly partner who put a piece of salmon with some broccoli and said, no one knows how to cook seafood, but they want it because it’s healthy. In 15 minutes you can have a healthy dinner tonight.

Ben Wiggins:
Thanks for doing that.

Roxanne Orsak:
You’re welcome.

Ben Wiggins:
We have a lot of those in our home.

Roxanne Orsak:
You can thank the partner who did it, but that’s the innovation. She didn’t know. You didn’t know that you needed Meal Simple. What you knew you needed was a healthier food. Fast for your family on a busy soccer night or busy game night. And that’s seeing around the corner for the customer.

Ben Wiggins:
How does it feel to be part of shaping a brand that has so many loyal customers? And you could even say fans like, what? Do you have a favorite story of H-E-B fandom?

Roxanne Orsak:
It’s incredibly humbling and, just very grateful for how our communities respond to us and support us. And again, we’re here. We’re you, we’re customers too and we live in your neighborhoods, we’re your family, we’re your friends, we’re your neighbors. And we just want to serve you. And we want to take great care of you. So I could go on and probably write a book about crazy fans and the fun stuff. You know, probably if I had to do a favorite, is the customers who pack the warm butter tortillas in their suitcases and go through customs, go through security to fly it to friends and family. And for the kids who go off to college out of state and they send signs on social media, mom, please send H-E-B, you know, tortilla chips. It’s pretty fun to see.

Ben Wiggins:
In 37 years, you’ve worked with a lot of different people, different backgrounds, generational experiences. What are you learning now from Gen Z and even Gen A employees? What are you picking up from the younger generations?

Roxanne Orsak:
You know, what’s interesting is I love to do kind of a reverse mentorship. So in fact, tomorrow I get to spend an hour with a young engineer who teaches me a day in the life of a digital engineer. And I find it fascinating. And I think he finds it pretty fun to hang out. Probably with what he feels like is his grandma or something. But we have a great time together, and they’re so smart and so efficient and very, very innovative. And their ideas are big ideas. And what our responsibility is to help them bring those ideas to life and help them work through and learning how to work through people and processes to bring them to life. But I am super excited about the generation that is coming into the workforce, and how they’re thinking and how they’re innovating. We’re at a special time in the world right now, and I am excited about their future and our future.

Ben Wiggins:
Going back to the culture, H-E-B is known for selfless service, Aggie Core Value, especially in times of disaster. We see H-E-B trucks showing up for communities during hurricanes, floods, winter storms. How did that become a part of the brand?

Roxanne Orsak:
You know, I probably don’t know how it actually started because it’s been a thing for all of my 37 years. We, it only became public probably through some hurricane work that we had done probably 25 years ago. But again, we’re from here. This is our neighbors. These are our friends. And when something bad happens, we want to be there. And our partners pretty much demand it. It’s such a thing now that we don’t really get that involved. There’s no approval process. There’s no budget for this when there’s someone in need or a town or city or a state in need, people just show up. And they are so proud to wear their H-E-B red shirts. And our public affairs team and our emergency preparedness team, they just go, and we want to be the first there. We want to help and we want to be the last to leave and make sure that every single person that was impacted by whatever is okay, and it’s just part of our DNA and what we do, it’s not a program and it’s not something that we discuss. Hey, are you going to go support this county because of this happen? It just happens. And it’s remarkable to see the partners that just show up and get filthy dirty or sweating in the heat, you know, pulling debris out and or firing up their own barbecue pits to feed people while they’re working, or go into stores and give other partners relief, have partners go spend the night in their homes and just inviting other partners. Come stay with me. My house is fine and you just bring your family. It’s just what we do.

Ben Wiggins:
You also compete in triathlons.

Roxanne Orsak:
Oh my goodness. Yes, yes I, this all started many years ago. A friend of mine, I was trying to get healthy and she said, hey, you know, there’s this thing called the MS 150. It’s a bike ride from San Antonio through Seguin to Braunfels and then back again. And she said, it’s a 150 mile ride. And I said, well, I don’t even like to drive 150 miles. Why would you want me to bike ride? She said, we need to do it. You’ll get in shape doing it. And I did and had an incredible time. And she then it was like, hey, you know, let’s, let’s swim at 5 a.m. and I’m like, okay. So we started swimming first thing in the morning. And I found it to be very comforting. And somehow, she talked me into doing a triathlon. I don’t really know how or why they’re little sprint tries, so don’t get excited. I’m not doing an Ironman, but I did them for, I don’t know, 10 or 15 years, but unfortunately had a bit of an accident and hurt my back a little bit. So I don’t run anymore. But I still love my bikes. And, I moved on to doing CrossFit now and having a great time doing that but, yes. Love it.

Ben Wiggins:
Yeah. Where do you, where do you train?

Roxanne Orsak:
In San Antonio, I have a, it’s called The Union, a wonderful group of people. And I have a very tough trainer who never lets me off the hook.

Ben Wiggins:
I believe that. If you can sit down with a graduating Aggie today, what would you tell them to look for as they consider their first job? What would surprise them?

Roxanne Orsak:
I would first recommend that they ask not to just meet with the recruiters and the hiring managers, but actually ask if they could go spend a day with the lowest level partners employees in that company, and ask if they could also interview that company’s customers, whoever they are, and what feedback would they get? So whether you’re a tech company and you’re producing a software or whatever you’re doing, what is the result? What does the customer that’s receiving that, what do they like about it? What don’t they like about it? What do the employees say? I would do the homework and I would actually do personal conversations. Everyone is data-driven these days. Data, data, data. And that’s great. But I’d also challenge the young person to go beyond the data and go find the heart and the soul of that company. And what does that heart tell you? And can the leaders in that company tell you what their heart is, what’s truly in their soul that makes this company so powerful and so wonderful to work at, that you want to be there. You want to get out of bed every morning and rush to your work. What is that? And if that is what you want, then go find that company. And I know that today many young leaders are thinking, I need to go from this company for five years, then I go to this company for a few years, and go to this company for a few years. And that may work for people. But can you find a company that’s willing to give you the experiences that you want in the same company over time? And is there enough flexibility for you to move around and learn different skills, and how much are they willing to invest in you? They may say they will, but ask to show examples of tenured people in that company that have had multiple different experiences. If that’s what you’re interested in, and see the real live examples and interview them. And so spend as much time interviewing them as you’re being interviewed and find that balance and see if that’s still the company you want to go to.

Ben Wiggins:
Bringing it back around, focusing on the what’s surprising, what’s counterintuitive, what subverts expectations. What are your top lessons in leadership?

Roxanne Orsak:
I think number one is integrity. And, working through the hard conversations and making hard decisions to ensure that you never lose your integrity and lose who you are. That was probably one of my biggest leadership lessons in my whole career. Doing the hard work, and really getting into the details and learning, and being a lifelong learner. And always knowing there’s always someone smarter than you and accepting that and actually surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you because they can lead the way powerfully. And I think my third biggest lesson in leadership is to spend more time listening and getting to know people and their goals and their dreams, and spending more time helping them be successful and not focused on you being successful. Because it really is the heart and soul of any company is the people who get the work done. having the heart to take care of people, to help them grow, to challenge them, and to give them tough feedback when they need it, that’s the best journey of all.

Ben Wiggins:
Well, again, thanks. Thank you for sharing your lessons and leadership with us here today on Aggie Legends. On behalf of Mays Business School, I’m Ben Wiggins. We really hope you’ll subscribe to the show. Drop a like, leave a comment. It really helps others find the show. Here at Mays Business School, we’re building a better future through business and we thank you for being a part of it.