Aggie Legends Podcast S1E2: Wayne Roberts ’85

BEN WIGGINS:
Welcome to Aggie Legends where we talk with founders, CEOs and other successful Aggies about the lessons and leadership they’ve experienced throughout their careers. I’m your host, Ben Wiggins, Mays Business School MBA, Class of ’18. And today we’re here with Wayne Roberts ’85, namesake of the Wayne Roberts ’85 building, which we are recording in today. Wayne, how’s it going?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
It’s great. Howdy.

BEN WIGGINS:
Yeah. Howdy. Absolutely. Happy to have you here. So you are the retired president and CEO of Abrigo. And you have obviously seen and done a lot in your time here at A&M and post A&M. The winner of the Buck Weirus Spirit Award, and spent some time in student government, 40‑year career. Take us back to the beginning, if you would. Where does the Wayne Roberts journey begin?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
Well, I almost didn’t become an Aggie, so I guess it begins at A&M, and it wasn’t a planned step. I grew up in Austin, almost a Longhorn. I can say that now. But I felt forced by everyone I knew in Austin to go to that school, and I wanted to kind of carve my own path. I noticed that a lot of the folks I went to high school with, the ones who were friends I admired, seemed like they were all going to A&M. We’d been brainwashed about this place over in Austin, so I wanted to get in the truck, go hang out with these folks and see what this is all about, and I fell in love with the place.

So I had to convince the family, and I was dating my future wife at the time, who was a Longhorn. Her family still doesn’t forgive me for the conversion. Sometimes it feels like it was an accidental start to the journey, but it was driven by the fact that this place just oozes culture and values. On that first visit, you just felt it. Back then you’d get “howdy‑ed” to death as you went across campus. Everyone was friendly, everyone was there to serve you. It just oozed all those things that fit me, that resonated, that started the journey. And it’s one of the two or three best decisions of my life.

BEN WIGGINS:
What surprised you then, once you were here? What subverted your expectations about being at Texas A&M?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
My first choice of major. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to do what other people wanted me to do. A&M was kind of the first break from that. But I was a chemical engineering major to start here because that’s what other people thought I should do. Organic chemistry got me. I think I was glad to make a C in that class, but that convinced me that maybe that’s not what I want to do with the rest of my life, so I switched over to business.

BEN WIGGINS:
Yeah, it’s an ambitious choice, certainly. And you were a first‑generation college graduate as well. What was Thanksgiving like when you came home from school and were hanging out with your family?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
That first year was interesting, to say the least. It helped that we were doing pretty well back then against the Longhorns. The happy ending of the story is that everyone in the family basically became Aggies. Even Shannon’s parents, who were big donors at UT and everything, became huge fans of A&M. I’d like to think that, through our stories and through the networks that we’ve impacted, we’ve converted a lot of people to really see what A&M is all about.

BEN WIGGINS:
A lot of senior leaders in corporate life spend their entire careers at one organization. You were a trailblazer and spent time with many different companies, starting in the pretty high‑pressure world of consulting. What did you learn along the way that inspired those moves?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
I’d like to say a lot of it was planned, but earlier in my life I was doing a lot of things because other people thought that’s what I should do. I started in consulting at what used to be one of the Big Eight firms that became Accenture, and spent a good portion of my early career there. The first couple of years at those firms in consulting you’re programming, and I hated it. I hated every minute of it, and I was not any good at it. Eventually, I started pursuing things that were a better fit for me.

I’d say that first third of my career, when I changed roles a couple different times, was really just trying to seek something that would give me happiness and fulfillment from a work standpoint. I was searching for that.

BEN WIGGINS:
What was the biggest way that this developing worldview was challenged over the early part of your career?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
One of the more impactful things for my career actually was a personal crisis, and that was Shannon’s first bout with brain cancer. It came out of the blue. We were in our late 20s, we had done everything right up to that point, especially her. We were early in our careers, in our first house, talking about having a family. We’d dated since high school. You’re sitting there going, “I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do,” and then this happens. She was given a year or two to live at that point.

In hindsight, it’s the best thing that ever happened to us. I know that sounds strange. At the time, I didn’t feel that way, but it created the first inflection point in our careers and in our personal relationship. It taught us to get in the moment, to focus on the things that we do best, to not take anything for granted. All the things that are so trite and end up on motivational posters — it’s a shame that a crisis has to happen to remind you of those kinds of things. What I’m proud of is that we sustained it. She survived that, she was in remission for a long time, and we have two wonderful children. I’m an ordinary guy who’s had this extraordinary life, and that was an inflection point on the extraordinary part.

BEN WIGGINS:
Absolutely. What lesson was the hardest for you to learn in early career, and what changed when you learned it?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
One of the things I’ve struggled with my entire life is being a pleaser, which sounds like a great thing but it has a dark side. For those listening who have that tendency, I want to give you the freedom and the encouragement to maybe try to put yourself first a little bit.

BEN WIGGINS:
Yeah. Say no.

WAYNE ROBERTS:
And say no. For me, it wasn’t so much saying no; it was really making some of my own decisions and then seeing some success from that. Success begets success. I realized that when I started saying, “Look, I’ve got to get myself in a position where I’m able to give my best every day.” That really started happening when I got to Dell and especially at Rackspace.

If you look at my career trajectory, it was slightly up and to the right in that first 13 to 15 years, but it took the steep move up right after that. It’s no coincidence that it happened when I figured this out. It took 15 or 20 years to figure that out, but once I did, I tried to keep myself in that position and spend a lot of time trying to get other people in that position. One of my strengths, from a Gallup perspective, is Developer, so I’m always looking at people and trying to figure out how to develop them and optimize what they’re doing. Visualization is another strength. Once I understood that — once I could put language to it — it helped me start listening to the right voice a little more.

Once I started doing that and could put some science and methodology to it, things just kind of took off. But it caused huge struggles in the first part. So anyone listening who’s struggling with something like that — especially early in your career, or even late — I would encourage you to explore and understand things like your strengths. Look back on times when you were highly engaged, when you were getting a lot of positive feedback, when you were generating outsized results, when you were getting kudos. Success leaves clues. If you go look at those clues, it will help you discover the keys to success. The move from Accenture to Dell was really the first time that I picked a role for all the right reasons, and it put me in a position of doing things that I was really good at.

BEN WIGGINS:
How did that make you feel? Was there an immediate excitement, kind of feeling like you had arrived?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
Yeah. Early in our careers we’re trying to figure out how to get promoted and get raises. You’re on the ladder or the fast track. I realized at that point that when you’re doing things that you’re really good at and that you love and you’re highly engaged, those things start coming. You don’t have to think about it as much.

Others around you are doing more of the promotion of you versus you having to do the self‑promotion. You get promoted when others are promoting you or pushing for your promotion. I got in the right role. We were building out a new consulting organization at Dell that didn’t have one. I’m a builder; I’ve got to be doing stuff where I’m building people, teams, companies. I need to be doing things that are growth‑oriented. Things that are simply optimizing or stagnant are not me.

You wouldn’t think this would be something I would struggle to figure out, but I did. And then, when you’re doing it, you suddenly realize, “Oh, wow. This is the secret ingredient I’ve been looking for.” I’m excited to get to work in the morning. I’m getting good feedback. We’re growing. And I realized it wasn’t that I was working harder; I was just starting to do the right things.

BEN WIGGINS:
You had the initial excitement and then the excitement starts to wear off and things start to happen that you don’t like as much. What were those moments for you?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
There were definitely those moments, and this was a pattern not just at Dell but at a couple of different places. When I’m not building and not in a growth mindset or organization, that’s a bad sign. Not every organization is like that, and some people are suited for optimizing. That’s not me. When I first started being a CEO, I’m not sure that was my career goal or that I thought it was achievable. But this is the point when I started thinking, “I want to be the person with the wheel. I don’t want to be the copilot. I don’t want to be in the back seat.”

At some point, I wanted the wheel. I wanted to be the one accountable for these decisions, because I wanted to be able to own those. I’m very convicted about how this should be done, and that conviction was getting very strong. The next change I made, to go to Rackspace, was based on that alignment of culture — the organization and the people working there. I pursued that job and we moved to San Antonio for that phase of my career, and outside of Abrigo it was the highlight of my professional career. It was like a second MBA.

BEN WIGGINS:
You used the culture word. What is that to you, and what is it not?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
To me, culture is the fuel to the rocket engine of a growing and successful company. It’s the input that will lead ultimately to the outputs. It’s our foundation, however you want to think of it. If you don’t get that part right, you’re never going to get the most out of a team or an organization if the foundational stuff is not right. To me, the most important foundational piece of any organization — I don’t care if it’s a football team, something at church, or a business — is that the culture is healthy. Culture includes the values of the organization and the behaviors and norms that are acceptable within that organization.

BEN WIGGINS:
What were the core values that drove you — integrity, respect — what was the culture that you tried to instill?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
With all respect to A&M and other organizations that have things like integrity — so did Enron, on the wall. It was very important to me that we not have just the same words everyone else had. I’m going to sound like a commercial for things like Gallup and Strengths and my former company Abrigo. If you look at the walls of Abrigo, the values of that organization were very intentional. It’s HEART & SOUL. There are five values: Love for others, Speed to results, Own it, Uncommon grit, and Learn and grow.

We were very intentional about not just saying “grit,” for example — plus I had to get the acronym to work. We wanted an uncommon level of grit. We were going to be the company composed of people with a level of resiliency and resolve that you just did not see anyplace else. If you worked there, you were not going to give up, you were never going to give in, you were never going to get outworked.

The other thing I noticed in my career is sometimes the value would be on the wall — “integrity” or whatever — but it meant different things to different people. At Rackspace we had a value, “Treat each other like friends and family.” At one point I ran global HR there, and some of the things that came to me were conflicts between teams. I’d bring them in and say, “Here’s the value: treat each other like friends and family. Why did you do what you did?” One person would say, “In my family, we’re very direct, so I confronted the person.” The other was offended, because in their family they don’t do that.

That led to a relaunch of the values where we went into the behaviors associated with them, to make it very clear: when we say “treat each other like friends and family,” this is what we’re talking about. That was an epiphany. So when I got to Abrigo, I was very adamant that we not only have values that fit us and that I had seen work in great organizations, but that they were further defined by the behaviors we all stacked hands on.

It wasn’t just me establishing these values. This was an effort across the entire company to stack hands on the values and the behaviors. We went through a whole process where people had input, we debated, disagreed and then committed. Then boom — this is it. Now we’re stacking hands; this is what we’re doing. We hired people based on values, we fired people based on values, we promoted people based on values. They were, to say it again, the heart and soul of the company.

BEN WIGGINS:
The company experienced some huge growth during that time — congratulations — and that all happened while you were dealing with some pretty significant personal situations as well. What was that like?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
I look back now, and you’re referring to Shannon’s second bout with brain cancer, which coincided almost exactly with my tenure at Abrigo. It recurred after 20 years of remission, shortly after I became CEO. I’m proud of that period of my life. I’m proud of being her primary caregiver. I’m proud of the example — and I say this with humility — that I was able to set.

I sometimes wonder how we did it, but we did it because we had an amazing team. I wanted to set a good example for the people in the company, because every one of us is going to have adversity. Hopefully it’s not as extreme, but it’s going to impact our ability to balance personal and professional lives, our work‑life balance, our performance.

I was very open. The company gave me permission through their compassion and care and, going back to that first value of HEART — love for others. We loved each other as coworkers, we loved our customers, we loved our partners, and I felt that love the entire time. It emboldened me, it gave me strength. Certainly my personal faith and other things gave strength too. But when you’re spending 50 percent of your life at work, sometimes more, and you’re in a place where you’re feeling that kind of support and love, it matters.

We had an amazing team, an absolutely amazing team. The leadership team is still there. I left; the president is now CEO, and Jay’s doing a phenomenal job. I’m super proud that three years later they are doing better than when I was there.

BEN WIGGINS:
That’s the ultimate sign of success.

WAYNE ROBERTS:
My coach once said to me, “The final act of leading is leaving.” From the very beginning, with every new change later in my career, I was thinking about not being there — not in a negative sense like, “Oh, I’m going to get fired someday,” but knowing we all have a last day. My CEO at Rackspace, who is a mentor, said when he left, “We all have a last day, and my last day is today because this company needs something different going forward.” That’s how I felt about it.

I’m very proud of it. I felt very supported. I tried to model personal and professional behavior and resolve and grit, hoping that would serve as a good example for somebody in that company in the future.

BEN WIGGINS:
You’ve been involved in a lot of other efforts to leave things better than you found them. Why is philanthropy in particular such an important part of your legacy?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
One of my great fears is that my time on Earth would not have mattered. I’ve been quoted on that, and it’s been a driver for me from an early age. I don’t know why, but the need to please, the need to serve others, the need to make sure that what I did mattered and that I left a legacy — that was there even when I was young.

Sometimes the motivation is fear‑based. In this area, it’s a fear‑based thing: I’m just afraid I’m never doing enough, that I’m not leaving this place better than I found it — whether it’s A&M, my community, or my family.

BEN WIGGINS:
I’m sorry that you feel that fear, but I will compliment you on all the beautiful things that you’ve been able to turn that into — Aggie Park and so on. Your legacy is all around us. For the rest of your legacy, what are the most important lessons in leadership you’d like to pass on to the next generation? And how do you make them compelling for a classroom full of young adults with short attention spans?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
I think you start with something at 10,000 feet and simple. I’m an Aggie; I can remember things on one hand. I first point people to the wall in this building, where we say we want to serve others, to lead with integrity, to never get outworked. The magic is to peel that back.

BEN WIGGINS:
Yeah. How do we do that?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
We talk about what “serve others” means. We peel it back to ground level. Even “never get outworked” — that’s code or a euphemism for grit. I’m trying to translate all the things that I saw through my career that worked. It’s a wide variety of organizations and boards and nonprofits that I’ve been involved with, but the same things work in all of them. From consulting to a commercial real estate company like Trammell Crow, to Dell, to Rackspace, to Accruent, to Abrigo, and then all the other organizations — these were the common threads when people were successful, when stints were successful, when companies had great results, and even more so when those results were sustainable.

BEN WIGGINS:
You’ve alluded a couple of times to never getting outworked, but you’ve also mentioned how important the other things in life are to you. Clearly that’s true. So what does “never getting outworked” look like to you?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
A couple of lessons learned. One, I think I alluded to earlier: you work harder when you’re more engaged in something and it doesn’t feel like work. One of the things I tell people is you first have to get yourself in a position or job or startup that you’re passionate about, to the point that it doesn’t feel like work. You don’t look at the clock.

I noticed earlier in my career, when I was on team‑type settings and we were working on a deadline or a project, we’d all pound away to get it done, and it didn’t feel like a lack of work‑life balance, even though we might have worked a lot of hours. So number one is just making sure that you’re in an environment and doing things that you’re passionate about, to the greatest extent you can control that.

Later, when I had more control over what I was doing and what other people were doing, that became a big driver for those values and behaviors. I get asked a lot, “What is work‑life balance, and how do you achieve it?” I have found that work‑life balance, for me and for most people I’ve worked around, is when you have control of your schedule. It’s not the number of hours; it’s the control, flexibility and autonomy in your schedule.

That led to all kinds of things like: we’re not going to be the micromanagement firm here. We’re not going to micromanage people; we’re going to focus on outcomes. We are going to manage people to outcomes. One of the great positive things about the COVID phase for businesses, where we went remote, was that one day I sent my company home and we never came back in the same way. We stayed remote and then went hybrid.

We had a culture, we had those behaviors and values, and we had trained managers to manage outcomes. I don’t care, within reason, if you did something from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.; I just know it was due at noon the next day, and I got it at 8 a.m. What I don’t know, as CEO, is that Ben’s daughter has a dance recital that night and he wants to go to that and doesn’t want to miss it. If I’m micromanaging and dictating to that level, I’m going to drive people away from the company.

If I say, or set up an environment where you feel comfortable saying, “Look, I need to go to this thing tonight; I’ll get it to you in the morning,” that’s great. So it’s making sure you’re in a position where you’re highly engaged, trying to give people autonomy, not micromanaging, managing outcomes. If a company is doing all those things as part of their ecosystem, then you have people who can get a reasonable amount of control over their lives and balance all of it.

BEN WIGGINS:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. And I think one of the last steps — or maybe it’s one of the first for some people — is giving yourself the autonomy, even when you have time, to think, “Do I want to do it now, or should I do it in the morning?” I feel like there’s so much power in that — to say, “All right, it’s go time.”

WAYNE ROBERTS:
Yeah. You having control over when and how you do something. As leaders, another thing I tried to do — and hopefully I was successful — is modeling these things for people. Earlier in your career, you’re watching leaders and teams and everything they do. It’s not what they say; it’s what they’re doing a lot of the time.

I became very aware and conscious of that, and I would intentionally do certain things to send a message. The value of stories is huge. People start telling stories, and that is more powerful than anything I can put up on the wall. For example: “When Wayne goes on vacation, he checks out.” Early in my career, every time I tried to take a vacation, it wasn’t a vacation because I was still working. I wanted to focus on my family; I wanted to recharge.

So when I got into positions to model some of that stuff, I was very conscious of making sure people knew, “We’re going to the Caymans” or wherever, “and I’m out of pocket. Unless the company is burning down, Jay’s got it. And if he really needs to get ahold of me, he can.” That kind of stuff sends such a powerful message to people.

BEN WIGGINS:
Tell us a little more about where you are now, then, and what’s next.

WAYNE ROBERTS:
I’m living a dream life, to be honest with you. I retired three years ago. I joke — or it’s not a joke — that my kids did an over‑under on how long I would last before going back. I think six months was probably what they thought.

BEN WIGGINS:
Oh, you are way over it.

WAYNE ROBERTS:
So I won that bet. I’m not doing this just to win a bet, but I will tell you, I don’t miss the day‑to‑day drudgery, because even in the greatest of jobs there’s still some of that day‑to‑day stuff. I’m finding that I can focus on things where I can have that legacy and impact, and I get a little more choice on that kind of stuff.

BEN WIGGINS:
Like what?

WAYNE ROBERTS:
Like being able to be in this great building and all that. But I’m spending my time these days focused on legacy and impact — and I shouldn’t say all my time. I am remarried to a wonderful person, my best friend.

BEN WIGGINS:
Congratulations.

WAYNE ROBERTS:
Her name is Layne, and she’s an Aggie. We are enjoying living in Bryan–College Station and being a part of this great university, attending athletic events, giving back to Mays and a whole bunch of other parts of Texas A&M.

BEN WIGGINS:
Absolutely.

WAYNE ROBERTS:
And I would be remiss if I didn’t talk a little bit about our greatest legacy, and that’s Jack and Katy. In the context of this conversation, we kind of tried to parent them through strengths. We even did Strengths as a family.

BEN WIGGINS:
There’s your commercial. Gallup.

WAYNE ROBERTS:
There you go. I should get a kickback from Gallup. But the importance of that, all kidding aside, is that the things you learn in your personal life should go into your professional life and sometimes vice versa. That journey of being told what to do or feeling like I needed to please other people versus myself — that struggle early on in my life and career, trying to figure that out, noticing, “Oh, wow, I’m more engaged now and I’m doing better” — the kids came along around that time.

So I think that impacted how we parented them. One of the things we were very focused on with the kids is that we wanted them to discover their strengths and to pursue the things that they were great at, pure and simple. We’re super proud of the kids, and they’re pursuing their passions.

I plan to hit the big 100 someday, so there’s still a third of that life left to focus on, “What can I do in the next third?” It’s back to that fear: I haven’t done enough. So what can I do? And it doesn’t just have to be money — gifts, giving back — but your time and your energy and expertise. Any time you can get me in the classroom, any time I can spend around students, that’s what I enjoy about the Texas A&M Foundation board. We get a lot of access to students, and we can see the impact of all of those gifts from tens of thousands of Aggies who give small and large amounts, and the impact it has on the students who attend Texas A&M — some of whom couldn’t do that unless they had that philanthropy and generosity. So a little plug for the Aggie Network to continue to give back to Mays and the Flippen Institute and the Texas A&M Foundation.

BEN WIGGINS:
Yeah, without question. Well, thank you so much, Wayne, for sharing your lessons in leadership today with us here on Aggie Legends.

WAYNE ROBERTS:
My pleasure. Enjoyed it.

BEN WIGGINS:
On behalf of Mays Business School, I’m Ben Wiggins. We hope you’ll like and subscribe, and please leave a comment — everything helps. Click the little bell so you never miss an episode. We’re building a better world through business here at Mays Business School, and we thank you for being a part of it.