My guest this week is Gene Pease. Beyond being my friend and mentor, Gene is the founder of a company called Mighty You. Its software simplifies managers’ work life by bundling performance management, continuous feedback, coaching and calibration in a simple, single solution.
And in this episode, Gene is talking all about Mighty You, the sale of the company and embracing simplicity in his professional and personal life. I think you’ll find Gene’s story and personal journey compelling — in many ways. He was early to people analytics, and at this point in his career, he’s looking at what’s next.
Twenty years ago, Gene and a few scientists got together and started a company that brought advanced analytics into HR, a pursuit we would now call people analytics. Gene became a pioneer in applying this science to HR.
“[W]e helped prove that you can measure HR investments, and there’s ways through analytics to improve them, both for the individual and for the company,” he says.
Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
The Phases of Simplicity in HR
Gene’s work in people analytics began with a conversation with scientists from Duke University. From there, Gene built Vestrics, formerly known as Capital Analytics. Analytics wasn’t heavily used in HR, nor was the field eager to embrace it.
“So what I found which surprised me is that HR, and you’ve talked about this, it was really not very open-minded, and they weren’t open-minded for change. So the practices that they were doing were very archaic, but they weren’t willing to change them,” Gene says.
“We persevered and eventually built a software product that duplicated a lot of the work that our statisticians and data analysts had been doing manually and created a brand called Vestrics,” he says. “And when we went out for capital to go to market Ultimate Software purchased us.”
A few years later, Gene went to create Mighty You, but another, bigger challenge emerged.
“Unfortunately, right when we launched, I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, and we didn’t catch it early,” Gene says. “And so my cancer had already left the prostate and was in five, or six, or seven places in my body already. I had what they call spots. And so I started therapy but had a very hard time with that and trying to launch a brand new product to the market.”
Gene’s goals remain the same — to continue his work in analytics and pursue simplicity in work and life. “For me, life has just gotten so complicated, both personally and work-wise, that I keep going back to trying to simplify it. And now that I’m looking at a finite end of my life, simplicity’s a really big deal to me,” he says.
A Product Made for a Better Work Life
Gene is a relentless entrepreneur who wants to make the workplace better for everyone, especially managers.
“I’m very passionate about [work], and I have a lot of ideas around making work better and easier and simpler and less stressful,” he says, “I have all kinds of ideas around that. And when I took some time off, I thought I was going to build another fancy analytics product.”
He did extensive research, collaborated with leading scientists that knew the HR industry, and sought to create a product that included analytics but was easy enough for any manager to use.
“Instead of building a Swiss army knife that had performance and coaching and all these different things, I built what I called a scalpel,” Gene says. “Which was a very simple, very complicated tool underneath, but a very simple tool for a manager to keep track and a way to communicate with their employees and keep track of what’s going on.”
The software allows people to manage objectives, feedback, team status and performance in one place. It uses natural language processing to analyze text and coach people in providing actionable feedback to their team.
After launching a beta test a year and a half ago and creating Mighty You, Gene and his team have worked to create a fully operational product. In the process, they gained nearly 400 users.
As Gene continues his treatment, Mighty You is trying to find a buyer, a process he feels optimistic about.
“I’m transitioning from balls-to-the-wall entrepreneur, seven days a week, to somebody that physically can probably work 60%, 65% of their time and be productive. So I’ve got to now transition into some new role,” he shares.
Gene has been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years, and while he doesn’t know what’s next, he’s still excited about what he can contribute.
“I don’t know if I’ll do consulting. I don’t know if I’ll be part of this platform going forward if we sell it. I don’t know if I’ll affiliate with an organization and do advisory board work, but we’ll see,” he says. “But I do still have capacity and thoughts and energy; it’s just not going to be at the level that it had been for most of my career.”
[bctt tweet=”‘We helped prove that you can measure HR investments, and there’s ways through analytics to improve them, both for the individual and for the company.’ ~ @Genepease7, founder and CEO at Mighty You. Tune in to #PunkRockHR!” via=”no”]
People in This Episode
Gene Pease: LinkedIn, Twitter, Mighty You website
Full Transcript
Laurie Ruettimann:
This episode of Punk Rock HR is sponsored by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Hey everybody, I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome back to Punk Rock HR. My guest this week is Gene Pease. Beyond being a friend of mine and mentor, Gene is the founder of a company called Mighty You, which simplifies work life for managers. Mighty You bundles performance management, continuous feedback, coaching and calibration in a simple, single solution. And Gene is on the show today to talk about Mighty You and how it’s up for sale and why.
Gene’s story is super-interesting. He’s been on a personal journey that I think you’ll find compelling. And as someone who was early to people analytics and really saw some of the trends in human resources, he’s at a point in his career where he’s looking at what’s next. So if you’re interested in listening to one of the godfathers in human resources and hearing about his life today and what’s next, well, sit back and enjoy this conversation with the amazing, the incomparable, Gene Pease.
Hey Gene, welcome to the podcast.
Gene Pease:
Hi Laurie, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh god, dude, my pleasure. It’s been a minute since we’ve caught up, although I feel like I’ve known you forever. For those out there who aren’t familiar with you and your body of work, who are you and what are you all about?
Gene Pease:
Well, we met through WorkTak and quite a few years ago. And so my story related to this conversation would be in 2004, I bumped into some scientists at Duke University, and we started a company that was bringing advanced analytics into HR, what now would be considered people analytics. So, 20 years ago, we were trying to apply advanced science to HR investments and helped pioneer and prove it could be done over the last 20 years, and so I kind of evolved. We were a consulting company, nobody believed we could do the work. We weren’t this big brand from Deloitte or something, so we ended up just struggling for years and years but did the work. And eventually, I wrote three books that Wiley published around the work, and we helped prove that you can measure HR investments, and there’s ways through analytics to improve them, both for the individual and for the company.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Isn’t it amazing that nearly 20 years ago, people didn’t think you could measure HR investment, human performance, the impact of people on the business of making small tweaks and getting good gains? They didn’t think that was possible. How weird is that?
Gene Pease:
At the time the state of the art was — I’ll use training as an example, you took a training class and then we surveyed you and ask you how you did and did it help you. And so it was all self-reported, and it was a bunch of BS, to be honest. But it had been a practice, it’d been around, the Kirkpatrick system of measurement and training had been around for 30 or 40 years. So what I found, which surprised me, is that HR, and you’ve talked about this, it was really not very open-minded and they weren’t open-minded for change. So the practices that they were doing were very archaic but they weren’t willing to change them.
So that was hard for us, and that’s why we struggled for a really long time, because it was hard to find people that were willing to test those theories of “can you really measure this intangible kinds of stuff?” But we persevered and eventually built a software product that duplicated a lot of the work that our statisticians and data analysts had been doing manually and created a brand called Vestrics. And when we went out for capital to go to market, Ultimate Software purchased us in 2015, I believe.
So it was a 18-year journey, or 15-year journey, to get to that point but, you know, it eventually worked, and we did prove that you can do this stuff.
Laurie Ruettimann:
You know, I learned a term applied to our industry from our mutual friend Brett Starr at The Starr Conspiracy, called first to market roadkill. And that’s the problem with being early to a lot of this. I wouldn’t say you or Vestrics are roadkill but you’re almost forgotten. You’re innovators in this industry, and there’s no modern-day platform that can measure a lot of this without the hard work that your statisticians and your first-to-market software did. So, Gene, you are truly an innovator in our space and you sold the product to Ultimate, now UKG, and then you sold your house in Chapel Hill and you moved to California on me, so you moved the heck out of North Carolina and you kind of started a new thing. So what’s the thing after Vestrics?
Gene Pease:
Yeah, so I took some time off and I thought — well, number one is, I wanted to keep doing the work. I’m very passionate about it, and I have a lot of ideas around making work better and easier and simpler and less stressful. I have all kinds of ideas around that. And when I took some time off, I thought I was going to build another fancy analytics product. I just did a lot of research around some of the new techniques that were coming out at the time, they’re not new now, but natural language processing and organizational network analysis and machine learning, and AI. And there was some pretty cool stuff coming out five years ago that was really at the cusp of the new ways that we begin to have insights, or some of the new ways we’re able to have insights.
And I kept going back to me as a manager. Because I was a typical, thrown into the deep end, I never had a training class in my entire life. It was all by trial by fire. Sometimes I drowned and got fired, and sometimes I didn’t.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Wait, wait, everybody good gets fired once, that’s the saying. So, you know, there you go.
Gene Pease:
How about two or three times?
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well that just makes you an entrepreneur.
Gene Pease:
I guess. And so I really thought that, if I could take some of this analytic stuff but bake it into a tool that would make a manager’s life easier, that would really solve a bigger problem than just trying to build another fancy analytics product, so that’s the route I went. So instead of building a Swiss army knife that had performance and coaching and all these different things, I built what I called a scalpel, which was a very simple — very complicated tool underneath — but a very simple tool for a manager to keep track and a way to communicate with their employees and keep track of what’s going on. So in a very simple way, it had performance management, coaching, feedback and a few other little things in it that all was in this very simple tool to use.
So I did a bunch of research, collaborated with some of the leading scientists that I knew in our industry, particularly that knew a lot about natural language processing, because I’m still kind of hooked on that, and built this tool and launched it to our first beta paying customer about a year and a half ago and spent that year kind of taking that MVP product from MVP to actually working.
So we had 380 people using the product for the last year and created the brand called Mighty You. And unfortunately, right when we launched, I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, and we didn’t catch it early. And so my cancer had already left the prostate and was in five or six or seven places in my body already. I had what they call spots. And so started therapy but had a very, very hard time with that and trying to launch a brand-new product to the market. So we perfected the product, but didn’t make any inroads in going to market.
Laurie Ruettimann:
I wonder, before you were even diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer what it was like to be an entrepreneur and an innovator during a pandemic. And not only that, I mean, when you left Chapel Hill and you went to California, we also skipped the part where you were taking care of a sick family member, as well. So real life is happening to you, COVID happens, and you’re still passionate about this product, about this attempt to help managers and to fix work. What was all that like?
Gene Pease:
I have had some weird ability to kind of see around some corners occasionally. And this whole idea of simplicity and trying to simplify manager’s work, and give them a tool that they could communicate better and be coached on how to give feedback, all was developed prior to the pandemic. So for me, the pandemic reinforced the fact that our work tools are too complicated, there’s too much stuff in them that we’re trying to solve, and they’re hard to use and hard to train people. And so many, many, many of these implementations are failures because the people they were designed for, people don’t use them.
I had that whole idea prior to the pandemic that things were just too complicated, and the pandemic reinforced that — that our work tools were just archaic and they really didn’t work in this new environment.
Laurie Ruettimann:
No. I love that word simplicity and I just wonder if that’s been — you know, I think about the work that you did at Vestrics, and I mean, heavily complicated work, right? But the ultimate product that you put out into the market had to be simple, it had to be clear, people had to understand how to use it and use something that was a little bit different. I just wonder, where does this theme of simplicity come from? Have you always thought like that?
Gene Pease:
I’d gone through phases. There was a phase where the more complicated something was, the better I liked it and the better solution I thought it was. But I’ve evolved to — and maybe this goes all the way back to my undergraduate degree in architecture. And it’s, there’s no right answer, there’s lots of solutions that work for problems. And for me, life has just gotten so complicated, both personally and work-wise, that I keep going back to trying to simplify it. And now that I’m looking at kind of a finite end of my life, simplicity’s a really big deal to me, cutting out kind of all of the crap and cutting through a lot of the BS and getting to the reality of some of the things that both work and personal that we’re dealing with. And, my gosh, one could literally go nuts with what’s going on in the world.
I don’t know, I think things have just gotten too complicated, and that’s why HR is reacting to all the different things they’re reacting to, right? They’re not ahead of any of this stuff, but they’re reacting to all kinds of issues that have been created not just because of COVID, but because of work. And there’s so many jobs that just suck. So why don’t we admit it? Why don’t we design around that? And why don’t our expectational will be, we will be just OK at that stuff, and we’ll be really good at the stuff we’re really good at?
Laurie Ruettimann:
Do you have an answer for that? I mean, yes, design can be an answer to how to solve it, but do you know why the human brain won’t deal with some of these realities? Like you’re right, in HR, there’s just a lot of stuff that’s terrible, and we do anyway. A lot of these jobs are terrible. We know they’re BS jobs and yet we keep them on the payroll. Why are we — I guess I’m asking you an existential question of why we’re afraid of change. You have any insight on that?
Gene Pease:
I think number one, it’s human nature. We get secure, our space, our shelter. But I don’t know, honestly I don’t know. It’s complicated. The older I get, the more complicated things are, I realize. Lots of layers affect lots of other layers of stuff.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well I want to talk a little bit about launching this product and the roadblock that you hit, being diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer. You had mentioned in a LinkedIn post that there’s no stage five, right? So this is it.
Gene Pease:
Right now, the best I can hope for is a checkmate, which is these therapies I’m going through to stop the cancer from growing. They don’t have a cure yet, hopefully there will be in my lifetime, but it’s probably doubtful. So the best we can hope for is that these series of therapies stop the growth — and in my case, stop it from migrating to an organ, because that’s the next step for me. I’ve got a bunch of spots in a bunch of different places, but so far it’s all stayed within my bones. And so that’s not good news, but that’s good news.
But I’m struggling with the therapy. My first three infusions I ended up in the hospital because I had such a negative reaction from the chemo. So we all react differently to these therapies, I’m having a tough time with mine at this point. That doesn’t mean it isn’t slowing or stopping the cancer, but we won’t know yet until another round of scans, which I’ll have in another 30 to 60 days. And then we’ll know if this elevated therapy I’m going on, which is now chemotherapy plus hormone therapy, has that stopped or has that slowed it down. So it’s just very prevalent with men. Well over 90% of men that get this don’t have major problems and can live a healthy life. There’s a small percent of us, unfortunately, that get the extreme, and I’ve got that.
I try to, every chance I get, talk to every male I can to make sure they get their prostates checked because mine came on within 18 to 24 months.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Very aggressive, yeah.
Gene Pease:
Yeah, super-aggressive. Where most men would’ve caught it, they might be on some low drug, there may not be anything for the rest of their life. And so we hope there’s a cure out there. Right now the assumption is there isn’t, and I’m trying to live as — I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s just. I have a different relationship with my family now. A lot of things have changed, some for the better, in my relationships. So hopefully we’ll find a cure.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, yeah. I mean, one of the things I talk about with people all the time, especially when they’re obsessed with how much they hate their job or they’re struggling with something, is the fact that when you’re one thing, you’re weird, and you’re not very helpful to other people. So you’re not just a guy with prostate cancer, although that is an important factor of who you are. You’re a person who still wants to accomplish things, you still have goals, you still want to get your product out to market and in the hands of more customers, more people that it can help. So how much time and energy are you spending on your product right now?
Gene Pease:
Right now, we’re trying to sell the software. I have a small team. One of my team members you mentioned that’s been involved in this project because I can’t run it full time. It’s physically impossible. So I’m transitioning from balls-to-the-wall entrepreneur, seven days a week, to somebody that physically can probably work 60%, 65% of their time and be productive. So I’ve got to now transition into some new role. And again, this is the journey I’m on because I’ve been an entrepreneur, really on my own, for 25 or 30 years, a very long time. So I don’t know, I don’t know if I’ll do consulting, I don’t know if I’ll be part of this platform going forward if we sell it. I don’t know if I’ll affiliate with an organization and do advisory board work, but we’ll see. But I do still have capacity and thoughts and energy, it’s just not going to be at the level that it had been for most of my career.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, you know Gene, I think that’s also the thing about just aging in general, you get the grace and the space to write more and to think more if you live your life properly. So are you writing at all right now or doing voice memos or trying to capture your ideas in some way that you can kind of tease them out and work with them?
Gene Pease:
Yeah, nothing formally. I have notes I keep and I have, not a formal journal, but I have a little book I carry around with me.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, yeah.
Gene Pease:
Yeah, yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Like, any academic, right, continuing academic. We’re always trying to capture ideas in a Moleskin.
Gene Pease:
Keep my ideas, yeah. Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Right. Right.
Gene Pease:
So yeah, I have a lot of ideas. It’s really gonna be kind of what environment I end up with and how to shape those. I’m not going to be able to start something from scratch unless I’ve got the infrastructure and somebody else that would lead. It’s a whole different situation with me right now that I’m trying to figure out, to be honest.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, sounds like it. Well give us an update on where the product stands. Do you have people who are interested and currently buying it? Are you searching for the right buyer? What’s with that?
Gene Pease:
Yeah, so we’ve got a business analyst, or a business broker, that represented Vestrics to UKG. David Haine is representing Mighty You also. So I have somebody out there on the business side that can broker a deal. We’ve got some marketing going on to just get the word out. We have a little bit of interest, I would say, at this point. The product works, it ran for a year with a whole bunch of people on it, so we’re not worried about that. It’s the question of, can we get a deal done in this uncertain environment? So we’ll see. There is interest.
The way the product was built it would be very simple to add on an automatic registration and load data and pay, and be an SMB product from the get-go. It was built for the M market, but with a little bit of love and care it could automatically be an SMB product and go out on the market tomorrow. So we’ll see. We have people that are looking at it — integrate it with the stuff that they have, and they may not have some of the things we build that they could integrate. And we’re having people look at it, and if they’ve got a mid-to-upper market, they’re considering taking this product, Mighty You, down to the SMB market.
There’s a lot of different ways it could end up in the market, so we’ll see.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well I’m really fascinated about where all of this is headed and, also, your individual journey. I would imagine that we’ve got the fourth quarter, the holidays are coming up, right, the new year, there’s a lot of good stuff to look forward to, but it’s also a time of reflection personally as well as professionally. So I wonder as we start to end the year, where’s your head at? What are you thinking? How are you feeling? And how are you going to spend your time?
Gene Pease:
Well, the most obvious answer, which is true, is my family. We’re spending more time carving out time with them than we have previously, for obvious reasons. We’re considering moving again up to the Carmel area to be closer to my grandkids so that I can go to their Saturday baseball games. They’re 6 and 9, and if I’m not going to be around a long time, I might want to take advantage, my wife and I, of the next couple years of spending more time with them. So every day for us, my family, is a reflection. My kids call me once or twice a day just to see how I’m doing, that kind of stuff.
So there’s the one part of “we know he’s sick, we know it’s serious, we know it could be short term, so let’s take advantage of all that.” And on the other hand, I’m trying to work really hard not to be that cancer guy. So there’s this balance that we’re still trying to figure out. I’ve been independent my whole life, I hate somebody trying to help me get up. It’s hard. So every day, we’re still trying to figure out what this balance is and what do we do about it.
Never spent much time thinking about death but that’s now part of, not vocabulary, but it’s part of what we think about and talk a little bit about — and are we prepared on a lot of levels, just not emotionally? So it’s been very interesting for me because I would’ve never admitted this publicly. I was a very private, still am, but my world knows I’m sick, and I’m asking for help, and so that kind of surprises me.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well Gene, if anybody deserves the help for an amazing product and an amazing body of work it’s you. I mean your contributions to fixing work are legendary and they’ve really influenced me. Your thinking has influenced me, your books have influenced me, and I’m just so grateful to have had you a part of my life over the past decade. So listen, let’s get the word out about Mighty You just as a great tool out there for people to use. And if there’s anyone interested in reaching out to you to talk more about it, tell them the best ways to get in touch with you.
Gene Pease:
LinkedIn has all my contacts. GenePease@mightyyou. I’ve got a Gmail address. I’m easy to get ahold of.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Good. I’m going to include all of that in the show notes. We’ll make it easy for people.
Gene, once again I just wanted to say thanks again for being a guest, and you’re welcome any time.
Gene Pease:
Thank you for having me. It was great to catch up with you. Love the stuff you’re doing, Laurie.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Hey everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Punk Rock HR. We are proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com. Punk Rock HR is produced and edited by Rep Cap, with special help from Michael Thibodeaux and Devon McGrath. For more information, show notes, links and resources, head on over to punkrockhr.com. Now that’s all for today and I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll see you next time on Punk Rock HR.