In this episode of the Las Vegas IT Management Podcast, Shaytoya Marie interviews Martin Bennett, an IT manager with over 35 years of experience in the field. Their discussion explores the evolution of IT leadership, the growing impact of technology on work environments, and the importance of adaptive leadership in today’s rapidly changing landscape.

Martin shares insights into the unique challenges of public sector IT, emphasizing the critical role of mentorship in developing future leaders and the necessity of continuous learning for staying ahead in the industry. The conversation also touches on the future of IT in government services, highlighting the role of AI integration and the need for organizations to adapt to evolving technologies and workforce dynamics.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the guest and host and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of K&B Communications or the Las Vegas IT Management Podcast.

it does show is that maybe I was working harder, not smarter.

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I think people now are working smarter.

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They're working hard, but they figured out there's tools and technology and things out

there that can make them be more efficient.

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So if I can learn from them and I'm willing to, love it.

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I do not want to stop learning because I can tell you 20 years in means absolutely nothing

as a leader.

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35 years in and technology means nothing other than

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I've had a chance to experience a lot of things, but I learned so much more every single

day.

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And I would encourage every leader to acknowledge and realize that they do not know

everything.

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They have to be willing to listen.

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Welcome to the Las Vegas IT podcast.

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Today, I have the pleasure of speaking to Martin Finick, which I'm super, super excited to

get to know him a little bit better.

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He is with Clark County, who is an IT manager, technical services.

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Hi, Martin.

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How are you?

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Doing well, Shetoya.

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How are you today?

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Pretty good.

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Martin, I'd just love to get to know you a little bit better.

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Could you just share with us a little bit about your background?

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Yes.

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I would say that I'm a jack of all trades, master of none.

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I've been in IT now for about 35 years, 25 years private sector.

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And I started an aerospace defense back in the mid 80s, 1980s, not 1880s.

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And I been with Clark County just over 10 years now, all the time in IT.

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But I went into leadership about 20 years ago and it was somewhat of a wallflower growing

up in my family.

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And what I found really helped for me, which also is

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helped tremendously going through my IT journey was working in restaurants.

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Because you're in front of people, right?

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You actually have to speak with people.

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You can't really hide in the background.

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And I found that once I moved into leadership, one of the critical roles that's required

is that you've got to be able to talk to people, understand people, and really work with

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them.

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Got it.

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And I'm sure you've seen a lot of changes just within the last, you said Clark County for

10, but you've been in IT for

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30 years that I hear you, right?

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About 35 years.

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35 years.

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I'm sure there's been a lot of changes.

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What are some of the changes that you've seen just in the last even 10 years?

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10 years, the importance of security, security operations.

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Now we look at AI is like the new buzzword, right?

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So everyone wants to use that.

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And the trick with that one is the genie is out of the bottle.

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So you kind of have to figure out where

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do you apply it and how do you apply it?

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And also if you're going to use it, you have to be very certain and sure that as you use

it, the results you can validate, know, it's trust but verify.

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You have to be able to do that.

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So I think that's a big thing.

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Just for example, the personal computers, you know, we went from mainframes to Apple

devices and smaller devices.

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Now your phone can do pretty much anything you want.

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In fact, a lot of people use just the phone, perhaps use a laptop, maybe a desktop,

depending on whether they're working at home or they're not.

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And then I'm going to bring up, I'll bring up remote work.

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mean, just since COVID and post COVID we're five years in now.

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Look at the tremendous changes that companies have had to make.

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Look at the tremendous changes that individuals have had to make around the family

structure.

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When you're working remote and you're working at home and you may have dogs barking or

younger children, you may have a spouse that's working remote as well.

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How do you identify and define who gets which workspace?

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You who's on a conference call when somebody has to be making dinner?

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Are you working with, for example, others that are in different time zones?

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How do you accommodate for that?

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And then I think the most important thing, which also kind of goes into the management of

people and leadership of people is

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How do you shut that off?

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You know, you can get, when you drive into work, you leave, you drive home.

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But when you're working remote, you close the door if you have an office.

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If you don't have an office, you know, maybe it's the kitchen table.

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Maybe it's a little bar area.

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Maybe it's even sitting outside in the indoor outdoor area.

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How do you know, how do you now change that from

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Well, gee, I was working in this environment today to, well, now let's go ahead and play.

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Let's go enjoy the pool or let's have dinner.

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think different challenges, right?

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And I think seeing all those things work being from an environment from many years ago as

a baby bumper to now we've got Gen Z and even, you know, Gen A and B next, very different.

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I was not brought up in technology, kind of going back to your first question.

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So going to have tech.

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technology now is somebody that, you know, your two, your two year old can use a device

and they've already figured out how to play around with him and access what they want to

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access.

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So it's, it's very interesting.

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Yeah.

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And right there with you, learning things.

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I mean, I work remote most of the time, so I totally understand.

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And then with COVID and all that good stuff.

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And then with your current position, like what does it look like day to day?

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Day to day, lots of meetings.

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Sadly, that's part of the business though, is that I'm in a role of decision making.

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So I'm looking more at the strategic direction of my teams rather than perhaps some of the

tactical decisions.

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Although it's interesting because besides the meetings, that's the great thing about IT is

that it's never the same every day.

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You walk into something completely different.

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I'll use this morning as an example.

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We're setting up the marriage, working with the marriage bureau and setting up the

balanced at Valentine's day weekend, you know, the, the weddings and we have Kia, we have

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an area set up at the Harry Reid airport.

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So that was a last minute set up.

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Normally it isn't, but there were some challenges yesterday and this morning and we had

that.

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So we had to make sure that was up and running.

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Other days it could be just, might be employee training, mentoring.

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It's really kind of.

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It is different every day.

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And I like that.

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I think that's just how IT generally is going to be.

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mean, unless you're, you know, sitting at a desk and you're stamping things, now I'm

dating myself again, versus different projects.

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And sometimes your long projects, you may not have a lot of movement in those initially.

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But what we're also finding is that with projects, the speed of release dates,

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And the speed and urgency of requirements from, I'll say from our constituents and from

our County commissioners and our executive management, it's accelerated.

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So, you know, we're, being asked to do more things.

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We're asked to be smarter and more efficient.

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So that means we're having to think a lot more and maybe think, you know, I hate to use

that line, think outside the box, but we do that quite often.

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I have great teams at work for me.

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that have helped move me along in all my career, all the places I've been.

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So I let them, I try to stay out of their way.

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That's really what I try to do.

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I'm there for them.

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And I know we'll talk about that perhaps a little bit later on this conversation, but I

really try to stay out of their way.

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Got it.

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And that's one of the things, the biggest things that I've learned in leadership, I've had

to learn.

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You said to pretty much think outside of the box.

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Do you feel like AI has helped?

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employees think out of the box?

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It's starting to, I think for us, because we're usually not one of the early adopters

being in the public sector.

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We really like to see what the private sector is doing.

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We're starting to see that though.

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It does help.

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But once again, I'll go back to that trust but verify.

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So you still have to, one still has to have the knowledge that this is going on.

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And the answer that you may receive might be, well, that sounds really great, but I'm not

certain that's

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You know, maybe theoretical, but can we actually implement something like that?

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And I think there are other things that you have to continue to keep in mind.

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Budgets, staff, staff availability, and staff knowledge, skills, and expertise.

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It may be a phenomenal plan that an AI generated response comes out, but it may not be one

that you can actually use because you don't have all those pieces in place.

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Once again, theoretical versus what's practical and then what are all the other projects

that are ongoing?

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And then finally, maybe most importantly, what are the priorities of those?

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Got it.

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And as you said, also having the knowledge behind it.

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So I get it.

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And then what are some of the biggest, you know, you've been doing this for quite, quite a

while, but what are some of the biggest IT challenges you and your face, your team face

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and the public sector?

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Well, we're

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Paid by the constituents, we're paid with taxes.

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We want to make sure we're doing the job that they expect of us.

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And oftentimes, as you know, with IT, it's always behind the scenes.

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We are not a, we're usually a cost center.

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know, we spend money, we don't necessarily bring money in immediately.

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So it's not like I have a gaming machine.

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I put money in, money comes back out.

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With IT, oftentimes, we're given money to put into it, but we don't necessarily

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cause it to come back out through IT.

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So I think one of the challenges is when we're asking for new projects or requested to do

projects, the justifications of the cost.

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Well, what is that going to look like?

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Well, for somebody that is say logging in and going to Clark County's website and they

want to say pay a bill, maybe quarterly taxes, maybe they'll see that there's been an

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upgrade.

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Now I can do that with my credit card or debit card or PayPal or

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perhaps Bitcoin or something like that.

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So they may see, wow, that's different than last time because last quarter I could only

use, for example, a credit card.

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So that's where our constituents will see that type of benefit, but they don't understand

that there may be millions of dollars behind the scenes spent to actually implement that

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and test.

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And then the other thing is, I mean, there are a couple of things obviously, but I think

one of the other important things is

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is keeping the staff motivated to execute and make sure that they're receiving the proper

training, tools, technology.

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That's what we as leaders are supposed to do is we want to make sure that if it's a new

system, new software, new process that they're trained appropriately if they're not aware

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of how to do it.

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So we don't just throw it out there and hope for the best, right?

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That's not what our customers, I would say, are expecting.

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They expect, you know, excellence and I do as well as much as we can do it.

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And the private sector, different, flipping it over a little bit.

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If you don't execute well, you're out of business.

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Your product doesn't sell, you're out of business.

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If you have a poor strategic plan from the executives and you don't have funding, you're

out of business.

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Understood.

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And then, you know, you did mention your team.

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What are some of the things that you guys could do or that you do?

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to make sure that you do have the right trainings in place.

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So when these new things do come out, you guys know exactly what's going on.

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It's interesting you bring that up because we at the county offer quite a bit of training

opportunities, not only self-trained, but we also have consultants that will come in.

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We also have lot of opportunities to go to like CES.

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We have a very specific Microsoft.

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learning sessions that are available to us, Microsoft credits.

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We work with a number of different vendors that provide that type of training, which we

also say, because I'm on the support side of things, you know, it's great when the

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honeymoon's over after the launch happens and everyone's happy.

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That's when things usually start breaking.

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So as we always are concerned about what's the support contracts and the maintenance and

the licensing and the training, specifically the training are.

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for any products that usually brought in in-house.

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So we do make sure that that is one of our priorities is that you're bringing in a new

product.

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want to be able to, using that old analogy, we want to learn how to fish.

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We have to be able to do this on our own.

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And my staff is very excited about getting new opportunities.

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You know, they're IT people.

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like neat stuff, right?

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Cool stuff.

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What's out there?

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Got it.

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Now get it.

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And then as you say, what's out there?

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What are some of the technology trends that you guys are currently, if you can talk about

them, but what are some of the technology trends that you guys have that you're currently

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working on?

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Well, a lot of it's on the security side.

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There are a lot of different security solutions.

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So we're narrowing down what's available, what we can use and helping our end users.

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And when I talk about end users, not only our constituents, but we support our internal

staff, internal employees.

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You know, we're almost 40 departments, 10,000 employees.

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spread out over 8,200 square miles, approximately the fifth largest county in the country.

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And people forget that.

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we're, and we're in central IT, so we support a lot of different things.

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So we have to be a little cautious, but we know that once again, AI is big, security is

huge.

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And really it's, it's taking products that are out there and finding the best ones that

are going to work for our environment.

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Our environment, because I wanted to mention those statistics is different than

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say a smaller county or a smaller city, or it could be even like a private sector where

they say, well, this is what we're doing.

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have, you know, 50 employees.

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We're all using Apple devices.

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We're all using iPads.

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We're all using the same thing here because we have so many different departments that do

so many different things.

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We try to keep the technology as common and similar across the board.

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We really try to standardize where we can, but that's a challenge for us too.

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Understood.

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And I did not know that it was so, so many employees and how long big it was actually.

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So that's awesome to know.

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And one of the things that you did mention to me during the time that you were signing up

for our podcast is adaptive leadership.

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Can you define what that means to an IT setting?

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Absolutely.

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Well, it's interesting because it applies to a lot of different settings.

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They're really, I'd say like they're

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And I am plagiarizing here a little bit, but there are really like three leadership

dimensions and it's directive, supportive and inclusive.

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And the directive is one that I'll say was probably what I was working with when I was in

the mid 80s, working in aerospace defense, former military people, very, you know, this is

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how it's done or we all die type of atmosphere.

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With a supportive, you're really there for kind of helping everybody out.

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And the inclusive is where you have experienced teams that have a lot of knowledge and

they're highly motivated.

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And as a leader, you want to make sure that you kind of use that.

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So that's really where there are a number of other explanations or definitions, I should

say, excuse me, for adaptive leadership.

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But what I found is the longer I'm in this, more I realize I don't know how much, actually

how much I don't know about leadership.

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It's hard to put people in buckets, right?

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Everybody is different.

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Everyone has different values, goals, morals.

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Just go down the list.

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And the trick is as a leader is finding out what works for different people, for different

situations.

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That's really what adaptive leadership is, is that you recognize that you have a team of

individuals.

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They may not all go along the same path as you do.

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I mean, ideally for me, it's like, well, I love having people that think and act like me.

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that I can manage because like, well, I know how I like to be managed.

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So I would think that's the same.

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So I had that thought for a little while.

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Then I had some, some bumps in the road actually early on in my leadership career.

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And that was actually probably one of the best things that have happened.

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It's like, well, no, you need to look at people differently.

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You have to be able to adapt to the environment, whether it's public sector, whether it's

private sector and large companies, small companies, the velocity of the business.

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And by doing that, you just get more comfortable with, okay, you know, we're in a

stressful situation.

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We need to complete this project.

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Okay, guess what?

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In that case, I may need to be more direct.

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You know, this is going to be authoritarian type.

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It's like, well, we have to do this and it has to be done by now.

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However, if we're looking, for example, at new technology for a department that needs a

new project, it might be more inclusive.

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I'm going to ask my

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Not only my senior people, but I'm also going to ask the most junior people.

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Interestingly enough, sometimes the best ideas you get are from people that are not

familiar with your technology at all.

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They don't know anything, for example, about the county or the business you work at.

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They may be a new employee.

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If you're not willing to listen to their ideas and say, you know, that's a great idea.

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I like people to come to me with ideas and they disagree with me, but I want them to come

up to me with ideas.

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Right.

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It's great because you know, the.

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You know the process better, you know the technology better than I will.

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That's not my role.

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But my role is to help kind of figure that out.

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But you've got to come to me with a reason why and have a solution.

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I know a lot of people use that line, but it's really true.

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I love it when people come say, you know, Martin, that's not a great idea, but here's what

I think will work.

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And it'll once again, it can be from somebody that just started with a company or it could

be somebody that's been with the county in this example, 25 years.

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That means they're thinking about, which means I'm doing something right as a mentor and a

leader in that people are willing to be comfortable to tell me when I'm Can't be the

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emperor with no clothes.

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Right.

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again, I'm dating myself, right?

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No, you're fine.

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I I read that book as a child, which I think is really, really important, especially as a

leadership, because the truth is we possibly don't know everything.

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So just having a full understanding of, and I also believe that it's important that I do

get outsiders because a lot of times they have knowledge that I might have not even

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thought of.

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So thank you for sharing that Martin.

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And then how have you used adaptive leadership to navigate challenges in your career?

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I used it a lot more, I think, since I became a leader.

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I didn't recognize that I wasn't trying to.

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I had to realize I couldn't please everybody.

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I guess that's probably the first lesson is that as a leader, I could not please

everybody.

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And for a while I was trying to do that.

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And then I recognized not everybody wants that.

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Not everybody, sadly, sometimes you have to help manage people into the direction they

should go.

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And sometimes that may mean that they're not with the company that they're currently with

and working for you.

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So that's part of that adaptive leadership where sometimes you have to have those, you

know, they call it the crucial conversations.

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Sometimes you actually have to have that with people.

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And it's taken me a very long while.

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And I still struggle with that because my mind said, I'm not wired that way.

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So I've adjusted, to use different types of management styles.

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where I think it's appropriate, but I also recognize, as I mentioned earlier, everybody's

different.

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It's hard to read books and put people into buckets based off of those decisions or

suggestions that books make.

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They're great resources out there, and they're a lot more available with the internet

availability as well.

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But you still have to rethink it and say, that's textbook, but is that really going to be

the reality that you need to apply?

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Understood.

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So thank you for sharing that.

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And then can you share an example of a time when you had to adapt your leadership style to

address a specific issue?

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I've had a couple of different examples.

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Let's see, let me use one where I had an individual that I tried everything.

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I was trying to find something for this employee to try to find out what their direction,

what was their career plans.

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What were their career goals?

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Where would they like to be?

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said, I was here to help them out.

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Whatever it would take, training tools, dimensional technology, making the role easier.

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And it just didn't work.

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And I recognize that going through that process and really trying to be a hands-on

managing, was taking a lot of my time and which was, I was okay with the problem was it

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was taking time away from the rest of my staff.

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So I was essentially doing.

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By changing my style to address one person, I was doing a disservice to the rest of my

employees.

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And they could see that.

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And they recognize that I wasn't providing what they were looking for.

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Once again, some were like, you know, can be a, self-sufficient.

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I know where I want to go.

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And then others like, well, you know, where, where's Martin?

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he's busy managing, an employee challenge.

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say, I won't say issue, I'll say challenge.

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Because a challenge is a good thing because sometimes when you have a challenge, can try

to, it's like, well, I think we can figure out a positive.

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And we actually ended up, it actually was resolved.

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And I think in the long run was probably for the best.

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And if anything, I have the scar tissue, sadly, but it's also what I call, it's part of

that learning phase.

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Not everything is going to be puppy dogs and rainbows and unicorns, especially in

leadership.

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I mean, in any job, doesn't really mean you're

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And whatever one's career is, it's never going to be that way.

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But as long as you're able to learn from that and hopefully take that experience and then

apply it to certain extent, then I think you've done a, I think as a leader, you've done a

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good job.

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And that's the best you can hope for.

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I wasn't born with a, I wasn't born with a leader hat on, right?

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It's like, Martin's going to be a leader for the rest of his career.

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Understood.

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And that's the only way you can grow, which I think is super, super important.

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And then Martin, what does your mentorship play in IT and why is it so important?

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I do it every day.

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And the reason I so love being a mentor is because my story at the end of my career is not

going to be how much money did I make?

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What title do I have?

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How many houses do I have?

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How many cars do I have?

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How many trips?

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And I could go down the list.

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It's like, did I make a difference?

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in other people's lives to get them in the career that they want to get into.

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That's what's so important about being mentor.

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Young, old, it doesn't matter.

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We all have aspirations.

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We all have drives, desires.

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When I was earlier in my career, I was driven by the title and the money.

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But as you go through the decades and you go through the years of working, you start

figuring out what is important.

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So I try to impart some of that messaging with my staff and it's

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I would say it's every day.

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talk about, I have some people that are maybe new or in leadership.

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So I try to guide them through.

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They're going to hit the potholes.

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They're going to hit the walls, but I try to give them some ideas.

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At least I try to ask them to think about the other side of things.

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Maybe that's not the answer, but what if you reverse it?

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Or maybe you ask staff to do this.

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And I encourage them to become mentors as well.

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I think that's a huge part of this.

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It's paying it forward.

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I know that's a term that's often overused, but that is so important.

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I was very blessed and I have been very blessed in my career to have some mentors in my

life that I still have that were able to help me give me an answer that maybe I didn't

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want to hear.

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And that's really what mentorship is as well, right?

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It's not just you're doing great, keep it up.

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Sometimes it's like, well, I wouldn't suggest doing that.

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That doesn't seem like a smart thing, but here's what you might want to look into.

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So once again, the mentorship is

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It's constant.

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And sometimes I've got people here, as I mentioned earlier, the youngest people or the

newest people or the ones still in college, they're almost mentoring me saying, this is

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what's going on.

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You know, I'm in a different generation.

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That's a very important piece of it.

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You know, you look at millennials, which is the largest generation.

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And then Gen X is right behind it with the number of people in the workforce.

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They're the way they were brought up.

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Almost all technology.

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I mean,

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You look at what it is and I have to accept that I can be mentored by them because they

might say, well, you know, you could use this tool and it will save you 20 minutes a day.

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That's fantastic.

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Was that something hard to learn at first?

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For me?

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No, I would say I'll go back to working in restaurants for so many years that I did around

so many different people working in lots of different industries with a lot of great

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people.

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I said, Jack of all trades, master of none.

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has really been able to help me adapt easier, I think, than a lot of people that are the

baby boomers.

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And that's where we're seeing that challenge is like, we still have a lot of baby boomers

working in environment.

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Their mindset is not the same.

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I worked two and three jobs when I was going through college.

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That's, that's not how it works anymore.

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Does that mean I was, I'm better because I worked more jobs?

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No, that has nothing to do with it.

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But what it does show is that maybe I was working harder, not smarter.

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I think people now are working smarter.

389

They're working hard, but they figured out there's tools and technology and things out

there that can make them be more efficient.

390

So if I can learn from them and I'm willing to love it.

391

I mean, I am not, I do not want to stop learning because I can tell you 20 years in means

absolutely nothing as a leader.

392

35 years in and technology means nothing other than I've had a chance to experience a lot

of things, but I learned so much more every single day.

393

And I would encourage every leader to acknowledge and realize that they do not know

everything.

394

They have to be willing to listen.

395

Yes, I agree with you a hundred percent.

396

And then when it comes to how do you approach mentoring and developing your team members?

397

With my supervisors, I report to me, it's a little bit easy because we have one-on-one

conversations and they can go anyplace.

398

Sometimes it's work, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's both.

399

So I don't say,

400

this is our mentoring session, you are going to listen, I'm going to mentor you.

401

It's very organic.

402

It's the way a lot of things should happen.

403

If they have a question or if they're questioning why I did something, made a decision, to

me, I consider that almost a mentoring.

404

I don't say, hey, we're mentoring right now.

405

I'll say, this is why I made this decision.

406

And sometimes I'll make it and they'll say, well, know, why didn't you do this?

407

And I can say, you know what, that's a great idea.

408

And in my mind, I'm thinking they just mentored me.

409

Once again, it's always been

410

willing or be willing to listen to your staff.

411

And sometimes, once again, it's not, can't say, I did 12 hours of mentoring.

412

It's, hey, we had an opportunity to have discussions.

413

And 10 years or five years from now, they may look back and say, you know, I remember that

I had that conversation with Martin and here's what came out of it.

414

That to me is almost what I would consider a mentoring opportunity.

415

Got it.

416

So you would say it's more generic.

417

not like, we're doing this training.

418

No, we have that, but it's very organic.

419

I said I get very excited about it because to me, that is what my job is.

420

I'm here to help guide the ship, but I'm willing to make and I need to make course

corrections based on what the teams are saying.

421

Understood.

422

And then what advice would you give to an IT professional looking to get into leadership?

423

I would say have some great mentors, people that you can look up to, do some research

online and interview, what's called informational interviews.

424

If you know you want to go into leadership, find some people out there, not necessarily in

your company or whether public or private sector, and just start questioning them.

425

So how did you get into that?

426

What did you find that you liked?

427

What did you find you didn't like?

428

What are the challenges that you're experiencing?

429

And then you start kind of taking a look into

430

Okay, so there are opportunities in my company to move up to maybe it's a lead.

431

Well, does that mean you're leading a project or you're leading people?

432

It's a very different.

433

And then you get an idea.

434

like, you know, I always thought people would work the same way I do.

435

And then you realize early on that doesn't always work.

436

So that's a great way to get started.

437

And then I'm going to say, use your silver bullet sparingly, especially when you get into

leadership.

438

And what I mean by that is.

439

If something goes sideways or there's something, critical decision that has to be made,

sometimes you have to be that absolute ruler or make that, but you limit those because the

440

more you do it, the more you're micromanaging, the more people stop listening to you they

go to other leaders.

441

But I would encourage people that have a thought about doing it to investigate it and

realize and recognize that you're, leading other people that once again have different

442

skill sets, morals, drives, desires.

443

And think about is that what you really want to, are you okay with also losing your

technological background?

444

Cause that you will lose your technical skillset.

445

It has to happen.

446

It's very, very difficult to be able to do both right.

447

And if you're doing everything great on the technical side, as a leader of a team, you may

be doing your scene, your team at a service because you're not helping them advance and

448

grow in what the careers they want to do.

449

Got it.

450

And so when you became a leader, was that something you struggled with in the beginning?

451

No, I've never been very technical to be perfectly honest with Got it.

452

I'm good with taking understanding what the customer wants and what the end user and what

the technical team and figured out.

453

I was a systems analyst early on, so that's really helped me well.

454

I found my skill set and my strengths is being able to lead people and direct them and

help them.

455

and do it in a way where it comes across as, because I have a belief that I really believe

in people.

456

And it comes across that way.

457

It's not a phony, it's not an act.

458

I'm interested in what they do.

459

I believe in what they do.

460

I'm here to help them.

461

I'm here to take the hits for them.

462

I'm here to get them promoted up, them the accolades.

463

To me, leading is not difficult.

464

But what happens is a lot of people that are great as individual contributors think, well,

everyone's going to work just as well as I am.

465

I've promoted up very high.

466

I'm ready to lead people.

467

It doesn't work that way.

468

So I think you have to find what your strength is and what you've been blessed to be able

to do.

469

And for me, it truly is leading and mentoring and just helping people.

470

And I found my best spot to be in, I guess.

471

And I think I do a pretty good job at it.

472

I don't know, I guess if you talk to some people that work for me, you might get a

different answer.

473

But as long as I believe it, that's all that matters, right?

474

Right.

475

And then what are some of the key trends you're seeing, you see shaping the future for IT

in the government services?

476

The government services, we cannot be left too far behind.

477

So I'm going to go back to AI again and security.

478

There are more security vulnerabilities, I think, across the board with government and

public sector than maybe in the private sector.

479

that's definitely if you can spell, and this is going to sound silly, I know, but if you

can spell security, you can almost get a job working in security operations.

480

There's because the demand is so great.

481

It's so difficult to find people to move into that.

482

And then what AI is going to do, I don't think it's going to, it may change jobs and I

will say it might, it potentially could eliminate jobs.

483

Well, with that, to me, instead of saying I'm going to lose my job, what that's telling me

is like, wow, I've got more opportunities to learn something new.

484

Maybe I can become this or I can do that.

485

And I think the younger generations and the direction that things are going is that as

newer and younger employees are moving into the public sector.

486

They want to try things.

487

They also want to have a voice and I'm all for that.

488

It's great if you have a voice in decisions, but once again, there are going to be times

when I'm going to say that's fantastic, but this is a direction we have to go.

489

Once again, going back to what a leader does, people, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, they want to

have the opportunities to provide something to the organization.

490

And I think if you do that,

491

They have more of a belief in the organization.

492

The remote work, I know it's going back and forth right now.

493

You've got a lot of companies coming, pulling it back.

494

There, I think is a huge value in having a balance.

495

And I think it's gone, know, pendulum gone from one side.

496

Now it's coming back the other way.

497

And somehow it's gonna, it will balance out.

498

It has to.

499

The world has changed.

500

And once again, I'll go back to the baby boomers and even the millennials.

501

It's changed for us.

502

And we have to be comfortable with change.

503

And we're sometimes the most difficult people to acknowledge that the work and the

workforce and the environment and the world is different.

504

We have to, if we want to, if we want to be able to survive in it, but not get trampled,

then we need to understand and learn how to work with people that are maybe 20, 30, my

505

case, 40 plus years younger than me.

506

Right.

507

It's a challenge, but it's once again, I like learning and I like changing and adapting.

508

So it's fun.

509

For me, it's fun and it should be for leaders.

510

It should be fun.

511

Got it.

512

No, and I agree with that.

513

You know, you've been talking a lot about, you know, that younger generation coming in.

514

How do you see IT evolving in the next five years, particularly in government or public

services?

515

We will be bringing more technology in.

516

We will become more efficient.

517

We will be able to take people that perhaps are not

518

uh, very technologically savvy, the ones that have been here for a while.

519

I'll just use this for a while.

520

And they will become more technologically savvy.

521

So you're going to see more technology come in, but we're also going to be, I think, very

good at identifying areas that we can improve it.

522

How do we get rid of all the manual processes?

523

know, technology and government, oftentimes you see lots of red tape.

524

How do we, and that's what we're working on too, is how do we reduce the red tape?

525

You know, for you, as an example, as a constituent and you want to be, what I would want

to be able to do is I want to be on a trip in the Caribbean, laying on a beach, having a

526

cocktail and have my phone with me and get a notification that I need to pay my water,

power, quarterly taxes.

527

I need to, I need to renew my business license.

528

Maybe I have a, a license for something else.

529

I want to be able to do it on my phone and be done.

530

not have to come back, not have to manual, you know, actually have to drive into a

government, the government center building and stand in line and write a check or, you

531

know, I want to be able to do everything within like two minutes and it's done.

532

So I'm not bothered.

533

So technology has to continue to reduce the red tape here.

534

And it is, and it will continue to do that because we also have to be very fiscally

responsible.

535

That's our responsibility for me as a county employee.

536

for you as a non-county employee.

537

You're paying taxes for a lot of different things.

538

Some of that comes in to pay my salary.

539

So am I doing a disservice to you by wasting money?

540

No, I'm not.

541

So how do we improve on that?

542

So I believe our cell phone is going to be, that's going to be more of a lifeblood than it

is for people now.

543

And once again, as people in the older generation start retiring out, newer generation,

you're technology driven.

544

You want to, in fact, you may not want to a car.

545

You may not want to own a house.

546

You know, you can go down the list of things.

547

You might want services, everything, you know, Uber's delivering everything for me, right?

548

People use that already.

549

So how do we improve our services for our constituents?

550

How do we improve our services for our businesses here?

551

So when somebody is starting up a new business, they can go, it's a one-stop shop.

552

They go to one link and it allows them to do everything they need to get their businesses

up and running.

553

We don't want to be the hindrance for somebody starting a new idea.

554

Got it.

555

And I look forward to that, I would say it's not the next five years.

556

That's happening now.

557

You would be amazed at seeing the things that are actually happening.

558

Because once again, technology is accelerating at such a rapid rate.

559

know, the Moore's law, it's almost out the window because what we're having trouble with

is that our brains can't keep up with what's happening with technology.

560

So it's challenging.

561

It's challenging for private sector and public sector.

562

under and I'm sure I'm sure it's very challenging.

563

And then so what's one piece of leadership advice that has stuck with you throughout your

career, your long career?

564

I'm going to tell you too, because I think I deserve that because I'm old.

565

I would say don't be afraid of making mistakes.

566

Allow your teams to challenge yourself.

567

And allow your teams to essentially challenge themselves and the people to challenge

themselves.

568

It's like you have to be afraid to make mistakes, to learn.

569

one of the things that I do see as a challenge in the public sector versus private is that

you don't always have as many people that are willing to take chances and take risks.

570

You have to do things outside your comfort zone.

571

This actually speaking with you on a podcast is outside my comfort zone.

572

I love talking and I love talking with people.

573

but it's still not something that I normally like to do.

574

I can speak in front of groups, but not necessarily big audiences.

575

And doing something like this is outside my comfort zone, but it's great because it gives

me a chance to kind of get past that part of it's like, Ooh, I'm doing this, but I'm

576

actually able to message my story and what I think is important.

577

I, once again, it's those two things is you've got to be willing to take chances.

578

You've got to be there for your people essentially to back them up.

579

It's like, once again, they get the accolades, they get the promotions.

580

All that stuff has helped me through my entire career.

581

As that has happened, I've been able to promote up very successfully in different

companies because of my people.

582

It has nothing to do with what I've done.

583

I've just made sure I'm there for them.

584

So that was probably more than two answers.

585

Sorry.

586

No, I loved it.

587

And I'm glad like this is getting at your comfort zone.

588

Me starting the podcast was me getting out of my comfort zone.

589

So I just love that.

590

And then as you do more, you get better.

591

And then, so if you could go back and give your younger self a career advice, what would

it be?

592

I think the one of the first things I would say is I should have pushed myself harder at

the beginning of my career.

593

There were opportunities out there that I probably didn't try to take advantage of.

594

Maybe I wasn't asking the right people.

595

Maybe I didn't recognize that I needed to find some mentors.

596

So I think that was important.

597

Be comfortable with change.

598

I was, when I first started my first job, I didn't ever really thought past that, that,

oh, I'm going to be here.

599

And then they closed the division down and people were scattered or, you know, were laid

off essentially because there was no need for, you know, 12,000 people scattered.

600

So I think you have to be.

601

I wish I was more acceptable to change.

602

And I think I wish I took advantage of the people there that I think I could have learned

more from and actually taken advantage of more of the training that was out there for me.

603

granted, it was very different, you know, almost 40 years ago, but still there was

opportunities out there.

604

So these days I encourage people don't just settle.

605

If an opportunity comes up before you're say married or with a significant other, or you

have children or you get settled in.

606

and you have a chance to travel, to work for a job, if it's not remote, take the

opportunity.

607

Don't limit yourself because you're limiting your capabilities.

608

You'll never know what your capabilities are unless you actually test it.

609

And once again, if you fail, that's okay.

610

Just try it again, figure out a different way, find out what happened.

611

What do I need to do to change?

612

Who do I need to talk to?

613

I mean, it's all alert.

614

Our whole lives are learning experiences.

615

We'll learn till the day we pass away.

616

I mean, you just, it is.

617

So if you're comfortable with it, if you're not, if you're comfortable with it, great.

618

If you're not comfortable with it, get comfortable because that's what life is.

619

It is going to be challenges.

620

You're going to have great days and bad days.

621

You're going to have times where you think I can't do anything.

622

I don't know anything.

623

You'd be surprised.

624

No, agreed.

625

I agree with you 100%.

626

So I do appreciate you sharing that with us, And then if if our listeners wanted to

connect with you, how do they do that?

627

A couple different ways.

628

I'm on LinkedIn.

629

And if you go to my LinkedIn page, Martin Bennett, you'll see that my photo is not the

norm.

630

It's not going to be the me sitting with a suit on, which I do have photos of.

631

It's me on a bicycle.

632

So there's another part of me with my other part of my life, which is not non-work

related.

633

I'm comfortable in my own skin, I'll say.

634

So I'm not worried about if somebody sees that said, well, they didn't use a professional

photo.

635

You know, we wouldn't want to talk to them.

636

So LinkedIn is one way.

637

Also my email address through Clark County.

638

It's martin.benet at clarkcountynv.gov.

639

Also my, I'm more than happy to provide my desk phone number.

640

It's Eric code 702-455-3021.

641

I would love to hear from people.

642

Good, bad.

643

I'd love to hear if people have got some advice for me.

644

Once again, I am, I'm just one of millions of people out there.

645

I've been very blessed once again in my life.

646

I found, I felt the passion with getting into leadership and working with people.

647

I mentioned what my story is a little bit earlier on our conversation.

648

And that's kind of how I want to be remembered.

649

I guess if you might say that.

650

So I'd love to hear other people's stories.

651

Love to try to help people.

652

try to work with people now.

653

If they're looking to changing careers or changing jobs, I try to help with that on the

side as well.

654

I said, I like people.

655

mean, that's, that's part of being a leader.

656

You better like people because they are not going to be like you.

657

They're not going to act.

658

They're not going to talk like you.

659

may not, they're not going to look like you, but you're there to help guide them to get

where they want to go.

660

That's my job.

661

And it's not a challenge for me.

662

I'm glad to be able to do something like this.

663

I I feel very blessed once again to be able to do something like this and offer my skills

and my background, my expertise and my experience.

664

And hopefully it helps somebody.

665

If I'm able to change one person and help them get where they've gone, then I've done my

job.

666

Yeah, I just love that.

667

Oh, Martin, thank you.

668

so much.

669

I did enjoy our conversation and we will add all the links that you did mention on the

description.

670

But today was a pleasure and thank you so much.

671

Thank you very much, Yichoi.

672

I really enjoyed it.

673

Thank you again.