"Leadership isn't just about steering the ship. It's about making sure every crew member knows they're on the right journey.”
In this episode of Executive Evolution, our host Craig Anderson sits down with Evan Huck, CEO of UserEvidence, to discuss the highs and lows of leading through uncertainty, building a thriving remote culture, and inspiring a mission-driven team.
Join us to discover how Evan leads with empathy and insight, even when facing the hard truths of executive life
Things to listen for:
- 01:22 Evan's Leadership Journey
- 01:52 Lightning Round: Leadership book
- 03:48 Leadership Influence
- 08:23 Defining Leadership
- 10:31 Early Leadership Roles
- 16:30 Lessons in Leadership
- 22:56 Final Thoughts and Takeaways
After You Listen:
- Get your copy of Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard
- Connect with Evan on LinkedIn
- Check out UserEvidence
- Connect with Craig on LinkedIn
- Check out Craig’s monthly free training on holding difficult conversations
Key Takeaways:
- Sharing your company's story openly fosters trust and keeps your team motivated, especially during tough times
- Documenting priorities and progress helps everyone to be aligned and focused
- Curiosity and humility: these qualities drive growth and problem-solving within the company
Episode Transcript
This has been generated by AI and optimized by a human.
Craig Anderson [00:00:00]:
I looked at the team, and I said, they're not stupid. They know what's going on. Welcome to Executive Evolution. I have over 25 years of leadership experience in corporate America. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way, and I created this podcast so that you won't have to. At one point, the business was really kind of in a struggle, and that dip that a lot of businesses face as they're growing. And there was a lot of concern. We had a big call center.
Craig Anderson [00:00:29]:
We didn't want to make the team nervous by letting them know there was some struggles on the sales side and that we were struggling to grow. I knew that the team knew because they could tell there was not as much business. They were not as busy as they were. They knew we were in tough times. And rather than keep hiding that fact and our knowledge of that fact from them, we needed to make sure to build the story about what we were doing to help grow the business and help us be stronger so that this dip wasn't forever. It was just for now. And in my interview with Evan Huck of user evidence today, he talks about the importance of building that story about your business and putting your team at the center of that narrative, keeping them informed. So let's jump in and hear the story of Evan's Executive Evolution.
Craig Anderson [00:01:17]:
Evan, welcome to Executive Evolution.
Evan Huck [00:01:19]:
Thank you, Greg. Appreciate you having me.
Craig Anderson [00:01:21]:
Absolutely glad to have you here to hear the story of. Of your business, which really is just a few years old. And, you know, as we were talking before the show, before we started recording, you know, you guys kind of leapt into a leadership role very quickly.
Evan Huck [00:01:34]:
Yeah, it's a. It's a Covid baby, I guess. Started in August 2020, ironically, about six months before I had my actual first baby. So I don't know if I'd recommend early stage kids and early stage companies at the same time, but that's what we're doing.
Craig Anderson [00:01:48]:
Well, it can only get easier from there. One hopes so. Well, good. But, Evan, what we always like to do is jump in to get to know you a little bit with kind of our lightning round questions, which at least is just euphemistically called a lightning round because usually leads to some good conversations, but let's talk it through. So, are you ready to go?
Evan Huck [00:02:05]:
Yeah.
Craig Anderson [00:02:06]:
All right, let's do it. What is the best book on leadership that you have ever read?
Evan Huck [00:02:11]:
Man, that is a tough one. Ironically, I like to read leadership books that maybe aren't on its surface about leadership. One of the. The best ones I read, least in the world, was Yvon Chouinard book, Let My People Go Surfing, which is about the founding of Patagonia. Just as an aside, I think its cool when work can kind of coexist with life. I live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where were confronted with just the most epic outdoor options in terms of rafting and biking and skiing, camping and fly fishing or whatever. And so building company here you are forced to think about balance and you know, how these two halves of your life, kind of work in life, can support each other and not get in each other's way. And I think Iman Schonard's book about Patagonia is an extreme example of that where there's all these, you know, climbing buns, creating this incredibly amazing company, but still keeping their original purpose, which is like, we do this to like go outside and have fun.
Evan Huck [00:03:11]:
So I thought that was a great book.
Craig Anderson [00:03:14]:
No, that is a great book. I've not read it, but I know the story and what they've built and how they built it and then what they did with the money is just so amazing how they kind of just had such a mission sitting under it that was even under the mission of what the company was trying to make. That's fantastic. I find there's a lot of great sources for leadership that aren't in leadership books. One of my favorite ones I wrote a blog about it is Moneyball has some of the best leadership lessons of any movie and it's just, there's so much great stuff. You don't always have to read leadership books to figure this stuff out, so. Well, let's go into second question. Who is your leadership crush? Who is your favorite leader out there?
Evan Huck [00:03:48]:
Yeah, this might not be a known one, but probably the most influential leader was my initial CEO, my first startup, which was tech validate. So I graduated from Stanford in 2010 and joined this random kind of b two b tech startup in Berkeley, California called Tech Validate. And I was the first salesperson in an SDR with the role where I was just doing cold calls and stuff like that. And it was totally foreign to me. I had no sales experience. I was kind of an introverted guy. And the CEO of this company, Brad O'Neill, happened to be just like one of the best sales people ever, very successful multi exit entrepreneur, and just learned a ton about, I think, what was cool. And one thing I tried to do today with my team is not only just teaching you your role, but he fostered this environment of curiosity.
Evan Huck [00:04:36]:
And one of the ways that he did that was also just being very transparent and open and teaching people about how to build the company so they would do lunch and learns about VC funding and how that works, which it wasn't immediately applicable to us in our roles, but was still a really interesting context to know how your role was supporting this larger company effort. And that experience no doubt led me to be the type of person that could actually start a company now. And you don't see a ton of sdrs and salespeople going to CEO, but I think because tech validate did such a good job of instilling that curiosity and just educating on how to be an entrepreneur and how to start startups and how the whole ecosystem works. I look at the alumni from that group and there's a bunch of founders even just within the sales team, which is pretty rare. So that was, yeah, I think Brad and the other co founder, Steve, did a great job of just fostering that entrepreneurial, curiosity driven environment.
Craig Anderson [00:05:32]:
And there's two really great lessons in that. One is just when they're actually feeding into you and helping you become a better, not just really employee, but just better person by giving you this expansive view. And then the other piece, even though we talk about it differently than we did even five years ago around employee engagement, so much employee engagements driven when you understand the whole big picture of the company and how your role actually drives it. So you actually feel like, oh yeah, I am aligned and I'm driving value to the company. So it just sounds like he really had an, I don't know if he grew into that or just he's kind of intuitive, but what a great way to lead.
Evan Huck [00:06:09]:
Yeah, like, especially when like SDR, for instance, is like, is a tough role. Like you're ripping dials. And I actually, I was dialing myself last week with my reps and I, you know, got, my first two calls were just like, bad hang ups? No, like, screw you, get off. And so it's like, damn, that's kind of demoralizing. And so to understand how this role attaches to this broader mission so that you can feel a better part of a community and feel like you're impacting something that, that does have, you know, much higher meaning at the higher level. It definitely is motivating as an employee and gives you a sense for all this time and hardship that you go through, like what it's actually doing and producing in a more meaningful sense.
Craig Anderson [00:06:50]:
Yeah. And it sounds like it's something, you poured it into your own leadership style there as well.
Evan Huck [00:06:55]:
Yeah, for sure. I think that's a key ingredient and we also, it influences hiring, too. I mean, we look for the type of people that do have that sort of strong curiosity, are humble and want to learn, and we tend to hire, especially in sales, like, fairly young and inexperienced, because we want folks that are moldable. So if you combine those two things, like a bunch of smart, but sometimes inexperienced, but incredibly creative and humble and curious people with a culture that prioritizes, that sort of coaching and education and transparency around what the company is working on beyond just your role, that is a very good combination to produce employees that can not only do their role well, but start to. And this is true in a startup. Like, there's always big problems to solve that are adjacent to your role. And you want people in an early stage company that can identify those problems and feel the. Have the permission and the authority to go out there and just be like, hey, Evan, like, I saw this big problem a little bit outside my role, but here's what I think we should do about it.
Evan Huck [00:07:58]:
I'm like, cool. That's awesome. And that's how, honestly, a lot of our managers start to get creative. They just proactively go start solving problems outside of their role. It's like, great. You are now the SDR manager or sales enablement person. So we intentionally think a lot about how to create those structures for curiosity because we need in this early stage for people to step up and start growing and solving problems outside of their role.
Craig Anderson [00:08:22]:
Love it. And then the last question in the lightning round for you, Evan, is, in ten words or less, how would you define leadership?
Evan Huck [00:08:30]:
I think giving people context on why they're there.
Craig Anderson [00:08:33]:
Oh, really? Say more. That's great.
Evan Huck [00:08:35]:
Why it can mean so many things, right? Why they're there in terms of what they're doing, but also why they're there in terms of the bigger purpose and the mission of the company and your job as a leader, that there's so many opportunities to translate that context and that mission to people at different levels of the organization. I think one of your jobs as a CEO is to be this kind of canonical communicator that holds this story, and at every opportunity is reciting this story. And that could be in a team sense, in a team meeting, or it could be individuals and one on ones, but you have these kind of themes and underlying purposes and strategy and initiatives that are important, that everyone understands the context around them. And you almost have to unnaturally, especially in a remote environment, really be thoughtful around consistently distributing this message to the people.
Craig Anderson [00:09:28]:
Yeah, it's so much more important now, when you just don't see people every day and they don't have that same. Just kind of. We used to talk about pre Covid, right. Intentional collisions and building your office around that, so people had to talk to each other. And how you do that now, when people are on slack or maybe they're on a zoom call briefly or whatever it is, it's a whole different way to apply it.
Evan Huck [00:09:48]:
I think that's tough. I mean, it's like you used to be able to solve a lot of problems. It's like, hey, let's just go grab a beer and we'll figure it out. Right. Unless you create equivalent, remote versions of that intentional collusion. Right. Then your only interactions are stuff like this. I talked to someone for half an hour and a zoom, and we go through our stuff, and that's that.
Evan Huck [00:10:05]:
So there is a new, new model, a new mode of creating that intentional collusion, which are these opportunities to understand employees and what they're trying to solve in their life and where they're trying to go. And then hopefully merge that with, again, this company story and this contact journal we're trying to do so that employees, again, feel like their work mission is consistent with their personal mission.
Craig Anderson [00:10:28]:
Yeah, great. So, Evan, we're going to go back a little bit in time. So I know you started out kind of as an SDR, but what was your first real leadership role? It could have been student council president in high school or something, professionally. But what was really your first leadership role?
Evan Huck [00:10:45]:
I remember when I was 15, my club volleyball coach asked everyone to go around, and on a scale of one to ten, ask them how much they were contributing to the team, and you got a range of different numbers. And I, like everyone else, was, like, seven. And he's like, I think you're at ten, and you have this leadership crates where you're taking all this positive energy and calm demeanor and applying it to this team. So I guess that was maybe the first instance of it. My first, more formal one, actually kind of a fun story set at Stanford. Senior year or junior year summer, we lived in San Francisco, and my friend and I learned how to dj. Like, DJ electronic music. Like, we went to these big festivals and, like, looked like a ton of fun.
Evan Huck [00:11:25]:
So, like, all right, I want to learn how to do that. And we ended up actually creating a little business out of it. And so we had four or five DJ's in this collective where we could go out to frat parties or school parties or whatever, and we get paid six or $700 a pop, which was incredible. We would have done it for free. And so, yeah, we created this little business around it and you know how, like some cool branding around it. And so that was my first kind of like, you know, I guess, startup y experience. And as part of that and having a team of four or five people, I guess, leadership as well.
Craig Anderson [00:11:56]:
And within that, what did you run into? Right. Because as soon as you get four or five people, you have opportunities and challenges right out of the gate, people, are they showing up? Are they doing a good job? What are the things? But, yeah, what were your takeaways?
Evan Huck [00:12:07]:
When your job is to essentially party and you have a bunch of seniors in college or youre people, then, yeah, you know, you get all kinds of variations of he's too drunk or whatever it was. But it was super fun. I mean, we weren't super organized, and we didn't have enough time to blow it out into something more official. But, yeah, there's challenges, just coordination and marketing and getting our name out. And all of it was a tiny version of it, but it was the kernels that starting to get that motion and that muscle built that we eventually take into the business world.
Craig Anderson [00:12:39]:
Yeah. And in some of your earlier leadership roles, before the work you're doing here at user evidence, what were some of your takeaways when you found yourself kind of in leadership positions about yourself?
Evan Huck [00:12:50]:
I mean, it was new. Like, my first, like, real, like, work management leadership role was I started my career as an SDR in 2010. I was the first salesperson at this company, tech validate. And then, you know, we grew to maybe seven strs, and then I became the SDR manager of this other six sdrs. And the one thing that was tough is, like, you know, I was 22 at the time. I had some people that were 26 and stuff like that. So managing, you know, definitely age wise at least, like, a peer group, was tricky at first. And trying to figure out that balance of, like, having authority, I guess, if that's the right word or is that the right way to do it, or how do I essentially gain respect and get people to buy into what we're trying to do? And it was kind of a tough figuring out process.
Evan Huck [00:13:32]:
Like, some new managers think they really need to kind of pop their chest up and lean into, like, all right, I'm going to get people to like, I'm gonna have authority and people are gonna respect me and stuff like that, which didn't seem natural for me anyway. So, like, I didn't do much of that. And then a lot of it can just come from continuing to lead in the seat as kind of a peer based leader, which is why last week I was doing a bunch of cold calls with my sales team as the CEO. Scheduled two meetings, by the way, which was cool. Also got a bunch of hang ups. But I think it is important, like, in that sense, like, if you're gonna ask people to do this hard job, like, them seeing you do it and do it well and be willing to fall on your face and then encounter rejection, I think is important as well. So there was a lot of figuring out around, like, what does being a leader look like in a way that works for me because everyone's kind of got different personalities and natural tendencies, and it took a little bit to just figure out what that leader version of me was, but I enjoyed it because it was challenging and interesting and something new, and I'm very intellectually motivated. So that sort of challenge and struggle and figuring it out was something that was definitely motivating for me.
Craig Anderson [00:14:34]:
Yeah. What surprised you the most? So you're in a peer group of sdrs, and suddenly now you're the boss. What kind of was the revelation in there for you?
Evan Huck [00:14:43]:
I think on the positive side, I gained a lot of, I think, credibility and respect and buy in just by leaning hard into coaching and development again, particularly with the younger team, where they had seen that I could do this job really well, then I wanted to help other people get to that point of competency and then mastering the art of this really tough sales job. So I spent a lot of time training on art and psychology and science of selling, which I think was fun for people. We all felt like we were getting better together, and I may have been probably the orchestrator of it, but it felt like we were all growing as a group. On the blind spot side, one thing I've noticed as a leader that I'm just terrible at, but I never have any idea what's going on. From a team gossip perspective, I had relationships happening, and I would never have any idea what's going on. Luckily, I had other people on the team I could go to that could tell me, and if it was relevant, I could go help. Yeah, I was always bad just having the more gossip level polls of what's going on, even here at user evidence. I know I'm terrible at that.
Evan Huck [00:15:48]:
Luckily, Ray and co founder is better, just like you're getting to that level, so as long as someone can handle it. But, yeah, it's just kind of funny because it's like I never have any idea what's going on at that level.
Craig Anderson [00:16:00]:
No, I get it. I know when I first got moved up, I was, you know, this was the group I hung out with, went out after work and had beers with who told me everything, and then suddenly I wasn't in that group anymore. You know, even if I did go, it's just like everybody's a little more guarded. It's just a very different. Because you're like, hey, we used to tell me everything. You know, I gotta ask. Yeah, well, you know, so it does change the dynamic for you. So now let's advance now, right? So you're CEO of user evidence.
Craig Anderson [00:16:25]:
You've got a good sized team going, a good sized business growing. What lessons from kind of those early leadership roles influenced your leadership style today?
Evan Huck [00:16:36]:
We still are pretty religious about leaning into that training and development oriented culture. And again, that does impact our hiring, too. Like, we are intentionally looking for that curious, humble person that has high upside, that's willing to try new things and put themselves outside of their comfort zone. Yeah, I think where we've developed over the years and gotten better, maybe we weren't before. My image of myself is still as kind of like a younger rep, and it's kind of like the cool parents type of thing. It's nice in some respects, but people want that consistency and structure and authority of a parent sometimes. And so learning how to still obviously be very friendly. And there's some folks that I am like friends with, but play a little bit more of that CEO role, and especially in a remote context, like where a lot of the main interactions might be a team meeting or something like that.
Evan Huck [00:17:27]:
There's almost a little bit of a dramatic presentation element that I think about in terms of communicating this bigger story. That's one thing I've worked with my executive coach on. It's almost politician like skill sets. Right? Like, how do you communicate the story in an effective way such that you start to build buy in and motivation? So I've been a lot more intentional around how I think about that, which can sometimes manifest itself in language choice, and again, trying to create the appearance of at least a little bit more authority and consistency. And then I have slightly different Persona for when I'm kind of one on one hanging out with people. Right. So the remote element is such an unnatural thing where you kind of have to take some unnatural measures to counteract some of the disadvantages you get from it.
Craig Anderson [00:18:12]:
Yeah, but it is funny when you get into that role. What I found was how I reacted, how I spoke, the words I used had huge impact. And people pay attention to you, right? They're drawing from you. So if you're not panicked, chances are they're not panicked. But if they know things are going wrong and they see you're not talking about it, then they start to wonder, well, what else is going on, right? So it all is you.
Evan Huck [00:18:39]:
On the positive side, the unique part about my role, especially because I do get to spend time and customer success and sales and product, I get to hear a lot of these amazing customer experience stories from our CS team or from our product team, where I get to see the excitement of someone on the product team. And so I am in a unique spot where I'm one of the only people that gets to see all these positive things happening across the company. And so if you're just in your silo, you only see the positive things that happen in your function. So part of your job is to also illuminate and put a spotlight on some of the great positive work that's happening in these other functions. And that's another job. Just as a storyteller, you want people to feel like there's momentum happening across every function in the company. And a lot of times all you know is if you're SDR or the account executive or something, all you know is your little sales world and your individual pipeline. So yeah, I think that transparency and going more than natural in the direction of telling stories across cool things that are happening in different areas of the company, I think is really good practice.
Evan Huck [00:19:38]:
And that's your point. On the negative side, people feel when there's unknown. That's the scary part. Leaders, we get scared of having to tell people bad news. People can handle it. What they can't handle is uncertainty and the anxiety around bad news that might come down the ride. They don't know what it is. The more you can just be brutally honest and give people relevant information on what's going on.
Evan Huck [00:20:03]:
And to your point, like, let them know that, like, we're not freaking out. Like having done several of these startups, we're going to get all kinds of up and down and stuff like that, and there's going to be points where even I'm like, oh man, it's not going to work. But inevitably, if we just keep doing stuff and keep focused, we will get there and so on. Some of the scarier stuff is just being honest, being transparent and leading with the kind of calm hand theory can help reduce that anxiety.
Craig Anderson [00:20:27]:
Well, and I love what you said about how you kind of think about this as telling a story and helping them see themselves at the center of that story. Right. So the more you can feed into them, the more they can grow from that. And also, to your point. Yeah. When they. When you have these open loops where there's a lack of information, that's the worst. Yes is usually fine.
Craig Anderson [00:20:44]:
You're an old sales guy, right? Yes is fine. No is fine. Maybe is awful. Right? You don't want to be in maybe land. So that's a big piece of. So, Evan, if you could go back in time in a DeLorean or however you want to do it, go back in time to you and that early leadership role when you first took over that SDR team, what's the one piece of advice that you would give yourself that you think would have been the most helpful to you then?
Evan Huck [00:21:09]:
One of my weaknesses that I've always had, that I still have, though I've done a good job of surrounding myself with leaders that are very good at this, is being organized and documented in how you communicate your priorities. I've always been very strong in small groups because I get frequent interaction to tell the story in terms of what we're doing. But when the team grows a little bit, that's where more organized, coordinated document and structure in terms of your priorities and your strategy is really important. I look for leaders now, and I would definitely give my advice to myself as an earlier leader who did not do this well, like, just putting in the time to make slide decks and every couple of weeks, a captain's log on what's going on and what you're working on. And I think this is more important now remotely, too, because, again, the in person interactions are less frequent, and so these structures and content that people can go to every day in notion and be like, all right, what are we working on again? Or what's that? What's this project? That was a huge gap for me and still is, to an extent. But one thing that I've realized is just incredibly important at this kind of scale in a remote environment is to have leaders that can document and articulate a coherent strategy that's data driven. So they lay that out at the beginning of the quarter, and then every week, they're updating on how they're making progress against those key initiatives, and it gets to be consistent and boring, and you know exactly where they're going to be. Like, my favorite one on ones have gotten so predictable.
Evan Huck [00:22:33]:
Or it's just like, okay, remember the thing we talked about in the beginning of cordless priority. We're on step four, seven of that. And here's the progress and evidence to go against that. And, like, it's freaking beautiful. And communicating that across the entire organization is awesome. And that was not a strength of mine and something that I could have probably done better earlier in my career that I have to actively think about now.
Craig Anderson [00:22:54]:
Oh, yeah, that's a great insight. Well, Evan, thanks for sharing the story of your Executive Evolution today. If people want to learn more about you or about user evidence, what's the best way for them to do that?
Evan Huck [00:23:05]:
I'm a big LinkedIn guys, so just ping me on LinkedIn. Evan Huck, user evidence I love to chat there. Obviously, our website is just userevidence.com, but for me personally, LinkedIn is a great way to reach you.
Craig Anderson [00:23:16]:
Great. All right, well, thanks so much for being here today, and we look forward to getting this posted and having a great conversation in the future. Thanks a lot, Evan.
Evan Huck [00:23:26]:
Awesome. Thank you, Greg. Appreciate it. Enjoyed the conversation.
Craig Anderson [00:23:31]:
I really appreciate Evans insights today. He really has a great sense for kind of a people driven leadership, even in the challenging environment we talked about around remote work. And as always, I'd like to do my takeaways from the interview in the areas of confidence, competence, and calm. In the area of confidence, he talked about how, as the team grows, he communicates and documents what's going on in the business. I love that idea that he talked about, almost like a star log from Star Trek to a captain's log from Star Trek about what's going on in the business and keeping people informed. And when the team is informed, then you have the confidence as a leader in knowing they're going to be able to execute on things successfully. In the area of competence, what I really took away, and while we didn't dive into this directly, Evan mentioned it a few times around what they really look for in hiring. And they really have this desire to hire people who are curious and who are learners.
Craig Anderson [00:24:26]:
And they know that about themselves because they know thats going to give them more opportunities. So they make that a priority in their hiring. Theyre getting the right people in the seats for their business, the way they run their business. And that is definitely a sign of competence, is knowing yourself, knowing your business, and knowing who the right people are that are going to help you move that business forward. Then finally, around the area of calm, he talked about how he didnt always have strengths. He and his co founder had different strengths. And he even talked about how hes kind of out of the center of the loop around kind of whats going on, kind of the street level smarts of the business, not on the business side but on the peoples lives side and kind of keeping a pulse on whats going on with the team. But while hes trying to improve that, his co founder is really good at that.
Craig Anderson [00:25:10]:
So he keeps him informed and that keeps him calm. Thats a way to calm is knowing you have self assurance and saying, you know what, im not going to be good at everything, but I'm going to surround myself with people who are going to be strong at the things that I'm not strong at. So it's really a great benefit for you as a leader to bring the right people around you to help grow the business. As always, thanks for being part of Executive Evolution this week, Evan. And if you want to go from being an excellent leader to the greatest leader of all time, all you need to do is focus on building your confidence, competence and calm. We'll see you next time on Executive Evolution.