By Steve “The Doctor” Meek | Talk To Th3 Doc Podcast | Fulcrum Group
🎙 Podcast Doc-umentary: Episode 111 of Talk To Th3 Doc
This Episode featured Matthew Hudson, Culture Architect and also a founder of Layla Rose Ranch, who joined me to unpack a refreshing take on modern leadership: Why soft skills—not titles—are shaping successful companies.
We talked about what rescue horses taught him about trust, clarity, and emotional intelligence. As wild as that sounds, the parallels to SMB leadership and IT management are uncanny.
This conversation didn’t just reinforce what I believed. It reminded me why our mission at Fulcrum is to “Inspire confidence and elevate performance through innovative technology experiences.” That confidence? It’s rooted in trust that we are working together in your best interest. That performance? It’s unlocked by clarity. We succeed more only IF we make you succeed more.
🧠“Soft Skills” Are Your Strategic Edge
“Soft skills outrank technical skills.” – Matthew Hudson
That quote strikes a chord with me. In today’s business world, our ability to lead with empathy, listen deeply, and coach instead of command is what separates thriving organizations from struggling ones. And it’s not just a leadership issue—it’s a tech one too. And it also reminds me of the prior episode with HR expert, David Russell, quoting the soft skill of “coachability” being better than raw technical skills.
At Fulcrum, we believe technology should never make you feel small, confused, or frustrated. That’s why we’ve built our organization around relationships, accountability, and alignment—the same ingredients that build strong cultures.
đź’Ľ Our Core Values in Action
This episode couldn’t align more with our Core Values at Fulcrum. I am pulling from three of our values to share:
âś… Inspire Client Confidence
Matthew’s story about helping a CEO understand how their team saw them—through the eyes of a horse—showed that confidence doesn’t come from title or tenure. It comes from clarity. At Fulcrum, we don’t just fix problems; we ask questions, clarify priorities, reduce uncertainty, and walk beside our clients as strategic advisors. A horse and rider are just like the CEO/COO and CIO, we must be heading in the same direction to get there.
âś… Take Personal Ownership
Matthew talks about leadership as behavior, not position. That’s exactly how we see our role in client relationships. Whether we’re configuring backups or leading a cybersecurity tabletop exercise, we own outcomes—not excuses.
We must hold ourselves accountable for learning your environment and needs. Not just the firewall, PCs and switches, but the apps, data and users. We also must live in a position to educate, inform, act as a sounding board and co-create the results. We help create the ranch where you can be successful.
âś… Look to the Future
This episode is a masterclass in forward-focused leadership. Instead of defaulting to “how we’ve always done it,” Matthew invites us to build cultures that adapt, grow, and stay aligned—just like our IT strategies should.
How technology worked in the past can become a burden of “keeping the lights on”. It is important to continually take snapshots of where you are, dream where you need to be and figure out best steps to get you there. Sometimes that means understanding how new ways can be more advance your cause and position against competitors or allow new capabilities. The challenge is it requires the difficult soft skill of truly being a “Change Agent”, and bringing your whole organization along.
🧩 Tech & Trust Go Together
If your team doesn’t trust leadership, just buying licenses won’t get the team to embrace Artificial Intelligence. If your culture isn’t clear, don’t expect cybersecurity awareness training to stick. And if your managers don’t look for new ways, don’t be surprised when your end users get behind on work doing things the old ways.
That’s what we do.
It isn’t just about tracking tickets or uptime or combined dashboard for metrics—it’s about helping your team lead through change, using tools wisely, and scaling confidently. Our various tools are simply there to help support the process of real innovation.
We meet quarterly with clients to align IT to the business plan, evaluate user experience, review compliance posture, and prep for what’s next. It’s more than IT support. It’s business leadership support, that includes technology.
🧠Real Insights for SMB Executives
Here are a few of Matthew’s insights I walked away with—and I think you’ll appreciate as an SMB owner or department head:
- Define what “good” looks like—don’t just post your values, demonstrate behaviors. Be the model to what you expect.
- Hire for coachability—not résumé polish. We can teach people technology, we can’t teach them to care or to want to keep learning.
- Micromanagement kills initiative—empower and trust your team. Embracing autonomy, mastery and purpose help people be all they can be.
- Culture clarity is a profit lever—especially when scaling. People want to know the culture and where they fit.
- Technology adoption mirrors leadership behavior—if you’re chaotic, IT will be too loose or unfocused. A great change agent sets priorities, determines directions, establishes roles and helps the entire organization through it.
To complement him, I’d like to add one of my favorite rules from the business management framework ScalingUp. Verne Harnish often speaks to People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash as the four decisions leaders must figure out. Towards that, he advocates that leaders should have a small number of rules they repeat often so it becomes ingrained in your team. A typical person juggles a lot in the work day, but having a small number of rules makes life easier, as he knows exactly what you expect. The challenge is figuring out what those rules should be.
🧪 From the Barn to the Boardroom
If your organization is growing, changing, or just needs a refresh on how it leads—it’s time to focus on more than the tools.
It’s time to align your culture, tech, and leadership behaviors.
And if you need a guide for that?
We’re in your corner. We bring the process, the accountability, and a whole lot of EQ.
đź“ž Ready to Lead Smarter?
Want to explore how STARPower can help you lead change with more clarity, less chaos, and fewer “IT surprises”?
đź“… Schedule your consult
🎧 Listen to Episode 111 on your favorite app
đź“ş Or catch it on YouTube
