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In this episode, we sit down with Michigan State’s Executive Vice President of Administration, Vennie Gore. He leads a vast and diverse campus portfolio with a simple playbook: master the basics, align on what matters, and expand only when the team is ready. From the story behind his one-of-a-kind name to the 14 Golden Rules he wrote as a hall director—and still follows today—Vennie shows how consistency beats complexity in high-stakes operations.

We unpack his “20-mile walk” for building alignment across units with different definitions of “the basics” and explore why a football season offers the perfect analogy for organizational maturity: start simple, earn trust through execution, then open the playbook. He also shares why he treats careers as portfolios, not ladders, and how pattern recognition helps leaders “slow down to hurry up.”

Along the way, we dive into systems thinking through sports: why even “individual” sports like golf are deeply interdependent, how leaders switch hats between partner, supplier, customer, and vendor, and why emotional energy is a leader’s most contagious signal. Vennie makes the case for marrying student development theory with the business of higher education, building organizational readiness, and reducing unforced errors through direct communication, trust, humility, and a no-surprises culture.

A grounded, practical guide for anyone steering large teams through long seasons.