Off the Deck

The work that makes great consulting possible often happens long before a client sees the final outcome. It happens behind the scenes, in the systems, relationships, and culture that support the people doing the work. For India Monroe, that is exactly where the focus belongs. As Hylaine’s HR leader and culture expert, India spends her time building the foundation that helps teams succeed, from employee engagement and connection to creating an environment where people feel supported, equipped, and empowered to deliver for clients. India joins Jayme MacQueen to talk about the role of people and culture in a technology consulting firm, why HR is about much more than policies and processes, and how a strong employee experience ultimately shapes the client experience. She also shares her unconventional career path from motorsports to consulting, what remote work taught her about building connection, and why understanding people is at the center of everything she does. Also in this episode: why the best cultures are built intentionally, the importance of listening to employees, and how the work behind the scenes helps Hylaine live its values of partnership, transparency, and doing what’s right. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Introduction to Off-The-Deck 02:20 Motorsports, and Where the Instincts Came From 05:20 Belonging Without a Building 09:20 Deprogramming 13:40 Reviewing Work You Cannot See 18:45 When the Client Is the Problem 22:30 Adults, Not Babysitting 28:50 What Growing Firms Get Wrong About Culture 31:25 Artificial Intelligence 38:35 Closing Notes   Guest Bio India Monroe is Hylaine’s HR Leader based in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she focuses on building a strong employee experience and supporting the people behind Hylaine’s client success. With a background spanning multiple industries, including motorsports, India brings a unique perspective on connection, engagement, and the importance of creating a culture where teams can thrive. At Hylaine, India helps strengthen the systems and relationships that enable employees to do their best work, ensuring that the people behind the technology solutions are supported, connected, and equipped for success.

Agreement is everybody thinking the same thing. Alignment is going with the best plan available and owning the outcome, good or bad. Jonathan Meek builds most of what he does on that distinction, because ownership is the only thing that decides whether the work survives the day he leaves. It shows up in an unusual place. About six months into a year-long engagement, he usually gets a job offer from the client. He has said no 10 out of 10 times, and he does not take it as a compliment. He takes it as information: if a client is trying to hire the consultant, nobody internal was ever named to take the work over, and the handoff is going to happen in the last 60 days instead of the first 60. Jonathan is a Principal Architect at Hylaine with nearly 20 years in the field. Jayme MacQueen asks him what he does in the first three weeks of an engagement that makes a client start treating him like a leader, how he gets a client to own a solution instead of agreeing to one, and what has to be true on day one for that solution to outlast him. Also in this episode: the mentor who told him he talks long enough to talk people out of his own ideas, and why he thinks AI is an amplifier rather than a replacement.   Episode Highlights: 00:00 Introduction to Off-The-Deck 01:04 Storytelling as the Leadership Skill 02:54 The 30,000-Foot View 04:14 When the Client Starts Treating You as a Leader 06:17 Culture or Experience 11:52 Artificial Intelligence 16:25 The Handoff 24:55 Closing Notes

What do you do when a critical program has already burned through 60% of its budget, missed every major date, and everyone is watching to see what happens next? Starting over can feel like the cleanest answer. But a restart does not erase the problems that got the program there. It can reset the timeline, reopen old decisions, and cost something even harder to recover: stakeholder trust. In this episode of Off the Deck, Jayme MacQueen sits down with Hylaine Director of Client Delivery Chris Langlois to unpack what it really takes to rescue a troubled program. Drawing on more than 20 years in technology consulting and nearly a decade bringing complex banking programs to the finish line, Chris shares why the first move is not to build a new roadmap. It is to understand what is salvageable, stabilize execution, and restore confidence. They explore how to make the hard call between saving and scrapping a program, why visible progress matters, and how trust, communication, and other human skills can ultimately determine whether a turnaround succeeds. At Hylaine, doing what’s right over what’s easy means tackling hard problems without defaulting to the most convenient answer. If you lead complex technology programs, especially in high-stakes, regulated environments, this conversation offers a practical perspective on what to do when the plan has gone sideways but the outcome still matters. Listen to the full episode of Off the Deck to hear how experienced delivery leaders turn troubled programs into forward momentum.   Episode Highlights: 00:00 Introduction to Off-The-Deck 01:04 The Setup: Dropped Into a Program in Flight 02:54 The Hard Tradeoff / What Would Hylaine Do? 04:14 Myth Vs. Reality 06:17 The Team You Inherit: Listen Before You Change 11:52 Execution or Design: Where Is the Program Really Failing? 16:25 New Leadership: Relationships Before the Details 24:55 Calm in the Storm: Leading Through Pressure 29:19 The Takeaway: Rescue, Prove Progress, Earn Bigger Change 30:35 Closing Notes   Guest Bio: Chris Langlois is Director of Client Delivery at Hylaine. He has spent more than 20 years in technology consulting and close to a decade bringing banking programs to the finish line, usually after being dropped into them mid-flight. He has a specific and unpopular opinion about what starting over actually costs.

AI rollouts don't fail because the technology doesn't work. They fail because nobody was actually accountable for making people use it. This week, Jayme sits down with Alex Grawe, Hylaine's transformation and organizational change lead, to argue out one question every leadership team is quietly avoiding: when AI adoption stalls, is that IT's problem to fix, or the business's?

Welcome to Off the Deck, the podcast where the conversations begin after the last slide. Hosted by Hylaine's Director of Marketing & Brand, Jayme McQueen, each episode brings together the consultants behind the work to unpack the real decisions, tradeoffs, and candid discussions that shape successful technology outcomes. Each week, we'll go beyond industry buzzwords to explore what technology leaders are really facing, challenge common misconceptions, and share practical insights you can put to work immediately. Because the most valuable conversations don't happen on the deck, they happen off it.