Catalog & Cocktails: The Honest, No-BS Data Podcast
Sep 3, 2026 · 39 min · 10 segments
Patrick McGarry, Federal CDO at ServiceNow and author of *The Adaptive Organization*, has spent years watching organizations accumulate data and tools but fail to convert them into decisions. Overhead…
Juan SequedaHostTim GasperHost
but how do we deal with so i think completely this goes back into like it's more preventive right but then it's actually It's fun to not do the preventive things, right? I mean, it's like going to the gym and eating vegetables.
Like, I'd rather go drink whiskey and never drink beer and burger, right? Instead of going to the gym at that time.
Oh, it's somebody else's problem down the line, right? So it goes back to the alignment, the incentives, like, How are we are you seeing a shift in this or how or is this more top down? People are saying, no, we we're freaking mandating you to go to the gym and stuff like that, or especially in the federal market.
Like, how are you seeing this right now? Because this is this incentive in the short term versus long term or short versus medium long term.
And making people eat their meat and potatoes before they go to the AI dessert table is certainly a challenge to sort of interrupt that action.
But to sort of extend your metaphor here, uh when i do go to the gym i feel a lot more energy and i have those endorphins and like there are short-term gains it's just the the sort of momentum to get there is sometimes hard so like i think some of this is education right just helping people understand that like when you do this short-term governance and this is my favorite thing governance doesn't have to be a dirty word right it doesn't have to be a put people in a room for some dark incantations for 18 months like When you do governance, it can be lightweight.
Like if I'm going to come in, I'm going to work with some data and it has governance baked in and I understand how can I use this data? Where did it come from? And whose throat to choke do I have when something goes wrong? Like that's clarity and I can move fast with confidence, right? And so like that's that endorphin hit that hits you in the short term.
And then the long-term benefits obviously have been well stated by many other people now.
Obviously, with what everybody wants to accomplish with AI now, I feel like maybe there's also some new carrots around the vegetable eating, the governance, and some of the proactive work.
Are you seeing that with some of the customers you're working with, with some of the thought partners you're working with, that they're looking at this through a new lens, or is it a little bit slow going?
You know, and it's a double-edged sword, right? Sometimes it's like if you don't have AI in your pitch or whatever, then it gets ignored because that's not where the money's going.
Right now, at least, we're in sort of this opportune window where most people don't have a deep understanding of what AI is.
but how do we deal with so i think completely this goes back into like it's more preventive right but then it's actually It's fun to not do the preventive things, right? I mean, it's like going to the gym and eating vegetables.
Like, I'd rather go drink whiskey and never drink beer and burger, right? Instead of going to the gym at that time.
Oh, it's somebody else's problem down the line, right? So it goes back to the alignment, the incentives, like, How are we are you seeing a shift in this or how or is this more top down? People are saying, no, we we're freaking mandating you to go to the gym and stuff like that, or especially in the federal market.
Like, how are you seeing this right now? Because this is this incentive in the short term versus long term or short versus medium long term.
And making people eat their meat and potatoes before they go to the AI dessert table is certainly a challenge to sort of interrupt that action.
But to sort of extend your metaphor here, uh when i do go to the gym i feel a lot more energy and i have those endorphins and like there are short-term gains it's just the the sort of momentum to get there is sometimes hard so like i think some of this is education right just helping people understand that like when you do this short-term governance and this is my favorite thing governance doesn't have to be a dirty word right it doesn't have to be a put people in a room for some dark incantations for 18 months like When you do governance, it can be lightweight.
Like if I'm going to come in, I'm going to work with some data and it has governance baked in and I understand how can I use this data? Where did it come from? And whose throat to choke do I have when something goes wrong? Like that's clarity and I can move fast with confidence, right? And so like that's that endorphin hit that hits you in the short term.
And then the long-term benefits obviously have been well stated by many other people now.
Obviously, with what everybody wants to accomplish with AI now, I feel like maybe there's also some new carrots around the vegetable eating, the governance, and some of the proactive work.
Are you seeing that with some of the customers you're working with, with some of the thought partners you're working with, that they're looking at this through a new lens, or is it a little bit slow going?
You know, and it's a double-edged sword, right? Sometimes it's like if you don't have AI in your pitch or whatever, then it gets ignored because that's not where the money's going.
Right now, at least, we're in sort of this opportune window where most people don't have a deep understanding of what AI is.
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