Zach on Leadership
188 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 days ago - ★★★★★ - 7 ratingsBetter Leaders in Enterprise Technology
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Episodes
Working from Treehouse: The Evolution of My Work from Home Experience
May 08, 2020 13:05 - 7 minutes - 8.22 MBSince most of us have been working from home for nearly two months now, I thought it would be a good time to share my personal journey through this era. If you are like me, this hasn’t been a static experience, but has evolved little by little along the way. I’ll share my insights with the hope that some of this will be relevant for enriching your experience. Evacuation mode I left the office the afternoon of March 12th and... Read More Read More The post Working from Treehouse: The Evol...
We Are Planting the Seeds of Innovation
May 01, 2020 13:21 - 5 minutes - 6.72 MBI received a call from my big brother, Jonathan, this past week after he read my previous article about our fourth annual innovation event that we call Invent. He works in the technology field, so we often talk shop. We talked a little bit about some of the innovative projects we are working on. We also briefly discussed the process of how we manage innovation, but we spent the most time talking about why. I launched into a thorough explanation... Read More Read More The post We Are Plan...
Innovation from Quarantine: Challenging Times for Our Most Creative Work
April 24, 2020 12:54 - 4 minutes - 5.57 MBUndoubtedly for everyone, COVID-19 hit at an inconvenient time. We were all working on our strategies and plans, and suddenly everything changed. We adapted and refocused our efforts on core and critical activities. For many of us, “nice to have” programs got put on hold or cancelled outright. In this article, I’d like to share a brief story about an important program that we rescued from the ashes. Innovation must go on For the past four years, my team sponsored... Read More Read More T...
Your Inbox Needs Spring Cleaning. Now Is the Time.
April 17, 2020 13:08 - 6 minutes - 7.96 MBMany are using this time in quarantine to do some spring cleaning at home. Since we don’t have anywhere to go, we might as well do some of those chores we’ve all been putting off. Personally, I’ve been cleaning out my garage, but still have a long way to go. Many of us who are working from home are working harder and longer than ever. However, we are also working without commutes and without some of the typical distractions that... Read More Read More The post Your Inbox Needs Spring Cle...
Finally Learning to Lead with Data
April 10, 2020 13:24 - 6 minutes - 7.44 MBData-driven leadership is a concept we’ve all been talking about for a while now. The term has been popular in management jargon for at least a decade. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it’s mostly self-explanatory, but I’ll expound briefly. Many leaders (myself included) have a tendency to lead from experience, training, expertise, instinct, and relationships. These sources often serve us well, further reinforcing their continued use. These sources also work pretty well in ...
Make It So: How to Bring Humor to Your Virtual Workplace
April 03, 2020 14:01 - 6 minutes - 7.01 MBHere we are, another week of trying our best to lead our teams from the confines of our laptop screens and webcams. By now, this is slowly becoming the new normal. Last week, I shared some of my core tips and techniques for leading effectively from quarantine. If by chance you missed it, I highly recommend reading it first, then coming back here. Leading effectively means tapping into human nature and relating to people on an emotional level. Leadership isn’t... Read More Read More The p...
Leading from Quarantine: Embrace the Opportunity
March 27, 2020 14:39 - 6 minutes - 7.88 MBLeadership is, by definition, a people-centric activity. We know we are effective as leaders when people willingly follow our influence. Leadership in a condition of isolation seems like a self-contradiction, don’t you think? Well, most of us, who call ourselves leaders, now find ourselves in this self-contradictory position, thanks to COVID-19. So, how should we approach this challenge? I hesitated to write this article. There are ample articles already written on how best to manage a team ...
From Computer Virus to the Coronavirus: The New IT Battle
March 20, 2020 13:33 - 5 minutes - 6.92 MBI’ve been fighting computer viruses on behalf of the companies I serve for over 20 years. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with the impact of a biological virus. It’s interesting. There are some similarities, and some differences. While this experience has yet to fully unfold, I thought it would be timely to share my thoughts. When it comes to the coronavirus, we’re all in this together. The adversary With computer viruses, I know my adversary. There’s... Read More Read More The p...
The Podcast Story: Making Leadership Lessons Accessible to All
March 13, 2020 15:11 - 6 minutes - 8.05 MBSome of you are well-aware that the Zach on Leadership blog that you know and love is also available as a podcast. If that’s news to you, feel free to check out the podcast here. Don’t worry, I’m not writing this entire article as one big advertisement for my podcast. Instead, I’m going to tell you the story on how it came to be. The history of podcasting Back in the mid 2000’s I had a first-generation iPod Nano. It... Read More Read More The post The Podcast Story: Making Leadership Les...
Innovation and Mentoring: Leadership Lessons from Lego Robotics (Part 3 of 3)
March 06, 2020 14:26 - 6 minutes - 8.02 MBI have the privilege of being a Lego robotics coach in the FIRST Lego League. There are over 40,000 teams in the First Lego League in 98 countries, and 640 teams in Minnesota alone. Our team is called the Plaidiators. We’re made up of five homeschoolers between the ages of 10 and 13. We just wrapped up our season recently, and I’d like to reflect on the leadership lessons I learned through this experience. This is all for the kids... Read More Read More The post Innovation and Mentoring:...
Integrity and Automation: Leadership Lessons from Lego Robotics (Part 2 of 3)
February 28, 2020 14:15 - 7 minutes - 9.14 MBI have the privilege of being a Lego robotics coach in the FIRST Lego League. There are over 40,000 teams in the First Lego League in 98 countries, and 640 teams in Minnesota alone. Our team is called the Plaidiators. We’re made up of five homeschoolers between the ages of 10 and 13. We just wrapped up our season last weekend, and I’d like to reflect on the leadership lessons I learned through this experience. This is all for the... Read More Read More The post Integrity and Automation: ...
To Approve or Deny, That Is the Question
February 21, 2020 14:16 - 6 minutes - 7.74 MBIn my role at work, there are many things that I’m asked to approve. Usually, I don’t think about that as being a core part of my job. I usually like to spend time on collaboration, strategy, building culture, and other fluid aspects. However, there is a large chunk of what I do that is simply binary: do I approve, or do I deny? I recently stopped and took inventory of all the things I need to approve. Here are... Read More Read More The post To Approve or Deny, That Is the Question appe...
Leading Change: Don’t Just Focus on the Solution
February 14, 2020 14:45 - 5 minutes - 6.32 MBI recently took a Change Leadership course along with my fellow CHS leaders. As a company, we’ve been investing in this leadership capability because it’s a fundamental skill for us to successfully navigate the future. Intuitively, most of us accept that the world is changing, the pace of change is accelerating, and as leaders, we hold a central role in enabling that change. It’s one thing to hold this intellectual assent. It’s quite another to learn and practice the skill... Read More Re...
How to Drive Your Team like a Rented Lamborghini
February 07, 2020 14:59 - 6 minutes - 7.42 MB“Speed. I am speed.” – Lightning McQueen I love speed. I like adrenaline-inducing sports of all kinds, but I especially love driving fast cars. I own a moderately fast car and find that a nice boost of acceleration and tight handling makes an ordinary commute, extraordinary. My wife, Wendy, knows this about me, and has on few occasions, given me the opportunity to drive an exotic car for my birthday. A few years ago, I drove a Lamborghini Gallardo on... Read More Read More The post How t...
Leadership Lessons from Picking up Hitchhikers
January 31, 2020 12:08 - 6 minutes - 7.98 MBI pick up hitchhikers. Not all of them, but several over the years. Many tell me that I probably shouldn’t. They may be right, but I have yet to give someone a ride that I wish I hadn’t. This blog article is going to be more personal than professional. However, I have a very relevant leadership lesson to share that I’m certain you can apply to your work. Before I get into that, I’m going to tell you a few... Read More Read More The post Leadership Lessons from Picking up Hitchhikers appe...
Lead Change Like Obi-Wan Kenobi
January 24, 2020 14:40 - 6 minutes - 7.16 MBEvery leader, by definition, is an agent of change. If you are just maintaining or running your group, you are a manager. Leadership implies change. Changing people isn’t easy, especially if you want to do it without coercion or authoritative power. How do you go about initiating change? In this article we will learn about change leadership from Obi-Wan Kenobi and see observe how he influenced Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, A New Hope. Please take a few minutes and... Read More Read More T...
What It’s like to Lead as an INFJ
January 17, 2020 12:33 - 7 minutes - 9 MBAs a developing leader, I’ve taken many personality and leadership assessments over the years. These assessments are common tools for guiding development efforts, helping team members understand each other, and rounding out the diversity in a group. In the halls of corporate IT at various organizations, I’ve often encountered many who would rather take a pass at this introspective analysis and get back to work, but this sort of thing has always intrigued me. I love psychology and philosophy,...
Why This Technology Leader Pursued His Cloud Certification
January 10, 2020 12:09 - 5 minutes - 5.92 MBLast week, I earned my AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification. AWS has a full array of certifications for various levels of expertise and specialties. This is the entry-level one. Many of you know that I am technology leader with overall responsibilities for cloud technologies at our company, but I am far removed from the hands-on work. It’s safe to say that I am not, nor do I plan to be, an actual cloud practitioner. So, why did I bother with... Read More Read More The post Why ...
Remembering the Millennium Bug: 20 Years Since Y2K
December 27, 2019 14:02 - 4 minutes - 5.67 MBI started my career nearly 21 years ago. The first year of my career was dedicated to preparing companies to cross the threshold from 1999 to the year 2000 without any glitches. Now that we are approaching the 20th anniversary of that event, I’d like to pause and reflect on what it was like. Demand 1999 was a great year to get into the technology field. Every company on the planet took inventory of their systems and realized that they... Read More Read More The post Remembering the Mille...
Leadership Lessons from Lean
December 20, 2019 16:59 - 6 minutes - 6.88 MBI had a fantastic opportunity this week to participate in the Lean Executive Leadership Institute through the University of Kentucky College of Engineering. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Lean is an organizational philosophy born out of the Toyota Production System, which was first developed by Taiichi Ohno in the 1950’s. Toyota has earned a reputation for operational excellence and has been transparent about their secret to success for generations. Why Kentucky? Firstly, it’s a whole...
Why Do I Blog and Where Do I Find the Time?
December 13, 2019 15:08 - 5 minutes - 5.75 MBI’ve been writing the Zach on Leadership blog for over three years now and have produced 170 articles and now recently, 13 podcast episodes. I really enjoy doing it. Regularly, people approach me and bring up my blog, or drop me a note. They typically tell me that they like it a lot, but then quickly follow up with two questions: “Why do you do it?” and, “Where do you find the time?” For the sake of my entire audience,... Read More Read More The post Why Do I Blog and Where Do I Find the...
Leadership Lessons from Losing at Mario Kart
December 06, 2019 15:19 - 4 minutes - 4.19 MBI’m the youngest of two. I have a brother who is three years older than I am. We were each other’s primary playmates growing up. We constantly played games together. We played a wide variety of games, but I particularly remember excessive amounts of Foosball, Monopoly, and Super Mario Kart. What do you think happened when I continually played competitive games with someone who was three years quicker and smarter than me? I lost a lot. A whole lot. We... Read More Read More The post Leade...
How to Solve Complex Problems
November 22, 2019 12:10 - 6 minutes - 6.77 MBA leader on my team recently approached me with an interesting question. He asked me, “how do you solve complex problems?” My initial instinct was to ask about specifics: “Tell me about your problem and we will discuss it.” His response was fantastic. He said, “I don’t want you to solve my problem for me, I want you to teach me how to think through it.” That was cool. As a leader, I am used to solving complex problems. Usually,... Read More Read More The post How to Solve Complex Problem...
Leadership Lessons from Deer Hunting
November 15, 2019 14:24 - 6 minutes - 6.01 MBI just got back from the deer woods. Each season has its stories, triumphs, and failures. As I drove home from my trip, I considered the leadership lessons from this sport. I thought I’d share my insights with you in this article. I didn’t grow up deer hunting. I married into it. For 19 years, I’ve gone up north with my in-laws and have fully embraced the tradition. Some people grew up with the tradition, but I didn’t. 19 years... Read More Read More The post Leadership Lessons from Deer...
Garfield Was Wrong about Mondays
November 08, 2019 14:51 - 4 minutes - 4.88 MBGrowing up, I was an avid reader of Garfield comic books. These books weren’t challenging, epic, or educational in any way. They were just silly and fun. I didn’t read every book (there are over 60), but I read the first 30 or so before I reached adulthood. It’s impossible to read Garfield without learning these two principles: Lasagna is good and Mondays are bad. Mondays Why Garfield hates Mondays is a bit of a mystery since he doesn’t have... Read More Read More The post Garfield Was W...
The Leadership Legacy of Tony Stark
November 01, 2019 14:29 - 6 minutes - 6.56 MBThere is one character in the universe of superheroes that inspires technology leaders more than any other. His technical prowess is unparalleled, and he commands more confidence than any technology geek could ever hope to muster. I am, of course, referring to the one and only Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man. Tony Stark, the individual contributor In the original Iron Man films (1-3), Tony Stark established his technical abilities, drive for innovation, tenacity, and arrogance. Sure, he h...
Bring Out Your Dead: The Joy of Decommissioning Old Technology
October 25, 2019 15:09 - 6 minutes - 5.9 MBI love new technology. That’s one of the reasons my job is so fun. I get to see the latest and greatest technologies and put them to work to help our company achieve our purpose. There are two side-effects of this activity that are not as much fun: DevOps and Scrum frameworks have a useful term, called the Definition of Done. You can read about the concept here. I’ve never seen it applied to the technology lifecycle, but I’m going... Read More Read More The post Bring Out Your Dead: The ...
From Skeptic to Enthusiast: Now That Cloud Is Boring, It Is Finally Interesting
October 18, 2019 12:27 - 8 minutes - 7.99 MBMy work as a technology leader is more often marked and differentiated by the human element than technology itself. Certainly, on this blog, the vast majority of my articles are about people and organizations in the enterprise technology context more than about the actual technology. However, as a technology leader, I often embark upon intellectual journeys as well. Many are specific, but this one is general. It applies to almost every sizable corporation. If you are an enterprise technology...
How to Make the Most of Your Performance Review
October 11, 2019 15:12 - 6 minutes - 6.89 MBAt my company, CHS, we are currently in our performance review cycle. This is a staple procedure in every large corporation I’ve worked. I’ve received performance reviews for 20 years and have been giving them for 13 years. Most people I talk to look at this process as an unpleasant chore. Most understand that it’s necessary, but painful nonetheless. Every Human Resources organization in every company gives plenty of guidance on how to give a performance review. That advice is... Read More...
The Art of Declining Meetings
October 04, 2019 13:34 - 7 minutes - 6.86 MBAs I’ve progressed through my career, the demand on my time has continually increased. I get a tsunami of sales calls, a blizzard of emails, and a monsoon of meeting requests. Leadership comes with a fair amount of extreme weather analogies. So, there you have it. The debtor I think subconsciously, many of us look at this subject like a debtor trying to pay our bills. We have more bills than money, and we honestly agonize about which ones to... Read More Read More The post The Art of Dec...
New Leadership Roles and the Mean Time Between Horrifying Discoveries
September 27, 2019 12:15 - 4 minutes - 4.96 MBIf you are an experienced leader in a completely new role, this article is for you. I haven’t started a completely new position in many years; however, I do talk with leaders in this situation all the time, so I think it’s worth sharing some wisdom. If you have recently started a new role, I know exactly how you feel. You are trying desperately to memorize names, find the conference rooms, and decipher company acronyms, all while trying to make... Read More Read More The post New Leaders...
Leadership Lessons from the Lowertown Experiment
September 20, 2019 11:24 - 8 minutes - 8.04 MBSix months ago, I left my office in the corporate headquarters to join 40 co-workers in an office experiment. I wrote an entire article about the experiment and what we hoped to achieve, but I will summarize the main points here. Our corporate office campus is being remodeled floor-by-floor, so we needed some additional space to work while our floor got the makeover. We could have sought the closest suburban office building with space, but we intentionally decided to try... Read More Read...
What to Do with the Three Different Kinds of Feedback
September 13, 2019 13:42 - 5 minutes - 5.77 MBMost people in leadership positions go through some sort of 360 feedback review from time to time. I’ve gone through this at several companies, and always learn something through the process. I’ve made the argument before on this blog that self-awareness is an absolutely critical attribute of every successful leader, so naturally, the more feedback we get, the better, right? I recently read a book that’s pretty popular right now: Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the... ...
Heroes Raise the Bar: Leadership Lessons from a Book You Cannot Buy
September 06, 2019 01:09 - 6 minutes - 6.2 MBI’m a Seth Godin fan and follower. I read a lot of leadership books and there are a lot of great authors out there. However, if I had to pick one modern author that has made the biggest impact on my leadership, it would have to be Seth Godin. A few years ago, I wrote a blog article about my favorite leadership book: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? If you missed that article, be sure to read it first, then come... Read More Read More The post Heroes Raise the Bar: Leadership Lessons from...
Showing Up Is 80% of Life: Don’t Phone It In Just Because You Can
August 30, 2019 13:41 - 4 minutes - 3.78 MBWoody Allen once said, “Showing up is 80% of life.” I tend to agree. As I look back on big moments in my life, I remember who showed up. I know who flew 1,000 miles to come to my wedding. I remember who drove five hours each way to watch me walk across a stage for 15 seconds when I graduated. Because it’s important to me, I’ve made it a priority to show up for others. I’ll get on a... Read More Read More The post Showing Up Is 80% of Life: Don’t Phone It In Just Because You Can appeared ...
Leadership Lessons from Bill Lumbergh
August 23, 2019 11:52 - 7 minutes - 7.91 MBThe cult classic, Office Space, was released in 1999. In late 1999, I was early in my professional IT career. Like Peter Gibbons, I was fixing the Y2K bug, working in a cubicle, and putting cover sheets on my own versions of TPS reports. Two weeks ago, I explored the leadership lessons that can be gleaned from the Bobs. Last week, I examined Peter’s redeeming qualities of personal leadership. If you haven’t had a chance to read those yet, go back... Read More Read More The post Leadershi...
Leadership Lessons from Peter Gibbons: The Straight Shooter with Upper Management Written All Over Him
August 16, 2019 13:23 - 6 minutes - 6.15 MBThe cult classic, Office Space, was released in 1999. Back then, I was early in my professional IT career. I was living the hilarity that I saw on the screen. Even though we’ve come so far as an industry and profession, there’s still so much truth that rings through today. Last week, I covered the leadership lessons from the Bobs. If you missed that, go back and read it, then continue on here. This week, I am focusing on the protagonist... Read More Read More The post Leadership Lessons ...
What Can Modern Product Teams Learn from the Bobs?
August 09, 2019 13:39 - 5 minutes - 5.69 MBThe cult classic, Office Space, was released in 1999. Back then, I was early in my professional IT career. I was living the hilarity that I saw on the screen. Even though we’ve come so far as an industry and profession, there’s still so much truth that rings through today. So much so, that I cannot do the film justice in just one blog article. I’ll draw applicable leadership lessons from multiple characters and scenes over several articles. The Bobs... Read More Read More The post What C...