I love to look at the world around me and glean leadership lessons to inspire myself and others to rise to our calling. It’s Christmas. In years past, I’ve drawn leadership lessons from pop culture movies. If you are in the mood for that, please check out my series on Elf.

Some of you read the title and guessed that I’d be writing about Ralphie from the movie, A Christmas Story. But this isn’t about “a” Christmas story, but “the” Christmas story.

This time of year, Christians gather in churches around the world to reflect on the spiritual lessons from the Christmas story. Staying true to form, this article will explore the leadership lessons.

Mary

Mary was a young humble woman, betrothed to Joseph, when she became pregnant with Jesus, miraculously by the Holy Spirit. While Mary was faithful and honorable, her circumstances subjected her to public disgrace and humiliation.

It’s hard for me to imagine what that must have been like for her. Scripture tells us that Mary found refuge with her relative, Elizabeth. After his initial disbelief, Joseph believed her because he had been instructed by an angel in a dream. Beyond Elizabeth and Joseph, Mary was probably ostracized by her community.

The journey of a leader can sometimes be like this. Most of the time, our acts of leadership result in popularity and praise from the community and those we lead. However, occasionally, we may find ourselves in a situation that makes us intensely unpopular and isolated. Yet, true to our convictions, we must proceed undeterred. The good news is, we are never completely alone. God is with us, and he will surround us with a few trusted companions.

The manger scene

The King of Kings was born in a barn and slept in a feeding trough. The nativity seems picturesque in our mind’s eye, but it’s helpful to know what this really was like. God clearly went out of his way to bring his Son into the world in the humblest circumstances imaginable.

We often think about our own leadership potential based on where we came from. Did you come from money? Did you hang out at the country club? Did you go to prep school? Did you graduate from a prestigious university? If the answer is “no” to all the above, you aren’t disqualified from leadership. The manger scene sets the bar so incredibly low, that all of us come from a better starting point than Jesus.

Humble beginnings don’t disqualify you from leadership. In fact, in God’s Kingdom, humble beginnings very well may be an advantage.

The shepherds

The first to get the news of Jesus’ birth were some shepherds in a nearby field. At the time, shepherding was a lowly, undesirable profession. These people had no social status or authority. Yet, they were the ones who got the invitation from the angels to bear witness to Jesus’ birth, and then spread the good news.

As leaders, we often give our attention to key people with influence. We invest in relationships that have strategic advantages. We engage in politics to help us advance our objectives. In the Christmas story, God’s first priority is the lowest of the low.

Why? Because people matter. All people are inherently valuable, regardless of what they can do for the cause. As a leader, I do my best to remember that. I try to make time for people because they are people, not because of what they can do for me.

The Magi and King Herod

The Magi (or wise men) were foreigners who came on a long journey from the East to worship Jesus. These men had great wealth, influence, and wisdom. They weren’t Jewish, yet they worshiped the King of the Jews.

The only person in the Christmas story with a formal leadership role is King Herod. Unfortunately, he’s the worst example of leadership. When he heard about the birth of the King from the Magi, he was disturbed and confused. He responded with deception and violence.

The people with the best resources, knowledge, and location to participate in the Christmas story missed it. Those from a faraway land made the journey and got it.

This Christmas, let’s be more like the Magi, and less like Herod. The Magi invested their vast resources and considerable time in a worthy goal: the worship of Jesus. The best goals will take a while and will cost us a lot. Stay the course.

Christmas Time

Christmas is filled with traditions, family time, gift-giving, and if we’re lucky, a little personal reflection. Let’s take just a moment to pause and reflect on how the Christmas story should influence how we lead in our jobs.

• Have you been humiliated and isolated? Stay true. God will see you through this difficult time.

• Did you come from nothing with no advantages? That’s a fantastic starting point for servant leadership.

• Have you paid attention to the nobodies in your life? They are people and they matter. Give them your time and attention.

• Have you identified a goal that’s worth everything? Make the investment and stay the course.

• Feeling threatened and confused? Settle down. Don’t be that guy.

Those are my leadership lessons from the Christmas story. I hope you all have a joyous Christmas celebration with your loved ones.

This article was adapted from an original post on zachonleadership.com on December 22, 2023.

The views expressed here are my own. They have not been reviewed or approved by my employer.

I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. By then, The Original Series was on re-runs and seemed hokey in comparison. Picard is my captain. The world of the 24^th century really captivated my imagination as a child.

I’ve rewatched the series recently, and in my opinion, it’s stood up to the test of time. Of course, that may be my childhood nostalgia talking, but I’m sticking with it.

Most of the science in Star Trek remains Science Fiction, but there’s one technology that is starting to become defictionalized. Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence have started to resemble one technology in the Star Trek world: the ship’s computer. There’s still a gap, but I have a line of sight to it closing most of the way in the next few years.

The computer on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D

There are some differences between the computer in THE Enterprise, and the computer in YOUR enterprise, but increasingly fewer and fewer.

Firstly, it’s referred to as “the” computer. Singular. As in, they only have one. Many enterprises have tens of thousands of computers (servers) and thousands of discrete applications.

All of that siloed data and functionality can make it hard for enterprises to do what they want to do. Therefore, it’s become a common practice to build enterprise data lakes that contain all the enterprise data, and companies build AI capabilities on top of that.

Now that’s getting closer to what I’m talking about.

The Enterprise computer has a natural language interface

Picard talked to the computer. He didn’t use a keyboard and mouse.

We’ve had the likes of Siri and Alexa for a while, but only recently with the advent of LLMs can AI systems really speak our language. Today, you can talk to an LLM with nearly the simplicity and confidence of Picard on the bridge.

The Enterprise computer knows everything

It didn’t matter if the subject was history, literature, biology, science, engineering, culture, or anything else, the Enterprise computer had all human knowledge contained within it. Back in 1987, that was real Science Fiction. Today’s LLMs are trained on the whole of the internet and can retrieve in real-time anything it doesn’t already know.

Now, our current conundrum is, at times, the questionable quality of the information from the internet on which it was trained, but hopefully we’ll work that out over time.

The Enterprise computer knows what’s happening on the ship

It provides real-time damage assessments, security altering, engineering diagnostics, and life support system maintenance.

This is possible for modern enterprises, but it currently takes a lot of work. All of the real-time telemetry for the organization needs to be streamed into the data lake where it’s centrally available for AI to retrieve. Imagine asking the AI for an analysis for your current company performance, instead of paging through various reports. It’s possible today.

The Enterprise computer knows what’s happening in the environment around it

The Enterprise is equipped with short and long range sensors. It can automatically identify and classify substances, energy signatures, signs of life, and anomalies. It’s very good at making tactical analyses and recommendations in combat situations.

Modern AI systems can read and react to what is going on in the market. It can read and react to social media content, customer sentiment, and other external inputs.

The Enterprise computer has a universal translator

No language was too hard for it to figure out (besides Tamarian in the Darmok episode).

Back in 1987, that really seem far-fetched. Now, we can do it. Real-time AI translation is here. For $99, you can buy a pair of earbuds that translate 164 languages in real time. Clearly this is no longer Science Fiction. Video conference technologies, like Microsoft Teams, can do real-time audio translation. Eventually, I expect it to real-time deep-fake the video stream so the lip movements match, just like in Star Trek.

Putting it all together

It’s not the 24 century, it’s the 21^st century, but we’ve already got quite a bit of that. Modern enterprises can build AI systems that know all human knowledge, everything that is going on in the company, and everything going on in the market. You can talk to it. It can talk back. It can help you talk to others, regardless of the language barrier. That’s pretty exciting.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, there are plenty of technologies in Star Trek that are still well out of reach. I’d love to have myself a warp drive, holodeck, and food replicator, but I don’t see any of those in sight for now. Additionally, people may argue with me on this one, but I don’t think AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is happening any time soon. That’s more like Lieutenant Commander Data. As far as I’m concerned, that’s still solidly Science Fiction.

If you were like me back in 1987, you were amazed by what Captain Picard could accomplish with the help of his ship’s computer. Perhaps you were jealous of his technical prowess. Well, today, the only thing stopping us is our willingness to “make it so.”

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

The views expressed here are my own. They have not been reviewed or approved by my employer.

Back in July, I took my family on a camping trip in Hawaii. We flew to Honolulu and rented a pair of campervans for our family of six. We had been on the ground for less than an hour when our phones collectively went off with an emergency notice regarding an incoming tsunami caused by a 8.8 magnitude earthquake off the east coast of Russia.

A local was giving us an orientation on one of the two campervans at the time. He said not to worry. These alerts happen from time to time.

My son and I jumped in an Uber to go get the second campervan, when I got a call from the other company. The man said, “Hey, I live on the coast and need to get my family and animals to safety. I left the keys in the campervan. Good luck. Have fun.”

Around that point, the emergency alerts became more frequent and severe. The state of Hawaii issued a mandatory evacuation of the coast. The Governor of Hawaii went on the news and said, “This is not a regular wave. It will actually kill you if you get hit by a tsunami.”

We were just a few hours into our vacation. Wow. Welcome to Hawaii.

Fortunately, I booked a Hipcamp campground for us to stay that night that was 600ft in elevation above sea-level. We got our supplies and headed inland, along with the other 1 million inhabitants of Oahu.

The traffic was nuts on an apocalyptic level. What should’ve taken 20 minutes took many hours, but we eventually got there.

I knew my family would be safe, and that gave me peace of mind. However, I still had no idea what devastation this would bring. Would there be anything left of the Hawaii we dreamed of exploring?

After a lousy first night of sleep in the hippie campervan, I awoke way too early due to the 5 hour time zone change from Central Time. I read the news. Nothing really happened. I think the waves were about 4 feet higher than normal, which didn’t cause any meaningful damage. That was fantastic news. Later that day, we drove around, surfed the beaches, and took in everything the hospitable Hawaiian culture had to offer.

This story is actually the final chapter of a larger story that we’ve been writing for some time now. Ten years ago, my wife, Wendy, and I had a crazy idea. We had just bought an RV for the family. After we had a few trips under our belt, we pondered a big idea: What if we took our kids camping in all 50 states? We could do it, but we had to be aggressive. Time was ticking. It wouldn’t be long before our oldest was out of the house. We needed to make the most of the time we had.

One other noteworthy factor: We are a homeschool family. We believe our kids would learn more about the world if they could experience it firsthand. We visited our Congressman in Washington, DC. We threw tea into the Boston Harbor. We played hide and seek among the Redwoods of California. We rode airboats in the bayou of Louisiana. We caught our limit of halibut off the coast of Alaska. We rode rented scooters down Lombard Street in San Francisco.

We met our goal, and sneaked in our final, 50^th state, just two weeks before my oldest son, Caleb, moved into college.

Our mission was completed. It was part vacation, part education, and most notably: family time together. Just like you, the days go fast for our family. But these camping trips to the 50 states, we will remember forever.

The tsunami evacuation on our final state, was actually par for the course. You can’t possibly take your family camping in all 50 states without a few bumps along the road. Not everything went according to plan. We got lost. We got frustrated with each other. We sustained some injuries. We blew more tires than I can count. We temporarily lost a kid on the rim of the Grand Canyon, and another one on the subway turnstiles in Boston. We got stuck in a snowstorm in Utah, in the summer. We had a really hard time finding a place to use the bathroom in New York City. Some may be surprised to find out that, yes, you can in fact go camping in New York City. There’s a campground right on the water, with a view of the Statue of Liberty.

The leadership lesson

We are integrated people. How we pursue our hobbies in our personal life closely resembles how we tackle complex tasks at work. How we lead our families closely relates to how we lead our employees at work.

I live a life driven by stretch goals with my family. We dream big, make plans, then make it happen. I didn’t do it alone. Wendy and I made the major decisions, while we let the kids influence some of our choices of activities and destinations.

I think long term and make decisions at work that positions my company for the future. I lead with values. I plot steps along the way to make sure our vision is realized. I involve other leaders and our employees as much as I can, so they are a part of the process, not just the recipients of my planning.

Reflection

When I got back from Hawaii, my family and friends asked me what my favorite part was. Of course, we did some cool things, but my favorite part was that first morning waking up in the hippie campervans, with the Hawaiian sunshine bursting through the palm trees, making breakfast together in a new state, as a family, for the 50^th time.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

The views expressed here are my own. They have not been reviewed or approved by my employer.

We did it. We dropped my oldest son, Caleb, off at college last weekend. This was a first for our family. Many friends and colleagues have gone before us. It’s a significant experience and something I wanted to write about. I had to think long and hard about what unique thought I could offer you, and of course, what leadership lesson could apply to many, regardless of their stage of life.

One unique aspect of this experience, is that my son, Caleb, chose to attend the same college that my wife and I attended: Crown College, in St. Bonifacius, MN. It’s a small, but very good college.

I realized that the significance of this event now is connected to the significance of my experience back then.

I did the math. It was 28 years ago that I traveled all the way from Lancaster, PA to St. Bonifacius, MN. I had never been further west than West Virginia before that trip. I showed up on campus, sight unseen, ready as ever for my next chapter of life.

My time at Crown was formative to say the least. So much of my life, the way it is now, traces back to my few years there.

1. I solidified my faith. Crown College is “Boldy Christian.” I learned the Bible and built an unshakable foundation for my faith among a community of committed Christ followers. The storms of life have come and gone, but my foundation built there has stood the test of time.

2. I met my wife, Wendy, there. We celebrated 25 years of happy marriage this month.

3. I chose my career at Crown. Originally, I pursued a Youth Ministry major, but while I was there, I switched to Computer Networking. I started my first full time IT job while I was still a student living in the dorms at Crown.

4. I became a Minnesotan. Originally from Lancaster, PA, I wasn’t sure where I’d end up after school. But with my career underway in the Twin Cities, and newly married to a Minnesota-native, the die was cast, and this was my new home.

So, showing up on campus to drop off my son as a double-whammy of parental emotions and coming-of-age nostalgia. I managed to keep it together.

The Leadership Lessons:

Time flies. Make the most of it.

I couldn’t escape this thought: I was JUST HERE. That was me. I was the kid getting dropped off, full of excitement and endless possibilities. And THAT was a whole lot more fun than THIS is, by the way.

I remember bringing my son home from the hospital, like it was yesterday. Shortly after that, I was juggling a household full of little kids, most of whom were in diapers. And now all of a sudden, they are leaving. How could this be?

When I was young, everyone older than me told me that it would go fast. They were right and they weren’t exaggerating at all.

What’s the leadership lesson? Make the most of it. Don’t waste a single day. Looking back, I think I did pretty good in that department. I don’t have many regrets. Work life balance can feel like you’re always disappointing someone. I’ve always used all of my PTO for my family. I always lived with the tension and did my best.

Loosen the grip (a little)

I love my kids and I want to hold onto them tight. The Bible has something to say about this.

“Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.

Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” -Psalm 127:3-5a

Arrows, of course, are meant to be shot. My job, as the warrior, is to nock the arrow, draw, aim at the right target, exhale, and release.

This leadership lesson transcends parenthood. As leaders at work, we have people that are put under our care and direction. Our task is to develop them. For a time, they are fully dependent on us for guidance and wisdom. Over time, they grow and act more independently. Finally, as organizations change, people come and go under our direct leadership scope. As they go, the experiences shared, and the lessons learned keep them flying as straight as arrows. Reporting relationships can change, but impact is forever.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

Making leadership decisions

Kids face a lot of pressure coming out of high school. What are you going to do? Are you going to school? If so, where? It’s a lot of responsibility to saddle on a teenager.

Kids can’t possibly know enough about themselves or the world to make a perfect decision. But yet, the clock ticks and decisions need to be made.

Leadership remains a lot like this. As leaders at work, we often need to make decisions with less information than we’d prefer. We’d usually like more time to make decisions as well, but time often runs short.

Like a teenager/young adult, the choices we make matter and have long term consequences. We pray, do the best we can, and move forward. There is no other way to lead. We need to have grace for ourselves and grace for each other. The one thing we cannot do is stand still.

For my fellow parents dropping their kids off at college, I’m with you. For all of you who warned me ahead of time that it would go fast and be tough, you were right. For everyone trying to do a little better job leading each and every day, I hope this lesson gives you some inspiration today.

just got back from a family vacation in Hawaii. We had never been there before, and it was a lovely time.

As a part of our trip, we spent two days on the “Big Island” and I really wanted to see flowing lava, if at all possible. The day we arrived, we went on an organized tour of Volcanos National Park. When we were there, we saw Kilauea smoking and steaming profusely. Nearby park rangers told us that it could erupt at any moment. We waited in eager anticipation, but it never happened, and we needed to get going.

I watched the US Geological Survey live stream on YouTube to continue to monitor the situation. I woke up the next morning to find that it had started erupting overnight.

We had some pre-arranged plans first thing in the morning, but right after that, we all agreed to make a beeline to the volcano.

This time, we weren’t on an organized tour, but in our own rented vehicle from Turo. I had booked a minivan several weeks earlier, but the prior day, the owner told me that it had broken down. I looked through the app for any vehicle that could fit us, and I found a Tesla Model X available for rent.

I hadn’t ever driven one of those before, but I thought it would be fun. After all, we were on vacation.

Those who know me well know that I’m a bit of a luddite when it comes to vehicle technology. I’m one of those odd balls who prefers a manual transmission for my daily driver. Yep, I’m that guy.

First impressions

The falcon wing doors were sweet. It reminded me of a Back-to-the-Future Delorean. It was awesome. The kids thought it was pretty cool too.

Everyone sat down, and I got into the driver’s seat. The first thing I looked for was a start button. I figured it wouldn’t have a keyed ignition, but really expected to find a start button. Seeing none, I pulled up my phone and Googled, “How to start a Tesla Model X.” The answer? You don’t. You just start driving.

Okay, that was weird, but good enough.

The next thing I planned to do was pair my phone with CarPlay, for navigation and music. I poked around on the large display for a while and didn’t see anything obvious. Once again, I Googled it only to find that the car didn’t support CarPlay. Bummer. Okay, Bluetooth it is, and I guess I’ll use the built-in nav. No biggie. Let’s get going.

I plugged Volcanos National Park into the nav and hit the road. My first impression of driving was pretty good. I found it to be a fairly smooth ride, with one exception: It didn’t coast. I was either accelerating or passively braking. It really bugged me, but obviously, I didn’t Google it, as I was now driving, so I just dealt with it.

After we were on our way for a bit, the thought occurred to me that we may or may not have enough battery to make the round trip. I sort of wondered. I watched the battery indicator tick down a percentage every few minutes. This was a new kind of anxiety that I never really experienced before.

I’ve heard EV owner talks about range anxiety, and this was my first bout with it.

I honestly didn’t expect for it to be an issue, because, I’m literally on an island. I can’t really go that far. I figured this thing could easily go the distance for a day’s drive, but of course, I was wrong.

The anxiety built, but I had no ability to research the topic because I was driving. I asked my son in the back seat to use ChatGPT to interpret the range messages on the screen. They didn’t make sense to me.

He gave me the verdict: We were about 10% short of making the round-trip to the Volcano. Bummer.

Then it occurred to me that I’m really going to get the full experience. I’m going to have to charge this sucker. Okay, where do I do that? I sort of figured that the Tesla would be smart enough to just tell me where I should charge, but I think that only works with official Tesla Superchargers, and there weren’t any of those on my route.

Once again, I asked my son to Google where the chargers were. He found one on the way. We plugged that into the nav as a stop and felt like we were good to go.

When I pulled up to the charger, I expected to experience something close to the familiar experience of a gas pump. You know, put in a card, get the power cord, plug it in, push a button, and wait a while. I was way off!

First of all, there was already another Tesla attached to it, and unlike a normal gas pump, the driver wasn’t at his car.

Fortunately, he showed up within a few minutes, and I had the charger all to myself. Great. Now what… What proceeded from here was the most frustrating 20 minutes of my entire vacation:

1. Where’s the socket on the car? I was looking around for a gas-door looking thing and didn’t see anything. One of my kids helped me out and pressed on the tail light lens. Boom there it was. That was sneaky. Kind reminded me of those old cars that had the gas cap hidden behind the license plate, way back in the day.

2. I grabbed the charger cord and lined it up to the socket, and it wasn’t a match. Not even close. Great. I bet there’s an adapter somewhere. I looked in the back seats and the trunk. Nothing.

3. I pulled up the Turo app and messaged the owner. He was quick to respond and told me it was in the frunk. That’s right. I forgot about that. Cool. So, I proceeded to open the driver’s door and look for the hood release lever under the steering column. Not there. Grrr.

4. I Googled it and found it by navigating the extensive menu system. It’s under “controls.”

5. Okay. I got everything plugged in. I expected to put in my credit card and start charging this thing, but no, that would be too easy.

6. I had to download the app for the charging station, create an account, type in my credit card number, and scan the QR code of the pump.

7. Even after all of that, it didn’t work! I tried it several different times, in several different ways. I even had my kids double-check my work, as I was pretty frustrated by this point, but they couldn’t make it charge either.

8. My son who found the charger then explained to me that it only has 2.6 stars on Google and most of the comments said that it doesn’t work.

9. About this time, we checked the USGS live stream and found out that the volcano had stopped erupting…

10. I needed a moment.

I don’t know about you, but when I’ve singularly focused on a goal, I can get really determined and locked in. I don’t just pivot on a dime. I need to give myself at least 60 seconds to process through the five stages of grief. Probably 120 seconds.

1. It didn’t really stop. Let me reload the video. Let me check another camera feed.

2. How could it stop?!?! We are so close!!!

3. Maybe if we still go, we can see a trickle of lava. <checks more feeds> Nope it looks as cold and dead as yesterday.

4. Why is this happening to me?!?

5. Fine. Let’s go get a soda for the drive home. At least I can stop fighting with this stupid charger, because I have enough battery range to get home.

We drove it back with 14% battery to spare. As a part of the rental agreement, I didn’t need to return it charged.

The leadership lesson

As a tech leader it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I love adopting new technology. For the most part, technology obeys my every command. I can figure things out. I rarely get stumped.

I had a nice long lava-less drive home to contemplate my experience. Here’s what I think happened:

I can pick on Tesla a bit. I can also pick on the maker of the charging station too. There were some mistakes made, in my humble opinion.

Humans need continuity. We can adopt change, but it helps if it’s incremental in nature, and at least somewhat familiar.

Why do we all type on a qwerty keyboard? The keys were lined up this way so they wouldn’t jam on a mechanical typewriter. It’s not a particularly efficient layout, but it’s familiar, so it works.

Why is Microsoft Windows so entrenched? Is it the best operating system? Not necessarily, but Microsoft always focused a lot on maximizing backwards compatibility and maintaining continuity with the past. We’ve had a start button since 1995. That’s 30 years of consistency. Tesla just decided they didn’t need a start button, even though every other car has one or a keyed ignition.

As technologists, we always need to remember that we are designing our technologies for real people. People aren’t blank slates. They have a baseline of expectations from prior experiences that probably don’t have any modern rationale, but they still matter. If you think about my usability frustrations, most of them weren’t because it was an EV. They were mostly because the EV experience was too complicated and disconnected from my baseline decades of ICE experience.

And of course, this has a real bottom line impact. I will be highly unlikely to purchase a Tesla Model X as my next car.

In fact, I had the opportunity to rent another car later in the trip. I got a gloriously boring 2019 Honda Odyssey. It was amazingly unremarkable, but a completely useful and uneventful experience.

Disruptive technology

Technology can be disruptive in more than one way. Often the disruptions we inflict upon unsuspecting end users can be avoided. This is a usability and design problem, not just an engineering problem. And of course, in the end, it’s a business problem.

We can change the world with our technology innovations, but it won’t happen without the willing participation of our beloved end users. Let’s always keep them top of mind.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

I noticed this quite a while ago, and once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. Many movies, dare I say most, are written with a hero and a mentor. We love to focus on the hero characters, but ever-present are the mentor characters. These are the ones who show up partway into the first act to help the hero get through their early challenges in the quest. Some mentor roles are short and static, others are dynamic and involved throughout the story.

As someone who mentors leaders, I take great inspiration from these movie characters. How they support their heroes gives us clues on how we can support our mentees. Another thing I noticed is that there is no “one size fits all” style for these fictional mentors. They are all over the place. Let’s study them and see what we learn.

Yoda

Luke Skywalker meets Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. Yoda is best known for his line, “Do or do not. There is no try.” This was meant to instill confidence and commitment in Luke.

Part of mentoring is challenging our mentees to build new skills and stretch their comfort zones. They might say, “I’ll try,” which is a weak commitment. They are pre-deciding to fail if it’s too tough. Like Luke facing Darth Vader, the stakes are high. Trying isn’t enough. We need to push our mentees to fully commit to the challenges at hand.

Haymitch

In The Hunger Games, the hero, Katniss, is assigned a mentor, Haymitch, to assist her in her preparation for the games. Haymitch is the ultimate anti-mentor, if there ever was one. Early on in their mentor relationship, he told Katniss, “Embrace the probability of your imminent death and know that there’s nothing I can do to save you.”

That probably sounds like terrible mentorship advice, but let me salvage an applicable lesson here. If you’re mentoring someone, chances are good that you feel inadequate to the task. You feel the weight of your failures. You’ve been chewed up and spit out by the corporate machine more times than you’d care to remember. You’re capable of being more than a little jaded and cynical at times. What could you possibly have to offer a bright, young, energetic mentee?

The answer: reality.

While our corporate careers are not as violent as The Hunger Games, they are indeed fraught with harsh realities. We can sugarcoat it, or we can help our mentees navigate it as best as we can. They can do that only with the benefit of our years of hard-earned experience.

Mr. Miyagi

Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid is probably the most iconic mentor from my childhood movies. He’s best known for his phrases: “Wax on, wax off” and “Man who catch fly with chopstick, accomplish anything.” The whole plotline of the movie involves Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel skills that seem to have nothing to do with Karate. In the end, those fundamentals build the base for him to ultimately succeed.

It’s quite possible that in our mentor-mentee relationships, we may think we need to teach high-level leadership skills like vision and strategy, but what our mentee needs now is the basics of time management or effective email communication. These fundamentals are easy to skip because we take them for granted. Be on the watch for these needs, and always be ready to be Mr. Miyagi to your mentee.

Morpheus

Morpheus is Neo’s mentor in The Matrix. He believes in Neo long before Neo believes in himself. That’s extremely encouraging and has a partial effect on Neo’s development. Despite many setbacks, Morpheus remains steadfast in his commitment to Neo. Toward the end of the film, during the final climax, Morpheus says this to Neo: “There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

As mentors, we give advice, encouragement, and resources. We talk. Our mentees nod. They appreciate it. But what if nothing really changes? Like Morpheus, we need to hold our mentees accountable to walk the path. Knowledge is necessary, but it’s not enough. Ask your mentee what they are going to do differently this week. Ask them next week if they actually did it.

Tyler Durden

Tyler Durden is a unique kind of mentor in Fight Club. His character is so dynamic that he actually morphs into the villain role in the final act. For the purposes of this article, I’ll focus on his role in the early part of the film. The hero of Fight Club doesn’t actually have a name. He’s listed as “Narrator” in the credits.

The hero is just going through the motions of life, driven by consumer demands, and working a meaningless job. Tyler Durden shows up and provides such a stark and dramatic contrast. He demands focus, attention, and complete abandonment of his meaningless material attachments. “No fear! No distractions! The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide!”

In our discussions with our mentees, the subjects may meander quite a bit. You might find yourself talking about a lot, but accomplishing very little. If that’s the case, you may want to turn up the Tyler Durden in your mentorship style. Keep your mentee focused on what truly matters. Let everything else slide.

Tony Stark

Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Peter Parker (Spider-Man) each have their own movie franchises where they are the hero, but in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony mentors Peter. Tony gives Peter a technologically advanced Spider-Man suit, but when Peter says he’s nothing without it, Tony replies, “If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”

Often, I mentor people who want to get promoted. They really want that fancy title and want my help to get it. They seek that extrinsic validation that they are a legit, real leader.

Like Tony, I try to dig deeper. I help my mentee develop the leadership skills they need now, without a fancy title. I remind them of the incredible responsibility they have to make the most of the role they hold now, not just what’s next.

Self-worth doesn’t come from extrinsic factors. Like a high-tech Spider-Man suit, if you’re not enough without a promotion, then you shouldn’t be trusted to wield it.

I could go on, but that’s the end of my sample tour of movie mentors. This was far from exhaustive. Most movies have mentor characters. In all likelihood, I probably failed to mention one of your favorites. Please do us all a favor and continue citing great mentor examples from films in the comments below.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

Did you hear the news? After 38 years of waiting, Spaceballs 2 was announced yesterday. Check out the hilarious announcement from Mel Brooks himself:

I cannot wait!

In 1987, Mel Brooks released Spaceballs as a parody of Star Wars and other science fiction of that era. As much as I consider myself a Star Wars geek, I’ve probably watched Spaceballs more than the movies it parodies. It’s so quotable, and somehow, it never gets old. I was recently considering a common IT problem, and for some reason, Spaceballs scenes kept coming to mind.

IT is all about speed. More CPU, more bandwidth, faster project execution, tightened SLAs, on-demand provisioning, time-to-market, auto-scale, DevOps, and continuous delivery. What do all of those fancy terms really mean? Speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, and don’t forget speed.

The business hates waiting for IT. The business feels like Princess Vespa standing at the altar with the yawning Prince Valium, while the minister slowly enunciates every word of the “long version” of the ceremony. Technology leaders feel a strong burden to perform for the business as fast as possible. This can lead to some interesting behaviors. The practical thing to do is to engage light speed and get going. But instead, we respond like Dark Helmet. Skip light speed. Skip ridiculous speed. Let’s go straight to ludicrous speed!

My brains are going into my feet

What can go wrong when we go ludicrous speed? Plenty. For starters, we can overshoot the Winnebago by a week and a half. Too much speed actually reduces agility. Being agile means going slow enough to have time to stop and check alignment. What if while we were busy going fast, the business changed directions? Did we ever stop to ask? Things constantly change. Being adaptable and responsive to change is a higher goal than raw speed. Make sure your priorities are in that order.

The combination is 1-2-3-4-5

Another thing that suffers when we go too fast is security. This is an invisible shortcut that we take. Most people never notice until it’s too late, and then they wish they hadn’t. Some risks aren’t worth taking. Build in security up-front. Today it might just be the combination on your luggage, but tomorrow, it might be used to secure your planet’s air shield. Changing requirements and future use cases are hard to anticipate, so do good security work at the onset.

Comb the desert! Do you hear me? Comb the desert!

Sometimes when you get direction from your leadership, you have to ask yourself, “Are we being too literal?” This just happened to me recently. I gave some direction to one of my project teams, and they went off and acted upon what I said, but in a more extreme and literal way than I intended. Then we needed to sync up, clarify, and reset the direction forward. This is what happens when we focus exclusively on execution. Check your understanding and alignment often. Don’t make assumptions. Just like Colonel Sandurz, ask yourself if you are being too literal.

This is your last chance to hit the cancellation button

Sometimes the result of all this speed leaves you feeling like you are careening toward auto-destruct. You’ve canceled the three-ring circus. You’ve closed the zoo, and the bear just stole the last escape pod. Go ahead and hit the cancellation button. (Hopefully, it won’t be out of order.) So many leaders get stuck into the mindset of “failure is not an option.” Pull the plug. Stop the madness. Breathe and regroup. Try again another day. The worst thing about speed is the intrinsic pressure and blindness it creates. Be bold enough to stop when you need to. Otherwise, you’ll find out that even in the future, nothing works.

Prepare to fast-forward. Preparing to fast-forward. Fast-forward. Fast-forwarding, sir.

It’s ok to fast-forward. Just do a little preparation first. Dark Helmet mocks Colonel Sandurz’ needless overpreparation. Technology leaders can sometimes do the same thing to their teams. When we have a vision we want to be executed, we holler to our teams, “Why are you always preparing? Just go!” That wasn’t effective for Dark Helmet, and it isn’t for us. Teams need time to prepare. Preparation enables speed; it doesn’t stop it. Preparation prevents rework and confusion. Preparation is a short delay now that prevents a longer, less predictable delay later.

When will then be now? Soon.

Sometimes, IT execution goes so fast that the sponsors have no idea what’s going on. They are left dazed and confused like Dark Helmet watching himself on instant cassette. The lesson here is that you shouldn’t execute faster than you can communicate. IT loves to go heads-down and quickly forgets about communication. Slow it down a little so you can keep your business sponsors well-informed on pre-arranged tight intervals.

Those are my leadership lessons from Spaceballs about IT and speed. Don’t get me wrong, I love speed. Go as fast as you reasonably can, but no faster. The next time someone makes you go faster than you should, picture the idiotic actions of Dark Helmet. That should get you back on track like a can of liquid schwartz in your emergency fuel tank.

Hopefully, this article will tide you over while we eagerly await Spaceballs 2. Do you love IT leadership and Spaceballs? Please share this blog with your colleagues.

This article was adapted from an original post on zachonleadership.com on April 20, 2018.

Last week, I spoke about technology change leadership at Open Source North. It was a lot of fun. In case you missed it, I drew heavily from these past Zach on Leadership articles:

• Lead Change Like Obi-Wan Kenobi

• Leadership Lessons from Losing the BlackBerry

• The Jedi Mind Trick: Influencing Others Without Them Knowing It

• We’re Going Big on Cloud Technology. Here’s the Strategy.

• Leading Change: Don’t Just Focus on the Solution

Today’s article isn’t about the content of that presentation. It’s about the experience itself. I had an epiphany: I wasn’t nervous at all. I genuinely enjoyed the speaking opportunity. I was relaxed. It was fun.

If I go back 15 years in time, the past version of me could have never imagined me making a statement like that. I had a serious fear of public speaking, and it was a liability that I needed to overcome. 9 years ago, I was well on my way to getting competent, and I wrote an article on Zach on Leadership called “10 Public Speaking Hacks for Geeks.” This isn’t everything I know. I’ve certainly advanced my skills since then, but looking back, it still holds up. I put all of these hacks into practice last week, and this represents a core part of my style.

So, I thought it was time to reshare it. Why? Because many of my readers are right where I was. This isn’t an advanced master class on how to be the next TED Talker. This is a starting point for how to get on stage and make an impact. If you need to get started, this is what you need. I present to you my article, written 9 years ago. I stand by it today. Enjoy:

10 Public Speaking Hacks for Geeks

I’m an introverted technology geek, so by nature, I enjoy talking to computers a whole lot more than talking to actual humans. However, as I started to emerge as a technology leader, I realized that in the marketplace of ideas, it’s not the best ideas that win, but the best communicated ideas that win. Generally, I feel that I am a pretty effective communicator, but there was one form of it that strikes fear into my heart: public speaking. About five years ago, I decided that if I really wanted to be an effective technology leader, I needed to learn to be a competent public speaker.

There are so many general tips and tricks for public speaking available. You can picture the audience naked, or join a Toastmasters club, but I want to share the not-so-obvious techniques and hacks that really work well for me.

1. Seek and take many opportunities: Practice is important, but there’s nothing like the real thing to make you better. I started looking for any and all forums inside and outside the company to speak. Not all opportunities are equal. For instance, speaking in front of your company executives is particularly unnerving, since theoretically, they can fire you if you sound like a rambling fool. I like to find outside venues like conferences and workshops. The worst that can happen there is that they simply won’t invite you back.

2. Get feedback: Self-awareness is shockingly hard to achieve in public speaking. My self-perception is sometimes far from the truth, so it’s great when the speaking forum has a feedback mechanism built in, like a scoring-review card that the event organizers share with you afterward. Video recordings are even better. Honestly, I cringe in misery when I watch myself on video, but it’s necessary to self-evaluate. Finally, if none of those are available, sneak a friend into the audience, and have them tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly afterward.

3. Over-prepare: I decided that it was unlikely that I would ever be the best speaker at a given event, but I could be the best-prepared speaker. And if I over-prepared, it increased my chances of being average or slightly above-average. I memorize my presentations. I rehearse 8-12 times, which is a major investment in time, but necessary. Memorization does two things: First, it eases my nerves because I have it down cold. Second, it frees me to be engaging and interactive with the audience since I don’t need to spend my brain power thinking of what I’m going to say next.

4. Pick topics that you are passionate about: I’m not a good enough speaker to talk effectively on any randomly assigned topic. I just can’t do it. I’m not particularly charismatic, so it’ll just flop. So, I only talk about things I’m truly jazzed about. That enthusiasm energizes the presentation. Without it, I really cannot perform.

5. Find a way to turn it into a conversation early: When starting a presentation, my nerves take control of my body. No amount of “using the force” will stop my leg from shaking, so I needed another trick. I found that if I can get some interaction from the audience early, it tricks my body into thinking this isn’t really a speech, it’s a conversation, and that’s safe, you won’t die.

6. Make the intro short: I try not to ramble on about myself in the beginning. While experts say that you need to establish credibility, I think I can do it in a minute or less. No one wants to hear me go on and on about my pedigree. It makes me sound pompous and boring.

7. Be funny: Without exaggeration, I try to inject as many jokes as possible into my presentation. I don’t think I could do too much, as I’m not at risk for being mistaken for a stand-up comic. Humor does two things: It makes memory-markers for the audience, so they actually remember what you talked about. More importantly, it gets me smiling, which, even though I am a happy individual, I tend to go stone-cold serious when I speak. It also relaxes me and calms my nerves when I see the audience laughing at my jokes. I do this more for myself than for the audience.

8. Be vulnerable: Keep it real. Sounding overly perfect or expert-like is boring. While it’s important to establish some credibility, it’s equally important to be vulnerable about mistakes and lessons learned. This makes the speaker a lot more accessible. People aren’t looking for a hero, but more of a guide that is only slightly further along the path than they are.

9. Use PowerPoint: People say PowerPoint is dead. People decry presentations that are “death by PowerPoint.” I disagree. I found that it is helpful to me as a speaker if I give my audience something to look at other than me. A hundred eyes directly on me is more unnerving than a hundred eyes slightly behind and to the left of me. I use a lot of images and very few words. I’ve developed a style of using rapid-fire image-rich slide shows to punctuate my talks. It helps me, helps the audience, and keeps the presentation from getting boring. No one wants to stare at one slide for more than a minute or two. If you’d like to see this technique in action, see my BriForum presentations here and here.

10. Be alone before and after: Public speaking is a very extraverted thing to do. Being an introvert, this is foreign territory, so I find it very helpful to be completely alone for a good period of time immediately before and immediately after the presentation to give me poise. I didn’t come up with this idea; I read it in this book: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Highly recommended reading.

That’s my list. I hope you find it helpful. This is an important skill for every leader to develop. Even though I am about five years into my intentional journey to improve this skill, I have a very long way to go. Do you have tips, tricks, or hacks to share on the topic? Please share them in the comments below so we can all get better. Thanks for reading!

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

I’m naturally fascinated by new technology. No one needs to tell me to keep up on tech trends. I do so naturally. I’ve done plenty of dabbling with Generative AI. I’ve written about it a few times on this blog already. If you missed it, you can check it out here, here, and here.

Today’s article is all about Generative AI technology adoption. Some never use it. Some play with it from time to time. Some use it daily. I’m in the latter category, but I recognize the barriers to entry. Simply put, Generative AI isn’t necessary. You can easily function without it, for now. But that very well may change.

30 years ago, people looked up phone numbers in the Yellow Pages. Everyone had a phone book sitting next to their phone in the kitchen. Fun fact: I had a job as a teenager delivering phone books.

For a while, phone books and internet searches co-existed. But slowly, over time, the phone books went away. Now, if you don’t know how to look up a phone number on the internet, you’re out of luck.

I recognize that Generative AI is the tool of the future, and over time, it will displace other ways of doing things. To demonstrate, I’ll share a non-work example that I experienced this week.

The Air Conditioner

This week, it got nice and toasty in Minnesota. For our family, it meant it was time to fire up the central A/C. However, when I flipped the switch to “cool” on the thermostat, nothing happened.

Many of you would dial up your HVAC repair company (after looking it up on the internet, not the phone book). I decided to see how far I could get with the DIY approach. For background, I have absolutely no HVAC repair experience or knowledge. Also, my A/C unit is from 1986, and the air handler is in the attic.

Given my starting point of zero knowledge, I opened up ChatGPT and started the conversation: “My home ac won’t turn on. Please help me troubleshoot.”

Some people make a big deal about “prompt engineering.” I suppose that can be important sometimes, but I can usually get where I need to go simply by iterating and clarifying.

ChatGPT asked me a bunch of clarifying questions, which helped it narrow down the problem. We went down a few rabbit trails together, but didn’t waste too much time.

Eventually, it asked me to physically inspect the air handler in the attic, which I did. Here was my next prompt:

“I can hear main AC unit turn on, but the blower doesn’t blow. If I go to the air handler and give it a whack, the blower turns on.”

I love that I can describe what I’m seeing and doing in non-technical terms, and it figures it out. Here’s the response:

“Ah — this is a classic symptom and your physical “whack” test just gave us the diagnosis. Your blower motor is likely: Failing or has a bad start capacitor, or there’s a sticking relay or worn brushes/bearings.”

It elaborated, but went on to recommend replacing the start capacitor as it was the cheapest and most likely. I ordered a replacement on Amazon for $11, and it arrived the next day.

ChatGPT taught me how to locate, discharge, and safely install the replacement capacitor. Unfortunately for me, that didn’t fix it.

Days are going by at this point. Fortunately, the history of this thread is saved in my ChatGPT history, so even though I switched subjects and interacted with it on different subjects, I could always go back to this thread and pick up where we left off with no loss of context or progress.

Interestingly, at this point, it told me that I needed to replace the blower motor. Since I had seen it spin up just fine (after the whack) and run continuously for hours, I doubted ChatGPT’s advice, so I told it that I thought it was wrong. I find it odd that it diverted from its original diagnosis, but after my nudge, it self-corrected. Then it asked me to find the fan relay. It described it in detail and I found it. It then gave me some steps to take to diagnose whether it was failing or not. Based on our tests, ChatGPT concluded that the fan relay was the culprit. Another overnight Amazon order. This time $22.

ChatGPT gave me the instructions to safely replace the relay, then I crawled into the attic one last time, and got it done. Success! I now have working central air that turns on and off as it should, without me needing to crawl into the attic to give it a whack.

So, what’s the big deal?

Now that I’ve shared this tale, what’s the point? Why is this impressive? Why is this preferable to the old-fashioned way?

Before I used ChatGPT for DIY repair help, I used to visit YouTube and online forums. YouTube can be great if you happen to find a video that someone made with your exact issue. Often, it’s not directly applicable. Even if it is, sometimes they are lengthy and hard to follow. I’ve wasted a lot of time previewing irrelevant videos in the past. Of course, the person who made the video isn’t sitting at his computer ready and waiting to answer your every question. So, you feel like you’re on your own. Similarly, online forums can be great if you find an exact match, but if you have a general question or don’t even know how to exactly phrase what’s going on, you’re going to be out of luck. Best case, you’ll be dealing with very slow, human volunteers for help.

This all started with “My home A/C won’t turn on.” I didn’t know about start capacitors or fan relays. I still don’t know much about HVAC. I only know what ChatGPT taught me in the specific context of our troubleshooting session.

That’s my point. In this case, ChatGPT was far superior to YouTube or online forums. It’s like it has already watched everything on YouTube. It already read all of the online forums. It has already read every HVAC troubleshooting manual, and it’s sitting by my side, ready to answer my every question and describe every step in vivid detail.

It wasn’t perfect, but it’s going to keep getting better.

I think people struggle to adopt new technology like Generative AI because they are still satisfied with the old way of doing things. Get less satisfied. Hopefully, you aren’t still flipping through phone books. Hopefully, you aren’t looking up how to spell words in the dictionary. Hopefully, you aren’t printing off MapQuest maps for your road trips.

Next time something breaks at home, give it a whirl.

How is this applicable to technology adoption at work?

This is extremely applicable. Specifically, it’s normal for emerging technologies to penetrate the consumer space before the business space. Adoption at home leads to awareness of what’s possible, which, in turn, creates demand to push the boundaries at work.

Perhaps you’re not the bleeding-edge AI savant at work. That’s okay. Experiment at home. Be curious. Be like me and fix your own central air unit without any prior HVAC knowledge or experience. It’s wild. Once you experience the power, you realize that the possibilities are endless. We’re just getting started.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

I remember the first time I set foot in a real data center. It was roughly 26 years ago. That’s where the magic happened. That’s where the serious IT engineering work was done. At the time, I was a desktop support technician. After a few years, I advanced my career to the point where I was qualified to work in the data center. I was elated.

I loved every aspect of it. The ice-cold air conditioning, the blinking LED lights, the chirps of whirring hard drives, the raised floor tiles, and the satisfaction of neat and orderly cable management. That is what real, professional, enterprise-grade IT looked like, and I had a job right in the heart of it. This was the nerve center of the enterprise.

I experienced my most formative leadership lesson as a young tech professional inside a data center. One Friday afternoon, I made a terrible mistake that blew up the whole thing. The enterprise went dark. How I was treated at the moment, and in the aftermath set me up for how I lead today. This was the subject of the very first Zach on Leadership article. You can read it here.

For the next 15 years or so, I worked in, or closely adjacent to the corporate data centers. I got to be the one to give tours to customers and business executives. We always kept our data centers clean and show-worthy. Onlookers would marvel at the advanced technology.

The cloud

For quite a while, the public cloud coexisted alongside the corporate data centers. It was nice to have both, but for all of the really serious workloads, we ran those out of the data centers. That was just fine, for a while. Then, around 2018 or so, that all changed. The public cloud advanced to the point where it wasn’t only equivalent to a data center, but in many ways had surpassed it in enterprise capability, and cost efficiency. This was a major epiphany for me. I wrote all about it here.

Not long after that, we made a strategic declaration, that we would move our corporate data centers to the cloud. We started with a major anchor workload, then little by little, migrated everything else. This was an enormous effort that took years. Like all major technology initiatives, we had our fair share of setbacks, but the team conquered them all.

This week, we finished the cleanout of our old data center facilities. With everything running in the cloud, we don’t need them anymore.

The end of an era

Long before I started my career, corporate data centers were well established. My company, CHS, built our first data center back in 1964. I hadn’t even been born yet. We’re closing the door on a massive chapter of the history of computing. I will likely never step foot inside a data center ever again. A few years ago, I walked into one for the last time, without realizing it would be the last time. For 61 years, my company has had a corporate data center, but no longer.

As a tech professional, you’d think I’d be used to this, after all, technology has a pretty short shelf life. We replace laptops and phones every 3-5 years. Applications need a good rewrite every 5-15 years, depending on the stack. Sure, we have a few applications that have been around forever, but those are in the minority.

This serves as a good reminder that our work product is temporary. It doesn’t last long, and that’s okay. What does last is the relationships we build, the people we invest in, the customers we serve, and the leaders we develop. That’s the good stuff, but it all happens in the context of technologies that are here today and gone tomorrow.

Cloud-native

I had to take a moment to reflect because I’m sentimental (for an IT guy). These data centers, servers, and networks have served us well for years. But the future is cloud, and now that we are fully on it, we can take full advantage of everything it has to offer. That’s exciting. We’ve come a long way and have earned ourselves the opportunity to do what has never been done before.

The leadership lesson

There’s a leadership lesson in all of this, that you can apply to a variety of situations. It’s important to honor the past. To recognize what we’ve done, where we’ve been, and how it shaped us. Yet, we can’t let that hold us back. We cannot allow ourselves to get stuck in the past or the present. We need to look to the future at all times. We need to cast a vision and a strategy to get there. We need to lead our teams along the journey, one step at a time.

Honor the past. Look to the future. Stay the course. I’m glad I got to be a part of the data center era of computing, but I’m ready to let it go.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

Do you ever get the feeling that you should’ve been promoted to the next level by now? If you are early in your career, you might think you are the only one. Ask anyone. Every single person will say that they’ve been there for a season of their career. Most have been there multiple times.

While the situation is common, it isn’t easy to handle. Being overdue for a promotion can lead to frustration and disengagement. There are a lot of positive ways to handle this situation, and I’ll cover that shortly, but before I get to that, I’d like to explain from a management point of view, why delays happen in the first place.

How promotions happen

I’ve worked for several large companies. They all handle promotions a little differently, but here are some common patterns:

1. Timing. Some companies evaluate promotion opportunities on a cycle. If you didn’t make the cut last go around, you’ll need to wait for the next time to be considered again.

2. Funding. Promotions cost money, and some companies temporarily pause promotions until financial performance can support that activity again.

3. Business needs. Managers often need to justify promotions, not just on the merits of the individual, but on the business need for a role at that higher level. Sometimes, there just isn’t strong enough justification.

4. In-place promotion isn’t always possible. In many situations, you can’t simply get promoted to the next level. Instead, a new role needs to be opened up. You need to apply and compete against other applicants for the higher role.

The more experienced you are, the longer this takes. Many of you experienced rapid promotions in your early career, and now that you are mid-career, you’ve noticed that it’s slowed significantly. The primary reason for that is scarcity. In every company, there are more entry-level jobs than high-level jobs. Those high-level jobs are harder to master, harder to qualify for, and harder to win. So, if that’s your situation, know that the pace is supposed to slow down. That’s the fundamental design of an organizational hierarchy that operates on merit.

I hope explaining the landscape is helpful. Now, here’s what you can do about it:

1. Be awesome at the job you have. Master it. Be the best. Have a great attitude. Be a strong collaborator. Earn great performance reviews. If you can’t do this, there’s no need to proceed further, but if you can confidently tell yourself, “Yes” then let’s keep going.

2. Talk to your manager about your desire to be promoted. Ask your manager about the circumstances I described above, so you can know which of them apply to your situation.

3. Ask your manager if you’ve done everything you can do to prepare yourself for the next level. Chances are, they’ll tell you what you lack, but you must ask. When you find out what you lack, get after it.

4. Get to know people who hold the higher-level position you seek. Study them. Ask them to mentor you. Do what they do. Do that long enough, and your management will eventually make it official.

5. Get to know your manager’s peers. Few do this, but I promise, it’s a game-changer. Your manager sits around a leadership table with their peers to discuss talent and organizational opportunities. If it’s all on your manager to advocate for you, that’s a tough deal. If your manager’s peers know you and speak highly of you, that is gold.

6. Education and certification can augment a lack of experience. If you’ve truly mastered your job, then you should have some extra mental capacity to add relevant skills that will make you even more qualified for the next level. Make it happen.

7. Dust off your Individual Development Plan. This is your job to maintain, not your manager’s. If your company doesn’t have an official document or process for Individual Development Plans, they are quite simple: Just state your career objective and list out concrete steps you’ll take with timelines to achieve them. Then, just like your performance goals, make sure you achieve them.

That’s my list. The waiting game can be frustrating and disengaging, but if you take the 7 steps I’ve outlined, you will be reinvigorated and well on your way toward earning that promotion when the time comes.

Here’s my pearl of wisdom for all of you: Look at promotions as a trailing indicator, not a leading indicator. In most cases, you need to already be working at that higher level before your management will recognize you with an official promotion. Too many of us think of it the other way around. You may think, “I’ve got the potential to do more, and I’d do it if they’d only promote me.” Do it now, and get promoted later. In my experience, that’s the way this actually works.

If it takes a while to equalize, that’s okay. It really is. Think about it this way: What if someone gave you way too big of a job role for which you were unqualified? You’d walk around feeling like a fake on the brink of failure. That would be awful. This way is better. Sure, you may have outgrown your role a little, but if you’re following my advice, I promise that will only be temporary.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

This week, the President of the United States stepped into a modern EV and remarked with exuberance, “Everything is computer!”

I will set aside the political context for this, because that’s not the purpose of this blog. I will take a moment to reflect on this humorous comment because it provides me the opportunity to reflect on our relationship with technology in this modern era.

The term “computer”

I still use the term, “computer,” but I also recognize that it’s quickly becoming anachronistic. Back when I started my career, I went into “the computer field.” That turned into “information technology.” Now, we just say “technology” or simply “tech.”

I’ve told people that “I fix computers for a living.” Depending on the audience, that explanation was perfectly appropriate. It’s not exactly accurate, but it’s close enough.

In modern tech lingo, I’ve noticed that we completely avoid the term “computer.” For broad discussions, we’ll use terms like “digital,” “systems,” “apps,” “cloud,” or my favorite, “AI.” For a while, the term, “computer” was relegated to an end-user device such as a laptop or a desktop. But we don’t even call those computers anymore. When was the last time you called your end-user device a computer? It’s probably been a while. We’re more likely to say, “laptop,” “machine,” “PC,” “box,” or “device.”

Maybe I’m just old, but I still like the term “computer.” It reminds me of my roots and feels retro cool to me. Probably just me.

Everything really is computer

In 2011, tech pioneer and venture capitalist, Marc Andreessen famously wrote, “Software is eating the world.” In 2025 that continues to play out. More and more of our human experiences have a digital component to it. As far as I can tell, that trend isn’t stopping anytime soon.

You may find yourself immersed in an overly-digitized world craving a little analog from time to time. You may find it harder and harder to unplug.

Recently, I’ve seen several advertisements for AI technology that seem to miss the mark. The technology is cool. But the use cases still appear to be fleeting. Too many tech leaders are trying to solve problems with AI that don’t really need to be solved. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Here’s a recent example.

That begs the question. Is “everything is computer” good or bad?

I have a very high-tech profession. I balance that out with a very low-tech personal life. Even though I can readily admit that modern EVs can outperform ICEs I still prefer driving a manual transmission. You might be thinking, “A manual? Do they even make those any more?” Fortunately for me, yes they do. I’m not sure for how long, but as long as I can get one, I’ll still drive a manual.

There’s just something about the personal involvement in the driving experience that I really love. Automatics and EVs just detach me too much. Besides that, my left foot gets bored.

Some of you live in the smart home of the future. I have the bare minimum of a few connected gadgets in my house. Otherwise, it’s closer to Little House on the Prairie for me and my family. My kids think it’s hilarious, but we have a microwave from 1979 and it just won’t die. It’s the kind that has a single dial on it. I spin it and it turns on. I don’t even need to set the clock because it doesn’t have one. It even has wood grain. Personally, I love it because it’s simple and reliable. I don’t like spending even 15 seconds trying to figure out the user interface of an unfamiliar microwave. I just find it annoying.

Time off

Those of you who know me well, know that I use my PTO to escape my high-tech job, my low-tech home, and go no-tech. I find rest and replenishment in deep retreats of wilderness. There are a few relevant quotes from John Muir that couldn’t be truer in this modern age. Believe it or not, these quotes are over 100 years old:

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.”

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

“Everybody needs beauty…places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.”

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul”

With that, I’ll answer my own question. “Everything is computer,” is that good or bad? In my opinion, mostly good, as long as you can shut it off.

I enjoy the capabilities of modern technology. I love how it makes us more efficient, more capable, more informed. I love building technology that accelerates the worthy purpose of my company to create connections to empower agriculture. That’s work worth doing and it’s exciting. At the same time, we should always be able to pull the plug. We should be able to maintain our privacy. We should be able to opt-out.

Many families have one EV and one ICE car. Sometimes, you’re feeling “everything is computer!” and sometimes, you’re not. Technology is a good thing, but too much can be a problem. We are humans, not machines. Even the geekiest tech enthusiasts among us have their limits.

So, the comment “everything is computer” was silly, but I’ve made it deep. Along that theme, I was reminded of a favorite scene from an old movie, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” At the end of the film, the students gave their history reports. One of Bill and Ted’s classmates famously said:

Everything is different, but the same…

Things are more moderner than before…

Bigger, and yet smaller… it’s computers…

SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!

If you’d like to relive that glorious speech, watch here.

I love how he said, “it’s computers…” and trailed off without adding any deeper thoughts. As silly as it is, it’s also profound. That was 1989. 36 years later, every word of that short speech is still true and impacts our world more than ever.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

Can you be a people-first, servant leader and still have the guts to make the tough calls when you have to? Yes, but it’s really hard.

Those of you who have been following me for a long time know that I’m all about servant leadership. You know the type. These leaders make work fun. They help people grow in their careers. They build a great culture. They take the blame and give the credit. They make people feel safe. They are inspirational and visionary. They don’t micromanage, but they empower.

These are the building blocks of a great leader. Some of you reading this right now are screaming, “yes!” because you’re fully bought-in to this ideal model of leadership. I am too. The world still has too much of a shortage of this kind of leader. I’ve made it my mission to be this kind of leader and develop as many as I can.

In my experience, this style of leadership solves a lot of problems. It also avoids a ton of problems that simply never materialize in this kind of environment. However, it’s not 100% foolproof.

There are plenty of situations that can sabotage this leadership style and environment. There are inherent vulnerabilities in the model, and they need to be mitigated. In the rest of this article, I’ll share what I’ve learned. Collectively, these situations and countermeasures are necessary for a servant leader to reach the highest level of proficiency.

The underperformer with a great attitude

Servant leaders love to hire for culture fit, attitude, and aptitude. This is critical and important. Frankly, it usually works out just fine, but sometimes it doesn’t. Occasionally you’ll have a team member who is great to be around, but just isn’t producing like their peers. You might not even realize it right away, because you aren’t a micromanager. Eventually it becomes evident.

Like a good servant leader, you look within. You provide more support, training, coaching, and guidance. You find yourself spending a crazy amount of your time working on this one person. You want to make the best of it, because you tend to see the best in people. You give 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th chances.

If you’re honest with yourself, there’s improvement, but just not enough. It’s time to phone some friends. Involve your boss, your HR partner, and get some help addressing the situation.

The best servant leaders recognize this early and ask for help early. Most wait too long and the whole team suffers.

The high performing chaos machine

Sometimes servant leaders have extremely talented team members, who get a lot done, but leave a wake of chaos behind them. As a protector of the culture, you are quite attuned to this problem, but you are still sometimes frozen on what exactly to do about it. You secretly hope it just goes away, but it doesn’t.

Again, involve your boss and your HR partner. Here’s a good motivator for me: “Culture is defined by the worst behavior tolerated.” – John Amaech. We act like that’s not true. We think we will be remembered and appreciated by all of the good things we do. But in our customers’ and team members’ experience, it’s what we tolerate that defines us. Get after it.

Handling bad news

Bad news is a fact of life. How we handle it as leaders makes a huge difference. Let’s just say that someone above you made an unpopular decision, such as a reorg, a budget cut, or a policy change. You didn’t have anything to do with it. On face value, it seems like a bad decision. As a leader, how do you handle that with your team?

Servant leaders have a tendency to commiserate with their teams. They are transparent to a fault. They process their emotions in real time in front of their team. This can have the impact of strengthening the bond between the leader and their team, but what about the rest of the company? How do you move forward from there? Do you resist or grumble? Neither of those are good options. Morale is in the tank and you as a leader become powerless.

I’ve learned to privately make peace with unpopular decisions. I’m not a “yes-man,” so this actually takes a lot of work for me. I’ll reach out to my boss, or other parties to get new perspectives on the matter. I’ll fight to understand it. I’ll grieve, if I must. Then I move on. Then, and only then, am I ready to lead my team. Predictably, they will react like I did, but now, I’m equipped to help them navigate the change and adapt accordingly.

That’s my list. I could probably go on, but those are the big ones. To be clear, I am in no way taking my foot off the gas of servant leadership. That’s my native tongue. That’s the best way to lead. But I’ve been doing this long enough to see good leaders hit massive speed bumps along the way. I’ve run into each of these scenarios myself and learned the hard and slow way. But now that I’ve learned, I do my best to equip leaders to handle these difficult matters. When handled with skill, servant leaders are unstoppable.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

I was asked a pretty insightful question this week. I was doing Q&A with Minnesota Technology Association’s ACE Leadership cohort. We were discussing a wide range of leadership topics when one of the participants asked this interesting question:

How do you know what’s really going on in your team? Do you use dashboards or status reports? What’s your method?

I sat back in my chair for a moment to gather my thoughts.

It occurred to me that this is a personal leadership style sort of question. There’s really no specific right or wrong answer. If you asked a dozen different executive leaders, you’d get a dozen different answers.

Before I answer the question, I’d first like to validate the importance of it. Regardless of how you answer it, you need a really good answer. It’s critical that leaders can have confidence in what’s going on within their team. Blind spots are a huge liability and are potentially derailing. At the same time, once you reach the executive level, your team is too big. You can’t possibly get involved in everything. So, how do you know, what’s really going on?

Here’s my answer to that question. This is what works for me:

#1 I meet weekly with my direct reports. Yep, weekly. And I don’t cancel them unless one of us is on PTO. I’ve checked with other executives, and that’s a higher frequency than most, but I like it. I like being able to stay on top of hot issues. I don’t want too much time to pass between check-ins. Even if nothing major is going on, I want to keep these super-important relationships as healthy as possible. I rely heavily on my direct reports, so we need high trust and frequent synchronization.

We also have a weekly team meeting that rarely gets canceled. I make it a priority. We talk about relevant topics and get on the same page.

Also, we have established norms of frequent asynchronous communication via persistent chat, both 1:1 and as a leadership team. Anything real-time gets communicated right away.

That’s great, Zach, but what if your direct reports hide something important, or what if they are oblivious to what’s really going on?

I have a few hedges against that:

#2 I hire really competent leaders. They aren’t perfect, but they are really good. I set an example, and they follow it.

#3 I listen to my customers. Occasionally, but not often, I hear about a problem from my customers before I hear about it from my team. It’s rare, but it happens. I’d rather hear about it that way, than from my boss, or not at all.

#4 I do skip level meetings. Once per quarter or so, I attend the meetings that my direct reports run with their leadership teams. I don’t do that to check up on my direct reports, but I do it to build relationships with the next layer of leadership. I want to make myself accessible to them, and that’s only possible if there’s a relationship established already.

#5 I read the employee engagement survey results. You know those surveys that most companies do about how employees feel about working at your company? I take those very seriously. They provide excellent signal intelligence on how people feel at the ground level. Most importantly, it alerts me to “hot spots” that require some attention to fix leadership or cultural issues within the department.

One additional way I make myself available to employees is a very old concept called an open door policy. I wrote a whole article on that. In short, I make myself available to employees if they approach me. If someone wants to meet with me, the answer is always yes. I do my best to make myself approachable.

#6 I read our financial reports. I know how we are doing compared to the budget. I’ve got a large, complex organization with a lot of cost centers. I work with my leaders and finance partners to keep a constant watch on how we are performing financially. Before I joined CHS 9 years ago, I worked for financial institutions for 16 years, so this really got ingrained in me. I wrote more about that here.

That’s my playbook.

I’ve developed that over time. I watch over the things that matter most to me. My direct reports, their leaders, our customers, our employees, and our financials.

That may seem like a lot, but it’s actually a vital few things.

I’ll give you a few examples of things I don’t watch quite as closely. Remember the second part of the original question: “Do you use dashboards or status reports?” My answer: not really. I’m not a huge consumer of project status reports, KPI dashboards, and the like. I know a lot of executives who really dig on that, but I’m not one of them. Here’s why: For the most part, I delegate a lot of that. I’m not against status reporting. I think they are pretty important for some, but that person is usually someone to whom I’ve delegated authority. So, I trust that they are looking at the dashboards and giving me a heads-up if something goes awry. Hopefully, those same people invite me to the party when things go great, so I can cheer on their success.

Some of my readers are probably thinking, wow, Zach, this is the wrong answer. Don’t you get a lot of ugly surprises? Actually, no I don’t. And that’s how I know it’s working. But I can certainly admit that it works for me, and might not work for you. This sort of thing is highly variable based on leadership style.

I hope this insight helps. Go forth and lead. I hope you don’t have any ugly surprises this week. If you do, it might be time to reflect on your methods.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

It had been 5 years since I last coached a competitive Lego robotics team. 5 long years. What could possibly have changed?

From 2017-2020. I coached a Lego robotics team through three seasons, two of which climaxed with appearances at the state championships. Those were some great years, and they inspired many blog articles. If you’d like to check them out, click here, here, and here.

But then covid hit, and that changed everything. Also, shortly after that, all of the kids on the team aged out.

It took a little while, but eventually, a new generation of kids were ready for the challenge.

Before I get into that, I recognize that some of you have no idea what Lego robotics is. Allow me to introduce you, briefly.

This is a competitive team sport for 9-14 year olds. There are over 32,000 teams in the First Lego League in 88 countries, and over 600 teams in Minnesota alone. Each season, every team in the league receives the same tournament board. Teams design, build, and program their robots to score points on the tournament board. The robots must be designed to operate autonomously. You can read more about it here.

This fall, we offered robotics as a class and an extracurricular activity in our homeschool co-op. I volunteered to teach and coach. Our team is called, The Plaidiators. Parents in the co-op enrolled 11 students aged 10-13. Two of them, Josiah and Elizabeth, are mine.

Last time around, I had only 5-6 students, and I knew them well. While I coached them for three years, when I started, the team had already been together for 2 years prior.

This season, I had 11 newbies with varying degrees of enthusiasm and interest in the sport of competitive robotics.

Rotational Assignments

In our first meeting, I explained the rules of the game. I asked the students if they had more interest in mechanical engineering, software engineering, or research. Of course, they raised their hands for various specialties, but I later realized how silly that was. They had no idea.

It was my responsibility to create opportunities for each of them to learn and experience the various tasks associated with competitive robotics. I set up a rotational assignment schedule and observed their aptitude, enthusiasm, and performance.

Think about the leadership lesson in this. At work, we hold our team members accountable for the jobs they signed up for. On one hand, we should. On the other hand, sometimes our team members have no idea what they are good at. It doesn’t matter if they are 25 or 55. Leaders have a responsibility to give our team members opportunities to stretch and try new skills. You never know when you’ll unlock a new, never-seen-before level of performance.

Legacy technology

To save on costs, and to leverage my previous experience, we dusted off the old robotics equipment that we used 5 years ago. It all still worked, and I taught the students how to design and build on that platform. This platform is called the Mindstorms EV3. It came out in 2013 and officially went end of life back in 2022, but is still totally legal for use at official tournaments.

Spike Prime came out in 2021 during my hiatus to succeed the EV3 platform.

The Plaidiators had their first Regional Qualifier Tournament last weekend. We showed up and competed against 47 other teams. I figured there would be a mix of platforms in use, but I was wrong. Looking around the event, I saw only one other team running EV3. Everyone else was running Spike Prime. I was surprised at how quickly the world had moved on.

When we got to the robot design judging session, my eager students opened their laptop to show the judges their code, and one judge squinted his eyes like he had just seen Cobol after not seeing it for 30 years.

Watching from the sidelines, I thought to myself, “Uh oh.”

Fortunately, the kids didn’t miss a beat. They confidently talked through their code and design. They all knew it wasn’t the latest and greatest tech, but it was theirs, and they were proud of it.

My daughter, Elizabeth, explained our Kanban technique, which definitely made an impression.

What were the results?

Well, they rocked it. They put up the second-highest performance score in their division, won the Programming Award, and won the Champions Award (for being well-rounded across disciplines).

What’s the leadership lesson here? At work, we have a vast portfolio of technology. Some of it is fancy and new. Other parts are not new at all. It’s natural for the teams running legacy technology to look over at the teams running new technology with a bit of envy.

As leaders, we set the tone. We shouldn’t let legacy technology degrade. Instead, we should set high expectations for everyone, regardless of the age of their tech stack. Then teams can have pride in their work, knowing they’ve taken what they have, and made it as good as it can be.

Leadership moments

I mentioned earlier that the team was double the size of my previous team, and all new. Going into that situation, I knew I needed some help.

Me and my co-coach, Amanda, enlisted the help of our sons, who are alumni of the original Plaidiators team years ago. Her son, Mycah, mentored in mechanical engineering. My son, Caleb, mentored in software engineering.

It was great to see them pass on the legacy of competitive robotics to their younger siblings and their teammates.

There was another moment that made me particularly proud. When the team competes, they are on their own. Coaches and mentors are on the sidelines and cannot direct or interfere.

Kids being kids, they were rowdy and chaotic heading into their final performance match. My youngest son, Josiah, assertively spoke up, got his teammates’ attention, focused everyone on their agreed-upon roles for the final match, and then got to work.

Later that day at the awards ceremony, we found out that The Plaidiators season would continue, as they advanced to the sectional round. It was a magical moment. It was the moment when I saw in their eyes that they caught the bug. They fell in love with competitive robotics. Go Plaidiators!

This so eloquently parallels our roles as technology leaders. There’s too much going on for us to direct it all, so we need to develop leaders within our teams and let them figure it out. In the end, we can’t directly control the outcome, but we can set up our teams for success. And when they succeed, we can be right there with them celebrating. With a little luck, our leadership efforts can become a virtuous cycle that is self-replicating. That’s the best-case scenario, and I got to experience that with a brilliant group of young engineers last weekend.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

I love to teach leadership lessons inspired by pop culture references. Last week I drew leadership lessons from Napoleon Dynamite. That lesson was targeted at people my age and younger. Some of my older readers may not have gotten much out of it. I’d like to balance that out with an article that will likely resonate with people my age and older.

In 1976, Boston released their debut self-titled album, with the hit, “Peace of Mind.” Fast forward 20 years, this song was a regular on every classic rock station. To me and everyone else my age, Boston is on the shortlist of the best classic rock bands.

Unfortunately, if you tune into a classic rock station nowadays, you get the rude awakening of late 90s and early 2000s music. That never ceases to irritate me, mostly because it means I am now old, which I cannot yet accept.

Now, onto the song.

Tom Scholz wrote the song reflecting on his engineering career at a large corporation. He earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, then worked as a senior product design engineer at Polaroid before his music career took off.

Tom would fit right in with us. Many of my readers are highly trained engineers working in big corporations. What did he experience 50 years ago, and how does it apply to us today?

Now if you’re feeling kind of low about the dues you’ve been paying
Future’s coming much too slow
And you want to run, but somehow you just keep on staying
Can’t decide on which way to go

Everyone knows that working in large corporations can be a soul-sucking experience. You feel like a cog in a machine. You’re “paying your dues,” but you’re never sure what you’ll get in return. At times, you dream about leaving, but you don’t.

I think most of us highly relate to this problem statement. In fact, if I were to boil down my leadership calling to just one thing, it would be to render this condition obsolete. If you’d like to read more about my origin story on this line of thinking, read this article.

Tom gets to the point in the chorus:

I understand about indecision
But I don’t care if I get behind
People living in competition
All I want is to have my peace of mind

I understand those dilemmas. It’s demoralizing if you feel like you can’t get ahead. Your efforts go unnoticed. Meanwhile, you watch your conniving coworkers sabotaging each other to get promoted, and you see that it actually works. You’re left questioning the whole system, and rightly so.

He goes even deeper in the next verse:

Now you’re climbing to the top of the company ladder
Hope it doesn’t take too long
Can’t you see there’ll come a day when it won’t matter
Come a day when you’ll be gone

As a guy who has climbed more than a few of those rungs, this hits hard. I want my career to count for something. It’s not more important than my family or my wellbeing, but it’s still important to me.

In the 3^rd verse, he makes his closing argument:

Now everybody’s got advice, they just keep on giving
Doesn’t mean too much to me
Lots of people out to make believe they’re living
Can’t decide who they should be

People give useless advice and live in a fake world with no sense of identity. Well, it just so happens that I’m one of those guys that gives leadership advice. But Zach on Leadership didn’t exist in 1976, so I don’t take Tom’s criticism personally.

What’s the solution? Quit your job and become a famous rockstar. Then you can enjoy your peace of mind. Any advice for the rest of us working stiffs? That’s where I come in.

Peace of Mind: Zach on Leadership Edition

Is ambition bad? Sometimes. Are you driven by wealth, status, and ego? If so, that’s not going to satisfy you. Are you driven by a worthy purpose? If so, that’s worth fighting for.

Is competition bad? Sometimes. Some corporate cultures create an environment of scarcity where employees need to undercut each other to succeed. Other companies recognize that how employees work is just as important as the work itself. The ends don’t justify the means. The means matter too. I’ve got a competitive streak in me. I like to succeed, but not at the expense of my relationships with my colleagues.

Is it wrong to climb the corporate ladder? No, as long as you don’t do so at the expense of your family. I’ve written many times on this blog that I prioritize time with my family. Has that cost me career advancement? Not as far as I can tell. Why? Because I do my best work when I’m rested and have a healthy family life.

Should I fake it until I make it? No. Not ever. This world needs more authentic leaders. Be yourself. Grow, but don’t ever change.

Peace of mind

The end goal of this is peace of mind. In 2024, we call that mental health. Can you have it and be a working professional at a large corporation? Yes. How is that possible? Leadership. I want everyone who works for me to have peace of mind. I want them to have a sense of purpose. I want them to be authentic. I want them to succeed while working collaboratively with their coworkers. I want them to build their careers while making a remarkable life with their families. I want them to look back with a sense of satisfaction, not regret.

That takes leaders. I cannot do it alone. That’s why I write this blog. We need more leaders who can solve this problem so clearly identified nearly 50 years ago.

Take a look ahead. The future is bright.

If you have yet to rock out to Boston’s “Peace of Mind” today, click here.

If you enjoy leadership lessons from music, check out Jon Beattie’s blog, “Music & Management Musings.”

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

Roughly 12-14 years ago, a war raged in every corporate IT department. The people wanted iPhones at work. Corporate IT clung to their BlackBerry’s. This is most certainly old news. Why bring it up now?

I think time gives us perspective. There are lessons to be gleaned now that were hard to see then. We love to talk about the hot new tech trends. Do we ever look back and evaluate our previous positions? What did we get right? What did we get wrong? What difference does that make for us today?

I recognize that some of my readers are young enough to have never wielded the mighty BlackBerry, so for everyone’s sake, let me retell a bit of history:

Approximately 20 years ago, BlackBerry was the best smartphone on the market. It was a premium product, and it was built with business in mind. The end users loved it. Corporate IT loved it. We ran the central management software, called BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BES, (pronounced BEZ). I administered that system at two different large companies. Are there any other BES admins out there? Give me a fist bump in the comments section.

Life was grand for a while, and then it wasn’t.

A New Hope

Back in 2007, the original iPhone was released. This was NOT a threat. There were plenty of niche smartphones out there. People liked them for personal use, but they weren’t serious business tools. The iPhone was basically an iPod that made calls. That was it.

A few years later, the iPhone started breaking out of the niche and into the mainstream. People may differ on when that happened, but I’ll offer my opinion. It was at the release of the iPhone 4, in 2010. A year later, this was the first iPhone to support multiple carriers, which opened up its appeal broadly. The iPhone 4 was the inflection point.

Even at that point, BlackBerry was superior to iPhone for business in so many ways. The enterprise integration, manageability, and security were just better. iPhone had a better touch screen and Angry Birds. It also had the “cool” factor, which IT people everywhere underestimated.

It wasn’t long before people brought these to work and asked IT to connect them to corporate email. This was easy to say no to, for a while. Then the C-suite started asking.  That was a little harder to deny.

At first, we opened up a few exceptions for pilots but before long the dam had burst. BlackBerry was still better in a lot of ways, but it didn’t matter. All of a sudden, no one wanted them anymore.

The Empire Strikes Back

Let’s face it. IT got their butts kicked. The empire struck back. IT was very comfortable being in the driver’s seat of technology decision-making. We figured out the tech, and the users just took it. Now, for the first time, the users had thrust a technology change upon IT, and we just had to take it.

About this time, a new buzzword emerged: “The Consumerization of IT.” A whole lot got lumped into it. I remember a lot of attitudes of defeat and surrender. BYOD meant “Bring your own device” but it extended to pretty much everything. Users had their own networks, their preferred productivity apps, and their SaaS apps. IT was simply not needed. IT just got in the way. Some were predicting the end of IT as we knew it.

The Return of the Jedi

I had a sneaking suspicion that this reaction was overblown. Little known fact: I actually got my first ever public speaking opportunity at a national tech conference back then. My thesis was simple: I was among the few who didn’t really think iPads were going to replace every laptop out there. Today, that may seem obvious, but in 2013, I was the devil’s advocate.

Fortunately, my predictions came true. IT as an industry had learned our lesson. We need to be a whole lot more user-centric while maintaining security, compliance, and enterprise manageability. We realized that we could do both, and if we did both, we could remain in harmony.

Business is tech-savvy and demanding. Modern IT is user-centric and adaptable. Together, we really can create meaningful business outcomes.

The moral of the story

IT is often in the position of change-maker. But sometimes, we’re the change-takers. In the end, we’re better leaders because we are more empathetic. We know how it feels to be on the receiving end of disruptive technology. We use that empathy to create better products and deliver them with higher levels of acceptance and effectiveness.

Long from now, when no one is old enough to remember BlackBerry besides me and my aging contemporaries, we’ll look back and tell the tales. We’ll tell new IT professionals that they should always be wary, and never be over-confident. We provide immense value to the businesses we serve, but at the same time, it seems we could be one obscure cell phone away from irrelevance at any given time.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

There’s a meme circulating on the internet called the bell curve meme, or the midwit meme. It points out funny things that newbies do, compared to the prevailing wisdom of the masses, compared to the insight of the experts. The joke is that the experts often mirror the newbies.

I haven’t seen the meme applied to technology leadership, but I thought I’d give it a try.

“Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions,” says the leader, feeling smart, strong, and confident. With this one, striking command, he’s fixed all of his problems and empowered his team… Or has he?

It’s compelling. It sounds wise. It makes sense. It seems relevant to a whole host of situations.

In this article, I’ll challenge that thinking, but before I get to that, I’d like to explain how leaders mature to the point where this thinking makes sense.

The new leader

Think back to your first leadership job. How did you get it? This isn’t always the case, but often you get promoted because you’re the smartest person on the team, or the most experienced. You’ve exhibited some leadership skills in unofficial capacities, and finally, someone takes a chance on you and makes it official. That’s a special moment. I remember when that happened to me.

Since you are the smartest or the most experienced on the team, it’s natural for your team members to come to you to solve the most difficult issues. You’ve been around, seen it all, and they haven’t. It’s only natural for you to serve your team in that capacity.

Without stating it, your leadership philosophy is “Bring me problems, not solutions.” It’s implied that the people bringing you problems don’t know the solutions, but they trust that you do.

As a new leader, you quickly learn that your capacity is extremely constrained. You only have time to work on the most difficult issues, so you use every opportunity to develop your team members, so they gain more of the knowledge that only you possess. In turn, they become more self-sufficient and only bring you the really hairy problems.

The experienced leader

About this time in your career, you read this compelling quote somewhere on LinkedIn: “Bring me solutions, not problems.”

That sounds brilliant, so you put it into practice. The next time one of your team members comes to you with a problem, you ask them to go back and see if they can figure it out. Perhaps you get a little pushback, because they were used to relying on you for support, but they trust your leadership, so they go back and work on it.

Maybe they succeeded. Maybe they failed. You don’t know because you’re no longer involved. You make a mental note of this and follow up at your next one-on-one to find out how it went. It turns out, they figured it out. Fantastic. High-fives all around. Your new leadership philosophy is paying off.

Time passes. Your team adapts to your evolved leadership style. You no longer hear about problems. This is great. You’ve led your team well and they seemingly take care of things without burdening you. You’ve got more time on your hands and your team members are developing. All is well… or so you thought.

Then one day, you find out about a big problem. It is severe and exacerbated. You didn’t find out about it from your team but from your customers, peers, or boss. It’s embarrassing because it went down on your watch, within your team. Frantic, you gather your team together to find out what is going on. It turns out, they all knew about the problem. They were busy trying to figure out the solution. The things they were trying weren’t working and as time went on, things got even worse.

When you asked why no one brought you into the loop, you didn’t need to wait for an answer, you knew immediately: You just trained them not to bring you problems, but only to bring you solutions.

Wow, did that ever backfire.

The advanced leader

You want your team members to work, learn, and figure things out independently. You also want to be informed. You want to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s really going on. You can’t afford to be detached or aloof. You’ve learned that “no news is good news” isn’t actually true. Ignorance is not bliss.

You need to reopen the door you closed. You invite your team to share their problems with you, even if they don’t have solutions. You coach, consult, and steer them based on your perspective, wisdom, and experience. You point them in the right direction. You invite them to connect with you again frequently, especially for sensitive issues.

This gets you the best of both worlds. Your team members are smart and capable, but some things happen that are beyond what they can handle. That’s okay. It’s good to shine the light on the unsightly problems. It’s good to provide help when it’s needed.

Now that you are in the loop, you can evaluate how long to let your team member work on the issue or when it’s time for you to intervene directly.

“Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions” has run its course. Ironically, we’re back where we started: “Bring me problems, not solutions.” Let’s look at the most difficult problems together and develop the solutions together. Between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

Eight years ago when I started Zach on Leadership, some of my first blog articles were about helping people advance in their careers.

I love techies. I’m one of them. I spent years of my career as a technician and engineer. Then I advanced and started climbing the corporate ladder.

I truly believe that techies make the best technology leaders, but few of them are equipped to succeed in leadership. That’s where I come in. I detailed the pathway that I took, so others can follow in my footsteps.

Here are my original articles. They are eight years old, but still tried and true:

• Rules for Advancement: From Newbie to Tech Lead

• Rules for Advancement: From Tech Lead to Manager

• Rules for Advancement: From Manager to Director

I was a Director at the time I wrote these articles. About 5 years ago, I was promoted to Vice President. Ever since that happened, I figured I should add another chapter to this series, but I resisted for a variety of reasons.

First of all, when I wrote the last chapter about advancing from Manager to Director, I had already been a Director for 4 years, so I was pretty comfortable describing the difference. When I had initially been promoted to VP, it felt like I’d be bragging to write about my promotion on my blog. Additionally, it was so fresh that I didn’t believe I could clearly articulate it with a good perspective. Now that five years have passed, I think I can finally do it justice.

Before I get into it, I’d like to reference one more of my past articles. I wrote this one explicitly for Directors: A View from the Middle: Understanding the Unique Value of Middle Management. If you’re a Director, and you’re reading this. Read that article first, then continue on here.

Now, let’s get onto the main subject. What’s it like to be a Vice President, and how is it different from being a Director?

I’ll start off with the caveat that this is simply my point of view. This varies from company to company, and from industry to industry. But, I think there’s enough common wisdom, that this will apply broadly to all who seek executive leadership.

1. Span of control. In the hierarchy of the organization, you usually need a significantly sized team with multiple layers of management under your direction. That’s not always the case, but it sure helps. If you lead really big teams, and you’ve already established that you can scale your capacity and develop leaders within your team, then you probably have what it takes to get to VP. If this is a challenge for you, I recommend you read this article: What Does it Mean to be a High-Capacity Leader?

2. An officer of the company. Vice Presidents and above are typically designated as “officers of the company.” That’s a loaded term. It means they have responsibilities for financial controls. They bind the company in contracts. They have fiduciary duties. This is a big deal. It’s also a mindset shift. Directors and down the hierarchy are simply employees of the company. Vice Presidents are employees too, but they carry an extra burden. If you are curious about what that entails, read your company’s bylaws. It should be spelled out there.

3. Enterprise first. Every Vice President has a particular area of responsibility in either a function or a business unit, and that’s a key piece of their job. But also, when you’re an executive, you’re a member of the executive team. This team is charged with developing and leading the entire corporation as a whole. At times, it’ll mean putting the interests of the company over the interests of the department you lead. If that makes you queasy, I get it. But as an executive, that’s where your heart must be. If you need to work on that, read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. The team you are on is more important than the team you lead.

4. Executive presence. To be honest, I sort of hate that term, but it is what it is. It seems to be very much in the eye of the beholder, but I offer you my own definition. It’s a whole lot more than “dress for success.” Can you command the attention of a room? Do you speak with confidence? Are you comfortable in your own skin? Do people naturally look up to you? Are you seen as an expert in your field? Are you decisive when you need to be? Are you visionary and inspiring? I’ve spent a lot of time working on this. Like any other skill, you can learn it. But the key is, you have to want it.

5. Board interaction. Once you reach the Vice President level, that’s when board interactions usually start. That’s very different from any other corporate meeting. There are Robert’s Rules of Order. There are pre-reads. You have to present your knowledge leveled appropriately to the governance needs of the board, which is challenging.

6. The rule of thirds. I first heard about the rule of thirds back when I was a Director. Seriously working on it made me ready to advance to Vice President. Here it is: One-third of your job is to run your function. One-third of your job is to influence the company. One-third of your job is to influence the industry. Okay, I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking, I’m probably running at 98:1:1. Maybe 90:5:5. Can you fathom getting to 33:33:33? Well, you can’t unless you get seriously good at delegation, influencing the company, and influencing the industry. These are no longer “development opportunities.” It becomes the job itself. Need to work on it? Read this.

Those are my observations. I could go on, but I think those are the big differentiators. Here’s the best part: You can work on all of these as a Director. The more you do, the more you’ll ready yourself to get to VP one day.

I hope this helps. I think many perceive the jump from Director to Vice President as just another rung on the ladder, but this one is different. I think there is enough uniqueness that it’s worth pondering and experimenting with these skills as a Director. If you have “Make it to VP” as a career goal, then I just provided you with some excellent items to populate onto your development plan. Get to work and good luck!

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️

One of the most fundamental questions a tech executive must answer is, should we buy or build our software solutions? On the surface, this seems like a pretty straightforward question, but it can get complicated in a hurry.

The basic line of reasoning works like this: Is there a commercial solution that meets my needs? If so, I should probably buy it, because why would I reinvent the wheel? That would be dumb. On the other hand, if I have a unique need, or I want to create a differentiated customer experience, a custom solution may be the way to go.

Whenever I’ve been involved in buy vs. build discussions that’s typically where it starts. However, there are a ton of caveats and additional factors to consider.

Custom development capability

Just to make “build” a viable option, you need a decent development capability. Small companies don’t always have this, but most enterprises do. Are your developers trained in the latest techniques, languages, and development methodologies? Do you have an agile/product practice established? Do you have a user experience design competency? Do you have secure development practices?

If you can answer “yes” to these questions, you are in a good position to consider the “build” option. If not, then you may have to pick among several buy options.

Cost

Another factor that always comes up is cost. You may assume that buying commercial software will always be cheaper than “reinventing the wheel” but often, that’s not the case. It’s important to consider the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The salesperson for the vendor may provide their own estimates of that, but you should do your own analysis.

It’s too easy to focus on the software licensing and implementation costs alone and forget the incremental cost to run, maintain, enhance, and upgrade. I often hear statements like “It’s SaaS, so the incremental recurring support costs for internal staff should be zero.” That’s never the case. It may be low, but it’s not zero.

You may be wondering at this point, philosophically, how could it be possibly cheaper to build something yourself than buy it? That seems to defy common sense. How could a company make money selling you something for a higher price than it would cost you to do it yourself? That sounds bananas. Well, I agree in principle, but in practice, I’ve seen it time and time again. Always do the math.

Bad commercial software

I hate to say this, but you all know it’s true. There’s a lot of really bad commercial software out there. I mean really bad. It’s easy to be hard on our internal development staff and look sideways at our homegrown software solutions, but have you seen the commercial software that companies pay good money for? Some of it is an absolute heap of trash. I won’t name names, but you can all think of many examples. Yes, many of these companies are still in business… for now.

I think a healthy skepticism is always warranted when evaluating commercial software companies. Here’s a bar they should all be able to clear: Do they live up to the standards that you set for your own internal developers and custom solutions? If they do, great. If not, please weigh that heavily in your decision. You aren’t just buying a shrink-wrapped product, you are forming a long-term relationship with another company. It’s worth figuring out if you have compatible quality standards before you decide.

Portfolio management

Most of the buy vs. build decisions get made in a vacuum. Someone has a need and a budget for a discrete capability.  Make this decision 1000 times, and you have a massive portfolio of various commercial and custom solutions to manage.

Without overall strategic guidance, this can get unwieldy in a hurry. So, in addition to the factors I’ve already mentioned, you should consider: “What am I trying to strategically achieve in IT, in the business, and in this overall portfolio of business capability?” It’s a powerful question, and it should carry a lot of weight.

Integration

When I talk to enterprise technology executives around the globe, there’s a common challenge we’re all working on. To do big, enterprise initiatives, we need to integrate the data and functionality of disparate systems across the landscape. This is a very tall order. In my experience, some software companies make this easy, and some make it nearly impossible.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t something you thought of back when you bought it 10 years ago, but everyone is dealing with it now. While you can’t change the past, you can influence the future. When you buy commercial software, figure out how easy it is to integrate with other systems.

What is commercial software?

You all probably think about commercial software as a complete, full-stack solution. It has a user interface. It has an application engine. It has a database. It runs self-contained and does everything you need.

For the reasons I stated above, I think that paradigm is going to slowly change. Fortunately, the latest technologies have also changed to enable this shift. Some commercial software companies are starting to pick up on it, and I’m loving every minute of it.

Allow me to cast a vision of what’s possible:

You just need commercial data. You don’t need the app and the interface that comes with it. You can subscribe to that data, and get it right in your data lake where you need it.

You need application logic. You don’t need the interface. You can consume the API endpoint and surface the functionality in your application.

You need a user interface. Not the whole thing, but just a piece of it. You can integrate a micro front end right into your existing user experience.

The role of a technology executive is shifting. It’s no longer just about buy or build, then implement and run. We build enterprise cloud-based systems, woven together through modern data and integration systems. We partner with modern like-minded tech companies who offer systems and services explicitly designed to be consumed and integrated in this fashion.

This is why we migrated to the cloud. Not just run more efficiently and flexibly. But to elevate and modernize our entire way of building, buying, integrating, designing, and delivering enterprise technology solutions.

The lessons learned from decades of buy vs. build decision-making still apply but there’s a whole new way to get it done.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️