Zach on Leadership

The 2003 film, Elf, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Jon Favreau, is one of the most beloved Christmas films. My family makes a tradition of watching it every year. As with many of my favorite movies, I cannot help but notice the subtle leadership lessons sprinkled about like candy in spaghetti. Elf is packed with too many leadership lessons for just one Zach on Leadership article, so I’ve thoroughly covered it over the past three weeks. You may not…

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The 2003 film, Elf, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Jon Favreau, is one of the most beloved Christmas films. My family makes a tradition of watching it every year. As with many of my favorite movies, I cannot help but notice the subtle leadership lessons sprinkled about like candy in spaghetti. Elf is packed with too many leadership lessons for just one Zach on Leadership article, so I will thoroughly cover it over three weeks. Last week, we explored…

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I had a great opportunity to be a guest on the Change Agent CTO Podcast with Nathan Lasnoski. Nathan is the CTO of the technology consulting firm, Concurrency. We covered the CHS journey through DevOps and the Cloud. We mostly covered the leadership issues surrounding transformation such as change management, servant leadership, and vision casting. We talked about building diverse teams, embracing geek culture, and dealing with resistance. I think you’ll enjoy this episode. Many of you read my writing,…

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The 2003 film, Elf, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Jon Favreau, is one of the most beloved Christmas films. My family makes a tradition of watching it every year. As with many of my favorite movies, I cannot help but notice the subtle leadership lessons sprinkled about like candy in spaghetti. Elf is packed with too many leadership lessons for just one Zach on Leadership article, so I will thoroughly cover it over the next three weeks. You may…

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I received a phone call from a former team member this week. He called for tech support on his iPhone. After I addressed that matter, the conversation moved on to how things have been going in his retirement. In that conversation, I remarked, “Retirement is still a long way off for me.” He replied, “How old are you nowadays?” “43.” “Huh. If you are 43 now, how old were you when you hired me?” “30.” “Really? Well, you were a…

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This week, I had the opportunity to represent CHS on a Product Transformation Community Panel hosted by Slalom. I was joined on the panel by Brett Brunick of Thrivent and Stacie Peterson of U.S. Bank. I’m not going to recap the discussion but will instead offer some reflections and thoughts I’ve had since the event. The whole premise of an event like this is that many tech leaders are facing similar challenges in Product Transformation, and we can listen to…

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I wrote a short post earlier this week on LinkedIn. The post attracted more reactions than usual, so I thought I’d use this week’s blog article to expound upon it. But first, I’ll share the post in its entirety: Repaired a laptop with a soldering pencil today. Still got it. I teach a digital literacy course through our homeschool co-op. One of my students couldn’t do his homework because his laptop was broken. He came to me for help. The…

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In the 2006 film, The Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith portrayed Chris Gardner, a struggling single parent, who through sheer will improved his circumstances for himself and his son. Early in the film, he encountered a successful stockbroker. While inspired, Chris assumed that to be a stockbroker, he must need a college education, which he did not have. The stockbroker responded, “You don’t have to. You have to be good with numbers and good with people. That’s it.” That scene…

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I read a fascinating article written by Nicolas Chaillan, who is a highly accomplished Chief Software Officer in the Department of Defense. After 22 years of service, he decided it was time to move on. You can read his farewell article here. I do not know Nicolas, but his story was shared by Elwin Loomis, Head of Digital at Bremer Bank, who summarized it in his post. There is so much about his story that resonated with me. He exposed…

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I didn’t grow up on a farm. I grew up in a city and now live in an even larger city. Yet, because I work at CHS, I work for farmers. They are both my customers and the company owners since we are a cooperative. I work hard at my job because I know that the farmers we serve, work incredibly hard. Since I am a city-dwelling technology leader, you may think I am the least qualified to write about…

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