Zach on Leadership

I had a fantastic opportunity this week to participate in the Lean Executive Leadership Institute through the University of Kentucky College of Engineering. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Lean is an organizational philosophy born out of the Toyota Production System, which was first developed by Taiichi Ohno in the 1950’s. Toyota has earned a reputation for operational excellence and has been transparent about their secret to success for generations. Why Kentucky? Firstly, it’s a whole lot closer than…

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I’ve been writing the Zach on Leadership blog for over three years now and have produced 170 articles and now recently, 13 podcast episodes. I really enjoy doing it. Regularly, people approach me and bring up my blog, or drop me a note. They typically tell me that they like it a lot, but then quickly follow up with two questions: “Why do you do it?” and, “Where do you find the time?” For the sake of my entire audience,…

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I’m the youngest of two. I have a brother who is three years older than I am. We were each other’s primary playmates growing up. We constantly played games together. We played a wide variety of games, but I particularly remember excessive amounts of Foosball, Monopoly, and Super Mario Kart. What do you think happened when I continually played competitive games with someone who was three years quicker and smarter than me? I lost a lot. A whole lot. We…

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A leader on my team recently approached me with an interesting question. He asked me, “how do you solve complex problems?” My initial instinct was to ask about specifics: “Tell me about your problem and we will discuss it.” His response was fantastic. He said, “I don’t want you to solve my problem for me, I want you to teach me how to think through it.” That was cool. As a leader, I am used to solving complex problems. Usually,…

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I just got back from the deer woods. Each season has its stories, triumphs, and failures. As I drove home from my trip, I considered the leadership lessons from this sport. I thought I’d share my insights with you in this article. I didn’t grow up deer hunting. I married into it. For 19 years, I’ve gone up north with my in-laws and have fully embraced the tradition. Some people grew up with the tradition, but I didn’t. 19 years…

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Growing up, I was an avid reader of Garfield comic books. These books weren’t challenging, epic, or educational in any way. They were just silly and fun. I didn’t read every book (there are over 60), but I read the first 30 or so before I reached adulthood. It’s impossible to read Garfield without learning these two principles: Lasagna is good and Mondays are bad. Mondays Why Garfield hates Mondays is a bit of a mystery since he doesn’t have…

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There is one character in the universe of superheroes that inspires technology leaders more than any other. His technical prowess is unparalleled, and he commands more confidence than any technology geek could ever hope to muster. I am, of course, referring to the one and only Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man. Tony Stark, the individual contributor In the original Iron Man films (1-3), Tony Stark established his technical abilities, drive for innovation, tenacity, and arrogance. Sure, he had…

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I love new technology. That’s one of the reasons my job is so fun. I get to see the latest and greatest technologies and put them to work to help our company achieve our purpose. There are two side-effects of this activity that are not as much fun: DevOps and Scrum frameworks have a useful term, called the Definition of Done. You can read about the concept here. I’ve never seen it applied to the technology lifecycle, but I’m going…

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My work as a technology leader is more often marked and differentiated by the human element than technology itself. Certainly, on this blog, the vast majority of my articles are about people and organizations in the enterprise technology context more than about the actual technology. However, as a technology leader, I often embark upon intellectual journeys as well. Many are specific, but this one is general. It applies to almost every sizable corporation. If you are an enterprise technology leader,…

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At my company, CHS, we are currently in our performance review cycle. This is a staple procedure in every large corporation I’ve worked. I’ve received performance reviews for 20 years and have been giving them for 13 years. Most people I talk to look at this process as an unpleasant chore. Most understand that it’s necessary, but painful nonetheless. Every Human Resources organization in every company gives plenty of guidance on how to give a performance review. That advice is…

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