Tag Archives: leadership

Vladimir Baranov: The CEO/CTO Relationship

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Vladimir Baranov is the founding CTO of AdvisorEngine, a fintech company that was recently acquired by Franklin Templeton. Vladimir has been building successful technology solutions primarily in the fintech industry for 15 years, and he shares his experience on managing the business/tech divide.

Highlights:

Q: What are some of the common challenges that come up between CEOs and CTOs?

In summary, Vladimir says it’s about the relationship between two individuals.  Typically, when the relationship starts, there may be friction because they’ve never had a relationship before.  They may also have different myths and legends about what the other thinks.  Understanding each other’s concerns is important but so is communicating them. They may have different ideas of scope and product success too.  Vladimir gives several specific examples of challenges and myths and legends.

Q: What have you had to learn or change to improve your relationships with CEOs?

I am a constant reader and a complete believer in self-improvement. Understanding where the other person is coming from and understanding their biases and context is probably the most important thing you have to learn. Our natural tendency is to start analyzing anything that is said to us from our own context and sometimes that is faulty if we are not taking into consideration the context of the person who is telling us.  Vladimir talks about how he communicates his knowledge vertical to others.

Q: How did getting an MBA help you better work with CEOs?

It has helped me more on the engineering side than the business side.  Eighty percent of the benefit came from when I had to explain the business rationale to my reports and my partners on the technology side who did not have the business background.

Vladimir also talks about what CEOs have done to build a solid relationship with him as a CTO and he gives advice to CTOs on how to improve their relationships with their CEOs.  Listen to the episode to hear more.

Words of Wisdom for Building Relationships:

Even when you have your own self-awareness, it is important to realize another person may not.

Build trust by acknowledging we may have conflict, but it doesn’t come from trying to hurt each other.

Be transparent and be open and tell each other you want to build a collaborative relationship.

Invest in training soft skills.

Contact Vladimir Baranov:

Email: vladimir.baranov@gmail.com

Website: ceo-and-cto.com

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Manish Bhardia: Habits for Healthy Teams

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Joanie has a conversation with Manish Bhardia.  Manish is a principal at Think AI, a software development and consulting firm, author of the book Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team, and co-host of True Stories in Tech podcast. Manish specializes in AI and cloud consulting and has more than 17 years of experience leading complex technical projects.

Highlights:

Q: How did you move from being an engineer to a project manager?

Manish was told he was good at communicating with the clients and business users and that got him thinking about becoming a business analyst or project manager.  Also learning about the bad things that project managers do, such as working their teams too hard, made him want to do better with his team.

Q: How did you come to start your company, Think AI?

Because he worked well with clients, Manish decided he wanted to work with multiple clients as a cloud consultant and business owner.  He tells us how he learned how to build his sales skills too.

Q: How did you come to write your book, Teamwork and Collaboration?

A lot of Manish’s work at Think AI has been focused on teamwork.  They conducted a user-group survey to find out what their challenges were, and he wrote the book on the top ten items that centered on teamwork and collaboration.

Q: What are some of the unhealthy habits that remote workers have adopted and how can they get back to or start new healthier ones?

Manish said there are easy answers, but they are hard to implement.  He gives many tips both in his book and on the episode.  He also talks about how to add fun to a remote work environment, how to add clarity as a leader.  He also talks about how people adapting to interacting with AI.

Words of Wisdom, especially for Remote Work:

Keep your body active.

Keep calendar slots open for fun.

Create your ideal calendar and try to fit your schedule to that.

Be clear to your team on what to ignore.

Shout Out:

IAMCP, the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners.

Contact Manish Bhardia:

Website: Think AI

Book: Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team

Podcast: True Stories in Tech

 

 

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Lydia Chiu: The Importance of Communication in Web Design

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Joanie interviews Lydia Chiu, a partner at Jub Jub Interactive.  Jub Jub is a web application development company based in Orange County, CA.  Lydia has over 15 years of programming and web development experience.  She has a deep understanding of content management systems and enterprise application development.  Listen to the episode to hear Lydia’s stories on how she became a web developer, how she developed as a leader and how communication has been core to her success.

Highlights:

Q: How did you develop an interest in web design and become a partner at Jub Jub?

It’s not the typical story and it involves an interesting pivot and an unusual partnership.

Q: What challenges did you run into early on as a team lead and how did you overcome them?

It included a feeling of imposter syndrome, a lot of learning, and good communication skills.

Q: How have you evolved as a leader over the years, for example as a partner at Jub Jub?

Learning how to groom new leaders and employees who could interact effectively with clients.

Q: How do you understand your clients’ businesses and needs and what skills did you have to develop to get better at that?

Lydia’s early work in customer service while in high school was an important experience for her to develop communication skills and comfort in delivering bad news.  Delegating is an ongoing challenge.

Q: There aren’t many women who do what you do.  What has been your experience as a woman in the field of software development?

Lydia has had great female role models but has also encountered some unfortunate situations with clients who respond to her differently than her male counterparts.  Listen to the podcast to hear her stories.

Words of Wisdom:

Mom was always right.

No matter what you’re doing, writing and coding are fundamental skills for success.

Anytime you start a business with partners, there’s a huge amount of trust that you need.

Knowing you’re going to work through conflict is key to a successful partnership.

Contact Lydia Chiu:

Website: jubjub.com

Email: lydia@jubjub.com

Twitter: @lydiaatjubjub

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Michelle Beauchamp: Leveraging Diversity as a Team Leader

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Joanie has a conversation with Michelle Beauchamp about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the tech world.  Michelle is the CEO of The Champ Group, a training and coaching firm that focuses on sales and diversity.  One of the reasons Michelle is so special is that she is a very positive, encouraging person.  She will inspire you in this episode.

Highlights:

Q: How did you come to help organizations work on diversity, equity, and inclusion?

“My passion is to help people learn and grow and succeed.  When I started The Champ Group, I decided to focus on leadership, sales, and communication.  That’s what I have done for 14 years.  I love helping people grow in those three areas.   I help people understand the greatness they already have within themselves.”

“This summer, I had an epiphany.  It happened because of my awareness of so much racial injustice— the cases of Ahmaud Arbery, BreonnaTaylor, and George Floyd—and that’s just to name a few, just for this year.  I thought, ‘I have a passion for this.  Clearly, I have my own experiences being a Black woman,’ and I thought, ‘I need to put my leadership training that I already have and the subject of diversity and inclusion together and make that work.’  I came across a program from another group I’m a member of—a program that I could purchase a license to—and I decided, ‘I’m going for it!’”

“Clearly, this is a subject that is tough.  Everybody has an opinion about it.  Some subjects that I already teach, such as the power of listening, the energy that is required to really listen and not interrupt and jump in there, and the ability to have empathy, are already leadership traits that I train on.  It’s just that now, we can dive into it on the subject of diversity and inclusion, which does require a lot of listening, a lot of empathy, and speaking at the right time.”

Q: A lot of clients are asking about diversity, equity, and inclusion.  But, especially in tech, I hear that they feel like they are doing as much as they can, and they don’t know what else to do.  Or they are concerned about doing the wrong thing and are playing it safe by doing nothing.  What is your response to that?

“The good news is that it is being discussed.  People are curious and they are concerned.  I look at that as a good news thing.  I’ve been doing a lot of research on this and I saw some descriptions that I thought were interesting.  One came from Accenture and it said that companies who take this on need to have bold leadership.  They need to have an empowering environment.  And they need to be willing to take action.  You can’t have these conversations and then nothing happens.  That’s what employees are concerned about.  Not doing anything, that’s what not to do!  Don’t try to sweep it under the rug.”

“I wish that more companies would hire consultants to work with them on this because that’s what companies do; they seek professional guidance when they need help with something.  The same is true with this subject.”

Q: The stats on diversity in STEM suggest that not enough is being done.  What are technical organizations missing?

“I hear ‘We can’t find qualified minority applicants.’  That has to be yesterday, not today and tomorrow.  It does take extra effort.  Someone in the company can have the job responsibilities to reach out to other communities.  For example, there are the HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities), as well as other ethnic universities.  There are also the chambers and women’s organizations.  The existing workforce is diverse.”

“One thing I know is the people in the tech companies are smart.  Companies that have more diversity enjoy more profits.  It’s worth the effort to go out and find the people.  We need more people to be mentors and sponsors.  That’s the inclusion part of it.”

Q: How do we start the conversations and take action?  Listen to the episode to hear Michelle’s response.  Her advice for starting is simple yet critical, something we can all do.  She also shares tips on what to do and what not to do in leading efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Words of Wisdom:

The first thing to do is have the leaders check themselves.

If you’re not embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion, accept that.

None of us has all the answers.  We just need to show we care.

Embrace the effort to reach new communities.

It’s little things, like who are you inviting to lunch?

We need to get over it!

No matter what the cause is, we all need allies.

Contact Michelle Beauchamp:

Email: michelle@thechampgroup.com

Website: https://www.beasaleschamp.net/

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MichelleBeauchamp

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Eric Weiss: Building Products People Love

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Joanie interviews Eric Weiss, founder of Full Cycle Product Development.  Eric has led massive development projects worth billions of dollars, including the Sony Playstation 3 and Qualcomm’s $9 Billion patent licensing machine. Eric is a product technology consultant and startup advisor and the author of Build the Right Things: How to Design and Build a Product People Will Love.

Highlights:

Q: Tell us how you got to where you are now and how you came to write your book.

“I’m an engineer by trade.  I’ve been writing code since I was very young, went to school for it, and started to work as a software developer.  But I really quickly learned that my passion was in product and leadership and startups and so I went and got my MBA.  I got certified to be a project manager and a Scrum Master and all this stuff.  I bridged the gap between the technology and engineering side of things and the product and business side of things.  I spent much of my career at very large tech companies driving very large engineering projects.”

“But then I’ve had this consulting practice on the side now, for over 10 years now, working with early stage startups and growth stage startups to validate their business model, to gain traction, to raise early capital, and then ultimately scale up and grow and get acquired.  I’ve been a CTO and completely owned the delivery model.  I discovered through experience that, while I was so focused on the efficiency of my development team, and having clean and clear Agile methodologies, nothing was less efficient than working on the wrong things.  I started really heavily leaning into product management and the user experience to make sure we were focusing on the right things.  This culminated in the book.”

Q: How do you get engineers to care about the customer experience or to see it from the customer’s perspective?  How do you understand what features your customers really need?

“Yes, engineers love technology, but more than anything, they want to have purpose.  They want to know the work they do has meaning and impact to benefit real people.  The other thing is that engineering is a really creative endeavor.  They don’t like to be told what to do.”

“The challenge is that too many teams are structured in a way and too many leaders lead in a way that puts engineers in this mode where they’re decoupled from the purpose of their work.  They’re not given creative freedom and they almost become beaten down and they get to where they don’t care and just want to play around with the technology because it gives them some enjoyment, but they’re disconnected from the larger picture.”  To hear Eric’s solutions to this problem and to hear answers to these other questions, listen to the episode.

Other questions that Eric answers: How do you build effective Agile teams?  How do the people on the teams survive a “never-ending marathon” of Agile?  What common people issues do you see in the startups that you advise?

Get a free copy of Eric’s book here.  Watch Eric’s talk on Agile First Principles here.

Words of Wisdom:

It’s not the velocity of our Scrums, it’s that we don’t understand our customers or ourselves well enough to know what the user experience should be.

People are the most difficult part of building products.  Technology is very rarely the thing that holds us back.

CEOs are an interesting bunch and have to be dealt with delicately.

Be fearless and go out and do things.

Contact Eric Weiss:

Website: FullCycleProduct.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmweiss/

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Brian Jackson: Handling Sales

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A nerd at heart, Brian Jackson is the president and owner of Sandler Training of San Diego, a sales training company.  Brian enjoys coaching customer-facing people who are engaged in selling within Software, Technology, Manufacturing, and Professional Services.  Prior to owning Sandler, Brian invested over 20 years in hospital equipment & software sales and leadership roles.  Brian gives a unique perspective to nerds and sales, having played both sides, interfaced between the two, and trained and coached salespeople of all backgrounds.  He’s also a funny guy and you’ll enjoy his insights.

Highlights:

Q: Let’s start by hearing your story.  What brought you to buying and running Sandler San Diego?

“Having a slightly lower than average IQ.”  [But, seriously!]  “I graduated college and wanted to make money and got straight into sales.  I wanted to sell products I was passionate about and I gravitated toward medical devices and, later, medical device software.  After about 20 years selling a half dozen products and managing people for the last 12 of those years, I found that my passion was not in the technology.  It was in the art of selling and coaching other people and seeing them succeed and rise in the ranks.  I really got a lot of satisfaction out of that.”

“I was a client of Sandler many years ago and always had it in the back of my mind that I might want to do that.  So, I pulled the trigger.”

Q: What is Sandler Training?

“It’s a sales methodology that’s embedded in psychology.  The main thing about Sandler that is different is that we really believe in the power of reinforcement.  You can’t change the way you think and behave by going to a 2-hour boot camp.  It takes repetition.  We use blended learning and repetition to rewire the brain.”

Q: What was your experience like working with technical people—developers, scientists—and having them interface with customers?

“The challenge with selling technology is not understanding the technology.  Salespeople are more intelligent than people give them credit for.  We can learn something if we try hard enough.  The challenge isn’t learning the technology.  The challenge is knowing when to use the knowledge appropriately.  It’s about having the discipline to not talk about the product knowledge until the right time.  In spite of the fact that you’re excited about the technology.”

“When you’re working with technical people, product specialists, these are people who know a lot about the product.  They’re given a chance to talk to the customer prospect and they feel it’s their job to come in and talk about the product information.  As a salesperson, you have to pull back the reigns and sometimes even do damage control.  It’s important to remember that your product knowledge is your leverage when you’re in a selling situation.  Once that prospect has that knowledge, that’s what they came for.  It’s not necessarily to make a decision.  It’s to gather information.  Once they have all the information, you’re dead in the water.”

To learn more about how technical people are dealing directly with customers, such as SaaS companies, and Brian’s advice to technical people who are dealing with salespeople and with customers directly, listen to the episode.  Brian also gives advice on technical leadership from his years of experience doing it.

Words of Wisdom:

There’s a reason why people are tense when they are in a buying situation.

Team selling is pretty cool.  Everyone has a different role.

Good people, by and large, are being promoted into a management role and they’re expected to know how to do it.

It’s not uncommon for people going through a promotion to have other things going on in their lives too.

Emotional Intelligence should be taught in college.

Contact Brian Jackson:

Cell phone: 619-368-6215

Linkedin:  @SandlerTraining

Website:  www.salesrevenue.sandler.com

Facebook:  @SandlerSanDiego

Twitter:  @Sales_Coach_SD

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Sanjiv Prabhakaran: Culture, Contribution, and Leadership

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Sanjiv Prabhakaran is a senior executive and entrepreneur with over 30 years of software development management and technical architecture experience in mobile and web applications for a wide variety of applications and industries.  In early 2002, he founded Bytes, Inc. to provide low cost and rapid software outsourcing and project management services. Sanjiv talks about so many things in this episode, ranging from transitioning from coder to leader, leading cross-cultural teams, managing internal politics, and making a difference in the world.  You won’t want to miss this episode.

Highlights:

Q: What do you do as CEO of Bytes and how did you get there?

“I wear multiple hats, but my primary role is developing the business.  I spent a lot of my time in the Bay Area before 2000.  I worked at 3-4 companies.  I wrote code and climbed up the ladder and managed small teams developing systems for clients.  It was fun in those days.”

“There came a time when I was looking to go further and be independent.  In 2000, I found a nice opportunity here in San Diego and that’s how we came down.  This was as a VP of Engineering and R&D for a small software company dealing with real estate.  That’s how I happened to lead a team of 20-30 engineers to make cool stuff.”

Q: What was the transition like from being a coder to managing teams?

“That was fun!  As a coder you’re working with a team, listening to your bosses, and obviously providing input based on your experience.  You always had a fixed goal and knew what you were trying to accomplish.  But when you’re getting into more responsible roles, the thing that you run across is team culture.  How do you integrate—especially when you have teams from different regions and different countries—and have a cohesive culture at the end?  I had teams from the US and India and there were cultural differences…  Understanding the cultural differences takes time.”

“It was a fun experience.  It helped me grow into a role where I started realizing how to be patient with people, how to understand differences in how people communicate, and how to to build a team spirit.”  To hear how Sanjiv manages cultural differences between the US and India, handles internal politics among leaders, builds trust in the leadership team, and leads his teams to improve efficiency for their customers, listen to the episode.

Q: I see that you help physically challenged individuals with job opportunities within Bytes and other companies.  How do you do that?

“Yes, this was an interesting project that started few years ago. A family friend in India mentioned this young 20-year old kid that had an unfortunate train accident and hit his head and became a quadriplegic with no movement below his neck. He was bed-ridden but full of joy and motivation to live a full life! He found a way to use his voice as a powerful tool to command his computer into doing all kinds of tasks. He was able to use his voice to control the files and keyboard so he could type out documents and do various web development tasks on the computer. He had a couple clients in the UK and USA for whom he did basic tasks of updating web pages and creating shopping cart sites on eBay, etc.”

“I then visited him on one of my India trips and was able to see how he manipulated the computer via his voice. It was just mind-boggling to see how his injuries had no impact on his mind and heart. So, I hired him to do some of my web and Excel tasks. He later created a tutoring class in his home to help young kids that wanted to learn about computers and web programming.”

To hear other ways Sanjiv contributes to society and to get ideas of how you can contribute, listen to the episode.

Words of Wisdom:

Sometimes a nod is a shake and a shake is a nod.

I had to learn patience to lead a team.

Having trust between team members is crucial.

The earlier you do something about a bad fit the better.

Volunteer work is about bringing your skills to help the organization grow and spread the word.

Each person has to find the synergy between a philanthropy organization and their goals and passion.

Contact Sanjiv Prabhakaran:

Website: Bytesinc.com

Email: sanjiv@bytesinc.com

Phone: 888-988-bytes

Direct: 619-933-3366

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Sean Ferrel: Growing a People-Oriented Company

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Sean Ferrel founded Managed Solution in 2002.  They provide consultative IT services for small-to-medium and enterprise clients. Sean tells his story of literally growing the company from his living room to a flourishing downtown San Diego enterprise. Hint: it starts with, “I was going to be a lawyer…” Within 3 years, the company was recognized as one of San Diego’s 40 fastest growing companies, awarded one of the 40 companies with owners under 40 years old and recognized as the 27th fastest growing IT company in Southern California. His secret sauce? Keeping it people first.

Highlights:

Q: How did you come to found Managed Solution?

“When I got out of school, I realized what I loved was people.  If I applied my people skills, I could take into any business, but what did I do in college?  I really got into the tech thing.  Tech was really interesting at that time, around 2002, and I started Managed Solution.  To be honest, I hadn’t done anything else.  We started with the idea of let’s find great people.  I was looking for three things: (1) soft skills, (2) accountability, and (3) technical skills.  And we started hiring.  I printed business cards in my dorm room.  I hired my best friends, who lived on my couch, and family members.  Then we realized we had to get serious.”

Q: How did you decide you needed to get the people skills in early on as a priority?

“I’ve always believed if you do the right thing in life, the money will come.  That means acting with integrity, being accountable, and teamwork.  Whether it’s in sales or in engineering, we want everyone to find themselves accountable to customers.”

“We follow the concept of RACI—responsible, accountable, contributor, integrator.  It’s a term we use in business to say, who’s accountable for this customer we’re dealing with?  Or who’s a contributor for a project for this customer?  You find the person who is responsible for the customer receives the credit and that makes them happier.  That’s what gets them driven to do better in our business.”

Q: How do you find people who have these skills?

“The first thing we do is look internally.  We look at recruiting like sales.  We need to attract good people.  Most of our people come from recommendations from people we know.”

Q: What do you do to train people?

“There’s a lot of burnout for engineers, if you’re doing the same thing for a long time.  We give them a lot of opportunities to train, to earn different certs and vary what they do.”

Listen to the episode to learn more about what Sean does to develop his people and himself to be and even stronger leader.

Words of Wisdom:

“Our success is driven by our people.”

“In so many ways, running a business is like running a family.  You have to nurture, grow, and enable people to do great things.”

“Employees get better on the tech stuff because they feel empowered.”

“When people feel you’re going to take care of them when in need, that’s the best gift ever and that’s what creates culture.”

Contact Sean Ferrel:

Company website: managedsolution.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-ferrel-6427a45/

Or stop by anytime!

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Burt De Mill: When Technical People Do Business

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Burt De Mill is the President of BDM Consulting, a San Diego based consulting firm that works with small and medium sized companies who are in the biotechnology tools and clinical diagnostics spaces.  Burt helps companies define their products and markets, conduct new market research, and launch products.  Burt talks about the challenges scientists encounter when they interface with the business world.

Highlights:

Q: Burt, you are a scientist by training.  How did you move into business?

“I wanted to be a doctor.  I was the kid who wanted the chemistry set and microscope for Christmas.  I was a chemistry and biology major at the University of Maryland.  Then I applied to medical school and didn’t get in.”

“While I kept trying, I worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital doing cancer research.  I was working with a very prestigious physician, Dr. Philip Burke, who said to me after I gave a presentation, ‘Burt, good job, but I noticed you had more fun doing the presentation than doing the work.’  I realized that I do like talking about the work.  I was also taking business classes there for free while I worked.  I felt that business was like a duck swimming on the lake to me.  It was simple.  It was easy.  That’s kind of how I ended up the failed scientist turned into a business guy.”

“I made that split over 25 years ago and never looked back.  I still do have a soft spot for the science, but I like it in a business context.”

Q: As the Sr. Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Genoptix Medical Labs back in 2005, how did you scale revenues from $4M to $184M in 5 years?

“It was kind of like running a marathon with your hair on fire, but it was kind of fun!  It was fun because we were building something.  There were some key points.  One was timing.  That’s something you can’t plan for, but it’s important for a business.  Is it the right business concept at the right time?  Is society ready for it?  Are customers ready for it?  A lot of good businesses are the benefactor of that.”

“There were three key things that we did.  We knew who our customers were and who they were not.  That is incredibly important for a startup….  We surrounded ourselves with a fabulous team…  The last one is we measured things.  This is really important when you scale…”  To hear the details, listen to the episode.

Q: As a leader, how does it feel it to not be the one doing it all but getting others in to do it?

“In the consulting business I’m in now, I work with some incredibly smart people—PhDs, MDs.  The talent is enormous in what I call their vertical.  They know that enzyme or they know that diagnostic test like the back of their hand.  But it’s very hard to be an expert in all areas.  One of the things I’d advise founders not to do is to get caught up in what I call ‘founder’s syndrome.’  Founder’s syndrome is: it’s my baby, I’m going to hang on to it all the way through, and I’m afraid to let anybody touch it because it’s my child.  Most of the time, it does not go to a good place.”

To hear what Burt recommends to prevent founder’s syndrome and what other leadership challenges he sees when he consults to small businesses, listen to the episode.  Burt has some great advice for technical leaders.

Words of Wisdom:

“Failure’s not a bad thing.  Sometimes you learn a lot about yourself.”

“You can’t be good at everything, so you have to rely on your team.”

“If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.”

“Scientists also have to sell to bankers and lawyers and business people.”

Shout Out:

To the Rady School of Management at UCSD for helping science majors get exposure to business at the undergraduate level.

Contact Burt De Mill for a free one-hour consultation:

Email: burt@bdmconsulting.org

Phone: 760-707-9519 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.

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Gina Stetsko: Becoming a Compassionate Leader

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Joanie has a conversation with Gina Stetsko, Vice President of Manufacturing at Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.  Gina has a been a leader in Pharmaceuticals for over 35 years and she’s held other executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry including: Vice President of Product Development, Vice President of Operations, and Chief Scientific Officer.

Highlights:

Q: How did you get into pharmaceutical development?

“As a child, believe it or not, I used to read encyclopedias. Luckily, they were scientific Encyclopedias.  I chose Pharmacy because I was interested in how you could swallow a drug and then it would affect your headache or something else in your body.  I no idea!  As a child, you want to know those answers.”

“I stuck to it and became a pharmacist and I got my license and decided that I could do more, and my boss told me, ‘Go back to school.  You can do more than this.’ So, I got my PhD in pharmaceutical development and I’ve spent the last 36 years working on developing products and manufacturing products.  I’m taking the drug from the bench in science all the way to the marketplace.  There’s a lot of engineering and a lot of pharmacokinetics. There’s a lot of math and science and things like that along the way.  So, I guess I just really liked it and I stuck with it.”

Q: How did you develop your interest in leading people?

“I started to gravitate towards smaller companies. I started in large companies and inside these companies we developed the products what’s called ‘virtually’ so you don’t have the full staff within your own company.  You have to go outside and hire people at different companies around the world to do the do your work and one of the things that that taught me was how to deal with different people in different cultures–not only company cultures, but country cultures.  I think that that was one of the things I enjoyed the most–not in the beginning because it was hard, but eventually.”

“I was always curious and interested to meet people and see how they think.  I think, with what’s happened over the years, is that I enjoy the science less and I enjoy the people more.  That was not on purpose.  It just kind of happened and now I really enjoy the people and developing the people.  As a matter of fact, there are four people that I mentored at different companies that own their own companies now.  And, to me, that’s the biggest achievement of my career versus the products, because these people figured out a way to understand themselves better and to be effective in an enterprise like that.”

Q: How did you get to the point where you were loving developing people?

“Well let me just tell you that, at the beginning, I actually thought: ‘I am going into research so I don’t have to deal with people like I did in the pharmacy.’ Little did I know, my first job out of graduate school, I got put on all sorts of international work workshops and workforces and things like that so I was flying to different countries and I was having to deal with people.  So, it kind of forced me.  It was a survival thing that kicked in. I realized, well, this is what I’m going to have to learn to do.  I think that life is not perfect and you make mistakes in each place and you learn things that you bring to the next place.  And so over time, I guess over 36 years, it was just one event after another.  You just you build this toolbox and that’s really, in a way, what happened over the years.  You have different challenges in different countries in different situations and you just adapt.”

Q: How did you move from an intellectual style of leadership to a compassionate one?

“I used to think that if I was smarter, I was better.  And so you’re always looking to be the smartest one in the room, right? I reached a point where that irritates people.  It really does!  It’s like, okay, so you know you’ve got to not be the smartest person.  Then I realized that, to get people that work for me to be more effective, they really needed to feel that I heard them. So, instead of coming in my office for me to solve their problem like I was when I was younger (I had all the answers, right?), it’s drawing it out of people and avoiding giving the answer, and saying, “I don’t know.”  Let’s work on that together.” Or, “What do you think?”  The more I did that, it made my job easier. I didn’t have to be the smartest person anymore because the pressure was off me.  The pressure was on those people because I was forcing them to dig deep and think about what they wanted.”

“Then, over time, I think I built a style that made it feel safe for them to speak what was inside.  And then I really liked that!  Something clicked in me: I really like to understand. Even in my private life I do that with people.  ‘Tell me more about that…’  ‘Why did you feel that way?’  Or, ‘I’m just curious…’  I’ve just become a very curious person.  It’s really a shift from trying to be the smartest person to being just truly interested in other people.  That’s the compassion part.  I think people don’t normally get that.”

Words of Wisdom:

“Everybody has their own life and they put their vision of reality together differently.”

“Feel free to tell people ‘I don’t know.’”

“Don’t go to meetings.  Let them work it out on their own.”

Contact Gina Stetsko:

LinkedIn: Gina Stetsko, https://www.linkedin.com/in/gina-stetsko-phd-29a28b101/

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