And The Gift Of Your Time

Tis the season for reflection, for insights gained, lessons learned and, heart-felt gratitude. Throughout the year I’ve experienced a wealth of contributions and inspiration from some rather incredibly gifted people. They’ve offered me perspective, let me in on their own personal trials and above all… they’ve shared their time.

What has been incredibly instrumental throughout the year that has allowed me to guage a sense of the ebb and flow of the market, the pain points as they relate to high-performing talent (Renegades) and corporate leadership, is the reaction and engagement that I have received on several of the articles that I have written.

What I would like to do is bring to light a few of the pieces that were written, isolate the key ingredients of each, just in case you missed them, and highlight some of the valuable, insightful contributions that I received from my community here on Linkedin, for which I am sincerely grateful.

Let’s start with an article entitled Dare To Be Different published back in July.

The question was raised - Are Renegades difficult to identify or, to identify with? When you take into account the complexity of their DNA, I’d say it’s a fair question. The article delves into their "intellectual curiosity" that ushers in the desire to bring about true and meaningful change that everyone can rise with; and speaks to their need to question everything in order to generate a breath of new ideas and new frameworks designed to create a more constructive environment. It also addresses the struggles that that they encounter internally from those who are resistant to change; and how they are often called upon to address the wall (i.e.) obstacles in the way to greater business success.

Upon sharing the article, Deepak Rana, President of Brevick Solutions, felt it necessary to include this prolific statement. “These words can only be spoken by someone who “gets it” and he is one: “Very enjoyable read. Written by a friend about a rare breed of people who often drive the soul and direction of great companies in growth. The likes of Musk, Grove, Gates, Jobs, Bezos, Jen-Hsun Huang, Ellison, and more would likely fit the description. A caution - ill-advised approach for faint of heart, weak in limbs, or thin-skinned ones. :)”

In addition, Paroma Sen, The Global Marketing Director at SAP added “Steve Diedrick - to add to your comment - renegades are only loosely attached to their "job descriptions" - they see JDs as a loose guideline of how they serve, and frequently like their JD to speak only to the minimum threshold of contribution/impact they can have in an organization. Can one have both meaningful work and ascend the chain? The answer is yes, but only within an organization which has a culture of innovation/experimentation, and where stepping on people's toes is not seen as a challenge, but as a means of collaboratively getting to bigger impact. The question then becomes: how does one identify such organizations? *** On a personal note I would personally like to give a big THANK YOU to Paroma for her ongoing and meaningful contributions throughout the year. At times it’s felt like the Steve and Paroma show! She is truly one of the most unique minds that I have encountered, and she possesses a passion I wish I could bottle. Paroma… you are truly one-of-a-kind.

Tracy Cote, Chief People Officer at Zenefits also had some very constructive words to share with me at the time… “Some good insights in your thinking here. If the article was pithier I would share it. I do think you're on to something with the concept.” *** I want to note that after our engagement on this piece, Tracy has continued to bring value with her thought-leadership and unique perspective. As of late, you may have noticed that I have been writing about HR Leaders with high EQ. Let me just say that Tracy is truly the epitome of that.

Next, we take a look at an article that was written entirely by a Renegade in her own right – Allana Williamson, Southeastern Regional Manager at Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure that was published back in September entitled A Letter From A Renegade.

What she expressed, and the story she told, resonated with everyone. It was a deeply thought out, personal depiction of what her Renegade experience and professional life looked like, lending itself to the value of self-awareness, personal expectations, obstacles and the intrinsic characteristics of a Renegade. In her piece she stated “Earlier this year I was asked for guidance from management about how to replicate my success for newcomers. For the life of me, I couldn’t put words to how to be me. And when I did, it seemed rather trivial. “Just care. Authentically, legitimately, sincerely, whole-heartedly care.” That’s when I realized it’s not something you *can* replicate. You either have it or you don’t.”

This point struck a chord with my community and they responded in-kind. Here is just some of what they had to say…

Jeffrey Oathout, - United States Fire Rescue Portfolio Leader at Lexipol “I maybe simplifying this but the removal of Renegade thinking in corporate would result in great companies becoming and behaving more mediocre slowing growth and future opportunity. Recruiting and retaining top talent is then more difficult as is winning the long game. Companies that are currently mediocre have probably already removed Renegade thinking because it challenges the “yes” mentality. Keep in mind great as it relates to companies and/or corporate impact can be measured in a variety of ways...not simply by their bottom line though we all know profitability is critical to the existence of any business.” *** Like Paroma above, Jeff's relentless and thoughtful engagement in many articles have gone way and above.

Alok Gupta, SVP Engineering at Strateos, Inc. noted “This line stole the article - "Just care. Authentically, legitimately, sincerely, whole-heartedly care.” Kudos to Allana Williamson for expressing this and the best part - "seemed rather trivial." Renegades are not looking for glory, boasting, or aiming for a fixed target. Genuine care about others and see others flourish around them is the highest satisfaction and drive to move forward."

Samta Bansal - Sr Director, Portfolio Marketing, Strategy & Sales/Field Enablement for Lumada Digital Solutions at Hitachi Vantara added “Thanks Steve for sharing the letter and thank you Allana for putting it so well. Everything that is said here resonated very well with me especially the two lines…

- “When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower"

- "Just care. Authentically, legitimately, sincerely, whole-heartedly care."

 I find it very interesting working for so many years in large corporations that this "caring" is so rare to find!! Most people are out there to "win" it for themselves but renegades do it for their people, for the team, for the organization pouring their heart and soul into it, very less often for themselves - that is why they don't sing their praises but it is always "WE did it" for them.”

A Conversation With An Aware Leader is the first and only time that I published an article in the form of an interview. After a considerable amount of prodding Alok Gupta, the SVP Engineering at Strateos, Inc. finally agreed to hop on the phone and share his thoughts, experiences and perspective. This simple conversation offered him a chance to pause for a little introspection, and thus began his quest to connect the dots to see if he could identify and define the underlying cause of his success. In the process, The Happiness Index was born.

In this piece Alok states “Through repetition and consistently asking for feedback, there is a compounding effect that makes others begin to believe in the authenticity of your efforts. The Happiness Index comes into play when others are not able to differentiate between personal and professional life. You take care of the personal side, and typically the rest takes care of itself. The fact is, every human wants to work, it’s about helping them discover their purpose through effective engagement.” Alok’s management style is nothing short of extraordinary. There is so much here that it’s hard to summarize and draw out the highlights. It’s just something that you have to read ten times with a pen and paper at your side.

As you can imagine, my community lined up to make a comment, but these two pretty much sums it up!

Maurizio Paganini - EVP - Chief Operating Officer at MegaChips Technology America Corporation weighed in with… “This article brought me several years back. The most impactful manager I had so far in my career, @Primo Oliveira has been the living incarnation of what Mr. Gupta says. Primo opened my eyes and forever imprinted in my mind and my heart the reversed relationship between leaders and team members ... "establishing an understanding that I in fact work for my team and not the other way around". I came to realize only later how much I actually absorbed and adopted from his style and I never had the chance to sincerely thank him for that, until now. Thank you for bringing back so strong memories."

Laura Roselli - Senior Director, Digital Marketing at Marvell Semiconductor “Great read! Appreciate you sharing this insight into great leadership.”

And last but not least – There’s Something Happening Here. This article; published back in October, touched on a very sensitive topic – disruption. What I discovered is that companies more or less retreat when they hear this word. For them it is all about creating stability. However, I wanted to pose the question… Is there a way to discuss disruption from other angles that would make it more permissible to discuss it freely inside of companies seeking to make a major shift?

I began by defining the term from my POV and then turned to the Renegades in my network to define it in their terms. The individual takeaway from each was indeed intriguing, and the comments made by their peers seemed to back them up. Take a look…

Jim Jarman - Vice President of Sales | Sales Strategy & Execution, Revenue Growth & Profit Delivery at Organic Valley. “Steve Diedrick Great article, and I really found Natalie’s comment spot on as well. How the challenge gets delivered matters a lot (I could stand to be better at it sometimes), but it’s critical that it does get delivered. And I agree that there’s rarely a perfectly “right”answer when it comes to disruption. There are consequences to Option A, different consequences to Option B, and so forth. Oftentimes you’re making your best judgement about which set of consequences you can deal with and using that to guide the disruption decision. And that’s ok, as long as you make the decision to disrupt in the first place. If we don’t disrupt ourselves, someone else will surely do it for us.”

Tony Deblauwe - Vice President Human Resources at Symphony.com. “Great job Steve - a fantastic recounting of the actual views and oversights in organizations related to meeting talent where it is (and often completely missing it) instead of working harder to leverage different points of view or approaches. But I feel this is the destiny of the renegade/disruptor unfortunately.”

Miguel Dajer - SVP Wireless R&D, USA at Futurewei Technologies, Inc. “Very insightful as always. A few years back when I joined my current company my bosses would tell me one thing everytime I asked: "do you have any feedback for me and the team?," the answer was always "find ways to disrupt our current products." They viewed us a agents of disruption and if we could internally disrupt our own solutions, then we would be better positioned for external disruptions. From there we started using a black swan as our internal org logo. Many parallels and lessons one can learn from your posting, thank you for it.”

Amit Dogra - Global Leader - Talent Services at General Motors. “Great insights Steve Diedrick. Thanks for sharing. Business is all about solving problems of the world and in that journey make money for the value creation. The challenge is that the journey of solving the problems brings in desire to bring in structure, personal growth, positions and eventually hunger to get public recognition. As a result of these desires, the problem solvers become maintenance managers and therefore ability to listen, read and observe get adversely impacted and therefore impacts the ability to DISRUPT. For disruption to happen, it needs a little disorder, disagreements, a lot of dissent and drive to see the world - not the way it is but it could be. This calls for a greater shift in culture and the organizational ecosystem. Before thinking about the disruptions in the space of products and services, a disruption in the organizational culture is a MUST.”

In total, I along with my esteemed colleagues have written 40 articles in 2019. With Christmas only a day away, I must say that I have already received a gift that you simply can’t put a monetary value on – Time. With each of us possessing so little of it to spare, I am overwhelmed with appreciation for not only those mentioned within this article, but to the countless number of professionals who have taken the time to read and absorb the thought-leadership that we are striving to put out each week. Even if you are a fly on the wall – and I know there are many, I want to offer you my deepest gratitude.

They say that two minds are better than one. I can’t even begin to imagine how high the bar has been set by the collective talent that has embraced us throughout the year. And even though the following people may, or may not have commented in these articles specifically, I want to acknowledge them for their ongoing, meaningful, in-depth contributions. There is no doubt in my mind that the impact we have made to date, would have been far less without them.

Steve Glaiser - A rare form of humor and exceptionalism. Mr. Music. "Beginnings" in 2020 my friend.

David Long – an engineering leader with off the charts EQ. Ask him about his book.

Rudy Augsburger – A fellow lifetime globetrotter and TCK. Life long learner and "Sea Harrier".

Amit Gupta – one of a kind. If you don’t know Amit, you need to. We Are ...

Dharm Vahalia – a truly genuine and insightful leader. A bringer of order in chaos!

Dean Meyer – Frankly-- Mr. Witty and Mr. Bold all rolled up in one.

Kevin Clunie – My Scottish friend. Lang may yer lum reek!

Yanis Liaskos – Mr. Thoughtful. Your name suits you well.

Natalie Tremblay – Gives me confidence in GenZ Generation making a meaningful impact. Don't stop questioning- it's a gift.

Sanjay Sethi – Mr. Resilient. Lionheart.

I very much look forward to more collaboration and even disagreements in 2020. Until then, I wish you and yours an absolutely memorable holiday! God Bless.

About Steve Diedrick...

Steve is the founder of Redmond, a global executive search firm whose clients include world renowned brands and start-ups that are shaping tomorrow's world. As a highly respected authority and pioneer in the field of human capital with close to three decades in the space, his progressive ideas on search-excellence reflect a profound understanding/passion for the global economy and the ever-evolving mindset of the unique talent that propels companies forward. He has personally reached out to more than 100,000 professionals and interviewed over 35,000 potential candidates throughout his career. His personal drive, perspective, discipline and focus is a culmination of his life experience living abroad and the 27 years spent mastering the Martial Art of Qi Gong. His Mantra: There is nothing like direct experience that takes you from knowledge - to knowing.

Email me at: [email protected] or Text me at: 947.222.9200 and let's discuss how Redmond can help you.

? Redmond Research, Inc. 2019