Develop Great Managers Podcast

As a manager, you need to lead others. To do this effectively, they must believe in the mission, vision, and challenges in front of them. They have to buy your story. They need to believe you. Some people think this means you have to be a cheerleader. You have to get up, turn on the energy and charm, and convince your team on what you need them to do.  This can work iff (if and only if) that is your normal style. If it is not, they will see right through it and will not be on board. They might say they are… but their hearts will not be in it. Instead, what you need to do is communicate in your own way. If you are deeply analytical, use this approach. If you are an introvert and prefer 1:1 conversations, do that. “Just Be What You Is” simply means be who you are!

Now is the time to prepare for the new normal. In this podcast, I share the five biggest changes that are likely to be a part of the plan to go back to work. These are: Screening and Testing More Spacing Use of Masks No Conference Rooms Continued Work at Home You have learned to manage work at home employees. You know how to manage employees in the office. I share a number of things that will help you in this new normal. I hope that you enjoy!

In this podcast, I talk to Laura Ortman, President and Chief Revenue Officer for Cologix, about her career journey. Without going into detail, they are a “data centers of tomorrow” company. Laura has had a great career, learning and taking on challenges along the way. She started in sales and worked in or managed all aspects of sales, account management, business development, software program and technical management, customer support and success, revenue and renewals, and operations. She has worked for SOS Technical Services, Lockheed Martin, Jeppesen (a Boeing Company), VMware, Equinix, and Cologix. I got to know Laura while at VMware. Our paths crossed a few times so I got to know Laura, but we never had an opportunity to work directly. All that I knew for sure is that she was an amazing manager and leader. I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I interview Laura Ortman, President and Chief Revenue Officer for Cologix. Without going into detail, they are a “data centers of tomorrow” company. Laura has had a great career, learning and taking on challenges along the way. She started in sales and worked in or managed all aspects of sales, account management, business development, software program and technical management, customer support and success, revenue and renewals, and operations. She has worked for SOS Technical Services, Lockheed Martin, Jeppesen (a Boeing Company), VMware, Equinix, and Cologix. I got to know Laura while at VMware. Our paths crossed a few times so I got to know Laura, but we never had an opportunity to work directly. All that I knew for sure is that she was an amazing manager and leader. I am very happy to have her on the podcast.

In this podcast, I talk to John Gilmartin, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Hyperconverged Infrastructure Business Unit at VMware, about his career journey. John has been in high tech for all of his career. He started as a consultant at Marakon Associates, moved to Dell as a brand manager, then to VMware in product management. He left VMware to try working at a small company. He joined Coraid to run product marketing. He then returned to VMware and has quickly grown his responsibility to the role that he has today. John has a computer science degree from Princeton and took some time out during his career to go back and get his MBA from Harvard. I got to know John at VMware and worked for him for a couple of years. John is an incredibly well-rounded leader and manager that does a great job of balancing the urgent with the important, all while remaining incredibly calm. I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I interview John Gilmartin, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Hyperconverged Infrastructure Business Unit at VMware. John has been in high tech for all of his career. He started as a consultant at Marakon Associates, moved to Dell as a brand manager, then to VMware in product management. He left VMware to try working at a small company. He joined Coraid to run product marketing. He then returned to VMware and has quickly grown his responsibility to the role that he has today. John has a computer science degree from Princeton and took some time out during his career to go back and get his MBA from Harvard. I got to know John at VMware and worked for him for a couple of years. John is an incredibly well-rounded leader and manager that does a great job of balancing the urgent with the important, all while remaining incredibly calm. I know you will get a lot out of my conversation with John!

Welcome to the latest Develop Great Managers podcast focused on helping managers with their work at home employees. Work at home has never been more important. Learn from the experts how to evaluate if work from home makes sense, and if it does, how to ensure success. I hope you find this valuable!

This is the third of three podcasts on Office Politics - something important to everyone.  I have broken the topic into three parts: Introduction; How You Can Be Successful; and How to Manage Your Team. In today’s podcast, I will cover "Introduction." I cover how you can be a role model, minimizing politics in your team, aligning and supporting the company culture, championing members of your team, recognizing and supporting diversity and providing positive transparency. I hope you enjoy!

This is the second of three podcasts on Office Politics - something important to everyone.  I have broken the topic into three parts: Introduction; How You Can Be Successful; and How to Manage Your Team. In today’s podcast, I will cover "Introduction." I cover being thoughtful, reading the system (company), building a good reputation, and finding common ground. I hope you enjoy!

Now for the topic that all of you have been waiting for - Office Politics! I have broken the topic into three parts: Introduction; How You Can Be Successful; and How to Manage Your Team. In today’s podcast, I will cover "Introduction." I will give you a definition, share the reality of office politics, give you a view into good and bad, and end with some great examples. I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I talk to Alex Bewley, Director of Engineering at VMware, where he has been for the last 5 years, about his career path. Prior to VMware, Alex started and ran two small companies. The first was focused on Professional Services for Sun Microsystems customers. And the second was a software company, delivering performance, availability, capacity management and costing tools. Before this, Alex was a systems engineer at Sun Microsystems. I got to know Alex while I was at VMware. He joined my team when I moved into Global Services. Alex was a part of a team doing research into tools that could dramatically improve customer support. I joined the organization to reinvent support. What a perfect fit! I worked with Alex and the other researchers to build a team to take their prototype and turn it into the core of VMware Skyline, a proactive support product. I wanted to interview Alex due to the breadth of his experience, and because he has worked and managed his team while being remote from headquarter

Alex Bewley is a Director of Engineering at VMware, where he has been for the last 5 years. Prior to VMware, Alex started and ran two small companies. The first was focused on Professional Services for Sun Microsystems customers. And the second was a software company, delivering performance, availability, capacity management and costing tools. Before this, Alex was a systems engineer at Sun Microsystems. I got to know Alex while I was at VMware. He joined my team when I moved into Global Services. Alex was a part of a team doing research into tools that could dramatically improve customer support. I joined the organization to reinvent support. What a perfect fit! I worked with Alex and the other researchers to build a team to take their prototype and turn it into the core of VMware Skyline, a proactive support product. I wanted to interview Alex due to the breadth of his experience, and because he has worked and managed his team while being remote from headquarters. I hope you enjoy the interview.

Now that you understand why you need goals, how to define them, and how to operationalize them, let's talk about rewards! For the goal topic, I break it into four aspects: What; Define; Operationalize; and Reward. In today’s podcast, I will cover “Reward.” There are four areas that are discussed. Review the Results Recognize Failures Celebrate Successes Prepare for Next Year I hope that you find this valuable!

Now that you understand why you need goals and how to define them, let's talk about how to operationalize them! For the goal topic, I break it into four aspects: What; Define; Operationalize; and Reward. In today’s podcast, I will cover “Define.” I will talk in detail about the five aspects to operationalizing your goals. Develop a Plan Assign an Owner Measure and Report Review and Adjust Finalize Results I hope that you find this valuable!

Now that you understand why you need goals, let's talk about how to define them! For the goal topic, I break it into four aspects: What; Define; Operationalize; and Reward. In today’s podcast, I will cover “Define.” I will talk in detail about the six aspects to defining your goals. Make Them Motivating Link to the Business or Your Vision Engage Others Make Them SMART Write Them Down Make Them Visible I hope that you find this valuable!

It is a new year, time to think about goals! For the goal topic, I break it into four aspects: What; Define; Operationalize; and Reward. In today’s podcast, I will only cover “What.” I will cover the value of goals, some possible downsides and how to tie goals to vision, mission, and strategy. This is for work. For personal goals, a similar process will be followed. I hope you enjoy!

Welcome to the first Develop Great Managers podcast for 2020. This will be a new and fun year!! I start by celebrating 2019. We then move into what will be different. Before I get to that, I would like to stop and celebrate 2019. Number one on the list was the launch of this podcast as well as growing subscribers well above the goal of 500 to more than 900!   Thank you! Now on to 2020. In order to make the podcasts more valuable, I will move to focus more deeply on the topics that are most important to you. This will give me more time to get into the details. I will spend one to two months on each topic. During this time, some of the podcasts will be just me, and others will include invited guests. There will continue to be interviews with great managers. These will be interspersed with podcasts on the various topics. Before getting into the topics that I plan to cover, I discuss why managers are so important. I share information from Google and Gallup. I then get into what makes a great manager and how the t

In this podcast, I talk to Stanimir Markov, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder at Runecast, about his career path. Prior to Runecast, Stanimir worked for IBM where he held a number of roles. He started in Windows Technical Support, expanding into VMware and Citrix, and then becoming the first member of a new team of Virtualization Architects. And prior to IBM, Stanimir was in Technical Support at Aplus.net. Stanimir is a VCDX, the highest level of certification from VMware.  He also has additional certifications from VMware and Citrix. He received his degree in Computer Science from the Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridiski. I got to know Stanimir while I was at VMware. I was working on VMware Skyline, a support product that has some overlapping capabilities to Runecast. We met so that I could share what we were doing in the hope that Stanimir could evolve Runecast in a way that complemented rather than competed with Skyline. These conversations were excellent. I had the opportunity to watch Stanimir con

In this podcast, I interview Stanimir Markov, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder at Runecast, a company that provides real-time VMware SDDC issue analysis & security compliance. Prior to this, Stanimir worked for IBM where he held a number of roles. He started in Windows Technical Support, expanding into VMware and Citrix, and then becoming the first member of a new team of Virtualization Architects. And prior to IBM, Stanimir was in Technical Support at Aplus.net. Stanimir is a VCDX, the highest level of certification from VMware.  He also has additional certifications from VMware and Citrix. He received his degree in Computer Science from the Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridiski. I got to know Stanimir while I was at VMware. I was working on VMware Skyline, a support product that has some overlapping capabilities to Runecast. We met so that I could share what we were doing in the hope that Stanimir could evolve Runecast in a way that complemented rather than competed with Skyline. These conversati

In this podcast, I talk to John Dolan, Strategic Advisor and Board Member at Ascend Cloud Solutions, about his career path. Prior to taking on this position, John was Global Vice President for the Software-Defined Data Center Support at VMware. John spent more than 14 years at VMware in the Technical Support organization, where he led global organizations across EMEA and APJ. He did this from Cork, Ireland where he also held the role of Campus Site Lead. Prior to VMware, John spent a number of years working for EMC in Technical Support, helping them to build a support team in Ireland. I got to know John while at VMware when I was in engineering within the Integrated Systems Business Unit. I was working on designs for VMware customer deployments and John was providing support of these same customers. I then had a chance to spend a lot of time with John and his team when I joined the leadership team in Global Services. I really enjoyed working with John. He was incredibly focused on helping customers to be succ