¶ Introducing our guest, Glenn Hasteadt
Welcome to the IT Matters podcast, where we explore why IT matters and matters pertaining to IT.
Welcome to the IT Matters podcast hosted by Opkalla. At Opkalla we help IT teams understand the busy marketplace of technology, strategy, and services with a data driven approach. On this podcast, we invite technology leaders to discuss the challenges facing the modern IT
department. My name is Keith Hawkey, Technology Advisor with Opkalla, and today we're discussing IT leadership and how empathy plays an important role in upgrading your IT team with two very special guests Jess Levin, Technology Advisor with Opkalla that has half a decade of experience working alongside the brightest CIOs and CISOs in the business and Glenn Hasteadt. Glenn is the IT director for Onslow County and a frequent speaker and instructor for cultural change in general
leadership. He has a keen passion for leadership topics. He also hosts a workshop for school and government on how to build powerful teams. His team has been recognized as a Digital Counties Top 10 recipient recipient for the past seven years, and Glenn was recognized as at the NCLGISA IT professional of the year in 2023. Glenn has served the public sector since 1998, and brings almost three decades of experience to the podcast, Glenn and Jess, welcome to the IT Matters podcast.
Thanks for having me.
Excited to be here.
Likewise, first, Glenn, what is the Digital Counties Top 10 and how does one become recognized?
It's published by e.Republic, I believe. It's a survey that's sent out to every county in the country, they then take all those surveys back and then rank everybody. It's an interesting distinction to have, you know, Onslow County, a little county here on the coast in North Carolina, you know, to get recognized at a national level, it's pretty big deal for us.
How many counties generally apply for?
I have no idea. You know, I don't know how many apply. I know, there's 100 counties alone in the state of North Carolina, I don't know how many there are across the nation, I have no idea how many apply. But I'm, I know, it's a pretty big deal. They give the awards out at the county conference every year that they have, wherever in the country.
¶ IT teams gaining recognition
It's always nice to have, you know, IT departments become recognized. I've seen more and more of that lately, particularly. I think IT for a long time was the unsung hero, but with the social media and how IT has become so integral to the business success of the modern organization, more and more accolades, and public, highlights are becoming more frequent.
Yeah, that's what you guys do, too. Right. As you know IT companies become more successful and you'll get that limelight, get that shine.
¶ Fostering relationships between departments
On the topic of Keith's point in IT playing a super integral role in the greater like development of organizations as a whole, right? One thing that I've noticed just in my shorter tenure has been in certain organizations, there can be a divide between the IT vertical versus some of the business departments, operations, etc. In speaking with you, it feels like there is a level of camaraderie and
togetherness in the organization as a whole. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about the role that you play as an IT leader in creating some of that environment.
Without the there's no point in having us, right. If all those lines of business were here, there's no point to have IT, you know, doing IT for the sake of IT is fun. But you know, really doesn't serve a lot of purpose. And so we recognize that all the almost 30 different lines of business that we support, you know, they're the ones that are on the pointy end of the stick that are serving our citizens that are serving
our communities. You know, we don't rescue people from burning buildings and things like that, but we support the people who do and that's where we get to make a difference, right? If we can make their jobs easier, if we can make their jobs possible. If we can make the integration with the citizen better and easier. That's where we can win because we don't we don't get to, you know, serve the community in a direct sense. For the most part
¶ Advice for new leaders
Glenn what do you think is the number one issue holding back IT leaders today? They are looking to upgrade their leadership, upgrade their their capacity to build the most cohesive teams. You know, in your years of experience, what's what's missing?
There's a distinct lack of focus on, on, frankly, on leadership, you know, many of us were promoted out of very technical roles for being really good technical people. And this is stuff that we went to school for. And you know, we have years of experience, but then, when you're thrust into a leadership position, that's literally an entirely different job. And if we don't try to learn the skills that make that job successful, then we can't achieve the best
that we can achieve. And our teams and our teams can't either. I really feel like an organization's culture is the most determinant factor for current and future success over any technology or anything, if you don't have a great culture, if you don't have an environment where people feel safe, where they can innovate and do those things, then it doesn't matter
what technology you have, you're only going to be so good. And you're never going to be able to like you guys, bring great technology to organizations, if they don't have the wherewithal to leverage that you're never going to achieve what you possibly could achieve with all that.
I guess what would be some advice that you would give to the newer or more newly emerging technology leaders on how to clearly communicate objectives versus expectations? I know in speaking with you, that's a framework that you've followed. And it's, it's worked for you tried and true. Yeah, I'd love to hear your perspective.
To me, there's like, five different things you really have to focus on. Right? Obviously, you got to build trust first, every relationship is built on trust. Leadership is nothing but a relationship. But you have to have clear expectations, you have to have clear objectives. If people don't know where the finish line is, they can't ever exceed it, you'll just demotivate them, because they'll never be able to reach it, you have to communicate three times more
than you think you do. That communication isn't just words on a paper or spoken word. It's appreciation and correction. Right? If like, Jess you do a great job, if I, if I appreciate you, I'm going to appreciate you in front of the whole team. I'm sure Keith, Keith would do the same thing, right? When you appreciate someone you appreciate them in front of the whole team. And that's doing nothing but clarifying objectives and expectations for people. Yes, you're appreciating
someone. But you're also you're also saying, hey, my expectations are here, you're way up here. And that's great. And everybody wants to be appreciated and valued for, you know what they bring. So if they see me praising you, the rest of the team is gonna go oh, that, you know, I want to do that, you know, I want to I want the boss to call me out for that. And a lot of times, what we do is we focus on correcting people, you know, still communicating expectations, it's just the
other side of the coin. The problem with that is you're only correcting one person, you're only clarifying expectations for one person, you really get more bang for your buck, doing doing positive reinforcement than you do with negative. And this is the one thing I try to get across whenever I'm speaking or teaching is if you look for what people are doing right instead of what they're doing wrong, you'll have that material to clarify expectations for everybody in a positive way, as
opposed to a negative way. So I mean, I know when you're working with companies, relationships, and communication is huge, right? So how do you how do you get your point across when you're when you're talking to somebody?
I'll add one aspect to that, you know, since we, we work heavily with with the leadership roles of IT but also you know, we're in the trenches with the network admins and the infrastructure managers and the cybersecurity analysts and building them up in front of in front of their bosses when they're doing a great job I've found to to get everyone on board, get everyone on the same page when they're making a
transformation. So highlighting on calls, how how well, everyone that's that's in the trenches doing the day to day work, and the value that they brought, they brought to bring a trend of bringing a transformation to life bringing a technology change, that requires a significant amount of effort. And a lot of times, you know, these these moves can can go wrong, you know, whether you're deploying a new technology or
you didn't onboard properly. So highlighting the good work of everyone involved is a key part to our strategy in helping that team be cohesive.
One of the important aspects to take into consideration is on the front end, we really take the time to understand what is the business objective and what are they trying to to do, accomplish, what is the goal, right. And so there's a level of accountability in the partnership from the technology advisor, Opkalla side and the customer side. And so I feel like it creates a good, good
dynamic for us to help get them there. But along the way through the positive reinforcements, like Keith was mentioning, and understanding what their role is in the part that they play and recognizing how implementing a new technology may affect them and the organization at whole. And so I think it's to your point, there's a lot of communication and moving parts involved.
is I'm caring about the people that I have in the room that I'm blessed to have on my team, and I spend time with them on their careers and spend time with them and on whatever issues they're facing at the time. And, you know, that goes a long way when when somebody really feels like you care about them and their problems, as opposed to just making a sale for your, you know, on your side, or it's just to get whatever task done on my side, you know.
¶ Practicing culture characteristics
Glenn you make a good point. And I think it all starts with culture. Yeah, it all begins with why why are we doing this? Why why are we here? Why are we you know, outside of making, you know, career and income and supporting our
families? Where do our hearts lie? One of the ways that Opkalla engenders a level of compassion within their their teams is we have Monday morning meetings, and we adjourn every meeting with recognition of various, you know, everyone within the company, from, you know, operations, to sales to leadership of who has gone above and beyond and who has fulfilled one of our cultural characteristics. There are times that I'm thinking, What can I do this week, to be recognized on
that Monday morning meeting? Who can I help? I think it's brought about a lot of camaraderie with within our organization. And it's very practical, the way that's implemented,
I love that. We actually start all of our meetings with kudos. I've been here eight and a half years, I've never been able to start a monthly meeting without kudos. We also do something fun too. As you know, I've got a bunch of introverts in the room, and two divisions, and one of the divisions is GIS, which is geographic information systems. The whole country is really just scratching the surface of what GIS can do. And we really want to drive that capability into
the organization. And so I needed them to go out and evangelize. Well, that's tough when you got a bunch of people that really don't want to speak in front of other people. What we started doing is we started having TED Talks every month, and somebody different on the team has to give a TED talk. Everybody in the room has to sign up. And that's 15 minutes and I didn't care what they spoke about as long as it was safe at work, you know, so it could have been work related,
not work related, it didn't matter to me. The point was, I wanted them to get some experience doing public speaking and things like that. It's been wonderful. We've had like birdwatching, and origami, and self defense and just wonderful topics that range, you know, just across the board. And what's great is, it's topics that everybody's passionate about. And so when you learn more about that person, now you can have that closer relationship and things like
that. So it's really brought us even closer together too, which was kind of cool. But you know, to do that, to have that environment. First, though, we had a focus, you know, I've been focusing on years and creating an environment where people feel safe. Where they feel like they can be their authentic self. And that way, when they're doing these TED talks, you know,
everybody in the room is cheering for them. They're just looking for what they're gonna do right, and the only person that sees what they're doing wrong, is the person that's giving the speech. And they know that. And that's what empowers them to do that, I guess. But that's, yeah, that's an
important part of it. And I think you're doing that too, when you're working with technology teams, you know, when you call them out for them being great like that you're really creating a safe place for them to make that technology work.
I think that's an interesting perspective. Because the TED talks, they create a level of confidence in in specifically this narrow that the GIS team going out to evangelize, right, but it also empowers them to make sure internally on group meetings that their voices being heard, and I think it plays a part so much greater than maybe that one specific scenario. They, you know, think that they're doing
that activity for, I just think it goes a long way. On the topic of just empathy, building trust, truly caring about your team, on a personal level, what do you do if somebody is suffering or experiencing, like personal hardships? How do you create the space of trust for them to open up to you like, as an IT leader, what are some of your tactics in handling that.
That's probably one of the most important things you can do. You know, it's easy to celebrate when somebody's kid wins an award at school or whatever. But when people are going through health issues, or whatever it is, you know, difficulties in life, those valleys in life that we all
experience. You know, in my history, when somebody had anything like that going on, everybody would kind of walk around them on eggshells for a couple of weeks, you know, that doesn't help them, you know, that doesn't help you, that doesn't help them, that doesn't help the team. You know when somebody has a problem, I'm there, and they know that I'm
there with them. And I'm going to go through it with them, just like, just like a friend would just like a family member would, I'm going to be there with them as close as they want me to be or they allow me to be. But they do know that I care about them. And that I really, I'm really there just for them. The other side of that is you're able to be there for them, that relationship that you have with that person grows exponentially
more so than if you were to just celebrate with them. Right? If you say Keith was going through a hardship, and I leaned into that and said, Hey, buddy, I'm here with you. I'm going through this with you, you know, and, and I check in with him on, you know, time to time and I, you know, we're not just there to listen, hey, I'm just here to listen, I'm not going to try to
fix it, you need to talk up here. And if I'm able to be there with him, and he feels that authenticity of me really being there, we're gonna have a much tighter relationship when we're done. I mean, wouldn't you say that Keith, if I was to lean into something like that?
Absolutely. And it reminds me of why, why we, why we stick with companies and how loyalty is is is inculcated, you know, the number one reason that people leave companies is because they don't feel a connection with the leadership and the people they work with, you know, there's obviously money is obviously, you know, perhaps the, you know, the brand of the company, who they are and how that matches onto your
identity. But you'll you'll come across people and professionals in jobs that, you know, they could go find something that pays them more, they could find a company that's more reputable, reputable in a way, but they stay there because of the relationships they've built with their colleagues, maybe maybe leadership. And in our world, especially a couple of years ago, when COVID was in its full throes, it seemed attracting and
retaining talent was incredibly difficult. You know, you could get a 15% pay raise every six months if you change jobs during that time. So the you know, the way that IT leaders that I've worked with, leaned in on establishing that rapport and watering the plant every day. It's it is a relationship relationships, take work. I'm married. So I know a little bit about this. And, you know, treating the relationship as important as the job they're doing. You know, it keeps people
around, keeps people engaged. And they'll go the extra mile, not because they need to impress somebody, but but because they care about your relationship. They care. You know, they'll care about your success Glenn, as a leader. They'll want you to look good, because you've reached out and made sure that you know, they care.
I mean, I think you just made a great point. You know, we're intentional about our relationships and our marriage, kids, friends, you know, we spend time on those. We're here, we're at work more than we're home. Why wouldn't we be more intentional about those relationships? Why wouldn't we be more lean into those relationships more? I think a lot of leaders, you know, we've been told, you need to be a leader and not a friend. Okay, you know, we still need to care
about people. We still you know, yes, there's a mission there's job that we have to do and, and those management tasks are important but leadership tasks are really built on relationships and trust and things like that. I can't build an environment in this room, if people don't trust me and my motives, I can't build an environment in this room, if people don't feel supported, like they can make a mistake and actually fail forward. I don't get all the benefits of the team
if they don't feel safe. I'm sure if you ever worked anywhere where it was relatively toxic, I mean, what did you do, you kept your head down, you did what you were told and that was it. Meanwhile, if you work somewhere where you feel safe, where you feel like you can contribute, where you can fail forward, well now the sky's the limit, now I get access to all of your skills and abilities and the differences that make you you. And you get to leverage them towards our mission. And I'm
sure you guys see that quite a bit. When you go from place to place, there's different people everywhere you go. And it's a matter of how they can leverage those skills and abilities. Right?
Yeah, I think it helps to foster innovation across the team too. When you feel safe, you feel more open to sharing the ideas that maybe you wouldn't necessarily if you weren't super comfortable. I know especially for the more introverted folks, I think it benefits, it does so much more than just build their personal confidence, I think it creates, again, a space for innovation, which is going to impact the
team, the organization. I had a question regarding the time management or the aspect of being an IT leader, and you invest so much time and resources and energy into creating these strong relationships and building the culture and building trust amongst the team. Right? And do you feel like in the beginning, you had to spend more time creating a framework that worked and now it's kind of a well
oiled machine? And how do you sort of manage that with the tactical responsibilities that come with IT leadership as well?
Yeah I mean, as technical people we're familiar with keeping them keeping the lights on, you know, keeping things running and keeping things safe, right. And that that part, you know, we don't have to really think about anymore. But creating this culture in here, you know, it's conceptually easy to, you know, actually just care about people and build trust. And it sounds easy, but actually putting your feet there every minute, being intentional about that every
minute of every day is really hard. I had notes on my desk, like my first six to nine months, I had notes on my desk, with my culture goals. You know, this is what I want to this is the kind of culture that I'm trying to create. And don't forget this. And don't forget that. And my desk was literally covered with post it notes, reminding me what to do. And I would go out and we'd be doing stuff. And I'd come back to my desk, and oh, yeah, I go back out. And, you know, that was
really hard for about six to nine months. But frankly, after that, it just became who I was. And the joy of it is it's really hard in the beginning. But now eight and a half years later, it gets exponentially easier, right? When we onboard people, I don't have to go through the effort to get them integrated into our culture. The team does it, you know, just it just
happens. And actually, it's kind of fun when we hire new people they, they normally they'll be like, Oh, this is just, you know, everybody's been nice to me, because I'm new, you know, and it's fun, because I get to watch them and like, you know, however long it takes two, three months, and they go, Oh, no, this is how these people are. And yeah, it's just to me, it's fun to watch that light bulb go on. Yeah, they've been waiting for the other shoe to drop for two or three weeks or whatever
it is. And then then they like, No, this is it. This is how these people are and it's just it's wonderful.
Really makes it easy to go into work.
Oh, I love it. Yeah. And that's what a great way to to think about your culture. Right? Your your culture of your organization is how you think Sunday night with Monday coming. And it's not just you, right? It's how it's the people on the team. How do they think about going in Monday morning, Sunday night? Are they dreading it? Are they ambivalent or are they excited? You know, I had a lady that was in the team. She was out for Thanksgiving with family and stuff. She's
like, I couldn't wait to get back to work. That's, that's awesome. Yeah.
¶ The new generation of IT
What are your thoughts on the the youth coming through the IT department today? Are you you know, I think that
bring humanity into leadership is universal. However, you know, from a management standpoint and leadership standpoint, is there any difference when you're working to build rapport and to get the most out of some of the younger generation that are coming through IT, compared to those that have been around for a couple of decades, personality differences that you're noticing or any tactics that are more effective?
People are people, right? You want to feel cared for, you want to feel like you're valued, you want to feel like you matter. And that it's important that it's you and not somebody else in that chair. Right. I think, you know, we got people at all different stages of their career here are people that are ready to retire, people that still have a few years and people that are younger than my youngest, you know, just
starting out their career. To me, what's important is, well, you got to, you got to communicate with everybody a little differently, you know, the communication is a little different, but spending time with them, you know, in my office and understanding what their goals are, what their challenges are, where they need help, where they, you know, where they see themselves exceeding, you know, and things
like that is really helpful. I actually especially take a little more time with the younger staff coming in, because they're not thinking for the most part of their career and their career path. Nobody's ever asked them what they want their business card to say when they retire. You know, nobody's ever asked them what they want their career to look like in five or 10 years. And so they have to really spend a lot of time
thinking about that. But just asking that question and getting them to think about that, and making sure they know that it's important to you is huge. And that's true of people in the middle of their career as well. Maybe nobody's ever asked them their entire career, and they've been in the industry for 20 years, just spending that time with them, hey, where do you want to go? And let's see how we can get you there. Give me a
project that that lines up with that and things like that. So you can get some experience and see if that's really what you want to do. I know anybody on my team says they want to go into leadership. I mean, they they buckle up, because they know it's coming. And, you know, we're reading books, and we're talking about them. And, you know, we're giving the behind the scenes. You know, why did I say this a certain way, why did
I write this email like that. And this was my goal. And that kind of I can peek behind the curtain, so to speak, and they can understand, you know, how much effort is really put into it. And they can see if that's what they really want to do. But I think that's really what it is, is understanding. Just like you guys, when you're working with, if you're working with a technology leader, what they say they want sometimes isn't what
their goals really are, right? You have to kind of discover the best way to solve to solve that problem, right?
And that's hard to do if there's not trust in the relationship. So I feel like it's a full circle conversation, right? There's investments into that. And then it creates a nice cohesive relationship for us to take a seat, you know, in the front seat with them and help them really roadmap like you said, you want this but maybe this is actually what you want playing a part in that is special.
Vulnerability plays a pretty key part in relationship building. You know, I think I think in our industry, you run across a lot of people that certainly like to have the appearance that they know everything. That they can solve all of your problems. That doesn't bring about trust, from from my experience, you know, I think leading with some level of vulnerability, of humanity, you know, humility in a way and coming across in a manner that, look, there are ways that you
might be able to help but you're still human. And if you don't know, the answers to questions, you want to demonstrate that you'll go find the answers. You don't you don't have to be an expert in everything. Leading with humility is a way that I've think personally, I've been able to form some of my closest relationships is they've gotten to know me as a flawed person, as a flawed individual. Whoever, whatever IT leader that I'm working with, if you lead this way, they will reciprocate and
they will open up in that manner. So yeah, I'd say leading with humility has certainly been one of my most powerful strategies to bring about a deep rapport.
Yeah because I told my team if I got the best idea in the room, we're messing up. I mean, because, you know, they're, they're amazing. I got the best team in the state. I mean, they're just fantastic and got the awards to prove it. That's right. And I want I need to get them like to address this point, they need to feel safe, and they need to have that
trust. That's one mistake I think a lot of leaders make is when they're promoted, now, they feel like they have to have all the answers, they have to be the best in the room they have to.
And that's not true. Otherwise, why would you have the team? You know, if you could do it all, then why do you have a team, you have that team for the different points of view and, and, and the different abilities that they bring, it's not just a pair of hands, to do your ideas, you know, and, and when I came here, and I was able to say, Hey, this is what I like, the way I would bring them into that is, you know, a lot of times people are
afraid to disagree with the boss. I would have to give them kind of permission. So I would say, Hey, I think this tells me where this is wrong. Or tell me where this goes bad. And so I'm giving them the permission then to disagree with me. And that's what started it. Now, I'm always wrong. You know, now, they always have, there's always a better idea in the room, which is wonderful, which is exactly why I have everyone there. And
you know, I start with this, and then they build on it. And then someone else builds on that inside innovation that just was talking about earlier, just kind of steamrolls until we have something that's really, really cool.
You're able to storytell specific engagements, or just like action items that you created that have actually developed your team to, to grow and meet the objectives that you were you were looking for, right like to I'm sure a lot of leaders say I want to create a space of innovation, right? That's the goal. But in you saying you open up conversations to make them feel comfortable to tell you how you're wrong or tell you how things could feel differently. Like that's that's
action. And I feel like that's that's the difference maybe that some leaders don't have or could be looking for to fill that gap. So I think your perspective is, is really, really cool and hopefully it will help a lot of people who choose to listen.
¶ Discussing culture change
When a lot of people talk about culture change, when I hear leaders talk to me about culture change. A lot of times they talk about it as how they want the team to change. And that's not how it works, right? The culture in the room is a reaction to me. Right? It's they react to the leader, for the most part. And if I see something that I don't like in the first place, I need to look in the mirror and say, What am I doing that's allowing or promoting that behavior? And
then then I can address it. And that perspective of I'm the first person that needs to change is essential to creating this environment. And like I talked about changing culture, I speak quite a bit. And I'll do it with people on my team in the room. Yeah, so if I if I wasn't saying what I what I what I actually do, that would be incredibly disruptive.
But the change begins with the leader, not the other way around. I think that is a perfect message to leave on here as we conclude our conversation. Glenn, how can people find you if we have our listeners that would like to bounce some ideas off of you or learn from your experience?
I'm really active on LinkedIn. There's not too many Hasteadts on LinkedIn, or any I don't think so I'm really active on LinkedIn. And you know, if you want to reach out if you need, want me to come talk to your group, or talk at your conference, that would be powerincaring.com, powerincaring.com. And that's a great way to get in touch with me there too.
Thank you, Glenn and Jess for hopping on the IT Matters podcast. We will include how to get in contact with Glenn in the show notes. We appreciate you tuning in to the IT Matters Podcast. For support in assessing your technology needs, please book a call with one of our technology advisors at opkalla.com. And if you found this episode helpful, we'd love it if you share the podcast with someone who you think might gain value from it, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or rate
us on Spotify. Take care everyone, we'll see you next time.
Thanks for listening. The IT Matters Podcast is produced by Opkalla, an IT advisory firm that helps businesses navigate the vast and complex IT marketplace. Learn more about Opkalla at opkalla.com.