130. Is Your Management Fostering High-Level Performance? with Daniel Millbank

Daniel Millbank

Daniel is responsible for the successful completion of strategic initiatives around all aspects of IT, information architecture, knowledge management, and process improvement. With over two decades of experience in the technology field, he’s not only managed highly technical projects but also put an intentional focus on fostering healthy cultures, developing passionate people, and creating powerful technology capabilities that have directly benefited thousands of users.

Is Your Management Fostering High-Level Performance? with Daniel Millbank

This Dissecting Popular IT Nerds Podcast is on leading the right way, introducing guest Daniel Millbank, an expert in IT management, as he and host Phil Howard discuss what it really takes to foster digital transformation in your workplace.

Discover why you MUST utilize every single person on the payroll, from dock worker to CEO. Set up a real productivity framework and make a plan to find the people who support your company vision ASAP. Uncover practices that turn C and D players into A-gamers. Ultimately, see how elevated company morale and hyper-productivity begins with one person: you.

Deploying a solution is 30%. The other 70% is adoption.

3 Key Takeaways

Listen To The Full Episode Below

Dissecting Popular IT Nerds

130. Is Your Management Fostering High-Level Performance? with Daniel Millbank

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Episode Show Notes

[3:40] Daniel introduces himself and his company

Specializing in rolled goods
- Success often comes from being willing to do things that other people hate to do
Phil’s fascination with memory

[6:20] Daniel’s feature on using digital transformation to take your company to the next level

Working at a non-profit school for 18 years
- His experience with saving money with good technology
- Logistics is known for being behind in technology
- Starting a job where everything was at square one

Where he is today

[12:50] Some of the biggest problems and measurable results after Daniel took on the old software

It was easy to show value at first because things were mismanaged
Stopping the bleeding first
- Easily saving half a million dollars in the first year
Talking early with his team about what they’d been shielded on
- Restructuring them to have the power to make decisions

[18:40] MSP as one of the reasons Phil decided to take a different path occupationally

The top things Daniel saw that were bleeding money
- Inefficiencies
- No proper solutions process
- Too many top-down decisions
“When you start pushing your way of thinking and your choice of technology onto employees, the resistance that builds becomes the most costly of any mistakes.” -Daniel Millbank
- This goes down to the forklift driver and the dock worker!
“Deploying a solution is 30%. The other 70% is adoption.” -Daniel Millbank
- Partner with everyone in the company

[24:00] How Daniel went around with a notebook to ask employees for great ideas

“It is probably the most rewarding experience ever to hear employees come back and say ‘You actually listened to us.'” -Daniel Millbank
- Ask: “Where’s my stuff, and how can I get it?”

[28:00] Daniel explains how languages become a reflex

You have to immerse yourself in it

[30:00] How Daniel hires for digital transformation

“You need to align yourself with a specific person that aligns themselves with what you’re trying to accomplish.” -Daniel Millbank
- So they agree with your vision and values? Is their work ethic there?
- Ask them what they want
- Are they clear about their own goals?
It’s not easy to teach!
- You don’t get rewarded in school for collaborating together on an assignment

[36:40] About hiring

Ask where they want to be in two or three years
“Let’s recreate your resume into what you want it to look like.” -Daniel Millbank
How do you know the con artists?
The IT part of it is less of the focus; look at the person and ask if you can teach them
Be persistent and outperform the guy who hires you
If you don’t like what you’re doing, let’s get you somewhere else

[44:00] New behavioral questions to ask in the interview

Tell me about a time you saw a problem you knew nothing about and what was your approach to it? Who did they reach out and delegate to?
Watch out for the closet IT guy
- Are you opening up new revenues that people can handle?
- Do they read? Do they listen to podcasts? Do they use a calendar?

[50:00] How do you make B and C players A players?

That’s where you come in as a leader and manager
Teach them goal-setting, impassioned
Trust and respect go both ways
- “Instill the uncommon serve and leadership mentality” -Daniel Millbank

“The user is not the idiot because they don’t know what you know.” -Daniel Millbank

[53:00] The Servant Leader by James A. Autry

Ask questions as a leader
“Understand how your people work. When you give them a task, is there resistance there?” -Daniel Millbank
Is it intellectual, emotional, or is it a personal thing?
Be willing to have the difficult conversations
- Understand that you are a buffer
Daniel’s cake analogy
- The respond-ability quote from The Seven Daily Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Transitioning from a merely transactional vendor relationship into a partner relationship

[1:05:50] Sometimes people just don’t know, so they can’t be expected to know everything about it

Daniel Millbank

Is Your Management Fostering High-Level Performance? with Daniel Millbank

3 Key Takeaways

Listen To The Full Episode Below

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