IT Leaders

00;00;00;19 - 00;00;20;00
Joe Rogalski
Okay. Well, I was really glad to hear Doug say that he's got the speakers lined up for the rest of the year, and they're really good, because I'm about to set the bar really low for you all. So every time you come here, you can, you can you can step it up. So I'm Joe Rogalsk I am vice president of information technology at Delta Force, tech company Delta Force.

00;00;20;00 - 00;00;43;18
Joe Rogalski
The company is just up the road. I lead a team of about 60 IT professionals. Our company is about 2500 across, five domestic manufacturing facilities. One international. And hopefully, you know, of our company, we make products for the kitchen and bath. Most commonly our faucets, both in the, kitchen and bathroom faucets. But we make showerheads and, shower and clothes.

00;00;43;20 - 00;01;01;02
Joe Rogalski
Closure's bathing products. Does anyone have a Delta Force in their. In their house? Okay, good, good. I always hate it when I go to, like, conferences or events, and I don't see our brand there. So, but we're also getting into technology, so, hopefully some of you may have experienced our touch faucets, where you tap it on like a cell phone.

00;01;01;02 - 00;01;20;06
Joe Rogalski
It comes on, it comes off. We've added voice capabilities to that, to so you can talk to your faucet to dispense some water or fill up a coffee pot, fill the dog bowl if you want it. Kind of kind of cool stuff. And we're going more into different product categories. We just launched our reverse osmosis tankless reverse osmosis under sink.

00;01;20;08 - 00;01;39;28
Joe Rogalski
Water filtration system. We have a shower filter. Now that takes chlorine out of your showerhead. You can retrofit to your current showerhead and various products that we're getting into. When Delta faucet for six years. Prior to that, I was overseas working in Sydney, Australia for about eight years, living and working for a couple of companies there.

00;01;40;00 - 00;02;15;06
Joe Rogalski
First company was Lion Proprietary Limited, which is a consumer beverages organization that produced, beer, wine and spirits for Australia, New Zealand. Also they had a dairy division and it produced, milk, yogurts, cheeses and juice. Is there any beer where my beer geeks in the audience here. Okay. Lion. Although they were regionally in Australia, New Zealand, you don't know their brands over here, but their brands were like Tooheys or Forex or, Little Creatures, but they, have recently acquired some craft breweries in the States.

00;02;15;06 - 00;02;38;01
Joe Rogalski
So for those that don't know, they made an acquisition of Bell's Brewing out of Michigan. So little unknown fact, they acquired them in 2021, and also, New Belgium Brewing out of Colorado. They they have a ownership stake in them. Prior to that, I worked for an, company that was an industrial manufacturer for the mining and minerals industry that was called We Are Group.

00;02;38;04 - 00;03;02;12
Joe Rogalski
So we made these big industrial products, these big pumps and valves and cyclones and centrifuges and crushers and grinders and all sorts of things for the mining, the minerals industry. And before that, I kind of cut my teeth in the.com. So I'm a, I'm a product of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I got my, bachelor of science and computer science, so I'd like to say I have a B.S. and CSE.

00;03;02;15 - 00;03;22;04
Joe Rogalski
But, I was a poor college student trying to make websites at the time for, for supporting my, my, my college career. So that's a little bit about me. Let's, let's learn a little bit about you. So, Oh, this is not working. This did work.

00;03;22;06 - 00;03;45;21
Joe Rogalski
Doug, you told me to get up. Oh, geez. We seen one of those before. Anyone who knows, who knows what fails on that the most? The end user. Yeah, yeah. All right. Oh. There we go. Now it's work. See? Now it's working. Okay, I can't stand that little trackball and the BlackBerry 8000. This thing sucks. I'm glad it's gone.

00;03;45;22 - 00;04;05;09
Joe Rogalski
I'm glad we have these phones that don't have any of those things anymore. Who supported one of these in the past? Who continues to support one of these today? Hopefully, hopefully no one. How many of you remember this old, social media platform? Oh, wait, I think it's back up online right now. I think they've they've authorized this.

00;04;05;09 - 00;04;27;08
Joe Rogalski
And how many now know this company's name? As of yesterday? Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah, this is Deep six. So they've, caused a little bit of a stir in, the technology world. The market? Yeah. For those of you who are Nvidia, he lost about 17% yesterday. So that's that's not good. But, maybe by an opportunity, who knows?

00;04;27;10 - 00;04;46;05
Joe Rogalski
So why share all these? Well, this is all about change, right? I mean, some of you, like these technologies and all these technologies have used these technologies. But changes is all throughout our industry. And I think in it, we're we're accustomed to change. And, change happens at a very, a very fast pace. So my presentation about leading through change.

00;04;46;08 - 00;04;59;09
Joe Rogalski
But when I looked at this, I think this is a there's a fundamentally incorrect statement about this presentation. This is wrong. Does anyone know why this is wrong?

00;04;59;11 - 00;05;16;28
Joe Rogalski
Okay. Right. Thank you. Yeah. Getting through change. Sounds like you're going to. You're going to have a start and an end, right? That's kind of like you're going to get through an exam. Or are you going to get through that appointment or more recently for me? You're going to get through Christmas dinner with your in-laws. But you never get through that.

00;05;16;28 - 00;05;38;22
Joe Rogalski
But it's really. I'm going to change this on you. It's leading with change. So I think you got to get this idea of getting through something kind of out of your minds, because you're always going to have it. And especially for us in technology, it's going to come at a very fast pace. So leading with change. You know, as us and technology, we have to be accustomed to this and we can't, like, lead through what we have to lead with it.

00;05;38;25 - 00;06;05;25
Joe Rogalski
The times of technology is that you saw on the previous page or just a spot in time. So really, right now, given the advent of technology, we're experienced change at the fastest pace ever in our lives. There was a recent study, that has shown that on average, individuals, click, tap, swipe or contact their phone 2716 times a day.

00;06;05;28 - 00;06;24;13
Joe Rogalski
You're always after it. It's always demanding your attention. They're going after it. And for the top 10% of that study, they said that the top 10% were 50, 400 times a day, so almost twice that, which is crazy. So while this is great, we're experiencing change at a breakneck speed in the fastest times of our lives.

00;06;24;15 - 00;06;56;26
Joe Rogalski
Guess what? The irony is, it's also the slowest time that you'll ever experience change in your life. Because when does technology stop? Never. When your company stopped changing. When your team stopped changing. And when do you stop changing? So I guess my whole point in saying this is that instead of leading through change, thinking that there is some sort of end process at that at the time you get through it, you guys leaders have to figure out how to lead with change, and you constantly leading with change, and it's going to continue to come at you at a faster pace than before.

00;06;56;28 - 00;07;17;15
Joe Rogalski
So my point today is to give you like three strategies to try to lead with change. Hopefully there's something you can take away a little bit of edutainment today. And hopefully you can get some, some, some connection here. So my first strategy with you is that with all this technology, you start to be human about the things that are happening in your organizations and in your in your daily lives.

00;07;17;18 - 00;07;36;22
Joe Rogalski
You know, I think the big thing here is to leverage emotional intelligence. Just that off. It was kind of popular a few years back, but I think it's still relevant, for, for us today, as we think about how do we go through, and lead our teams with change? So you a model here in a little bit, but understand and accept that people move through change at very different paces.

00;07;36;24 - 00;07;54;00
Joe Rogalski
Some go through it very quickly. Some take a lot of time to, to get through to the, to, to the final state. And really, this is a way for you to be able to show your leadership, authenticity, to appreciate where people are at in their journey. And not to kind of force them all the way through, into the end.

00;07;54;02 - 00;08;11;23
Joe Rogalski
So hopefully, I'm going to share with you a model that I quite like. Is anyone here named Sarah, by the way? We have any. Sarah's in the audience. Okay. I don't know if I'd offend anyone if I was, having the ceremonial change, but I love this model. It's a really good model. Does anyone know of this model at all?

00;08;11;27 - 00;08;36;05
Joe Rogalski
Seeing this model a little bit. Oh, good. Okay. This is a modification of a of a Kubler-Ross change model on grief, actually. It stems from from that model. But it's been kind of revamped for the mainly project management. But I like to use it for for change and kind of going through, through change. And so when I share the model, it's really couple at a couple of different accesses here.

00;08;36;07 - 00;09;01;12
Joe Rogalski
The first one on the left is really that positive state of mind. And the bottom it's just going going through the time sequence. So any change that you're introducing in your company, whether that's upgrading software, introducing a new capability, making a major department structural shift or even reorganizing, reorganizing an entire, entire department. I like this is a nice model for us to use and think about how people and the humanistic side of things are going through change.

00;09;01;14 - 00;09;18;26
Joe Rogalski
And Sarah, here you go. This is what the acronym stands for. First time you introduce a change. How many people are really comfortable with it? No one. Everyone hates it because it's unfamiliar. Because it's not natural. We're not we're not sure what to think of it. So the first thing you see is a shock. People are pretty shocked when they hear about a change.

00;09;18;26 - 00;09;38;13
Joe Rogalski
They're kind of in that positive state of mind moving along pretty well. But, but you just introduce something to them or something introduced to you, and you feel that, your body doesn't want to know the unfamiliar. So you react to that. Kind of through this, through shock. And so it gets worse than that. You kind of go into this other phase, which is anger.

00;09;38;16 - 00;09;56;08
Joe Rogalski
Why is that happening to me from your teammates? Why? Why is that happening to you or why is it happening to us? So you kind of move from this shock phase into this anger phase. And as time goes on, you get into even more rejection. Like, I'll never. I'm not I'm not going to ever go on to deep sea.

00;09;56;11 - 00;10;18;02
Joe Rogalski
I'm not going to go on to that TikTok thing. We have to keep our windows NT platform stable. An environment. We need to have the blackberries. Who the heck would want an iPhone in their corporate environment that's insecure? We would never want to do that. Speaking from experience. So, you go through these phases, but hopefully, you know, over time you kind of hit that bottom, but you know, that there's, there's a pathway forward you can get out of it.

00;10;18;04 - 00;10;33;08
Joe Rogalski
So on the upside, you think of, well, you know what? Things are not good. If I don't change, that's not going to change with me. So I'm just going to have to figure out a way to accept it and get through it. And really, that brings me to the last part of it. And that finishes out the acronym, which is hope.

00;10;33;12 - 00;10;54;20
Joe Rogalski
Kind of the Sarah model of Change for Hope. Again, I like this because it's been used in project management when you're introducing technology change. But it's a really simple model. Simple acronym to understand where people are at, trying to be human and being humanistic about how you're introducing change or even how change is happening to you, and how you're going through those feelings.

00;10;54;22 - 00;11;27;01
Joe Rogalski
Okay. Next one. Feedback. So, I like to think of feedback as a leadership gift. And this is not natural for us. And it. We are a lot of introverts. We are all natural introverts, because we like to have predictability. We like to have, a pathway of, of, of certainty. And even we're probably incented to have that in our organizations getting paid to make sure that systems don't go down, that you can build parts, ship parts, that you can implement new technology without without failure.

00;11;27;03 - 00;11;56;18
Joe Rogalski
So, feedback is a way to sort of seek, source feedback from all levels and sort of seek input from different areas and different perspectives. Now, I encourage you to do this like, like from a 360 standpoint, from your peers, from your employees, from your leaders. It's really great to, to have that perspective. And then, because we are it is generally an introvert tastic, profession provide multiple channels for feedback.

00;11;56;21 - 00;12;20;10
Joe Rogalski
We're in a remote world today. So, some people like to send text messages, hit you up on teams, various other things. Or we can have a formal presentation or be in person. Some ways I like to get feedback is to go and do skip levels. So, you know, my direct reports, I like to meet with their teams and sort of understand how they're how they're doing and how they're going with either changes or things that are happening in the environment.

00;12;20;12 - 00;12;39;06
Joe Rogalski
You also like to do anniversary chat, so it's easy for you and your, teams to figure out who when they started. Celebrate their, their, annual anniversary and get feedback from them. So find out ways to, to be able to to to create a channel for feedback and solicit information from those teams. Now you have to be open to feedback.

00;12;39;06 - 00;12;59;26
Joe Rogalski
And I love what the, the leader sort of talked about, which was the listening skills. And so, there's another model that I'll use, on this second strategy, which is about the three levels of leadership. Now you might practice some of these. These are kind of fun to try out on your spouse. The first couple of them are, so the first level is level one.

00;13;00;03 - 00;13;17;10
Joe Rogalski
I'm listening to win. Okay. I'm listen to your view only so I can counter it with my view. And I want to win it the same. You know what? You're married. Nope. I'm not married yet. I've got two young kids. You never do that. Yeah, I've got a nine and six year old, and I often listen to win quite a bit.

00;13;17;13 - 00;13;33;26
Joe Rogalski
I'll just say it. But I think we, as we laugh, we all kind of can, can know what that feels like, what that looks like. And I think, that's probably not going to get you a lot of feedback and a lot of open and honest feedback. Now, you might graduate to the next level, which is listen to fix.

00;13;33;28 - 00;13;51;00
Joe Rogalski
So I'm waiting for you to finish because I want to fix what you think. And I'm going to tell you what to do. And I apologize if there any, spouses who are doctors. That was just what I could find on Microsoft. As far as someone who was listening to fix. But listen to and listen to fix.

00;13;51;00 - 00;14;08;14
Joe Rogalski
But really, what you want to get through it to, to a place of empathy is listen to learn. So I know that my perspective is just one, but I want to understand the how others see the situation so I can get a broader view of what's happening and sort of understand where where others are at. And it's not to say we're always in the listen to learn.

00;14;08;17 - 00;14;30;12
Joe Rogalski
I mean, I have a colleague here that can tell you that I probably sometimes I'm in these in these spots over here. But try to just remember, remember to to to be open to listening. Be open to feedback. Be receptive to that. To be able to help through. Help, help. Help lead with change. The last radical end is just really reframing sort of the idea of change.

00;14;30;15 - 00;14;52;02
Joe Rogalski
Although it's uncomfortable and unfamiliar with everyone. It really is an opportunity for growth. And I think hopefully you leave here today seeing that change is really growth. It's new and different, and your body and your mind react very differently. When something new happens and it's not familiar to you, but see you as a, as a, as an opportunity for growth or development, but also don't be afraid to fail.

00;14;52;05 - 00;15;15;21
Joe Rogalski
You know, a lot of great things never came right the first time anyone tried it or I wouldn't. Anyone tried to do that to their teams or to themselves. And you got to be open and willing to, to to, accept failure in order to get to a better place of, of yourselves and growth. So hopefully, you know, this, this I saw something recently last week just on this acronym of change, which I thought was great.

00;15;15;23 - 00;15;43;21
Joe Rogalski
So reframing change for yourselves and for your teams and for your organizations. And I'll leave it with you today. So think of it as constantly having amazing new growth experiences. Yay! Yeah. Doesn't mean you like it. No, but it's growth. And, you know, now that you have that different experience with you, you know how to handle the next time you're going to have change.

00;15;43;24 - 00;16;10;10
Joe Rogalski
And because change is coming so fast that you, you know how to be able to adapt and you think of you, if you've had something in the past that you can apply that now to the to the future. So really, instead of, you know, it doesn't mean eliminate fear of change. You're always going to have fear of change, but just reframe it to a way that you can see it as, as growth within, your functions, your own self or your functions or, your organization's.

00;16;10;13 - 00;16;33;18
Joe Rogalski
Okay. I'll leave you with this. Anyone know who this individual is? One of my favorite quotes. I hope you don't, because that would kind of spoil the whole presentation, but, but this individual, had a little bit to know about change. Wrote a pretty big book, called The Origin of Species, and he says it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent.

00;16;33;20 - 00;17;04;24
Joe Rogalski
It's the one most adaptable to change. And that's from Charles Darwin and his origin of species. Attributed to Leon Magnuson. I think that's a pretty profound quote, because it sort of summarizes sort of how we, as you know, humans and or like organisms sort of need to adapt to change and especially of us in it, sort of thinking about how to reframe ourselves to be able to, to lead, not just only us, but our teams and our organizations, throughout, throughout change.

00;17;04;27 - 00;17;22;16
Joe Rogalski
So I went through that quite, quite, quite fast. I want to thank you for your time today. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be with you here. It's my first time. I want to thank Doug for being able to, to, all organize and coordinate these things. And it's great to see some familiar faces, but even better, see some unfamiliar faces.

00;17;22;16 - 00;17;28;20
Joe Rogalski
So, happy to to to to meet with you afterwards. So thank you for that. And, the other day.