AGP Ep 6: Morgan Strong—Geeks make better leaders, and vice versa
Morgan Strong is a consultant and digital developer for Gaia Resources. He’s an experienced leader with impressive accomplishments in digital design and transformation programs. But he’s currently happy being back in a more hands-on role. Listen to hear why, and how he leverages the experience of both types of roles to improve what he does.
Listen
Show notes
- My guest’s opinions are their own and not those of their employer
- Gaia Resources
- The Sonic BollART project
- Morgan’s entry for GovHack 2015
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Credits
- Music by David Cutter
Topics/Transcript
Topics
- Morgan’s early career in technical roles
- Managing identity and credibility while transitioning between technical and management/leadership positions
- Solving technical problems vs solving customer problems
- What Morgan’s DBA has added to his journey
- Habits and skills that support leadership
- Key skills for a tech lead
- Dealing with difficult people
Quotable
- 11:40 “Ultimately our job as professionals is to try to solve problems for the customer in the best way that’s going to keep them out of trouble, mitigate risks that they may not be aware of and provide the most value to them” — Andrew Ramsden
- 13:15 “If everyone is not respecting each other, you’re going to end up with half-arse solutions on all fronts” —Morgan Strong
- 14:51 “I have been in workplaces where there were a lot of project managers and there seems to always be a bit of pride in NOT being technical. I could not understand that for the life of me!” —Morgan Strong
- 32:00 “Experience vs talent. When you’re young you’re trying to impress too much. Keep it simple”—Morgan Strong
- 38:53 “There is almost always a universal non-use value component, where everyone sees the value in doing things even if you ask them ‘would you use it?’ they say ‘I don’t know, but it’s important that it’s done’.” —Morgan Strong
- 43:04 “I just found I was never the best developer but I was certainly better with the clients than better developers were” —Morgan Strong
- 43:37 “I don’t think I take offense to hearing stuff that wasn’t strictly correct” —Morgan Strong
- 44:02 “It’s very difficult to not be reactionary when presenting something that you have ownership over” —Morgan Strong
- 44:08 “Often reactions that come from customers on presentations are based on context that you don’t really understand” —Morgan Strong
- 47:33 “If you’re confident, but you’re still willing to listen to everyone, then you’ll learn and deliver a lot more”—Morgan Strong
- 50:24 “You have to find out what the customer’s deep pain is, even if they may not be aware of it themselves, but they gave you enough information so that you can find out.” —Andrew Ramsden