Leading With Insight Welcome to Leading With Insight
We’re on a mission to empower current and future leaders through continuous learning and development.
By Insight Editor / 8 May 2023 / Topics: Culture & careers Solutions Integrator
By Insight Editor / 8 May 2023 / Topics: Culture & careers Solutions Integrator
Welcome to Leading With Insight, our new leadership podcast where we inspire leaders to become their most ambitious selves. In this premiere episode, we meet our hosts, Z Tinoco and Richard Rieves, who explain what Leading With Insight is, why you should listen and what you can expect in future episodes.
To experience this week’s episode, listen on the player above, watch the conversation below or scroll down to read a complete transcript. You can also subscribe to Leading With Insight on Apple Podcasts, Pandora and Spotify.
Audio transcript:
Z Tinoco
What is leading with insight and why should you listen to this podcast? In today's episode, we're going to answer that question and much more.
Richard Rieves
So to set the stage, let's tell us. Tell the audience a little bit about ourselves.
Z
My name is Z Tinoco. I am a diversity leadership and O.D. specialist here at Insight Enterprises. Now, what that is is basically responsible for all the leadership and team development across the whole organization, primarily around North America, the Philippines and India. A little bit about my history. I've been, oh my gosh, in the industry or within sight now going on nine years previously, I've been part of the communication and entertainment industry, the education sales, and also I was a college adjunct faculty for about five years.
Z
So quite extensive background. But again, by far being here at inside and working in this industry has been the most exciting career choice of my of my life. What about you?
Richard
That's awesome and definitely hard to follow up, but. So my name is Richard Reeves and I'm a paid media specialist here for the brand team at INSIGHT. I've been in paid media for going on six years now. Love it. Everything across the board, anything digital that it touches, paid media I'm involved in.
Z
So right on the interesting story. So why do we start this podcast really quick? So Rich and I met I was doing besides being the manager of the leadership and team development workshops here at Insight, I also get tapped on the shoulder to do some emcee work, whether it's in opening the building here in our new headquarters in Chandler, Arizona, a lot of our sales, rallies and different events.
Z
Rich, if I can recommend you approach me, right? You're just like, hey, you know, I'm curious of what you do. I like to set up some time with you. And then the conversation went from there. Exactly.
Richard
The rest is history. And just ask was very inquisitive. Wanted to learn more about what you do and how to get involved. And now we're here.
Z
Yeah. And my understanding and what I love about we're going to talk a lot about this in our episode is that you were proactively reached out or you had a mentor that then recommended to for you to connect with me and kind of went from and then went from there.
Richard
Yeah, absolutely.
Z
That's great, man. And again, a lot of our conversations and you've been doing a lot of stretch assignments for us and this project came up and then we said, Hey, why don't you just join me as a co-host? And here we are today.
Richard
Yeah, great. I'm excited. So actually, let's tell the audience who who is inside. I'm sure they're curious.
Z
Well, inside we are the lead leaning solutions integrator. And what that means, it means that we help organizations with their i.t. Initiatives and with that meaning that, hey, if you are having an issue when it comes to automation, if you're trying to find a creative way to make things run smoother, easier for your organization, for your team, for your employees, for your customers, and leveraging technology and leveraging people.
Z
We are your preferred partner in that space. We'll be talking a lot about that and talking about the amazing things that we do and even bring you some case studies and examples of the amazing things that we do here for our clients and what we have to offer. So that's really it. Now, the history we started were founded by two brothers, both Tim and Eric Crown, in the late eighties and an interesting story, they started selling hard drives.
Z
Those hard those called hard drive hard drive international. And from there it just never stopped, man. And the cool thing is that we still have, you know, see, see the founders. We have interactions with their people. We have one as part of the board. And it's it's just been grown since then, man. And, you know, started Tempe and now we're in Chandler, Arizona and headquartered in Chandler.
Richard
Yeah, definitely not mad about the headquarters, right? It's an amazing headquarters.
Z
Well, we didn't have a studio, any other headquarters, so that's a plus. I mean, take this out and shout out to all of our our production team. Yeah, they've been amazing. I'm they're actually here right now making sure that we look good on camera. So thank you all. Our everybody and everything that makes this happen for us.
Richard
Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about our purpose and values here at INSIGHT.
Z
Yeah, of course, it it's interesting. We just recently had a a rebrand, you can say, or just a refresh when it comes to our purpose. Actually, there's been three iterations that I've been with inside, but I think the one we currently have really speaks to what we do and why, why we do it right. A lot a lot of us talk about the why and that's, you know, coined by Simon Sinek, The Golden Circle.
Z
But it's important for as an organization to understand, like, why why do we do what we do? And what we do here is that we accelerate transformation by unlocking the power of people and technology. Oh, do that. I mean, I just I just I just like the way that sounds, right. First of all, we accelerate, you know, transformation.
Z
And think about that for a second. I mean, how how quickly are we transforming and innovating nowadays? I mean, a lot faster every day, right? I mean, when was the last time you got an iPhone or an update on your phone?
Richard
Oh, updates much sooner, but iPhones release every year. So, you know, everybody's trying to get the latest and greatest.
Z
Latest efforts, I guess even sooner than that. Right. Feels like it's like six months here to say, wait a minute, I just got the, you know, whatever the latest version. And you're like, no, I got this next one. You're like, what? Yeah. So just thinking about this, the phones in general, but then you think about everything else and you think about industries like how many industries have have developed since the pandemic, how many industries have gone since the pandemic, and then how many industries have accelerated their you know, their industries rise?
Z
There's been a lot of that. So the cool thing is that we help organizations, you know, be relevant and stay up to date.
Richard
That's awesome. So you mentioned we accelerate transformation by unlocking the power of people and technology and a little bit about how we do that and bringing in our company values with hunger, heart and harmony. So can you elaborate a little bit of, you know, bringing in those company values as core values and, you know, being able to.
Z
Yeah, no, it's interesting you brought that up because when I first joined inside, I think we had about nine or ten values. Right. And that's always a story I tell a lot of our new hires. A new leader is new teammates. I join INSIGHT because I think to bring this to organizations that have, you know, it just seems pretty standard.
Z
They have all these values and people forget about them. They I remember that they were people who went behind their badges. And if you ever hadn't lived worked, an organization would go behind their badge. But I'll start collecting dust or said to get worn and you don't even know. And you'd have to go back and look at.
Richard
Nine's a lot to remember.
Z
Nine is a lot to remember. So yeah, the cool thing is we had an amazing, amazing marketing team and they came in and did a tremendous refresh and they narrowed down to three and honestly, when, when you think about it, it really encompasses those nine. It didn't really didn't go away. Maybe some got replaced, but they kind of we just simplified them into three, which is hunger, heart and harmony.
Z
And also like the three ages, right is easy. Remember, three is triple h and from there you then start to understand, well, what does that mean? What is what does it mean to have hunger and harmony and heart? And then we clearly defined them. But then a lot of times we just kind of just see it in action, right?
Z
When we talk about hunger. And that's one that we right now are really striving to accelerate, is saying, hey, we really want to be not only were the leading solutions integrator, but we want to be that. We want to be that for forever moving forward. Right. We want to sustain that a little bit. So how do we show hunger is by being ambitious, right?
Z
By looking for something that hasn't been done before, raising your hand and speaking up by seeing adversity or seeing a challenge. Right. I think, again, going back to the pandemic, a lot of organizations, if they didn't have that hunger and desire to move forward and lean into it, probably struggle would probably challenge or probably no longer exist. But the ones that do thrive and then accelerate so that one harmony getting not only getting along with your colleagues and getting along with others in the department, but leaning into those difficult conversations, really tackling those difficult conversation lines and working through that and moving forward.
Z
And then, of course, heart, as we know, is really caring not only for our clients, but our teammates in our, you know, in everybody around us. Right. Make sure we understand. And that really helps us as well. You don't want teammates working from home, remote checking in. How are you doing? So our values were just I mean, they just we're just playing them every single day.
Z
What are your thoughts on our values?
Richard
Oh yeah, I am fully in support of it, actually. That's one of the many reasons why I came and joined the Insight team is because of our values and then just kind of being inside the culture and living it and breathing it is like a breath of fresh air. You step in and there's a lot of companies that will talk about values and then you step into the organizations like, Whoa, where did they go?
Richard
But you step into insight and you're like, Oh, wow, these guys really practice what they preach and you know, they take it to heart. And, you know, they live by these values, these core values.
Z
So I'm glad you brought that up, because it is it is a thing that a big differentiator when it comes. Other organizations that I hear constantly, right. With teammates that, you know, have found other opportunity somewhere else. And then they leave and then they connect with us again and go and you know what? Yeah, you know, it's it's hard to replicate somewhere else.
Z
Like we truly live and follow and practice what you preach when it comes to our values, right? Or when they come from other organizations. Right. They go, wow, like, wait a minute. It's not just something that people just post or just, you know, that we're taught and nobody nobody follows through.
Richard
Right. Exactly. This is actually a good segue way. So let me ask you another question. How do we lead here at INSIGHT?
Z
Yeah. What is this is a leadership podcast. So. Right. I mean, the reason why you should be listening to is because this podcast is around leadership and around insight leadership specifically. So great question in a lot of you probably want to know, okay, what sets you apart, right? Because it's there's there's tons of it. There's books, there's research.
Z
But what makes us different here at INSIGHT is that, you know, we take it we take it seriously and we lean into it. And we are we develop a culture of learning because no matter what your level of expertize, experience and leadership is, when you come to insight, if you come in thinking, I know it all like I've been in I've been in leadership for 20, 50 years.
Z
That's amazing. But you have to come in with an open mind set with a growth mindset and willing to continue to learn and understand that, hey, I understand that I've been doing this for a while, but I don't know at all. And I want to get better and I want to stay up to date from for not only for myself.
Z
Yes. As a board. Right. To be relevant, to have update information, but also from my teammates and from our organization. But if you come in as a leader and say, and I've been in leadership forever, I don't need to go through any of this or I can skip that or what have you, then that's usually a red flag for us, right?
Z
It's like, okay, you want we want leaders who have that continuous education mindset, that growth mindset. So that's the first step. That's how we lead that insight is understanding that we're not perfect. We're all going to make mistakes, but we learn from those mistakes and we're constantly looking and not only learning from, you know, formal trainings, but we're learning from each other, from our teammates, from others.
Z
And we can go on and on. But that's, I would say, the big differentiator, and then we'll unpack that during future episodes.
Richard
Awesome. I like it. Yeah, absolutely. And that just kind of reinforces that hunger about you bringing that tenacity and taking it to the next level. Never, never being stagnant. Like, you know, like you mentioned with some of those companies that just do the same thing, you got to take it to that next level and do more and want more and always be learning and growth mindset.
Z
Yeah, going back to our purpose, right. Of the part that unlock the power of people in technology. Well, the part of that formula is a people element, right. And I mean, that's a big part of our leadership is we want to unlock that that latent, you know, that that potential that our teammates have that our clients have and all that to just unleash it is really powerful thing and I love that.
Richard
Yeah, absolutely. So let's let's talk a little bit about, you know, who core audiences, why they should listen, you know, tell a little bit about the inside teammates and and, you know, everything that goes around.
Z
That right now. So it's when I first started, right? I mean, there's there's tons of podcasts out there. I get it. But the wonderful thing about podcasts is that it gives a platform for for anybody to share ideas, thoughts, have conversations around a specific topic that is relevant and important to a specific audience. Right? So our after going through, you know, what I do is we have a lot of leadership programs here at INSIGHT and you know, instead of just consuming an internal instead of just taking it, we want it to be like real time.
Z
So here's an example. I was actually running, you know, one day and I was just in my headphones and I decided, hey, I'll be really cool to run and listen to a podcast. And it was convenient and it was great. And I'm like, You know what? This is awesome sound consuming knowledge. I was understanding some of the content was 100% relevant to me, some was not.
Z
So then I had to just take those pieces that I can apply and the rest I took. Okay. It wasn't particularly that it really necessarily speak to my industry or what I'm currently at, but that's okay. And then I thought, okay, well, you know what, there's teammates out there as well that maybe commuting back to work once a week or a couple of times a week or whatever, some that are getting ready in the morning before going into in logging, answering the laptop from home and may listen to an app.
Z
So there's a lot of these examples and I thought that would be awesome if our teammates had this ability to just go ahead and join us. Real time analysis, not necessary, go through our platform because we have amazing we have amazing platform here internally for MLS process that that allows us to consume, you know, information. But I said, hey, sometimes it's really inconvenient to log into a VPN.
Z
You have to go through these steps. Why don't we just offer this through like Spotify, Apple, the other platforms? And then the second element, it's going to then allow others who are not just insight leaders or teammates that want to continue to be up to date and content, but allow allow others to know who we are, understand what our capabilities are, and then determine, hey, I'd like to partner with them or, hey, I like to work for them, right?
Z
So it became this bigger thing and that that's really it. So our audience stands for cloud very long is internal teammates who are wanting to develop themselves and understand, you know, hey, I need to get the latest information on X, Y, Z, on partners and potential clients who want to know more about insight and going, Hey, I like the way their leadership works and runs.
Z
I want to know more about what they do. And then the third is for future candidates who would like to work for us one day and be a part of this amazing culture.
Richard
Great. That's awesome. Yeah, there's I mean, a lot to unpack there, but yeah, I understand why now. The response was what it was. But yeah, that's that's amazing. And it's so important to not only focus on just building the internal teammates, much to that growth mindset of having everybody externally be able to, you know, tune in to the podcast and be able to consume this content and learn a little bit about our leadership styles and maybe take from it and build upon it.
Richard
And, you know, that will probably make them I can guarantee them they'll make them better leaders. So. Yeah, absolutely.
Z
Yeah, totally.
Richard
All right. So what what what are we going to going to be talking about in these podcasts?
Z
Yeah. So again, good question there. I mean, it's important for audience to know, like, what's to come next, right. So quickly, the format our goal is to have at least two seasons a year is our goal and second is to have about 8 to 10, maybe 12 episodes every two weeks. So we're planning the launch every Wednesday. So keep to stay tuned for more episodes there.
Z
And the topics will will vary. Right. But they're all around that around leadership. So give me an example. Right of the first part is, hey, why should I even go into leadership? What is, you know, am I even seen as a leader how to build trust as a leader? Right. What are the think that's the most important part is in order to be a successful leader and running a team, you have to build that trust within them.
Z
So that way they know, hey, we have you have my best interests at heart. You're here to develop me or whatever, right? And then this goes from there, how to develop a team. And that kind of complements to our trust. The next episode will be how to how to be an inclusive leader. Am I as a leader, you know, how can I be an ally as well as a leader?
Z
Um, you know, we wrap it up with an executive presence content now and subject to change. As we know, there might be a topic that is relevant up today, topical that comes up and we'll be like, You know what, let's put that one out there right now because it's relevant. So we'll we'll keep a pulse on those and it might change.
Z
So don't, don't, don't, don't, don't be taking notes and be like, hey, wait a minute. Next episode was this subject to change? So we put that disclaimer out there so that just this season and many more to come, right? I mean, the topic goes on and as we build our audience, we'd like to hear from you both our again, our internal our customers, our clients and then future candidates.
Z
Um, you know, what topics are important to you? And then we'd like to discuss and share as well.
Richard
Yeah, absolutely. So now that we've discussed all of this, what are your final thoughts here?
Z
My final thoughts, that's a lot of it. So I think I just took, you know, before we even closed our just a couple of other things around, everything that's coming up. And then we're going back to how we met. And I think it's kind of full circle, right? Yeah. One of the things that I love about insight in the leadership here is that, you know, we're K.C. looking to develop.
Z
I was just in an all hands meeting with our h.r. Department and our chief human resource officer, Jenn Bass, and was interviewing Mike Morgan, who is our leader in APAC. And he just recently went through a training for himself to develop himself and went through a third party university and what what I gather from that is that it doesn't matter what level you're at, whether you're starting off or you're at a higher level development, developing your leadership doesn't oh, it does never, never stops.
Z
But a lot of times we get that misperception that if you're at a higher level or if you're at a C-suite or a VP or director level, we assume or at that level they have it together, right? Like they got it together. They have the experience, they have the knowledge. They really don't need a lot of it. No, not not it's not the case.
Z
We all need it and we all can continue to to, you know, to seek it out. So that was pretty cool this morning. It just reminded me that, hey, we have to do a good job. And then the other thing that came out of that interview is that that program, what he what he went through, they actually asked him that he needed it was four weeks was a month and that he needed to focus hyperfocus on the content and his leadership and his development and his training.
Z
So he had his leaders, right. So our CEO, Joyce and even Jan and certain ones that he works with directly to say, hey, during this time, don't bother him. Like let him focus, yeah, let him state deal it and have them, you know, have others kind of I guess back him up and have a backup plan. And I think about that as well is like a lot of times we say we don't have time to develop ourselves.
Z
When you think about that for a second, what are your thoughts? I mean, one of the first things come to mind when you have a busy season, you have a lot on your plate and you tend to right away jump. I just don't have time. Is that is that factor you feel or what? Why do you say why do we say that, do you think?
Richard
I think it's a little bit of two things. First of all, I think it's more of a, you know, kind of being a little bit timid about the workload and kind of feeling overwhelmed. That overwhelmed feeling. I think once you kind of get past that and you kind of see, hey, this is going to make it better in the long run.
Richard
It's going to help me streamline things. It's going to help me be more effective and more efficient then that's kind of when people learn to be able to double down and really, you know, find a way to make it fit within their schedule, whatever that looks like. However, that looks like if they need to stay up long hours.
Richard
But you know, again, just kind of goes back to our culture and, you know, that's everything that I've seen thus far and from everybody and everything that I've adopted, you know, while being inside.
Z
So yeah. And I'm glad to share that this is totally improvised, right? It's like it's just going, what's going on? This is part of the.
Richard
This is not on the script.
Z
But it is important because it was, again, going back to that, something that was topical a reason and it touched on exactly what a lot of folks think about is like, I'm overwhelmed. I have a lot going on and the easiest way for me to say is I don't have time or I can't right now because there's so much.
Z
But if you then take a pause right, and we call that your strategic pause. Timeout. Hold on to I really have some window time in my, you know, in my over doing something or there's something that I can maybe let go of or replace or whatever. Right. Is taking a quick pause to think about what is priority, what's important, and what am I using my time wisely on and kind of squeezes in your pie thinking, well, again, that's another thing on my plate, right?
Z
I'm already overwhelmed. Now I'm going to add another thing. But then you mentioned a good thing that you said. I said, hey, but you know what? This is a benefit for the long, long run. It's going to make me better a better leader, more efficient, whatever whatever it is that you're developing. Right. Is going to pay big dividends in the long run.
Z
Yeah. So I think that's another thing about taking that pause is going, okay, if I don't do this, what's, what's, what's that? What's the I a long term impact? Well, I'm still going to be busy. Yeah, I'm still going to have time. But if I do squeeze this in and make it, what's the impact? I'm going to be more efficient.
Z
I'm going to learn something new. And that's what I love about what I saw heard this morning as I hear making that that time. But here's another outlet, right? You can continue to develop self just by listening to a 30 minute episode of a topic that could be relevant. And that's something new. And I always say go in with an open mind and a real talk.
Z
Have you ever have been or listened to a training or been part of a training where you just like the topic, maybe didn't grab you first or wasn't like something that was new for you that you probably I mean, I already know this, I could skip it, but then you go through it and then you took something new or you learned something and did it.
Z
And does that ever happened to you? Yeah.
Richard
Yeah, it has. Absolutely. I, I have sat in on a few desk sessions, you know, with the emotional intelligence and just like being able to understand how people operate and things like that. And I, you know, have having already done a desk evaluation and things like that, I've absolutely 100% was like, Oh, I know what this is. I've, you know, I've done this before, but just sitting in listening, listening in and seeing how we can like leverage each other's strengths.
Richard
You know, when people talk about, oh, I'm a high of high C, you know, and just being able to communicate effectively to those different styles of, you know, the emotional intelligence is, you know, is something that really kind of stuck out at me. And that's kind of what I picked up in that. So just not to be stagnant, you know, as you mentioned, to go in with an open mind.
Richard
And there's always some nugget that you can come out with that, you know, is definitely very valuable.
Z
So, yeah, I am glad you brought that up. So, so for the audience member who haven't maybe heard of desk, it is a communication B communication behavioral assessment that is done inside out personality assessments more again communication and we do that here at INSIGHT. We offer it to all of our departments and our teams here to help them with their communication, to be able to understand each other better.
Z
And I love that you brought that up because, again, as we talked about, you know, Rich and I, our relationship is that he's happy, his his developing himself, you know, by being a part of being a producer in several of our programs and you've done this already for a little bit time has flown by, flown by. And you've seen and heard some of these trainings over and over already.
Z
But I'm confident that you're always getting something new like you're saying, right? You're always connecting the dots you're seeing. You're like, Oh, wait a minute, that was new because you're going into it with an open mind. And that's what I challenge all of you to when you're listening to these episodes go into with an open mind, try to grab something new.
Z
And again, we'd like to hear from you as well as we start to open this up. And there's opportunities for you to send us messages, give us recommendations, or even share something that, you know that can help our audience members in the future will be amazing. So back to the final thoughts. So my I just want to say, hey, I just want to thank everybody who has made this happen.
Z
We've been I mean, thinking about this, I've been thinking about this actually for over a year last year, I mean, by way more over a year, we did a pilot last year. It was called happily hybrid for all of our internal leaders on how to how to be more effective leaders in a hybrid environment. And we did that for the year and it was it was really successful, was really good, it was informative.
Z
But now we wanted to take it to that next level and say, hey, would we want to just talk not only about hybrid environment, but just being a leader in general and then open it up for for everybody? Listen. Right. So I think that was amazing. So thank you for what has made this happen. Thank you all who are listening to this first episode, especially our internal teammates who are listening.
Z
We begin you are our first audience and we continue to share this out and just want to wanted just thank everybody first. Second, I want everybody to again encourage encourage others to lean into. If you find an episode that speaks to you, that resonates with you, share that with don't keep it to yourself. Don't be selfish and share that right.
Z
Hand that out. But make that part of like, hey, you know, I heard listen to something. I think this will really help you if somebody's struggling with something. And the third final thought, man, hey, I'm really happy to do this with you, Rich. I mean, this would be fun experience for both of us, and I look forward to future episodes.
Richard
Yeah, definitely happy to partner with is happy to be here, you know. So just to kind of recap everything we talked about what what is leading with insight, who is who inside is our purpose and values, how we lead, why you should listen and what's next.
Z
So right on.
Richard
Yeah. To find out more about the future of business, you can read our digital magazine tech journal at inside.com/tech-journal. And to find out more about insight itself, you can visit our website, inside.com. Until next time, take care.
Host
Z Tinoco is a diversity, leadership & organization development manager who believes in building teams, inspiring minds and creating authentic connections. He helps people reach their goals and find success through humor, leadership and a diverse mindset.
Co-host
Richard is an experienced paid media specialist with a proven track record of creating and executing successful campaigns across various platforms. Richard has a passion for tackling new challenges, connecting with people and loves all things tech.
