I'm a Denver, Colorado-based executive, offering more than 20 years of success and expertise as a high-performing leader, strong manager, team player, consensus builder, and effective communicator that translates organizational vision into measurable results that have maximized business performance, had material positive impact on cost and revenue, and have increased productivity and efficiencies across an organization.
For the last five years, I’ve held a leadership position at a major Managed Services Provider, working in an environment of public, private, and hybrid cloud solutions. Previous engagements are also in leadership positions focusing on data center, network & server infrastructure, networking, server, & workstation virtualization, and app/web development technology/solutions. For more on my leadership background, see my resume.
I’ve spent my professional career focused on two primary competencies: the first being a skilled strategist (Skills? Go here for my competencies) who works with boards, c-levels, & senior executives engaged in high visibility, impact, and costly strategic initiatives, turning them into workable solutions, executing against plan on-budget/on-time, and then sustaining the results with strong metrics & reporting (Citations? See Testimonials!).
My second primary competency is expertise in leveraging extreme ownership in creating, leading & managing (what's the difference? Please see Leadership Philosophy for my thoughts), and mentoring high performance/accountability teams, through the full program and project lifecycle that delivers, sustains, and reports on the solutions required by the business.
Open to relocation in the San Diego metro area.
John Moyles
Denver, CO, US
A lot of ink has been spilled over the years on the concepts of being a leader. Just as much on Peter Drucker’s concept of the knowledge worker. I’d like to spill a bit more on my own perspective on my journey down the leadership path in the age of the knowledge worker.
To begin with, I firmly believe there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. This is a concept I learned in the military that has translated perfectly into civilian life. A bad leader must always push his teams, a good leader may start off pushing, but with intent and the *ability* to have the teams pulling the leader before long. This matters!
Both kinds of leaders may generate the short-term end result that was needed, but the bad leader will put themselves in the position where their results aren’t sustainable. This is generally manifested as some combination of sub-par work, over the allocated budget, behind set schedules, team burn-out, and high staff turn-over. That creates an additional set of hidden costs that you don’t suffer from good leadership.
How you get to results is just as important as the results. This speaks to stability, sustainability, and reliability – all critical metrics of long term success for the business. So – how do we define a good leader? Read on!
Answering that question requires that we recognize that leadership itself has tactical and strategic elements. I call the tactical element "management". Management by itself is not leadership and vice versa. They are complementary but still separate.
Managing is about tracking value by focusing on the short-term elements of processes and structures. Management is the tactical - keeping track of the details, coordination, and planning.
You must perform the managerial parts of the job fairly, consistently, conservatively, and honestly. If this sounds like I repurposed the adjectives in the last sentence from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) - well, I did: there is clearly an intersection of common needs and thus shareable standards. By taking this approach, you clear the field of uncertainty on the how and the when.
Leadership is creating value by focusing on the long-range perspective of people and results. You must be of high integrity at all times, with an eye towards challenging, inspiring, motivating and innovating - the strategic. Leadership requires you to keep your eyes on the horizon, and keeping your focus there is the primary leadership challenge that you will run into.
As an illustration, and as I am borrowing and repurposing a great deal from Peter Drucker, I will now directly quote him: "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."
There is a wrinkle on leadership that hasn’t been fully embraced by many of my peers: recognizing that the knowledge worker now rules in the white collar business world. Knowledge works are paid to think for a living – ingest data, react to data, and then produce results from that data. Knowledge workers are not generalist commodities, but highly trained and valuable specialists.
Leading them can be a difficult task – they want to be led by example, not over-managed, and often know more than their supervisors do about their specialty, prefer some level of autonomy, and are often desperate to be heard.
To successfully engage the knowledge worker you must understand their individual strengths, be able to build them into teams with strong purposes with clearly defined and achievable objectives. Nothing will throw off a team of knowledge workers faster than ill-defined, over-simplified, or over-generalized objectives. Good leaders will recognize that the successful result at the end of an endeavor is often found by having framed the need properly at the start.
Going into depth on leading knowledge workers is beyond the scope here, but at a high level:
Ultimately to be successful as a leader in the age of the knowledge worker, you must combine the disciplines of management which answers the “how” and the “when” with leadership which answers the “what” and the “why”. Doing so will extend your authority from being one of only title to one of ability and execution.
Leadership isn’t just expressed in your direct spheres of influence (directs, peers, your leaders, customers) and at specific moments. Instead, you should strive to apply it everywhere and at all times - every interaction, every decision, and every audience. Leadership is something you wear on your sleeve, and it is part of you. You must follow the principle of “esse quam videri”: To be, rather than to seem to be.
In film, there is an effect called the “uncanny valley.” This is the ability of the human eye to easily perceive computer-generated imagery from reality. You want to avoid the leadership version of the “uncanny valley” - it can’t be a persona that you put on for your job. People can and will spot actors playing the part of “Leader”.
Leadership is a journey, not a destination. Trite, but also true. If great leadership requires your full attention on every interaction, then every interaction carries with the opportunity for success or failure. You need to be able to step back and perform this introspective on yourself on a regular basis. Validate that with those around you – your directs, your peers, and your leaders. Yes – even your directs.
Perhaps most important is feedback from your directs. I’ve had some pushback from other managers and leaders over the years who believe it is a sign of a weakness or pandering to solicit input from your staff. This is a place that I respectfully disagree. You can solicit honest input through dialogue (I’m a huge proponent of the quick 1:1) that allows you to constantly evaluate yourself without running into those issues.
The concept of the introspective as a self-assessment validated by the input of others is a key takeaway. Without it, you are potentially disconnected from the reality of how you are operating as a leader. You must always be evaluating, learning, evolving as a leader. This is also a concept that once mastered, can be leveraged in your evaluations of others.
Use the links below to download my resume. The "Full" resume contains experience across all my domain specialties (Customer Service/Advocacy, MA&I, and Product Development Management). The other resumes only contain the experience for the indicated domain.
Synoptek │ Denver, CO
2013 - 2018
A national Managed Service Provider with $100M/450 staff. I held several leadership roles (departmental and functional) during my time with Synoptek. In the Customer Advocacy/Success leadership role at Synoptek, recruited by the CEO to design, socialize, build, train, and sustain a new charter for 5 directs and 25 staff.
Synoptek │ Denver, CO
2013 - 2018
In the MA&I Integration Management Office leadership role at Synoptek:
Critigen (Acquired by Synoptek) │ Denver, CO
2013 - 2018
In the Product Management/Development leadership role tasked to tackle the challenge of service/product catalog rationalization from previous acquisitions that had resulted in inefficiencies, confusion, and lost revenue.
JM Consulting │ Denver, CO
2004 - 2013
Provided vision and leadership in the development and implementation of IT programs and enterprise information systems for multiple companies to define and focus market strategies, streamline processes, and recognize growth opportunities for optimizing effectiveness and cost efficiencies. Marquee engagements below:
IP Silver │ Denver, CO
2008 - 2010
Co-founded a professional services startup focused on virtual server and virtual desktop integration (VDI) services with $2.25M in annual revenue. Built up a team of contractors and employees reaching 15 resources at the peak; created a culture that inspired personal accountability while capitalizing on individual strengths.
X2Delta Networks │ Denver, CO
2000 - 2004
Brought on as a partner in a startup delivering boutique data center and co-location services for more than 60 SMB clients while managing a team of 15 remote and on-site staff. Accountable for day-to-day operations (help desk, engineering) and owned departmental P&L responsibility.
Total SumParts │ Denver, CO
1999 - 2000
As a direct report to the CEO managed development staff for the complete life cycle development of desktop and web-based applications. Managed personnel in teams of 5 to 15 people per project, up to 5 concurrent projects; set and managed project budgets; coordinated projects across department boundaries.
C:\ Drive │ Denver, CO
1995 - 1999
Launched startup focused on bringing network technologies in health care and education markets. network market. Expanded into business and web presence internet services by acquiring development and professional services firm. Primary duties included growing the business through direct sales, marketing campaigns, and partnerships. $5.4M in revenue, 40 Staff.
As a department head, how efficient is your department?
Are teams, processes, and tools still running at an acceptable efficiency?
What is an acceptable level of efficiency? Have gaps opened that are causing more problems than they solve?
Take a look at this video that speaks specifically to building and sustaining a leader-driven regimen to evaluate, tune, and maintain efficiency for your department.
Although focused on Customer Advocacy, this has excellent information for any leader that manages a department, a function, or staff.
Customer Advocacy Leadership - Evaluating, Tuning, and Maintaining Efficiency
Does your Product Development team have a positive impact on the organization?
Is Product Development viewed as an enabler or burden in your company?
Take a look at this video to better understand the full reach of this function and the importance of having the right leader in place to lead the team!
Understanding the Impact, Influence, and Interactions of a Well-Led Product Development Team
See below for my signature leadership strengths and competencies.
Feel free to reach out to me directly using the phone number or email address shown below!