182: Take a Plunge Over the Growth Edge with Christopher Belcastro | Chief Technology Officer

[00:00:25] Christopher Belcastro: Thank you, Zach. Really excited to be here. Really excited to talk to everyone. 

[00:00:30] Zach White: Yeah. Why don’t we do something I don’t often do and just have a two minute drill summary of your career path.

[00:00:40] You’ve had a really interesting set of experiences. And before we deep dive into some of those points of genius for you, I’d love it if you could just share the arc of your engineering career and growth in two minutes or less. You think you can handle that? 

[00:00:54] Christopher Belcastro: It’s going to be a tough one, but I’m going to go for it.

[00:00:56] Make it happen. Give us 

[00:00:58] Zach White: the quick high level. Where has the world of engineering taken you? 

[00:01:02] Christopher Belcastro: Okay, absolutely. So, um, I studied electrical engineering at Virginia Tech. And out of school in 2009, I went and I worked at an architecture and engineering firm and really loved the people there. But, you know, I was looking to get more diversified experience.

[00:01:16] So I moved to the heavy steel industry and I was doing controls engineering, got really heavy into systems, integrated systems, more printed circuit board side, more in understanding drives and just how, you know, different systems work together. And it was a great experience. Then, from there, I started working.

[00:01:36] In a power protection business in Richmond, Virginia, um, that was acquired by ABB. And I really found a home in power electronics and I really loved the product development side of things that I got heavy into research and development. I got heavy into compliance and regulatory matters, uh, project management.

[00:01:55] And then before you know it, they were asking me to do project, project management, and then people management. And then I had this flip from being the expert, the guy who like knew like all the stuff. To leading this group of people and that was really challenging for me because I thought like I had to be the guy And then I realized 

[00:02:16] Zach White: yeah, 

[00:02:16] Christopher Belcastro: that’s not my role um, and then I started leading people and i’ve been doing that and Um, I did that for nine years at ABB, and then I started at a startup at the beginning of this year as their CTO.

[00:02:29] And I’ve been raising a group there now. And, uh, it’s been fantastic. People leadership is where my career has led me. 

[00:02:38] Zach White: Well done. You nailed it. I mean, probably less. I wasn’t keeping track, but it’s perfect. What I love about your experience and it resonates with a lot of things I’ve done that is really broad from the, you know, the shop floor manufacturing, what’s happening.

[00:02:53] On the ground, so to speak day to day, the R and D, the product development, that whole side, everything in between, you kind of seen that whole picture, but it’s hard to ignore that pivotal point you highlighted the day that we were no longer here in the organization because of our technical genius, but to lead the other technical geniuses.

[00:03:18] That’s a tough transition and it’s a place I’d love to zoom in. So take us back to maybe leading up to that first manager position. What were you doing right before that? And was it something you wanted? Is it something you asked for? Was it a reward for great work? Tell us a little bit about what led into that first manager job.

[00:03:41] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. So I was leading a multinational project, uh, with, I had a team in the U S and the team in Switzerland, and we were bringing this UPS product, commercial UPS product here to the U S for the first time. And it was really exciting. I, you know, All my leadership was so excited about the communication and how well I was doing the communication and getting the two teams to work together.

[00:04:05] And, you know, there were talks about, like, we’re growing as a business that we need to grow the research and development team. And, you know, so when we’re done with this, Chris, we want to put you in charge of all the electrical engineers. And I was like, oh, that’s like, so exciting and so fantastic. So we did that, you know, shortly, like a month after we finished the project, like we made that transition.

[00:04:28] And then like four months later, I took on all the mechanical engineers. And then a year later, I took on all the software engineers. And before you know it, like I had like this huge group reporting to me. Um, and that, that was a problem because I didn’t have enough time for everybody. Um, and like people were stressed out and they felt like I was micromanaging them, but they could never talk to me.

[00:04:52] And, um, so that was really hard for me. 

[00:04:57] Zach White: How many people at the beginning and then over that year that followed, tell us about the size of your team and how many were directs at that time? 

[00:05:07] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. So when I started with, you know, after I took over the electrical team, I had six people and so, you know, it was very manageable and then I took on the mechanicals and so I was up to 13 people and then over the next year, once I had the software team, I had a team in Richmond and a team in Bangalore, India.

[00:05:30] And so by the end of that, I was at 22 people. All direct. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So that was really, that was really, I mean, the team in India had a, a supervisor there, but they weren’t in like, what’s our product development roadmap look like and timelines or anything like that. They were there for administrative purposes, um, which is helpful, but you know, it’s like you got a two different time zones, you got to cater to people and it was, it was terrible.

[00:05:59] And then, you know, by the, you know, by that time, like I realized like, I, I’m not getting support to have team managers. So I’m going to put in acting team managers. I put in place without permission, without asking. 

[00:06:12] Zach White: Oh, wow. 

[00:06:13] Christopher Belcastro: I put in acting leaders for each of the disciplines that we had and by, because we had lab teams as well, so, um, you know, we had five different teams basically that we split it out to, and I had team leaders for, for all of those teams.

[00:06:28] And then within another year. Uh, we actually had official team managers, and so I went down to seven people. And by the time I left, there were 45 people in our department. 

[00:06:41] Zach White: So Christopher, the common story of engineering leaders I coach is the superstar individual contributor gets recognized by a senior person for their Capability and communication skills and people acumen, they’re doing a great job delivering the work to your point, global team, and you’re this all star, maybe the hub at the center of many functions, but you’re an IC and you get rewarded by promotion to manager.

[00:07:14] And it cripples so many engineers. So. Tell us in your journey, you described like that was a hard transition for me. What were the, the brick walls that you ran into? The things that happened in that time where you realized my, my IC mindset and skillset isn’t gonna work here. What were those things for you?

[00:07:36] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, well, you know what that looks like. I’ll give you like a really stark example. I would have to meet when I was going to go out of the office. I would have to meet with everybody. We would have a meeting and I would lay out every day for all the technicians. This is exactly what they’re working on.

[00:07:53] What day, what time, who, what engineer to get with. I would go to each of the engineers working on different projects and have them walk me through what they were going to be working on and like, by the end of it, it’s like, okay, we’ve got a game plan and that stressed everybody out, including me, because like it was the massive amount of work and by the time like that week would actually come.

[00:08:16] More than half of those things couldn’t actually happen and practicality like this because you know, we’re in r& d But we’re also supporting a production environment as well So i’d have teams that are doing design work and then teams that are doing production support And so it’s like yeah, like you got to get revenue out the door as well So you kind of have to you know respond to that.

[00:08:37] Um, so that was an example Everybody had to ask me for time off So, like, I had a process where it’s like, well, send me an email and, you know, I want your last name, the dates, you know, and is it vacation or, you know, what, what is it for type of thing? And like, I’d get people like, Hey, you never responded to my vacation request.

[00:08:57] Well, it’s because I was getting 600 emails like a day. From like every angle. And it’s like, I could possibly, you look in my inbox and I’ve got like over 4, 000 unread emails. And it’s like, well, yeah, I, I’m doing a really poor job. I’m sorry. Yeah. Let me go take a look at that. And then I would get into like, I didn’t have enough time to sit in on a project meeting.

[00:09:19] And then I’d be like two meetings later, someone would be presenting something they’re super excited about. And I’m like, yeah, you can’t do that. And it’s like that, you know, that won’t work and here’s why and then they’re frustrated because I didn’t have the time to give them that counsel before they spent like 40 hours on it.

[00:09:36] Um, 

[00:09:36] Zach White: wow. Yeah. 

[00:09:38] Christopher Belcastro: And I also shouldn’t have to at the same time, like I realized like you’re the bottleneck here, like all of these things, it’s you. Um, and so I started a couple of employees started complaining to HR. You know, they, you know, they started saying like, I’m really dissatisfied. I’m feeling really stressed out.

[00:09:59] Um, and my job and I’m, you know, I don’t have time to talk to my manager and I don’t feel supported. Um, and so I had to get that feedback and that was really hard for me. Like here I was thinking like. Everything’s amazing. I’m stressed out beyond belief, but like we’re doing great. And then I got that feedback and I was, it was a gut punch.

[00:10:29] Zach White: I was going to ask what you were feeling during that time. So the stress was real. What were the hours? Like, were you putting in crazy hours to try to keep up with it all? 

[00:10:38] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. You know, somewhere, sometimes 65, 70 hours. Um, I would. I’d get up sometimes early in the morning, 3. 30, 4 o’clock in the morning, and I’d start work.

[00:10:50] And, like, I would work, like, the whole day I’d go to work, I wouldn’t get home until 7, 7. 30. Um, And I would, even when I wasn’t working, I was thinking about work on the weekends. Like I would be like, Oh, this came up, I’m sending this email, um, or I’m gonna, I’m gonna crank out this spec, you know, that we need to start working on this project, you know, in the next two weeks type of thing.

[00:11:14] And it was, I thunk, I thunk myself into work cause I thought that that’s what I needed to do. Yeah, 

[00:11:21] Zach White: that’s the job. That’s what I’m should do. Christopher, did you have a narrative going on in your mind at that time that. justified the hours that it was the right thing to do. You were happy to do it even, or Or were you burning out and just really kind of hated that experience while it was happening?

[00:11:39] Do you remember kind of in the moment, what was the story you were telling yourself about the stress and the hours and the everything going on? 

[00:11:48] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. At the beginning, when I started being a people leader, like I, I told myself, like, it was so exciting. It was new. There’s so much opportunity. And I told myself, yeah, this is just what you need to do right now.

[00:12:01] And then when I was getting closer to the end of it, I felt like I did it because I thought it was for a time, but this doesn’t feel like it’s for a time. It feels like it will continue to be the same all the time. And nobody’s asked me to do it. And so I, I was feeling a bit resentful and just burnt out, like.

[00:12:23] You know, somebody else want to come in and do this by all means. 

[00:12:28] Zach White: Oh, so many things to unpack, but I’d like to get to the turnaround point. Where’s, where’s the place it began to change? Was it getting that feedback via HR? I remember when we talked last time, you mentioned, you know, people don’t like working for you, Christopher.

[00:12:48] You got that feedback and like, where was that point and what actually created the upward shift for you? 

[00:12:55] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, it was when I got that feedback and it happened overnight. What it looked like for me was I was surprised, like I did not expect it, you know, maybe I had my head buried in the sand and I should have seen the writing on the wall.

[00:13:11] I don’t know, but I, I felt a little defensive at first and then I like realized like, well, this is how they feel and feelings are feelings and you shouldn’t make that right or wrong. Um, but take it as feedback. So what are you going to do with the feedback? You’re going to keep doing the same thing.

[00:13:33] You’re going to run, or are you going to make a conscious decision to make a change? So I made a conscious decision to make a change. So overnight I created a new policy around how time off was being requested. I made a new policy around purchase requisitions and approval limits and who got to do them instead of me approving everything from a 19 cent part to, you know, a 30, 000 transformer, um, you know, so I put in new, you know, something there.

[00:14:02] And then I put the acting team leaders in place and I, I put time into them. I gave them like, this is what, you know, what I would like you to be doing with the, you know, the disciplines. And, you know, I’m going to meet with you guys on a consistent basis and we’re going to have touch points and you’re going to give me feedback.

[00:14:19] I’m going to give you feedback. Um, and I’d been doing, I’ve been obviously getting leadership development. But I asked to get professional coaching. Um, and so at that point I started doing professional coaching. Uh, I started doing some AMA programs around management, primarily around leadership and around communication.

[00:14:40] Um, you know, I knew that there was an area that I could improve in and I started moving from being the manager to the leader. I never, once after that defined someone’s schedule of what they were working on, not once after that. 

[00:14:55] Zach White: How long from that point of feedback to a completely different operating system and experience on that team?

[00:15:03] How long did that turnaround take? Would you say? 

[00:15:06] Christopher Belcastro: It was about two months. I mean, the morale, the morale turned around within like a week. But it, but I, I felt like not everybody knew how to do it. They were like repeating the old ways. And so it was the habit, getting people back in the habit of like, yep, that’s great.

[00:15:26] And I need you to go to, to this person now. And they’ll, they’ll be able to comment on that officially. Um, so it was getting people back into a new routine, into a new habit, but within two months, the morale of the team was up and I had everybody bought in on this operating model. And we’re things perfect.

[00:15:45] No, I mean, but we would find the challenges or the opportunity. Sometimes it was a person, sometimes it was a way that we were doing things and we would figure out like, how do we make this that much better? It wasn’t, it’s okay. It failed. Let’s figure out what to do differently. 

[00:16:03] Zach White: Yeah. 

[00:16:04] Christopher Belcastro: Um, and then I started moving into, I could take those team managers and I could work them through a different leadership model where like I’m coaching But okay, coaching is not working.

[00:16:16] So I’m going to demonstrate, I’m going to instruct them on how to deal with this difficult conversation. They’re going to be a part of it with me. And then afterwards, we’re going to debrief about it. Matt, what’d you, what’d you experience in that conversation? And what do you think was different about that?

[00:16:30] And what do you think you would do differently next time? Um, so 

[00:16:33] Zach White: good. You made a comment. Yeah, I chose, I’ve reached out to my leadership and asked for the professional coaching, um, Because of the awareness that came from that gut punch of candid, honest feedback, but at the beginning that that wasn’t there.

[00:16:51] And I’m assuming, you know, your boss and the senior leadership team of the company was not coming alongside you, coaching you, mentoring you, sharing with you, all these things. If anything, maybe they were absent or modeling a similar. Crazy work ethic. I’m wondering if that’s true. Tell me what was it like as far as the support or lack of not to throw anyone under the bus, but just kind of being honest.

[00:17:15] But what did you experience from leaders above you? When you took on that manager role. 

[00:17:20] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. I mean, I had, I had the, the individual that hired me really, you know, was a great manager and supported me. And we had, we had, you know, when things would get bad, you know, we would have some coach, you know, small coaching things and more like advice giving.

[00:17:37] And, you know, I always appreciated that, but I never was, you know, and I, I was afforded, like, you And ABB is a big company. They have like a management development program, a middle management program. And, you know, I would, I got nominated to be in those programs. So I did, I did get those, but in terms of the other development.

[00:17:57] It wasn’t coming from somebody else to tell me you’re going to do this. It was, Oh, I need to figure out what I need. What’s my gap with my learning opportunity? What’s my growth need to be here? Um, cause I immediately recognized, like, I feel like coaching would be really instrumental in my growth. Um, and it was instrumental not only in my professional growth, but in my personal growth.

[00:18:20] Um, 

[00:18:22] Zach White: Yeah, it’s amazing. One thing that I hear people say, but I think a lot of people don’t believe really fully because their actions don’t reflect it, is this reality that you can create the kind of experience in your career that you described post this feedback where you have a reasonable schedule and a balanced life and a team that’s really high performing and engaged and you’re not working 70 hours a week and these things.

[00:18:49] But sometimes above us, what we see modeled. It’s something that we don’t want. And then we look at our own experience and we’re not happy even where we are right now. And people write that off of just how it is. This is, this is it. And they don’t lean into the idea that, no, I can take responsibility for this and go get that support and go get that training, go get that coaching, go get that feedback and it’s possible.

[00:19:18] And so I just, I’m excited that you’re a great example of somebody who had, you know, it’s not like the company came alongside and gave you every single thing you needed proactively to make this happen, like you had to learn through some hard mistakes, but demonstrated, What that turnaround looks like. So if we could go back now, you know, the Christopher who’s led big teams to extreme performance and is now CTO growing an organization at this level.

[00:19:44] Looking back, what would you say are the most important shifts that need to happen as a manager and then becoming a true leader within that we could talk about the difference, but going from that IC to manager, that jump, that’s so hard for so many engineers to make, what are the keys to success in your Lens, looking back on your own journey.

[00:20:07] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. I, it’s really, the success becomes the people and not you. And so I, for a long time thought that like, I need to be on top of my game a thousand percent. And so I like using this, um, you know, I’m, I, I’m gonna steal this because it’s great, but it stuck with me for a long time. If you think of your capacity as a spinning plate, if I put 100 percent of my time into spinning my plate, then I get 100 percent out of it.

[00:20:42] If I’ve got 5 team members, and I can put 20 percent into each of them, And I can get maybe 75%, which is, you know, about the capacity you’re going to get from people is 75, 80%. If you’re shooting for more, it’s not a good idea. Um, but if I do that, that’s a lot more than 100 percent out of my plate. Five people at 75 percent is a lot more than 100 percent of my plate.

[00:21:07] So think about your resources, that spinning plates, the time you put into them at the time that you’re going to get out from them and that isn’t in telling them what to do. That is an asking question and being observant and hearing what their thoughts are and their challenges to understanding where they are in that day.

[00:21:26] Like what everybody’s human, so what do they have that’s going on? Um, because sometimes those are the barriers to success. 

[00:21:35] Zach White: And, 

[00:21:36] Christopher Belcastro: um, another really important lesson is when someone comes to you with a problem, think about it as a monkey that’s on their back. And if you take that monkey from them, because it’s now your problem, the more monkeys you take, the more burdens you become.

[00:21:50] So when someone comes into your office with a problem, try to reinforce people not coming with problems, but also coming with ideas for solutions. The best thing you can do is make sure that monkey stays on their back. Even if you’re just giving them guidance, that problem isn’t something you’re taking an action on.

[00:22:05] You do that very infrequently. 

[00:22:08] Zach White: Yeah. 

[00:22:08] Christopher Belcastro: As much as you possibly can. 

[00:22:11] Zach White: The point of listening to what’s going on in someone’s life, a lot of engineers, that’s a bit uncomfortable. It’s a bit out of our norm. Very analytical, live in the IQ more than the EQ. There’s a head of engineering I’m working with right now.

[00:22:29] I’ll name him John Doe just to respect confidentiality. But in brief, he, he’s got a conflict with the CIO at the organization he works in. And we were talking about what’s going on and said, wait, really quick, before we worry about the solution, you know, describe to me the vision of what a successful relationship.

[00:22:52] here would look like. How do you want this problem to go? Cause trust had been broken. A sense of loyalty had been broken. And yeah, this person was wanting to just leave the company. Like, I don’t even want to deal with this individual and, you know, I’m working with this head of engineering, but imagining if that CIO would just do what you said and have a real conversation and become aware that.

[00:23:16] Their actions had broken trust with this really high performing, extremely critical team member inside their company. Who’s driving a significant portion of value and revenue into the organization. The CIO is completely unaware because they’re just. Operating in their I. Q. And, you know, fortunately, the set of engineering has the wherewithal to get a coach and do the work for himself to make sure this is resolved.

[00:23:41] But there’s so many times where the problem is not the problem, right? It’s like the underneath layers where the work needs to happen in the relationship and in the in the emotions of things. And so how does an engineering manager who’s new to this Build that muscle. How do we get to the place where we stop just seeing the technology and the problems on the surface, but we have the courage and the confidence to go have that deeper conversation?

[00:24:09] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, well practice. So, uh, the thing I’ll say is when something feels uncomfortable and our tendency is to want to avoid it, that is an indicator light and that indicator light is that’s the growth edge. And even though you fear it. It’s good to take a plunge over the edge. Now that doesn’t mean that you should go in blind, but you should go in with a little bit of, of tactic.

[00:24:37] And I kinda, I like thinking about it with. Enter the situation with curiosity. So let’s say you’ve got a project that’s going on and you’re behind on the timeline and you got a project leader that’s saying like, I, you know, I can’t get team buy in we, we just don’t have commitment there. And, um, you know, my question would be why and, you know, what’s going on.

[00:25:02] And, you know, by the time you figure out that you’ve got people that are feel undervalued. I feel like they’re, you know, three steps before them, you know, things got all timeline and now, you know, they, they had extra time, but now I don’t have extra time because we have all this pressure and that’s unfair.

[00:25:23] And I feel stressed out about that. And I don’t understand why we didn’t plan better. And I don’t understand why we. I always go back to, yeah, people got beef, so let’s get the beef out, let’s grill it up, let’s figure out what everybody needs to get out of their chest, and then let’s refocus back in on a plan of attack.

[00:25:43] Do we need to pull more people in? Do we need to plan for work on this weekend? You know, I, I’m going to be the first person to say, I, I want to avoid that. I want to avoid people having to work extra hours and work, work the weekend. But when things get critical and we’re behind, then we got to come together as a team.

[00:26:00] So let’s solve this. If that means I’m coming in, I’m coming in. So, you know, sometimes that means I’m going to pick up the wrench. I’m going to put this thing together with you. Um, you know, uh, I think it’s about just remembering that we’re all people. And that means we have feelings and we’re not always, regardless of being an engineer or not, we’re not always great at being able to communicate those.

[00:26:26] Like something could be coming up for me right now. And the way I’m talking to you could be greatly affected by that. Or my willingness to be agreeable, uh, could be greatly affected. So sometimes that’s a group conversation. Sometimes that’s a one on one conversation. You have to understand, like, where is the, Where is the pain point?

[00:26:47] And, you know, that might be coming and sitting down and be like, Hey, I’m sensing some frustration right now. Is everything okay? Could you tell me a little bit about what’s going on? 

[00:26:59] Zach White: Yeah. 

[00:27:00] Christopher Belcastro: With whatever you’re willing to share. 

[00:27:02] Zach White: That word conversation, you know, gets a highlight and a double underline for me in that answer.

[00:27:09] And as a coach, and I know you know doing coaching as well, The power of transformation, you know, begins with a conversation. If we’re not willing to mention it, then we have no ability to manage it. And so that openness, the courage to just, I love how you describe the picture. I’ll get the beef out and let’s grill it.

[00:27:29] That’s a perfect way. It’s like, Hey, you know what? I don’t know. This is raw. It’s ugly. It’s bloody. It’s messy, but let’s just throw it on the grill together and stand here and watch it cook and see what happens here. Yeah. I think that’s a really Useful metaphor to say, look, get the beef out, throw it on the grill.

[00:27:44] Christopher Belcastro: Well, I’ve got some people that would be, you know, they know, I don’t want to do that. No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. No, this is the problem. It’s kind of like, I’m hearing a lot of no’s and I don’t care what we do, but I can tell you that no, it’s not an option. So whatever you need to do and say, that’s fine.

[00:28:01] Do that. And I’m also looking for ideas. So I’m not going to force you to do anything. However, no, it’s not an option. 

[00:28:11] Zach White: A good use of and as well. It’s not, but it’s a, it’s the yes. And it’s the yes. And Christopher, you, you’re really good now through the process and the experience you’ve had when it comes to the systems and the.

[00:28:29] ways to manage that become routine and habitual to set up the team for success. And I’m wondering if you could uncover what are one or two of those management systems that free you up to start being the leader more so than being buried in management tasks all the time. What are the couple of pieces that you think are most important?

[00:28:52] Christopher Belcastro: That’s a great question. Well, So, uh, when you’re doing product development, you usually want to track what your expenses are or outlays, anything that’s, you know, material, right? And then you want to track hours. And, you know, I recognize that tracking people’s hours to a T is not always that effective, but you want to get a sense of what your spend is going on in programs.

[00:29:16] So you need to set up a, a management system for that. You’ve got someone in charge of that program. That project and then you have disciplines that, you know, for me that I, you know, I’ve got people that are in charge of disciplines and then people that are in charge of projects and they have regular communications about what people are doing, what forecasting ahead, like, you know, this project manager’s, you know, talking about, I need these resources, you know, for the next week.

[00:29:41] And it’s a conversation about what. You know, not exactly what they’re working on, but how people are allocated. So, you know, cause people are a spend that you have in your business, right? So there’s that. And so you’ve got a management system around people and expense tracking right there. Um, and then the other really important thing to me is taking finance and HR topic super seriously.

[00:30:10] So anything going on in the, in your department, in your team, whatever around finance and around HR. So finance every month, 

[00:30:18] Zach White: that’s good. I’m, 

[00:30:19] Christopher Belcastro: I’m balancing the department ledger at the end of the month. I’m looking at what, you know, what we spent, where, And I’m asking questions back to those project managers and to the cross functional, uh, with the discipline team managers.

[00:30:32] If I have any questions, I got so good at it. It takes me an hour, not a big deal. And you know, when, if you’ve got a, you know, your controller coming in, asking you questions, you can be able to help explain that. Cause it’s going to hit the P and L at the end of the day. Um, And HR topics. So keeping up with the discipline managers and understanding what, how’s everybody doing in the team?

[00:30:55] Um, do we have anybody that we’re having any issues with? How are those conversations going? Um, being able to know if now it needs to become like an HR conversation. Um, because those are really, really important. 

[00:31:10] Zach White: Yep. 

[00:31:10] Christopher Belcastro: Um, so honestly. Those are the two things that’s 

[00:31:15] Zach White: really good. The HR piece. I know lots of engineers don’t want to hear that.

[00:31:19] I really agree. I’ve got a, an amazing engineering manager and automotive that I’m supporting right now, because he has a team member who’s underperforming has been for a long time, and he’s just at his wits end and how to deal with it. And we went through some early coaching sessions around the issue and.

[00:31:37] Eventually just became clear that no HR conversation had happened yet. It’s like, well, hold on a second. Like, wait, you’ve done all these things and you haven’t even mentioned this to HR yet. No. So, well, okay. Your next conversation, you need a one on one with your HR. You know, generalist to go talk about what we need to do here, your business partner.

[00:31:58] And, you know, if a PIP needs to start, it needs to start sooner than later. Cause these processes take a long time. And, you know, especially in a big automotive company, you’re not going to just be able to fire somebody tomorrow. This is a really complex process. You know, he’s just new to it, new manager.

[00:32:15] It’s the same thing we talked about earlier. There’s no coach. There’s no person coming along saying, Hey, here’s what to do. Here’s how to handle this, et cetera. Right. And didn’t realize he could be six to 12 months away from any reasonable action being taken. And he’s dealing with a low performer that whole time, you know, and that’s a big drag on the team.

[00:32:33] So don’t, don’t delay. 

[00:32:35] Christopher Belcastro: Well, and to your point, Zach, like I didn’t have someone that told me that. I didn’t have anyone that said like, yeah, when you’re having these issues, you need to pull NHR. Like I had to learn the hard way. Um, and so if there’s anything anyone takes from this is like, when you start running into something where maybe you’ve got a really high performer that’s on your team, like A lot of times people think high performer means there aren’t going to be any problems.

[00:33:02] My experience typically is that high performers are either they’re not a big problem or they’re a really big problem. That’s my experience. Um, and problem doesn’t mean like, I don’t mean that in a drastic way. I just mean like the tension and the approach may need to be a little different. And, um, I never have found a one size fits all for people.

[00:33:22] Everybody’s different. You’re going to have. People that are more introverted, people that are more extroverted, people that are more analytical, people that are more expressive, and they need different things. 

[00:33:32] Zach White: Um, 

[00:33:33] Christopher Belcastro: but when you get to a point where you feel like something’s not clicking, or you feel like direction’s not being followed, that’s when you start to have a conversation with HR, and they’ll start to, they’ll, they know this better, that they’ll ask you questions.

[00:33:50] And you may find, okay. This really isn’t that big a deal right now. 

[00:33:54] Zach White: Um, 

[00:33:55] Christopher Belcastro: and then sometimes you might be like, Oh, I’ve just been ignoring things. But the worst thing that can happen for you and for an employee is that you wait six months for something that should have been addressed before. Because I’ve had, I’ve had mixed experiences.

[00:34:10] I’ve had people that go on pips that turn it around a thousand percent and it’s what they needed to just turn things around. And then I’ve had people that it just got worse. 

[00:34:21] Zach White: Yeah. They check out completely. 

[00:34:23] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. 

[00:34:24] Zach White: Great point about high performers to the idea that sometimes, and I like how you just, it’s not problem.

[00:34:30] Like they stop performing at a high level. It’s problem in the sense that they demand a certain level of attention and care to really feel that sense of significance and that their achievement is being seen and recognized. Uh, sometimes, sometimes there’s a little bit of, you know, Drama or ego around like, Hey, I am a high performer.

[00:34:49] I just need you to tell me that a few times. 

[00:34:51] Christopher Belcastro: Right, exactly. Well, and you know, another thing to be careful of is when you have high performers, your tendency is going to be to give them more work and you’ve got to be careful about that because that can cause high burnout or dissatisfaction and high performers as well.

[00:35:09] Zach White: If we go back to the beginning stages of you as a manager and you were putting in the crazy hours, getting up at 4 a. m. Getting to work, putting in 12, 13, 14 hour days. And that story you told yourself that, well, this is temporary. I just need to do this right now because I’m a new manager. I think that’s a really dangerous trap.

[00:35:35] That lots of people face, even not at these big leaps from I see the manager or maybe manager to executive director or executive, sometimes those like, Hey, this is big. This is new. It can trigger that even just from company to company. I’m an IC here and I get a new role. I see somewhere else and it’s my first 90 days.

[00:35:56] And we tell ourselves this story that well, just temporarily. I need to put in all this extra work to fill in the blank, get up to speed, hit the ground running, prove myself to somebody, whatever it is. So I’d love to hear your perspective. Is there some truth to that, that we should expect, or it’s reasonable to expect putting in 20%, 30 percent extra effort?

[00:36:22] to get something up to speed quickly. And that’s a good, good idea. Is that a complete mindset trap that it actually never needs to happen? You could be doing a reasonable work schedule the whole time. If you just had the tools and the mindset to do it. What do you see as the looking back what’s true or untrue about that story?

[00:36:42] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, I think. I don’t think I could prescribe one particular thing because I think it also depends on where’s your organization at, you know, where was it coming from? And where is it moving to? Because if you’re moving into growth as an organization, that could look a little different. Um, but if you’ve got in general, I would say when I started out, I wasn’t focusing on the right thing.

[00:37:10] Because of that, I couldn’t put the processes and the procedures in place. And if I had focused on putting the processes and procedures in place, I wouldn’t really need to have done a lot of that extra work. 

[00:37:22] Zach White: Um, yeah, that’s good. 

[00:37:24] Christopher Belcastro: It’s a hard truth to say, but to a degree, I feel like you’re so like, unless you’re being forced to do the job, which I hope not, and no one is doing, because, you know, I’m a proponent of do what you love and, and know what your purpose is and follow that.

[00:37:39] Um, but short of that, I think everybody gets very excited about this new and fun opportunity. Like, you know, things couldn’t be looking better for me and in my career right now. So I think it’s hard to, like, scale that back, but I would promote. I would promote the theory that you don’t actually have to, to make it successful because there will always be the next thing to do.

[00:38:06] There is no shortage of it. And if you get to the point in your career, which I have, by the way, not, not in my current job, but previously, if you get to the point where no, nothing needs your attention and nobody needs your support, you’ve done your job to the best ability you possibly could. That should be your goal that you made yourself.

[00:38:25] That’s exactly what you should shoot for. 

[00:38:27] Zach White: I agree a thousand percent. And as counterintuitive as that feels, it is the fastest way to growth because now the door is open for you to move up and create bigger impact. And as long as there’s anchors and tethers that you’re required at the lower level to do that job, that’s one more reason why not to promote you.

[00:38:45] Exactly. A thousand percent. I love that. The other thing I’ll mention on this, I’d love to hear if you think this is true too, especially now as a coach. I think the danger of buying in to the story that this is temporary is that while you’re believing that story, meanwhile, you’re conditioning your nervous system to this is what’s normal, and you don’t change the story until you burn out.

[00:39:12] Some, some external, like, really dramatic force has to happen or the feedback comes from HR. I think we. Over index on our consciousness and ability to drive our life that I’m making every decision all the time. And the truth is you’re actually quite on autopilot. You’re, you’re subconscious. And so much of your life is just happening through conditioning and habits.

[00:39:34] And so if you go 90 days, six months, 12 months, work in 60 and 70 hours a week, guess what you’re conditioning your whole nervous system to that is normal. So you can tell yourself it’s temporary as long as you want, but you’re actually. Setting yourself up for that to be the norm the whole time. Do you, would you agree with that?

[00:39:53] Christopher Belcastro: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, it’s so, it’s so small a shift, you know, because you developing a new habit does not take very long and can be developed in eight weeks. Unfortunately, and so if you do that, so I would look at it is sometimes it’s necessary, but I would never make it an open loop thing.

[00:40:13] Do not say it just requires the job just requires of me this of me right now and not have an end. 

[00:40:21] Zach White: So if you’re 

[00:40:21] Christopher Belcastro: going to do it, which I can say, like, maybe I understand. Maybe there, maybe you lost someone on the team and maybe you also got to do moonlight a little as an IC here and there. Like I get that.

[00:40:35] The thing is you have to know that you aren’t abandoning yourself in the process because you are no good to the entire team if you are stressed out, overwhelmed, tired, like you’re going to do less work. Focus on quality work, not quantity work. Um, that’s my, that would be my advice. I, I think if I could go back and do it again where I sit now, I wouldn’t do the extra.

[00:41:05] I would put in the amount of time that I should in a day and go home, take care of myself, take care of my family and, you know, go back the next day. 

[00:41:16] Zach White: Amen. Great point. Don’t leave an open loop. Another awesome reason to have a professional coach in your life that you can set that accountability with, okay, for the next four weeks, I’m going to put in the extra time and then we have a session we’re going to check in.

[00:41:34] How’s that going and renew a commitment to whatever the next best action is at some point, really, really helpful. Okay. Last, last thing I, I there’s a hundred things I want to ask you, but, but here’s one, your perspective, really, I’m, I’m curious about now that you’ve gone through and are leading as a CTO in this organization, if one of your managers came to you and said, Hey, Christopher, I’m getting buried, I’m overwhelmed.

[00:42:01] There’s so much going on. It’s forcing me to put in these long hours. I heard you on the podcast that I don’t need to be doing that, but I don’t know what the critical few things are separating from the trivial many. Like I, I just can’t seem to answer that question of what’s most important, what to say yes to, what to say no to.

[00:42:23] It all feels important. I’m just kind of buried in this rat race of executing what’s right in front of me. And I can’t see signal from noise right now. What would you coach someone to do? To help create better clarity on what’s actually important for them as a manager. 

[00:42:42] Christopher Belcastro: So the first thing I would do is I would not give them an answer to their question.

[00:42:47] So when they’re coming to you, they’re coming to you with their problem. And so that’s the monkey that’s on the back. And so what I’d want to do is keep that monkey there and I would challenge them by saying, I don’t think that’s true. I actually think you do now. And I think that you’re worried that by saying no, that you’re going to disappoint someone.

[00:43:08] Or that you’re going to feel like you’re going to drop the ball because you feel like you should be able to do everything. So, what I’d like you to do is, on the whiteboard, list out all those things. And I want you to do a 1, 2, and 3. High priority gets 1. Mid priority gets 2. Low priority gets 3. And I’ve done this exercise before.

[00:43:29] Zach White: And 

[00:43:30] Christopher Belcastro: by the end of it, you realize, like, there’s really only one high priority. Usually. So my exercise would be in reflecting back. I hear you saying that there’s so much to do and you’re feeling stressed out and overwhelmed and you don’t know what to focus on. And I actually think you do and you should give yourself a little bit of a breathing room and challenge yourself to walk through those steps.

[00:43:54] And so let’s do that together this time. And then the next time my goal would be that you can do that on your own. And we’re only coming here in the case that you can’t come to a conclusion and that’s happened too. Where it’s like, these are both high priorities. Like, that’s a great point. Which one do you think needs to be the tiebreaker here?

[00:44:13] And it’s like, okay, that’s 

[00:44:15] Zach White: brilliant. The coach and me just glowing with happiness about this answer and yeah, just helping people to trust themselves, to believe in themselves. And I often tell the people who work with us at the Oasis of Courage, one of the most impactful things you can do. For someone else is believe in them more than they believe in themselves.

[00:44:39] And then that moment, that’s exactly what’s happening, right? 

[00:44:42] Christopher Belcastro: Absolutely. I, you hit the nail on the head and I think that’s the culture you want. And a team is you want people, you want people to know you believe in them. It’s not because they’re nice or because they dress, you know, well, or they’re on time or any of those things.

[00:45:01] It’s, it’s a culmination of who they are as a being. And that you value them and like, they see how much trust you put in them and how much you believe in them, because once they have that, that is a spark and it will spread, it will spread like wildfire fire throughout the team.

[00:45:25] Zach White: Now we’re into what leadership looks like and not just managing.

[00:45:32] Christopher, if somebody would love to connect with you, understand more about your journey. Maybe reach out with a question or two or learn what you’re up to at your new startup. What’s the best way for somebody to reach out and connect? 

[00:45:47] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, absolutely. They can just contact me on my cell phone. Uh, they can send me a text if they feel comfortable shooting a text.

[00:45:54] It’s 8 0 4 8 6 9 9 5 7 8. I, you know, just tell me your name and what question you have. And I’ll get back to you. And if you want to talk on the phone, you just let me know and I’ll talk on the phone. 

[00:46:09] Zach White: That’s a remarkably generous offer. So happy engineer. If you have heard something that inspired you today and you have a question, you want to engage with Christopher, we’ll put that, uh, phone number in the show notes, send him a note.

[00:46:26] And thank you for that. I’m amazed. I love it. That is so great. Um, I’m so excited to hear where you take this last piece. I always ended the same way, Christopher, and you’ll appreciate this as an engineering leader and as a coach yourself that in life, In coaching and engineering questions, lead answers, follow, and we’re all looking for better answers, more money, more happiness, more engagement, fulfillment in our career.

[00:46:59] All the things we want. So we need to ask better questions. What would be the question you would lead the happy engineer with coming out of this conversation?

[00:47:17] Christopher Belcastro: The question that I would normally ask regardless is what’s your purpose in life?

[00:47:27] Zach White: What is your purpose? In life, happy engineer, sit with that, be with that. And if you’re stuck, send Christopher a text. What a joy. Thank you for being here again, Christopher. I just want to acknowledge you, you know, your passion to help leaders and managers to overcome these challenges, the way you give back to the OAKO community and the happy engineers, but your teams.

[00:47:52] And as a CTO now, I’m sure your teams are blessed to have a leader like you in the organization. Just thank you for the work you do and the generosity that you You brought today and continue to in this industry. It’s amazing. 

[00:48:04] Christopher Belcastro: Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me. I’m happy to be here.

[00:48:10] Zach White: That’s a wrap. We’ll call it right there. What a beautiful landing. Um, I’m going to stop recording here.

[00:48:18] All right. Happy engineer. Welcome back. You’re going to be glad you’re here today. And Christopher, we have been dancing all around, making this happen for far too long. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here, man. 

[00:48:44] Christopher Belcastro: Thank you, Zach. Really excited to be here. Really excited to talk to everyone. 

[00:48:48] Zach White: Yeah. Why don’t we do something I don’t often do and just have a two minute drill summary of your career path.

[00:48:58] You’ve had a really interesting set of experiences. And before we deep dive into some of those points of genius for you, I’d love it if you could just share the arc of your engineering career and growth in two minutes or less. You think you can handle that? 

[00:49:13] Christopher Belcastro: It’s going to be a tough one, but I’m going to go for it.

[00:49:15] Make it happen. Give us 

[00:49:16] Zach White: the quick high level. Where has the world of engineering taken you? 

[00:49:20] Christopher Belcastro: Okay, absolutely. So, um, I studied electrical engineering at Virginia Tech. And out of school in 2009, I went and I worked at an architecture and engineering firm and really loved the people there. But, you know, I was looking to get more diversified experience.

[00:49:34] So I moved to the heavy steel industry and I was doing controls engineering, got really heavy into systems, integrated systems, more printed circuit board side, more in understanding drives and just how, you know, different systems work together. And it was a great experience. Then, from there, I started working.

[00:49:54] In a power protection business in Richmond, Virginia, um, that was acquired by ABB. And I really found a home in power electronics and I really loved the product development side of things that I got heavy into research and development. I got heavy into compliance and regulatory matters, uh, project management.

[00:50:13] And then before you know it, they were asking me to do project, project management, and then people management. And then I had this flip from being the expert, the guy who like knew like all the stuff. To leading this group of people and that was really challenging for me because I thought like I had to be the guy And then I realized 

[00:50:34] Zach White: yeah, 

[00:50:35] Christopher Belcastro: that’s not my role um, and then I started leading people and i’ve been doing that and Um, I did that for nine years at ABB, and then I started at a startup at the beginning of this year as their CTO.

[00:50:47] And I’ve been raising a group there now. And, uh, it’s been fantastic. People leadership is where my career has led me. 

[00:50:56] Zach White: Well done. You nailed it. I mean, probably less. I wasn’t keeping track, but it’s perfect. What I love about your experience and it resonates with a lot of things I’ve done that is really broad from the, you know, the shop floor manufacturing, what’s happening.

[00:51:11] On the ground, so to speak day to day, the R and D, the product development, that whole side, everything in between, you kind of seen that whole picture, but it’s hard to ignore that pivotal point you highlighted the day that we were no longer here in the organization because of our technical genius, but to lead the other technical geniuses.

[00:51:36] That’s a tough transition and it’s a place I’d love to zoom in. So take us back to maybe leading up to that first manager position. What were you doing right before that? And was it something you wanted? Is it something you asked for? Was it a reward for great work? Tell us a little bit about what led into that first manager job.

[00:51:59] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. So I was leading a multinational project, uh, with, I had a team in the U S and the team in Switzerland, and we were bringing this UPS product, commercial UPS product here to the U S for the first time. And it was really exciting. I, you know, All my leadership was so excited about the communication and how well I was doing the communication and getting the two teams to work together.

[00:52:24] And, you know, there were talks about, like, we’re growing as a business that we need to grow the research and development team. And, you know, so when we’re done with this, Chris, we want to put you in charge of all the electrical engineers. And I was like, oh, that’s like, so exciting and so fantastic. So we did that, you know, shortly, like a month after we finished the project, like we made that transition.

[00:52:46] And then like four months later, I took on all the mechanical engineers. And then a year later, I took on all the software engineers. And before you know it, like I had like this huge group reporting to me. Um, and that, that was a problem because I didn’t have enough time for everybody. Um, and like people were stressed out and they felt like I was micromanaging them, but they could never talk to me.

[00:53:11] And, um, so that was really hard for me. 

[00:53:16] Zach White: How many people at the beginning and then over that year that followed, tell us about the size of your team and how many were directs at that time? 

[00:53:25] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. So when I started with, you know, after I took over the electrical team, I had six people and so, you know, it was very manageable and then I took on the mechanicals and so I was up to 13 people and then over the next year, once I had the software team, I had a team in Richmond and a team in Bangalore, India.

[00:53:48] And so by the end of that, I was at 22 people. All direct. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So that was really, that was really, I mean, the team in India had a, a supervisor there, but they weren’t in like, what’s our product development roadmap look like and timelines or anything like that. They were there for administrative purposes, um, which is helpful, but you know, it’s like you got a two different time zones, you got to cater to people and it was, it was terrible.

[00:54:17] And then, you know, by the, you know, by that time, like I realized like, I, I’m not getting support to have team managers. So I’m going to put in acting team managers. I put in place without permission, without asking. 

[00:54:30] Zach White: Oh, wow. 

[00:54:31] Christopher Belcastro: I put in acting leaders for each of the disciplines that we had and by, because we had lab teams as well, so, um, you know, we had five different teams basically that we split it out to, and I had team leaders for, for all of those teams.

[00:54:46] And then within another year. Uh, we actually had official team managers, and so I went down to seven people. And by the time I left, there were 45 people in our department. 

[00:54:59] Zach White: So Christopher, the common story of engineering leaders I coach is the superstar individual contributor gets recognized by a senior person for their Capability and communication skills and people acumen, they’re doing a great job delivering the work to your point, global team, and you’re this all star, maybe the hub at the center of many functions, but you’re an IC and you get rewarded by promotion to manager.

[00:55:32] And it cripples so many engineers. So. Tell us in your journey, you described like that was a hard transition for me. What were the, the brick walls that you ran into? The things that happened in that time where you realized my, my IC mindset and skillset isn’t gonna work here. What were those things for you?

[00:55:54] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, well, you know what that looks like. I’ll give you like a really stark example. I would have to meet when I was going to go out of the office. I would have to meet with everybody. We would have a meeting and I would lay out every day for all the technicians. This is exactly what they’re working on.

[00:56:12] What day, what time, who, what engineer to get with. I would go to each of the engineers working on different projects and have them walk me through what they were going to be working on and like, by the end of it, it’s like, okay, we’ve got a game plan and that stressed everybody out, including me, because like it was the massive amount of work and by the time like that week would actually come.

[00:56:34] More than half of those things couldn’t actually happen and practicality like this because you know, we’re in r& d But we’re also supporting a production environment as well So i’d have teams that are doing design work and then teams that are doing production support And so it’s like yeah, like you got to get revenue out the door as well So you kind of have to you know respond to that.

[00:56:55] Um, so that was an example Everybody had to ask me for time off So, like, I had a process where it’s like, well, send me an email and, you know, I want your last name, the dates, you know, and is it vacation or, you know, what, what is it for type of thing? And like, I’d get people like, Hey, you never responded to my vacation request.

[00:57:15] Well, it’s because I was getting 600 emails like a day. From like every angle. And it’s like, I could possibly, you look in my inbox and I’ve got like over 4, 000 unread emails. And it’s like, well, yeah, I, I’m doing a really poor job. I’m sorry. Yeah. Let me go take a look at that. And then I would get into like, I didn’t have enough time to sit in on a project meeting.

[00:57:37] And then I’d be like two meetings later, someone would be presenting something they’re super excited about. And I’m like, yeah, you can’t do that. And it’s like that, you know, that won’t work and here’s why and then they’re frustrated because I didn’t have the time to give them that counsel before they spent like 40 hours on it.

[00:57:54] Um, 

[00:57:55] Zach White: wow. Yeah. 

[00:57:56] Christopher Belcastro: And I also shouldn’t have to at the same time, like I realized like you’re the bottleneck here, like all of these things, it’s you. Um, and so I started a couple of employees started complaining to HR. You know, they, you know, they started saying like, I’m really dissatisfied. I’m feeling really stressed out.

[00:58:17] Um, and my job and I’m, you know, I don’t have time to talk to my manager and I don’t feel supported. Um, and so I had to get that feedback and that was really hard for me. Like here I was thinking like. Everything’s amazing. I’m stressed out beyond belief, but like we’re doing great. And then I got that feedback and I was, it was a gut punch.

[00:58:47] Zach White: I was going to ask what you were feeling during that time. So the stress was real. What were the hours? Like, were you putting in crazy hours to try to keep up with it all? 

[00:58:56] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. You know, somewhere, sometimes 65, 70 hours. Um, I would. I’d get up sometimes early in the morning, 3. 30, 4 o’clock in the morning, and I’d start work.

[00:59:09] And, like, I would work, like, the whole day I’d go to work, I wouldn’t get home until 7, 7. 30. Um, And I would, even when I wasn’t working, I was thinking about work on the weekends. Like I would be like, Oh, this came up, I’m sending this email, um, or I’m gonna, I’m gonna crank out this spec, you know, that we need to start working on this project, you know, in the next two weeks type of thing.

[00:59:32] And it was, I thunk, I thunk myself into work cause I thought that that’s what I needed to do. Yeah, 

[00:59:39] Zach White: that’s the job. That’s what I’m should do. Christopher, did you have a narrative going on in your mind at that time that. justified the hours that it was the right thing to do. You were happy to do it even, or Or were you burning out and just really kind of hated that experience while it was happening?

[00:59:57] Do you remember kind of in the moment, what was the story you were telling yourself about the stress and the hours and the everything going on? 

[01:00:06] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. At the beginning, when I started being a people leader, like I, I told myself, like, it was so exciting. It was new. There’s so much opportunity. And I told myself, yeah, this is just what you need to do right now.

[01:00:19] And then when I was getting closer to the end of it, I felt like I did it because I thought it was for a time, but this doesn’t feel like it’s for a time. It feels like it will continue to be the same all the time. And nobody’s asked me to do it. And so I, I was feeling a bit resentful and just burnt out, like.

[01:00:41] You know, somebody else want to come in and do this by all means. 

[01:00:46] Zach White: Oh, so many things to unpack, but I’d like to get to the turnaround point. Where’s, where’s the place it began to change? Was it getting that feedback via HR? I remember when we talked last time, you mentioned, you know, people don’t like working for you, Christopher.

[01:01:07] You got that feedback and like, where was that point and what actually created the upward shift for you? 

[01:01:13] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, it was when I got that feedback and it happened overnight. What it looked like for me was I was surprised, like I did not expect it, you know, maybe I had my head buried in the sand and I should have seen the writing on the wall.

[01:01:29] I don’t know, but I, I felt a little defensive at first and then I like realized like, well, this is how they feel and feelings are feelings and you shouldn’t make that right or wrong. Um, but take it as feedback. So what are you going to do with the feedback? You’re going to keep doing the same thing.

[01:01:51] You’re going to run, or are you going to make a conscious decision to make a change? So I made a conscious decision to make a change. So overnight I created a new policy around how time off was being requested. I made a new policy around purchase requisitions and approval limits and who got to do them instead of me approving everything from a 19 cent part to, you know, a 30, 000 transformer, um, you know, so I put in new, you know, something there.

[01:02:20] And then I put the acting team leaders in place and I, I put time into them. I gave them like, this is what, you know, what I would like you to be doing with the, you know, the disciplines. And, you know, I’m going to meet with you guys on a consistent basis and we’re going to have touch points and you’re going to give me feedback.

[01:02:37] I’m going to give you feedback. Um, and I’d been doing, I’ve been obviously getting leadership development. But I asked to get professional coaching. Um, and so at that point I started doing professional coaching. Uh, I started doing some AMA programs around management, primarily around leadership and around communication.

[01:02:59] Um, you know, I knew that there was an area that I could improve in and I started moving from being the manager to the leader. I never, once after that defined someone’s schedule of what they were working on, not once after that. 

[01:03:13] Zach White: How long from that point of feedback to a completely different operating system and experience on that team?

[01:03:21] How long did that turnaround take? Would you say? 

[01:03:24] Christopher Belcastro: It was about two months. I mean, the morale, the morale turned around within like a week. But it, but I, I felt like not everybody knew how to do it. They were like repeating the old ways. And so it was the habit, getting people back in the habit of like, yep, that’s great.

[01:03:44] And I need you to go to, to this person now. And they’ll, they’ll be able to comment on that officially. Um, so it was getting people back into a new routine, into a new habit, but within two months, the morale of the team was up and I had everybody bought in on this operating model. And we’re things perfect.

[01:04:04] No, I mean, but we would find the challenges or the opportunity. Sometimes it was a person, sometimes it was a way that we were doing things and we would figure out like, how do we make this that much better? It wasn’t, it’s okay. It failed. Let’s figure out what to do differently. 

[01:04:22] Zach White: Yeah. 

[01:04:22] Christopher Belcastro: Um, and then I started moving into, I could take those team managers and I could work them through a different leadership model where like I’m coaching But okay, coaching is not working.

[01:04:34] So I’m going to demonstrate, I’m going to instruct them on how to deal with this difficult conversation. They’re going to be a part of it with me. And then afterwards, we’re going to debrief about it. Matt, what’d you, what’d you experience in that conversation? And what do you think was different about that?

[01:04:48] And what do you think you would do differently next time? Um, so 

[01:04:52] Zach White: good. You made a comment. Yeah, I chose, I’ve reached out to my leadership and asked for the professional coaching, um, Because of the awareness that came from that gut punch of candid, honest feedback, but at the beginning that that wasn’t there.

[01:05:09] And I’m assuming, you know, your boss and the senior leadership team of the company was not coming alongside you, coaching you, mentoring you, sharing with you, all these things. If anything, maybe they were absent or modeling a similar. Crazy work ethic. I’m wondering if that’s true. Tell me what was it like as far as the support or lack of not to throw anyone under the bus, but just kind of being honest.

[01:05:34] But what did you experience from leaders above you? When you took on that manager role. 

[01:05:38] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. I mean, I had, I had the, the individual that hired me really, you know, was a great manager and supported me. And we had, we had, you know, when things would get bad, you know, we would have some coach, you know, small coaching things and more like advice giving.

[01:05:55] And, you know, I always appreciated that, but I never was, you know, and I, I was afforded, like, you And ABB is a big company. They have like a management development program, a middle management program. And, you know, I would, I got nominated to be in those programs. So I did, I did get those, but in terms of the other development.

[01:06:16] It wasn’t coming from somebody else to tell me you’re going to do this. It was, Oh, I need to figure out what I need. What’s my gap with my learning opportunity? What’s my growth need to be here? Um, cause I immediately recognized, like, I feel like coaching would be really instrumental in my growth. Um, and it was instrumental not only in my professional growth, but in my personal growth.

[01:06:38] Um, 

[01:06:40] Zach White: Yeah, it’s amazing. One thing that I hear people say, but I think a lot of people don’t believe really fully because their actions don’t reflect it, is this reality that you can create the kind of experience in your career that you described post this feedback where you have a reasonable schedule and a balanced life and a team that’s really high performing and engaged and you’re not working 70 hours a week and these things.

[01:07:07] But sometimes above us, what we see modeled. It’s something that we don’t want. And then we look at our own experience and we’re not happy even where we are right now. And people write that off of just how it is. This is, this is it. And they don’t lean into the idea that, no, I can take responsibility for this and go get that support and go get that training, go get that coaching, go get that feedback and it’s possible.

[01:07:36] And so I just, I’m excited that you’re a great example of somebody who had, you know, it’s not like the company came alongside and gave you every single thing you needed proactively to make this happen, like you had to learn through some hard mistakes, but demonstrated, What that turnaround looks like. So if we could go back now, you know, the Christopher who’s led big teams to extreme performance and is now CTO growing an organization at this level.

[01:08:02] Looking back, what would you say are the most important shifts that need to happen as a manager and then becoming a true leader within that we could talk about the difference, but going from that IC to manager, that jump, that’s so hard for so many engineers to make, what are the keys to success in your Lens, looking back on your own journey.

[01:08:25] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. I, it’s really, the success becomes the people and not you. And so I, for a long time thought that like, I need to be on top of my game a thousand percent. And so I like using this, um, you know, I’m, I, I’m gonna steal this because it’s great, but it stuck with me for a long time. If you think of your capacity as a spinning plate, if I put 100 percent of my time into spinning my plate, then I get 100 percent out of it.

[01:09:00] If I’ve got 5 team members, and I can put 20 percent into each of them, And I can get maybe 75%, which is, you know, about the capacity you’re going to get from people is 75, 80%. If you’re shooting for more, it’s not a good idea. Um, but if I do that, that’s a lot more than 100 percent out of my plate. Five people at 75 percent is a lot more than 100 percent of my plate.

[01:09:25] So think about your resources, that spinning plates, the time you put into them at the time that you’re going to get out from them and that isn’t in telling them what to do. That is an asking question and being observant and hearing what their thoughts are and their challenges to understanding where they are in that day.

[01:09:44] Like what everybody’s human, so what do they have that’s going on? Um, because sometimes those are the barriers to success. 

[01:09:53] Zach White: And, 

[01:09:54] Christopher Belcastro: um, another really important lesson is when someone comes to you with a problem, think about it as a monkey that’s on their back. And if you take that monkey from them, because it’s now your problem, the more monkeys you take, the more burdens you become.

[01:10:08] So when someone comes into your office with a problem, try to reinforce people not coming with problems, but also coming with ideas for solutions. The best thing you can do is make sure that monkey stays on their back. Even if you’re just giving them guidance, that problem isn’t something you’re taking an action on.

[01:10:23] You do that very infrequently. 

[01:10:26] Zach White: Yeah. 

[01:10:26] Christopher Belcastro: As much as you possibly can. 

[01:10:29] Zach White: The point of listening to what’s going on in someone’s life, a lot of engineers, that’s a bit uncomfortable. It’s a bit out of our norm. Very analytical, live in the IQ more than the EQ. There’s a head of engineering I’m working with right now.

[01:10:48] I’ll name him John Doe just to respect confidentiality. But in brief, he, he’s got a conflict with the CIO at the organization he works in. And we were talking about what’s going on and said, wait, really quick, before we worry about the solution, you know, describe to me the vision of what a successful relationship.

[01:11:10] here would look like. How do you want this problem to go? Cause trust had been broken. A sense of loyalty had been broken. And yeah, this person was wanting to just leave the company. Like, I don’t even want to deal with this individual and, you know, I’m working with this head of engineering, but imagining if that CIO would just do what you said and have a real conversation and become aware that.

[01:11:34] Their actions had broken trust with this really high performing, extremely critical team member inside their company. Who’s driving a significant portion of value and revenue into the organization. The CIO is completely unaware because they’re just. Operating in their I. Q. And, you know, fortunately, the set of engineering has the wherewithal to get a coach and do the work for himself to make sure this is resolved.

[01:11:59] But there’s so many times where the problem is not the problem, right? It’s like the underneath layers where the work needs to happen in the relationship and in the in the emotions of things. And so how does an engineering manager who’s new to this Build that muscle. How do we get to the place where we stop just seeing the technology and the problems on the surface, but we have the courage and the confidence to go have that deeper conversation?

[01:12:27] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, well practice. So, uh, the thing I’ll say is when something feels uncomfortable and our tendency is to want to avoid it, that is an indicator light and that indicator light is that’s the growth edge. And even though you fear it. It’s good to take a plunge over the edge. Now that doesn’t mean that you should go in blind, but you should go in with a little bit of, of tactic.

[01:12:55] And I kinda, I like thinking about it with. Enter the situation with curiosity. So let’s say you’ve got a project that’s going on and you’re behind on the timeline and you got a project leader that’s saying like, I, you know, I can’t get team buy in we, we just don’t have commitment there. And, um, you know, my question would be why and, you know, what’s going on.

[01:13:21] And, you know, by the time you figure out that you’ve got people that are feel undervalued. I feel like they’re, you know, three steps before them, you know, things got all timeline and now, you know, they, they had extra time, but now I don’t have extra time because we have all this pressure and that’s unfair.

[01:13:41] And I feel stressed out about that. And I don’t understand why we didn’t plan better. And I don’t understand why we. I always go back to, yeah, people got beef, so let’s get the beef out, let’s grill it up, let’s figure out what everybody needs to get out of their chest, and then let’s refocus back in on a plan of attack.

[01:14:01] Do we need to pull more people in? Do we need to plan for work on this weekend? You know, I, I’m going to be the first person to say, I, I want to avoid that. I want to avoid people having to work extra hours and work, work the weekend. But when things get critical and we’re behind, then we got to come together as a team.

[01:14:19] So let’s solve this. If that means I’m coming in, I’m coming in. So, you know, sometimes that means I’m going to pick up the wrench. I’m going to put this thing together with you. Um, you know, uh, I think it’s about just remembering that we’re all people. And that means we have feelings and we’re not always, regardless of being an engineer or not, we’re not always great at being able to communicate those.

[01:14:45] Like something could be coming up for me right now. And the way I’m talking to you could be greatly affected by that. Or my willingness to be agreeable, uh, could be greatly affected. So sometimes that’s a group conversation. Sometimes that’s a one on one conversation. You have to understand, like, where is the, Where is the pain point?

[01:15:06] And, you know, that might be coming and sitting down and be like, Hey, I’m sensing some frustration right now. Is everything okay? Could you tell me a little bit about what’s going on? 

[01:15:17] Zach White: Yeah. 

[01:15:18] Christopher Belcastro: With whatever you’re willing to share. 

[01:15:20] Zach White: That word conversation, you know, gets a highlight and a double underline for me in that answer.

[01:15:27] And as a coach, and I know you know doing coaching as well, The power of transformation, you know, begins with a conversation. If we’re not willing to mention it, then we have no ability to manage it. And so that openness, the courage to just, I love how you describe the picture. I’ll get the beef out and let’s grill it.

[01:15:47] That’s a perfect way. It’s like, Hey, you know what? I don’t know. This is raw. It’s ugly. It’s bloody. It’s messy, but let’s just throw it on the grill together and stand here and watch it cook and see what happens here. Yeah. I think that’s a really Useful metaphor to say, look, get the beef out, throw it on the grill.

[01:16:02] Christopher Belcastro: Well, I’ve got some people that would be, you know, they know, I don’t want to do that. No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. No, this is the problem. It’s kind of like, I’m hearing a lot of no’s and I don’t care what we do, but I can tell you that no, it’s not an option. So whatever you need to do and say, that’s fine.

[01:16:19] Do that. And I’m also looking for ideas. So I’m not going to force you to do anything. However, no, it’s not an option. 

[01:16:29] Zach White: A good use of and as well. It’s not, but it’s a, it’s the yes. And it’s the yes. And Christopher, you, you’re really good now through the process and the experience you’ve had when it comes to the systems and the.

[01:16:48] ways to manage that become routine and habitual to set up the team for success. And I’m wondering if you could uncover what are one or two of those management systems that free you up to start being the leader more so than being buried in management tasks all the time. What are the couple of pieces that you think are most important?

[01:17:10] Christopher Belcastro: That’s a great question. Well, So, uh, when you’re doing product development, you usually want to track what your expenses are or outlays, anything that’s, you know, material, right? And then you want to track hours. And, you know, I recognize that tracking people’s hours to a T is not always that effective, but you want to get a sense of what your spend is going on in programs.

[01:17:34] So you need to set up a, a management system for that. You’ve got someone in charge of that program. That project and then you have disciplines that, you know, for me that I, you know, I’ve got people that are in charge of disciplines and then people that are in charge of projects and they have regular communications about what people are doing, what forecasting ahead, like, you know, this project manager’s, you know, talking about, I need these resources, you know, for the next week.

[01:17:59] And it’s a conversation about what. You know, not exactly what they’re working on, but how people are allocated. So, you know, cause people are a spend that you have in your business, right? So there’s that. And so you’ve got a management system around people and expense tracking right there. Um, and then the other really important thing to me is taking finance and HR topic super seriously.

[01:18:28] So anything going on in the, in your department, in your team, whatever around finance and around HR. So finance every month, 

[01:18:37] Zach White: that’s good. I’m, 

[01:18:37] Christopher Belcastro: I’m balancing the department ledger at the end of the month. I’m looking at what, you know, what we spent, where, And I’m asking questions back to those project managers and to the cross functional, uh, with the discipline team managers.

[01:18:51] If I have any questions, I got so good at it. It takes me an hour, not a big deal. And you know, when, if you’ve got a, you know, your controller coming in, asking you questions, you can be able to help explain that. Cause it’s going to hit the P and L at the end of the day. Um, And HR topics. So keeping up with the discipline managers and understanding what, how’s everybody doing in the team?

[01:19:13] Um, do we have anybody that we’re having any issues with? How are those conversations going? Um, being able to know if now it needs to become like an HR conversation. Um, because those are really, really important. 

[01:19:28] Zach White: Yep. 

[01:19:28] Christopher Belcastro: Um, so honestly. Those are the two things that’s 

[01:19:33] Zach White: really good. The HR piece. I know lots of engineers don’t want to hear that.

[01:19:37] I really agree. I’ve got a, an amazing engineering manager and automotive that I’m supporting right now, because he has a team member who’s underperforming has been for a long time, and he’s just at his wits end and how to deal with it. And we went through some early coaching sessions around the issue and.

[01:19:55] Eventually just became clear that no HR conversation had happened yet. It’s like, well, hold on a second. Like, wait, you’ve done all these things and you haven’t even mentioned this to HR yet. No. So, well, okay. Your next conversation, you need a one on one with your HR. You know, generalist to go talk about what we need to do here, your business partner.

[01:20:16] And, you know, if a PIP needs to start, it needs to start sooner than later. Cause these processes take a long time. And, you know, especially in a big automotive company, you’re not going to just be able to fire somebody tomorrow. This is a really complex process. You know, he’s just new to it, new manager.

[01:20:33] It’s the same thing we talked about earlier. There’s no coach. There’s no person coming along saying, Hey, here’s what to do. Here’s how to handle this, et cetera. Right. And didn’t realize he could be six to 12 months away from any reasonable action being taken. And he’s dealing with a low performer that whole time, you know, and that’s a big drag on the team.

[01:20:51] So don’t, don’t delay. 

[01:20:53] Christopher Belcastro: Well, and to your point, Zach, like I didn’t have someone that told me that. I didn’t have anyone that said like, yeah, when you’re having these issues, you need to pull NHR. Like I had to learn the hard way. Um, and so if there’s anything anyone takes from this is like, when you start running into something where maybe you’ve got a really high performer that’s on your team, like A lot of times people think high performer means there aren’t going to be any problems.

[01:21:20] My experience typically is that high performers are either they’re not a big problem or they’re a really big problem. That’s my experience. Um, and problem doesn’t mean like, I don’t mean that in a drastic way. I just mean like the tension and the approach may need to be a little different. And, um, I never have found a one size fits all for people.

[01:21:41] Everybody’s different. You’re going to have. People that are more introverted, people that are more extroverted, people that are more analytical, people that are more expressive, and they need different things. 

[01:21:51] Zach White: Um, 

[01:21:52] Christopher Belcastro: but when you get to a point where you feel like something’s not clicking, or you feel like direction’s not being followed, that’s when you start to have a conversation with HR, and they’ll start to, they’ll, they know this better, that they’ll ask you questions.

[01:22:08] And you may find, okay. This really isn’t that big a deal right now. 

[01:22:12] Zach White: Um, 

[01:22:13] Christopher Belcastro: and then sometimes you might be like, Oh, I’ve just been ignoring things. But the worst thing that can happen for you and for an employee is that you wait six months for something that should have been addressed before. Because I’ve had, I’ve had mixed experiences.

[01:22:28] I’ve had people that go on pips that turn it around a thousand percent and it’s what they needed to just turn things around. And then I’ve had people that it just got worse. 

[01:22:39] Zach White: Yeah. They check out completely. 

[01:22:41] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah. 

[01:22:43] Zach White: Great point about high performers to the idea that sometimes, and I like how you just, it’s not problem.

[01:22:48] Like they stop performing at a high level. It’s problem in the sense that they demand a certain level of attention and care to really feel that sense of significance and that their achievement is being seen and recognized. Uh, sometimes, sometimes there’s a little bit of, you know, Drama or ego around like, Hey, I am a high performer.

[01:23:08] I just need you to tell me that a few times. 

[01:23:10] Christopher Belcastro: Right, exactly. Well, and you know, another thing to be careful of is when you have high performers, your tendency is going to be to give them more work and you’ve got to be careful about that because that can cause high burnout or dissatisfaction and high performers as well.

[01:23:28] Zach White: If we go back to the beginning stages of you as a manager and you were putting in the crazy hours, getting up at 4 a. m. Getting to work, putting in 12, 13, 14 hour days. And that story you told yourself that, well, this is temporary. I just need to do this right now because I’m a new manager. I think that’s a really dangerous trap.

[01:23:53] That lots of people face, even not at these big leaps from I see the manager or maybe manager to executive director or executive, sometimes those like, Hey, this is big. This is new. It can trigger that even just from company to company. I’m an IC here and I get a new role. I see somewhere else and it’s my first 90 days.

[01:24:14] And we tell ourselves this story that well, just temporarily. I need to put in all this extra work to fill in the blank, get up to speed, hit the ground running, prove myself to somebody, whatever it is. So I’d love to hear your perspective. Is there some truth to that, that we should expect, or it’s reasonable to expect putting in 20%, 30 percent extra effort?

[01:24:41] to get something up to speed quickly. And that’s a good, good idea. Is that a complete mindset trap that it actually never needs to happen? You could be doing a reasonable work schedule the whole time. If you just had the tools and the mindset to do it. What do you see as the looking back what’s true or untrue about that story?

[01:25:00] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, I think. I don’t think I could prescribe one particular thing because I think it also depends on where’s your organization at, you know, where was it coming from? And where is it moving to? Because if you’re moving into growth as an organization, that could look a little different. Um, but if you’ve got in general, I would say when I started out, I wasn’t focusing on the right thing.

[01:25:28] Because of that, I couldn’t put the processes and the procedures in place. And if I had focused on putting the processes and procedures in place, I wouldn’t really need to have done a lot of that extra work. 

[01:25:40] Zach White: Um, yeah, that’s good. 

[01:25:42] Christopher Belcastro: It’s a hard truth to say, but to a degree, I feel like you’re so like, unless you’re being forced to do the job, which I hope not, and no one is doing, because, you know, I’m a proponent of do what you love and, and know what your purpose is and follow that.

[01:25:57] Um, but short of that, I think everybody gets very excited about this new and fun opportunity. Like, you know, things couldn’t be looking better for me and in my career right now. So I think it’s hard to, like, scale that back, but I would promote. I would promote the theory that you don’t actually have to, to make it successful because there will always be the next thing to do.

[01:26:24] There is no shortage of it. And if you get to the point in your career, which I have, by the way, not, not in my current job, but previously, if you get to the point where no, nothing needs your attention and nobody needs your support, you’ve done your job to the best ability you possibly could. That should be your goal that you made yourself.

[01:26:43] That’s exactly what you should shoot for. 

[01:26:45] Zach White: I agree a thousand percent. And as counterintuitive as that feels, it is the fastest way to growth because now the door is open for you to move up and create bigger impact. And as long as there’s anchors and tethers that you’re required at the lower level to do that job, that’s one more reason why not to promote you.

[01:27:03] Exactly. A thousand percent. I love that. The other thing I’ll mention on this, I’d love to hear if you think this is true too, especially now as a coach. I think the danger of buying in to the story that this is temporary is that while you’re believing that story, meanwhile, you’re conditioning your nervous system to this is what’s normal, and you don’t change the story until you burn out.

[01:27:31] Some, some external, like, really dramatic force has to happen or the feedback comes from HR. I think we. Over index on our consciousness and ability to drive our life that I’m making every decision all the time. And the truth is you’re actually quite on autopilot. You’re, you’re subconscious. And so much of your life is just happening through conditioning and habits.

[01:27:52] And so if you go 90 days, six months, 12 months, work in 60 and 70 hours a week, guess what you’re conditioning your whole nervous system to that is normal. So you can tell yourself it’s temporary as long as you want, but you’re actually. Setting yourself up for that to be the norm the whole time. Do you, would you agree with that?

[01:28:11] Christopher Belcastro: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, it’s so, it’s so small a shift, you know, because you developing a new habit does not take very long and can be developed in eight weeks. Unfortunately, and so if you do that, so I would look at it is sometimes it’s necessary, but I would never make it an open loop thing.

[01:28:31] Do not say it just requires the job just requires of me this of me right now and not have an end. 

[01:28:39] Zach White: So if you’re 

[01:28:39] Christopher Belcastro: going to do it, which I can say, like, maybe I understand. Maybe there, maybe you lost someone on the team and maybe you also got to do moonlight a little as an IC here and there. Like I get that.

[01:28:53] The thing is you have to know that you aren’t abandoning yourself in the process because you are no good to the entire team if you are stressed out, overwhelmed, tired, like you’re going to do less work. Focus on quality work, not quantity work. Um, that’s my, that would be my advice. I, I think if I could go back and do it again where I sit now, I wouldn’t do the extra.

[01:29:23] I would put in the amount of time that I should in a day and go home, take care of myself, take care of my family and, you know, go back the next day. 

[01:29:34] Zach White: Amen. Great point. Don’t leave an open loop. Another awesome reason to have a professional coach in your life that you can set that accountability with, okay, for the next four weeks, I’m going to put in the extra time and then we have a session we’re going to check in.

[01:29:52] How’s that going and renew a commitment to whatever the next best action is at some point, really, really helpful. Okay. Last, last thing I, I there’s a hundred things I want to ask you, but, but here’s one, your perspective, really, I’m, I’m curious about now that you’ve gone through and are leading as a CTO in this organization, if one of your managers came to you and said, Hey, Christopher, I’m getting buried, I’m overwhelmed.

[01:30:19] There’s so much going on. It’s forcing me to put in these long hours. I heard you on the podcast that I don’t need to be doing that, but I don’t know what the critical few things are separating from the trivial many. Like I, I just can’t seem to answer that question of what’s most important, what to say yes to, what to say no to.

[01:30:42] It all feels important. I’m just kind of buried in this rat race of executing what’s right in front of me. And I can’t see signal from noise right now. What would you coach someone to do? To help create better clarity on what’s actually important for them as a manager. 

[01:31:00] Christopher Belcastro: So the first thing I would do is I would not give them an answer to their question.

[01:31:06] So when they’re coming to you, they’re coming to you with their problem. And so that’s the monkey that’s on the back. And so what I’d want to do is keep that monkey there and I would challenge them by saying, I don’t think that’s true. I actually think you do now. And I think that you’re worried that by saying no, that you’re going to disappoint someone.

[01:31:26] Or that you’re going to feel like you’re going to drop the ball because you feel like you should be able to do everything. So, what I’d like you to do is, on the whiteboard, list out all those things. And I want you to do a 1, 2, and 3. High priority gets 1. Mid priority gets 2. Low priority gets 3. And I’ve done this exercise before.

[01:31:47] Zach White: And 

[01:31:48] Christopher Belcastro: by the end of it, you realize, like, there’s really only one high priority. Usually. So my exercise would be in reflecting back. I hear you saying that there’s so much to do and you’re feeling stressed out and overwhelmed and you don’t know what to focus on. And I actually think you do and you should give yourself a little bit of a breathing room and challenge yourself to walk through those steps.

[01:32:12] And so let’s do that together this time. And then the next time my goal would be that you can do that on your own. And we’re only coming here in the case that you can’t come to a conclusion and that’s happened too. Where it’s like, these are both high priorities. Like, that’s a great point. Which one do you think needs to be the tiebreaker here?

[01:32:31] And it’s like, okay, that’s 

[01:32:33] Zach White: brilliant. The coach and me just glowing with happiness about this answer and yeah, just helping people to trust themselves, to believe in themselves. And I often tell the people who work with us at the Oasis of Courage, one of the most impactful things you can do. For someone else is believe in them more than they believe in themselves.

[01:32:57] And then that moment, that’s exactly what’s happening, right? 

[01:33:00] Christopher Belcastro: Absolutely. I, you hit the nail on the head and I think that’s the culture you want. And a team is you want people, you want people to know you believe in them. It’s not because they’re nice or because they dress, you know, well, or they’re on time or any of those things.

[01:33:19] It’s, it’s a culmination of who they are as a being. And that you value them and like, they see how much trust you put in them and how much you believe in them, because once they have that, that is a spark and it will spread, it will spread like wildfire fire throughout the team.

[01:33:43] Zach White: Now we’re into what leadership looks like and not just managing.

[01:33:51] Christopher, if somebody would love to connect with you, understand more about your journey. Maybe reach out with a question or two or learn what you’re up to at your new startup. What’s the best way for somebody to reach out and connect? 

[01:34:05] Christopher Belcastro: Yeah, absolutely. They can just contact me on my cell phone. Uh, they can send me a text if they feel comfortable shooting a text.

[01:34:12] It’s 8 0 4 8 6 9 9 5 7 8. I, you know, just tell me your name and what question you have. And I’ll get back to you. And if you want to talk on the phone, you just let me know and I’ll talk on the phone. 

[01:34:28] Zach White: That’s a remarkably generous offer. So happy engineer. If you have heard something that inspired you today and you have a question, you want to engage with Christopher, we’ll put that, uh, phone number in the show notes, send him a note.

[01:34:44] And thank you for that. I’m amazed. I love it. That is so great. Um, I’m so excited to hear where you take this last piece. I always ended the same way, Christopher, and you’ll appreciate this as an engineering leader and as a coach yourself that in life, In coaching and engineering questions, lead answers, follow, and we’re all looking for better answers, more money, more happiness, more engagement, fulfillment in our career.

[01:35:17] All the things we want. So we need to ask better questions. What would be the question you would lead the happy engineer with coming out of this conversation?

[01:35:35] Christopher Belcastro: The question that I would normally ask regardless is what’s your purpose in life?

[01:35:46] Zach White: What is your purpose? In life, happy engineer, sit with that, be with that. And if you’re stuck, send Christopher a text. What a joy. Thank you for being here again, Christopher. I just want to acknowledge you, you know, your passion to help leaders and managers to overcome these challenges, the way you give back to the OAKO community and the happy engineers, but your teams.

[01:36:10] And as a CTO now, I’m sure your teams are blessed to have a leader like you in the organization. Just thank you for the work you do and the generosity that you You brought today and continue to in this industry. It’s amazing. 

[01:36:23] Christopher Belcastro: Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me. I’m happy to be here.

[01:36:29] Zach White: That’s a wrap. We’ll call it right there. What a beautiful landing. Um, I’m going to stop recording here.