Learning comes from struggle
Earlier in his career, Noah Cantor struggled at a new company, working differently from others he'd experienced. Overcoming that struggle was an inflection point in his career. Here's why.
Noah Cantor has been working in technology for more than 20 years. He started on a service desk and then moved into servers, networks, security, development, and DevOps roles on the path to leadership.
I was fortunate to meet Noah while working at HYPR NZ. Noah told me the story of his career and how he became a CTO Coach, a role I have also embraced in recent years. There's much insight a CTO can glean from talking with Noah, even from his career story!
When Noah took his first real IT leadership role in a truly agile software company, it was a new experience for him. Noah will be the first to tell you: He struggled.
He learned why he was struggling and how to overcome it through some good fortune in finding people in his network who could guide him and Noah’s commitment to regular introspection. His journey continued over the next 10+ years as a tech leader, consultant, and advisor to tech leaders.
These days, Noah is a tech leadership coach, helping leaders and aspiring leaders discover ways to lead and manage their teams in a way that is aligned with their values.
Over the years, Noah has coached many tech leaders, helping them discover ways to lead and manage aligned with their beliefs. Noah has helped these leaders improve team and organisational performance. His combination of technical ability, hard-won knowledge, and deep care for people makes him well-suited to helping others with their journeys.
For the CTOs and other senior technology leaders reading this, my takeaway from Noah’s story, and it aligns with my own experience, is this -
Deliberate, regular introspection is critically important. Techniques can be learned to maximise your learning.
You don't need to rely on luck - there are experienced people like Noah you can talk to who can help you navigate challenges more quickly than we ever did.
To be in a position where he could help others wasn’t easy. It started with a struggle.
As senior leaders, to inspire confidence in our team, it's common to uphold an image of being in control and handling anything that comes our way. You will find stories like Noah's if you speak to any successful CTO.
If you are pulled in many directions and don’t feel you are in control of your time. If you are fighting fires and reacting more often than proactively planning, guiding your team and helping the organisation improve, it may be time to reach out and speak to people who have been there. Find your way to success more quickly and trade fire-fighting for real improvement.
If you think it would be valuable to have a chat with Noah, you can reach him here:
If you find the content in this publication valuable, there is an upcoming event that you may find worthwhile.
If we maximise individual performance, does it follow that we have also maximised the team's and the organisation's performance? To answer this question and learn strategies you can use to maximise the overall impact possible, join us for this live streamed conversation.
We’ll cover topics such as:
What support for individuals correlates to organisational impact?
What emphasis on individual contributions could be detrimental to overall organisational performance?
What support can CTOs provide their teams to help maximise their performance?
What are the pitfalls that can detract from achieving peak performance?
Register to hear Daniel Walters and Noah Cantor discuss 'Managing Individual and Team Performance'