Make Mistakes Matter: Turning Setbacks into Growth with Michael Ehlers

Innovation and the Digital Enterprise

In this episode of Innovation and Digital Enterprise, Patrick and Shelli talk with Michael Ehlers, the new Chief Technology Officer at PlanSource. Mike outlines his leadership philosophy and career evolution, emphasizing that professional growth is rarely linear. He shares formative experiences at Hewitt and Xerox that taught him the importance of transparency during project setbacks, the value of blameless postmortems, and how to treat failure as a chance to grow.

Those experiences inform his current leadership and hiring strategy, which prioritizes candidates with grit, curiosity, and collaborative spirit, over those with rigid technical expertise. He explains that technical skills can be acquired, but behavioral attributes are foundational to a successful dev culture.

Mike shares insights earned through his range of experience, from startups to large multinationals, stressing that at any scale, leaders need empathy to understand customer needs, agility to make change, and transparency to build trust.

• (00:12) Welcome to Michael Ehlers, CTO at PlanSource
• (03:35) Navigating Leadership Challenges
• (10:40) The Importance of Career Growth and Culture
• (23:34) Leveraging Postmortems in Software Engineering
• (28:31) Cultural Shifts in Organizations
• (37:32) Empathy in Innovation: Understanding Customer Needs

Michael Ehlers has had a full career leading software and engineering teams, often at SaaS companies in the HR space. Currently, he is the new Chief Technology Officer at PlanSource. Previously, he has held roles at Benefitfocus, Paylocity, Voya Financial, Aon Hewitt (Alight), and Xerox, where he served as Vice President of Front End Development for their HR Outsourcing business. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.