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Welcome to Technical Leadership Talks, the podcast that brings you advice, insights, and knowledge from industry leaders and experts on how to navigate managing in the technical field.
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Technical Leadership Talks is brought to you by Texas University's Master of Engineering Technical Management, an online graduate program that joins industry professionals and IP committee and digital marketing and your health for the top staff.
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It today's a 12 year featuring for all boards 15.
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The audio of fourth year is Protect Finance, Master of Engineering Technical Meetup 2023.
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At this period, Roth spoke to 18 students about its Google journey and provided insights and advice help guide students as they navigate their current and future ownership roles.
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Portions of this audio have been redacted to protect individual privacy.
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Thank you, Sunshine, for the warm introductions.
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Katie Hudson, thank you for the last few days to make this happen for me.
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Thank you to Texas AM and to the METM program for having me.
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I've been looking forward to this, but before I start, I want to acknowledge the situation we're in.
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It's 1:30 p.m.
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on a Friday afternoon.
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I got the post-lunch session.
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That's not a strong position for me.
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So since we are in this together, I'm going to make you work a little.
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We'll get to that shortly.
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When Sunshine asked me in the spring if I would do this, I said yes immediately.
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Because I wish I had a program like this 20 years ago.
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I couldn't find one, which is why I had to go back to school and I got an MBA.
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A few weeks after I said yes, once I started thinking about what I want to say, I started regretting it.
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Because the assignment was talk about your journey.
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What would you tell your younger self?
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What would you tell yourself when you first became an executive?
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And I'm thinking to myself, does the world really need another leadership talk?
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And I got stuck because almost 30 years into a career, I wasn't sure if I could tell you with a ton of confidence what I had learned that would be worth an hour of your time on a Friday after you've been here a full week.
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So I gave it some thought and I realized I was asking the wrong person.
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I was asking me.
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I might be the least reliable witness to my own leadership.
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I remembered the events and outcomes I thought were important.
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I remembered the version of the stories where, of course, I come off really well.
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So I did something that in hindsight was either brave or a little unhinged.
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I made a list of people who worked for me.
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People I was responsible for from every stage of my career going back over 20 years.
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Some of them I hadn't spoken to in over a decade.
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I made a list of 18 people, and most of these folks had directly reported to me.
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So I sent an email to the 18, and I asked them to be really brutally honest, which is a dangerous thing to ask of people who no longer require anything from you.
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Now, before I show you what I asked them, you all are going to do the harder version of this.
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That's the question.
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What was it like to be led by you?
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And what do you hope they would say?
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Now, picture the people who work for you or who will, after graduating from this great program, will work for you.
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The ones you manage now, the ones you've managed previously, the engineer you inherited didn't really want, but they're on your team now.
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Now, picture that this question lands in their inbox tomorrow morning, and everyone that you send the survey to responds.
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All of them.
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What do you hope they would say?
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Please write it down.
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Done?
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Mostly.
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All right.
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We'll come back to the card at the end of the hour.
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Here's what I asked them.
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18 emails, and I got 16 replies back.
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I thought I knew what they would say.
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After 25 years of leading diverse teams, successfully scaling multiple businesses, buying and selling companies, dealing with hostile takeovers, natural disasters, systems outages, leading large teams through COVID, many, many, many late nights.
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I thought I had a good inkling for what they would say.
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I was wrong, not because they were harsh, they were kinder than I deserved.
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I was wrong because the things they remembered were not the things I remembered.
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These are not junior people.
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Most of them run large organizations today.
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People who get paid to deliver results.
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And almost nobody mentioned a result.
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Nobody mentioned a number we hit, a deal we closed, or a massive project we completed.
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Instead, they all remembered moments I had completely forgotten.
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A few of them described something I said in about 90 seconds that they say changed the direction of their career.
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I have no memory of any of that.
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The things that made a difference to them were seldom the results we achieved together, four different companies across more than 20 years.
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And the same handful of things kept coming back in almost the same words.
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So what I have for you this afternoon is not my personal codified philosophy of leadership.
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It's a set of patterns and principles that came back from the survey because I finally asked.
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There are two sections.
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The first is about leading yourself because you can't lead others if your own noise is loud.
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And the second is about leading others.
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So I have nine ideas for you, and each one of them will end with something you can do on Monday.
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So let's start with the half nobody wants to start with you.
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So the first attribute of leading yourself is focus on what you can control.
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Epictetus was a slave in Rome before he became a philosopher.
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He had far less control over his life than any one of us in this room ever will.
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And what he wrote was this some things are up to us and some things are not.
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You don't control outcomes.
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And the higher up you go in the organization, the less control you have on those outcomes.
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You can't control your reorg, the market, the funding for your company, whether the project ships, whether your best engineer takes that offer with cloth.
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Focus on what you can control is not practical advice unless you figure out what it means.
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What you can control is how you show up.
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This phrase is the one I write most often in my journal.
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Focus on what you can control.
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Do not worry about changing others.
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It's a futile exercise.
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I had just finished reading Tim Ferris's book, The Four-Hour Work Week.
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And it had so many ideas about what not to do with your life.
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So you can put your time and energy on the things that matter.
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Ever since I've kept working at the same question, what am I in actual control of?
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And for me, it came down to three things: curiosity, having a learner's mindset and a low ego, and seeking to be understood or seeking to understand first before seeking to be understood.
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Energy.
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Epictetus again.
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Our mood changes not because of what happens to us, but because of how we react to it.
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Bring positivity and energy to everything I do.
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I firmly believe that optimism is one of the most critical ingredients for success.
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Quality.
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The standard holds, important meeting or not, senior person in the room or not, doing the best I can and setting a high bar for myself, making excellence and quality outputs a habit.
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Curiosity, energy, quality.
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Every one of those three is available to me on my worst day, in a quarter that's going badly, in a meeting where the decision has already been made without me.
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The outcome may be completely out of my hands, but I still get a vote on all three.
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So for Monday, you don't have to write this down.
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We'll get back to it in the end.
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Write down three personal attributes you will bring into every room, every meeting, every interaction next week, regardless of how they go.
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Don't take mine, yours will be different, and they'll be right for you.
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The second chapter.
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What I would say in a meeting, whether I can ask the question, whether I'd be the one who would look foolish.
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And then I read a line from Albert Camus, the French Algerian philosopher.
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Nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst of calamities.
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In other words, no one is thinking about you.
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Not because you don't matter, because they're all busy thinking about themselves.
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Every person in this room is running a private commentary about themselves, and there is no room in it for you.
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This is, I was chief operating officer at a lot of great ideas, but when it came to execution, he was always worried whether he was visible enough to the executive team, whether he had the freedom and flexibility to try new things.
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And that is apparently what I said to him in a one-on-one, which I have no memory of saying.
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He remembers the word he put at the end of it, perspective.
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So if no one is thinking about you, what does it give you?
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First, authenticity.
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You can stop being two people.
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With me, there is no work version, no home version, no separate persons that I'm constantly switching between.
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A professor of mine, Court Huber, used to say, don't play another man's game.
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Same idea from a different direction.
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The second thing, if nobody's watching, is you can go and do the thing you've not been doing.
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At 37, I went back to DJ school.
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I bought the equipment, I learned to beat match, I gave myself a DJ name, B Money.
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Please, please keep it in the room.
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Please keep it in the room.
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And then I did the thing that took more nerve than the DJ school did.
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I invited people from work to come and watch me beat match.
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Exactly.
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But no one's thinking about me.
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He used to work with me at Shortel, and he mentioned this in that survey response.
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Not the DJ part, but the invitation.
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He wrote that it let people see that I was accessible and fallable, and that it changed how we thought about the line between being a leader and being just a boss.
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I hadn't planned any of that.
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I just wanted my friends to be there.
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The third thing, when no one is thinking about you, that it gives you is vulnerability.
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Everything I've done to build this hour, the emails, the questions, standing here before you reading about things I myself didn't know, runs on the same principle.
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If nobody is thinking about you, being seen as incomplete costs far less than you think.
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For Monday, you don't need to take a BJing, even though it's pretty cool.
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But if there's someone, someone if there is something that you do that no one you work with has ever seen, invite them.
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Let them see the real you.
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The third idea around leading yourself is act before you are ready.
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Seneca, another stoic philosopher, once wrote, the fool, with all his other faults, has this one too.
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He's always getting ready to live.
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Always getting ready.
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One of my favorite books, which I'll point you to at the end, it's called 4,000 weeks.
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2,000 years later, the book put a number on what Seneca wrote.
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If you all live to be 80, you get about 4,000 weeks.
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That's your whole budget.
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I turned 52 tomorrow.
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That's why the kids are in town and they all decided to come along.
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I've already spent around 2,700 of my 4,000 weeks.
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And the argument isn't that you should cram more in.
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It's close to the opposite.
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You're going to miss almost everything, but you must still choose.
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So act before you are ready.
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Not because being ready doesn't matter, but because the waiting also costs something and nobody ever counts it.
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For me, acting before I'm ready comes down to three things.
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First, decisiveness, making decisions.
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What stops us from being decisive?
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Usually two things.
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The first one, we've already covered.
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Most of the hesitation is not about the decision, it's about how it'll look if you get it wrong.
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But remember, nobody is thinking about you.
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Let me be clear.
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I've never liked that idea.
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It asks you to perform with confidence you don't have, and in front of people who can usually call BS on it.
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The second reason, we assume that the decision is bigger than it is.
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Most decisions are reversible.
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Not all of them.
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Some are one-way doors, and you should take all the time you need on those.
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But most of what sits on your desk for weeks can be undone in an afternoon if you turn out to be wrong.
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We treat reversible decisions like permanent ones, and we pay for it with the most expensive thing we have: time.
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The second one is preparation.
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I had joined after my MBA, rooms full of people who were good at talking, who had a lot of opinions about everything.
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And I couldn't speak.
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One day I asked Bob, I said, How do you always seem ready?
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He said, preparation.
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I try to be the most prepared person in any room.
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I spent years thinking about when he meant preparation, like that was step one, that you prepare until you're ready and then you go.
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That's not what he said.
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He said he was the most prepared person in the room.
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He never said he waited until he was ready.
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Preparation is step two.
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It's what makes moving early work.
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You don't control whether the call turns out to be right, you control whether you did the work.
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And the third element of acting before you're ready is feedback.
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There's a line I love from Ernest Hemingway.
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The first draft of anything is shit.
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Not the first draft of a bad writer.
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Anything, his two.
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I just assume that the first version of anything I produce will be acceptable at best.
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That's the trade I make by moving early.
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I'll be wrong more often, but I can course correct fast.
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I used to think that you wait until you feel ready and then you move.
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It runs the other way, actually.
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You decide sometimes you're wrong, you find out quickly, you do it better the next time, and somewhere in there, in that iteration, you become genuinely good at it.
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That's the confidence I trust with evidence behind it.
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So for Monday, there's a decision you've been sitting on, you know which one.
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It's been on your list for weeks, and every week you've told yourself you need a little bit more information.
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A lot of engineers in this room, a lot of desire to get more and more data.
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You don't trust your judgment, make the call on Monday, reach out to a person, get feedback, take the action, iterate, get better.
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So that's leading yourself.
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A quick read.
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Recap, focus on what you can control.
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No one's thinking about you, and act before you're ready.
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All right, now it's about leading others.
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So the first one is people want to know that what they do matters.
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Everyone on your team knows what they're supposed to do this week, but how many of them know why it matters?
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Not why the company says it matters, but in their own words.
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Cues, boards, work streams, that's what a week looks like from inside every team.
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And it's completely possible to work very hard inside all of that, but you have no idea what any of it's for.
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There's a great line in Victor Frankel's book, Man's Search for Meaning.
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He who has a why can bear almost anyhow.
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So for Monday, ask three people on your team why their work matters, not what they are working on, why it matters.
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And if they can't answer it, that's not their failure.
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And if you lead teams, don't stop asking that question until everyone on your team can.
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The next one.
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Then someone put me in charge of a call center, my first supervisory role.
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It was all women across several time zones.
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I was 28 years old.
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Within a few weeks, I noticed something strange.
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Two windows, different times, where I couldn't find half my people.
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Coverage dropped, there were long hold times.
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After a few days, it started to bother me.
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So I stood on it and stood on it and stood on it, and then I decided there was a discipline problem.
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So I did what a newly minted manager does.
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I brought it up with the team directly.
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And they told me, remember, this was before everyone had a cell phone.
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They were stepping out to make sure their kids got off the school bus and got home safely.
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It took about 20 minutes for that process around 3 p.m.
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Central and 3 p.m.
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Pacific.
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I was ashamed.
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Not because I'd been harsh with them, but because I'd been managing those people for a few months and I had no idea.
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I grew up in a single parent household.
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I should have known.
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Coverage went back up.
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The reason I didn't know is that I never asked.
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:21.200
You don't tell your newly minted 28-year-old boss that you're a single mom and worried about your kids.
00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:38.640
This was almost 25 years ago, and it's still the first thing I look for.
00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:42.480
It's the same thing 20 years later.
00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:50.559
And this isn't some innate personality trait, it's a set of questions I've learned to ask because of a school bus.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:54.319
Urgency is always the excuse, isn't it?
00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:57.920
There's always a quarter, there's always a launch.
00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:05.279
If you wait for a calm month to find out what your people are carrying, you're gonna wait your whole career.
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:08.720
And we are taught to tiptoe around this.
00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:11.680
Don't pry, keep things professional.
00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:25.920
My argument is these folks are giving you 40, 50, 60 hours a week, and whatever's standing in the way is almost always smaller than you would guess.
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:29.920
It's the school run, the commute, the 7 p.m.
00:26:30.160 --> 00:26:33.039
call, somebody's schedule without thinking.
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:37.440
But you're not going to find any of it by waiting.
00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:41.359
No one's going to raise their hand and tell you.
00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:54.400
So for Monday, you all have someone on your team who could do far more than they're doing today.
00:26:55.279 --> 00:26:58.319
Don't set them a goal just yet.
00:26:58.640 --> 00:27:04.000
Find out what's stopping them from achieving their full potential.
00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:12.960
The sixth idea: lend them your belief until they build their own.
00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:19.680
Almost nobody arrives believing they can do the thing.
00:27:22.319 --> 00:27:25.440
What I have learned is that people borrow it.
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:31.279
They take your belief and they run on it until they can build their own.
00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:36.160
Rooms I wasn't in, that's the part nobody sees.
00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:47.599
Most of what happens to your career happens in rooms you're not in, and you find out about it afterward, if at all.
00:27:49.039 --> 00:27:52.319
So this is he had just started working for me.
00:27:52.559 --> 00:27:54.880
We were still getting to know each other.
00:27:55.519 --> 00:27:59.759
This was our first board meeting, and we went into it together.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:02.000
It was his first board meeting ever.
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:04.240
The safe move is obvious.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:05.519
I present.
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:08.400
I let him run his section.
00:28:08.559 --> 00:28:12.319
If it had gone badly, that was on me.
00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:16.480
It went fine because we prepared well.
00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:20.079
Preparation always.
00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:27.279
And said in the survey that he wouldn't have the job he has today without that opportunity.
00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:29.680
Now, I wasn't just being generous.
00:28:29.920 --> 00:28:35.920
He knew the material far better than I did, and the board deserved to hear from him.
00:28:36.079 --> 00:28:40.559
But I've thought about why few leaders do it.
00:28:40.880 --> 00:28:45.680
It's because the risk is yours and the credit is ambiguous.
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:50.640
You take the downside and someone else takes the upside.
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:54.559
And most people decline that trade.
00:28:55.359 --> 00:29:02.240
I understand this because somebody did that for me first, was my first VP.
00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:13.680
She put my name forward for a leadership program like this one that I hadn't asked for, and I really didn't think I was ready for.
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:17.440
And that's how my leadership journey started.
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:24.160
I was running on someone else's belief before I had my own.
00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:34.079
So for Monday, give someone something they're not ready for and tell them why you picked them.
00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:40.480
If they don't know why, they'll assume that you picked them because you had no one else.
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:43.839
Don't solve their problems for them.
00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:46.960
Now, this is why this is hard.
00:29:47.279 --> 00:29:50.240
Solving it is faster, you're better at it.
00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:53.440
That's usually why you have the job that you do.
00:29:53.759 --> 00:30:05.440
But when someone brings you a problem and you fix it for them, everybody walks out of that room feeling good, they're relieved, you're useful, but you've just taught them to come back.
00:30:05.599 --> 00:30:21.359
Do that a few times, and you've built something that cannot run without you, which feels like importance until you want to take a vacation or, God forbid, a promotion, or a different job.
00:30:21.599 --> 00:30:23.440
So the test for you is simple.
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:32.559
When they leave the room, do they have a next step that they've come up on their own, or are they taking your answer?
00:30:33.359 --> 00:30:41.119
Doing somebody's job for them is the most more comfortable option, but it's never been the kinder one.
00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:49.200
So for Monday, what problem are you carrying that belongs to someone else?
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:56.880
Hand it back this week and tell them why you're handing it back, or it will land as a rejection.
00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:58.400
Chapter eight.
00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:01.440
Nobody wants to be mediocre.
00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:03.680
Set high standards.
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:09.200
Please raise your hand if you want to be mediocre at your job.
00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:10.480
Nobody.
00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:31.279
This is two years.
00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:37.599
That's how long it took before she felt she'd earned my trust.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:39.440
I didn't know that.
00:31:39.519 --> 00:31:47.359
And when I saw this two weeks ago, my first reaction was, what did those two years cost her?
00:31:48.160 --> 00:31:55.200
But then she said, once we built that foundation, we moved incredibly fast.
00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:57.599
So that's the return.
00:31:58.079 --> 00:32:05.440
But it arrives sometimes late enough that most people quit before they see it.
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:07.279
Another story for you.
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:09.519
Was going through a rough stretch.
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:15.519
A mentor of ours from our days and I, we went in to do some consulting and help him out.
00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:19.279
I gave him some feedback that he did not want to hear.
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:24.640
He reacted badly, sharper with me than I deserved.
00:32:25.119 --> 00:32:32.319
And what I said afterward was that I loved him and that he could not talk to me that way.
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:36.400
I did not back off the feedback.
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:39.279
I also did not come back at him.
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:41.920
That was a tough conversation.
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:43.680
I was upset.
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:52.480
But I also think that this is the best description I have seen of what this job of leadership actually is.
00:32:53.759 --> 00:32:57.839
Held on to me and the standard in the same breath.
00:32:58.160 --> 00:33:01.200
Most people can do one or the other.
00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:07.039
They soften the standard to keep the person, or they hold the standard and lose them.
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:10.799
Now, let me tell you about being on the other end of it.
00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:16.799
A few years ago, I kept saying yes, picked up professional services, then advisory.
00:33:17.039 --> 00:33:20.640
I was then running a PL, a business unit.
00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:28.559
I kept taking on more and more responsibilities, and I thought I was doing a great job and being useful for the company.
00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:30.400
I was just being greedy.
00:33:31.039 --> 00:33:34.480
The quality slipped, customers started to complain.
00:33:34.799 --> 00:33:37.920
We had taken on more than we could deliver.
00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:42.720
My CEO sat me down and told me it was time to hand off some of it.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:46.720
He was right, but I did not enjoy hearing it.
00:33:47.119 --> 00:33:52.640
It's the same conversation as I had with, except I was in a chair now.
00:33:53.599 --> 00:33:58.799
And the only reason I could hear all that is because I trusted my CEO.
00:33:59.839 --> 00:34:02.160
People don't dislike feedback.
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:14.159
So build that trust first because that's the delivery system for raising the bar.
00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:22.800
So for Monday, raise the bar for someone on your team and tell them why you think they can clear it.
00:34:23.039 --> 00:34:26.960
The last idea: people love change.
00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:30.000
They hate having no say.
00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:34.000
You've all heard that people resist change.
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:37.599
There are like, I'm sure you all are taking change management courses.
00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:39.840
I don't believe it completely.
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:47.039
We all change jobs, cities, careers, houses, partners.
00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:52.159
We change everything constantly and we pay for that privilege.
00:34:52.400 --> 00:34:55.920
What we resist is being changed.
00:34:56.400 --> 00:35:04.719
Shared this story regarding a meeting at a meeting that had, like many we all sit through, had just started to circle.
00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:08.480
I said nothing for most of it, I just listened.
00:35:08.559 --> 00:35:10.400
And this is in the survey.
00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:12.960
I have no recollection of this story.
00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:16.880
When there was a break in it, I offered my views.
00:35:17.599 --> 00:35:24.480
Wrote that what was heading for a venting session turned into a meeting where people felt heard and wanted to be part of the fix.
00:35:24.719 --> 00:35:26.960
Odds are I was very quiet.
00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:29.280
I usually don't say much.
00:35:30.400 --> 00:35:34.480
I talk less than most executives, and there are three reasons for it.
00:35:34.719 --> 00:35:39.039
One, I know I don't have all the answers.
00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:47.519
Two, I believe people want to be heard more than they want to be right.
00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:57.760
And three, if the best idea is going to win, you must leave enough silence for it to turn up.
00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:04.639
This talking less isn't a technique I invented, my first VP.
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:09.119
She gave me a rule when I was a very junior leader.
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:15.920
If there are 10 people in the room, aim to speak a tenth of the time.
00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:17.360
Listen for the rest.
00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:21.119
That's the same principle, applied differently.
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:26.239
One of the business units I had taken over was just doing too much.
00:36:26.480 --> 00:36:30.239
Too many products, too many verticals, too many regions.
00:36:30.559 --> 00:36:32.239
So we narrowed it.
00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:42.079
That meant walking away from revenue, disappointing customers we had already sold to, and eliminating some roles.
00:36:42.719 --> 00:36:45.199
I knew nobody was going to like it.
00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:59.920
What we could control though was whether people heard it from us in plain words with the reasoning, without having to work it out themselves from a spreadsheet.
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:09.440
So for Monday, the next decision that you don't make, one that lands on you from above up above, and you have to pass down.
00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:15.360
Take the time, explain the why in your own words.
00:37:15.679 --> 00:37:21.360
Not what corporate marketing or corporate comms gives you, your words.
00:37:21.760 --> 00:37:25.679
And then ask your team what worries them.
00:37:26.559 --> 00:37:28.880
Don't argue with the answer.
00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:29.760
All right.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:32.559
So that's the full list.
00:37:32.719 --> 00:37:38.880
Now, the card you all had written on, if you could just please take that out.
00:37:39.199 --> 00:37:48.320
45 minutes ago, you all wrote down what you hoped the people that worked for you would say.
00:37:48.559 --> 00:37:50.400
Just quickly read that again.
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:52.960
Nobody knows whether that's what they'll write.
00:37:53.119 --> 00:37:54.559
I didn't know either.
00:37:54.800 --> 00:37:57.920
So for so this was the question, right?
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:01.039
What was it like to be led by you?
00:38:01.199 --> 00:38:05.760
So for Monday, I know you're not going to do nine things.
00:38:06.719 --> 00:38:07.679
Pick one.
00:38:09.039 --> 00:38:19.840
Look at what you wrote, look at the list, and find the one action that closes the distance between them.
00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:22.320
Write it on the back of your card.
00:38:22.559 --> 00:38:27.920
The question I asked you earlier: everyone knows to take care of their people.
00:38:28.480 --> 00:38:32.079
So why don't most people spend time getting good at it?
00:38:32.239 --> 00:38:36.719
I think it's because it takes time and it's hard to measure.
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:43.360
It's easier to measure lines of code, number of deals sold, number of escalations resolved.
00:38:44.239 --> 00:38:47.920
It's really hard to drop the facade.
00:38:48.559 --> 00:38:53.840
It's hard to say the things that no one wants to hear.
00:38:54.480 --> 00:39:03.679
It's hard to make those investments of your time and energy not knowing if there will be a payoff.
00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:11.280
But from my experience, it's also the most personally and professionally rewarding.
00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:14.639
Hitting your quarterly goals, that's a great feeling.
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:16.480
It lasts a week.
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:25.840
Changing the course of someone's life and career, they'll remember that even after 20 years.
00:39:26.079 --> 00:39:28.400
And even if you don't remember it.
00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:34.800
Everything those 16 people gave me credit for, someone taught me first.
00:39:35.360 --> 00:39:38.239
George Ravling died last year.
00:39:38.559 --> 00:39:41.519
Coach Ravling led an incredible life.
00:39:41.840 --> 00:39:43.760
He coached basketball.
00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:47.760
He was instrumental in Michael Jordan signing with Nike.
00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:51.119
And he was standing on the podium when Dr.
00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:54.960
King gave the I Have a Dream speech.
00:39:55.440 --> 00:40:03.840
King handed him the pages afterward, and Coach kept them with him for 60 years.
00:40:05.199 --> 00:40:11.039
He said something that I have never been able to improve on.
00:40:11.440 --> 00:40:22.320
A whole career can go by on the things that are easy to count, but in the end, relationships are the actual scorecard.
00:40:23.920 --> 00:40:27.119
I'll leave you with one more page from my journals.
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:50.880
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skin in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, wow, what a ride.
00:40:51.280 --> 00:40:52.719
That's Hunter S.
00:40:52.880 --> 00:40:53.920
Thompson.
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:56.239
Don't arrive safely.
00:40:56.639 --> 00:40:58.800
Thank you for listening in to today's episode.
00:40:59.039 --> 00:41:04.480
Tech Leadership Talks is brought to you by Texas AM University's Master of Engineering Technical Management.
00:41:04.639 --> 00:41:08.159
To learn more, visit metm.tmu.edu
00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:15.599
Welcome to Technical Leadership Talks, the podcast that brings you advice, insights, and knowledge from industry leaders and experts on how to navigate managing in the technical field.
00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:29.760
Technical Leadership Talks is brought to you by Texas University's Master of Engineering Technical Management, an online graduate program that joins industry professionals and IP committee and digital marketing and your health for the top staff.
00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:32.640
It today's a 12 year featuring for all boards 15.
00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:40.640
The audio of fourth year is Protect Finance, Master of Engineering Technical Meetup 2023.
00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:50.479
At this period, Roth spoke to 18 students about its Google journey and provided insights and advice help guide students as they navigate their current and future ownership roles.
00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:54.399
Portions of this audio have been redacted to protect individual privacy.
00:00:57.439 --> 00:01:00.479
Thank you, Sunshine, for the warm introductions.
00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:05.120
Katie Hudson, thank you for the last few days to make this happen for me.
00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:10.799
Thank you to Texas AM and to the METM program for having me.
00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:18.719
I've been looking forward to this, but before I start, I want to acknowledge the situation we're in.
00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:21.439
It's 1:30 p.m.
00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:23.599
on a Friday afternoon.
00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:26.159
I got the post-lunch session.
00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:28.640
That's not a strong position for me.
00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:34.719
So since we are in this together, I'm going to make you work a little.
00:01:35.599 --> 00:01:37.599
We'll get to that shortly.
00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:45.040
When Sunshine asked me in the spring if I would do this, I said yes immediately.
00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:50.079
Because I wish I had a program like this 20 years ago.
00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:56.560
I couldn't find one, which is why I had to go back to school and I got an MBA.
00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:07.120
A few weeks after I said yes, once I started thinking about what I want to say, I started regretting it.
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:11.280
Because the assignment was talk about your journey.
00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:14.000
What would you tell your younger self?
00:02:14.319 --> 00:02:18.000
What would you tell yourself when you first became an executive?
00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:25.280
And I'm thinking to myself, does the world really need another leadership talk?
00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:47.439
And I got stuck because almost 30 years into a career, I wasn't sure if I could tell you with a ton of confidence what I had learned that would be worth an hour of your time on a Friday after you've been here a full week.
00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:53.039
So I gave it some thought and I realized I was asking the wrong person.
00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:55.520
I was asking me.
00:02:56.879 --> 00:03:01.120
I might be the least reliable witness to my own leadership.
00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:04.719
I remembered the events and outcomes I thought were important.
00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:10.960
I remembered the version of the stories where, of course, I come off really well.
00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:19.120
So I did something that in hindsight was either brave or a little unhinged.
00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.280
I made a list of people who worked for me.
00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:31.599
People I was responsible for from every stage of my career going back over 20 years.
00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:36.560
Some of them I hadn't spoken to in over a decade.
00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:44.080
I made a list of 18 people, and most of these folks had directly reported to me.
00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:58.159
So I sent an email to the 18, and I asked them to be really brutally honest, which is a dangerous thing to ask of people who no longer require anything from you.
00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:09.120
Now, before I show you what I asked them, you all are going to do the harder version of this.
00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:26.879
That's the question.
00:04:27.519 --> 00:04:31.199
What was it like to be led by you?
00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:36.959
And what do you hope they would say?
00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:48.639
Now, picture the people who work for you or who will, after graduating from this great program, will work for you.
00:04:48.879 --> 00:04:59.120
The ones you manage now, the ones you've managed previously, the engineer you inherited didn't really want, but they're on your team now.
00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:12.480
Now, picture that this question lands in their inbox tomorrow morning, and everyone that you send the survey to responds.
00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:14.959
All of them.
00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:17.519
What do you hope they would say?
00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:19.759
Please write it down.
00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:21.279
Done?
00:05:22.160 --> 00:05:22.879
Mostly.
00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:24.319
All right.
00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:27.839
We'll come back to the card at the end of the hour.
00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:29.920
Here's what I asked them.
00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:34.959
18 emails, and I got 16 replies back.
00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:38.000
I thought I knew what they would say.
00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:57.839
After 25 years of leading diverse teams, successfully scaling multiple businesses, buying and selling companies, dealing with hostile takeovers, natural disasters, systems outages, leading large teams through COVID, many, many, many late nights.
00:05:58.079 --> 00:06:01.120
I thought I had a good inkling for what they would say.
00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:06.639
I was wrong, not because they were harsh, they were kinder than I deserved.
00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:12.879
I was wrong because the things they remembered were not the things I remembered.
00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:14.879
These are not junior people.
00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:18.560
Most of them run large organizations today.
00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:22.639
People who get paid to deliver results.
00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:26.879
And almost nobody mentioned a result.
00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:33.120
Nobody mentioned a number we hit, a deal we closed, or a massive project we completed.
00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:38.959
Instead, they all remembered moments I had completely forgotten.
00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:48.319
A few of them described something I said in about 90 seconds that they say changed the direction of their career.
00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:51.680
I have no memory of any of that.
00:06:52.480 --> 00:07:01.279
The things that made a difference to them were seldom the results we achieved together, four different companies across more than 20 years.
00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:07.680
And the same handful of things kept coming back in almost the same words.
00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:15.360
So what I have for you this afternoon is not my personal codified philosophy of leadership.
00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:23.839
It's a set of patterns and principles that came back from the survey because I finally asked.
00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:25.600
There are two sections.
00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:34.399
The first is about leading yourself because you can't lead others if your own noise is loud.
00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:37.680
And the second is about leading others.
00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:44.800
So I have nine ideas for you, and each one of them will end with something you can do on Monday.
00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:50.160
So let's start with the half nobody wants to start with you.
00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:58.959
So the first attribute of leading yourself is focus on what you can control.
00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:04.399
Epictetus was a slave in Rome before he became a philosopher.
00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:12.399
He had far less control over his life than any one of us in this room ever will.
00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:20.079
And what he wrote was this some things are up to us and some things are not.
00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:29.120
You don't control outcomes.
00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:36.559
And the higher up you go in the organization, the less control you have on those outcomes.
00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:46.480
You can't control your reorg, the market, the funding for your company, whether the project ships, whether your best engineer takes that offer with cloth.
00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:56.159
Focus on what you can control is not practical advice unless you figure out what it means.
00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:01.360
What you can control is how you show up.
00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:08.080
This phrase is the one I write most often in my journal.
00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:10.320
Focus on what you can control.
00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:13.519
Do not worry about changing others.
00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:16.559
It's a futile exercise.
00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:37.679
I had just finished reading Tim Ferris's book, The Four-Hour Work Week.
00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:43.679
And it had so many ideas about what not to do with your life.
00:09:43.919 --> 00:09:48.879
So you can put your time and energy on the things that matter.
00:09:49.279 --> 00:09:56.320
Ever since I've kept working at the same question, what am I in actual control of?
00:09:56.559 --> 00:10:14.080
And for me, it came down to three things: curiosity, having a learner's mindset and a low ego, and seeking to be understood or seeking to understand first before seeking to be understood.
00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:16.080
Energy.
00:10:16.799 --> 00:10:18.639
Epictetus again.
00:10:19.039 --> 00:10:26.159
Our mood changes not because of what happens to us, but because of how we react to it.
00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:31.120
Bring positivity and energy to everything I do.
00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:38.159
I firmly believe that optimism is one of the most critical ingredients for success.
00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:40.639
Quality.
00:10:41.279 --> 00:10:56.799
The standard holds, important meeting or not, senior person in the room or not, doing the best I can and setting a high bar for myself, making excellence and quality outputs a habit.
00:10:57.600 --> 00:11:00.480
Curiosity, energy, quality.
00:11:01.120 --> 00:11:13.919
Every one of those three is available to me on my worst day, in a quarter that's going badly, in a meeting where the decision has already been made without me.
00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:21.200
The outcome may be completely out of my hands, but I still get a vote on all three.
00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:26.639
So for Monday, you don't have to write this down.
00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:28.639
We'll get back to it in the end.
00:11:28.879 --> 00:11:39.279
Write down three personal attributes you will bring into every room, every meeting, every interaction next week, regardless of how they go.
00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:44.960
Don't take mine, yours will be different, and they'll be right for you.
00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:48.320
The second chapter.
00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:25.039
What I would say in a meeting, whether I can ask the question, whether I'd be the one who would look foolish.
00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:31.120
And then I read a line from Albert Camus, the French Algerian philosopher.
00:12:32.399 --> 00:12:38.799
Nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst of calamities.
00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:42.559
In other words, no one is thinking about you.
00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:48.159
Not because you don't matter, because they're all busy thinking about themselves.
00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:57.440
Every person in this room is running a private commentary about themselves, and there is no room in it for you.
00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:14.799
This is, I was chief operating officer at a lot of great ideas, but when it came to execution, he was always worried whether he was visible enough to the executive team, whether he had the freedom and flexibility to try new things.
00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:21.600
And that is apparently what I said to him in a one-on-one, which I have no memory of saying.
00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:26.960
He remembers the word he put at the end of it, perspective.
00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:34.159
So if no one is thinking about you, what does it give you?
00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:37.120
First, authenticity.
00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:40.320
You can stop being two people.
00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:49.360
With me, there is no work version, no home version, no separate persons that I'm constantly switching between.
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:56.639
A professor of mine, Court Huber, used to say, don't play another man's game.
00:13:56.960 --> 00:13:59.840
Same idea from a different direction.
00:14:01.039 --> 00:14:09.759
The second thing, if nobody's watching, is you can go and do the thing you've not been doing.
00:14:10.639 --> 00:14:15.200
At 37, I went back to DJ school.
00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:21.919
I bought the equipment, I learned to beat match, I gave myself a DJ name, B Money.
00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:24.960
Please, please keep it in the room.
00:14:25.200 --> 00:14:26.799
Please keep it in the room.
00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:32.159
And then I did the thing that took more nerve than the DJ school did.
00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:38.399
I invited people from work to come and watch me beat match.
00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:40.320
Exactly.
00:14:40.639 --> 00:14:42.559
But no one's thinking about me.
00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:50.559
He used to work with me at Shortel, and he mentioned this in that survey response.
00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:54.320
Not the DJ part, but the invitation.
00:14:54.960 --> 00:15:07.120
He wrote that it let people see that I was accessible and fallable, and that it changed how we thought about the line between being a leader and being just a boss.
00:15:08.159 --> 00:15:10.159
I hadn't planned any of that.
00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:12.559
I just wanted my friends to be there.
00:15:12.799 --> 00:15:19.679
The third thing, when no one is thinking about you, that it gives you is vulnerability.
00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:32.879
Everything I've done to build this hour, the emails, the questions, standing here before you reading about things I myself didn't know, runs on the same principle.
00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:42.480
If nobody is thinking about you, being seen as incomplete costs far less than you think.
00:15:42.879 --> 00:15:47.279
For Monday, you don't need to take a BJing, even though it's pretty cool.
00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:56.720
But if there's someone, someone if there is something that you do that no one you work with has ever seen, invite them.
00:15:57.519 --> 00:15:59.440
Let them see the real you.
00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:06.559
The third idea around leading yourself is act before you are ready.
00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:17.360
Seneca, another stoic philosopher, once wrote, the fool, with all his other faults, has this one too.
00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:21.039
He's always getting ready to live.
00:16:22.559 --> 00:16:24.480
Always getting ready.
00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:32.559
One of my favorite books, which I'll point you to at the end, it's called 4,000 weeks.
00:16:33.679 --> 00:16:39.039
2,000 years later, the book put a number on what Seneca wrote.
00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:45.440
If you all live to be 80, you get about 4,000 weeks.
00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:47.519
That's your whole budget.
00:16:48.559 --> 00:16:51.039
I turned 52 tomorrow.
00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:55.039
That's why the kids are in town and they all decided to come along.
00:16:55.519 --> 00:17:00.240
I've already spent around 2,700 of my 4,000 weeks.
00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:04.079
And the argument isn't that you should cram more in.
00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:06.799
It's close to the opposite.
00:17:07.039 --> 00:17:11.920
You're going to miss almost everything, but you must still choose.
00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:16.319
So act before you are ready.
00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:27.119
Not because being ready doesn't matter, but because the waiting also costs something and nobody ever counts it.
00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:32.960
For me, acting before I'm ready comes down to three things.
00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:38.960
First, decisiveness, making decisions.
00:17:39.359 --> 00:17:41.599
What stops us from being decisive?
00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:43.440
Usually two things.
00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:46.480
The first one, we've already covered.
00:17:47.039 --> 00:17:56.079
Most of the hesitation is not about the decision, it's about how it'll look if you get it wrong.
00:17:56.559 --> 00:17:59.920
But remember, nobody is thinking about you.
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:01.440
Let me be clear.
00:18:05.039 --> 00:18:07.200
I've never liked that idea.
00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:18.640
It asks you to perform with confidence you don't have, and in front of people who can usually call BS on it.
00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:26.799
The second reason, we assume that the decision is bigger than it is.
00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:30.240
Most decisions are reversible.
00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:31.519
Not all of them.
00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:37.039
Some are one-way doors, and you should take all the time you need on those.
00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:46.480
But most of what sits on your desk for weeks can be undone in an afternoon if you turn out to be wrong.
00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:57.759
We treat reversible decisions like permanent ones, and we pay for it with the most expensive thing we have: time.
00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:02.559
The second one is preparation.
00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:13.599
I had joined after my MBA, rooms full of people who were good at talking, who had a lot of opinions about everything.
00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:15.839
And I couldn't speak.
00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:42.000
One day I asked Bob, I said, How do you always seem ready?
00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:44.640
He said, preparation.
00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:49.279
I try to be the most prepared person in any room.
00:19:50.319 --> 00:19:59.279
I spent years thinking about when he meant preparation, like that was step one, that you prepare until you're ready and then you go.
00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:02.480
That's not what he said.
00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:06.240
He said he was the most prepared person in the room.
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:10.720
He never said he waited until he was ready.
00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:13.839
Preparation is step two.
00:20:14.720 --> 00:20:17.279
It's what makes moving early work.
00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:23.839
You don't control whether the call turns out to be right, you control whether you did the work.
00:20:24.160 --> 00:20:28.319
And the third element of acting before you're ready is feedback.
00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:32.799
There's a line I love from Ernest Hemingway.
00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:36.559
The first draft of anything is shit.
00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:39.759
Not the first draft of a bad writer.
00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:42.079
Anything, his two.
00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:48.960
I just assume that the first version of anything I produce will be acceptable at best.
00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:53.039
That's the trade I make by moving early.
00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:57.680
I'll be wrong more often, but I can course correct fast.
00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:04.400
I used to think that you wait until you feel ready and then you move.
00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:06.640
It runs the other way, actually.
00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:19.680
You decide sometimes you're wrong, you find out quickly, you do it better the next time, and somewhere in there, in that iteration, you become genuinely good at it.
00:21:20.720 --> 00:21:25.440
That's the confidence I trust with evidence behind it.
00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:32.000
So for Monday, there's a decision you've been sitting on, you know which one.
00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:38.720
It's been on your list for weeks, and every week you've told yourself you need a little bit more information.
00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:43.680
A lot of engineers in this room, a lot of desire to get more and more data.
00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:55.440
You don't trust your judgment, make the call on Monday, reach out to a person, get feedback, take the action, iterate, get better.
00:21:57.200 --> 00:21:59.039
So that's leading yourself.
00:21:59.200 --> 00:21:59.680
A quick read.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.799
Recap, focus on what you can control.
00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:08.000
No one's thinking about you, and act before you're ready.
00:22:08.319 --> 00:22:11.200
All right, now it's about leading others.
00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:19.359
So the first one is people want to know that what they do matters.
00:22:20.079 --> 00:22:29.039
Everyone on your team knows what they're supposed to do this week, but how many of them know why it matters?
00:22:29.279 --> 00:22:34.160
Not why the company says it matters, but in their own words.
00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:41.039
Cues, boards, work streams, that's what a week looks like from inside every team.
00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:50.559
And it's completely possible to work very hard inside all of that, but you have no idea what any of it's for.
00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:55.839
There's a great line in Victor Frankel's book, Man's Search for Meaning.
00:22:56.400 --> 00:23:02.079
He who has a why can bear almost anyhow.
00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:12.240
So for Monday, ask three people on your team why their work matters, not what they are working on, why it matters.
00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:16.160
And if they can't answer it, that's not their failure.
00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:24.559
And if you lead teams, don't stop asking that question until everyone on your team can.
00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:26.079
The next one.
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:42.559
Then someone put me in charge of a call center, my first supervisory role.
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:46.640
It was all women across several time zones.
00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:49.599
I was 28 years old.
00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:53.759
Within a few weeks, I noticed something strange.
00:23:54.559 --> 00:24:00.160
Two windows, different times, where I couldn't find half my people.
00:24:01.039 --> 00:24:04.960
Coverage dropped, there were long hold times.
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:09.359
After a few days, it started to bother me.
00:24:09.519 --> 00:24:15.759
So I stood on it and stood on it and stood on it, and then I decided there was a discipline problem.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:20.000
So I did what a newly minted manager does.
00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:23.039
I brought it up with the team directly.
00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:30.160
And they told me, remember, this was before everyone had a cell phone.
00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:37.119
They were stepping out to make sure their kids got off the school bus and got home safely.
00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:41.440
It took about 20 minutes for that process around 3 p.m.
00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:42.640
Central and 3 p.m.
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:43.759
Pacific.
00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:45.759
I was ashamed.
00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:54.960
Not because I'd been harsh with them, but because I'd been managing those people for a few months and I had no idea.
00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:58.480
I grew up in a single parent household.
00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:00.240
I should have known.
00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:09.519
Coverage went back up.
00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:14.559
The reason I didn't know is that I never asked.
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:21.200
You don't tell your newly minted 28-year-old boss that you're a single mom and worried about your kids.
00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:38.640
This was almost 25 years ago, and it's still the first thing I look for.
00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:42.480
It's the same thing 20 years later.
00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:50.559
And this isn't some innate personality trait, it's a set of questions I've learned to ask because of a school bus.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:54.319
Urgency is always the excuse, isn't it?
00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:57.920
There's always a quarter, there's always a launch.
00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:05.279
If you wait for a calm month to find out what your people are carrying, you're gonna wait your whole career.
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:08.720
And we are taught to tiptoe around this.
00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:11.680
Don't pry, keep things professional.
00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:25.920
My argument is these folks are giving you 40, 50, 60 hours a week, and whatever's standing in the way is almost always smaller than you would guess.
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:29.920
It's the school run, the commute, the 7 p.m.
00:26:30.160 --> 00:26:33.039
call, somebody's schedule without thinking.
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:37.440
But you're not going to find any of it by waiting.
00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:41.359
No one's going to raise their hand and tell you.
00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:54.400
So for Monday, you all have someone on your team who could do far more than they're doing today.
00:26:55.279 --> 00:26:58.319
Don't set them a goal just yet.
00:26:58.640 --> 00:27:04.000
Find out what's stopping them from achieving their full potential.
00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:12.960
The sixth idea: lend them your belief until they build their own.
00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:19.680
Almost nobody arrives believing they can do the thing.
00:27:22.319 --> 00:27:25.440
What I have learned is that people borrow it.
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:31.279
They take your belief and they run on it until they can build their own.
00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:36.160
Rooms I wasn't in, that's the part nobody sees.
00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:47.599
Most of what happens to your career happens in rooms you're not in, and you find out about it afterward, if at all.
00:27:49.039 --> 00:27:52.319
So this is he had just started working for me.
00:27:52.559 --> 00:27:54.880
We were still getting to know each other.
00:27:55.519 --> 00:27:59.759
This was our first board meeting, and we went into it together.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:02.000
It was his first board meeting ever.
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:04.240
The safe move is obvious.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:05.519
I present.
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:08.400
I let him run his section.
00:28:08.559 --> 00:28:12.319
If it had gone badly, that was on me.
00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:16.480
It went fine because we prepared well.
00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:20.079
Preparation always.
00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:27.279
And said in the survey that he wouldn't have the job he has today without that opportunity.
00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:29.680
Now, I wasn't just being generous.
00:28:29.920 --> 00:28:35.920
He knew the material far better than I did, and the board deserved to hear from him.
00:28:36.079 --> 00:28:40.559
But I've thought about why few leaders do it.
00:28:40.880 --> 00:28:45.680
It's because the risk is yours and the credit is ambiguous.
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:50.640
You take the downside and someone else takes the upside.
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:54.559
And most people decline that trade.
00:28:55.359 --> 00:29:02.240
I understand this because somebody did that for me first, was my first VP.
00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:13.680
She put my name forward for a leadership program like this one that I hadn't asked for, and I really didn't think I was ready for.
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:17.440
And that's how my leadership journey started.
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:24.160
I was running on someone else's belief before I had my own.
00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:34.079
So for Monday, give someone something they're not ready for and tell them why you picked them.
00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:40.480
If they don't know why, they'll assume that you picked them because you had no one else.
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:43.839
Don't solve their problems for them.
00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:46.960
Now, this is why this is hard.
00:29:47.279 --> 00:29:50.240
Solving it is faster, you're better at it.
00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:53.440
That's usually why you have the job that you do.
00:29:53.759 --> 00:30:05.440
But when someone brings you a problem and you fix it for them, everybody walks out of that room feeling good, they're relieved, you're useful, but you've just taught them to come back.
00:30:05.599 --> 00:30:21.359
Do that a few times, and you've built something that cannot run without you, which feels like importance until you want to take a vacation or, God forbid, a promotion, or a different job.
00:30:21.599 --> 00:30:23.440
So the test for you is simple.
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:32.559
When they leave the room, do they have a next step that they've come up on their own, or are they taking your answer?
00:30:33.359 --> 00:30:41.119
Doing somebody's job for them is the most more comfortable option, but it's never been the kinder one.
00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:49.200
So for Monday, what problem are you carrying that belongs to someone else?
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:56.880
Hand it back this week and tell them why you're handing it back, or it will land as a rejection.
00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:58.400
Chapter eight.
00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:01.440
Nobody wants to be mediocre.
00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:03.680
Set high standards.
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:09.200
Please raise your hand if you want to be mediocre at your job.
00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:10.480
Nobody.
00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:31.279
This is two years.
00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:37.599
That's how long it took before she felt she'd earned my trust.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:39.440
I didn't know that.
00:31:39.519 --> 00:31:47.359
And when I saw this two weeks ago, my first reaction was, what did those two years cost her?
00:31:48.160 --> 00:31:55.200
But then she said, once we built that foundation, we moved incredibly fast.
00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:57.599
So that's the return.
00:31:58.079 --> 00:32:05.440
But it arrives sometimes late enough that most people quit before they see it.
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:07.279
Another story for you.
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:09.519
Was going through a rough stretch.
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:15.519
A mentor of ours from our days and I, we went in to do some consulting and help him out.
00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:19.279
I gave him some feedback that he did not want to hear.
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:24.640
He reacted badly, sharper with me than I deserved.
00:32:25.119 --> 00:32:32.319
And what I said afterward was that I loved him and that he could not talk to me that way.
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:36.400
I did not back off the feedback.
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:39.279
I also did not come back at him.
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:41.920
That was a tough conversation.
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:43.680
I was upset.
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:52.480
But I also think that this is the best description I have seen of what this job of leadership actually is.
00:32:53.759 --> 00:32:57.839
Held on to me and the standard in the same breath.
00:32:58.160 --> 00:33:01.200
Most people can do one or the other.
00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:07.039
They soften the standard to keep the person, or they hold the standard and lose them.
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:10.799
Now, let me tell you about being on the other end of it.
00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:16.799
A few years ago, I kept saying yes, picked up professional services, then advisory.
00:33:17.039 --> 00:33:20.640
I was then running a PL, a business unit.
00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:28.559
I kept taking on more and more responsibilities, and I thought I was doing a great job and being useful for the company.
00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:30.400
I was just being greedy.
00:33:31.039 --> 00:33:34.480
The quality slipped, customers started to complain.
00:33:34.799 --> 00:33:37.920
We had taken on more than we could deliver.
00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:42.720
My CEO sat me down and told me it was time to hand off some of it.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:46.720
He was right, but I did not enjoy hearing it.
00:33:47.119 --> 00:33:52.640
It's the same conversation as I had with, except I was in a chair now.
00:33:53.599 --> 00:33:58.799
And the only reason I could hear all that is because I trusted my CEO.
00:33:59.839 --> 00:34:02.160
People don't dislike feedback.
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:14.159
So build that trust first because that's the delivery system for raising the bar.
00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:22.800
So for Monday, raise the bar for someone on your team and tell them why you think they can clear it.
00:34:23.039 --> 00:34:26.960
The last idea: people love change.
00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:30.000
They hate having no say.
00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:34.000
You've all heard that people resist change.
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:37.599
There are like, I'm sure you all are taking change management courses.
00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:39.840
I don't believe it completely.
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:47.039
We all change jobs, cities, careers, houses, partners.
00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:52.159
We change everything constantly and we pay for that privilege.
00:34:52.400 --> 00:34:55.920
What we resist is being changed.
00:34:56.400 --> 00:35:04.719
Shared this story regarding a meeting at a meeting that had, like many we all sit through, had just started to circle.
00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:08.480
I said nothing for most of it, I just listened.
00:35:08.559 --> 00:35:10.400
And this is in the survey.
00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:12.960
I have no recollection of this story.
00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:16.880
When there was a break in it, I offered my views.
00:35:17.599 --> 00:35:24.480
Wrote that what was heading for a venting session turned into a meeting where people felt heard and wanted to be part of the fix.
00:35:24.719 --> 00:35:26.960
Odds are I was very quiet.
00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:29.280
I usually don't say much.
00:35:30.400 --> 00:35:34.480
I talk less than most executives, and there are three reasons for it.
00:35:34.719 --> 00:35:39.039
One, I know I don't have all the answers.
00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:47.519
Two, I believe people want to be heard more than they want to be right.
00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:57.760
And three, if the best idea is going to win, you must leave enough silence for it to turn up.
00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:04.639
This talking less isn't a technique I invented, my first VP.
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:09.119
She gave me a rule when I was a very junior leader.
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:15.920
If there are 10 people in the room, aim to speak a tenth of the time.
00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:17.360
Listen for the rest.
00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:21.119
That's the same principle, applied differently.
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:26.239
One of the business units I had taken over was just doing too much.
00:36:26.480 --> 00:36:30.239
Too many products, too many verticals, too many regions.
00:36:30.559 --> 00:36:32.239
So we narrowed it.
00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:42.079
That meant walking away from revenue, disappointing customers we had already sold to, and eliminating some roles.
00:36:42.719 --> 00:36:45.199
I knew nobody was going to like it.
00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:59.920
What we could control though was whether people heard it from us in plain words with the reasoning, without having to work it out themselves from a spreadsheet.
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:09.440
So for Monday, the next decision that you don't make, one that lands on you from above up above, and you have to pass down.
00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:15.360
Take the time, explain the why in your own words.
00:37:15.679 --> 00:37:21.360
Not what corporate marketing or corporate comms gives you, your words.
00:37:21.760 --> 00:37:25.679
And then ask your team what worries them.
00:37:26.559 --> 00:37:28.880
Don't argue with the answer.
00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:29.760
All right.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:32.559
So that's the full list.
00:37:32.719 --> 00:37:38.880
Now, the card you all had written on, if you could just please take that out.
00:37:39.199 --> 00:37:48.320
45 minutes ago, you all wrote down what you hoped the people that worked for you would say.
00:37:48.559 --> 00:37:50.400
Just quickly read that again.
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:52.960
Nobody knows whether that's what they'll write.
00:37:53.119 --> 00:37:54.559
I didn't know either.
00:37:54.800 --> 00:37:57.920
So for so this was the question, right?
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:01.039
What was it like to be led by you?
00:38:01.199 --> 00:38:05.760
So for Monday, I know you're not going to do nine things.
00:38:06.719 --> 00:38:07.679
Pick one.
00:38:09.039 --> 00:38:19.840
Look at what you wrote, look at the list, and find the one action that closes the distance between them.
00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:22.320
Write it on the back of your card.
00:38:22.559 --> 00:38:27.920
The question I asked you earlier: everyone knows to take care of their people.
00:38:28.480 --> 00:38:32.079
So why don't most people spend time getting good at it?
00:38:32.239 --> 00:38:36.719
I think it's because it takes time and it's hard to measure.
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:43.360
It's easier to measure lines of code, number of deals sold, number of escalations resolved.
00:38:44.239 --> 00:38:47.920
It's really hard to drop the facade.
00:38:48.559 --> 00:38:53.840
It's hard to say the things that no one wants to hear.
00:38:54.480 --> 00:39:03.679
It's hard to make those investments of your time and energy not knowing if there will be a payoff.
00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:11.280
But from my experience, it's also the most personally and professionally rewarding.
00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:14.639
Hitting your quarterly goals, that's a great feeling.
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:16.480
It lasts a week.
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:25.840
Changing the course of someone's life and career, they'll remember that even after 20 years.
00:39:26.079 --> 00:39:28.400
And even if you don't remember it.
00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:34.800
Everything those 16 people gave me credit for, someone taught me first.
00:39:35.360 --> 00:39:38.239
George Ravling died last year.
00:39:38.559 --> 00:39:41.519
Coach Ravling led an incredible life.
00:39:41.840 --> 00:39:43.760
He coached basketball.
00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:47.760
He was instrumental in Michael Jordan signing with Nike.
00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:51.119
And he was standing on the podium when Dr.
00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:54.960
King gave the I Have a Dream speech.
00:39:55.440 --> 00:40:03.840
King handed him the pages afterward, and Coach kept them with him for 60 years.
00:40:05.199 --> 00:40:11.039
He said something that I have never been able to improve on.
00:40:11.440 --> 00:40:22.320
A whole career can go by on the things that are easy to count, but in the end, relationships are the actual scorecard.
00:40:23.920 --> 00:40:27.119
I'll leave you with one more page from my journals.
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:50.880
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skin in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, wow, what a ride.
00:40:51.280 --> 00:40:52.719
That's Hunter S.
00:40:52.880 --> 00:40:53.920
Thompson.
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:56.239
Don't arrive safely.
00:40:56.639 --> 00:40:58.800
Thank you for listening in to today's episode.
00:40:59.039 --> 00:41:04.480
Tech Leadership Talks is brought to you by Texas AM University's Master of Engineering Technical Management.
00:41:04.639 --> 00:41:08.159
To learn more, visit metm.tmu.edu
