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Anne: hello and welcome to episode 18 of Asynchronous Unreliable, a weekly podcast where we discuss the latest ideas and concepts in tech. I'm your host Anne Curry, co-author of Building Green Software from O'Reilly, the cloud native attitude and author of the science fiction panopticon series. And today I'm going to be talking to John Berger, kind of an irregular co-host of this podcast, mission critical software veteran and also as he has announced today, forthcoming author. So welcome, John. Welcome back, John.
Jon Berger: Hello again, glad to be back. I'm a big fan of your podcast.
Anne: Well, you are on it a lot. You're probably my most regular guest. so so your book. This is all very exciting. tell us about your book. What's the name of your book and what's it about?
Jon Berger: The name book is What Happens When You Are Not In the Room? And it's a book about leadership. it's a what is leadership, how do you do it, how do you get better at it, management, strategy, culture, motivation, all of the things that that comprise leadership and and inspiration and going faster together.
Anne: That that to be honest, it's very, very aligned with this podcast, especially the green aspects of this podcast, because we need to lead people or we need to be showing people the way so that they can lead themselves to be greener. We can't lead them because all we can do is show people tools and services and things that they that they can use to be more sustainable and to be more future-proof. what
Jon Berger: Absolutely. And no one else is in the room when you are podcasting. Not even me, I'm upstairs.
Anne: Indeed, yeah that. Although one day we'll actually work out how to do episodes where we're both in the same room. That will be both incredibly interesting and useful, but totally against the theme of your book. So but anyway, talking about that, what happens when you're also in the room? That is an excellent name for a book. why did you come up with it?
Jon Berger: So I I I did think about this a lot because for a while I wanted to write a leadership book, but there there are so many out there and that so many of them are really good. I I I read a lot of leadership books, I I enjoy a lot of them, I've got a lot of value from them, and they they they tend to come at things from from different ways, and that's useful. and a lot of the books I reference I reference in my book as well, because I I think they're useful. But I wanted to do something that was a bit different that I thought would would work better for me and and for something that I think I would have found more useful earlier in my career, but but also still now. so I didn't want a set of instructions, I didn't want a recipe, I didn't want to just do this one thing and everything will be great, because although those books are quite fun to read and interesting and tell you something, they're they're really just one. thin aspect of what you're trying to do rather than everything that you're trying to do. And the reality is that leadship isn't one idea or one recipe or just do this. Even in any one circumstance, there are different things that you might want to do or experiment with, depending on your context, depending on who you are, who you're leading, what what what what your situation is. So I wanted a book that would cover a lot of ground and help folks To to lead whatever circumstance they found themselves in, and therefore wasn't a recipe, wasn't an if this, then do that. and I think that that then naturally led itself to a question being the title rather than an answer. It wasn't an always do this, it was more a always think about this. And the answers might push you in all sorts of different directions, but then it's you doing that thinking, and therefore you're going to be more. confident and capable of acting on it because it's it's your plan that you're doing, it's not some book told you to do it. and I wanted the focus of it to be on on the point of it. The point of it all is is for someone that you are leading, person or people or millions of people who are who you are leading to do something, to achieve something. And that that's mostly going to happen when you're not there. So that the premise of the book Is success is not measured by what you do when you're in the room. Success is what happens when you're not in the room, and leadership is how you influence the people who are in the room.
Anne: Yeah, I I have to say my favorite bit of the book is the bit on the back cover where the the the on the back cover where it says question what happens when you're not in the room, answer, all the work gets done. It's it's I I think there's nothing that really encapsulates the book more than that. It's that, you know, we we talk a lot about leadership. And the one of the issues with with leadership, which you address in the book very well, actually I would say, is the fact that It seems a little big-headed to describe yourself as a leader. So people don't. They think, well, I'm not a leader because I'm not, you know, I'm not the I'm not Donald Trump. And I wouldn't want to be. And those are the only leaders. You're either Donald Trump or you're not. And don't so don't get, you know, don't don't get ahead of yourself. Don't go too big for your boots by deciding that defining yourself as a leader or even reading a leadership book, which is a little getting ahead of yourself. But one of the things I like in your book is that everybody, you know, it any person who is gonna be at lead who's gonna be vaguely successful is going to have to be a leader, even if they're only leading themselves. So, you know, how to lead yourself is is just an extension of leading or or just a a aversion of leading a million people, isn't it?
Jon Berger: Yeah, absolutely. There is a section of the book on on leading yourself, because partly because that's where some people start, and partly because actually one of the problems that leaders have is
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keeping themselves motivated and pointing in the right direction and and practicing on that and using the tools and techniques that work for you can be can be a powerful way of aligning everyone else and motivating them as well.
Anne: so talking about leadership as being what happens when you're not in the room, is that about scale? or is it about resilience? Is it about distributed systems?
Jon Berger: well that that's a that's a gr that's a great question very on brand for your podcast. and and the answer is it it it depends. it it depends on your context. And so for some people it will be one of those, for some people it will be all of those, for some people it will be none of those things. and and it will change. You know, if you're if you're managing a large organization of hundreds of people, then sure. Some of the time you're thinking about scale, but some of the time the way you are leading that organization is via your other leaders in the team. So some of the time you're thinking, okay, I need to go and talk to 500 people at a time because they need to hear my voice personally. They need to be able to connect and and understand. understand you know what what direction I I want here. but probably before you do that, you may have sat down with just two or three of your most sort of trusted and and valuable people to refine that message. And so you know at that point you're not thinking about scale. You are thinking about leading them, getting them on board. And maybe before that you're thinking about leading yourself and what do what do what do you what do I have to do before I can have conversations of that form. So, you know, there there's one thing that happens with the the end output is that everyone's aligned and everyone understands what di what what direction you want to go in. But that process has gone through a whole series of different things. And maybe that's involved some conversations with different folks in different time zones, and that they're all you're you're not the one that's that's standing up in front of everyone. They are because they they know people better or or or you want them to be the face of whatever it is that's happening. and that is both a distribution thing, there is, you know, there's resilience there, I suppose. and it and it's you know, there are different ways of approaching scale. And and you need to use all of them probably.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it so one thing that's interesting about the book is it's genuinely funny. I mean it has jokes in it. I I I laughed when I was reading it, which as so Holly Cummins and I talked about on the on the podcast, you have to write and have jokes in it, both for the reader, because it's a useful tool to draw their attention to particular points that you want to make. but it's also utterly required if you're the author, because it's a hell of a slog writing a book. And you kind of need to leaven it a little bit for yourself by putting some jokes in.
Jon Berger:
Yeah. Well I I I totally agree with you about the humour. I think like I think work should be fun. that's probably not true of everyone in every industry, right? And and I get there are some types of job that are they're really just I need to do this because I need to feed myself and my family, and if I don't have the cash at the end of the day, we're all gonna starve. And sometimes that might not be fun, it might just be necessary. But certainly for my my career, I've always worked in in an environment where like if I didn't like it, there are other jobs out there that I could go and find. And and the same is true of everyone on my team, and I know that. So so if it's not fun. you know, what are people doing there? So I've always wanted it to be fun. I've always in enjoyed that side of things. I don't think that I think that that adds to to what you're to what you're doing. It certainly helps team building and and you know the more people enjoy it, the the more the the more they're happy to be around and and to enjoy working with with other folks and building a strong team is a is a lot of what you want to do. So I'm glad you I'm glad you enjoyed that. do I do have a fair number of jokes in there. They're all they're not like knock-knock jokes. So if you don't if you don't get it, you probably just won't even notice that there's a the that there was a joke there, which is fine. So it won't take anything away. And probably no one will spot all of them. I it may it maybe even be that the the the me now will will have forgotten a joke I wrote two years ago and I even I even I can't see them anymore. But yeah I think I think I think everything should be fun if it can be and and so writing
Anne: Yeah.
Jon Berger: Partly because of that, I actually really enjoyed writing the book. I thought it was it was it was a good experience. It wasn't a slog. I I enjoyed getting my thoughts out there and and being forced to think through it. I think one of one of the one of the other guests on your podcast, Charles Humble, had a had a had a great quote which he mentioned, which was if you're not writing, you only think you're thinking. and and certainly there were While, you know, these were these were all things that I've spent a long time, like decades thinking about in my career. and and still when I came to put it down on paper, it was like, hmm, this thought isn't quite as clear now. I come to express it as I as as it felt like it was in my head. I'm really gonna have to work through that to to be able to get it out.
Anne: Yeah.
Jon Berger: And that was good. I mean I I always thought that in my career that was like one of the one of the superpowers I had turned out to be that I was basically rubbish at everything. you know, I started out in every job I had and it was like, my god, this is just embarrassingly bad. And I don't know how close I came to being sacked many times, especially, especially early on, but every time I moved to a new role, it was just I
was just awful at it.
Anne: I remember. Because I was your wife at the time through all these these things, you're thinking, gosh, I hope John does get fired. But I'll be supportive, so I won't say that.
Jon Berger: And then I got better and I learned. yes. thank you for that. Well, I mean I I was lucky I had I both you but also a lot of the folks I worked with were very supportive. My managers gave me a lot of leeway and rope to make a lot of mistakes. And I I learned from them and I got better as a result. And and you know, and that's that's how my career took off by by doing that and constantly changing and learning and doing new things and you know, and that was fun. But as a result Of having to learn those, not not being natural at any of those things. I'm probably better able than a lot of people to be able to e explain them to other folks as well. and that's what I've been doing in my career. That's that's the thing I enjoyed most was being able to help other people. And the the book is a natural extension of that.
Anne: Yeah. And and And you're very, very open in the book about your mistakes that you've made in the past. you're you're not it's not like here are all the amazing things that I've learned and I'm I'm fantastic and you should learn from me. It's it's more like, my god, here are all the terrible mistakes I made and and what I learned from them and how I went on to become really very successful in my job through learning from mistakes, not not pretending that I never made them. in fact and and yeah, it's interesting how many yeah. So how do you feel yeah? Do you how do you feel about those? But when you look back at the book, you make a lot of c confessions about mistakes you made in the past. How do you feel about your past self?
Jon Berger: how do I feel about my past self? I I I I don't know how to answer that question.
Anne: Yeah.
Jon Berger: I I I generally look I guess I generally look back with a with sort of amusement. Like no one died. there were some things I definitely could have done better, some things I learned from, I suppose, I mean really the more interesting topics. So what what are all the things I didn't write about where I didn't learn a lesson? you know, the ones the ones which smacked me in the face and then I thought I really don't want to do that again. Those those are the lessons I learned. I'm a I'm aware of those. The ones that that just went whew those are those are things I I I don't know I don't know about so
Anne: Those are the ones that will come come back to bite us in the future. Yeah. Yeah. You I mean you hope. So a a book does writing a book, obviously I've written loads and loads of books. Writing a book does give you an awful lot of chance for self-reflection. But as you say, probably not as much chance for self-reflection as you think. When you write your science fiction book,
Jon Berger: Well well exactly. And exactly.
Anne: You'll have a lot more chance for self reflection because it's much wider.
Jon Berger: Well, it it's you know, that this was not this was not trying to be a memoir, right? This was I I am I am a very, very, very long way away from being famous enough for for a for a for a memoir to be a sensible thing to do. And I I'm not sure I I would ever want to write one even if by some fluke I became famous. but so so it wasn't hard to keep things on track. The the purpose of the the stories was to to illustrate a point I was
Anne: I skipped.
Jon Berger: trying to make that there's something to learn from there. But people like stories, people and people do find it easier to remember something if there's a bit of a a tale around it rather than it's just a a sort of straight fact or or instruction or idea. and and yeah as I say some of them were were were quite fun to write about. And the they're the things that I I really think about and I think well I should write about this topic. Okay. Those are the things that instantly pop into my head as things that steered me and guided me and and helped me to form my thinking in that in that space.
Anne: And I like the fact that a lot of the early reviews of the book or the the pre release reviews of the book are are people that you work with. So either people who work with you or worked for you or you worked for. and so that's I think that's quite nice. That's part of a nice story.
Jon Berger: Yeah, it's nice I'm still talking you then.
Anne: Indeed. Well, you say it shows something, doesn't it? You are still friends with most of the people you work with over the years, despite the fact that I mean I still remember in the early days, it was you know, you you you could be quite cocky, which is one of the things that you mentioned in the book.
Jon Berger: He's true.
Anne: Yeah, it's So, I mean, what is it that you want to come out of the book? Because it's a heck of a lot of effort to write a book. I know that having written I so I'm not I'm I'll have my my tenth, my eleventh will be coming out quite soon. but it's unbelievably difficult to write a book. Why did you do it? What did you want to achieve?
Jon Berger: Well you you're a writing machine though, though like you're you're you're you're you know, I mean I at least I I can hold my head up in the house now that now that like I'm I'm not Johnny No book. But but like the the idea of writing eleven is still sort of that's that's that's not something I really have in mind. it is it is a lot of work
Anne: Yeah.
Jon Berger: You know, it it it it does take time, right? There's a lot of there's a lot of thought that goes into it and a lot of iterations as well, and a lot of good feedback from people. but it didn't feel like work when I was doing it, right? I'm I'm I wasn't I wasn't getting paid to do this, I didn't need to finish it. I started because I thought because I wanted to learn as much as anything whether I could finish it. thought that would be that would be an interesting way of learning a bit more about myself. And I
quite surprised myself by finding that actually almost the entire process was enjoyable. There was very little of it that I've that I had to force my way through. The creation of almost all of it was like, I'm quite enjoying doing this. I'm enjoying the thinking. I'm enjoying the you know what I've created and and and rereading it and going over it. And so So it wasn't a a slog at any point. but but it but you know it were it it was an effort. It was something that I I wanted to see what I could create is is is part of it. And I wanted to see what impact that could have on other people, whether whether I could create something there that other people thought, yeah, this is a thing. and certainly so far the the sort of early review of feedback we've had has been very positive and makes me think, yeah, I'm glad I did it. that
Anne: Yeah. I mean obviously I'm gonna ask you the question that people always ask me about my sci-fi books, which is, is there gonna be a a Netflix sci-fi action series?
Jon Berger: I I I mean the they make all sorts of rubbish, so I can't see I I can't see why not. Yeah. I mean someone's gonna have to do quite a lot of work on the dialogue. I've not really helped that much in in creating the dialogue there, but you know, it's a great I mean it's a great it's a great title for a Netflix series. So I mean it it could have all it go in all sorts of di different directions, couldn't it? Bit of leadship, bit of sort of horror, bit of a thriller.
Anne: Your Melania. Yeah, I love your cover. So
Jon Berger: Yeah, you know, where's Wally? There's all sorts that could that could go underneath that title.
Anne: So yeah, that's true. And who would play you? At the risk of obviously, there are a lot of there are the typecasting people that you could have to play you in the film of your in the Netflix series real life.
Jon Berger: Yeah, you're not you're not looking for someone with feature hair, are you?
Anne: I'm
Jon Berger: who would who would play me?
Anne: Well, obviously no hair is I know you you like to tell yourself you don't have feature hair, but no hair is feature hair. Because all the people we're thinking of have no hair. That means it is feature hair. Yeah. Well, it's like well, has in as in my in my novels, one of the things I commented on is people who were never po posthumously copyrighted. So you could potentially be
Jon Berger: Nah, nah, nah. Yeah. Okay.
Anne: Your Brunner. An AI generated Yulbruna could play it.
Jon Berger: big fan of your Brenner. Yeah. That'd be pretty cool.
Anne: That would be good. That would be, yeah. Yeah.
Jon Berger: There are many shows in which your Brenner is yeah, we I suppose yeah. You'll maybe you'll bring her in in a Magnificent Seven. You'll bring her as a goodie.
Anne: Well, and actually, I mean, The Magnificent Seven is a classic leadership movie, isn't it? Really? It's a classic type. Whether whether or not so in that book, he was both the leader and he was the assembler. I mean it's
one of the things you talk about quite a lot, is that some in some books the the person who assembles is also the leader, or in some films or in some things, but not always, like Gandalf assembled, but Aragorn led. So, you know, it's like the assembler is not always the leader, but in the magnificent seven, I would say
Jon Berger: They're both leaders, right? They're both leaders in in in that and so's Frodo's a leader, Sans are the leader, you know, they they all they all play their part. And there is a there is a leadership part to all of those things. There's not one leader and we think that's one of the key that's one of the key things that people confuse about leadership. Who's the leader? And they're all looking up and the organization is like, No, no, no. Right, everyone. Please let everyone be a leader.
Anne: Yeah. So actually, yeah, you're right. To to be successful, you kind of that's actually one of the points that you make over and over in the book, is that to be success successful, you need maximum, you need to leader max. You need you need as many leaders in your organization as possible. It's a bit more like Buffy, where at the end of Buffy, where you know, you've got this you you all all the potentials become slayers is the way that you succeed against the demons. You can't have one leader. You've got to have a lot of leaders. ideally everybody's a leader.
Jon Berger: Yep, I think so.
Anne: Yeah. Any So so when does the book come out?
Jon Berger: book comes out on the first of September and will be available in paperback from Amazon.
Anne: The c the cover is already available. and on the web on your website, which is John Burger Burger Leadership dot com, which we'll have a link to in the show notes, you can silence to be notified of events coming around the book and also download the a sample. So you've got a sample on there. So tell us actually before we go, tell us a little bit about your sample, because I enjoyed that, it was my favorite chapter.
Jon Berger: Yeah, I can't decide what my favorite chapter is because it it it i i i every time I read it, I I sort of pick up different things in it. But yeah, so it it it's a it's a it's a sort of a slightly fun and whimsical chapter that that I've pulled out, which is not necessarily representative of the rest of the book, but it but it's sort of representative of the style of writing, I suppose, which is it's the title of the chapter is What is the difference between management and leadership? which is a A question that people keep asking. I don't I'm not even sure how valuable the question is or whether it really makes sense, but I sort of discussed that a bit in lots of different ways. And and sort of the the main conclusion I came from writing the chapter is that it's actually just quite fun to think about the differences. And while while I'm still not sure the the question is is actually that useful as such, because I don't think there is a good definitive answer. I think I came up with lots of different answers in that chapter and and almost all of them helped me to think through the problem. you know, that that's the result of many years of thinking. Those those are different different views I have had over the in the in the past thirty years of what the answer to that question should be and how that's evolved. So I hope people will enjoy reading that and also Think, think a bit as a result.
Anne: Yeah, it's a it's a chapter I enjoy as well. But for readers who don't know that, well, actually, no, I've already said that you're my husband. So that's the context. And I was the the lead editor on this book. And I like I like a joke. And I also like to talk a lot about cultural representations of the things that I'm reading about. So I will I like to we and I together talk a lot about leadership on as demonstrated in films and TV and books and what's good about it, what's bad about it, what's management, what's but what's leadership and all those things. I guess so yeah, continual continuous professional developments is we watch a lot of TV. and I think we should we'll definitely have an episode about management and leadership in TV. And I'll probably bring in quite a few other contributors to your book. to talk about that because I think there's loads of stuff to mine out of T B like what was good about that and what wasn't so good about you you do a little bit of that in in in the book which is one of the reasons why it's so really enjoyable it's a beach read. There's not there aren't many leadership and strategy books you're gonna come across that are a genuine beach read, but but this is one of them. We tried to make Building Green Software a beach read, but it's done an O'Reilly book, which means it's enormous. So you're not really gonna carry that onto the beach because it's too big. Whereas this whereas your book will hopefully be a bit more compact. So it should be a little bit easier to carry around. but thank you very much indeed for being on. We'll we'll have I'll have you back, because you are a i an irregular co-host and I want to do an episode where we talk about leadership and management and strategy in sci-fi, in non-sci-fi, in TV film books. Because that really does reflect the kind of thing I'm interested in. So but thank you very much for recording the episode today, which was to announce the availability of your book, What Happens When You're Not in the Room, 1st of September, on available on Amazon. and that the cover reveal happened this week and I will splice in the cover at multiple points through this recording so that people can see it. thank you very much to you, John, for being here.
Jon Berger: Thank you. And yeah, if you are interested in the book, head over to JohnBurgerleadership.com. Ability to sign up there to receive an update when the book is available to buy on Amazon. And as Anne said, for signing up you'll get early access to one of those chapters to wet your appetite.
Anne: Excellent. So thank you very much for being on and thank you very much for all this. Now, in this for this episode, we will I'm keen to get feedback on because you won't be we can give me feedback on the on the chapter if you if you download and read that, but I'm also very keen to get suggestions for examples of management or leadership on TV films or books that you'd like us to talk about. Because we'll because there's lo interesting we love it. We love to watch t if you give us a job of watching some watching some TV or a film, we will absolutely adore doing that. And then we'll pick it apart and say, Well, what what do you think they could have learned from reading your book, John? And what do you think you should have included that they did that was good should have been in your book? So we'll talk about that. So so comments, you can either send things to me on LinkedIn. I'm very happy to to connect to people and and take comments. But also if you're watching on YouTube, just pop some comments below. That's the easiest way to say, talk about this, talk about this TV show, talk about this. So my favorite TV show about leadership, you know. Who's your favourite leader? Is it Gandalf? Is it Nick Fury? Is it your Brenner in Magnificent Seven? there are other forms of leadership. It doesn't just have to be those kind of like obvious types. There can be more. subtle and you know it's like l you know T V show detectives, are they leaders? Are they not leaders? You know, was Sherlock Holmes a leader or was Dr. Watson a leader or were neither of them leaders? That that's that's the kind of thing that we want to be talking about in the podcast in the future. So thank you.
Jon Berger: Yep. Lieutenant Child in Zulu and SpongeBob SquarePants.
Anne: Spongebob SquarePants. I really want to talk about why the leadership demonstrated by SpongeBob Bob SquarePants and what we can learn from that. So so thank you very much indeed for listening and I will catch you on a future episode of a synchronous and unreliable podcast. Thank you very much.