#174 | A-Players, Task Monkeys, and the AI Reckoning w: Francis Brero (VP AI Strategy @HG Insights)

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. My name is 2 - > Alexander Leaminskam. I'm a former violinist turned management engineer, turned 3 - > organizational psychologist, speaker and PCM leadership mentor and facilitator. In 4 - > this space, everyone is invited to the table where we 5 - > have real, eye opening conversations about tech leadership. Two keywords 6 - > utility and real life implementation. Knowledge tools, frameworks, ways of working, 7 - > dos and don'ts taken from my personal experiences as a 8 - > leader in the experiences of others is what you are 9 - > going to get from every single episode. This is the 10 - > Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. Okay, so let's go and take 11 - > some action. 12 - >

Speaker 2: Okay and real life. Thank you for being here with us. 13 - > In another episode of the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast, today, 14 - > I have a very special guests, another amazing guy from 15 - > Silicon Valley. So we are going to see how are 16 - > the differences, how the differences will look like between different 17 - > guests from Silicon Valley. Francis burrowers with me today. Hi, Francis, 18 - > thank you for journey. 19 - >

Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to offer 20 - > the European who moved to Silicon Valley perspective. 21 - >

Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, definitely, there's always super interesting to see how 22 - > the stories look like. So what's possible and what kind 23 - > of peoples you can actually do in your life and 24 - > courage to see what is in there and just push 25 - > yourself and to be the best version of yourselves yourself actually, 26 - > so let's see how your story looks like. So, Francis, 27 - > we always start the conversation with the question about your story. 28 - > So as just started to talk about about your story, 29 - > if you can just go back to the very beginning, 30 - > what happens at the very beginning of your career journey, 31 - > what held on over the way and for are you now? 32 - >

Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think, I mean the journey has been 33 - > It's never a straight liner when you look at it 34 - > in retrospect. You can always like tie the dots together. 35 - > But the funny thing is like, at least in my mind, 36 - > the way I think about leadership, it started even before 37 - > my work career. So back in college in particular, I 38 - > was the captain of our handball team, very famous European sport, 39 - > not very well known in the US, And it was 40 - > a very interesting role because you had to represent the 41 - > team in from the coach, the coach in from the 42 - > team and really try and understand what was going on 43 - > on the field, like what were things that were happening 44 - > with the team, and like what we felt comfortable whether 45 - > or not to help like form the strategy with the 46 - > coach and make sure that the coach was bringing the 47 - > right strategy to the game and not trying to, you know, 48 - > force something onto the team. And so you're kind of 49 - > a mediator of some sorts. And then like through my 50 - > professional career, what's been very interesting is I've led teams 51 - > of developers in Istanbul, in Manila, I had when we 52 - > founded Kudu, our engineering team was in Paris. I had 53 - > teams in the US, in Latin America, and it's been 54 - > a humbling experience and it's just been incredible to see 55 - > how a lot of things that we take for granted, 56 - > especially on the cultural differences, can come to bite you. 57 - > One of my favorite examples was again this like in college, 58 - > but we had this group of students and we had 59 - > a student from Tokyo Tech, so Japanese student in the 60 - > winter in Paris not necessarily very warm, and so we 61 - > had a runny nose and one of the other French 62 - > students like kept on giving in tissues without realizing that 63 - > blowing your nose in public is actually like really bad manners. 64 - > In Japan, sniffing is actually the right thing to do, 65 - > but in Europe that's actually really bad manners to just 66 - > be sniffing in public. And it was really interesting to 67 - > see that, like both of them were kind of offended 68 - > by both gestures that were happening at the same time, 69 - > and it took someone to kind of like, you know, 70 - > ask them what was happening to realize, oh, actually, for 71 - > this person, they think they're doing the right thing by sniffing. 72 - > And the story around this, or part of the learning 73 - > around this, is there's a book that's been misused, Like 74 - > the most misused book I think in leadership in Silicon 75 - > Valley is radical Candor, because we tend to use radical 76 - > candor just to bash people openly and say, oh, like 77 - > I'm bashing you, but I promise it's radical candor. The 78 - > core component that people tend to forget about radical candor 79 - > is the part that you have to care about the 80 - > person you're giving feedback to. And so what was really 81 - > interesting here is by caring about both people, I was 82 - > kind of able to understand what was going on and 83 - > to you know, then give the feedback that hey, you know, 84 - > in the future, maybe don't be so obnoxious about like 85 - > giving someone a tissue. Don't assume that your cultural norms 86 - > are the universal cultural norms. Very Western thing to do. 87 - > And so anyway, a long story short is I've I've 88 - > had a like a like a pretty wide variety of 89 - > managerial and leadership experiences. Also the founder of a of 90 - > a company. During COVID Black Lives Matters, we had immigration 91 - > policy issues with people stranded in different countries. We actually 92 - > were the name plaintiff in a lawsuit against the immigration 93 - > in the US, which we won. So we've been through 94 - > our fair share of all the challenges that that you 95 - > can go through, from training first time managers, trying to 96 - > get longtime managers to adapt to the world of AI, 97 - > and everything in between. 98 - >

Speaker 2: You know, I I would love to dig daper in 99 - > through the handful team first, because this is this is 100 - > not a part of and you said that this is 101 - > not very well in the US, but the US is 102 - > going to have like Olympic team from Hample from one US. 103 - >

Speaker 3: And so I know some of the players, some of 104 - > the players amazing small world wise in the US, it's 105 - > a very very small world. 106 - >

Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that's true. So because you said that you've 107 - > learned so many things when you you had this part 108 - > of your of your story, what what do you actually 109 - > use right now? Because you have many years of experience 110 - > in leading different as you mentioned, different teams, different organizations 111 - > in tech, So what is something that you use from 112 - > this part of your life. 113 - >

Speaker 3: Still, I think there's a couple of things. One of 114 - > them is I think the concept of talent density is 115 - > a concert that was made famous by It was a 116 - > famous Netflix paper on this. But I think top players 117 - > want to play with top players. We were mentioning handball 118 - > and like I've I've been fortunate enough to play with 119 - > like you know, some like elite players in my days, 120 - > and the elite players want to play with the lead 121 - > players and any kind of average player on the team. 122 - > It's more than just their impact. It drags down the 123 - > entire morale the entire team. But they are situations where 124 - > you can help fix that, right, Like, you can have 125 - > high potential fairly minimal impact, but if you have medium 126 - > to low potential, then there is a hard decision to 127 - > be made about retaining or not that that person on 128 - > the team. And the longer you delay that decision, the 129 - > harder and the worse the impact is going to be 130 - > on the team. That's probably one of my you know, 131 - > biggest learnings is how an okay player actually has a 132 - > very very much more negative effect than a bad player, 133 - > because a bad player, it's obvious you leave them on 134 - > the bench. The problem is the average player where they 135 - > could it could work and it could not work right, 136 - > So you kind of want to give them the ability 137 - > to take a shot to like you know, like do something, 138 - > and then it's always like a fifty to fifty percent chance. 139 - > But like slowly over time people start worrying and they're 140 - > they kind of lose trusted. It breaks down, like the 141 - > whole concept of trust within the team, and like the 142 - > whole mechanics don't work as well. Wors again, bad player. 143 - > It's obvious to everyone, there's no discussion. We move on. 144 - > So I think that's one that that I reuse consistently. 145 - > And then just the fact that you know, like a 146 - > good team sport, everybody shows up, you show up to practice, 147 - > you show up on time, We start practice all together 148 - > at the same time, and we do the same routines, right, 149 - > just pass the ball for hours, right, so that it 150 - > becomes like mechanical, Like there are things about the game 151 - > that you repeat, like your plays, Like you know, you 152 - > don't do plays because you know they're going to score 153 - > a goal or they're going to help you do them, 154 - > because you want the mechanics to be so deeply ingrained 155 - > in your brain that they don't occupy any mental bandwidth 156 - > and you can focus on the actual challenge, which is 157 - > reading the situation, and that's where your brain power needs 158 - > to be. Like some of those things I think are 159 - > are one of the reasons why I like to hire 160 - > top level athletes because they have that sense. They know 161 - > how to practice hard, and they understand this concept of 162 - > getting things to become mechanical and consistency. 163 - >

Speaker 2: Right, because this is all about the reps. If you're 164 - > under your reps, this is as as you mentioned, this 165 - > is non mechanical. This is you need to focus all 166 - > the time of doing something and it's it's people just 167 - > quit it because this is too too much, it's too 168 - > hard for the brain and don't want to be in 169 - > that kind of a situation, and you just you just 170 - > don't want it to be gone. And you know, people 171 - > just not in position to do it all the time. 172 - > They think that this is Uh, this is what's happening 173 - > right now, because I see it and I have a 174 - > lot of conversations about it lately, especially with some leaders. 175 - > So I'm super curious on your of house on this 176 - > one because you mentioned that them, the back players are obvioused, 177 - > the A players are abused, but the worst worrstponding quote. 178 - > Of course, the most problematic, let's say, is the middle, 179 - > the messy middle, right, So the B players, because they 180 - > have potential, we recruited them, you know, in some context, 181 - > and sometimes they deliver, sometimes they're not. So we're like, 182 - > in this limbo of decision making, we don't know what 183 - > to do with them. Uh, And I have so many 184 - > questions from leaders that are saying to me, Alex, what should. 185 - >

Speaker 3: I do with them? 186 - >

Speaker 2: How long should I give second chances or third chances 187 - > and so on? So I'm you know, we always talk 188 - > about contracting and what we creed both of the sides 189 - > agreed to do. From from the transactional perspective, it doesn't 190 - > work with every single culture, as you mentioned culture differences. 191 - > But let's say this is quite fair that we have 192 - > some agreements or what you should deliver and now what 193 - > should you do for of how you should tre have 194 - > to change and what kind of outcome you should you 195 - > should deliver in your in your job, and what kind 196 - > of growth Father, we have what we have for you 197 - > create together. But sometimes people are okay ish, So you cannot, 198 - > you know, say that they're bad. But they're just like 199 - > nine to five, I'm doing my job sometimes not perfectly 200 - > on time, but they're okay, and uh it is it 201 - > is exhausting sometimes, and so what's you know, what are 202 - > your faults. 203 - >

Speaker 3: On this one? I think there are a couple of 204 - > things that I want to call out. One of them 205 - > is I try as much as possible to separate the 206 - > impact from the potential, because I think a someone that 207 - > has great potential and has a medium like okay ish impact, 208 - > that's your problem as a leader, Like that's one hundred 209 - > percent on you. However, then the people that are medium 210 - > potential generally that means that probably was a hiring mistake. 211 - > But once it's happened, it's happened, right. That's a story 212 - > for maybe later on on how to avoid those. But 213 - > the biggest thing I've found is being very clear on 214 - > what is expected of them. I there's this concept that 215 - > I've been using lately. I find with AI the bar 216 - > is getting higher, where usually it's just essentially think about 217 - > people through different layers of the pyramid. Right, So at 218 - > the bottom you have kind of your your doers. Right, 219 - > you give them a task, it's well defined, they'll do 220 - > the task. Seventy percent of the time, they do it right. 221 - >

Speaker 2: Right. 222 - >

Speaker 3: This one is kind of the I call it the 223 - > task monkey. It's a horrible name, but it's like you're 224 - > just like you're you're just like, you just do the 225 - > task right and you don't really think about it. Then 226 - > above that you have people that you you know, you 227 - > give them the problem and and they might come up 228 - > with the solution. And then above that you have the 229 - > people where you know they're system thinkers. They see the problem, 230 - > they understand the systemic source of it, and they're going 231 - > to find a solution not just to the problem symptom, 232 - > but rather to the root cause of it. And then 233 - > at the top of that you have the absolute rock stars, 234 - > the people you aspire to have on your team, who 235 - > just unprompted will come to you and say, by the way, 236 - > I've diagnosed this in our system, and here's a systemic 237 - > solution I want to propose for it. And so The 238 - > question then is if you use these kind of scales 239 - > and you start mapping your team against it, the question 240 - > is like what percentage of your team is in the 241 - > rockstar bucket the system thinker or kind of the task monkey. 242 - > And the thing is if you have if you're too 243 - > heavy today on the task monkey side, you're just going 244 - > to spend your life micromanaging and like guiding things here 245 - > and there. It's exhausting and your rock stars are going 246 - > to leave immediately. So again like the trend that there's 247 - > a status of like where you are to given point 248 - > in time. But someone who today starts as a task monkey, 249 - > but it is showing the potential to be a system thinker. 250 - > That's someone you want to invest in. That The challenge 251 - > I find today and this is it's a bit unfortunate 252 - > right in our workforce is you have people who spent 253 - > their career just doing the thing with AI and automation. 254 - > There is a question like what is their place in 255 - > a company. But if you're just literally just doing the 256 - > thing and you're not thinking about the system, that means 257 - > you're not able to take the thing you're doing, you know, 258 - > create a system out of it and delegate it to 259 - > someone else there potentially isn't a future for you in 260 - > the in the workforce, And the sooner you come to 261 - > that realization, and the sooner you help the person understand 262 - > this and you start coaching them on how to be 263 - > system thinkers, how to divide and conquer problems, how to 264 - > think about like breaking down you know, complex problems into 265 - > smaller task that then you can address one by one 266 - > and sorry thinking about it more systemically that if you 267 - > want to invest, if you can rather invest that time, 268 - > that's what I would recommend. But otherwise, unfortunately, they're just 269 - > going to be it's a it's a debt and attacks 270 - > that is, yeah, that you have to pay on the team. 271 - >

Speaker 4: And uh, you know, I'm very much a fan of 272 - > of what actually Kam Scott is saying what you have 273 - > mentioned pradical candor so use it that you cannot have 274 - > only eight players in your team because there are people 275 - > need it from maintenance as well. 276 - >

Speaker 2: So maybe that's the monkeys because we need for them 277 - > to be a little bit different because as you mentioned, 278 - > the changes in in a structure of a team. This 279 - > is something that I've talked about in the previous episodes 280 - > of the Guests Staff Engineering, interest and we were talking 281 - > about how expectations about certain levels and teams changed over 282 - > the last three years or so. About these years and 283 - > then particularly they moved even faster geometrically, I would say, 284 - > so them were we were talking about how the all 285 - > juniors right now are new meats because the expectations changed, 286 - > and then the expectation level of a leader of the 287 - > team quite quite for changed because of how the infrastructure 288 - > is changing and what kind of things they can actually 289 - > do with are all different, a different, different tech stack. 290 - > So so this is connected with the other thing I 291 - > want to ask ask you, because we talked about the 292 - > middle and what about the situation when you have in 293 - > a team one or more people who are brilliant jerks. 294 - > They're amazing eight players, theylieve an amazing job. Sometimes they're 295 - > very very expert, have an expertise so narrow that in 296 - > one one piece of tech for example. So they work, 297 - > they they have their kps s right, everything is great, 298 - > But they are jerks to others, so they comment, what 299 - > is organizational organization is doing, what kind of decisions, what 300 - > kind of pavots are happening in organizations. They have a 301 - > toxic influence on others, but they delivered the job, so 302 - > the question is what to do with them what they think. 303 - >

Speaker 3: In my experience, you try to try to get them 304 - > to realize that their role in the team is beyond 305 - > what they delivered directly, the same way that a star 306 - > player in a team is meant to be an inspiration 307 - > for the rest of the team. So, I mean, for 308 - > those who've watched ted Lasso, I think a lot of 309 - > the show is about this, right where ted Lasso is 310 - > trying to coach one of the top like this like 311 - > young striker. Like then that's a very typical thing in football, right, 312 - > Like the striker is really kind of super cocky and 313 - > and he's trying to coach him to understand that his 314 - > behavior is what then others are going to mimic, and 315 - > his role is not just to strike, it's also to 316 - > drive to lead the team. And that's why I think 317 - > a concept that most people don't realize, and that's what 318 - > I love about the engineering has this dual track of 319 - > you can be an ic or you can be a 320 - > manager all the way to you know, the top levels, 321 - > and some people are just excellent leaders without being managers. 322 - > I think getting the person to realize that you're at 323 - > this point if you do the job really well, but 324 - > you're a jerk and you're you know, not necessarily helping 325 - > to improve the system. You're just an excellent task monkey. 326 - > You're not a rock star. And you might think you are, 327 - > but you're not because you're not improving the system. You're 328 - > actually destroying the system by demotivating the rest of the team, 329 - > by not helping them, by not putting in place solutions 330 - > that would remove your frustration. Right, because if you see 331 - > something broken, the right system thinker is going to be like, oh, 332 - > I can fix this, rather than just pointed to say, oh, 333 - > this is broken, I'm not happy about it. And and 334 - > so that's again the role of the manager is and 335 - > and the leader is really to help this person understand 336 - > that their role goes beyond beyond that. And I've had 337 - > players like this and in my teams in the past, 338 - > like I've had a like a former national Boast Bosnian 339 - > player and he was excellent, like best player in the 340 - > US for for a couple of years, but horrible attitude, 341 - > and we never managed to really perform at the elite level. 342 - > And once he was gone, funnily, like the you know, 343 - > the level of the team was a bit lower but 344 - > we performed a lot better because then we were all 345 - > pushing each other and there was like something positive. And 346 - > so you try and some people actually transform. I've had 347 - > players the same thing that transformed and became incredible leaders 348 - > within the team, and it's it's magical to see them. 349 - > They can come and save the day and at the 350 - > same time they're going to, like, you know, pick up 351 - > the player that's struggling, and it means a lot to 352 - > them when they show up. Their impact is just it's 353 - > way beyond just what they can deliver themselves. So I 354 - > think you try to get them to understand what leadership means, 355 - > and if that doesn't work, you have to cut your losses. 356 - > I think this is another one of the hard decisions 357 - > to make, is letting go of someone who's excellent at 358 - > what they do, but it's detrimental to the team. It 359 - > seems it seems hard, but like that's why we do 360 - > cultural fit interviews, and that's why culture fit and you know, 361 - > impact on culture is actually an important metric to evaluate 362 - > people on. 363 - >

Speaker 4: Do you know that? 364 - >

Speaker 2: For example in Poland and you cannot say that you 365 - > can't you know, you're not offering a job to a 366 - > candidate record because they are not a culture fit. It 367 - > is actually league. So of course we are we are 368 - > talking about recruitment and onboarding check right now than the criteria. 369 - > But this is this is important from the perspective of 370 - > of of the audience because a lot of people are 371 - > listening goal around the globe and then the bigle. 372 - >

Speaker 3: Stuff is also ing and I think often the problem 373 - > is like the cultural fit is kind of this this 374 - > like wishy washy kind of thing of like for a 375 - > long time there was this test of like would I 376 - > want to go have a beer with this person? I 377 - > think that's the absolutely that's like the kind of cultural 378 - > fit that should be illegal. It doesn't mean anything, right 379 - > because then you're just hiring your buddies from college. But 380 - > I do think there's something about the like how you 381 - > fit in the team, like the kind of the EQ. Right, 382 - > So we can measure EQ. We can measure how do 383 - > you react to feedback? How do you react to being 384 - > challenged on something by someone who isn't your peer and 385 - > it is potentially considered junior. How do you learn? 386 - >

Speaker 2: Right? 387 - >

Speaker 3: Like those kind of questions I think are are questions 388 - > that measure more the EQ. And when we say cultural fit, 389 - > essentially what we're describing is like, what is the kind 390 - > of EQ that we're looking for in addition to the 391 - > type of IQ, and. 392 - >

Speaker 2: We can actually measure the communication intelligence. So then another 393 - > part of the of the story and this is what 394 - > I what I actually teach in't and well this is 395 - > my expertise area. And what I what I say to you, 396 - > to the to the leader is like, hey, you cannot 397 - > do the culture fits per se, but this is something 398 - > that the person needs to marge the team. They cannot 399 - > be copy and piece because this is this is actually 400 - > you mentioned you are hiring your bodies or you are 401 - > actually hiring you all the time because it's easy, we 402 - > have a flow in the conversation and we are talking. 403 - > We can talk for hours. Yeah, of course, because this 404 - > is the same person as you from the structural perspective. 405 - > And then yeah, surprise, surprise, you say, Oh, then novative, 406 - > they're not engaged as I would love for them to be. 407 - > It's troubles reprised because you manage the the recruitment in 408 - > a certain in a certain way. Yeah. And coming back 409 - > to to the to the brilliant, brilliant jerk, this is 410 - > the situation. This is something that I Honestly, I have 411 - > this conversation with different theaters repetitively, and this is happening 412 - > all the time. And as you mentioned that there are 413 - > different scenarios, I would say that this is. You know, 414 - > every single scenario has a conversation per beginning. So you 415 - > need to have this conversation with the sampoint because this 416 - > is part of your team and they're destructed to your team. 417 - > So they either understand and change. As you mentioned the 418 - > examples that you have, actually that they change. The rock 419 - > stares writing right now and they understood because never nobody 420 - > never said to them before, and this is something that 421 - > we assume that they should know, but we know how 422 - > assuming is ending most of the time. And then the 423 - > second situation is like they the here but they don't change. 424 - > And the third situations that they quit. And I think 425 - > that a lot of rrors are scared that they're a 426 - > players quote unquote because they delivered the results, they're going 427 - > to quit when we have this conversation or this is 428 - > you mentioned that this is not intuitive, but I think 429 - > it doesn't make any sense to fire them right because 430 - > it's like, hey, they delivered the job, but long term, 431 - > the cost is so much higher than the short term delivery. 432 - >

Speaker 3: So now, yeah, and that's ah, I find that'say. Just 433 - > in general, like, the one of the biggest challenges with 434 - > hiring someone or you know, putting them on a PIP 435 - > is this idea that even people who aren't delivering much 436 - > are doing something right. So there's always the fear, Oh, 437 - > but if I get rid of this person, somebody like 438 - > the rest of the orc has to absorb the work 439 - > and you cannot afford it, right right, exactly, We're already overwhelmed, 440 - > so like, how are we going to deal with this? 441 - > And again, the of your system thinkers and your rock 442 - > stars is pretty frequently what they'll realize is a lot 443 - > of the work we're doing doesn't need to be done, 444 - > and they'll come in and apply a couple fixes here 445 - > and there that just like then reduce the overall workload 446 - > for everyone. But you were never you never really looked 447 - > into how we were doing things because you kind of 448 - > had the people that the task monkeys doing this, and 449 - > and that's where you start creating. You know, you just 450 - > have like a big and fat organization right that just 451 - > doesn't move as quickly. There's just a lot of inertia 452 - > because we're just like this is how we do things 453 - > right instead of thinking about how do we fix the system? 454 - >

Speaker 2: That's true switching gears a little bit, you said that 455 - > I'm with you on this one. Eight players just to 456 - > just want to work and play with out our eight 457 - > players because this is fancy and we want to be 458 - > an a team, because this is well, this is the 459 - > best one that we can be. What we as leaders 460 - > right now we are recording this episode at the very 461 - > beginning of June twenty twenty six, right now, in this 462 - > world that we experience in right now, what we need 463 - > to do, who we need to be as leaders in 464 - > tech to attract all of those A players to our teams. 465 - >

Speaker 3: What do you think? I think the main thing is 466 - > to well have something think about them, right. I think 467 - > it's not about It's never about us, It's it's about them. 468 - > So it's thinking. You know, if you've met A players 469 - > and you ask them like, what are you looking for? 470 - > What gets you excited? 471 - >

Speaker 4: And then. 472 - >

Speaker 3: Based on that and based on what aligns with who 473 - > you are, putting together a clear story for them. I 474 - > think it's funny when I read most of the job 475 - > descriptions and offers that are out there, they always say 476 - > we're looking for They never write it from the perspective 477 - > of if this is you, this job is for you, right, Like, 478 - > we don't care that you're looking for this like HP 479 - > or whatever company. Right. I'm reading this like taught to me. Oh, 480 - > if you are a blah blah check, yes I'm that 481 - > person and you like too, yes that's me, and you 482 - > want to yes that's me, then this position is view 483 - > Oh okay, that's appealing. So I think really thinking about 484 - > it that way and then designing a hiring process that 485 - > showcases that you're different, showcases that they are going to 486 - > be interacting with with rock stars and they're going to 487 - > be doing rockstar work is one of the biggest things, right, 488 - > So that's that's one. I get it that this is 489 - > at the point where people are already applying to, you know, 490 - > to be hired or looking at your job posting, which 491 - > isn't necessarily the case for most people. I do think 492 - > there there's a lot of This is one of those 493 - > things where there aren't many shortcuts, right. You have to 494 - > you have to try and determine what does a rock 495 - > star profile look like, how do I go hunt them, 496 - > how do I go find them? Where are they? And 497 - > the thing is like rock stars tend to hang out 498 - > with the rock stars, and so there are different pools 499 - > of people we realize good like find these people, I 500 - > talk to them and like where it spreads and and 501 - > it works well to get their attention. But unfortunately I 502 - > have not seen any shortcuts, like you know, sourcing agencies 503 - > all that kind of stuff. Like the top players are 504 - > not looking for a job. The top players are crushing 505 - > it at their job today. The only thing that's going 506 - > to make them move is like an incredible opportunity to 507 - > work on something exciting within an exciting team. So again, 508 - > think about it from like the sports analogy isn't perfect, 509 - > but there's a lot of good stuff. Right, if you're 510 - > a top player at one of the top European teams, 511 - > you're not looking to go, Like the only way someone 512 - > can get you is if they have a project that's 513 - > really exciting. Right. I'm a big fan of the the 514 - > Kilsche handball team, right, and you don't get talent du 515 - > Chebayev to come and coach that team for years without 516 - > having like something to offer. And it was this whole 517 - > idea of like this is like a very like historically 518 - > meaningful team in Poland and there's like a big project 519 - > to try and bring it to the front of the 520 - > of the European scene. And that's something when you're you know, 521 - > a coach of the caliber of talent, you're like, yes, 522 - > I want to do this and I'll go to Poland 523 - > When he could have been coaching any of the German 524 - > like top teams or Spanish or Barcelona and now he's 525 - > going to be coaching the French teams. That's very happy 526 - > about that anyway. So I think having a clear idea 527 - > of what is the project, what is exciting about it, 528 - > and why are they the good fit for it, and 529 - > then surrounding them with the right kind of uh, making 530 - > sure you're surrounding them with the right kind of talent 531 - > and that you're ready to make the the hard decisions 532 - > that have to be made to you know, to keep them. Yeah, 533 - > I think it. 534 - >

Speaker 2: Requires a lot of courage from the leadership perspective, because 535 - > it's like, what I see is a lot of people 536 - > who are leading teams are not very well preferred to 537 - > do it, you know, and they never were taught how 538 - > to make decisions that are unpopular. We talked about it 539 - > a little bit before we hit record, and I think 540 - > that it costs a lot of frustrations, burnout, misunderstandings, wasted time. 541 - > And I see a lot of tech teams. I work 542 - > mostly with the engineering community. I am a data science 543 - > so this is my area as well, and they see 544 - > the pattern here as well that people are saying to me, Hey, 545 - > you know, I'm leaving this team. I had this conversation 546 - > like last week, very fresh and my head, my boss 547 - > is like, is avoiding decision making whatsoever. We are talking 548 - > to him that we need this and that and that 549 - > and even very much open because they're just like, hey, 550 - > I'm beyond being nice and being nice, and I'm just 551 - > going to say it out loud because this is what 552 - > I need to be a good leader for my team. 553 - > And they are not making decisions. They are just trying 554 - > to avoid it as much as possible. It is super uncomfortable, 555 - > and this is costing me so much quote unquote, And 556 - > those people are earning so much money and they're super 557 - > high in organizational structure that you again you would assume 558 - > that they're supposed to be those people who actually are 559 - > courageous enough to make bold decisions, sometimes super uncomfortable decisions, 560 - > because this is a part of the job and last 561 - > this week actually today, very very early in my morning, 562 - > I talked to him, one of him, one of one 563 - > of them, and that he told me that he didn't 564 - > even know that it was part of his job to 565 - > do that. Then that and you know, not going into 566 - > too many details. So my question about it to you 567 - > is how we can if it, if it's even possible, 568 - > how we as leaders, ourselves included, we can teach ourselves. 569 - > We can learn the courage to be bold to you know, 570 - > just to sometimes quit the logical thinking critical might be 571 - > not critical thinking, but the all new using logical approach, 572 - > analytical approach and analytical part of yourself, and and just 573 - > you know, to be the best version of yourself as 574 - > a leader for your team, because what you need, what 575 - > you mentioned is they're building. We need to build for 576 - > those people the environment where it's they are going to 577 - > be the most important things, not us. So is it 578 - > even possible for us to learn how to be more 579 - > courageous or what do you think? 580 - >

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a it's a great question. And 581 - > uh it's you know, like leadership is like multi layered, right, 582 - > but this one, in my opinion, is is one of 583 - > the highest levels of leadership. So it potentially goes all 584 - > the way up to the CEO, and it's around what 585 - > what do we value? What do we reward? Right because 586 - > at a lot of companies, we you know, we the 587 - > stick is always present, Right, you mess something up, We're 588 - > going to come at you with a stick. But we 589 - > don't reward failing at a moonshot, right, Like sailing at 590 - > a moonshot means that you had a moonshot idea that 591 - > you went all the way to trying and at some 592 - > point it didn't work, but at least you tried. And 593 - > this is like, this is where like this is cultural. Right, 594 - > there's an element of how do we reward being bold? 595 - > How do we reward being courageous? It's like the you know, 596 - > the famous saying nobody gets fired for buying IBM, and 597 - > the thing is, maybe we should start firing people for 598 - > buying IBM uh and and and it's if you're not 599 - > making any bold decisions, then you're slowing the company down. 600 - > I think the we're at a time, especially in tech, right, 601 - > we're at a time where AI is accelerating everything. Velocity 602 - > is now the name of the game. The question is 603 - > like how quickly can you move? And it's not just 604 - > the speed at which we're seeing the AI native companies 605 - > move is not this kind of like linear. We just 606 - > work a little bit harder and we'll get there. These 607 - > are massive step functions that are happening one off to 608 - > the next, and the only way that happens is you 609 - > make a gigantic bet or multiple gigantic bets, hoping that 610 - > you know you're going to be able to sling yourself 611 - > from here to there in a very short period of time. 612 - > That's the only way you can get that kind of 613 - > exponential result. And if you don't encourage this, if you 614 - > don't create time space rewards systems to promote this, then 615 - > it's not going to happen. And then you are going 616 - > to end up with a lot of people that are 617 - > well paid, very comfortable, and they're just chugging along. Right, 618 - > They're just doing the thing, and that's what they're asked for, right, 619 - > What we're asking them to do is to not mess up. 620 - > They're not messing up. The easiest way to never mess 621 - > up is to not do anything right. So maybe we 622 - > need to start changing the way we think about management. 623 - > That's like, to me, is a massive one that's changing 624 - > with AI and also thinking about what is the reward structure, 625 - > how do we value and how do we promote these 626 - > bold choices. I don't think most I've seen most companies 627 - > don't do it yet. That's just what I just wanted 628 - > to say that. 629 - >

Speaker 2: Actually, my book is coming so fingers crossed for everything, 630 - > and I I wrote a part of it because this 631 - > is the book is from Code to People and this 632 - > is about everything that we are talking about here, about 633 - > that being the leader that actually people want to work 634 - > with and the whole communication intelligence for the structures, frameworks, 635 - > et cetera. And there's one piece that actually stuck with 636 - > me like months ago, and I thought about it. I 637 - > thought about it that people are failing in leadership in tech, 638 - > not because they are bad potential for leadership or they 639 - > are bad people and they just want to screw everything up, 640 - > but they never made a shift from the rewarding perspective 641 - > because as I see it, they were rewarded for the 642 - > delivered work, the tech delivered work tasks as we mentioned before, 643 - > and they moved to team lead position, manager position and 644 - > then for further in your organization, and they never they 645 - > never had this switch that right now they're rewarded not 646 - > for their their job delivered the tasks actually crossed out 647 - > from from the checklist, but from they are. They should 648 - > be rewarded for what their team is delivering. And this 649 - > is the difference. So this he as well. No, I'm 650 - > super curious. 651 - >

Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely, And I think the most most organizations 652 - > have terrible first time manager onboarding. That's okay, it's it's 653 - > a very common one. And uh, there's so many things 654 - > that change when when you become a first time manager. 655 - > There's the idea of you know, your performance is not 656 - > measured on what you do, is measured based on what 657 - > the team is able to accomplish. There's this that the 658 - > notion of like the first team principle, which I find 659 - > always very interesting to say, like a manager's primary loyalty 660 - > is to his peers, not to his direct reports. That 661 - > is something that I see go wrong with almost every 662 - > I mean actually with every single first time manager, where 663 - > they're constantly fighting for their direct reports rather than fighting 664 - > for their peers. And yeah, and that's because we're not 665 - > training them to understand why. You know, like your role 666 - > is the cross alignment and then using that cross alignment 667 - > to bring focus to your team rather than your goal 668 - > is to be the voice of only of your team 669 - > in this in this organization. So I think that the 670 - > lack of training there is is huge and I think 671 - > we often make the mistake of taking And this is 672 - > why again I love the dual track where I see 673 - > versus manager. I do think a lot of the best 674 - > players engineering aren't meant to be managers, and there's a 675 - > lot of value in having managers who aren't necessarily the best, 676 - > the most technical people. The respect they're going to earn 677 - > from the team is not necessarily that there right better code, 678 - > or they scored better than them at lead code or 679 - > whatever it's it's rather that they help bring focus on 680 - > the right things. They help make the job easier, and 681 - > they are good at the cross functional alignment that is 682 - > required again to make the life simpler for all of 683 - > your direct reports. 684 - >

Speaker 2: This this is your job, right And I have a 685 - > lot of different conversations about being authority and in teams 686 - > in tech, and we are talking a lot above do 687 - > I need to be the best engineering a team, the 688 - > best data scient is the best cybersect person to actually 689 - > be the best manager for them? And right now it 690 - > is the market is shifting and so we see hr 691 - > people more getting people salespeople meeting tech teams in the 692 - > other way around, because you don't you know, it's extremely 693 - > hard for you to not micromanage people because you actually 694 - > know how to deliver a certain task, how to code, 695 - > hard to do analysis, do a power va, and every 696 - > every single thing. And I have these conversations all the time, 697 - > and there are two camps. I would say. One camp 698 - > is that, hey, this is impossible to lead a team 699 - > if you are not an expert, because how on earth 700 - > you should control them or know what they do and 701 - > build authority as an expert. And then the other camp is, hey, 702 - > this is better that you don't know how to code, 703 - > or how to how to do the marketing campaign or 704 - > how to do the sales, because this is this is 705 - > not your job. Your job is to create an environment 706 - > for them so they can deliver their job. You need 707 - > to know what they you know the process is that 708 - > they're actually working with them, so you can be a hand. 709 - > But it is not necessary for you to be an 710 - > expert in your team's area. So which count you are 711 - > end because I'm hearing that who can be in the 712 - > second one? But then I just wanted to check. 713 - >

Speaker 3: I think it's it really depends on how you set 714 - > up your structure, right. I think having a like having 715 - > a non tech person leading a tech team only works 716 - > if they are principal distinguished like top ice players who 717 - > can do that, who can look at the the technical part. Again, 718 - > just to go back to the analogies of sports, right 719 - > when you think of like a big soccer because not 720 - > everyone is that familiar with henball, right, But in soccer 721 - > you have the main coach, right. The coach isn't the 722 - > coach of the goalies and the coach of the strikers, right. 723 - > The coach's perspective is what is the right team set up? 724 - > What is the right strategy based on the players have, 725 - > based on who we're playing against, like how are we 726 - > going to set up to maximize our chances of winning? 727 - > And then when it comes to making sure the goalies 728 - > are the best at doing goalie stuff and that the 729 - > strikers are the best at striking, we then have you know, 730 - > specific coaches for that, and then we have a fitness coach, 731 - > and then each of these are the experts at helping 732 - > individual players understand by the way in your form, like 733 - > this is something you need to change when you're running 734 - > you're not doing this like we're going to have to 735 - > train on your like you know, whatever like zone two 736 - > or whatever kind of challenge you want to work on. 737 - > And the main coach doesn't have to be the expert 738 - > at all of this because he's put in place a 739 - > system that allows to delegate to specific experts the expert 740 - > level discussion. So the same way that most CEOs are 741 - > not technical people, right, and they're the ultimate leader of 742 - > the engineering organization. But what they do is they place 743 - > a ETO who's excellent at technical stuff, and then actually 744 - > pretty quickly you have the CTO who's generally not a 745 - > people manager, and then you have the VP of engineering, 746 - > who is the people manager and potentially isn't the most 747 - > technical person in the organization. But what they're excellent at 748 - > is understanding how do we place the team in order 749 - > to win, Like what are the right systems to put 750 - > in place? Where do we need DevOps? Where do we 751 - > remove DevOps? Like how do we deal with like soft 752 - > two compliance slowing us down because like manual reviews for 753 - > like all of our controls, like these are things that 754 - > like this person will handle without necessarily being the most technical. 755 - > But then when the engineering team has a very technical, 756 - > like very very deep question. That's when you need the 757 - > CTO to be able to be there. And this works 758 - > only if the CTO and a VP of engineering are 759 - > in lockstep, right. The worst thing that can happen is 760 - > if these two don't work well together, then the engineering 761 - > team stops respecting the VP of engineering because they're considering, Ah, 762 - > he doesn't know what he's taught or she doesn't know 763 - > what she's talking about. I'm just going to go to 764 - > the CTO because they do. And that's a failure of 765 - > like CEO leadership, of not making sure the structure is 766 - > designed to make sure everything works well. So I would 767 - > say in probably camp, you don't have to be technical, 768 - > but I do believe there is a level of understanding, 769 - > Like you need to be able to understand the process. 770 - > That's like one of my big things with AI. I 771 - > think it's too easy to fake output. We used to 772 - > manage based on output. Today we have to manage on process. 773 - > So you have to be able to ask your data scientists. Cool, 774 - > so you built this model, walk me through the steps, 775 - > like what decisions did you make? Like how did you 776 - > come to building this model? Why are you using you know, 777 - > boosted decision trees or whatever it is. Like you need 778 - > to be able to entertain that conversation and to understand 779 - > it well enough to be able to ask the right 780 - > kind of questions in order to even help them see 781 - > some of the blind spots they might have. So I'm 782 - > kind of in the middle where I think you need 783 - > to have a good enough understanding of what's going on 784 - > that you can ask questions and understand like the answers 785 - > and understand where when BS is coming out. But you 786 - > don't need to be a data scientist or you know, 787 - > a production engineer, you know, writing code for forever and 788 - > like innovating on whatever uh on small protocols. 789 - >

Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree. I saw so many success stories 790 - > where people actually were great needs in areas that they 791 - > didn't have any expertise whatsoever before. As you mentioned that 792 - > you need to understand what is happening and understand the 793 - > process and understand what's with that, what the what the 794 - > goal of the of the team is. But I see 795 - > honestly more advantages done disadvantages because I see so much 796 - > of a market management and not delegating and being burned 797 - > out because it is not that you don't have the team, 798 - > you just don't have the skills and your mindsets and 799 - > I see and you just you just cannot gain just 800 - > give it, give it away, and it creates and it 801 - > brings more harm and good to team, you know, And 802 - > this is something that I would I would love to 803 - > do more experiments like that and see the you know, 804 - > a b testing to to see two teams that are 805 - > working in similar space in the same organization with a 806 - > tech lead that is actually a tech person and that 807 - > non tech person but actually speaks the language. Because this 808 - > is essential and what is the difference between performance engagement 809 - > level and you know all the KPIs we can actually 810 - > measure how the team is going on and on the 811 - > psychological level, but also on the performance level because this 812 - > is an organization and meteorytur also yes, this is this 813 - > is this is interesting. The one last thing because before 814 - > we go into the linking crown, because last week I 815 - > was at the word computers actually so WordPress community and 816 - > it was a big event some twenty I think that 817 - > over two thousand people twenty five hundred or so were 818 - > there's a huge event. And at the end of the 819 - > event was it was a panel that was that on 820 - > the panel was the one person from the same level 821 - > and lead architect and I had a product. Actually, so 822 - > this is a panel and there were discussions that there 823 - > were discussions what is happening in WordPress and all of 824 - > the things that are happening. And in one moment there 825 - > was a question from the lead architect I believe or 826 - > that I had a product to the to the audience 827 - > that was their listening, and they started to talk about 828 - > word Press seven point all and the contribution. And then 829 - > there's a question, just please raise your hand if you 830 - > still coote manually. And I just look around because I 831 - > was sitting in a front row. Over I would say 832 - > over a half of the room, rose your hand. So yes, 833 - > I still cold with my hands manually, and I was. 834 - > I was. I started to think, okay, interesting, this is 835 - > an open source so maybe this is different in a 836 - > different space. But I started to think, what is going 837 - > to happen to those people and what should we do 838 - > as leaders right now? Again in middle twenty twenty six, 839 - > you you know, you had AI slash machine learning and 840 - > your profile before it was fancy started two thousand and 841 - > nine or something. So I said the story and I'm 842 - > asking you, what do you see that this is happening 843 - > right now in teens intact because of what is so 844 - > what is happening with AI for the last three years, 845 - > let's let's say, and what is going to happen next 846 - > two And what is going to happen to those people 847 - > who just roll their hands and to say, hey, I 848 - > do it manually all the time, not using any any 849 - > any any any automation whatsoever. So yeah, I'm opening this 850 - > loving one. 851 - >

Speaker 3: I think there are two, at least two things have 852 - > come to mind. One of them is there are a 853 - > lot of people who abandoned AI at CHATBT or like 854 - > GPT three point five, like the outputs are not good enough. 855 - > I'm just moving on. Something fundamentally changed with Opus four 856 - > point five in November last year. 857 - >

Speaker 2: It was just. 858 - >

Speaker 3: Something like fundamentally changed. Like I was still you know, 859 - > I was fortunate enough to get early access to get 860 - > help copilot. It feels like it feels like ten years 861 - > ago now at this point when it would just autocomplete 862 - > and I was like, oh my god, I'm like writing 863 - > so much faster. There's like so many how does it 864 - > know this is what I'm trying to do. But I 865 - > was still like writing a lot of it manually and 866 - > then I would use JGPT here and there. It was 867 - > very buggy, and so I ended up like using it 868 - > really to write specific functions or to write tools, but 869 - > I never really got it to function as a outsourced engineer. 870 - > And then Opus four point five was really the moment 871 - > where I realized, Okay, now we have something where if 872 - > you have the right guardrails, if you have the right 873 - > system in place, it can actually do proper work. And 874 - > so I think there's a bunch of people that you know, 875 - > abandoned at that point, and I think for those people, 876 - > we need to get them to actually try it, try 877 - > the new models and realize, Okay, this is actually genuinely great. 878 - > It's not perfect, but it's great. And that's going to change. 879 - > You know, maybe like twenty percent or ten percent of 880 - > the people that we're still raising their hand are no 881 - > longer going to raise their hand. I think that the 882 - > biggest challenge is and again, like this task monkey thing, 883 - > hopefully we can put in the show notes like it's 884 - > I took this from a Twitter post that I thought 885 - > was really interesting in like thinking about system thinkers and 886 - > all of that. The people that are crushing it on 887 - > using AI are not vibe coding, right, It's like AI 888 - > engineering you're thinking about like how do I architect a 889 - > system that allows the AI to produce code with the 890 - > right guardrails, with the right context at any given point 891 - > in time, that has loops to verify what it's doing. 892 - > That is system designed, right. It's really thinking about when 893 - > I'm building a system, if I have to build a feature, 894 - > if I break down those tasks and I allocate some 895 - > kind of like what would be the outsourcing costs for it? 896 - > So's say, think about the architecture of the system. That 897 - > is something if you were to outsource it, you'd pay 898 - > a lot of money. Now, if you have all of 899 - > the architecture, you have the interfaces, and now you just 900 - > need to write the code, probably wouldn't pay very much 901 - > for that part, right, And that's the part you can 902 - > give to the AI. And so what I find is 903 - > that the people who haven't figured it out and just 904 - > can't figure out how to think in systems and to 905 - > realize it's not about producing the code, it's about thinking 906 - > about the architecture and think about like bringing to consciousness 907 - > everything that you were doing without even thinking about it, right, 908 - > and understanding that that's something then you now have to 909 - > give to someone else same thing. That want of challenges 910 - > when you're first time leader is that you've been used 911 - > to doing things and you're great at doing them, but 912 - > you never realize why you were doing them, and now 913 - > you have to teach someone to do them. Like that 914 - > first step of teaching is so interesting. Thing when I start, 915 - > you know, coaching handball for like young kids, the servilizing, 916 - > Oh my god, Like even just like throwing the ball 917 - > isn't something that's natural, Like they don't get it, Like 918 - > what is the movement of the risk? Like when do 919 - > you like use their risk to whip the ball? And 920 - > like what's the kind of like shoulder movement like arm up, 921 - > armed down? Like if people like kind of push the 922 - > ball like this, Like things that just like are natural 923 - > to you, Like you start thinking about them and you realize, okay, 924 - > like there is a process to this, and being able 925 - > to document the process allows you then to offload it 926 - > to an AI. So the long story short is, unfortunately 927 - > for the majority of those people, I don't know that 928 - > there's much of a working future for them because if 929 - > you're not able, like the bar of where automation can 930 - > go in this pyramid all the way system thinkers, the 931 - > bar is now higher. If all you do is executing tasks. 932 - > That's where I is today, and it's doing it at 933 - > a accuracy that is higher than like most people. And 934 - > so if you're not able to think in systems and 935 - > to have the AI do the work for you, I 936 - > think it's yeah, it's going to be a rough couple 937 - > of years. 938 - >

Speaker 2: And you know, the skills is just one thing that 939 - > the mindset shift is in mass. 940 - >

Speaker 3: The mindset is the main thing. Right, If you're not 941 - > able to think in systems and decompose everything you do 942 - > into smaller subtasks, that's going to be rough. 943 - >

Speaker 2: Yeah, optimistic, Hey, but this is what it is, right. 944 - >

Speaker 3: And I guess what it is and I think there 945 - > that's where there's one thing, which is like individually, we 946 - > all need to make sure that we you know, we 947 - > just the bar has gone up, so now we have 948 - > to think about like how do I make myself? How 949 - > do I put myself above the line. And that's really 950 - > the practicing system thinking, practicing, just practicing thinking, right. I 951 - > think this is like it's it's hard to say this 952 - > in an era where we're all consuming like everything in 953 - > like five second, like TikTok videos and stuff, but critical 954 - > thinking is more important than ever because we're going to 955 - > spend more time critically thinking about the architecture we're putting together, 956 - > Critically thinking about how did the AI implement this, Critically 957 - > thinking about are my harnesses good enough to make sure 958 - > that this thing is not going to go off the rails. 959 - > That deep thinking and like spending time on a problem 960 - > ahead of the execution, I think is a skill that 961 - > we've started losing a little bit and is going to 962 - > be incredibly important in coming years. Second part to this is, 963 - > I think from a policy perspective, not necessarily the topic 964 - > of this conversation, but there's a lot of work we 965 - > need to do collectively to bring this to the forefront 966 - > of our political leaders to understand. Look, it's great that 967 - > Entropic and Open AI keep on saying that they're going 968 - > to create mass unemployment with their AI. Shouldn't that be 969 - > a warning sign that we should think about what happens next, 970 - > Like if they actually reach this thing, what happens, like 971 - > how are we making sure that we are setting ourselves 972 - > for success rather than another set of revolutions where people 973 - > are just going to storm the data centers and burn 974 - > everything to the ground. Right, it's a pretangent, but it 975 - > is something that we should be spending more time thinking 976 - > about and at a local scale. I've been spending a 977 - > lot of time thinking about redefining the roles and responsibilities 978 - > of every job position in the organization in an era 979 - > where more of the work is done by AI than 980 - > what are we expecting of you? What is your role? 981 - > What are your responsibilities? 982 - >

Speaker 2: Like? 983 - >

Speaker 3: What are you accountable for? That changes what I expect 984 - > of every employee, But it also changes who I'm hiring, 985 - > because now I'm potentially hiring fewer super super deep experts 986 - > at something and more generalists, more people that are excellent 987 - > at learning quickly. They understand the concepts, they understand the 988 - > laws of thermoidynamics, and like basic like advanced math and physics, 989 - > and they can jump from one thing to another. These 990 - > people tend to crush it in the AI era a 991 - > lot more than the super deep experts who are very 992 - > good at doing one thing but struggle to translate what 993 - > they're doing. On the note of a European in the US, 994 - > that's one of the things that I found fascinating where 995 - > the European or at least the French engineering institutions are 996 - > a lot about like horizontal learning. We're very we're Jacksonville Trades, 997 - > master of none, like become very good at like just 998 - > learning complex stuff. And for the longest time I thought 999 - > that was stupid. I came to the US and I 1000 - > went to Stanford for a little bit, and I met 1001 - > people who are excellent at what they were doing. They were, 1002 - > you know, getting masters in mechanical engineering, and they were 1003 - > struggling with some of the algebra that I was doing 1004 - > the year after I graduated from high school. And that's 1005 - > because we were learning just that, like it nothing applied, 1006 - > like it had no idea why you were doing this. 1007 - > And what I'm seeing is that this like ability to like, 1008 - > you know, learn a bunch of things and shift and 1009 - > not be fitted in a mold is has created some 1010 - > incredible talent that I think is going to be the 1011 - > the top talent of this coming era. I think we 1012 - > are entering the era of the generalists. 1013 - >

Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is I think this is a subject 1014 - > for another episode, you know, because how to create teams 1015 - > right now, what is going to happen and what is 1016 - > already happening on the market, and when we can actually 1017 - > observe it, and how we as leaders and as I 1018 - > sees as well, what we should do to stay in 1019 - > the market and not being kicked out of it because 1020 - > we are not adaptive enough or we just say out 1021 - > it worked for so many years, So what actually can 1022 - > happen with the whole approach? And I think we both 1023 - > see those people all the time using the example of 1024 - > the right hand right, So this is something that I 1025 - > think that yeah, you should do, I know, part two 1026 - > of the conversation, because you know, we just scribe the surface. 1027 - >

Speaker 4: So this is it. 1028 - >

Speaker 2: But right now, because of the timing, I'm aware of 1029 - > attention span of our audience, I will go to the 1030 - > liking ground. Frances every ready, Yes, Okay, where's go. So 1031 - > what is the worst leadership advice that you ever? 1032 - >

Speaker 3: Titles don't matter. Oh, this is a big debate we 1033 - > had with my co founder. He genuinely doesn't care about 1034 - > titles and he does it so he's like, I don't 1035 - > get why people want titles whatever, it doesn't matter. Just 1036 - > as long as they get the job done, we're fine. 1037 - > And the funny thing is like Conway laws, Conway's law 1038 - > comes to bite. So it's this idea that your product 1039 - > matches your org. It doesn't matter how small your this 1040 - > principle is always going to apply it might seem meaningless 1041 - > to spend time thinking about like what are the titles 1042 - > and what is the ORG structure and all of this, 1043 - > but the reality is like those decisions as leaders will 1044 - > dramatically impact what your team is able to ship. It's 1045 - > very funny because right now I'm in an organization where 1046 - > I'm part of a CTO office. I'm working on innovation, 1047 - > redefining the software development life cycle and building products, and 1048 - > we're moving very, very very fast, and we're at the 1049 - > point where now some of the things that we've built 1050 - > are being sold and now we need to bring them 1051 - > back to the engineering team. And the engineering team's like, 1052 - > oh my god, like this is not how we work. 1053 - > And so because we've created organizationally this thing where we 1054 - > have a relatively slow moving team and a like rewarded 1055 - > on as moving and learning team, we now have two 1056 - > different products that are going to be hard to bring 1057 - > back together again. And not saying it was the wrong 1058 - > thing to do, I just saying that it always happens. 1059 - > And so spending time on the ORG layout and the 1060 - > ORG layout and the titles, like titles mean things to people. 1061 - > They're actually more important than you might think. As a startup, 1062 - > you kind of want to give see titles and vps 1063 - > to everyone. It's going to come back to buye you. 1064 - >

Speaker 2: It's might not be important for you, but it is 1065 - > not about you anymore when you are so yeah, what 1066 - > is the one thing that you wish you knew at 1067 - > the very beginning of your leadership journey? 1068 - >

Speaker 3: We touched upon this, but I would say it's the 1069 - > cost of okay players I've worked with. I still work 1070 - > with some truly truly exceptional people. Like the the energy, 1071 - > the momentum, like it just it feels magical. It feels 1072 - > like nothing can stop us when we're working together, and 1073 - > you know, you wake up you want to work with them, 1074 - > Like I'm I'm excited to go to work and to 1075 - > work with these people. So I know they're going to 1076 - > challenge me. I know we're going to have a good time, 1077 - > like you know, pushing each other and then we're you know, 1078 - > getting the best out of one another. But as soon 1079 - > as you introduce like an okay person in the mix, 1080 - > everything slows down, Like you know, it's you know, the 1081 - > train only moves at the pace of the slowest wagon, right, 1082 - > like all of a sudden, like everything just feels slower. 1083 - > It's more painful, you have to explain more. You're not 1084 - > challenging each other, and so there isn't that resonance like 1085 - > there can be in a team of you know, top players. 1086 - > The thing related to that to make it maybe more 1087 - > tangible for people listening, so I use an interview scale 1088 - > where every it's like one to four. One is like 1089 - > I'm strongly against hiring four, I'm strongly for hiring. Very 1090 - > important in my mind to have a even number. Indie 1091 - > scales never an odd number, because if you go one 1092 - > to five, everybody's going to be a three. When you 1093 - > have to determine between two or three, that's a decision 1094 - > like do you hire or not hire. And I used 1095 - > to think that the you know, we want to hire 1096 - > people that didn't get a two in any of their 1097 - > interviews with the team, because that was the kind of 1098 - > this disqualifying factor. What I've found is that the thing 1099 - > that matters is actually like how many fours is this 1100 - > person getting? And I found that the absolute top players 1101 - > generally have like thirty percent of four ratings, but they'll 1102 - > also get a one and potentially or like generally a 1103 - > two or a few twos and maybe a one, And 1104 - > that's actually not disqualifying. It's often like people that feel 1105 - > threatened more than anything else. But if you hire people 1106 - > are just like a bunch of threes, there's no twos, 1107 - > no fours, you end up again. It's like this idea 1108 - > that you know, if you don't you're just not going 1109 - > to move. Nothing's going to change, and you're just going 1110 - > to be static. And in the age of AI, I mean, 1111 - > you know, being at a standstill is basically a death 1112 - > sentence as a company. 1113 - >

Speaker 2: Amen to that. And what is something Because we've talked 1114 - > about learning transformation and that's you know, staying in the 1115 - > same place and not being kicked out of the market. 1116 - > So what is something that you do for your growth? 1117 - > How you learn? Maybe see you or read something lately, 1118 - > or listen to something or watch something that inspired you 1119 - > to thought to something that we can all use a. 1120 - >

Speaker 3: Lot of things. The number one is I have a 1121 - > network of people that I highly highly respect, these kind 1122 - > of top players. Some of them are you know, in 1123 - > the company or in my team. Some of them are 1124 - > even direct reports. Some of them are outside of the team, 1125 - > and I go to them for inspiration, like what are 1126 - > you working on? What's something cool you've seen this week? 1127 - > And the funny thing is I find that LinkedIn Twitter. 1128 - > I hate to say it, but I found more value 1129 - > you lately in Twitter. Then yeah, then on LinkedIn. It's 1130 - > just a cesspool of I call it tech porn. People 1131 - > are just pretending that they're doing things. They're like showing you, Oh, 1132 - > look at my five Mac minis that are rigged together 1133 - > with like open claw running you know, at nauseum, and 1134 - > you're like cool, but like, what are you doing with it? 1135 - > Like what's like, what do you have to show for it? 1136 - > Generally it's nothing. When you talk to people that you 1137 - > know and you respect, they'll tell you very insightful and 1138 - > very detailed things like, oh, like I ran into this 1139 - > particular issue with like the Claude harness and this is 1140 - > how I fixed it and and yeah, so that that's 1141 - > one big thing. 1142 - >

Speaker 2: And then. 1143 - >

Speaker 3: Building. I think I I'm pret diligent about carving out 1144 - > time every week. I know every week can seem like 1145 - > a lot of other people. I'm part of CTO office, 1146 - > so it's it's fairly easy for me. But even as 1147 - > a co founder, I would always have one afternoon per 1148 - > week where I'm just building and it doesn't matter if 1149 - > it relates to the company. If it doesn't. But feeding 1150 - > that curiosity and having to build is a great forcing 1151 - > mechanism to go see what are other people doing, how 1152 - > other people solve this problem? What are some of the 1153 - > things that are out there. I recently discovered this tool. 1154 - > It's not sponsored, but vast dot ai. They're basically a 1155 - > true row for GPU. So if you need an H 1156 - > one hundred, very expensive, very hard to buy these days, 1157 - > you can rent one. So people have these GPUs sitting 1158 - > at home. They're connected to a network and you basically 1159 - > send your code and it's going to run on their GPUs. 1160 - > If you want to do fine tuning or distilling, or 1161 - > like some kind of heavy process that doesn't fit in 1162 - > like the Google Collab GPUs, you can actually do this 1163 - > for like ten bucks. You can distill like a pretty 1164 - > like big Mini Max or Quen model. And that's something 1165 - > that I discovered by just like lollocating time to doing this. 1166 - >

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that this is an extremely valid point 1167 - > because you just not learn from reading or watching before 1168 - > you start actually doing something like that. You're just amazing 1169 - > you brain with a lot of information about the question. 1170 - > So what so this is this is a great advice. Francis, 1171 - > Thank you for the conversation. I loved it, and I 1172 - > think that was uncomfortable from time to time. So this 1173 - > is this is extremely well designed process that happen over 1174 - > over us, I would say, So, I hope that your 1175 - > audience will get a lot of value out of it, 1176 - > a lot of real talk, not non fluff, but just 1177 - > you know, real examples and the truth. That's sometimes we 1178 - > are just not courageous enough to say it loud. So 1179 - > thank you. And the question is if somebody wants to 1180 - > connect with you, check out on you to see what 1181 - > you're doing, where they can find you, will tell us 1182 - > all the places. 1183 - >

Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say LinkedIn is the best place. Even 1184 - > though I hate the platform, it's where I'm the most 1185 - > active trying to make it better by posting some actual 1186 - > content that I would want to see on there. So 1187 - > I'm generally freely responsive there, so that's the best place 1188 - > to find me. 1189 - >

Speaker 2: Great. Yeah, we're going to put the link in the 1190 - > show notes so everybody can just click and then check 1191 - > you out. So yeah, thank you. It was a blessed 1192 - > to have you on the show. Yeah, thank you for 1193 - > having me, of course, and thank you all for listening 1194 - > because we are doing it for you. Of course we 1195 - > are enjoying conversations, but this is for you, so we 1196 - > don't know what's what resonated the most, what you hated, 1197 - > maybe you'll disagree with something. You know, we just love 1198 - > to have you in our DMS. Some LinkedIn and we'll 1199 - > also that and comments. So just go and leave some 1200 - > and shut the link with somebody who might actually use it, 1201 - > because you know, there are so many things that are 1202 - > happening right now so we can all be better together 1203 - > as a community. So thank you, Anthlesy you soon in 1204 - > another episode of the Lemma PEG Leadership Podcast by Everybody 1205 - > Lehman Tech Leadership Podcast