1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,200 Like if the the transition from individual contributor to 2 00:00:02,200 --> 00:00:05,400 managers, a challenging one manager to exec is brutal. 3 00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:07,640 Like everyone's talking an alien language. 4 00:00:07,880 --> 00:00:12,120 I had to rapidly learn there that even though my title was 5 00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:14,800 tech, I now no longer worked in the tech team. 6 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:18,520 And that took the whole concept of cross functional team for me 7 00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:21,320 to completely understanding. The businesses work, how are 8 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:22,520 they growing? How do they make money? 9 00:00:22,680 --> 00:00:25,880 The highest value activity you can do for any organization is 10 00:00:25,880 --> 00:00:27,920 the people that you bring into that organization. 11 00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:30,920 If you don't invest time in that, the cost of getting that 12 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:34,040 wrong is just ridiculously high. More often than not, people's 13 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:37,320 hiring practices are usually designed to prove that people 14 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:39,200 aren't good enough. What I often do when I'm working 15 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:41,800 with teams that are hiring is like, try and rewire that a 16 00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:43,880 little bit. As a leader, you need to create 17 00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:46,720 an environment where people aren't working in a state of 18 00:00:46,720 --> 00:00:50,080 stress or fear or panic, and that's how you're going to get 19 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:51,920 the best out of the group of people that you've got. 20 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:55,240 Whereas before, you know, early in my life, fiery Scotsman, you 21 00:00:55,240 --> 00:00:58,360 say something I don't like. You got an answer Just through 22 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:00,320 practicing meditation. I feel like I've just got a 23 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:02,440 little bit of muscle in the middle of my brain that when I 24 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:05,960 receive information, I can take a pause and go, huh, all right, 25 00:01:06,320 --> 00:01:08,080 how am I going to choose to process that? 26 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:11,920 There is also a lot of other practices around how you 27 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:15,560 declutter your life or how you basically eliminate stress or 28 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:18,400 how you improve sleep. Personally for me, I feel like 29 00:01:18,400 --> 00:01:20,440 I'm more relaxed. I feel like it can be a better 30 00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:22,080 leader to the people that I work with. 31 00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:24,400 Whereas previously I would have just been go, go, go, go, go. 32 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:26,720 Like, you know, we've got to get results as quickly as possible. 33 00:01:26,720 --> 00:01:28,160 So. And that's what my values change 34 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:42,920 for me really. Hello, everyone. 35 00:01:42,920 --> 00:01:45,200 Welcome back to the new episode of the Technical Journal 36 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:47,320 Podcast. Today I have with me Norman 37 00:01:47,320 --> 00:01:50,080 Noble. He is the CEO of Mindvalley. 38 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:53,680 Mindvalley is a company that I followed for a long time and it 39 00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:56,960 has been transformational for my personal growth and personal 40 00:01:56,960 --> 00:01:58,840 journey. So I'm really excited to have 41 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:02,560 this opportunity to speak with one of the executives from the 42 00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:05,160 company, right? So, Norman, welcome to the show. 43 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:08,160 Thank you. Right, Norman, maybe let's start 44 00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:10,520 in the beginning by asking you to share a little bit about 45 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:13,560 yourself, maybe some career turning points that you think we 46 00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:17,320 all can learn from you. I originally am from the 47 00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:20,240 northeast of Scotland, but I lived in Australia for quite a 48 00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:21,880 long time and then I live in Asia. 49 00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:26,240 So I've got this mixing up accent that people often confuse 50 00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:30,080 for Irish. But yeah, I mean, in terms of 51 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:33,840 career, you know, I started out quite early. 52 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:36,280 I was one of those kids that was always playing around with 53 00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:39,760 computers at a very young age, lucky enough that my parents 54 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:42,560 supported that and that helped me, you know, get into that. 55 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,280 And yeah, I was actually thinking about this morning. 56 00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:47,080 I think I probably did it for longer than most. 57 00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:49,840 Just being an individual contributor was easily, you 58 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:53,680 know, the 1st 1516 years of my career. 59 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:56,320 And I did that without really having to think much more of it 60 00:02:56,320 --> 00:02:59,440 than that. And then I obviously moved to a 61 00:02:59,920 --> 00:03:01,920 larger company called Seek somewhere along the line. 62 00:03:01,920 --> 00:03:03,720 And that was probably the first point. 63 00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:07,920 I'd worked at a company that was at really large scale. 64 00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:12,200 And that was really where I got my first opportunity to look 65 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:16,120 after a large group of people. And that wasn't even by 66 00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:17,880 deliberate design. You know, it was kind of, I was 67 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:19,960 happy doing what I was doing. There was a big transformation 68 00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:23,040 project going on. And, you know, a large part of 69 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:25,000 that is you have to convince people and you have to get 70 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,360 people on board and you have to kind of bring them along on it. 71 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:31,280 But, you know, so there's a huge learning curve around people. 72 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:34,280 You know, up until that point, I'd been solving problems 73 00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:37,800 primarily with software and programmed hardware and, you 74 00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:40,040 know, reasonably predictable stuff. 75 00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:43,360 But then when you move into the domain of people, it's very 76 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:44,600 different. You know, you're dealing with 77 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:47,240 people's self identity. You're dealing with people's 78 00:03:47,240 --> 00:03:49,760 emotional responses versus logical responses. 79 00:03:49,760 --> 00:03:53,960 You're dealing with people's own, in many cases, their own 80 00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:56,520 career ambition, their own, you know, fears. 81 00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:59,480 So initially it was kind of scary. 82 00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:01,520 And then, you know, I, I, I remember the first couple of 83 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:04,040 meetings thinking I am way in over, I'm way over my head of 84 00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:05,920 this. But then I just started to 85 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:07,480 really enjoy it. Like, I realized that, oh, 86 00:04:07,480 --> 00:04:11,520 actually this is just problem solving with humans rather than 87 00:04:11,560 --> 00:04:14,920 with, with computers. So I kind of went deep in that 88 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:18,240 area and started reading as much as I could about psychology and, 89 00:04:18,279 --> 00:04:21,640 and behaviour and, and incentives and leadership and, 90 00:04:22,280 --> 00:04:25,840 and the more I went down the, the track of people, the more 91 00:04:25,840 --> 00:04:28,960 interest that I got in. Well, OK, we've got people. 92 00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:31,200 How do we make sure that people were bringing the organization 93 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:32,800 of the right people? So, you know, I kind of went 94 00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:35,520 deep on hiring. I went deep on career growth and 95 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:39,720 development and spent a large amount of time with Seek 96 00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:43,160 revisiting how we hire, building a grad program. 97 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:45,560 That was arguably one of the most fun things to do was 98 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:47,320 building a grad program. Really enjoyed that. 99 00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:51,200 And you know, all that work just led to eventually there was an 100 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:53,800 opportunity came up. Seek as a business was growing, 101 00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:55,720 there was a bit of a reshuffle in Seek and it was like, OK, we 102 00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:59,120 need to consolidate the business and unify our product set and 103 00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:01,240 then be faster. So, so that was another key 104 00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:02,920 inflection point. We, we thought we were settled 105 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:04,320 in Australia. We were going to live there 106 00:05:04,400 --> 00:05:06,400 forever. And then, you know, I had to go 107 00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:09,080 to my wife and see what do you think about living in Malaysia? 108 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:14,560 And you know, initially it was just meant to be, you know, they 109 00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:16,720 call it a 2 + 1. Like you're here for two years 110 00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:18,400 and there's a possible one year extension. 111 00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:21,120 I came over here thinking, right, this is a technical 112 00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:23,840 people transition job and I'm going to help here. 113 00:05:23,840 --> 00:05:28,800 But then I think I've been here for about 6 months and the CTO 114 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,160 of the company at the time, a guy called Daniel Walters was 115 00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:35,600 moving back to New Zealand. So, you know, it gives me a 116 00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:37,920 message one day, hey, I'm moving on. 117 00:05:38,280 --> 00:05:41,640 You're being pulled into the the Seek Asia exec team as my 118 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:44,560 replacement. So that was another inflection 119 00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:45,680 part. I was like, OK, I'm going to 120 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:48,040 look at this differently now. And again, that was just a 121 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:51,920 completely different world. I had to rapidly learn there 122 00:05:51,920 --> 00:05:55,880 that even though my title was tech, I now no longer worked in 123 00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:57,080 the tech team. You know, I worked in a 124 00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,480 commercial team. There was marketing, there was 125 00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:03,560 sales, there was HR that that was my primary team now. 126 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:06,440 And you know, that took the whole concept of cross 127 00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:09,080 functional team for me to a completely new level. 128 00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:11,880 But what that allowed me to do is that allowed me to just move 129 00:06:11,880 --> 00:06:14,680 in a new space of just understanding commercial, you 130 00:06:14,680 --> 00:06:18,760 know, like why businesses do the things that they do, what, you 131 00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:20,000 know, how they're trying to grow. 132 00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:22,360 That was just a whole new problem set for me. 133 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:24,800 It was like, you know, we, we've done the technical, we've worked 134 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:27,120 with people and now it's like this new interesting world of 135 00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:29,000 how do businesses work? How are they growing? 136 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:30,800 How do they make money? How do they move into new 137 00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:33,000 markets? That was really good fun. 138 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:35,800 Seek as a company that was going through a lot of change at the 139 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:38,400 time. And there was as a new CEO came 140 00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:40,160 in, there was a reshuffle of leadership. 141 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:44,440 And that's where I, I, I jumped off into Boost at the time it 142 00:06:44,440 --> 00:06:46,840 was an E wallet and it was transitioning into a digital 143 00:06:46,840 --> 00:06:49,200 bank. Boost as a company was owned by 144 00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:51,200 a telco. So a lot of cultural 145 00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:52,760 differences, a lot of differences in the way that 146 00:06:52,760 --> 00:06:55,360 companies operate. When you work in companies that 147 00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:59,280 are regulated, there's a lot of different things, things that I 148 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:01,920 would consider normal, like moving really quickly and 149 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:04,640 deploying frequently, really panic to things. 150 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:07,800 So, you know, you really had to adapt and think about that, but 151 00:07:07,800 --> 00:07:11,200 differently. So we were considering moving 152 00:07:11,200 --> 00:07:14,240 back to Australia at that point. And then just quite 153 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:18,560 accidentally, I came across mine Valley, the team that I met 154 00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:21,480 there honestly did the most amazing job of convincing me to 155 00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:24,120 come work with them. Like I got a sense very early 156 00:07:24,120 --> 00:07:26,440 on, this is an awesome team and I'm going to have a lot of fun 157 00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:29,160 working with these people. So that allowed me to transition 158 00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:31,960 from Boost into to Mindvalley and and yeah, I've been there 159 00:07:31,960 --> 00:07:36,120 for the past two years. So, you know, it's, it's kind of 160 00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:39,200 been a bit of a journey. Do you need to scale your 161 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:42,080 engineering team or find specialized talent quickly? 162 00:07:42,520 --> 00:07:46,040 Finding good and experienced developers is hard, even for 163 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:48,920 seasoned engineering leaders, and I've been there myself. 164 00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:52,760 The usual hiring cycles can take months, while critical features 165 00:07:52,760 --> 00:07:55,320 sit in the backlog waiting to be implemented. 166 00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:58,800 Here's an alternative for you. 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Because we were talking about 189 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:13,360 what we could talk about and transformation as a leader, 190 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:14,960 right? I think it's really critical, 191 00:09:14,960 --> 00:09:16,760 right? Just also like Mindvalley 192 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:20,160 transformation, personal growth is something that everyone, if 193 00:09:20,160 --> 00:09:22,640 they want to aspire to be an engineering leader or whatever 194 00:09:22,640 --> 00:09:24,480 leaders, right? It's something that they have to 195 00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:27,120 go through. From what you shared earlier, I 196 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:30,320 think there are three key kind of like transformation that you 197 00:09:30,480 --> 00:09:32,240 went through, right? The first is, you know, like 198 00:09:32,240 --> 00:09:35,760 from university, you went into, you know, software programmer, 199 00:09:35,760 --> 00:09:37,160 right? It's software engineer for the 200 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:39,680 long time, maybe like 15-16 years, you said. 201 00:09:39,680 --> 00:09:42,720 And then afterwards you change into like managing people. 202 00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:45,880 This is like quite common in many engineering managers, 203 00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:48,880 software engineers who turn into leaders or managers, right? 204 00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:53,000 And then after that, you stop working just for, you know, 205 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:56,160 managing people, but you also work as part of the executive 206 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,200 team, getting to know how the business is run and all that. 207 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:02,360 So maybe let's go through this important turning points because 208 00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:05,880 I'm sure many people can relate to that experience because if 209 00:10:05,880 --> 00:10:08,840 they want to aspire to become leaders, this is the thing that 210 00:10:08,840 --> 00:10:11,560 they have to go through. Sure, let's start from the 211 00:10:11,560 --> 00:10:15,280 transformation from a software engineer, just pure IC software 212 00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:18,040 engineer into managers. What do you think are the key 213 00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:21,680 traits or key things that make you success back then? 214 00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:24,560 Yeah. I mean, you know, I can think 215 00:10:24,560 --> 00:10:25,800 about my own journey in that space. 216 00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:27,720 I can think about the journey that I see people going through 217 00:10:27,720 --> 00:10:29,480 whenever they're making that transition. 218 00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:32,440 And I'm not going to lie, it's it's a tough one. 219 00:10:32,440 --> 00:10:35,160 Like you, you literally almost have to like just park 220 00:10:35,160 --> 00:10:37,600 everything, you know, at the door and realize it's now just a 221 00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:41,840 fundamentally different job. And I think that I certainly 222 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:43,600 struggled with this and a lot of people struggled. 223 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:48,080 I see struggling with this as well as when you're in IC, all 224 00:10:48,080 --> 00:10:51,240 yourself identity, all the value that you think you contribute is 225 00:10:51,240 --> 00:10:53,840 all about what comes out of my fingers and what what I can code 226 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:55,920 and produce. But when you move into these 227 00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:59,320 roles, there's a fundamental shift where your value isn't 228 00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:01,960 that anymore. Your value is how do you create 229 00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:07,080 and run high performing teams. And it's a really difficult 230 00:11:07,080 --> 00:11:09,160 transition because you've just got your comfort area. 231 00:11:09,160 --> 00:11:11,440 You know, when you feel like it's going well, that's great. 232 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:13,360 When you feel like it's not going well, you have a tendency 233 00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:15,920 to lean back into the things that you do feel comfortable 234 00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:18,800 doing. And also when you're working in 235 00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:21,840 a leadership role, like when you're programming, it's very 236 00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:23,760 simple. I do this, that happens like 237 00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:25,560 it's very, you know, it's very easy. 238 00:11:25,560 --> 00:11:27,240 You see, I do one thing, something else happens. 239 00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:29,960 But when you're working with humans, it's different. 240 00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:32,080 Like you do things, you're like, and then something happens. 241 00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:34,560 You're like, all right, how much of that was because I said 242 00:11:34,560 --> 00:11:36,440 something or did something or how much of that would have just 243 00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:40,240 happened anyway? You know, so you do have to in a 244 00:11:40,240 --> 00:11:43,400 sense kind of become comfortable being uncomfortable. 245 00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:47,240 You know, you have to sort of be OK with the fact that you might 246 00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:50,040 be getting it really good one day and not landing it 247 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:52,880 particularly well the next. And as long as you are just 248 00:11:52,880 --> 00:11:54,880 thinking about how am I continually improving, how am I 249 00:11:54,880 --> 00:11:56,360 reflecting? You know, as long as you're 250 00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:59,640 being aware of where you are, that will help you transition 251 00:11:59,640 --> 00:12:02,680 through that period. But yeah, it is a really hard 252 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:05,840 transition because fundamentally, even though you 253 00:12:05,840 --> 00:12:07,840 still have all your technical knowledge, your ability to do 254 00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:09,960 that, your role has fundamentally changed. 255 00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:12,600 Yeah. And you also shared in the 256 00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:15,160 beginning, right, that you actually had to learn a lot of 257 00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:18,960 psychology related books, right, and had to catch up how to deal 258 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:21,600 with people. Maybe tell us this experience, 259 00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:23,320 right? Or do you think everyone here 260 00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:25,880 should also learn, you know, about psychology, about 261 00:12:25,880 --> 00:12:27,440 management books and things like that? 262 00:12:27,640 --> 00:12:28,640 Yeah. I mean, look at. 263 00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:31,480 So I don't think it's something you have to do, but certainly it 264 00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:35,200 was very beneficial for me. So I was very lucky when I took 265 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:38,400 my first management job, the guy that I was working for at the 266 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:41,920 time was just like he read so much books and he would just 267 00:12:41,920 --> 00:12:44,000 leave books in my desk and I read that, you know, I think 268 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:46,240 you'd find it interesting. And I think the first one he 269 00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:49,920 left for me was kind of I Feeling Lucky by Douglas 270 00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:51,960 Edwards. And he was employee number 5 at 271 00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:54,840 Google or something like that. And like up until that point, 272 00:12:54,840 --> 00:12:58,480 you know, my reading consisted of like Red Dwarf, he took his 273 00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:00,400 guide to the Galaxy, like just things like that. 274 00:13:00,400 --> 00:13:02,760 So, you know, this is the first time I ever read a book that was 275 00:13:02,760 --> 00:13:04,920 kind of like a biography of somebody in a Silicon Valley 276 00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:06,320 company. And it was just fascinating. 277 00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:08,640 So I read that and said, OK, what else can I get? 278 00:13:08,640 --> 00:13:12,560 And I kind of got onto this train of, I can't even remember 279 00:13:12,560 --> 00:13:15,960 how I got to it, But there was a book called Happiness Hypothesis 280 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:19,560 by a guy called Jonathan Haidt. That was really an interesting 281 00:13:19,560 --> 00:13:21,920 book because it was, you know, fundamentally about happiness, 282 00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:25,440 but it was all about thinking styles and thinking preferences. 283 00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:28,480 And I remember at the time reading about it and then just a 284 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:30,880 light bulb going off in my head. You know, he was talking about 285 00:13:30,880 --> 00:13:33,000 conservative versus liberal, for example. 286 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:35,080 Like, you know, people that are highly conservative tend to have 287 00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:37,960 these behavioral patterns. People that are liberal tend to 288 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:40,040 have these. And I remember thinking at the 289 00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:42,240 time, oh, jeez, that I can apply that here. 290 00:13:42,240 --> 00:13:44,600 There's conservative developers and there's liberal developers. 291 00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:46,360 You know, the conservative developers are the ones that are 292 00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:47,920 like, Nope, we're doing it this way. 293 00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:49,520 This has always worked. We're just going to stick to 294 00:13:49,520 --> 00:13:51,920 what we know, whereas the liberal, the liberal ones are 295 00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:53,000 the ones like, no, we're going to change. 296 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:54,960 We're going to use a new framework every single day. 297 00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:57,640 And once I kind of got that concept in my head, I was like, 298 00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:01,240 OK, now that I know that these personality types exist, what 299 00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:03,160 does that mean for how you choose to compose teams? 300 00:14:03,160 --> 00:14:05,840 If you have a team that's overly liberal, you're going to have a 301 00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:07,920 lot of innovation, but you're also going to have a lot of 302 00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:09,600 chaos. And if you have teams that are 303 00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:11,800 overly conservative, you're probably going to have a lot of 304 00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:13,960 predictability and stability, but they're probably never going 305 00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:16,960 to really change or move. So, you know, it was just 306 00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:21,480 through reading stuff like that. And I think one part is reading 307 00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:23,000 it. The second part is actually 308 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:25,160 contextualizing it to the environment that you're in. 309 00:14:25,160 --> 00:14:28,520 So, you know, you can read a book on general psychology or 310 00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:31,320 you can read a book, say, for instance, Dan Pink's Drive, an 311 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:33,520 excellent book as well. You can read them. 312 00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:36,920 The important part is actually reflecting on what does that 313 00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:39,000 mean for the environment you're in and the people that you're 314 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:41,160 working with. And yeah, I mean, to answer your 315 00:14:41,160 --> 00:14:43,520 question, yes, I would wholeheartedly recommend that. 316 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:47,520 I think that, you know, reading will give you such an advantage 317 00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:50,160 in terms of what you can learn, how you think about things. 318 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:53,120 So yeah, it's about understanding the area you're 319 00:14:53,120 --> 00:14:55,280 in, the domain, and just trying to consume as much knowledge as 320 00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:58,560 you can and contextualizing it to the environment you're in. 321 00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:02,880 I did see people that read a lot but struggled with the second 322 00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:04,000 part. You know, they would read a book 323 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:06,080 and they'd be like, oh, yeah, that's interesting, but So what? 324 00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:09,280 And you know, they just didn't do that second part of, well, 325 00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:11,960 take everything you just read from that and then think about 326 00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:14,440 how that would apply to the environment you're in and what, 327 00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:16,560 what would you think about in those aspects. 328 00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:19,760 So that's as important as consuming the material as well. 329 00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:22,200 Yeah, that's a very good point actually. 330 00:15:22,200 --> 00:15:25,200 I think many people read books. I personally also read a lot of 331 00:15:25,200 --> 00:15:28,360 books that sometimes we forget a lot less well after after 332 00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:30,120 reading it. So I think applying it, 333 00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:33,320 contextualizing it, reflecting to where you are at the moment 334 00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:36,040 is something that is key when you read anything, right. 335 00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:39,200 So the other thing about programmers like you mentioned, 336 00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:42,320 right, typically it's very important that they know what 337 00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:44,080 they do and the results straight away. 338 00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:47,040 You can see this kind of like a feedback loop when working with 339 00:15:47,040 --> 00:15:48,920 human. Definitely this is something 340 00:15:48,920 --> 00:15:51,520 that is more ambiguous. So what do you think? 341 00:15:51,520 --> 00:15:54,280 Like for a developer, if they want to become a successful 342 00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:57,840 manager, what things they should maybe let go or maybe forget 343 00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:01,880 what work in the past right and try to become a better manager? 344 00:16:02,520 --> 00:16:06,120 Yeah, that's a great question. I think a challenge I see a lot 345 00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:08,760 of the time. So as a manager, I find like a 346 00:16:08,760 --> 00:16:13,680 huge part of your job is helping distill and guide people, you 347 00:16:13,680 --> 00:16:18,040 know, So developers generally tend to want absolutes, you 348 00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:19,480 know, they want clear requirements. 349 00:16:19,480 --> 00:16:21,520 They want to know exactly when this needs to be done by like 350 00:16:21,520 --> 00:16:23,800 they, they, they want certainty a lot of the time. 351 00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:27,280 And the reality is you, you a lot of the time you just can't 352 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:28,920 give certainty. You know, things just aren't 353 00:16:28,920 --> 00:16:31,240 concrete. So as a manager, you're kind of 354 00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:34,600 taking ambiguous and trying to translate that into as much 355 00:16:34,600 --> 00:16:37,840 certainty as you can. I was an engineer in thinking 356 00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:40,800 about, you know, a career path that involved leading and, and 357 00:16:40,800 --> 00:16:42,280 looking after large groups of people. 358 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,360 It is really kind of letting go of of the need for certainty. 359 00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:48,920 You know, it's getting comfortable with ambiguity. 360 00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:52,720 It's getting comfortable with the fact that maybe everyone 361 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:55,360 above and around you haven't got everything ironed out and know 362 00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:57,080 everything. You know, you might see this 363 00:16:57,080 --> 00:17:00,440 amazing CEO who talks brilliantly all the time, but I 364 00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:04,760 guarantee you that person has not got every IO of the strategy 365 00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:06,359 ironed out. There's a huge chunk of stuff 366 00:17:06,359 --> 00:17:09,079 that they don't know. So when you move into these 367 00:17:09,079 --> 00:17:10,839 roles, you just have to be comfortable with that. 368 00:17:10,839 --> 00:17:13,400 You have to accept that. And you have to realize that 369 00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:17,079 your job is to kind of catch that and process it and 370 00:17:17,079 --> 00:17:19,520 translate it as best you can to keep the people that you're 371 00:17:19,520 --> 00:17:22,240 working with as comfortable as possible, knowing that they 372 00:17:22,319 --> 00:17:24,640 really like certainty and they really like clarity. 373 00:17:25,400 --> 00:17:27,920 I like that, you know, transforming the ambiguity into 374 00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:29,080 more certainty. Yeah. 375 00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:32,000 I think that's a really important job for the leader. 376 00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:34,520 Absolutely, Yeah. The other thing you mentioned is 377 00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:38,400 here, you think that managers but first responsibility is to 378 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:40,360 build high performing teams, right. 379 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:43,800 So what do you think are critical when building a team, 380 00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:45,760 right? How can we assemble a more high 381 00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:48,840 performing team and where? Where are the areas that we 382 00:17:48,840 --> 00:17:51,000 should look at as a manager? Yeah. 383 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:54,600 I mean, look, one of the things I probably see going most 384 00:17:54,600 --> 00:17:58,400 commonly wrong is people often look at what they've got and 385 00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:00,520 work out how to get the best out of what they've got. 386 00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:03,040 Yeah, like, I've got a team of five people and they don't do 387 00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:04,320 this. How do I make them the highest 388 00:18:04,360 --> 00:18:07,160 performing version of that? But really, I think the people 389 00:18:07,160 --> 00:18:10,080 that really do well are the ones that can kind of almost 390 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:12,080 compartmentalize that and put that to one side, say, OK, 391 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:13,440 that's what I've got. Like, you know, that's fine. 392 00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:17,160 That is one variable. But in order to achieve the 393 00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:19,840 outcome that I want, this is exactly what I need. 394 00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:22,480 And it's almost like sitting doing an exercise of a mental 395 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:24,880 exercise of what's the architecture of the perfect team 396 00:18:24,880 --> 00:18:27,040 for me. If I just had a blank piece of 397 00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:28,640 paper, how would I design the perfect team? 398 00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:33,960 Once you've got that model ironed out in your head, it is 399 00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:36,680 then a case of, OK, back to the group that I've got. 400 00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:39,240 How do I transition that group to that model? 401 00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:41,440 Yeah. The people that do really well, 402 00:18:41,440 --> 00:18:43,280 the people that I think, you know, whether they explicitly 403 00:18:43,280 --> 00:18:45,360 say they're doing that or not, like that's what they're doing. 404 00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:48,200 The people that struggle a little bit are the ones that are 405 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:49,760 like, kind of looking at what they've got and they're like, 406 00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:51,120 OK, how do I make this incrementally better? 407 00:18:51,120 --> 00:18:54,360 How do I nudge this, tweak that move that they can, they will 408 00:18:54,360 --> 00:18:56,040 improve it, they will make things better. 409 00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:58,880 But the ones that do a great job are the ones that sit down and 410 00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:00,400 think about the architecture to start with. 411 00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:02,600 Wow. I think I really love that as 412 00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:04,240 well. So creating kind of like the 413 00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:06,680 architecture of the teams that you want, right? 414 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:08,720 And transitioning people there, right? 415 00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:10,720 Because I think, yeah, sometimes we are lucky. 416 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:13,480 We are given, you know, smart people who have worked maybe 417 00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:15,400 really well together. But sometimes you have to 418 00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:18,560 assemble a team which probably, you know, the morale probably 419 00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:20,280 slow because of the transformation and things like 420 00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:22,320 that. And we have to, you know, nudge 421 00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:24,920 them into a better place. Sometimes it's hard, especially 422 00:19:24,920 --> 00:19:26,560 if the people don't have the skills. 423 00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:29,480 But I think knowing the architecture, the blueprint, 424 00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:32,640 what you want, the outcomes and transitioning people there is 425 00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:36,120 really important. Sorry, I was gonna add to that. 426 00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:38,720 Obviously, that's the first part. 427 00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:40,720 The second part is then really understanding your team. 428 00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:42,840 Where are their strengths, where are their areas of development 429 00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:45,680 and how do you align that to the architecture you've designed? 430 00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:49,000 An example I've been using quite a bit recently is I think about 431 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,080 high performing team. Like I'm a huge football fan, so 432 00:19:52,360 --> 00:19:55,480 I think about the Real Madrid team that won like consecutive 433 00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:58,800 Champions Leagues year on year and you can look at the teams 434 00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:01,520 sheet for that. You can see that Ronaldo is here 435 00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:03,440 and all the other players are wherever they are. 436 00:20:04,160 --> 00:20:06,280 And then the example I saw I showed people is like, OK, take 437 00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:08,640 that exact same team and just jumble all the players around, 438 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:11,080 put Ronaldo in goals. But these players here, do you 439 00:20:11,080 --> 00:20:14,000 still think that team's winning consecutive Champions Leagues if 440 00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:16,840 you played them like this? Like that's really understanding 441 00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:19,560 the relevant strengths and and development areas of the team 442 00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:22,000 you've got, making sure it's assembled the architecture that 443 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:23,720 makes sense. Yeah. 444 00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:27,680 So I think the other key point to that is hiring, right? 445 00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:30,200 So let's say you want to assemble a team, you probably 446 00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:33,400 feel there are some skills lacking or you just need to grow 447 00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:35,160 the team, right? So that means you need to hire. 448 00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:38,040 You also have a lot of experience here and especially 449 00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:41,000 you work at sick before which a core job is actually to find 450 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:44,320 people and candidates. So tell us about the off hiring 451 00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:46,560 philosophy, right? How do you think we can make 452 00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:50,640 hiring much better? Yeah, I mean, that's a really 453 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:53,680 good question because everywhere I go, every company I joined the 454 00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:55,840 Volve of their, their different views of how they do hiring. 455 00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:58,680 And one common thing I find amongst most companies I work 456 00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,840 with is you join and they're like, oh, hiring's really hard. 457 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:03,400 We just can't find the talent that we need. 458 00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:06,080 We've been aggressively hiring for months. 459 00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:07,960 We're only getting like 1 developer a month or something 460 00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:09,840 like that. And it's like, OK, and you know, 461 00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:12,280 in Australia with Seek, we had that challenge when I moved over 462 00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:14,880 to Asia, one of the first things there was said like you just 463 00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:16,360 won't find enough talent in the market. 464 00:21:16,360 --> 00:21:17,720 We just cannot get enough developers. 465 00:21:18,360 --> 00:21:21,200 But what I've always found quite interesting is when you join a 466 00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,960 company and you sit back and critically assess how they're 467 00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:26,800 hiring and remember the, the, the outcome you're trying to 468 00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:30,160 achieve here is get good functional people performing in 469 00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:32,560 a role into the business. And you look at how they're 470 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:35,560 doing that you think the process you're following, the things 471 00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:37,320 that you're doing aren't going to get that outcome. 472 00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:40,480 Like more often than not, people's hiring practices are 473 00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:43,280 usually designed to prove that people aren't good enough. 474 00:21:43,320 --> 00:21:45,440 It's kind of like that's the first sort of line. 475 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:46,360 You know, this person is good enough. 476 00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:49,200 This would be the problem. So you know, what I often do 477 00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:51,560 when I'm working with teams that are hiring is like try and 478 00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:53,840 rewire that a little bit. Like let's just, OK, let's just 479 00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:56,840 make some base assumptions here. And most people we're probably 480 00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:59,040 talking to are probably going to be pretty confident. 481 00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:00,680 They're probably going to be good. 482 00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:02,240 They're going to have skills, they're going to have 483 00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:04,880 experience. How do we get the best at these 484 00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:07,160 people? How do we create an an interview 485 00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:10,640 process that allows them to demonstrate the best possible 486 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:14,240 version of themselves rather than one that puts them into a 487 00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:17,080 state of fear or panic and shuts down the critical thinking parts 488 00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:19,720 of their brain? You know, if you pull somebody 489 00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:22,200 in an interview and hand them a pen in a white board and say 490 00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:25,880 design A fault tolerant, distribute whatever, you know, 491 00:22:26,360 --> 00:22:28,920 unless that person is very experienced and very comfortable 492 00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:31,360 doing that, most people are going to saw us get they're 493 00:22:31,360 --> 00:22:33,760 flustered. So, you know, when we look at 494 00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,280 how we hire and certainly the companies I work with now, we 495 00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:38,800 try and work out a couple of things. 496 00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:40,720 We work out well. Let's just first of all go with 497 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:42,960 the base assumption that most people that are applying for 498 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:45,080 this process are capable of doing the job. 499 00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:49,200 Let's work out what areas we believe that they would excel at 500 00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:52,040 without any intervention or without any support day one. 501 00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:53,520 They would be really good at these things. 502 00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:56,320 And then let's work out the areas that they would need 503 00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:59,000 support and development and what that support and development 504 00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,640 would look like if they joined. And then let's make sure that 505 00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:03,480 we've got the capability to provide that. 506 00:23:04,120 --> 00:23:06,880 And if you kind of just shift that around a little bit where 507 00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:09,000 you, your base assumption is most people we talk to are 508 00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:10,360 actually good enough to join the company. 509 00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,000 Most people have enough skill to be contributing on day one. 510 00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,560 We probably need to set up support structures that do 511 00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,880 ABC123. Then you find that the pool 512 00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,400 opens up dramatically. And it can be something as 513 00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,320 simple as, you know, you just create a boot camp. 514 00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:27,800 Like when people join the company, they just go in a four 515 00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:30,240 week boot camp and like they learn all your tooling, learn 516 00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,240 the languages, learn the processes, you'll rapidly get 517 00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:35,640 them up to, you know, it means they don't necessarily have to 518 00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:38,000 have that experience on day one, but they can get up to speed 519 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:40,280 within 4 weeks. And I think when we kind of 520 00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,640 adopted some of these principles in Seek Asia, when I joined, 521 00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:45,440 when I joined, they were hiring like 1 developer a month and I 522 00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,160 think at the peak we got that up to like 19. 523 00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:51,960 So you know, you really can open up the pool, find great talent 524 00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:54,960 and if you set it up correctly, these people are genuinely 525 00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:56,200 awesome. Like there is no talent 526 00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:58,840 shortage. It's just more of a the way that 527 00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,640 we're looking at it artificially creates a lens. 528 00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:05,080 There is a town charge. So that's the perspective I take 529 00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,520 on hiring. Yeah, I mean tricked by the 530 00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:10,160 point that you mentioned, right? Many people when they do 531 00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:13,280 interviews, they try to prove the candidate who is applying 532 00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:14,720 not good enough. Yep. 533 00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:17,960 So how can we switch this? Because now that you've said it 534 00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:20,960 right, I think, yeah, maybe in practice in engineering 535 00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:23,520 especially, right? So we try to prove the engineers 536 00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:25,840 who are applying, they are not good enough maybe in terms of 537 00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:29,080 algorithm, in terms of whatever knowledge, experience that they 538 00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,680 didn't have before. So how do you think a better way 539 00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,960 of interviewing engineers in terms of getting people the best 540 00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:38,840 out of them? Yeah, I mean, So what I always 541 00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:40,800 push for, there's a few things you can do. 542 00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,480 Like we did one an exercise that was really interesting where we 543 00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,760 got like, say 5 or 6 engineers and we gave them a pile of 544 00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:48,120 resumes each. And we said, right, there's a 545 00:24:48,120 --> 00:24:51,280 yes pal and a no pal I like, and you have to put resumes in a yes 546 00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,320 pal and a no pal. And we got all six engineers 547 00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:56,800 give them the same resumes and they did their sorting. 548 00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:59,360 But then when you looked at the end, they all disagreed. 549 00:24:59,360 --> 00:25:01,080 Like some were saying yes and some were saying no. 550 00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:02,320 And it's like, well, put them together. 551 00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:04,040 Why did you say yes? Why did you say no? 552 00:25:04,360 --> 00:25:06,920 And then they were like, oh, well, I interpreted it this way. 553 00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:08,360 Oh, no, I interpreted it this way. 554 00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,600 It almost got to the point like they're all yes, like they're 555 00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:15,080 all these resumes are yes, because, you know, somebody 556 00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,120 agrees that this person is worth looking at. 557 00:25:17,120 --> 00:25:20,000 So we kind of de emphasized that part. 558 00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:23,720 You know, we basically looked at if they got some key things in 559 00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:25,720 the resume, that's fine. Like we'll take them in and 560 00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,040 we'll look at them closer. And then for the actual 561 00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:30,280 interview process itself, I mean, I remember back when I was 562 00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:33,800 an engineer, it would be things like, tell me, how does this 563 00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,880 work in the Entity Framework? You know, you get all these 564 00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:37,320 really weird questions like that. 565 00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,840 What we've shifted to now is what I push for is how do you 566 00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:43,640 simulate an actual working environment? 567 00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,800 Like how do you give them a challenge to work on that best 568 00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:49,520 represents how they would actually work for the 569 00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:52,880 organization? So what I like to do is create 570 00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:56,080 challenges where basically we can have a coding challenge. 571 00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:58,960 You can go pull it down from GitHub and it will be something 572 00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:02,000 like, here's a independently deployable something. 573 00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:04,320 It's got one really bad bug in it. 574 00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:07,440 It's got one kind of really shoddy feature in it. 575 00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:11,400 So fix those two things and find some way to improve it. 576 00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:13,120 Like what would you do to fix this code? 577 00:26:13,120 --> 00:26:16,240 So they'll do that on their own. And then the follow up part of 578 00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:18,360 that is come in and do a pair programming exercise and 579 00:26:18,360 --> 00:26:19,960 actually sit down with an engineer and go through it 580 00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,160 together and work on it. And like, what would we do? 581 00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:24,960 What would we change? And I find that that's much more 582 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,080 valuable because the the engineers are actually getting a 583 00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,200 sense of, you know, the interviewees getting a sense of 584 00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:31,680 what it's like to work in our company. 585 00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,000 And our engineers are getting a sense of what it's like to work 586 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:36,920 with this individual. And that's way more valuable. 587 00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,680 Like I'm not grilling them on their ability to regurgitate 588 00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:42,720 knowledge in a certain framework or language. 589 00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,160 I'm actually sitting down and like, would I work with this 590 00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:46,680 person? Like, do I enjoy working? 591 00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:48,240 Do I enjoy the way that they think? 592 00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:50,120 Do I enjoy the way they solve problems? 593 00:26:50,120 --> 00:26:52,040 Do they think about things in a way that's helpful and useful 594 00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:54,120 and contribute to the team? And I think that's just a far 595 00:26:54,120 --> 00:26:57,960 more effective way of finding people and also lets people show 596 00:26:57,960 --> 00:26:59,760 their best self. Yeah. 597 00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:02,480 So I think it's worth for everyone to give a try, right. 598 00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:04,600 So simulating what you have in your working. 599 00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,440 Environment, yeah. I mean, the pushback you'll get 600 00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:08,920 from people is it's time consuming, you know, like we 601 00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:10,320 gotta do all these pairing exercise, you know? 602 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,680 Yeah, but you're investing in people that are going to join 603 00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:15,920 your company potentially for the next four or five years. 604 00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,960 So, you know, give them that time so they can understand you 605 00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,680 and you can understand them. Sure, you might come across a 606 00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,480 bunch of people that aren't a good match, but that's good. 607 00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,240 Like you've worked that out, you've spent an hour doing that 608 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,520 rather than, you know, the next two years working that out. 609 00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,400 So it is more of an upfront investment, but long term I 610 00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:34,920 think it yields much better results. 611 00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:37,520 Yeah, so I think that's a really good point, right? 612 00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,120 Because sometimes we don't want to interview too many people 613 00:27:40,120 --> 00:27:41,560 simply because we don't want to waste time. 614 00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,920 But actually, when we hired wrongly, the time that it takes 615 00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,280 to kind of like bring the guy to the correct path is something 616 00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:49,880 that is more time consuming. I. 617 00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:52,880 Say it doesn't matter whether you're a programmer, you work in 618 00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:56,400 finance, like the highest value activity you can do for any 619 00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:58,520 organization is the people that you bring into that 620 00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:00,920 organization. So, you know, invest the time, 621 00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,040 like if you don't invest time in that, the cost of getting that 622 00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,080 wrong is just ridiculously high. You know, that is something I 623 00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:09,200 would also talk to anyone who's transitioning from individual 624 00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:13,080 contributor to manager. Get good and really start caring 625 00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:14,720 about that. Like really start caring about 626 00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:16,880 interviewing and bringing people into the organization. 627 00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:18,720 It's one of the highest value things you can do. 628 00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,840 Right. So the other transition point 629 00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,800 that you have is moving from management into something more 630 00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,120 like executive role, something that you are currently doing, 631 00:28:28,120 --> 00:28:30,240 right. So that's where you are exposed 632 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:33,000 to the business, right? How the things work, how the 633 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,160 sales work. So tell us about this inflection 634 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,600 point and how can someone, maybe they have become a good manager, 635 00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:40,840 they want to become a better executive? 636 00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:43,560 Yeah, I mean, look, if the, the transition from individual 637 00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,840 contributor to managers is a challenging 1 like manager to 638 00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:52,440 exec is brutal. It is, you know, you, you, you 639 00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:55,680 move from a world where you're reasonably familiar when you go 640 00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:57,480 from engineer to engineering manager. 641 00:28:57,520 --> 00:28:59,280 I mean, at least the domain is the same. 642 00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,200 You know, you're all still talking the same language. 643 00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,560 You're talking about similar sort of concepts and constructs. 644 00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:09,800 When you move into the executive world, it like you can find for 645 00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:12,600 the first longest time, it's like everyone's talking an alien 646 00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:15,080 language. I remember joining and I had no 647 00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:16,880 experience in marketing whatsoever. 648 00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,120 So when people start firing things that you like Truro ass 649 00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:24,560 and LTV and CAC and like what it is like, what are they talking 650 00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,360 about? So you know, there is a really 651 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,200 challenging period like when you you migrate from one the other, 652 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,360 the hardest version of that is just when you're thrown into it. 653 00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:35,920 You know, you literally move from you might be head of 654 00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,360 engineering or an engineering director and then you know, you 655 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:42,280 become an exec and you just throw it in the deep end synchro 656 00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:43,120 swim. It's up to you. 657 00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:47,240 A better version of that is when a company is very supportive and 658 00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:49,320 recognizes that you're not an exec. 659 00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,800 You know, you are transitioning in this role and you can get 660 00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:53,800 assistance and support and coaching. 661 00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,720 You get dedicated time with the other execs to sit down and 662 00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:58,760 learn their domains and understand what they need from 663 00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,320 you and how you can help them and vice versa. 664 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,120 But yeah, I mean, it's a huge transition. 665 00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:07,640 Like you have to, again, leave behind everything that, you 666 00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:11,560 know, your job is now. Well, actually, you still have 667 00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:13,240 to do that part. You still have to look after a 668 00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:15,960 large group of people. But now there's a whole new set 669 00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,320 of value that you have to understand and how do you 670 00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:22,080 contribute and assist the team that you're in and how do you to 671 00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,640 make sure the technology is aligned to the business 672 00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,240 direction and the business strategy and, and align all that 673 00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,600 up. And yeah, I, I, I don't think 674 00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:31,880 there's any, it's just a tough transition. 675 00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:32,920 I don't think there's any shortcuts. 676 00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,000 There's no cheat codes. If you can, I would always 677 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,120 advocate if that isn't part of your career ambition, I would 678 00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:44,280 always find ACTO that's willing to work with you and shadow that 679 00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,800 person for as long as you can kind of go the, the Jedi pad 680 00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,920 one, right? That's probably a way to do it a 681 00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,000 little bit easier. But yeah, it's it's a tough 682 00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,120 transition any way you look at it. 683 00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:56,960 And you have to care fundamentally about different 684 00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,400 things. And you move into a position 685 00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:03,480 where previously your manager, like if I was a head of or a an 686 00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:06,280 engineering manager of a group of people, the person I'm 687 00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,920 reporting to is most likely technical, like will be the CTO. 688 00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:13,120 So we talk a similarish language, you know, they 689 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,680 understand me. When you move from into the CTO 690 00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:18,840 position or whoever the leadership and you're reporting 691 00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:22,920 to either ACEO or ACEO, you talk fundamentally like unless you 692 00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:25,960 luck out and that person really understands tech, then you're 693 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,760 talking a completely different language and you have to adapt 694 00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:30,880 to them very rapidly. You have to understand how they 695 00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,640 see the world, how they interpret things, how they like 696 00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:36,840 to think about things. I've worked with CEOs that, for 697 00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:40,560 example, didn't necessarily really understand product, 698 00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,720 didn't understand what the product role was at all and 699 00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:47,040 assumed that was me, you know, so I, I'd get phone calls and 700 00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:50,160 like, you know, why does our app not work? 701 00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,320 It does not have Bahasa as a default language choice. 702 00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:56,120 I don't know. You have to talk to the product 703 00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,440 team like that, that they make decisions around that. 704 00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,440 So, but you know, on reflection afterwards, like, oh, right. 705 00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,040 He thought that was my job to, to set that direction. 706 00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,960 So there's an adaptation period, there's a learning period, but 707 00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:08,800 it is challenging, I'm not going to lie. 708 00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,160 Yeah, something that I find many engineers probably struggling a 709 00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,880 lot is about that, you know, transition from tech engineering 710 00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,440 thing to the different domain. It could be how the business 711 00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:23,200 works, right, where they get revenue, where is their focus. 712 00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:25,680 And especially if you talk to different departments, then you 713 00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:28,280 need to start knowing about their domains as well. 714 00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:30,640 So I think this is probably one of the big challenge that I 715 00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:32,800 find. What will be your tips, you 716 00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,400 know, like in the spirit of letting go what you know? 717 00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,760 Yeah, from the manager engineering aspect, letting go 718 00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:40,760 some aspect to become, I'm a better executive. 719 00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:42,840 What will be those things do you think? 720 00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:45,600 Well, I mean, probably the thing I'd probably touch on 1st 721 00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:47,800 actually is what you mentioned there about just engineers. 722 00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:52,240 And from my perspective, if I reflect back now on what I did 723 00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,600 and didn't do and the things that I would do differently, 724 00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:57,880 there is actually nothing really stopping engineers learning more 725 00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,040 about this stuff in their role as an engineer. 726 00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,360 You know, there's nothing stopping you being curious. 727 00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:05,600 You maybe don't necessarily need to reach out to the CMO to learn 728 00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:07,760 about marketing, but you can reach out to somebody that's 729 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:09,880 sort of a peer level in marketing. 730 00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,040 And how do I understand more? What can you tell me about 731 00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,440 what's going on in the environment and you're always 732 00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,080 hearing about engineers need to understand customer more. 733 00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:18,520 They need to be more connected to customer. 734 00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,200 And I like completely agree. And I'm aligned with that. 735 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,280 But I also think that there's a lot more to it and that 736 00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,560 engineers also have to understand how the company 737 00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:28,600 works, where the money comes in, where the money goes, how it 738 00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:31,800 works. Look, you will, you'll have 739 00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,080 access to a certain amount of information, more so than 740 00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:36,160 others. But there's really nothing 741 00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:38,440 stopping you being curious and trying to learn as much as you 742 00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:40,080 can and understand as much as you can. 743 00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,160 And if you're an environment that's really good at sharing 744 00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:45,440 that information, that that's a great environment to be in and 745 00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,560 that will help you grow and develop and be a more rounded 746 00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,520 engineer, which should make these transitions easier as you 747 00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:53,800 as you go through the organization. 748 00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,480 But to answer your question in terms of what do you have to let 749 00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,600 go, I think when you move into the exact position, similar 750 00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:03,920 principles apply, it's just at a different level. 751 00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,960 So one of the things I heavily rely on is the fact that my 752 00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:09,480 technology leadership team are great. 753 00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,239 Like, you know, and I was very lucky. 754 00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,600 Like I keep telling people when I joined mine Valley, I kind of 755 00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:17,840 won the the lottery in terms of the team that I inherited. 756 00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:20,840 But you know, if you've got a good technology leadership team 757 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:24,560 structure and you've got clarity around what you're trying to 758 00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,199 achieve as a business and you can convey that clarity to them 759 00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:29,639 that you can actually let go of a lot. 760 00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:33,760 There's areas that you know I would be comfortable working in, 761 00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:35,400 like say for instance, product engineering. 762 00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:38,480 I love that space. I'd be very, if I allowed 763 00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:40,760 myself, I'd slip back into having opinions and getting 764 00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,480 involved in that space. But I've also got a really great 765 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:44,880 leader that looks after that space. 766 00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,320 So I just have to, they've got that. 767 00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:50,159 I don't need to get involved. I'm here for them if they need 768 00:34:50,159 --> 00:34:52,159 me for anything. I can share my views and 769 00:34:52,159 --> 00:34:55,679 opinions, but you do kind of have to know that you've got, 770 00:34:55,679 --> 00:34:58,280 again, the right architecture of the team that you're looking 771 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,200 after. You've got good people that have 772 00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,160 the skills required or they're on the development path of 773 00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:06,280 gaining those skills. You need that confidence so that 774 00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:08,760 you can turn your attention to the other team that you're a 775 00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,040 part of to say, OK, well, what am I doing with this team? 776 00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:13,440 You know, I've got an executive team. 777 00:35:13,720 --> 00:35:15,200 They know where they're going as a business. 778 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,640 They understand strategically what's important. 779 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,840 I need to help them understand how technology's a critical 780 00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:24,280 component of that, what that's going to involve in terms of 781 00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,040 investment and what sort of time frames we're looking at. 782 00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,760 So you know, you've kind of got your eye in two different 783 00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:31,080 worlds. You're kind of like making sure 784 00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:32,920 that that one's working and everyone's getting what they 785 00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:34,480 need in that space. And then you've got your second 786 00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:37,160 eye on this world, making sure everything's functioning as it 787 00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:39,120 should. But you have to be confident 788 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:41,160 that that team can handle that in your absence. 789 00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,000 And maybe the biggest test of that is you go away in a two 790 00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,160 week holiday and like there's no major dramas. 791 00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,440 You know, nobody's like panicking or you don't come back 792 00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:49,960 to anything being on fire, I guess. 793 00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:52,200 Yeah. So I think that's a very key 794 00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:54,640 point, right? So knowing how to delegate well 795 00:35:54,720 --> 00:35:57,200 to the team that you have built, especially if you have built 796 00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,600 A-Team, right. But if you haven't built A-Team 797 00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,760 and you're just kind of like parachuted in, I think that's a 798 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:03,240 different challenge all together. 799 00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,280 So speaking about maybe Mindvalley, right, So I know 800 00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,320 that it's an Edu tech, it's a personal transformation company 801 00:36:10,720 --> 00:36:13,520 and it's quite rare in terms of culture and things like that. 802 00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:17,560 First of all, maybe my question is how big is the, you know, the 803 00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,360 theme of the company, personal growth and transformation? 804 00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:23,960 How does that actually impact the way engineering and 805 00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:25,920 leadership are done in the company? 806 00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:28,320 Yeah. I mean, look, that's a really 807 00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,480 interesting experience coming into Mindvalley, because one 808 00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,520 thing I hadn't really thought about or factored and the the 809 00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:37,400 company is all about personal growth and transformation and 810 00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:39,200 like, you know, moving forward and making things better. 811 00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:43,200 And what I hadn't really realized until I was maybe about 812 00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,400 a month or two into the job is that when you have a company 813 00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:50,080 that is built around that, it pre configures everyone to be 814 00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,920 very open to change and moving forward and transforming. 815 00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:56,680 So I was able to work with the the leadership team at 816 00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,960 Mindvalley and probably get more changes done in the first six 817 00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,000 months than I was able to do in two or three years of previous 818 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:05,840 companies. Whereas previously it might have 819 00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,240 been like, OK, we're trying to do this as a business. 820 00:37:08,240 --> 00:37:10,480 I think it's going to require these types of changes. 821 00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:12,640 This is a bit different and, you know, it might be a bit 822 00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:15,760 unfamiliar. Other organizations, people 823 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:17,480 like, oh, well, you know, you get a bunch of people like, 824 00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,200 yeah, that's great. A bunch of people, like, I don't 825 00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:20,720 know, we'll see how it goes. And another bunch of people 826 00:37:20,720 --> 00:37:22,920 like, that'll never work. We've tried it before. 827 00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:26,360 You know, in Mindvalley, almost everyone was on the side of 828 00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:29,320 like, yeah, let's do it. They were just really excited 829 00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:31,400 and proactive. I mean, obviously still one or 830 00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:33,760 two people that that, that weren't aligned. 831 00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,360 But I just find that's in the DNA of the company. 832 00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:38,120 Like it's just they're all about learning. 833 00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:39,880 They're all about moving, they're all about transforming. 834 00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,360 They're always about being on the cutting edge as a 835 00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:44,720 technologist or working with a technology team you couldn't 836 00:37:44,720 --> 00:37:48,440 actually ask for culturally, you can ask for anything better in 837 00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,880 that sense. So if anything, sometimes I have 838 00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:52,680 to be the one that's like, slow down, slow down, you know, we 839 00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:54,480 can't make that change just quite yet. 840 00:37:54,720 --> 00:37:56,800 And I'm not used to being the one that has to say those 841 00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:58,760 things. So how that translates to 842 00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:01,680 Mindvalley? A group of really positive, 843 00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:05,120 really helpful, engaging individuals, an absolute 844 00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,120 pleasure to work with whenever we're thinking about doing 845 00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,720 something new and interesting. You know, we're in the 846 00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:13,440 continuous AI hype cycle at the moment. 847 00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:15,840 There's always a new thing, new thing, new thing or that that 848 00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:17,880 could be interesting for us. There's an engineer. 849 00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:19,560 Oh yeah, I've already done a demo of that. 850 00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:22,840 Would you like to see it as like, all right, the next thing 851 00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:24,920 you know, we've got that almost in production. 852 00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:27,280 So it is an exciting environment. 853 00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,360 It's fast-paced, it is very progressive. 854 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:35,320 And yeah, I think that a lot of that comes from just the type of 855 00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:38,720 product it is and the type of mindset that that attracts. 856 00:38:38,720 --> 00:38:41,440 And yeah, it's fantastic to work with. 857 00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:43,960 Right. And something that I know that 858 00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,760 Mind Valley does pretty uniquely as well as they have people from 859 00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:48,960 all around the world. Together. 860 00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:49,640 Yeah. Yeah, we do. 861 00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:51,600 Company, right? So we're talking about diversity 862 00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:54,000 here. How do you think diversity play 863 00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:57,200 a big part in the success of the team and the company so far? 864 00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,560 Again, I mean, that is something that as a leader I was aware of. 865 00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:03,640 You know, you always hear diversity is important and you 866 00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:05,880 know, you understand that group thinks of that thing. 867 00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:07,720 You want to get as many perspectives as possible. 868 00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:12,000 But I'd honestly never experienced like such a wide 869 00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,240 group until I joined Mindvalley. Like literally we circle the 870 00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:17,080 globe. I remember when I joined, like I 871 00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,320 have engineers in Brazil, like, how does that work? 872 00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:21,400 And you know, there's just, there's so many different 873 00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:25,560 personalities, lived experiences, backgrounds. 874 00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:30,400 And really what that does is I really value thinking about 875 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:32,200 things like, you know, critical thinking. 876 00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,080 If you have a solution, if you have a problem in front of you 877 00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,200 and you have a solution, then my expectation is you tear apart 878 00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:40,400 your own solution and you tell me why that will work three 879 00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:42,440 different ways and then how you're going to deal with that. 880 00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:45,400 And you know that that can be quite challenging when you've 881 00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:47,240 got a small group of people with similar backgrounds, similar 882 00:39:47,240 --> 00:39:49,920 perspectives, they tend to align quite quickly. 883 00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:51,520 They tend to come up with similarities, similar 884 00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:53,960 approaches, problems occur and they have similar solutions to 885 00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,920 solving those problems. But when you have this like, 886 00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,600 wide group that have just got different lived experiences, you 887 00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,440 know, you're talking different ways of schooling, different 888 00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,240 ways of family, different ways of what's going on in the 889 00:40:06,240 --> 00:40:09,040 government, just all these different perspectives, What you 890 00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:12,760 find is you just got this like, crazy array of thinking around 891 00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:14,440 how I might address this problem. 892 00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:18,440 And yeah, I mean, that's superb. Like Mindvalley literally has 893 00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,120 people, whether it's an engineering or the leadership 894 00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:23,440 team. And my executive team literally 895 00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:25,800 runs from Malaysia. I think I'm the furthest. 896 00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:28,800 I think I'm the furthest east all the way back to San 897 00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,040 Francisco, and there's just all these points along the way. 898 00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,920 So yeah, just that's been the first time I've really 899 00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:37,360 experienced, you know, what real diversity means. 900 00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:40,480 Like really, you know, you're looking at a global level and 901 00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:43,400 not just through the lens of do we have a balance of male or 902 00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:44,640 females? Do we have a balance of this? 903 00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:46,440 And the other is really the full scape. 904 00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:49,920 So maybe something that you have learned as well in Mindvalleys 905 00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:53,480 like the other aspect, you know, like the consciousness, you 906 00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:55,000 know, mindfulness and things like that. 907 00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:59,560 So how do you think those things play a part into maybe like we, 908 00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:01,720 we just come to the personal growth rather than engineering 909 00:41:01,720 --> 00:41:04,000 related. So how do you think those things 910 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:06,880 play a part in our life and do you think we all should invest 911 00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:10,360 more time in doing that? So things that are ways that 912 00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:11,880 I've changed since joining mine Valley. 913 00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:15,840 Look, I I would have always said prior to pray down the middle, 914 00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,080 evidence LED show me the data. That way of thinking. 915 00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,160 What Mindvalley has done for me is it's kind of opened up the 916 00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,720 lens a little bit in terms of, well, yeah, you can look at 917 00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:26,000 things that way. There's nothing wrong with 918 00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:29,160 looking at things that way. But there are other ways of 919 00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:31,080 looking at things that are helpful to people. 920 00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:32,920 You know, not everyone thinks the same way you do. 921 00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,200 Not everyone appreciates the same things that you do. 922 00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:39,560 And something that may not resonate with me, that's fine. 923 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:41,800 Like, you know, as long as I'm happy and I'm getting what I 924 00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:44,720 need from the things that are valuable to me, we shouldn't 925 00:41:44,720 --> 00:41:47,240 discount or disclude the things that do resonate with other 926 00:41:47,240 --> 00:41:49,200 people. And we should be open to looking 927 00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:53,000 at them and sort of like trying to understand why it it does 928 00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,520 things for people. And a thing that I didn't do 929 00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,280 before that I do now. Like, you know, we've definitely 930 00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:00,480 been on the Wii side for me. But like, you know, just a 931 00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:03,320 simple thing like meditation. And arguably meditation is 932 00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:05,840 becoming much more mainstream. You know, there is now much more 933 00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:07,880 research behind it in terms of the benefits. 934 00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:10,520 But you know, when you're in an environment where that's like 935 00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:13,040 highly normalized, like mindfulness and well-being is 936 00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:16,400 highly normalized and you maybe don't feel like an idiot sitting 937 00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,560 in your office closing your eyes for like 10 minutes just to you 938 00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:21,880 know, that you don't feel done doing that. 939 00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:25,080 You know, that's fine. What that sort of stuff is done 940 00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:29,360 for me is like, it's actually the best way I could describe it 941 00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:33,680 is it's given me a 2 second gap between when I receive 942 00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:36,320 information and how I respond to that information. 943 00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:39,400 So whereas before, you know, early in my life, fiery 944 00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,160 Scotsman, you say something I don't like you got to answer 945 00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:44,280 just through practicing meditation. 946 00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:46,200 I feel like I've just got a little bit of muscle in the 947 00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:49,280 middle of my brain that when I receive information, I can take 948 00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,040 a pause and go, huh, all right, I know I choose to. 949 00:42:52,240 --> 00:42:53,960 How am I going to choose to process that? 950 00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:56,600 Is that going to annoy me? Is that relevant or not? 951 00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,960 And that was through meditation practice that probably wouldn't 952 00:42:59,960 --> 00:43:02,400 have wouldn't really have thought about doing if I hadn't 953 00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:05,440 been in Mind Valley. So, you know, that has 954 00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,000 definitely been highly beneficial. 955 00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:11,200 I think there is also a lot of other practices around things 956 00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:15,560 that whether it's around how you declutter your life or how you 957 00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,160 basically eliminate stress or how you improve sleep. 958 00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,520 Like all these things, ordinarily, previously I would 959 00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,160 just like whatever I'd like, you know, I'll get to that later one 960 00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:26,480 point, but through Mindvalley being a part of that 961 00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,880 environment, you take more time. And you know, personally for me, 962 00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,240 I feel like I'm more relaxed. I feel like I'm more calm. 963 00:43:33,240 --> 00:43:36,280 I definitely sleep better. I feel like I can be a better 964 00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:37,960 leader to the people that I work with. 965 00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,480 I can be more measured, I can be more supportive. 966 00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:43,200 Whereas previously I would have just been go, go, go, go, go. 967 00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:45,520 Like, you know, we've got to get results as quickly as possible. 968 00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:46,920 So. And that's what my values 969 00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:48,760 changed for me really. Right. 970 00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:50,920 So I think we have covered quite a lot, right. 971 00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:54,280 So maybe the last question here is what are the things you want 972 00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:56,680 to also share from your experience, right, or maybe from 973 00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,000 working in a fast progressive company like Mind fairly does in 974 00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:02,160 terms of how we can do engineering much better? 975 00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:05,560 Yeah, look, I think the part that I think about when I think 976 00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:07,960 about Mindvalley, in that context, what I've learned is 977 00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:09,680 you, you have to make space for thinking. 978 00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:14,600 As humans, we do our worst work when we're panicked, stressed or 979 00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:15,640 in fear. Yeah. 980 00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,520 And in software environments with, like, crushing deadlines, 981 00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:23,800 overbearing bosses, it is often easy to be in a state of panic. 982 00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:25,400 I need to get this out. I need to get this done. 983 00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:27,840 But the part you have to remember is that when you're in 984 00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:32,160 that state, you're in a state of fire or flight, and you, the key 985 00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,480 parts of your brain that are important for critical thinking 986 00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:37,560 are shutting down. So you're making poorer 987 00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:39,080 decisions when you're in that state. 988 00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:44,200 So what this has really helped me understand is that as a 989 00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:46,600 leader, you need to create an environment where people aren't, 990 00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,680 aren't working in a state of stress or fear or panic. 991 00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:52,440 You have to create an environment where they've got 992 00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,560 the space to understand, they've got the space to critically 993 00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:58,160 digest and, and decompose and look at things from different 994 00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:00,240 angles. You have to create a space for 995 00:45:00,240 --> 00:45:03,920 them to think about that and try things and make mistakes. 996 00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:06,200 And that's how you're going to get the best out of the group of 997 00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:09,320 people that you've got if you just simply look at them as, you 998 00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:13,800 know, robots that produce code and like the more you give them, 999 00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:17,000 the more they get done. It's kind of like a false target 1000 00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,520 if you like. So that's really, I feel like 1001 00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:21,400 that's something that was evolving in my thinking over 1002 00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:23,040 time. And then like moving to Mind 1003 00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:24,840 Valley just really solidified that. 1004 00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:26,520 It kind of just gave me the opportunity to say, no, this 1005 00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:28,200 actually, this is super important. 1006 00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:29,400 Like this is really helpful for me. 1007 00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:32,040 And I think that I'm seeing evidence of this happening for 1008 00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:34,000 the teams here. So I think that's a critically 1009 00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:35,760 important thing that I would always think about now, 1010 00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:39,120 regardless of where I am. Thanks for additional plug 1011 00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:40,560 there. So I think you're creating the 1012 00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,560 culture, right, making sure psychological safety is in place 1013 00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:46,280 for people, right? So not always in the pressure 1014 00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:48,480 and you know, deadlines, fears and all that. 1015 00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:49,920 So I think thanks for sharing that. 1016 00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,040 So Norman, it's been a pleasure conversation. 1017 00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,920 I have one last question that I would like to ask you, which I 1018 00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:58,720 asked to all of my guests, which I call the tree technical 1019 00:45:58,720 --> 00:46:01,360 leadership wisdom. So if you can think of this just 1020 00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:03,800 like an advice that you want to give to the listeners, what 1021 00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:07,960 would that be? 3 Technical leadership wisdom, I 1022 00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:10,560 think, look, I think these would just be just general leadership 1023 00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,120 wisdom like, you know, applied in the context of technology for 1024 00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,960 sure. But number one for me is really 1025 00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:20,080 know your team and know what you need to achieve with that team. 1026 00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,080 You know, so get to know your people as well as you can, 1027 00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:25,560 understand them as individuals, understand them as a collective 1028 00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:30,000 group, understand where they thrive and what makes them work 1029 00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:32,200 well and what makes them work less well. 1030 00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,080 The second part really for me is how do you make sure that 1031 00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:38,400 they're being fed the right information and they're being 1032 00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,840 given the right direction? I think we touched on that 1033 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:42,760 earlier that, you know, there's a lot of chaos going on in the 1034 00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:44,800 world and a lot of ways that you can interpret it and a lot of 1035 00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:46,040 ways that people will interpret it. 1036 00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:49,280 So as long as you're doing a good job of capturing all that 1037 00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,080 noise and filtering it out and making sure they're getting the 1038 00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:55,160 signal, like that's a really key component for me as well. 1039 00:46:55,720 --> 00:46:58,280 And then the third and final part for me really that's really 1040 00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:02,440 important is how do you know and share that you're getting the 1041 00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:04,440 results, you're actually achieving the things that you're 1042 00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:05,880 trying to achieve in an organization. 1043 00:47:06,240 --> 00:47:08,480 And when you do that, make sure that people are getting 1044 00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:12,680 recognition and you're celebrating and you're saying, I 1045 00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:13,640 might feel like a lot of hard work. 1046 00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:15,760 Look where we were 12 months ago versus where we are now. 1047 00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:18,480 This is an awesome place to be. So, you know, just keep making 1048 00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:20,480 sure that you're investing in that side of things to make sure 1049 00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,320 that people understand that progress is being made and we 1050 00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:26,440 are moving significantly in the direction that we need to be in 1051 00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,560 The positive impact, that's how for the business and for the 1052 00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:29,960 customers. Those are kind of the three 1053 00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,720 areas that I would always make sure I've got lands on. 1054 00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,680 Awesome advice, definitely. So I think normally people would 1055 00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:38,640 like to continue the conversation or maybe they want 1056 00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,520 to ask you certain questions. Is there a place where they can 1057 00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:44,320 reach out online? Yeah, I mean, I think you can 1058 00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:46,440 just message me on LinkedIn. I think that's a thing. 1059 00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,560 I'm happy to share other contact details with you if you want to 1060 00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:51,000 share them, however you want to share them. 1061 00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,960 But I'm always happy to have a conversation. 1062 00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:56,120 I'm always happy to learn about, you know, that part of me never. 1063 00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,080 We're learning about new experiences and new areas and 1064 00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:00,360 new domains. So and I'm always happy if 1065 00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,760 there's out there in an area I can help somebody navigate, I'm 1066 00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:04,160 also happy to I can there as well. 1067 00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:06,240 All right. Thank you so much for your time 1068 00:48:06,240 --> 00:48:08,280 today, Norman. I really learned a lot from your 1069 00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:10,480 experience. Many people, I assume they would 1070 00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:12,400 also learn a lot as well. Thank you. 1071 00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:13,920 Thank you for the invite. Really, really enjoyed the 1072 00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:14,960 conversation. Thanks.