Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Akio and if you're interested in
leading by example, the importance of feedback as well
as the impact of a great team lead, this episode is for you
joining me today. My friend, my colleague Rustam
Alashrafov. Love that guy.
I'll put all his socials in a scription below, check him out.
And with that being said, enjoy the episode.
Handle is like twice as fit. And it's because.
It's twice as fit my. Girlfriend is on the she does
the workouts together with her twin sister and I thought, OK,
twice as fit is a really good name.
It's my branding. Super proud of that.
That's the channel name. I love it.
And what's the idea about it?
It's. Just a workout videos, so it's
like a 10 minute app videos. It's usually the only apps
related and then it's like it depends 45 seconds on.
Continuously in the different moves or 30 seconds depending on
the the workout. And then they distinguish upper
abs, lower abs, side abs, no neck, only legs, stuff like
that. It's different variants.
And so it's you, your girlfriend, and her sister,
right? I just record, you're just.
Recording. You're not on the Yeah, So
you're like the producer. Exactly, yeah.
I tell them the moves, they do the moves, I do the recording
and do the editing. I had to edit one last night
social. Reason why I'm tired.
They come out every Monday. Okay.
We used to do twice a week, Monday, Wednesday, Monday,
Thursday, something like that. But it was just a lot with the
rest of the recording. Like if you miss the weekend,
you need to make two videos for the next week, basically.
Yeah, that's a lot. So now it's one a week.
OK so one week I get video of apps and I'm curious why was it
just them and not you and the videos or is like the girls are
much more popular on YouTube? I mean, they can, they can do
the app workouts way better than I can.
Like that's they're rough, like I do them at home.
Sometimes I just get destroyed. They do like 3.
If we record, we do two or three, maybe 4 videos in
recording. And I do one work.
I'm just destroyed. And I like my I used to play
football a lot. My legs are heavy, so if we do
like an only leg, my legs just get destroyed.
It's not even abs, it's just my legs get tired.
So that's really hard. That's the weakest for me as
well, like lifting your legs and doing any kind of, yeah, like
movements. Oh God.
Yeah, you feel it on your quads. Like it's very heavy.
Yeah, I think it's called what's called hip flexors, right?
My hip flexors are awful. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Like I I boulder now. Like I I went bouldering
yesterday. I nicked my hand, but you got to
be close to the wall and then usually your legs also supposed
to be close to the wall, right? And because my hip flexors suck,
basically they're very tight. Sometimes I can't even move my
legs up anymore. If I'm in a position like this,
they're like, OK, now put your right foot higher and I'm like,
Nah, I can't, no, I can't. I try.
My leg like shakes like that. Doesn't work.
Yeah, I heard that girls are much better at bouldering than
guys are. Like when they start out.
Yeah, I see. Some girls do like a complete
split in midair and I'm like, OK, there's no way, there's no
way I can do that. And is it your girlfriend that
then doing the bouldering as well?
No, she doesn't. She doesn't like it.
No, she doesn't like it at. All she just abs.
She she just abs. She does workout classes.
There's this workout class in Amsterdam.
It's it used to be a church. And now they made it into a
workout. Like it has a workout area,
fitness area, and they do classes.
It's called Saints and Stars. I think those are a podcast
that's in touch. I checked it out, obviously,
yeah, But it actually looks quite nice.
She's been doing that for a while now.
So it's inside of the church like a typical and Catholic or
person. I mean, they rebuilt a lot of it
like you know the how do you say that in English, like when the
glass in lead? Windows.
That's still there. Some aspects, but the inside is
very modern, has been rebuilt, basically.
Cool. It's nice.
Cool. Yeah, Maybe when I'm sending
I'll check it out. Yeah, man.
Do a do a class. Yeah, it's fine.
Yeah. I also curious about the apps
workout because actually during the COVID I started watching a
lot of those YouTube videos on the app Workouts and yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. Because yeah, you don't have
access to the gym. I was used to doing more heavy
machines, yeah. And then during the COVID it was
not possible, obviously. I was like OK, what's there
available. Started doing a lot of research.
I found the at Lenex. I really enjoyed his videos.
Yeah, he has also a couple of seven minute 6 minute app
workouts to them get completely destroyed in 7 minutes.
Exactly. It does a good.
Yeah. Like I has some, has some crazy
abs. That's all I remember.
Yeah, I used to do a lot of calisthenic stuff at home.
And I mean when Kobe hit, like, I hadn't gone to the gym in
years. I don't really go to the gym
anymore. I have kettle bells and like
weights at home, so when COVID hit I had already everything I
needed and I was already doing workouts from home.
So I was actually didn't change much basically.
But I can imagine for you, you go to a gym a lot, no?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tried to go to gym five times
a week. Yeah.
So that's quite a quite a lot. Evening or morning?
I'm an evening person. Yeah, like, maybe you can even
still see that I'm still waking. Up or busy?
In the morning but. No, I'm I'm really evening
morning and I also read that for your spine it's better to have.
So basically when you wake up your body gets a bit inflammated
in the sense that all the water goes into all the joints and
especially between your vertebraes in your spine.
So you actually need to give it a couple of hours in the morning
to get the the blood flow going to get the water a bit into
places where it should be rather than in one static places.
You basically get the blood flow going you get more flexible.
And then you can take much more weight, much more heavy things
on yourself basically. Yeah.
And if you don't do that, there is a higher chance of injuries.
So because of that, I will start doing it more in the evening.
But I have to say that right now everyone is going to the gym.
Gym is completely full. Any gym might go to like from
6:00 to. Till eight it's impossible to be
there, no. So sometimes I'm thinking, damn
it, maybe I should do something in the morning.
Maybe just take it easy, you know, have a chill workout, but
do it in the morning. Yeah.
And I I read that's one of the aspects which I didn't like that
it was too busy that I had to wait in line or people were like
eyeballing the same machines, especially guys love doing the
same machines basically. So yeah, that's that was rough.
But I read somewhere that like the best where you at like peak
performance throughout the day is actually like early afternoon
ish. That's where you're the
strongest, and then it probably builds off again.
Yeah, I can imagine. I can.
And for myself, I can see it as well in the morning.
My nervous system is not awakened yet, you know, I need
some time to get up to speed and then I get stronger.
I feel more alive somewhere in the afternoon.
And I guess if you go late, probably 6-8 after work, people
soon maybe have some challenging jobs.
Yeah, And after work you already lose some power.
So I can imagine that. Yeah, makes no sense.
You comfy by the way. I think so, yeah.
This is natural. You still think about doing the
podcast. I think I should do it.
Like I don't really have an idea of what to do it or why, but
looking at yourself, for example, I looked at your first
episodes and it was just on a simple setup, I think on the
laptop or whatever you did. And it was quite cool to see
because it evolved from that, just you by yourself speaking to
your friends. To inviting really cool guests
and having this amazing studio around you.
And you can see that it just evolves over time, right?
You didn't start perfect, No one started perfect.
It's just about starting and doing it as much as possible.
And I do have a challenge of public speaking, right?
For me it is a challenge. So I think podcasting would be a
great way for me just to open up on the camera, just to feel more
relaxed and just to speak, yeah, more freely.
What do you say? Public?
Public speaking is a challenge because.
The way you come across is always very relaxed.
You don't say a lot of arms in the way you speak, they go.
I heard that a lot, but for me internally there is always a
struggle, like when I when I'm in front of the camera.
Even right now, I'm not completely relaxed.
I don't feel like it's not the same as we would be having
conversation one-on-one. Like there is something in me
feeling that, oh, I'm on camera. I need to think I'm a bit more
cautious about myself, which is a bad thing because it shouldn't
be about myself at all. It's about just us having the
conversation and audience getting the best out of it, and
it's not really about me. But it isn't me.
It is it. It is somewhere there, you know,
it's in my head trying to think, oh, like, don't say us, don't,
OK, don't look weird. Don't do this.
Or how do you see it? You know, all those things.
And I think the only way to fight this is just to keep
practicing and just getting used to it because it's not really
any different from what conversations we usually have at
the dinner table or anywhere else.
But yeah, I think I just something, yeah, something you
you never had that. No, like.
I had it in the beginning, like, I wasn't really conscious about
the cameras, but I didn't want to put on a good show.
Yeah. And then now looking back, it's
because of I got feedback from it.
Last episode actually was my friend Savia Sashi.
He said you're very natural on camera.
He was like, are we recording? Is everything good?
He was expecting some. He's also Indian.
He said I'm used to Bollywood. Someone turns on and, like,
creates a performance out of it. And he said you're exactly the
same. I spoke to you before the show.
I spoke to you after the show. On the show.
It's all the same. And I think in the early days it
wasn't really like that. Maybe because I wanted it, I I
don't know what was different. Maybe I just got more
comfortable with it. But I don't really care for the
cameras. I just, I'm just being myself.
And I think it translates maybe in the episode in the enjoyment
as well. But it took a lot of time and
it's not something I did consciously, it's not something
I did differently early on. It just happened and gradually
probably get more comfortable. But I don't really think about
it that much, I must say. But that's absolutely true.
And I I, I believe that there is no such thing as being talented
in a way, right? We all have our experiences and
everything you can learn, right? And even in your, what you just
saying is totally makes sense. Yeah, not consciously, but you
keep doing it and you see what makes your episode better, what
comes out better on the camera. And every time you can improve
and you're getting better every time you do it.
And you've done how many now 400 podcasts.
No, not 400 and this is like one 11112. 111, Yeah.
OK, 111, That's a lot of hours on the camera, right?
So every time you do it, you get better.
And looking back at the beginnings and today, there's a
huge difference. Yeah.
And that's the only way to do it.
Just keep doing it. So back to the question.
Should I start the podcast? Yes.
I think I should do it.
Yeah. How would I start?
I mean, you got a microphone here, you got a friend?
Yeah, exactly. The setup here is already there
if you want to do it through QBF.
If you want to do it in your own time, that's a different topic I
guess. But in lead they're starting a
podcast now. That's true.
Yeah, that's true. There is a focus on lead.
We are not involved in that. Okay me and Jethro.
We are doing another thing that's also actually on the
camera that's also in the studio.
Yeah, and that's a great experience as well there we.
Take a topic and because what we realized, okay, let me maybe
just started the sure. So in the couple of months ago I
think we started discussing this elite coming in.
So it appeared somewhere and I was like this is something that
strikes my interest. I want to do that.
I called Martin and we discussed hey I want to do something
what's there to do it's like. You're free to do anything.
We have a website. We have some content.
If you produce some content, it would be great.
Or like videos. Hey and Jethro, he wanted to
pair up. Let's pair up.
And in the same moment I was actually researching what makes
a good team lead. And when I was researching that,
I saw that when you Google online, basically like, hey,
what makes a good team lead? And so 5 characteristics of a
good team lead Communication, empathy, trustworthiness, and
these kind of things, right? They all make sense, but they're
all very high level. They're all container words.
And from reading it, you understand, yeah, okay, I need
to have a good communication. Great.
I need to make people trust me. Great.
But how do I actually do it? Right.
So how do I actually be the trustworthy person?
How do I make sure they have a good communication?
And what I did later on, that was a ChatGPT time as well, so.
Ask him the same question. Yeah, yeah.
He spits out the same answers, of course, because he learns
from the Internet. Or it learns from the Internet.
I guess it's not assumed. Gender.
Yeah, So. And he gives me, it gives me
exactly the same answers. And then I start digging him a
bit deeper, like, hey, what does it mean to have a good
communication and stuff? And I saw how hard it is to get
actual practical information from the Internet on what does
it mean to be a good communicator.
Yeah, so we had the X key. I think you attended that one.
Could be it was a. Yeah, yeah.
The name of the X key was what makes a good team lead.
No, I didn't attend it. Actually, I wasn't there
probably. Yeah, probably you were on.
Portugal. Right Portugal.
Ships. So yeah, and during that one
there was a huge turn out. People were very interested in
topic. I hope I didn't.
I disappoint them because I didn't have an answer.
What makes a good team lead? It was a question to the people
and we had a very good discussions and people had very
different opinions. Of course what makes a good team
lead, But there we started realizing how important it is to
actually have a very good examples of what makes a good
team lead and we started thinking that.
We realized a lot that and did a lot about communication and
trust. Those were the most important
topics during that session. And we got some really good
examples of what like one specific sentence the person
would say, or one specific behavior the person would say.
And those were, I think, the most interesting for the group
to hear. Yeah, there's an example of
that, like a behavior or even something that someone would
say. There is an example from my
life, maybe I can tell that one sure.
So in my previous job previous, previous job, couple of
employers before. I was also a consultant and I
was on assignment. I was just a software developer
on the assignment and we had a team lead and we had to do
something or we were asked to do something on Friday afternoon
which is not a great idea but it was a holiday season summer.
The team lead, the tech lead and the team lead.
He was away for a week. And the PO protocol was also
away for a week. So PO was replaced by some other
PO who was like, no, this really needs to be done on Friday.
I was like, this is not a great idea.
Let's not do it. I was like, no, this needs to be
done on Friday. Everyone is asking.
It's not a big deal. We can do this.
Don't worry. Of course things went wrong on
Friday afternoon. Yeah.
So yeah, I, I, I did what I was asked and things went wrong.
It was my mistake, totally. Of course, not pushing enough
back the PO, but these things come with experience And when
the things went bad, When I learned about this on a Saturday
morning, I was quite stressed, of course, because I got the
call from the replacement P OS like, yeah, there is a problem.
I was like, yeah, we won't be able to solve it now.
We don't have people now to actually do anything.
Yeah, on Saturday, Okay, Let's wait until Monday.
And this was maybe one of the most stressful weekends in my
life, really. Because the whole weekend I was
sitting and stressing out about, OK, how this will destroy my
career. This is the end of my.
How old were you also? That was let me think that I
was, if I'm 30 now, I think around 26.
OK. Yeah.
So I'm sitting there, 26, zero old, stressing about my career,
how this is the end of it, how I find a new job.
The end of it, Yeah. And then on Monday, thankfully,
our team that comes. But I was dreading that
conversation every moment of the weekend because I thought, oh,
that's going to be a punishment. Like, he told me what to do,
what not to do. How would I do differently?
Why would I do differently? This is such a bad mistake.
Oh, this is going to be horrible.
And then this conversation on Monday morning arrives.
I think it was the first conversation of the day, of
course, because it's something issue we need to solve ASAP.
And to my surprise, the question from a team that was first one,
hey, what happened? So we discussed what happened
and I was nervous. Even more nervous than when I'm
on the camera here. It goes, yeah.
My heart is beating and I'm super worried about what's going
to happen. And then he says, all right,
let's see how we can fix this. So we spend more time fixing it
then. I'm still dragging Okay now It's
going to be the moment when he's going to be like, hey, what have
you done? Why didn't I tell you to do so?
And instead the next question was like, all right, so we
solved this, Let's think how we can do what we can do to improve
the process so this doesn't happen again.
I was like, wow. Okay, I don't think.
That's unexpected. Yeah, I don't think there's
going to be any finger pointing. I don't think he's even trying
to make me feel bad. He's actually really trying to
sit with me, help me learn, solve the problem I just had
that I was part of. But also he's building the gates
to improve it for the people who make the same mistake.
Because he said, yeah, everyone makes mistakes.
We just need to make sure that our process is solid to prevent
as many of these mistakes as possible.
Exactly. And basically that conversation
that I was so dreadful about, so worried about.
It actually never came, just had a normal conversation.
I acknowledged that I made a mistake.
He acknowledged that the process can be improved.
We discussed with the PO today next time we should not do
Friday releases for the reason that you just saw.
And this really was a turning point in my career where I
realized how important the leadership is.
That's one of the examples where a good communication and giving
feedback. Made me trust my teammates so
much more because suddenly from being worried that I'm going to
lose my job, I was not scared. I was like, oh, I have my
teammate who supports me. And if I make mistakes, he
understands it and he helps me learn from them and grow.
And this was the moment when I was like, OK, that's cool.
That's really cool. Yeah, I want to be that person
one day, you know, and more and more over the years.
I started realizing also that how important those
communication skills in my job, right.
So it's been four years now. I was 26, so in four years I
have grown in my seniority. I've been taking more and more
leadership roles in the assignments and I see how
important it is because the work we do often is not really that
complicated. And I think we had this
discussion once when I call ourselves monkeys.
That's your term, yeah. Because I didn't.
Masters in computer science. Right.
So. And while you're studying,
you're doing all the Super complicated stuff.
You're solving some complicated algorithms, you're designing new
software stuff that hasn't been done before.
Especially when you're at your thesis, when you spend a bit
more time on the project, right, you do something that I consider
it complicated. And whenever you do a real
software development, it's usually just connecting
libraries together and it's not really that mentally.
Challenging. You don't need to take so many
abstract ideas in your head and try to solve them.
Yeah, it. Depends on your domain mostly.
Yeah, most of the time. Usually the complex problems are
like scarce. I would say.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm not saying that there
are no complex problems in what we do.
That's absolutely not true. But most of the work we do, it's
you solve a problem and then you just repeat.
Especially I think the good example is when you join a team
that already has all the infrastructure set up, they
already have all their software designed.
And then you're asked to add the component somewhere on the back
and on the front end, what do you do?
You rarely solve a new problem. You open the component that
already exists, you copy it and then you modify it to do your
work. And that's kind of like, I
wouldn't say not gonna put a number in it, but that's
majority of our work. Sometimes we have to solve some
complicated questions. But that's not always the case.
Yeah, it's the, it's a different phase of a project, right?
Once you're live, then it's more so OK, you build on top of what
is there. You uphold the conventions and
because those conventions are already there, it makes it
easier for you to build on top of.
But then it also reduces kind of, yeah, the complexity side of
things. Which is probably a good thing,
right? Yeah, that's absolutely.
That's that's a. Good project probably then,
yeah. And for the first couple of
years of your career, I think those are still challenging
problems, yeah, but more and more.
I develop. In my career I noticed that the
biggest issues I have at work are not with the software, but
with people. Getting people to work together,
getting people to achieve the goal, keeping them motivated,
seeing what happens if they are not performing or if they're not
as interested, how do you deal with that And these things?
I feel like becoming more and more important, especially now
with the tools. Like ChatGPT that can write that
component for you without you spending any time on it.
Yeah, right. So yeah, that's why I'm getting
more into this topic and I. Can imagine.
The community, right. So we actually went from the lit
community, right, to all this, all this long story to the
ChatGPT main story. So in the lit community we are
making those videos with Jetro. Yeah, where we are discussing
Okay that's the situation. So we put.
Ourselves in a concrete situation where the concrete
team of course is an imaginary team, but we make a very
concrete situation. We describe it and then we ask
guests in this case is Jethro to behave like they would behave in
the real team on a very concrete examples.
Yeah, so it's not really a podcast, it's more like a video
where we discuss okay and this is station Jethro.
The front end developer is doing this.
The protocol is doing that. They have a problem here.
What would you do? It's like a case study, yeah.
Yeah, it's kind of a case study, so we really hope to make it
more practical examples on how to behave as a team lead.
Hopefully this can be useful for people.
I can imagine, I like that the behavior or kind of the scenario
that you laid out, right, that made you kind of look at your
team lead in a different light. I think that's very
recognizable, at least for me, cuz I've had a similar instance
and I wonder if it's recognizable for a lot of people
as well, cuz I didn't have a computer science background.
I started out in operations, and in operations you put stuff in
operations, you have like your alarm on your phone, the whole
shebang, right? And I would run standby on
weekends, on holidays, the whole thing.
This was during office hours. I had just picked up this new
tool that my colleague literally taught me and.
I knew I had messed up something.
It was like a scheduling thing, but all of a sudden the whole
scheduling layout, the things that depend on each other and
then have to put a file somewhere or transfer it,
something like that, it was double.
It was basically imagine a copy paste of the whole scheduling
workout and then all the jobs interfere with each other
basically. And I was like, Oh my God, what
just happened? Like what did I do?
And I was like, oh this is a this is a big mess up.
I was like, I don't know how I got here, but I definitely don't
know. I fucked up basically.
And then my phone rang like, I was still at the office.
The guy that taught me was on a different floor.
I was on the 1st floor. I was on the 2nd.
And I I saw my phone ring. And, you know, like, you can get
chills in a good way. This was not chills.
Like, this was like a feeling of dread.
I was like, oh, yeah, no, here it goes.
Yeah. And I thought about, like, not
picking up and just running away.
And I was like, this is not really an option.
So I I opened the phone and I was like, hey, what happened?
And I'm like, I have no idea. But it's, it's definitely
broken. He's like, yeah, yeah, I'll have
a look at it. And then I was like, OK, and
exactly like you said. Like I I was even, I was a bit
more younger, like, I think I was 22.
I was like, OK, this is, this is how people get fired.
Like, legit. This is how people get fired.
That's it. I have to look for a new job
now. And he basically, he he solved
it. He solved it without me being
there because he was like, OK, the urgency was that bad that I
had to solve it. And then he came to my floor, He
was like, hey man, how you doing?
And I was like, yeah, no, I fucked up.
Like, I know I fucked up. It couldn't be more obvious.
But instead of blaming me, he was like, I mean, everyone,
everyone messes up. He.
And then he told me a story about when he messed up, which
was way worse than what I did. And I was like, Oh my God, like,
you still here? Yeah.
And people started laughing because obviously it was like an
open office kind of scenario. People started laughing.
And because he saw people laughing, he started talking
about their stories and when they fucked up and I was like.
OK, that's very cool. These were all way worse than
mine. I was like, OK, this is this is
probably OK. And then he laid out like, how?
How? How it happened in the 1st place
because I still had no clue it was this new tool.
How he solved it as well and how to move forward from it.
And we talked about OK, what can we do to prevent this and I was
like, this is how it's supposed to be.
I'm not going to get fired like this is fine.
He said Everyone makes mistakes and I've seen that throughout my
career. Like that was the first instance
and then when someone else made a mistake I was like I tried to
be like that. Kind of like everyone makes
mistakes don't worry about it right and.
I think that's natural in our process.
When you first experienced that, you're like, OK, I really fucked
up and you, you want to hide, but you can't really hide.
And those people around you that make you kind of feel at ease,
that's a golden moment. And I think you will always
remember that moment. I will always remember mine and
I hope everyone kind of gets those same moments in there.
I feel like if that doesn't happen in your environment, then
it might be the wrong environment because that that is
supposed to happen, I feel like in our field.
Because you are dealing with complexity, you're dealing with
systems. Things are not linear.
Things can just explode. On the one hand, while you were
like, OK, I was touching this thing on the other complete side
of things and you can't really explain it.
I mean, in hindsight you can, but then yeah, it's it's your
fault. But it's kind of not.
Maybe it is your fault, but it's OK.
And I think that's the that's the best take away there.
No. Yeah.
I'm wondering, so how did it make you feel that moment that?
You open the the team lead that you had when he said, hey, you
know this is a mistake and then made it worse.
That was probably in a relief, right?
Like a instant relief. Yeah, yeah.
And he wasn't even a team lead. Like, he was just my direct
colleague. Like I don't even think you have
to be in a leadership position to do that to someone else.
I think everyone can. That's for everyone, which is
really cool. But yeah, the the feeling of
relief, I the thought thinking back now, I was happy to be
there. Happy to be in that team, happy
to be in that environment, because if you feel safe, you're
happy in your environment and I think you can thrive even more
than you've already been doing. I was just happy to be there and
happy to be part of it. Happy that the opposite didn't
happen the the thing that I was afraid of, basically.
And I'm wondering because I had exactly the same, right, I was
absolutely dreading that conversation.
So I'm wondering why is that coming from our notion, our
feeling that we are so worried about this conversations with
the team needs? I think.
It's it's not a notion of perfection.
I think it's just the high sense of responsibility, right?
And if you kind of clash with that or if something happens
that you're like, OK, I I should have done better.
You already said you should have pushed back more, you should
have done XY&Z different. Those are probably the same
thoughts. But either you get overruled,
either you just go with the flow, but something happens and
you you kind of disagree with what happened, but you still do
it. And I have no clue.
I still don't exactly know what happened.
I mean, I know how it can prevent it.
But when it happened, I was like, I have no clue what I just
did, right? And yeah, I didn't want to do
that. I didn't want to be in that
situation. I didn't want to be the person
that did that. And I don't know why that is,
but it's definitely there. I think it has to do with the
responsibility I guess. After that experience, right
next time you make this mistake, you're not going to be as
worried, no? No, no, no.
That's the thing. So we are somehow preconditioned
to be very worried about such things.
I know where it's coming from. Maybe it's from our education in
schools, when we are very worried that the teacher will
tell us how bad we performed. Maybe it's coming from the
surroundings because I've seen bad leaders, I've seen bad
colleagues who would. First, try to point fingers
before trying to solve the problem and seeing how this can
be prevented. Yeah, I've seen those people, so
I think that in my case it's coming actually from the
environments I was working in and seeing how bad this can be.
Do you think it's also related, relatable for you, or?
It couldn't even be earlier because I was always taught to
own up two mistakes. Never point fingers like that is
the worst. If I point fingers, I would get
a worse like scrolling than if I would just be like, yeah, I did
it. And I know I did it and I'm
sorry, basically. Like that was always my
upbringing, has a lot to do with my mom, I guess.
But you own up to what you do, right?
And you make sure that you're in control.
If I would say, oh, it's because of this, they would be like, no,
that's an excuse. You just own up to it.
Like you did it basically, and it's OK that you did it.
That was my upbringing. But I felt like, OK because I
was in an organization and the impact of my actions are wider
usually then kind of my small circle of influence.
I I think that's where the feeling of dread came, because I
thought the impact was greater, It affected more people, more
people would know about it, even kind of a feeling of shame.
Maybe even. I think that's where the feeling
of dread came in. But I feel like the not pointing
fingers that had a lot to do with my upbringing as well.
Do you recognize that? I can't really relate this
experiences to my upbringing. Yeah, I'm perfectionist.
From childhood as well. Yeah, always that's I'm getting
a less of perfections because in our industry you know you can't
be a perfectionist. You need to deliver things and
you're constantly in iterative process of improving things.
So just waiting until something is perfect is not the it's not
the industry to be in. Then if you want to do that,
yeah. So I'm getting better and better
at it but I think that played their role because I always try
to be my best. I always try to perform at at my
highest peak performance obviously in my career and.
When you make such mistakes, I think that's when it gets very
uncomfortable. Yeah, cuz you're not perfect.
You realize you're not perfect in that moment and your whole
self-image is destroyed. Yeah, yeah.
But still, you didn't point fingers, right?
You could have said, oh, it was the PO that pushed him, blah
blah blah. And he did it.
No, no. No, no, no, no.
That's also that that also, I think I'm also had a good
upbringing. I guess the painting fingers we
knew it's not good. But I was worried about this
conversation and the point I'm thinking about is that.
After that conversations, I think we are much more relaxed
with you to make those mistakes. And we know that mistakes happen
and it's fine and you can just learn from them.
And that made me in one moment. I think in that one moment that
made me much better software developer and maybe much better
employee in general, because I knew that, hey, I have the
safety and if things even go South, it's not that's my fault,
You know, we're doing it. We're in this together and that
can be much more. Risky and daring in doing the
things I do. Not saying that I'm going to do
mistakes, but more risk at saying maybe known to the PO and
saying that hey no this is not going to be done even though I
know that you are much higher that there is a client like
stakeholders really, really wanted.
But I really think it's not there just having that
confidence that you can do these things and if things are not
going well you will be supported, right.
And I think that feeling that I got I think you already
mentioned that this. Everyone should experience that.
Everyone should have that leader on them.
And I've seen very bad leads where people would scold each
other and say, hey dude, I told you not to do this.
I told you like, didn't you read the mantle?
It's in the mantle. You shouldn't have done this.
We told you we never do. Try the releases, you know, come
on, man. Like, there are people you
should know better. Yeah, you should know better.
That is rough. That's pretty rough.
Yeah. I can imagine that that does a
lot on the opposite side of things and.
I feel like, and I said this before, I feel like people
behave like the people around them.
Like the experience that you laid out and the experience that
I laid out, like it gave us a perspective of a certain way.
But maybe before you didn't even know that was an option, Right,
Exactly. And because someone showed you
that is an option and you like that option, you're also going
to give that option to other people.
But to the people that don't give that give out that option
or don't get that kind of perspective, Yeah.
They kind of stay narrow minded in that way and they might
behave like some people behave to them as well.
Unfortunately, that's the case. That's why.
Yeah. That's why I'm realizing more
and more how important it is for people to learn about
leadership, for people to learn about communication, about
giving the feedback. There are a lot of nice books
and a lot of nice courses available for this, and even for
people who are. I just want to do technology or
I do want to focus on being the best in the field they are.
I think it's super important to sometimes also focus on this
side of things because they can be that example for their peers.
The only people who can get away without those communications,
because the people who work by themselves.
And I think every day there is less and less.
There's people who build their whole systems alone because
systems get exponentially more complex.
We need more and more people to work on something worthwhile
working. So most of the work that we do
is in the team, so most of the time we spend interacting with
other people. So it's super important to be
able to actually communicate and give feedback if stuff goes
wrong. I think the giving feedback part
is especially important. So where you understand OK, you
have to give effective feedback without making a person feel
that he's a failure or he's doing something.
Yeah, without him losing hope basically.
Yeah, exactly. I'm curious because you're doing
software engineering more on the day-to-day, but do you think
like a path in team lead, tech lead or like even engineering
manager? First of all, there's way too
many with different different flavors of the same thing, ish
ish, because it depends on the organization and the context.
But do you think that's like a next step for you or is there
other options as well that you're kind of considering?
Right now, yeah. This is the topic I'm the most
excited about, yeah. There is no single technology
that I'm interested more in than this topic of being a good
communicator and a leader in the team.
So this is the pick that I'm focusing on right now, and
that's the area I really see myself growing in.
However, I still can't imagine myself being too far from
technology because I still love in the afternoon tinkering with
making some little projects. Right now I'm making a little
game with my 14 year old brother.
He makes all the assets. And he likes to draw.
He's, he wants to be an artist, a game designer.
So I thought to him to help him be what he wants to become, I
was like, okay, let's do a summer project, let's make a
game together because I can program things which you
absolutely hate. I can do that part for you, but
you can be my creative designer. And so I still enjoy doing all
that coding part and technologies.
And actually, yeah, I really enjoyed like, while making
games, I actually realized how much more.
Business logic you have to write while making a game because most
of it is writing your game play loops and thinking how things
are moving around. Whereas when you build web
applications it's more about Okay.
How does it deploy in the cloud? How is this cloud application
connected to a database? It's a lot of interconnection
between different systems and you spend much less time writing
the logic. Well of course it depends which
area you're in, but. At least in my day-to-day job
right, it's more about integrating different solutions
in clouds. Yeah, it can be.
So I still really, really enjoy it.
It's very hard for me to say at this stage.
Well, let's get back to this in a couple of years, Yeah, I'll
see where we get. I mean, there's phases in this
thing, right? I mean, if you're in a team of
software engineers, they can have a tech lead.
We both have the training of PATQA.
Yeah. And I think above tech lead you
have like, I mean engineering manager team lead, Ish.
And then you manage one team. We also have engineering
managers that manage multiple teams and then you have like
director of engineering who just overseas all of like software
development and I feel like at that upmost like top level then
you really like hands off, you probably have to know what's
going on, but on a way more higher level, yeah.
Whereas if you're engineering manager, I think engineering
managers are still great if they have technical knowledge and if
they do stuff like that and hands on, right.
If you have a release process, if you have a support line, if
you. Even develop a feature just
knowing what goes into it, you can already figure out pain
points that your team is also feeling and then step in when it
actually needs to be resolved. I think that knowledge is
invaluable to a lot of managers as well.
Yeah, I was gonna say that from that conversation.
Not conversation. The course we took it with
Patrick. Cool.
Yeah, The great. And tech lead is the person who
is first in different things. You still need to know your
domain and absolutely agree with that.
Of course you need to be a good communicator, you need to be a
good architect, and you still need to know your domain very
well and be tech savvy. And I've seen that a lot.
The people who are technologically savvy and they
come into a team even if they don't need to do any coding, but
just they're very understanding, like how they understand what it
takes to deliver some work. When they understand how long it
takes, usually, what the challenges there, how they can
be solved, it helps so much just to be a good team lead because
you can much easier conceptualize what the team is
talking about. I'm not saying that's absolutely
needed, I think I would rather have a good communicator team
lead than a good technology, the main expert in the team.
I think the communication is still the most important part,
however, it adds a lot. Having this technological, yeah,
expertise in the team. Yeah, I'm I'm listening to this
audio book. It's about Camille Fournier and
it's like the past the engineering manager.
And there's this funny thing because she laid out the concept
of a brilliant jerk or someone is a is a genius but just an
asshole. Like that's that's my summary
for. The insurance.
Exactly. And they are super productive
and they can really help when it comes to feature development and
implementation, but it's just an asshole to work with and.
I've worked with people in the team and I can like, figure out
how to deal with them like on a day-to-day.
But then she was like, yeah, what if you have to manage that
person, right? The best way to deal with it and
never get, like involved in that scenario is not to hire them.
But let's say you become a manager and the guy or that
person, that guy or girl is already there.
Yeah, then you have to like, address behavior and it's going
to be a challenge because they're going to have a lot of
ammunition going against it and. Obviously the organization likes
them because they are productive, yet they are just an
asshole to work with. I I think that's a very
interesting dynamic that you wouldn't get otherwise.
I mean you can get it in a team, but being responsible like on a
people level, that's a different dynamic.
Have you ever worked with like the someone come to mind where
you're like OK, they might have been a brilliant asshole?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, of course. I've.
I've seen these people super talented.
They're really good at what they do.
They. It's usually also the people who
are able to build the whole project by themselves.
Yeah, yeah, they're so smart. They're so good at this.
They've done so many times. They can just build the whole
project by themselves. The problem arises, though, when
you need to add people into their team.
Yeah, because they're really bad with working, with explaining
what they do, with coaching, with teaching.
They're very. They don't have patience either.
They don't have any patience. Yeah, because.
They're really good, right? So everyone else around them is
very slow and productive to them, and they get annoyed by
that. Why can't you be as good as I
am? And this creates a very toxic
environment. And unfortunately, I think on
the long term, those teams that have those geniuses, unless
that's a genius that can do most of the work themselves if they
have to, if the project comes to the point where they really have
to work with other people, unfortunately their
relationships are so toxic that people just start leaving.
People are just not happy and it's usually not really good for
the company and the team. Unless you have like separate
feature that that one 10X developer can do by themselves.
Maybe someone can handle their arrogance, maybe they can work
together, but once you try to put them in typical Scrum team,
a typical software engineering scheme team, that becomes a bit
of a. Yeah, I can imagine and.
Then I've seen people leaving. I've seen that, Really.
Yeah, yeah. But now feedback.
Now imagine you're responsible, like you're engineering manager,
like you're responsible for the team and you see that your
people are leaving because of this person.
Yeah, Now you have to address behavior or you have to think
like, OK, can they fit in another team?
Are they going to have the same problem?
Or maybe the organization is just not a good fit?
I think those conversations are, first of all, going to be very,
very valuable. You're going to learn a lot from
them. That they are gonna be probably
the hardest conversations you're gonna have.
Yeah, like that's a difficult part and if I were a brilliant
jerk, I would have a million reasons why.
Obviously I'm effective within the team and why I am a good fit
and obviously because they're still there, they're probably
happy with what they're doing. A lot of people.
Also, the more experience they build up at an organization, the
more they can leverage that, the more they just feel at ease cuz
they just know and things fall into place more based off the
history of them being there. So yeah, those conversations are
gonna be hard then. Did you already have a such
conversation? No, no, no.
It was just she was painting the picture and I was like, yeah,
that is, that is probably a rough one, right?
Like within the team, I feel like I've had those
conversations and it can be pretty hard and it can talk
about behavior, but I'm not responsible for moving someone
somewhere else or from moving someone outside of the
organization, right? I feel like then.
A lot more internal politics. HR gets involved like it's a
different kind of circus, I feel like, yeah.
It's something that I think communication and giving
feedback, those are the skills you need to address the
situation. And I read a couple of books on
the effective communication. I think my favorite one is Never
Split the Difference Okay. Have you read that one?
No, Chris was. Absolutely love it.
It's actually about negotiating. But negotiating is actually just
having conversation between two people and coming to a common
agreement. So even this conversation with
this person, that is brilliant, how did you call him?
Brilliant? Jerk.
Brilliant jerk. Telling them that we need to
work on the team. They say, hey, I don't care, I'm
much better than everyone else. I don't work.
This is also negotiation in the ways, so that's why that book
was. Maybe the most influential book
in my communication skills library, let's say.
And there are some techniques there where you could
communicate with such a person and try to come to a common
agreement. Because it's not that you will
just tell them what to do and they will do it.
No, they need to enjoy it and they need to see the value in
them doing this exactly. So maybe approaching the person
that has that issue. Well, not issue who is a
brilliant jerk and they think they don't need anyone else to
do their work. If you could somehow convince
them and show them that, hey, working with team, this is very
productive. You love your product, you love
your company, you're doing a really good job for it.
But if you have someone to work with, this might be even better.
The performance might even improve your product that you
love because they're doing it for some reason, right?
And most probably they love their product, they're super
proud of their work. So if you can show them that
working with other people can actually make their product even
better, this might be the starting point.
You know it's not something you're gonna solve in one
conversation or two, but that's the first steps you can take.
And see how you can change the mindset of the person saying
that, hey, there's actually people who can help you.
Yeah, or with whom maybe not help you, but help the product
get to a better state if you work together.
Yeah, yeah, I like that a lot because.
If you think about a common goal and a team like everyone is
contributing and everyone thinks probably they're doing a good
job or adequate job, everyone's doing their best, I feel like
always, and usually there's no ill will on purpose.
That just doesn't make sense because then why would you be
there if you're not happy? So then if there's no ill will,
you just have to find an angle that works for everyone.
It's probably where the negotiation comes in.
You have to find a good angle where everyone can see the
benefit and we where you can meet halfway.
Yeah, I think that's that's very valuable.
When it comes to like communication, giving feedback,
did you practice that consciously, like more on a
day-to-day? Yeah, my family is.
Usually. That's so.
I live with my girlfriend and every time I read a book or
something on communication and like, let's see, how can I
improve my relationship with my Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's
absolutely true. So.
Does she know? Does she know?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because suddenly I became
a very different person, much better person actually.
You know, I think the family is the place where it's the hardest
to get the emotions out of the way and think logically and have
that negotiation or conversation or to give a proper feedback.
I think that's the the place where it's the hardest.
So it's a really good place for me also to try things out and
see how they work or not and the things that work in the.
Negotiation with your girlfriend or wife?
Yeah, definitely going to help you in any other station,
because those negotiations are the hardest.
The hardest, yeah. But do you, do you negotiate the
same way? Like if I think about myself,
sometimes with my family, I can be on purpose a bit more of an
asshole than I am in person. And they're like, I hate
negotiating with you because you just say no all the time.
And I'm like, yeah, because I'm the older brother, I can do
that. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, as I said, at home it's very
different and you're much more professional in the office with
your colleagues, with the stakeholders, etcetera.
But you can be a bit more, a bit more financial at home, right?
That's that happens. But that's where it's the most,
I think obvious where something works and when something doesn't
because the stakes are high, right.
It's the person you love, it's the person you care about.
They want something, you want something.
There is emotions and. If the techniques work there,
they have a very good chance of working in the professional
environment. At least that's what I
experienced and I tried it a lot.
And sometimes person doesn't even notice.
So it can be my brother, it can be my girlfriend, anyone else.
Sometimes they notice, sometimes they do notice.
Of course I always tell them that, yeah, yeah, I'm not trying
to play any manipulative games, but most of the time it
actually. I hopes because there is no.
Even in negotiation, there is no such thing as.
Playing the person like making them feel bad.
No, the goal of the negotiation is to come to a common ground,
finding that sweet spot, understanding the real issue,
what the person on the other side of the table really wants.
It's a lot about hearing, a lot about letting them open up and
hearing what they actually want behind and screaming and saying
that, hey, I don't want anyone else to work with me, I'm really
good by myself. There is probably the reason
there is probably something they want to achieve.
Maybe something they're scared to lose by bringing people on
board. And that's what negotiation is.
So usually it actually helps both of the people.
And that's how I like to approach any kind of
communications with people, especially if we are coming from
different sides and we're trying to spar on some ideas that we
have completely different views, it's about understanding where
that person is coming from, what he actually thinks.
Rather than what he says or what I hear.
Yeah, right. Like trying to understand.
And it's not always possible. It's not always possible.
From the first attempt, not from the second.
Maybe sometimes just doesn't happen.
But it definitely made my life more productive, I'd say.
We get to agreements with people more often and we find a common
goal and we go towards it. Yeah, interesting.
I like that. Or it's interesting to me that.
When I asked you like, where do you practice your communication
and giving feedback, you went to probably the safest environment
that you have, right? Because you're your family, your
girlfriend. That can't be anymore safe than
that. Where if you say something or if
you practice something, they're not going to judge.
Probably they're just going to go along with it.
They're going to give you that feedback and you're going to
know they're going to be honest or you can get it out of them
because you know them, right? It's the history you've built
up, you've you've grown together, and it is probably the
safest environment that you can find.
And I feel like the environment plays such a big factor in some
people being comfortable that it makes a lot of sense.
If you're trying out something new, it is sometimes a bit
vulnerable, especially if I'm looking at you.
If you want to be perfectionist and if you put yourself out
there and you make mistakes, then you're a bit more
vulnerable, especially with that kind of mindset, and then you go
to the safest environment. That makes a lot of sense, I
feel like the environment. Obviously, also due to kind of
our perspectives and the things we've seen in our previous
experience, the environment plays a big factor.
And environment is interesting because everyone contributes to
that environment, to making it safe, to making it open.
Everyone contributes in their own way.
And there's different environments in different rooms
and different conversations, but the environment plays a big
factor and people feeling at ease.
I think that's very, very cool actually.
Yeah. For me.
I'm not sure of the safest environment.
You don't think so? I don't know.
That's a good thing to. Say mistakes are quite well.
Of course it's a safe in a sense, but.
In a comfort level. Yeah, you know that you can make
mistakes and things will not be destroyed for that.
What I've said is the emotions are quite high in that
environment, so sometimes it's much harder to apply those
techniques. At home rather than the
professional environment, because it's not the only place
where I train, of course. When I pick up a new technique,
I also try it. And when it's possible, Whenever
the opportunity arises, I usually make a little list of
things I want to try and then when the opportunity comes, I
try to think of one or two things that I can try and say to
the person or yeah. Actually, maybe not even a
couple of things. What helps works best is just
choosing one topic and going with that one and practicing and
that's it. Because it doesn't usually come
natural, right? If you learn something, it means
that you haven't done this before, so it doesn't really
come naturally too. And yeah, I was saying that I'm
not sure if that's like the safe in that sense.
I think this because when you do it in a more professional
environment, you try something and if it doesn't work.
You just go ahead. No one's going to be asking you,
what did you mean by this? Why did you say this?
Why did that? Right.
So things just kind of move on. In that way.
Yeah, yeah. And at home, I think you can get
the question. Hey, are you trying to do?
Something that's that's fair. Maybe it's because I don't
really have secrets. If people would ask me, I'll
just be like, yeah, I was trying something out.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
It's a it's a funny family dynamic, I think.
Yeah. But I would recommend you to put
that book on the list and try out some.
Yeah, I don't really read a lot, man.
I that's why I'm trying to listen more to audiobooks and
like gain knowledge through that.
That's what I did. It was a audio as well.
Yeah. When I say I read a book, it's a
mix. Sometimes I read, sometimes I
listen because I drive a lot. I live one hour away from work.
Yeah. So for me, it's a one hour, one
way, one hour back. That's chunky.
That's a lot, Yeah. So I can basically finish
quarter of a book listening one or two times speed.
Yeah, sometimes you do double speed as well, yeah.
Or maybe I should try that. Sometimes there's like a voice
and this is slow. It really depends on the person
speaking. Yeah, Sometimes they have very
good pace and it's very easy to listen to them.
Sometimes it feels like they are being a bit too slow.
Yeah, and I already understood your concept.
Please move on. But that's why they have this
very nice button in every application you use.
Now you can have 1.52 times the speed etc.
Do you feel like you retain information as good as when
you're reading? No.
Absolutely not, no. So that's absolutely true.
I don't retain information because also when I read, I
always have a notebook next to me, so I always write down the
notes, sometimes write down, sometimes type down, and when
listening, first of all. I'm more visual person, so my
eyes I think feel like my brain that responsible for what
perception of my eyes is much more developed than my ears.
So I already received much more information.
When I'm reading, though I'm also taking notes and with the
reading listening you don't get, yeah the information from with
your eyes, but you also often I cannot take notes So what I end
up doing often is actually reading.
Multiple times. If there is a chapter that
clicks with me when I'm driving, I try to remember it.
Or if it's possible, take a note.
Like a bookmark. Yeah, and then I go and listen
to it again with a notebook next to me.
Or if I have a physical copy, I will also just read the chapter
again and try to take this, because indeed the retention is
not the same. No, I've been struggling with
that. I have to up my note taking game
cuz otherwise I'm like okay this was.
Useless like you spend time in it and if you don't retain any
information, maybe it anchors and like you can recall some
information, but if not then yeah it might become useless.
What I notice that the more you read, the more you realize that
most of the books have kind of the same concepts.
Okay if you read about communication because talking
about this, Chris Wass's book never split the difference.
There is multiple other books, very famous I think How to Win
Friends and Influence okay. There's a couple of books which
are very similar topics, and there are older ones.
I think this was one of the newest ones.
They all have very similar concepts, right?
So if you're kind of reading them one after each other,
they'll sound very repetitive. And that's fine because each
book has something unique in it. But the point is that you don't
need to understand everything or remember everything from the
book. To me, it's a successful book.
If there is one at least one concept that really clicked on
me that I can apply, that I will remember forever and that I will
share with people, This book for example, clicked with me.
So I'm talking about it right now.
Recently I read a peak performance.
I forgot the author unfortunately.
Also, an amazing book about how to learn about putting your best
into learning any kind of subject right?
It's scientific research. On how people yeah, get to where
they want the best, it's called. They called it the deliberate
practice. It's not when you just like if
you want to get better at chess. It's not about just playing
chess with a friend. It's about deliberately trying
to improve yourself. Exactly by remembering
positions, trying difficult stuff and forcing like training
is uncomfortable. So there's two things you see.
This is just one thing that's stuck on me in the book.
I also just listened to it. I didn't really read it, but
it's stuck on me and I'm. I'm really, really listening
against some parts of it because I'm like, oh wow, this is going
to teach me how to become better at things so much faster.
I'm taking notes, I'm reading it.
So it's really you don't need to understand all the book, it's
not necessary and waste of time if you didn't remember
everything, every single chapter, if you picked up one of
two concepts, that's great. And later you can.
When those concepts start to fade out, you need to revisit it
anyway. I think that's a really good
perspective. Yeah.
It's like trimming the fat and finding the essence.
Yeah, I think that's mostly it. Yeah, man, I've really enjoyed
this talk. Man.
This is a lot of fun. Was this kind of what you
expected? Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Good stuff, man. Is there anything you still want
to share? No, it was a pleasure talking to
you. I really enjoyed it, if you made
me feel much more comfortable than I was worried about.
So it's pretty cool. The time flew by.
I thought we were like. 30 minutes in maybe or something,
but is it an hour already? It's close to an hour.
I would say like 50-50 minutes something.
It was a pleasure. Cool, man.
This was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for listening
everyone. I'm gonna put all the stuff
socials in the description below, check them out, let them
know you came from our show. And with that being said, thanks
again for listening. We'll see you on the next one.