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Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

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Re: Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

#41

That's easy champ, let me help. First, litter your conversation with baseball metaphor. You want to be fielding questions, starting sales plays, being the biggest swinger, and touching base. All this right off the bat of course (to get the ball rolling). Second, make prestige noun/verb mistakes. After goaling your IT spend, you'll want to incent team members. Share your learnings from a go to market perspective. This…

Jokes aside, some of this is just normal communication used in business and that's not a bad thing. The consistency is actually useful when communicating between businesses. Makes it easier to integrate and speak the same language so everyone stays on the same page.

Re: Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

#42
Your manager is being vague. Either purposefully or not.

If purposeful I would be concerned and ask why.

If not, he is not very good at communicating. So. The next time he says that ask him:

“what do you mean by talk like a leader not an engineer, because every engineer and leader I know talks with their own distinct style”

Re: Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

#43

Study persuasion and communication. * Robert Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion * Jeff Cannon's "Leadership Lessons of the Navy Seals" * Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" Attend Public Speaking workshops. If there's a ToastMasters club in your area, join it. Improv can be another great way to learn how to get "less rigid" and more open with your communication style. https://ww…

But also don't overdo it. People can tell when you're just parroting the countless business/persuasion books.

Re: Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

#45

Didn't face the issue, but focus on solutions, not on giving him the details on your issues and asking for help. I.e. tell him confidently what you are going to do and how it'll help the company. And give him some positive news also, not just worries...

Yes, he likes to listen to solutions rather than teams problems/worries. Good advice.

Re: Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

#46
post #34
post #4

An engineer focuses on the what, where, and how...a leader focuses on the who and why. For example you are considering adding a feature to your app. As an engineer you think of what you need to build how to implement it, where to store the data or put the logic. A manager focuses on why you should or shouldn't build it, who on the team does what part, how much it costs, etc. Imagine the transition from line cook to e…

I was an engineering manager until recently, didn't get much enjoyment out of my role since I had to focus more on whats and whys instead of hows which is what excites my engineering mind. Now I have changed job to an engineering role and having lots of fun building stuff and learning new things. However at times I wonder whether I made the right call, whether my career will stagnate if I am not interested in moving…

> Is there anyway to keep oneself occupied with technical stuff in a managerial role?

It's been 1.5 years since I transitioned from a Solution Architect role and into a Technical Manager role, and I still struggle to keep myself out of my devops-team's kitchen. I'll still offer advice and direction based upon my past experience, but try to maintain those "teachable moments."

But for me, the only way I could fully scratch that technical itch is to pick up some hobby electronics projects at home.

Ironically, most recently I ended up building an Arduino traffic signal light for the office, interpreting data from our Sensu/Telegraf/New Relic APIs, just to show my team when our servers are struggling. Heh

Re: Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

#47
post #34
post #4

An engineer focuses on the what, where, and how...a leader focuses on the who and why. For example you are considering adding a feature to your app. As an engineer you think of what you need to build how to implement it, where to store the data or put the logic. A manager focuses on why you should or shouldn't build it, who on the team does what part, how much it costs, etc. Imagine the transition from line cook to e…

I was an engineering manager until recently, didn't get much enjoyment out of my role since I had to focus more on whats and whys instead of hows which is what excites my engineering mind. Now I have changed job to an engineering role and having lots of fun building stuff and learning new things. However at times I wonder whether I made the right call, whether my career will stagnate if I am not interested in moving…

One thing I have seen some managers do at my company is use their coding skills to help streamline their work, i.e. create scripts to help pull data so they can create charts or query for data to form some analytics to help inform decision making on the right path forward.

I have also seen some still be able to get into the nitty gritty too to help solve problems that are critical & beyond their reports' abilities at the time and to ease the pressure.

Re: Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

#48
post #4

An engineer focuses on the what, where, and how...a leader focuses on the who and why. For example you are considering adding a feature to your app. As an engineer you think of what you need to build how to implement it, where to store the data or put the logic. A manager focuses on why you should or shouldn't build it, who on the team does what part, how much it costs, etc. Imagine the transition from line cook to e…

Just building on the who and why idea ... as a technical manager an important aspect of your job is use your technical aptitude to help your non technical peers clarify business ideas related to, possibly, technical problems. Once problems are clarified, it should be clear whether they are technical or not. At that point you then need to advise at the proper level of abstraction on cost, timelines, possible solution benefits and shortcomings.

Lets think about clarifying business ideas. Non technical people are familiar with issues in their business areas, but they may not be able to clearly describe the issue or identify root causes. Your job as a managerial level engineer may be to interpret a vague understanding that something is not as they want, into statement that can be evaluated as a engineering problem. You may in that interpretation process find that the problem at hand is not a technical problem or that there may be effective non technical means to solve it. Remember that people you are dealing with have developed very different skills to address issues in their businesses areas, and engineering style problem definition is likely not one of those skills. For example, a typical sales manager might deal with sales issues by getting a lot of people in a room, generating visibility, enthusiasm and consensus. He may see that as the way to solve engineering issues as well. Just as you may not have developed the skills to generate institutional momentum and enthusiasm, others may not have the developed the skills to approach problems with engineering perspective. Your value comes from doing that transformation for them and then communicating it to them in terms of their skill set.

Take an example, suppose a peer tells you that it is a problem that you do not "talk like a leader". What does he mean by a leader? I have heard hundreds of definitions of what a leader should be over the years. He is trying to express a mismatch between your managerial execution and his ideal, but I'm not sure if leader is the exact word he wants to express that mismatch. Which of my hundreds of "leader" definitions would most closely match his primary complaint about your execution style? Lets go a step backwards to "dont talk like an engineer". I suspect this statement is getting to the source of his primary complaint so lets investigate this statement.

I mentioned above that you need to advise at the proper level of abstraction and in terms of other peoples skill sets. If you are in a managerial meeting about a new product X and you start talking about Ruby on Rails vs Django or using C++ vs Rust, then you are talking at the wrong level of abstraction. The business does not care if X is Ruby on Rails or Django. They care about whether its a good technical idea. Should they put resources into X? How much will X cost? How long will X take to create? And most importantly how well X might or might not solve the well defined problem you clearly communicate? If you have ever talked technical details in a meeting, then you are talking like an engineer, and your talk is irrelevant to their concerns. Conversely, if you are ever in a meeting, and a peer manager suggests they really need a Y implemented to solve their problem Z, then your job is not to give them cost and timeline information on Y. Your job is to understand that your peer manager might, himself, be operating at the wrong level of abstraction. Y might the the solution to his problem, but maybe he would be better off with a different technical solution. Or maybe he needs to see the problem in a slightly different light.

I cant be sure, but I suspect that you dont have to change perspective and become a leader. Your perspective probably has a great deal of value to your company but you are just not presenting that perspective in a way your peers find maximally useful.

Re: Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?

#49
post #41

That's easy champ, let me help. First, litter your conversation with baseball metaphor. You want to be fielding questions, starting sales plays, being the biggest swinger, and touching base. All this right off the bat of course (to get the ball rolling). Second, make prestige noun/verb mistakes. After goaling your IT spend, you'll want to incent team members. Share your learnings from a go to market perspective. This…

Jokes aside, some of this is just normal communication used in business and that's not a bad thing. The consistency is actually useful when communicating between businesses. Makes it easier to integrate and speak the same language so everyone stays on the same page.

Yes, I can tell you and I have synergy. B2B consistency is not just useful, it is impactful.

Despite the win-win dialog we're having, maybe we should take it offline.

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