Hi, everyone. My name is Patrick Akil and joining me today is John Mueller, IT Lead of the Analytics Engineering Department of ING. And we talk about leadership in tech, especially at big organizations like ING. There's a lot of complexity in hiring, delivering, being responsible without being hands on. John shares all of that and more. So enjoy.
You and I were in a call and I heard you speak about hiring, that it's one of the most important things that you can do. And I was like, I mean, he's right. But the way you said it like that shows that you've had a lot of at least experience with regards to hiring people and the right people. He also mentioned that as things get more complex, you need more specialized people. I wonder how you at least ensure that you have the right people on board, because for me that's
always the tricky part. Yeah, it's yeah, it it to sound like a real corporate guy. In the end, it's process, right? That you need to put a good process in place. But that starts with figuring out what you want, right? So what's the process supposed to represent? So when I speak about hiring and it's not, it's I'm not lying.
It's indeed based on a lot of my own personal experience and all the people who taught me, who came before me is you need to think about what, what kind of people am I looking for? It's the old mercenary versus missionary kind of discussion, right? Are you looking for missionaries who will take whatever you want and evangelize it left, up, down, right? Or are you looking for a mercenary? Something just needs to get done quickly, move on to the next thing or any 50 Shades of Grey
in between. Once you figure out what kind of people you're working looking for in general, then try to make that into a process. For example, what we did and actually was based on the same hiring principle like Xebia at the time, or code data-driven back then, was Make sure you split it into different parts of the things that you want to check, but also making sure that multiple sets of eyes look at an angle of the same thing. So to make that specific, first,
there's a technical hard skill. So especially in the software engineering and anything related to it. Yeah, just can you code? Do you understand it? What seniority level do you understand? But then that's by all means the easy one, right? That's fairly binary. You know, other people look at whatever the person did and come. Yeah, this, this, I know Medium media senior and so on the two other interviews that we did back then were around when I run HR more classical. OK, what do you want?
Why this company? I don't think we ever asked them. Where do you see yourself in five years? At least I don't hope so, but it's it's those kind of questions just to get a a sense of yeah, the basics, if you will. And the thing that stood out for me was always that we, we had something which we originally called team fit, then we at some point renamed it to something a bit more inclusive to culture. Ad does somebody adds add something to the culture?
And the basic premise, as is one of, you know, our colleagues that you also know, Fab always says, do I just like this person? Would I like to work with this person? And that was it. So you had three interviews, two people in each interview. So 6 pairs of eyes and all six people had to have to say yes at the end of the interview. It can be that I as manager of the department say yes, but the most junior engineer that just did an interview for the first time says no and has a good
reason. But even there I will not push too hard. She says I clearly think no and it's a no. And that has helped a lot over the years because the of course, we're human. So sometimes you get the five times, yes. And the one time, yeah, yeah, yeah. The number of times that it didn't work out in the end, or at least there were questions I can almost always rehear back to. That's pretty close to why the
one person said I'm not sure. And especially the ones where somebody said no, but then you came in with an example of but it's just for the first six months, we'll figure it out later. Or he's a nice guy and not everybody needs to be really good. Yeah, that's where it always starts hurting. Exactly. That's where you cut corners, it feels like. Exactly.
Yeah. I'm curious because I had a conversation, I think it must have been close to a year ago with this person from Euro. And they have a very standardized. I mean, I think the only kind of blueprint for software engineering hiring out there is lead coded system design. That's like bread and butter. And from his perspective, he really like lead code from an applicant perspective because you can really train for it,
right? You at least know what you're getting into and you can train yourself to solve these algorithms. But he also says that at least in Miro, at some point it will matter. You don't know when 95% of the time it's not going to matter. But when those five, that 5% is there, then everyone went through kind of this bar and people at least have a common understanding of how to solve it. And I thought, huh, that's interesting.
Maybe it's because I never worked in those types of environments and we do have quite a high bar. So getting then someone in that also passed that bar, I can see that kind of helping the culture and at least helping with a common level of trust. But system design and need code, For me, that's like the almost exclusive blueprint that's out there when it comes to testing for technical skills.
Every other company that I've heard talk is more of a conversation, sometimes a live coding session, some other flavour that works really well for them. But it's not become a blueprint, not really a standard that companies adopt. Now, and I think I've had this discussion quite a bit over the last year ish when we were looking at redo, redoing our hiring because we need to hire a lot. So you also need to keep some sort of pace in there, but also keep it manageable.
And there's many different angles to it, But I'm actually quite opinionated on what the entire process looks like. It'd be shocking for everyone. And and one of the things is that we always used to do the take home case. Gotcha. Because to give somebody some time to prepare and we always said that spend about 8 hours on and we can spend 48 hours on it. You can spend 4 hours on it. That's up to you. That's how you want to prepare
for the interview. But because ING is not necessarily an environment where you need to deploy code 5 minutes after you've written it, actually, that's really what we don't want you to do and take your time, think too thoroughly and so on. I, I always dislike the idea of life coding because it creates this kind of atmosphere of oh shit, how do I, what's the syntax here again?
Oh, oh, I'm now I'm getting nervous and so on where it's not representative to what actual work environment in ING looks like. Yeah, but I was getting pushback, like especially in not the Netherlands, but in Poland, but also in Romania, to take home exam was a hurdle for applicants because they needed to spend time where they were. It's a commitment. Yeah, it's a commitment versus life coding or maybe just a conversation and so on. So yeah, at least I'm open to listen.
So I said, OK, as long as we can find a way that because we turned it into a life coding exercises and as long as the life coding doesn't turn into, oh, what's the syntax I need to get this out in 10 seconds. Oh, I'm getting so nervous. As long as it doesn't turn into that, but we do have the time to check what you want to check as an engineer, then I'm fine with it. So stay open to the idea of of change, right? Otherwise you get stuck in
whatever you were doing before. But for me, it was also important that it does somehow reflect the work environment that you're going to work in, because why else are you doing this? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I never like, I like pair programming, but that's from a sense of productivity. And at some point, it's also comfort and learning from another perspective, right? Yes, doing that and in the interview process, I can see how that's kind of daunting.
But in essence, take home my exercise is what we have here. That's how I got in in the 1st place. And it was the same as you mentioned, you get 8 hours, you can spend less, you can spend more. I told them I spend more and I didn't finish the exercise because that was my level at the time. I was like, if it's not enough with this time spent, it's like I don't belong here basically. In the end, I got in, but that was like one of the interview steps.
And there was a more we'd call a culture fit. I like culture, add more, I think linguistically, but that's always there. I've never gone through, I mean, I've applied, I have gone through system design, elite code. It's just never been kind of what I, from an interviewer standpoint, look at. Me neither When when I I I did the same thing when I I had already been hired in ING, but I wanted to, I wanted to be first time I was an engineering manager chapter lead as we call
it for data engineering. My then manager said it's fine if you want that, but you need to go through the case just as everyone else does. So I also spent way more than 8 hours. I also did not finish everything because it was a reflection of how could I was as a programmer ever back then. Yeah, let's say I was. I'm a better manager than the program, let's put it that way. And I never went through that system design either. In the end, it doesn't matter the way you check it, like the
entire basis, sorry. The entire premise of our hiring procedure is that you hire your own colleagues, right? It's six people. Hopefully a few of them you'll actually start working with and otherwise of the large department of which you're a part of, it is in your own best interest to get everything you want out of that interview to make a good judgement call on. Is this somebody that can help us in doing whatever it is that we want to do?
Because experience tells me a miss hire is one of the most draining things you can do to a team, right? And they can be either not a good fit or add to the culture of a team or squad or whatever you want to call it, which is draining, right? Everybody walking around on egg shells, you know who stand up is going to go, well, are we going to get in an argument or the other one? The person just doesn't cut it technically also super draining.
I've been part of both. And it's in your best interest to get what out of the interview you need to make a good judgement call. And of course you standardize a little bit to help everyone. But if you as an engineer say I understand everything I need to know by looking at one line of code, fine, I need to look at a take home case that somebody spent at least 24 hours on. OK, then we'll push back a little bit. They'll give, we'll give them eight. But yeah, it are you
comfortable? Can you make a decision? But then, and then in the background of my, my mind you, you see all the stats. Like most people know within 30 seconds whether they're going to hire. Exactly. I like that you highlight that from your experience, you've been in both situations, right? Where you felt that, OK, a bad hire has detrimental consequences. Basically for me, that's what I
look in leadership, right? Not only when they speak that people listen and they get buy in, but they have to the experience to back it up. Some people speak in like it's not really substantial anymore. Some stuff feels outdated, like that's how we did it 10-15 years ago. Well, 1015 years ago nowadays is a long, long time. That is ridiculous. I wasn't even in the field nowadays, so things move really quickly.
I recently had a person on Marcel the Fleet's also from CBA, and he said that he strongly believes that leadership in tech should be technical, so also have hands on experience and keep their technical skills up to date. And I find myself agreeing with that just for of the fact of if you have outdated skills, then it's harder to get by in from my
perspective. I'm curious to your perspective because you do have experience to back it up, but you've also been hands off, I think, for a long, long time now. Yeah, true. Definitely true. I I wouldn't trust myself to code anything right now. Now I think there's levels to it and my architect friends will laugh, but I'm going to say it depends because that's their favorite answer to anything. It depends. When I started out, ING was in a more generalistic management
kind of hiring style. So yeah, be a generalist. You don't need to know the details. That's what you have other people for and so on. How long? Ago was this. 12 years, almost 12 years Ng now and already back then I was like that. It doesn't make any sense because if my if my manager doesn't even have the first clue what I'm talking about how how he's how is he or she supposed to help me? How's this going to work? How's this going to work?
So they also told me because I was hired as a management trainee in IT, like make sure you learn a craft first, like know something and then you can always go to management. And I always struggled with that a little bit because when do you know something? When do you own a craft? When are you good at something? Good enough?
Yeah, an expert, like sure as hell was not going to be an expert after two years, because I've worked with a lot of people from Go to Drave. I was like, no, I'm not going to get there in two years. So I always struggle with that. Nevertheless, I had fun as an engineer, date engineer, we will call it now. I learned a lot. And at some point, I also realized that management and technical skills are two very different things.
And especially if you're a manager of engineers, I think it is important to know the technical details. But once you get to a manager of managers, it becomes less about it. Of course it helps I I refer to myself as unbullshitable in my field. I love that. It's, it's, it's, it's extremely rare in ING to have, or at least I guess mostly everywhere that I'm in senior management. But no, the insurance and outs of the department that I run like the average engineer there.
Because for the most part, when you hit my level, you've probably moved around a few times and you might have put a back end developer and now you're looking after a mortgage's tribe or something along those lines. But that isn't because these people are not good at what they're doing. Not at all. Actually, I, I rarely have ever see senior managers where I go. Like, how did this person get this job? OK. It's because it becomes about a wildly different skill set. It's about stakeholder
management. It's about communication, it's about inspiring, it's about people management. And the content should be as little as possible. No, my, I might have even said it during the last OK R review. If something in operational day-to-day business hits my desk, I don't have a desk, but a virtual desk, then something went wrong, which is not bad. Things go wrong all the time. Yeah, that's fine. It's not an indictment on
anyone. But something did go wrong because if it skips multiple management layers and nobody could solve it, their technical leads, squads and so on. And somehow it reaches me. Like, John, can you help us solve this? First of all, more than happy to help. How can I And second of all, what went wrong? Is there something we need to learn from this? Sometimes it's just yeah, everything is down because a firewall change didn't go through. You need to know.
It's like, OK, fair, good, good, good that you let me know because people will start calling me in another case. It's it's more of a yeah, we don't agree. You need to decide on something Also fine, right? If you an escalation in itself is never a bad thing, right? It's just OK. We can't we at the same level. We don't agree. Next highest level. Can you help us? But something did go wrong. So yeah, nowadays if I need to go into the details, I'm probably not doing my job very well.
Got you. Yeah, I can see that. It's a different skill set. But something that you mentioned of the people that I'm surrounded with, like sealing leadership, I, I never have the sense of how they get this job from my perspective. Maybe it's because I'm not in those circles of not having those conversations. Sometimes I do see people and I'm at a consultancy, so I go in and out of companies a lot. Sometimes I do have this feeling of OK, how did this person get this role?
I'll be fair, of course, I have those moments too, but at some point at the higher you climb, the less often you see it. Gotcha. Simple fact that also correspondingly the impact of a miss hire becomes bigger and bigger, right? And the company just cannot afford to have a really, really bad manager or senior tech person or tech lead or whatever you want to call it in a in a position of great influence because correspondingly the impact is bigger and bigger right?
Not being said that you cannot be super influential as an engineer, right, but from the perspective of setting the direction of an entire company and it's just not heading where it's supposed to, you cannot afford that much. So there's also this self correction mechanism in in at least in an, in large corporate like ING like yeah, at some point you will get found out if it's not going very well.
Got you. Yeah. I always, I mean for people in leadership, I wonder how they kind of self reflect and grow because from my perspective, I, I have a different role than I had a couple years ago, right? I'm doing product management now. Before that I was in software engineering and a lot of decisions that I make are based on kind of a fundamental understanding of software engineering. I feel like if people or at least leadership don't have that, it's like what else do you rely upon?
How do you get this gut feeling to get by in or to communicate and say the right things sometimes even because from your perspective, I can see you have had hands on experience, right? You have had experience with people in teams that are maybe not the right fit or an experience where things went really smoothly and you can still kind of SuccessFactors and try and educate others with that. And I think you do it quite successfully.
That's getting buy in, right. But for people that don't have that, I don't know how they or how they get that experience or what they rely upon. How do they grow? Yeah, the first and worst answer to hear for everyone is experience, right? Just seeing things and seeing around you. But that being said, I'm relatively young in for the position I hold. So it's also not it's not definitely the only thing. I know people even younger than me climbed even higher in ING.
So for the it's not the only thing, but you need to be open and learn and listen as much as you can, right? There is there is different ways of going through the same thing, right? You can sit in a meeting and think, why am I here? I should be coding. I'm not spending my time well. I should be doing other things where I'm have bigger impact, more value, which could very well be true for that meeting. The other one is apparently somebody thought it was important that I'm here.
What can I take away from this? And even if it's not something content related, like I'm not going to learn how to make a better back end today in this meeting. Fine, but how is this person trying to communicate it's business requirements? What problem am I really trying to solve here? Right, you as product manager. And that's something that you must have learned also through your software engineering, because not every software engineer makes a good product manager and vice versa, of
course. But at some point you must have also gone through the phase of, hey, what problem are we trying to solve? Is this a problem worth solving? Am I, as an engineer, actually spending my time in the most impactful way? I might have fun coding what I'm doing, but if that code is never going to amount to anything, at least for me, that's where it started. Like I wanted to make sure that if I was going to spend my time working on something that it was the right thing.
And that takes then many different branches, right? For me that very quickly moment going into people management like how can I help others be successful? You hit the nail on the head, I think, at least for me, because those those questions, that's the reason why I do product management, right? I was always in conversations where it was like, I don't want to build something that is of no value. I have fun building it. I have, I see other people that have more fun building it and
they'll gladly build whatever. I'm not that person. I want my stuff to be used and valuable. And if I don't agree, then at some point it's like I would love to have the responsibility and have those conversations. Sure, I missed the hands on part, but that was then the next step. I don't know if this is what I want to do next. For me, it's not really, let's say depth with regards to career.
It's like a sidetrack because product and software should they go hand in hand, but they have different career paths. You go senior staff principal, indeed, maybe engineering manager. That's one of the people's side. Product has its own track completely. For you, you did climb and you climbed quite quickly. You all said you're young for the position that you have. Did you always envision yourself climbing a ladder like that? No, not at all. It's a question I've had before.
It actually the answer is no, I didn't envision that way, but I did envision where I wanted to be. OK. And that was not because of a title or something. It was basically I wanted to make it concrete. I wanted to be a manager of an an analytics department. Gotcha. Which I I became, yeah. So you can also say I'm done. I can just that. Was the next question. Exactly. Yeah, keep doing this for the next was it 30-40 years and then then retire happily.
Now I knew I wanted to be a manager in analytics And I think that had more to do with being able to help steer direct strategic decisions and people management because I knew that that's what I had a lot of fun with. And it had to be analytics because that's I've, I've done, I've done nothing else in IG for 12 years, which is also relatively unique. But did I then sit down and go like, OK, then I need to make this step and then that step, and then I need to do that? Not at all.
Yeah. It's a combination of pure dumb luck, people leaving at a certain point in time and then saying, oh, I think John should be my successor. Very cool. If he didn't leave, then the position would have been there twice.
That happened, by the way. But also, for example, we did went to a bit of a restructuring and we're growing bigger, talking about more complex other things that you want other people to deal with, non financial risk, something that you'll now be intimately familiar with with your time in ING, right? Things like IT security and compliance and legal and so on. And they were looking for somebody to set up a team around that.
And then they came to me because when I started at ING and analytics, we were three people just like a start up. Everybody did everything. And one of the things I did was no financial risk. Not because I'm particularly fond of it, but it's just if you're one of three people, everybody does something. I'm sorry, everybody does everything. But I did that at that point and they asked set up a team around. I was like, OK, fine, let me go and do that. So for two years I did non
financial risk. I didn't write a single line of code. I only talked to people who wrote code. I was more into policy and AI ethics and and ethical use of data and legal. I know more about GDPR than I'd like to care to admit, but it was super helpful because to this day I'm also relatively unbullshitable on non financial risk matters. Yeah, it's all relevant. It's all, it's all relevant.
But for two years I did something which I would never thought I would do. I I like it to the day that I did this. Also, after two years I said I'm done. This is enough. Now I wanted, that's when I became engineering manager. So it was a big step because I hadn't done anything for two years to go back into coding and, and, and, and being first time actual people manager back then.
But I learned a lot content wise, but also setting up a team, thinking about what kind of different specialists do I need? How do I figure out the Venn diagram that with the least amount of people, I think I got to hire three others plus myself, SO4 in total, how do I capture most of the specialisms that I think we need with three people I can hire? That's super interesting. And then finding the people, building it into a team, working together. I was product owner back then,
super interesting. So no, I didn't have a client, but being open to positions, listening, learning as much as I can, that has been a constant. And sometimes just being lucky. And the one advice that I got, which has now been through two times already, is that sometimes they'll do this in a moment,
like your current position. Either you're bored or it's easy to exist, or you know, these, these these moments where you're unsure what to do and two different people without knowing it said the exact same thing to me. John, just wait, something will come. Don't worry, we'll see what happens. And I was like, yeah, well, I'm not, I'm not a very patient person by heart. So I was like, OK, I'll end both
time. Well, like I already said, somebody left and they said, OK, come in here, go and do this. And the second time, same thing happened. Somebody else left and they asked me for the position. So sometimes just being patient is also fine. Man, I, I hear your advice and I understand it. It's just, it's right. It's really hard. I, I, I hope you're really hard for someone to say just a way and you see no out, no, no way out basically. Of course there there are, there are levels to this.
I was, I would both times. It was not like sitting on a a burning chair that I had to get out. Yeah. But I'll also be honest, at those moments where you're less busy, there's not much to do, there's a lot of unclarity. Super uncomfortable to me. Like it was during COVID, the first time that it happened, I didn't have anything to do really. Like legitimately nothing to do. Like work wise. Yeah, work wise, OK. Because basically my people have left. I was managing off in a
reorganization. I was literally manager of none, but I didn't move with the people. So the work also was really vague. Everything was really vague and I just walked, OK, Just went outside for walks. Endless walks. And then just also talking, keep talking to my manager. Just being I got nothing to do. Yeah. Do you have that? Don't worry, just it will come. Just go. Go for your walks. Yeah, interesting. How vocal were you? Because I'm very jealous and I'll tell you why.
Not for the position or anything, but you had a clear vision of where you wanted to be at some point. I don't have that. It's like, I like this and I like that and I try and do everything until that vision becomes more crisp. But until it does, I find myself kind of in Nimbo and trying everything. And I I like the perspective you bring because I, I also feel like right now it doesn't really matter.
I can do a lot of things and I'll take bits and pieces and they will have value in the future in their own way. Maybe certain interactions, maybe certain hard skills, I have no clue. Soft skills probably for sure, for sure. Because we're going to deal with people in any case, but I, I want to be able to grow to a position that I'm like, this is where I want to be, or at least where my starting point is for the next thing that has more
depth. And it sounds like like even though people told you to wait, I'm not sure how vocal you were with where you wanted to be. I feel like if you are very clear minded of where do I want to be, you can also communicate that and people are able to help you. Absolutely. From the beginning with my managers, I bought 2 managers. I had two managers in my first eight years at ING and they were like joint at the hip. And I told them from the start, this is what I want to do.
Yeah, so, or this is what I want to grow to of course, put it that way. So indeed, they put me in all sorts of positions, like I was already managing people before I ever was a manager. Was like, oh, we got interns incoming, please help take care of them. Or oh, you want to do the, the appraisal cycle of this person this year. I mean, you can do it on my behalf. So it's also because that current manager hated it. OK. Yeah. So it was like a win, win was a
win, win, yeah. But it's also because I let him know, of course, like, OK, you're interested in this, please, by all means, I don't like it. So you do it for me. Yeah, absolutely. Being vocal. And this is also also what I tried to do with with people right now. One of the, the, the biggest joys I get out of my position today is that I'm very well because I've been 12 years at
ING, I'm very connected. So I can usually help people if they say I want to, I want to have a change or I want to be open to a new challenge or something that because I know so many people, I can help them quite often like, oh, hey, I know something's happening here, or make an introduction left or right, those kind of things. And that starts with that.
I need to know that you are interested in a certain opportunity because if I do not know, then I cannot help you and of course you don't need to tell me personally. You can also be through your manager or whatever that you know in some sort of conversation. IT company pops up like hey, this lady would like to be in product management next. All right, well, we have something small there. Why don't you can see and see
what you do there? I think that's also something that is strong within ING in general that we try to help develop people internally. I like the, I like that a lot. Like I, I would struggle with giving you kind of a context of, OK, where do I want to be in five years? I hate that question, but what do I like now? What do I want to do more of or what role seems interesting or what do I want to try out like that? Those things. That's why I'm at a consultancy
basically. Like those are the things that I can do. I have the freedom to do. I do have to have a certain set of skills because as a consultant things are just expected of you. Like that makes sense, but that for me is growth, right? And at some point also comes comfort. And with comfort, I want to get to uncomfortable again, not really willingly so, but it's just because I know that's good for me. That's where growth is.
I'm wondering with you because you said you go from opposition to another thing that you might have never done and then your hands off for two years and you go kind of back to technical again. How was that dealing with uncomfortableness for you? You're good at that. Yeah, yeah, just naturally, yeah. I, I, I'm, I'm there's a tattoo here on the my arm which says no worries. Which is really, yes. OK, which which? Fun fact, it's a fun fact.
Yeah, it would have been somewhere I would have shown you, but it's a little bit too cold right now. No. So I'm not a person that that worries a lot in general about things that I don't think are that important. And of course, if I were a brain surgeon, I would say I'm pretty, pretty important stuff all day long. But in a lot of times I was like, OK, what's the worst that can happen? I write shitty code, what's the worst that can happen?
All right, somebody corrects me because I got a policy wrong from some sort of legal thing. The one thing where I'll make an exception where I do care if I get wrong is people management, because that's the one where I'm, I had this conversation last week. Like, you won't find me staying up late at night stressing about the fact that we're not going to hit some sort of deadline because nobody dies if we don't make it. Literally nobody dies ever in this field. In this field.
But what, what does stay with me is like people struggling, right? If you're a manager or especially manager of managers, there's a lot of people that you're responsible for. And yeah, life happens to everyone, right? Shitty things happen and they're usually outside of the control of everyone. And then they add up, right? Like the people you see go into burnouts. There's always something going on. Personally, there's something going on at work. It's never just one thing.
And those are the ones that I struggle with. So there I would be afraid to make a mistake. Yeah. Do you think they're with you? Like I think CBI right now, I'm part of, they call that team leads. So I'm responsible for personal development of a smaller group of people. And we also have conversations with other teammates. And one person really struggled with that. They said that if someone tells me a problem and they don't even do it, it's just I take it as my problem.
And then I worry at night about their problem, which has now become my problem. Yeah, he says that's a problem. That's a problem, yeah. Yeah, of course there is always, you need to make sure that what's in your influence to control, right, That that doesn't mean we're not you and that you cannot, you know, stay awake because something really bad happened that just that's just life. But if it's inside your control and try to see how you can help.
Actually, I had the I've had the conversation many years over many times over the years. What do you do when somebody's struggling at work with delivering, but that person is probably struggling with delivering because something's happening personally. Gotcha. Like a relative that is very sick or a pet that can also be very impactful or you know, anything that's going on.
Like how far do you take into consideration that something is happening in their personal life which they can or may not be able to control, but it is influencing their work? Because in the end, you work for GBI, work for ING, They pay us, we pay that person to deliver a certain something. How far can you go in saying, OK, maybe you need to deliver a little bit less right now while you deal with this? And how long can you keep that up?
Right? That's a very, very tricky balance to strike something that we will as people managers will struggle with undoubtedly all of us at some point. And yeah, the, the, the wisdom that I got from one of my former managers, like, you know what, everything is fine as long as that person is still delivering and delivering according to what you agreed to. It's the moment that it becomes uncertain that it's affecting also their dependability, Eric.
And it has nothing to do with if you're actually available, it has to do have you communicated about it. And somebody says I need to be in the hospital every two days with my sick relative, so I will be out every second day. Fine, right? Don't depend on that person every second day. But if it's only becomes we cannot reach Patrick, we cannot reach John, What's going on?
Why can't we reach him? And then it turns into those kind of conversations really difficult because that's the moment where it starts to affect everyone around them as well, so. It escalates, yeah, yeah, you don't want to. And that's really tricky. Like I, I haven't been in a situation like that specifically like right now. Let's hope it's yeah, a bit. Longer. Like right now in products like OK, I, I have so on and so forth, or my son got sick, like
I have to take the day off. I'm like, absolutely. And people are very, maybe I take that for granted, but people are clear with what they do and how they spend their time. I've never been in a situation where it's unclear for a longer period of time. Like sure, things pop up. And I had a person that broke up with a significant other and then also decided to buy another like a house. And it was like major life changes back-to-back to back. And then, yeah, that person was
sorting their life out. Like I know that. And even though they might not be clear with their communication, I know things are unclear. So that's like the leeway that you then give them when it becomes kind of not clear for a longer time. It's like a mis hire in the end because it affects deadlines, it affects the people around them. It's like the flakiness, but also well. Let's start by calling it a learning opportunity for the other person.
OK, maybe, maybe, hopefully they haven't been through it before either and they just need to learn how to communicate in those times. But indeed, if that doesn't improve, then at some point it becomes a misire. Yeah, it looks very difficult to me, like I haven't been in a position where I had to act where something like that
happened. But I feel like the more people you are responsible for, the more you are kind of in you keep top of mind, the greater good, which also means that sometimes you have to make tough decisions. Like for me, I like to be friends with the people I work with. I think we we work better if we are friends if I know at least a little bit about them. But then those conversations become harder and harder, right?
When we talk about more the business sense where people are maybe not performing or indeed they are a bit flaky. There are learning opportunities, but if they don't capitalize on that, then that's a problem. Yeah, that absolutely. And I think this is just a minor thought I just had was this is probably why escalations are also not a bad thing, right? Because I hope as a manager you have a good relationship with all your direct reports.
And that when it comes to the point like, hey, maybe we need to let somebody go, then there's at least a level up that can bring a more balanced perspective of, OK, maybe that doesn't have a personal relationship with like for me, I'm responsible for many people. I wouldn't even know the exact number right now, but it's it's north of 150, let's put it that way. So I don't know everyone. It's impossible. You cannot.
I cannot of. Course, I know quite a few because I've been there for so long, but it also helps me sometimes with when they come to me with Hey John, what should we do here? I don't have a personal relationship so I can just take the bigger picture. Doesn't take away from the fact that we're all human and we should be staying human and take everything into account that we can, but it does help. I can see that. I'm wondering as kind of one of the final thoughts I had, how do
you measure success? Because right now for me in product, it's like, OK, I was thinking when I was software engineering, you deliver something, you see if it has value. Product metrics with product, product sometimes, OK, ours indeed, KPIs, those are all the measurements. When you're responsible for personal development, things become more soft. Like it's not really as tangible. It's definitely not black and white. It might be more qualitative data, but then again, is there
any data? How do you measure if the vision that you have or how people are moving, if it's going in the right direction? I feel like it's also sometimes maybe a longer time horizon if I deliver a feature and we have two weekly Sprint cycles, it's like, yeah, two weeks. You can see demo of what we built. Basically, if I say, OK, this is our North Star and this is the vision, and as an analytics department we should move that way, it's like, yeah, good luck measuring.
To see you in a year. Exactly. It's a very fun conversation to answer the first part first is how do you measure that? There are of course things you can look at, like what's your attrition rate? Are people leaving a mass? Are people leaving really quickly? Like did we mishire from either side? Are we delivering? That's a simple one, of course, because that's also very people related, but also another one that is much less tangible.
But I definitely keep back in my mind, if people leave, where are they going to? Are they going to a competitor that's roughly equal or are they moving on to bigger and better things? Gotcha. And whatever that may mean, as long as I know it's bigger and better, whatever that is, I'm like.
You can accept that. Yeah, that was one of my good colleagues once mentioned it. Like if you see ING as as playing football like Ayox or Bayes, Faye or Faye or then the other DVC and somebody moves to Barcelona or Bayou Munchen or anything along those lines, you're like, all right, fair. Well done, Well done. Yeah, we we did. We had our part in getting them to move. If they suddenly move to I'll tease him to FA Doordrez. Yeah. OK. Something went wrong. Yeah, you remember that?
Yeah, Yeah. Now, so that that's also a very intangible thing that I keep in the back of my mind are are we successful as a, as a, as a company from a, a human perspective? Like are we helping them? And of course, people staying is usually very good indication that that something good is going on.
But then the, the, the, the, the second part about yeah, sometimes I help set targets where I have departmental goals and so on. Yeah, there is so much intangible over really easy to measure in a short time spent in my job that I found something else to get something tangible. It's like I just turned to do it yourself. I do plumbing and electrical wiring and so on. Something that gives me immediate feedback on exactly am I, am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong?
Because that used to be coding, of course for me, like compiled doesn't work. I shit, in case something went wrong, all the tests pass. I did something. Well, yeah, so I just replaced it in another part of my life. That's really funny, actually. But consciously? Or did you just start with it and it grew to what it is now? No, I think it's also definitely consciously interesting. Yeah, just like doing sports, in my case, basketball, something
super immediate feedback. Yeah, I also need that in my life. Yeah, makes sense. Like that's what I like product a lot. The hands on part is what I miss. And I had this dream of I can do hands on and product stuff, but I'm like, am I then doing the right things because there's only one person responsible for products? Like yeah, I'm not going to be able to manage my own time. And especially if I set the priorities, I'm going to set priorities for fun time and it's not good.
It's not a good thing. So I haven't acted upon that thought. No, it's, it's a. It's a it's a place where I've been twice now. And actually, I had an epiphany last week that I'm in the same position again, OK? Very. Recent, very recent, but the first one was exactly this. It wasn't a product, it was people management. Anyway, I was coding and I wanted to do the exact thing. Stay coding, be in a squad, deliver things and be a data
engineer. And there were other things at the side and at some point I had a a walk with one of my managers and he's like, yeah, John, but, you know, doing two things at the same time means you're probably not doing both things very well, or at least not as good as you could. So he's like, yeah, at some point you got to make a choice. And then in my personality is like, OK, then I make the choice and it's done. So I made that choice that day like that. I need to go.
I need to step away from coding because it's not helping anyone really. I was getting into the squeeze of it's basically turning into the review monster. I didn't produce any code anymore. I was just there to do the reviews and I was also probably not doing my best as of acting people manager back then or product I don't remember anyway. It's a good epiphany.
It was a good. Epiphany So I needed to step away from coding back then because for me at least, it's something that takes a long uninterrupted periods of focus time, which were hard to combine with the other stuff that I did. So it was the first time I had to make a choice. And I this me being me, I was like, OK, from now, from next week or next Sprint, whatever, I'll stop coding.
But I just last week I had the same epiphany is that if you want to grow as a as a manager and work more strategic and strategic, if you also need to go to the second one of just really stepping out of any, almost any operational kind of things. What I mentioned earlier, while it is a strength of mine that I know analytics very well and I lead an analytics department, it's also my pitfall because I am hopefully out of date with everything last.
So you now get the the, the, the, the danger of me thinking I still know the content while I don't. And even if I do still know the content, am I the one that should be steering on content or should I be getting the content delivered to me and help make a decision right? So now I seem to be nearing the second point where of course it's super important to keep the content with me but not actively use it anymore because it's probably detrimental to everyone around me. I can see that.
I mean, I should grow. I feel like the priorities of the greater good become more important for a person in a leadership position, right? And if your own priorities align, or at least that you get satisfaction out of doing those priorities, then that's a win win. But I'm assuming that's not always the case, right? Especially if you're hands on and you get to choose what work you work on, you work on what you like. I see people navigate and do that all the time.
I want to do this technical work. Then we see how we fit that in. Or you push for you things you believe in that are also fun. And it's definitely not a byproduct. It's definitely also sometimes the main thing. But for the greater good, things change, right? Especially from my position looking sometimes to leadership, it's like, I believe these things need to be done. And if no one likes doing them, they still need to be done. That's the hard part.
And I feel like if you are then responsible and you also share that vision, because obviously you have to believe that, then you will pick it. You will pick it up I'm assuming or I'm wondering how you manage your priorities otherwise. It's This is why it's always a good question to yourself and, and, and more in relationship to where I want to go is where do I
get my energy from, right? Because let's say you're chasing titles or positions and so on, but you don't really actually like the work that needs to be done. Like if I would not be enjoying the, let's say, more strategic discussions and the stakeholder management that comes with my role and really only there for the money in the title, then I would burn out very quickly. Quickly, right? If yeah. And that's why it's always a
good question. It's also being asked to me, but do you get energy from whatever it is that we're now being is now being asked of you because otherwise what will probably happen? I'll keep prioritizing that. I keep meddling, let's say it like that in content because that's where I really get my energy from. So there's always a good check to do with yourself. Like what do I like what, what what do we like to work on?
And also coming to the realization, if the next step in whatever field is that I'm in now, but I don't even like what that next step would mean, well then maybe that's not the next step. Maybe that means something else or that you're just good in what you are currently doing. Sometimes it's always seems like it should be a race to the top, whatever the top is. But at some point, yeah, I've also asked myself, do I even want to grow further than this?
Yeah, it's because the the top is growth, right? That's why upwards is growth. Basically. I feel like there's this notion and maybe even I agree with it. It's like if you stay still, you're stagnant, which means you're not growing. Like, even though I don't, I know practically you can grow in your communication, you can grow in your hard skills. Things evolve, you keep up to date. That means you're already growing, but it doesn't feel like growth.
It feels like growth if you get a promotion, if you climb the ladder basically, and if you stop climbing, it's like, oh, this person has ambition. Or at least sometimes that's the notion I feel. Absolutely. But I think that's also a real sign of maturity when somebody says like, I'm happy here, like, and that's also why I think it's very important to not lose fact of the lose track of the fact that work is just a part of your life. Hopefully, I mean, for some equals, it doesn't for me.
It's also definitely not the only or even most important thing in my life. Maybe sometimes it's very good to be comfortable in your work and then you have more room, mental headspace to do something more daring outside of work. Having a kid, for example, I can I have two. I would say be comfortable in your work when you're in your first kit Lance like I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend going through a very stressful. Time start up. And Nah, maybe not, maybe not start your own start up.
Maybe if you're the 4th person and, and you're really resilient or maybe, but yeah, there's a lot of maybes. There's a lot of maybes like so there is so much to grow in life. Work is not the only thing. I, I love that perspective. It's one of my colleagues said. I, I work to live basically, and some people live to work, and I think that's going to stick with me forever. Yeah. Yeah. I've really enjoyed this conversation, John. This was a lot of fun. Thanks.
Before we round off, is there anything you'd still like to share? What will I like to share? I always throw this curveball at the end and stuff either comes out or feel like, no, I'm happy. I know a lot of people are listening more than I expected to. At least I have this feeling. So yeah, No, reiterate the last message I gave. It's like there's more to work, more to life than work. Awesome. Cool. Then. Thank you so much for coming on. Again, we're rounded off here.
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