What makes a Great Team Lead with Rustam Alashrafov

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. 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. 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.