EL023 – Leadership Lessons from a CTO

This is the Engineering and Leadership Podcast. Pat Sweet here, and welcome to Episode 23 of the Engineering and Leadership Podcast, the show dedicated to helping engineers thrive. In today's episode, I speak with Andrew Hinkleman, former CTO of Parametric, a fintech startup recently acquired by Morgan Stanley, about leadership and management in the technical world and how to set yourself up for success as a leader in tech. hello everyone this of course is pat sweet welcome to the show

I've got a really interesting interview lined up for you today with Andrew Hinckleman. But before I get to that, I've got a few important things to share. First... I'm running my first annual engineering and leadership podcast, Leaders Are Readers contest. And this is a lot of fun. This is something I wanted to put on because it's National Engineering Month here in Canada. I know National Engineering Week was in the States here a few weeks ago, but in Canada.

The entire month of March is dedicated to engineering. So here we go. I've decided I'd like to celebrate and share our celebration of engineers and engineering with you. And you might be wondering, what's this? leaders are readers bit so there's this really cool quote from former u.s president harry truman who once said not all readers are leaders but all leaders are readers and i totally

Totally dig that. I do believe it. I myself, I read all the time and I really do attribute a great deal of my own personal career success with having been... prolific reader throughout my career. So I want to share that, share that gift with you. And I'm giving away copies, digital copies of three of my favorite management leadership books of all time.

And what's really cool, this contest is completely free. It's free to sign up. There'll be a random draw. All you have to do is go to engineering and leadership dot com slash contest. to sign up. So this is something that's going to be open for a few weeks, and it will open when? I've got to check my calendar. Starting Monday the 22nd, and it'll run for about three weeks. So I'll give a couple reminders, but starting Monday, March...

March 22nd 2021 you can enter this contest and like I said it's free all you have to do is go to engineeringandleadership.com slash contest and actually by going to that site you'll get to see which three books I chose. They're really good ones. I talk about them all the time in the show, engineeringandleadership.com slash contest. The next thing I wanted to talk about is, I'm just going to nerd out a little bit. I've got new gear that I'm using.

Now, there's something really important that I think people should know with respect to my podcast and podcasting in general is you don't need much in terms of sophisticated gear. You really don't. But it's an awful lot of fun when you do get gear. So up until this point, all of the gear that I've had has been very low-level stuff. And through the magic of post-production and processing, I've been able to get the sound that I want.

But I've upgraded my mic and my wife got me this awesome Zoom pod track recorder that I'm using. So if things sound a little bit different. that's probably why. And I'd be thrilled to hear what you think of the new sound. So you can leave a comment to the show notes, engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 23. I think it'd be just fantastic to get that feedback.

Maybe you like it. Maybe you don't. Either way, I'd love to hear from you. Feedback like that always, it helps make the show better. And I love hearing from you guys. So engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 23.

Enough of that. Let's move on to the main content for today. Mr. Andrew Hinkleman is a leadership coach and consultant with over 25 years of experience in the tech and financial services industries, spending time in IT, product management, and business intelligence along the way. Eventually, Andrew became the CTO of Parametric, a fintech company recently acquired by Morgan Stanley. Today, Andrew runs the Priority One Group.

a leadership coaching and consulting organization he founded to help ambitious professionals to optimize their teams while building their own personal definitions of success. Here's my conversation with Andrew. Andrew, thank you so very much for joining me on the podcast today. I'm really glad to have you here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Pat. Appreciate it. Right off the top.

I wanted to get into your work as a CTO because I think a lot of people think themselves as being interested in a role like that one day. It's essentially the pinnacle. of a technical person's career, right? That's as high on the technical ladder as you can go. But I don't know that many people really know anyone who's a CTO or have experience at...

in an executive level role. Could you help contextualize that for us and tell us, you know, what does a CTO really do on a day-to-day basis? Yeah, so great question, Pat. One of the things that... You're tasked with not only as you're approaching the CTO role, but definitely day to day is you're really the connection point between the rest of the company. And what that really means is you're the face of IT, you're responsible for the technology or lack thereof.

And so everything that's related to it, whether it's the fact that someone in marketing is using some SaaS tool that you've never heard of and never even knew they were using and they were sharing logins. maybe breaking a policy like that's still your responsibility so whether whatever it is you know someone getting locked out of their desktop um

a business continuity issue, disaster recovery issue, whatever it is, everything comes down to you. So the buck stops with you, ultimately, is... Yep. A lot of accountability there. Right. So... From that perspective, is there any such thing as a typical day in the life of a CTO? Or is it really you don't know what might get thrown at you?

I feel like with all roles and with especially a leadership role, you should be seeking a normal day. So if every day... you've sort of given yourself over to firefighting, chaos, conflict, then I think you have room for improvement within your organization and with your leadership skills. Definitely there's chaos, but there's a lot of meetings. I mean, that's at the end of the day, you're doing the same thing where you're trying to squeeze strategic, you know, goal focused work.

into a day full of whether it's important project or strategy or review meetings or HR policy or, you know, budget meetings, you know, so. There's a lot more meetings. And as I mentioned, the accountability is still there. But I think your goal should always be to have a predictable day. Yeah, and I think that's interesting advice because...

I think that's applicable at all levels in an organization. I think many of us, regardless of whether or not we're currently in leadership roles, maybe we're early career leaders, maybe we're partway through. I think we all succumb to the temptation to, like you said, firefight. So in your experience where, you know, the worst fires would have ended up on your doorstep, what the...

What advice might you give to people in terms of striking that balance? Because, you know, you might not be responsible for a budget. You might not have direct reports. you likely do still have what you would consider your core work, your important work, your thinking work. And then there's everything else, the distractions. How do you balance between the two? What's worked for you?

Yeah, I feel like work is what you're really talking about each day is just constant prioritization. I mean, it's kind of easy to do the things that we're comfortable with. stay in kind of a box where we do the known things. And we can make it look like there's plenty of that, you know, if you like fixing bugs and being left alone. it's kind of possible in most roles to kind of stay in that box. But...

It's not a fun, it's not a growth place. It's not a fun place. It's not a place where you learn more about the company. It's not a place where you're stretching yourself or being challenged. You really have to own your own career progression and seek knowledge. And I think most of us, I find in general, engineers as a group tend to be continuous learners.

And, you know, we all kind of are tuned that way. And so I think that that's a natural thing that most people can kind of fall back on and kind of stay open and curious.

And use that to their advantage in their career. Absolutely. You mentioned something there that I think is interesting is that continuous learning. And it occurs to me that... In a career like your own, where like most of us, we started off in a technical role. I can only assume that continuous learning, professional development were very, very important in terms of your...

career trajectory. Looking back, is there anything else that you look back on and think, you know, they were really critical or crucial in terms of your ability to progress? like I said, the highest level of technical leadership? Well, I'll tell you that even before the CTO role was even coming into focus at all,

I kind of went through a phase, and I think this is fairly common now that I've talked to a lot of people in the coaching work that I do now. I went through a mid-career phase, maybe I'll say around... 35 years old or so i had two young kids at home um i hadn't figured out the the code at work what's the code how do you get things done how do you

How do you really make sure that you're in line for the great projects? I hadn't figured any of that out. And I was frustrated a lot. And what I did do is I realized that... My getting angry, frustrated, maybe having an outburst in a meeting, my personal reactions were having a negative effect on my ability to... build relationships at work, maintain strong relationships, and just otherwise kind of build a strong reputation. And I actually did a lot of personal work.

to kind of rein in a lot of that frustration and you know almost aggression and just start to think about things a little bit differently so And the more personal work that I did on myself, you know, privately, the more that's really the pivot. That's really the point where like my career started to take off. Right. It's so interesting you're mentioning this. The last episode that I recorded was with Dr. Katrina Boruss, who's a world-class expert on...

you're gonna love the turn of phrase, on brilliant jerks, right? Folks who are really incredibly competent technically, but whose emotional intelligence had not kept pace. with that raw technical intelligence, frankly, because there was no real incentive to develop that side of themselves. So she works with a lot of organizations and individuals who...

who find themselves at that impasse. And it sounds like, I'm going to try to put this as delicately as possible here, that you may have been a brilliant jerk at one point. I did. I did go through that for sure, for sure. And the thing that really hit me over the head and kind of opened me up to things was that I had two different roles.

kind of in a role. I mean, they were a few years apart, but where I felt like I had hit a wall. And I kind of had to be honest with myself and look back and say, did this really just happen again? What am I doing? And what I realized was that I had to be honest with myself and make a decision to be all in. Because I really, I wanted to be successful. I mean, I was ambitious. I wanted better roles. I wanted to have a larger impact. And I was, you know, I was kind of hitting barriers.

It's really interesting, the introspection that you had, that... you you bothered to look at what you were doing and and i you know i i i make that that joke about you having been a brilliant jerk a bit tongue-in-cheek because to speak with you now uh you you come across as as very mild-mannered, as very much in control. It's very interesting to see that from that point where you looked at yourself and you weren't thrilled.

with that side of yourself as a professional, the change that you were able to bring about in yourself. I think that's inspirational, frankly. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah.

And the flip side of some of this is that sometimes a company might just be a bad fit. So it's possible that sometimes try as you might. you're not going to figure it out in a certain place. And I think that's something that is a little bit of a bitter pill for most people because you sort of feel like if I work hard, I do my best, I will be rewarded, right? But it's possible that sometimes you're just not in the right place at the right time.

And no matter what you do, you're not going to change the fact that this particular organization or company is not ready for you and your gifts. Right. So that fit is. critical. What kind of things would you look for in terms of trying to make sense of whether or not you're... Because I think we've looked at the importance of looking inward, but looking outward, I think, is important as well and making sense of the world around you.

the culture of the organization, the way it operates. What kind of things would you recommend people really dig into to make sense of whether or not they're in the right place right now? Yeah. And it's going to be it's going to be a unique situation for everyone. But at the at the bottom, let's say at the foundation, you're doing you're doing your best work.

You're trying to learn as much as you can. And you're met with an organization as a culture of maybe information control or lack of sharing. or a very sort of top-down, stay in your lane. kind of organizations. And, you know, despite everything that's gone on over the last year, as far as, you know, inclusion and everything, those organizations are still there.

So when you look around and you go to your manager or your manager's manager and you say, hey, I want to go, I'm going to learn a little bit more about what marketing is doing. You know, I'm really, it's really interesting. And they tell you to go back to your queue. There's a red flag for you. So I think that the more that you get those sort of stay in your lane.

I think that's a real clear red flag for you. The other thing I'll mention is it's important to be in a company that's doing something you're interested in. If you can't bring yourself to be interested and curious about what the product is or what they're actually working on or what's being sold to the marketplace, man, that's an uphill battle. Because you're probably not ever going to get past just doing the tech part of the job. Right, right. That sense of mission has to be there.

Yes. And I think that's such a powerful word. And I wouldn't want anyone to feel like you have to be, you know, super mission driven or anything too much, but it has to be something you're. you're curious about and that you can bring yourself to because that's where the real value is. The more that you can start to connect the dots between the technology work you're doing and the business.

This is exactly where the opportunity lies. That's really interesting. I want to shift gears a little bit. You've used the L word a couple times already, that being leadership. I wanted to dig into this a little bit with you because I think a lot of engineers, particularly new managers, new team leads, don't really fully appreciate what... leadership is or why it's important, even in the very beginning stages, when you're becoming even a mentor to more junior engineers or a team lead.

Could you tell us a little bit about your view of leadership and why it's important for engineers and for technical folks? Such a good question. The key thing that I want to mention about leadership is that... It can be kind of an overused and confusing term for a lot of people. So let's just break it down and call it.

you know um something totally different like let's let's just let's just call it let's just call it people management for the moment because all roads As you go up the ladder, all roads lead towards more and more involvement with people, whether it's relationship building. or modeling behavior for others to see how you should be acting at work or how you communicate. So when we talk about leadership, it's important to know that you're...

If you're getting into management, it's a whole new role. It's not just bleeding in. And I found that the guys that I've promoted into management positions that just.

were so strong and so successful as an engineer, and then they want the larger title, the more money, they get a direct report. The ones that are successful managing people are the ones that... took sort of a curiosity like okay this is new this is different i need i need to pay attention the guys that just kind of whatever don't pay attention to the role change

don't do well right and it and and the reason why is is it's a new you have to treat it like it's a new job i coach i coach a couple people that work at linkedin And they, as an organization, they've done a fantastic job having individual contributor track that goes very, very high in the organization. and deliberately an engineering management role track. And so you can go very high in either one of those. But if you want to go from the IC track to the management track, it is a very deliberate.

switch and you have to be nominated. You have to go through six months of training and they dotted line people to you at first. So taking the people management part seriously is very important. Absolutely. And that's really interesting what LinkedIn is doing. And I'm glad you shared that. I've been part of organizations in the past who on paper...

had parallel tracks, technical individual contributor track and a management track. And in theory, there were corresponding levels of seniority in both tracks. Right up to on the technical side, you become a fellow or a fellow expert or a senior. You really could get up to essentially what would have been a vice presidential level role, but it'd be technical.

Now, I say all that was on paper because I never really actually saw it materialize. So it's very exciting to me that a company like LinkedIn is... progressive enough to realize that engineering and management are in fact different roles. I think that gets lost in a lot of organizations and a great engineer. does not necessarily translate well into a great manager right i think that technical chops are necessary but not sufficient right so that that's really really cool that that is

part of the program at LinkedIn. Do you have any insight at all into the kinds of things that get thrown at individual contributors in that six-month period as they're bridging the gap over to management? What kind of things? Might they might they teach? So they go into it's almost the equivalent of like an internship, but they go through a deliberate program where.

They they're kind of given training. And so they basically what they're doing is it's maybe like two hours a day deliberately of training. So they go through, you know. The fundamentals, you know, it's like Management 101, the fundamentals around what does it mean to manage people, the one-on-ones, the discussions with people, how to develop people.

goal setting, those kinds of things. But what they're really getting you towards is how do you deal with difficult conversations on the one hand and, and developing people on the other hand. And those are art forms, right? And it's not just difficult for engineers. It's difficult for everyone. So if someone comes up as, let's say,

you know, they got their MBA or they're in marketing or whatever, and they want to be a manager. I mean, it's hard for, it's hard for anyone to become a good manager. Especially if, especially if you are.

used to being very good at what you do your your technical role when and like you said marketing could be a very analytical very technical role or or even the the creative side of something like marketing or advertising it's still it's still this uh deep narrow field where you you're an absolute pro and to move into something totally different

Which management is totally different. Yeah, it could be a shock to the system. That's really interesting to hear you say that. What other kinds of problems do you see? I mentioned off the top of the show that you coach people now. What kinds of problems do you see in terms of people? trying but not necessarily succeeding in making that transition. One of the things that is a recurring theme is... that people that are especially in the larger organizations they have a very sort of us and them

view into the technical roles versus the business roles. And really, it's kind of technical roles and everyone else. So, you know, we're here. You know, the intellect is in this side of the building and then everyone else is over there on the other side. And as people grow in their roles. that's just not acceptable. And that's the only way I can say it. Because unless you're in a real tiny startup where everyone's doing everything and you're sitting right next to...

Someone that's in sales, let's say. That's an exception because you're all kind of working together. But as soon as you get to like maybe 30 people in your company and on up. the lines start getting drawn, even if it's kind of subconscious. So the people that are ready to move up and do more are the ones that are learning the business. And and happens over and over and over again. You know, I could ask, you know, I could almost predict if I talk to someone who's.

a senior software engineer and is somewhere around 33 years old, they are not going to know that much about how their company operates in the niche they're in, in the marketplace, in the industry. and how their company sells whatever they sell. If I talk to someone who's 45 and has either a director or VP in their title, they know. And they're expected to know at that level. So learning and understanding the business is such a huge untapped.

resource for an engineer to use to propel their career forward. So let's say I'm in the early to mid stage in my career. I'm late 20s, I'm early 30s, and I realize, man, I don't necessarily know ultimately what goes on upstairs. I don't know how this company operates. And I want to learn what kinds of things would you recommend I try to do so that I can immerse myself in this new world I'm interested in? Yeah, well, I think the starting point...

is to realize that just to build on what I said earlier, just to realize that it might be optional at the level you're at right now. But if you're going to be successful later on. Knowing the business and industry, it's table stakes. It's required. You don't get those other roles without knowing that your industry and how things like data. or how customers operate within there. But for the person who's, as you described, Pat, is maybe late 20s, early 30s, and they're starting to get curious.

The great thing about what most of us do at that stage is we're probably working on projects. We're doing things that impact the business folks. So you're, you know, whether it's, you know, smoke testing or some sort of you're building, you know, there's a use case you have a question about. You're interacting with either a product manager or some sort of stakeholder that knows a little bit more about the business and how it operates. Ask more questions.

you know, broaden your, broaden that relationship a little bit, ask better questions, ask more questions, not just does it work now? Did I fix it? But like, how do you use it? Right. Right. So that's what that's my that's my super practical advice. Start where you are. Ask more questions. Right. Because at that level, like you said, you should be closer to to that interface.

With the business. And for those of you listening, if there are product managers in your organizations, that's a great spot to be. In a former life, I was a product manager. And it was, to me, the nexus between... engineering, marketing, and strategy. And I got to see an awful lot of the business from that perspective. That was a really, really cool spot to be. So I like that quite a bit.

I did want to ask one more question here about aspiring leaders, about, you know, what... What advice would you give someone who's thinking about wanting to move into a leadership role or a management role? I know you just gave the advice about learning about the business, but what about folks who... maybe aren't even quite there yet. What kinds of things can they do to set themselves up for success in the long run? Yeah, absolutely. So for someone who's maybe earlier in their career,

Absolutely. You have to build your technical foundation. So there's no question about that. And if... You want to do more. Just know that you're in the phase of your career where you're building your reputation. And that matters the most among your immediate team and in IT. Keep building that foundation, but know there's more to come. So, you know, that technical foundation, you absolutely need it.

But it's something that you can rely on and build on in the future. And as I talked about, the learning business is a good piece of that. The biggest thing, though, also is just building relationships. And it sounds a little simplistic, but you have something built in to talk about. If you work at the same company, it's kind of easy to make conversations with people about the company.

Just get to know as many different people as possible because the thing that people maybe don't understand is when you get into these upper levels, you're talking about people all the time. Like managers and managers talk to other managers all the time and they're almost always talking about people. How's Pat doing on that project? I know, you know, the last project was kind of rough.

Oh, he's doing great this time. Everything's, you know, you know, figured some things out. Oh, good. Okay. You know, it's always people talking about people. So build those relationships.

Yeah, and certainly that's my experience too. That's great. Good to hear that validated. Listen, Andrew, this has been an absolute blast. I really have appreciated the time, the insight, the advice. If people would like to get to know you better or learn more about your work or wanted to reach out to potentially work with you, where's the best place for them to go?

I'm easy to find on LinkedIn. I am on there quite frequently throughout the day. And so I'd say LinkedIn is probably the best place. You can just search me. There's not too many Andrew Hinklemans out there. But in my work doing executive coaching and leadership coaching, the key there is... A perfect fit for someone to work with me is someone who is not afraid of being ambitious and wanting to go do something and figure something out.

If someone wants to go get this, you know, cool new job, great title, go make more money, you know, that's a perfect fit for me. We hit it hard. We work together weekly for a few weeks, and then we start to see how things are going for you. And over the course of, say, three months. You know, I'm your I'm your partner. I'm your I'm there on your side, you know, the whole way through. So I take I take a lot of personal interest in people and making sure that they're successful.

So definitely reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I'd love to hear people, even if they're just curious. Yeah, absolutely. That's great. And obviously, based on our conversations, you've got... A ton of value to provide, a ton of experience to draw on. So I would say anyone who's interested should absolutely reach out.

I'll be putting links in the show notes, both to your LinkedIn profile, your website as well. So again, Andrew, thank you very, very much. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Pat. It was fun.

Thanks once again, Andrew. As always, I really, really enjoyed that conversation. Lots to learn. Lots of really interesting stuff. What was interesting to me, I think... more than anything else, is the common themes that came out. Common themes, particularly in light of the last episode on managing brilliant jerks. And something I should point out, I realize I...

called Andrew a brilliant jerk during the show, which in retrospect is maybe a bit of a career-limiting move as a podcaster. Now, you should know I discussed this with Andrew at the end of the show, and he had no qualms with that characterization. We had a good laugh about it. And luckily, Andrew's not a jerk anymore. So that's good to see that he made progress in his career journey.

In fact, listen, I really, really like Andrew. Like I said, I really enjoyed the conversation. And I think there's a lot we can learn from his experience, his expertise, and frankly, from the fact that at one time... emotional intelligence was not a strength of his, that This is something that he grew into, he developed, and he got better at. And I think truthfully that there's a lot more to learn from folks who struggled in one regard or another.

who overcame those struggles. The people who inspire us, the people who have achieved what we want to achieve, had struggles along the way. They're not Superman or Superwoman. They are real people who took time throughout their whole careers to develop and end up where they are. So don't ever despair if you feel like you are not. currently where you want to be where you need to be that's okay as long as you're making progress and i really think andrew's story is a testament to that

If you'd like to learn more about Andrew and his work, I'll link to his website and LinkedIn profile on the show notes. Again, engineeringandlaceship.com slash episode 23. All the details will be there. But now... We will turn our attention to the Engineering and Leadership mailbag.

This, my friends, of course, is the part of the show where I read your messages and answer your questions. I promise to read absolutely everything you send me and I promise to share my favorites here on the podcast. I wanted to thank Fatima. Amara from the United Kingdom for her recent review of the show, which is excellent to see on iTunes. She gave it five stars. So thank you, Fatima. She said, it's really useful and straightforward. Thank you so much for the incredible episodes. So you are...

Most very welcome. I really appreciate that. Wayne Engelbrecht left a comment on the show notes for the last episode. That was episode 22 with Dr. Katrina Boruss. And he had some interesting commentary. He said... Found this interesting. Think the first hurdle is getting brilliant jerks to realize their emotional intelligence needs improving. To consider culture, but also to think to be straight with someone on the issue.

What Wayne is getting at here is, A, that he liked the whole concept about brilliant jerks. But what he's pointing out here is that wanting to improve is fine and good, but you have to... know you need to improve. And often what that means is either, you know, having a stroke of genius and insight into your own life, which frankly is rare.

More than likely, it requires someone providing you feedback, someone having the courage to provide that feedback. And without feedback, without understanding that you've got a problem, it's incredibly difficult to begin that process. of improvement. So this is something that I would call on all of us to try to learn, to try to get better at providing feedback to our staff, to our colleagues, to our managers, to...

encourage a culture of giving direct feedback. And that's not easy, but it's critical to any organization that really wants to improve over time, right? You cannot improve without that feedback. So thank you very much, Wayne. I really appreciate the commentary there. And last but not least, I wanted to offer my congratulations to Thomas Anderson, who's a professional engineer. connected with on LinkedIn for quite a while. Our paths have crossed a number of times.

Thomas just released the audio version of his book called Engineering Your Career, A Complete Guide to Landing a Job in Engineering. I'll be putting a link to that in the show notes. Since you're listening to this podcast right now, you may well enjoy an audio book. Thomas's work is fantastic, very highly recommended. So again, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Just a quick reminder that if you would like to be on the show,

you can leave me a voicemail and have your voice end up here on the podcast. Just go to engineeringandleadership.com contact. Let me know what you thought of today's show, what you liked, what you didn't like, any comments or questions. just let me know. It'd be awesome to be able to share that, share your thoughts here on the show. Again, engineeringandleadership.com contact.

That my friends is all the time we have for the show today. Thank you once again to Andrew for joining me on the show today. An excellent conversation, excellent advice. Thank you so very much. I'll be back this time next week with a new episode. If you enjoyed the show, it would be just fantastic if you would leave a review on whatever podcast service you happen to be using.

I'd like to do something a little bit different this week. I often ask for reviews because it's helpful to me to get that feedback. But let's do something a little bit different. I would love to know... what was the most interesting thing you heard in today's show? And use that, leave that as feedback on iTunes or Spotify, wherever you happen to be listening to the show.

If you do that, I will absolutely feature you on the mailbag. And like I always say, this helps me get better. This helps other people find the show. It's really, really, really helpful. So for those of you who do leave reviews, thank you so very much. And again, don't forget about the Leaders Are Readers contest.

Go to engineeringandleadership.com slash contest to join. Again, it's completely free and just a fun way to share a little bit about what I like and what's on my library shelf and to grow as engineers and leaders. For more information and links to the resources that I mentioned here on the show today, you can go to the show notes at engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 23.

Feel free to explore the rest of the site where I've got lots of free resources, other podcast episodes, blog posts. There's a ton of free stuff there. So again, engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 23. Until next time. This is Pat Sweet reminding you that if you're going to be anything, be excellent.

You've been listening to the Engineering and Leadership Podcast with Pat Sweet. If you'd like to learn more, go to engineeringandleadership.com where you'll find more free articles, podcasts, and downloads to help engineers thrive. That's engineeringandleadership.com.