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Leitura de 25 min

Scott & Mark Learn To… Influence Without Authority

Summary

Neste episódio, Scott Hanselman e Mark Russinovich (CTO do Azure) exploram a arte de influenciar sem autoridade direta. Scott inicia defendendo que líderes devem proteger suas equipes quando elas “irritam as pessoas certas” ao advogar por clientes, mesmo que isso signifique receber feedback negativo sobre o tom - o que ele chama de usar “privilégio de nível” para escudar a equipe. Mark, por sua vez, explica que mesmo ocupando um cargo de CTO, ele não pode simplesmente ordenar mudanças; compartilha como aprendeu isso na Winternals, sua empresa anterior, onde percebeu que autoridade hierárquica não garante resultados. A conversa evolui para estratégias práticas: construir capital de confiança ao longo do tempo, identificar “gaps” (lacunas) onde ninguém é responsável por problemas importantes, e a diferença crucial entre o urgente e o importante na alocação de recursos. Ambos concordam que influência efetiva reém “vender a visão”, entender profundamente a stack técnica (ir um nível abaixo da zona de conforto) e evitar silos - desenvolvendo o que chamam de perfil “T-shaped”, onde se tem profundidade técnica mas também visão sistêmica do produto e da experiência do cliente.

Recommendations

Books

  • Hit Refresh (Satya Nadella) — Livro mencionado indiretamente quando discutem os princípios de liderança de Satya: criar clareza, gerar energia e entregar resultados.
  • Windows Internals — Série de livros técnica sobre o funcionamento interno do Windows, mencionada por Mark como exemplo de como ele aprendeu a ir fundo em sistemas para poder ensinar e influenciar engenheiros.

Tools / Software

  • WinDBG — Ferramenta de debugging avançada do Windows mencionada como exemplo de ir um nível abaixo na stack técnica para entender dumps de memória e problemas complexos.

Articles / Links

  • Hacker News — Site mencionado como fonte que Satya Nadella e outros líderes da Microsoft acompanham para encontrar artigos técnicos e discussões sobre cloud native computing e aceleradores de IA.

Topic Timeline

  • [00:00] — Scott defende que líderes devem proteger funcionários que defendem clientes, mesmo que isso cause problemas duas vezes ao ano - usando seu ‘privilégio de nível’ para escudar a equipe.
  • [00:20] — Início formal do podcast com a vinheta, após uma conversa prévia sobre o tema que acaba sendo mantida no corte final.
  • [00:30] — Mark explica que mesmo como CTO do Azure, ele não pode simplesmente mandar nas pessoas - autoridade direta nem sempre funciona.
  • [01:00] — Mark compartilha experiência na Winternals (sua empresa de 1996-2006), onde percebeu que ter autoridade total não era forma eficaz de liderança comparado à influência.
  • [01:30] — Discussão sobre metáforas de liderança: pastorear gatos (cat herding) versus virar um navio gigante (a Microsoft).
  • [02:00] — Mark explica como construiu capital de influência ao longo dos anos no Azure através de confiança e histórico de bons resultados.
  • [02:30] — Scott fala sobre a frustração de achar que ‘alguém deveria fazer algo’ e como seu chefe Scott Hunter o lembrou que agora ele é esse ‘alguém’.
  • [03:00] — Estratégia de identificar ‘gaps’ - áreas importantes onde ninguém tem responsabilidade direta - e convencer pessoas a repriorizarem seu trabalho.
  • [04:00] — Debate sobre a tensão entre o urgente (casa pegando fogo) versus o importante, e como só perseguir urgências faz com que importantes se tornem urgentes depois.
  • [06:00] — Mark defende a importância de ir um nível mais fundo na stack técnica do que sua função exige, para realmente entender limitações e requisitos.
  • [07:00] — Exemplo de Satya Nadella enviando emails sobre artigos técnicos do Hacker News e Medium, demonstrando como líderes de alto escalão mantêm conexão com detalhes técnicos.
  • [08:00] — Discussão sobre evitar silos e desenvolver pensamento sistêmico (T-shaped skills), entendendo como seu componente se encaixa na experiência completa do cliente.
  • [09:00] — Conclusão sobre como influenciar sem autoridade: entender o contexto técnico profundo, ter empatia com cliente, e usar product-led growth para argumentar mudanças.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Scott & Mark Learn To…
  • Author: Microsoft
  • Category: Technology / Education / How To / Business / Careers
  • Published: 2024-10-16
  • Duration: 0h18m

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] I’ve always said, for the last 15 years at Microsoft,

[00:00:02] if you don’t get in trouble twice a year

[00:00:05] for advocating for the customer,

[00:00:07] for doing something that you feel strongly about,

[00:00:10] then you’re not pushing hard enough.

[00:00:12] Now that comes from a place of level privilege,

[00:00:14] but I can shield my team by using my level privilege.

[00:00:18] So like if I came to you, Mark,

[00:00:19] we’ll just pick a random person on your team.

[00:00:21] Let’s say Fred, I made that name up.

[00:00:22] I call you and I say,

[00:00:23] Mark, I was in a meeting with Fred and he was so crisp

[00:00:27] and he was so strong and aggressive

[00:00:29] and you would say, oh, wow.

[00:00:30] So Fred was really advocating for the customer

[00:00:32] and trying to do what he felt was right.

[00:00:34] Well, yeah, but I didn’t like his tone.

[00:00:36] And then you’ll take that feedback

[00:00:37] and you’ll put it in the round file,

[00:00:39] which is the trash can,

[00:00:40] and you’ll go to Fred and you’ll say,

[00:00:42] hey, Hanselman thought you were a little crisp

[00:00:44] in the meeting, good job.

[00:00:47] You’re pissing off the right people.

[00:00:49] Keep advocating for the customer, right?

[00:00:50] And that’s how things get done.

[00:00:54] That’s my opinion.

[00:00:55] So I’ve been trying to get the team to get,

[00:00:57] to let them know that I will back them up

[00:00:59] if they bother a few people with their advocacy.

[00:01:02] Is that a reasonable thing to do as a leader?

[00:01:04] I think so.

[00:01:05] It comes with balance, right?

[00:01:06] I mean, there have been people

[00:01:08] that advocate for the customer,

[00:01:09] but they come across as acerbic.

[00:01:11] Acerbic?

[00:01:12] And they end up irritating people constantly.

[00:01:16] So you got to figure out where the line is.

[00:01:18] That’s a great point.

[00:01:19] So I want to learn how to influence people

[00:01:21] without authority.

[00:01:23] You are the CTO of Azure.

[00:01:25] I assumed that when you, what’s that?

[00:01:28] Do we start?

[00:01:30] Yeah, we’re starting.

[00:01:30] This is the show.

[00:01:31] And even this part right now where I just said,

[00:01:33] did we start?

[00:01:34] This is the show.

[00:01:35] That’s staying in the show.

[00:01:36] It’s in the show.

[00:01:36] All right.

[00:01:37] That’s how this podcast rolls.

[00:01:38] This is Mark and Scott.

[00:01:39] I thought you were having a pre-show discussion.

[00:01:40] No, there’s no pre-show.

[00:01:42] So what we do, even this,

[00:01:44] this is a meta thing,

[00:01:45] referring back to the meta thing.

[00:01:46] It’s still in the show.

[00:01:48] What’s going to happen in a second

[00:01:49] is they’re going to play the music

[00:01:51] when I say, I’m Scott Hanselman

[00:01:53] and I want to learn how to influence without authority.

[00:01:57] You hear that?

[00:01:58] The music.

[00:01:59] Da da da da.

[00:02:00] And now we’re back from the music part.

[00:02:09] You’re the CTO of Azure.

[00:02:10] Can’t you just tell people what to do?

[00:02:13] Okay, yeah.

[00:02:14] I can.

[00:02:15] It doesn’t always work though.

[00:02:17] Why can’t you just make a meeting and then tell them?

[00:02:19] You know, I realized this

[00:02:21] when I had my own software company.

[00:02:22] I started a company called Winternals in 1996.

[00:02:26] That sold to Microsoft in 2006.

[00:02:28] I was the chief software architect and co-founder.

[00:02:30] I had the ultimate authority.

[00:02:32] And I realized even then,

[00:02:34] telling people what to do

[00:02:36] is not a good way to get them to do

[00:02:37] what you want them to do.

[00:02:39] And so even then, when I had authority,

[00:02:42] you can’t just use authority to lead people.

[00:02:45] You’ve got to use influence.

[00:02:47] Of course, now I’m in a role

[00:02:49] where I don’t have direct authority

[00:02:51] over most of what I’m trying to do.

[00:02:53] And I’ve got to use that influence more.

[00:02:55] But even when I was at Winternals,

[00:02:57] I realized you’ve got to sell people.

[00:02:59] You’ve got to sell people on the vision

[00:03:00] and why it matters and get them motivated

[00:03:03] to care about it,

[00:03:05] to get them to do things that you want them to do.

[00:03:08] Yeah.

[00:03:08] Satya, so here we are selling Satya’s book,

[00:03:11] has that whole create clarity,

[00:03:12] generate energy, deliver results.

[00:03:14] Yeah.

[00:03:15] I feel like it’s sheep herding

[00:03:18] or like that old classic Super Bowl commercial

[00:03:20] where they herd the cats.

[00:03:21] Hey, you can push all the cats and cat herding.

[00:03:24] You’re really just trying to say,

[00:03:25] hey everyone, there’s good stuff over there.

[00:03:27] Let’s head in that direction.

[00:03:28] Here’s kind of the vision.

[00:03:30] It’s on the other side of that hill.

[00:03:31] And it’s never going to be a clean line

[00:03:33] where we all march like Hannibal directly into war.

[00:03:37] But if we can get most of the cats

[00:03:39] in that general direction.

[00:03:41] Or in the case of Microsoft,

[00:03:42] it’s the ship turned is the way you refer to it.

[00:03:46] It’s a ship full of cats.

[00:03:47] Yeah.

[00:03:48] We’re mixing metaphors.

[00:03:49] Yeah, it’s a big ship and it turns very slowly.

[00:03:51] When you got that role in that title,

[00:03:54] you didn’t have any illusions

[00:03:55] that you were going to start bonking heads

[00:03:56] and telling people that we’re turning.

[00:03:58] And then you do like a tron 90 degree turn

[00:04:01] in a giant ship.

[00:04:02] No, definitely not.

[00:04:04] And the way that certainly in this position that I’m in,

[00:04:06] which is a lot just influence,

[00:04:09] I’m able to influence and my ability to influence

[00:04:13] has generally grown over the time

[00:04:14] that I’ve been in Azure since 2010.

[00:04:17] And that’s based off of building trust.

[00:04:20] You know, you’re helping people.

[00:04:22] You’ve got a track record of getting people to do something

[00:04:25] and actually it proves to be good outcomes come from that

[00:04:29] that builds capital that then helps you influence.

[00:04:32] So like when you go say something,

[00:04:33] they’re like, oh, this person’s coming to say something

[00:04:36] or they’re warning or they’re pointing

[00:04:38] at this direction we should go.

[00:04:39] And I’m going to give that a lot of weight

[00:04:41] because their history of generally being right

[00:04:44] about these things.

[00:04:46] And even then you still have to,

[00:04:48] here’s why, here’s why it matters.

[00:04:50] You ever feel like that?

[00:04:51] Why should anyone listen to this guy?

[00:04:53] Do you go into meetings or do you always,

[00:04:55] how do you carry yourself with that?

[00:04:56] Like, yeah, people should listen to me.

[00:04:57] I know things.

[00:04:58] Well, you’ve been in meetings with me.

[00:05:00] In fact, we’ve got regular meetings now.

[00:05:02] I go into meetings with you and you announce,

[00:05:04] do you know who I think I am?

[00:05:07] That’s just meetings with you one-on-one.

[00:05:10] You just mean to me in meetings, man.

[00:05:12] You’re the worst in meetings.

[00:05:14] Especially when you don’t respond to me

[00:05:15] immediately on Teams.

[00:05:17] Yeah, that’s true.

[00:05:18] I do try to annoy you.

[00:05:19] That goes into the round file as well.

[00:05:21] But like, I just, when I am at my most frustrated,

[00:05:25] I’m like, someone should do something.

[00:05:28] And Scott Hunter, my boss,

[00:05:30] when I got the title VP a year ago,

[00:05:33] I would go and complain to him and he said,

[00:05:35] someone should do something.

[00:05:36] And he said, yeah, someone should.

[00:05:40] Like, that’s literally you now.

[00:05:42] Actually, that’s the message Saatchi gives it

[00:05:44] to the exec staff at Microsoft is,

[00:05:47] your job is not to complain.

[00:05:48] Your job is to go fix your complaints yourself.

[00:05:52] The buck stops with you, is what he tells us.

[00:05:55] If you’re not gonna fix it, nobody is.

[00:05:57] Yeah, there’s a natural reaction though.

[00:05:59] Like, I think it’s normal.

[00:06:00] Tell me that I’m not the only one

[00:06:01] who’s childlike in my,

[00:06:03] but someone should do something.

[00:06:05] And then you go and you appeal to higher authority

[00:06:07] and then maybe they have a bigger hammer.

[00:06:09] Maybe there’s a bigger Thor with a bigger hammer.

[00:06:11] Or are you such an enlightened and mature individual

[00:06:14] that you recognize that there’s no one else?

[00:06:16] You’ll go call Kevin Scott

[00:06:17] and tell him to bring a hammer?

[00:06:19] It’s certainly not like, wow,

[00:06:21] these people are just completely ignoring.

[00:06:23] It’s more like the most of the time when you,

[00:06:25] when I’ll call on Scott or the engineering leaders,

[00:06:28] this very seniorly engineering leadership,

[00:06:30] it’s more like the org itself

[00:06:33] hasn’t been given the priority.

[00:06:35] Or it’s a priority,

[00:06:36] but there’s no accountable person or organization

[00:06:40] to make it happen.

[00:06:42] And that means that nobody feels accountable for it.

[00:06:46] They’ll all agree it’s important, but nothing gets done.

[00:06:48] And that’s generally when I’ll have to go talk

[00:06:50] to the engineering leaders and say,

[00:06:52] we’ve got a gap here on driving this thing.

[00:06:55] Yeah, the gap thing has been really interesting to me.

[00:06:59] I have found a couple of interesting gaps

[00:07:02] that aren’t my job.

[00:07:04] They’re explicitly not my job.

[00:07:05] Like I’m interested in ARM

[00:07:06] and the shift from X64 to alternative processing.

[00:07:11] And ARM is really attractive,

[00:07:12] both in the cloud and also on desktops.

[00:07:14] And I’m noticing some ecosystem gaps,

[00:07:16] some open source gaps and stuff like that.

[00:07:18] But it appears that in some instances,

[00:07:20] it’s not anyone’s job.

[00:07:22] So then when I complain about it,

[00:07:24] what I’m really complaining about is like,

[00:07:26] there either is someone out there whose job it is,

[00:07:28] or it doesn’t exist as a job.

[00:07:30] And then when you go and try to get people

[00:07:32] to do what you want them to do,

[00:07:34] they’re like, I have stuff to do.

[00:07:35] Like I have no more extra days

[00:07:37] to do the thing you think is important.

[00:07:40] That’s where things get uncomfortable for me.

[00:07:42] Unfortunately, what I do in the influence

[00:07:44] of finding a gap like that where nobody’s doing it

[00:07:47] is having the ability to convince people,

[00:07:50] this really is important enough for you

[00:07:51] to go and reprioritize what you’re doing.

[00:07:54] And a lot of times I don’t have to just get

[00:07:56] into the exactly what are you doing?

[00:07:58] Let me see the list.

[00:07:59] And naturally they’ll do that themselves.

[00:08:02] And there are occasions,

[00:08:03] like I was talking about just a second ago,

[00:08:05] where there is something that’s a priority,

[00:08:07] but nobody can reprioritize what they’re doing

[00:08:10] to make room for it.

[00:08:12] And that’s where you need the people

[00:08:13] that own the resources to say,

[00:08:15] I’m gonna reallocate now to get this done.

[00:08:18] Yeah, the problem is that there’s always a way

[00:08:20] to say that something is more important,

[00:08:23] like security things or the house is on fire.

[00:08:26] It’s like, hey, I don’t like the color of this carpet.

[00:08:27] Yeah, but the house is on fire.

[00:08:29] That kind of stuff is always challenging

[00:08:31] because then you get into those,

[00:08:32] if you had 100 on?

[00:08:35] Yeah, and this is the whole important versus urgent.

[00:08:37] If you only chase the urgent things,

[00:08:39] the important things never get done

[00:08:41] and they end up becoming urgent.

[00:08:42] And that’s a risk always.

[00:08:44] And this is like the art of resource allocation

[00:08:48] because there’s always way too many things

[00:08:49] that are important for you to do.

[00:08:51] And there’s also a set of urgent things

[00:08:53] that if you don’t do them,

[00:08:54] you’re not gonna be able to do anything eventually.

[00:08:56] But that’s your own personal resource allocation.

[00:08:58] How much time do you have?

[00:08:59] And then your own team.

[00:09:00] And ultimately there’s always a cut line, isn’t there?

[00:09:03] There’s always a,

[00:09:05] where we’re just not gonna be able to do that.

[00:09:07] That’s not a thing we’re doing.

[00:09:09] That’s tough.

[00:09:10] I wanna figure out the balance

[00:09:12] because there’s this hierarchy

[00:09:14] and big companies in capitalism build these hierarchies

[00:09:18] of your bosses and your skip bosses and stuff like that.

[00:09:21] And you wanna empower people

[00:09:23] to make decisions on their own.

[00:09:25] You wanna give them clear priorities,

[00:09:29] but then you’re not really sure

[00:09:30] what we should be working on.

[00:09:31] And then it makes me wonder what Satya

[00:09:34] and what a CEO of a company

[00:09:36] of hundreds of thousands of people does.

[00:09:38] Does he give three bullets?

[00:09:40] And that’s our priorities.

[00:09:41] And then the next people give three bullets

[00:09:42] and it gets more and more and more granular

[00:09:44] all the way down.

[00:09:45] I probably shouldn’t call him and say,

[00:09:47] move the task bar to the left.

[00:09:49] That’s the thing we need to be working on right now

[00:09:50] is make it so the task bar can go to the left.

[00:09:52] Yeah, Scott Guthrie.

[00:09:54] He’ll tell you to do that, right?

[00:09:55] Call Guthrie.

[00:09:56] And then it rolls downhill

[00:09:58] and then I’ll end up doing it.

[00:09:59] Guthrie will just look at your thing and go,

[00:10:01] the task bar needs to be three pixels to the left.

[00:10:03] Oh, God.

[00:10:04] He gets that involved in aesthetics.

[00:10:07] So that’s funny.

[00:10:08] That’s a funny example, actually.

[00:10:10] I used to hang out with Guthrie

[00:10:11] when we did ASP.NET MVC,

[00:10:14] early days of open source and .NET.

[00:10:16] And he was already a general manager,

[00:10:18] but he would still have an attention to detail

[00:10:20] where we talk about,

[00:10:21] are we doing KNRC curly braces?

[00:10:24] Or are we doing them like,

[00:10:25] that was a detail oriented thing.

[00:10:27] How deep do you get?

[00:10:28] Because I’ve seen you get stupid deep,

[00:10:31] stupid with two O’s.

[00:10:33] Do you just do that because you enjoy it?

[00:10:34] Like you don’t need to like reach nine deep

[00:10:37] into the org and start telling people what to do,

[00:10:39] but it’s enjoyable sometimes.

[00:10:40] I do it because I think it’s important

[00:10:43] to understand a few levels deeper

[00:10:45] than the one you’re operating at.

[00:10:47] And I always felt this, for example,

[00:10:48] when I was learning Windows internals

[00:10:52] and then teaching Windows

[00:10:53] and getting into new areas that I wanted to talk about

[00:10:56] or write an article about it

[00:10:58] or write a chapter in the internals book,

[00:11:00] I felt I had to go one,

[00:11:02] at least one level deeper

[00:11:04] than what I was going to write about or talk about.

[00:11:07] Because if I didn’t,

[00:11:08] I wasn’t sure if I was really correct

[00:11:11] and accurate and complete.

[00:11:13] And I also needed to go to that level of depth

[00:11:16] so that I could process it

[00:11:17] and then abstract it for people.

[00:11:20] If you’re not doing that,

[00:11:21] then you’re just kind of regurgitating things

[00:11:23] and don’t really have a true deep understanding.

[00:11:25] And I think that’s why you see me

[00:11:27] in these meetings go deep

[00:11:29] is so that I can learn something underneath

[00:11:33] that can help me put in the,

[00:11:35] understand at the level that I’m operating and care about,

[00:11:40] what are the constraints and requirements

[00:11:42] and how things really work underneath that.

[00:11:44] Yeah, that’s a really good thing.

[00:11:46] That’s a takeaway for folks that are listening.

[00:11:49] If you want to learn how to do stuff,

[00:11:51] I say that a lot,

[00:11:52] you and I have been bouncing that idea of learn,

[00:11:54] find your comfort zone, find where you are,

[00:11:56] and then get uncomfortable by going one layer deep,

[00:11:58] one layer deep in the call stack, right?

[00:12:01] If you have been a C-Sharp programmer for years

[00:12:03] and you’ve never programmed without a garbage collector,

[00:12:05] try without a garbage collector.

[00:12:07] Never opened up WinDBG, Windbag, and take a dump.

[00:12:12] And take that dump and debug it.

[00:12:15] You know what I mean?

[00:12:16] I can’t believe you just said that.

[00:12:17] But you know what I’m saying?

[00:12:18] Go one level below.

[00:12:19] It’s got WinDBG.

[00:12:20] You’ve just shown your naivete.

[00:12:22] Oh, pardon me.

[00:12:23] How do you say?

[00:12:24] Is it WinDBG or Windbag?

[00:12:25] It’s Windbag.

[00:12:28] It’s so funny.

[00:12:30] David Fowler has been trying to get Nougat.

[00:12:33] He wants me to say Nouget,

[00:12:35] and then like the Nougat packages are nutcakes.

[00:12:39] And it’s so funny to try to influence people.

[00:12:42] Speaking of influencing,

[00:12:42] what are the thoughts?

[00:12:43] Is he trying to say Nougat?

[00:12:44] Is that for real?

[00:12:46] Like he wants?

[00:12:46] No, it’s like saying Targe,

[00:12:48] like I’m going to Targe or Jacqueline Pinet.

[00:12:50] It makes it sound fancier.

[00:12:52] But like-

[00:12:53] I like that.

[00:12:54] I’ve never heard that.

[00:12:55] Nougat.

[00:12:55] Yeah?

[00:12:56] I’ve been trying to get people to shush

[00:12:57] into production.

[00:12:58] Yeah.

[00:12:59] That can be a thing.

[00:13:00] It can be a thing.

[00:13:01] I tried it for a while.

[00:13:01] It didn’t stick.

[00:13:03] Nobody was shushing into production.

[00:13:05] Sometimes people Hanselman into production.

[00:13:07] I used to remote desktop directly into production machines

[00:13:11] and they call it Hanselman because it was a bad idea.

[00:13:14] But yeah, like Scott Hunter, my boss,

[00:13:16] and Amanda Silver runs all of the studio.

[00:13:20] She’s a compiler nerd.

[00:13:21] So you’ll catch her in VS

[00:13:24] and you’re coding every week.

[00:13:26] I wonder, like does Satya ever crack open stuff?

[00:13:30] Like wonder what the Satya or the CEO equivalent

[00:13:32] of going one level below your comfort zone is.

[00:13:34] What I see him do, it is fascinating,

[00:13:36] is every now and then on a pretty frequent basis,

[00:13:41] I’ll get an email from him with some other people on it.

[00:13:43] It’ll be like Satya coming across a technical article

[00:13:46] or a blog post on some aspect of cloud native computing

[00:13:50] or AI accelerators or whatever.

[00:13:52] And he’ll say, this is really interesting,

[00:13:54] this point that they make here.

[00:13:55] In fact, there was just one a few days ago.

[00:13:57] I’m like, or a hacker news thread.

[00:13:59] I’m like, how has Satya have time to go reading

[00:14:02] hacker news in these blog posts on Medium?

[00:14:05] And then, but he does.

[00:14:07] Yeah, Scott Hunter does this thing.

[00:14:10] We call it Hunter-Driven Development

[00:14:12] where he’ll find gaps in the product

[00:14:14] because he’ll force himself to do a keynote.

[00:14:16] And then the night before in the hotel,

[00:14:18] he’ll find a gap or something.

[00:14:19] And then it’s like, okay,

[00:14:21] it’s like if you’ve got a muscle that’s not,

[00:14:23] that’s kind of tight and he’s just pushing on it

[00:14:26] and he doesn’t tell you, ah, I found the knot.

[00:14:27] And then he starts pushing on the knot

[00:14:28] and that product knot makes a better product

[00:14:31] because our leader went one layer deeper.

[00:14:33] Well, actually, this is a great example

[00:14:35] of I think something that I try to encourage people to do

[00:14:38] and it’s really important as,

[00:14:40] and I saw this in Windows when I’d come to Microsoft

[00:14:43] with Dave Solomon to teach Windows internals

[00:14:45] is I’m not the world’s expert on,

[00:14:48] for example, the registry for even one back then.

[00:14:52] I was, because there was always the guy

[00:14:55] that made the registry or owned that component.

[00:14:57] That’s the world’s expert.

[00:14:59] But what I found was that the registry guy or girl

[00:15:04] knew the registry,

[00:15:05] but didn’t know anything about memory management

[00:15:07] or didn’t know anything about thread scheduling.

[00:15:10] And so I would come because I knew quite a bit

[00:15:13] about all those things and taught the Windows engineers

[00:15:17] about the other systems of Windows

[00:15:19] that they weren’t working on.

[00:15:20] But I’ve always felt that,

[00:15:24] and maybe that it’s a good thing

[00:15:26] that they were coming to the class to learn those things

[00:15:28] is that people end up falling into silos.

[00:15:31] Like I’m working on my component,

[00:15:32] I come every day to work and that’s what I’m gonna do.

[00:15:34] And they’re completely blind to everything else

[00:15:37] around their component.

[00:15:39] They just, and it’s so important, I think,

[00:15:42] especially if you want to advance in career

[00:15:45] to understand how your component fits into the big picture

[00:15:47] and to understand the big picture.

[00:15:49] And this applies even in Azure, for example,

[00:15:53] where developers are working on their specific service

[00:15:56] and they don’t really know anything

[00:15:57] about the other services in Azure or how they work

[00:16:00] or the end-to-end user experience,

[00:16:02] which is so important.

[00:16:03] Like my service is this service,

[00:16:06] but how do people interact with my service?

[00:16:08] What’s the SDK like for them?

[00:16:10] What’s the portal look like when they go use my service?

[00:16:12] And it’s unfortunate, it’s just a general thing,

[00:16:15] I think, because people get so caught up

[00:16:17] in what they’re doing is that a lot of,

[00:16:19] you’ll find engineers that they’re working

[00:16:21] on their component and they’ve never seen

[00:16:22] the portal experience for their component.

[00:16:25] Okay, so then using that, what we just learned

[00:16:28] to influence people without having explicit authority

[00:16:32] over them is I’ve explored this,

[00:16:35] I’ve become a T-shaped developer,

[00:16:37] I see how I fit into the big picture,

[00:16:38] then I can go and use customer empathy,

[00:16:41] product-led growth and tell leaders,

[00:16:43] hey, I think if you up-level this,

[00:16:45] as now that I’ve dug in, we should make a change.

[00:16:48] And I will take feedback from anyone at any level

[00:16:51] if they have an insight that shows

[00:16:53] that they understand the stack and the product.

[00:16:56] Yeah, it just, I think, makes you more well-rounded,

[00:17:00] you understand your component significance

[00:17:01] in the big story, you understand

[00:17:03] what the customers are experiencing,

[00:17:05] and maybe it’s not your job,

[00:17:07] the portal experience isn’t your job,

[00:17:09] but it is your component,

[00:17:11] and pride in ownership and what I do

[00:17:13] and what I contribute should translate into,

[00:17:16] you know what, this U.S. experience is not that great,

[00:17:17] here’s an improvement we can make,

[00:17:19] and I know because I’ve tried it.

[00:17:21] Yeah, so get outside your comfort zone,

[00:17:24] go a little deeper in the stack,

[00:17:25] you don’t have to be a full stack developer,

[00:17:27] no one’s asking you to smelt your own iron,

[00:17:29] put lightning in silicon and try to make a processor,

[00:17:32] but just a layer deep.

[00:17:34] But then also up-level,

[00:17:36] where do you fit into the machine?

[00:17:38] Systems thinking, we should do a show on systems thinking

[00:17:42] because there’s a lot of people learning how to code,

[00:17:44] but there’s not a lot of people learning how to think,

[00:17:46] so maybe Scott and Mark Learn to Think

[00:17:47] would be a cool show.

[00:17:50] All right, well I’m learning

[00:17:51] how to influence without authority,

[00:17:52] you’ve given me a lot of thoughts,

[00:17:53] I got a team meeting coming up

[00:17:55] a little later this afternoon,

[00:17:56] I’m going to put some thought into this,

[00:17:57] thank you for this show.

[00:17:59] Yeah, thanks Scott.

[00:18:00] We are learning here on Scott and Mark Learn To,

[00:18:03] we’re learning how to do a podcast,

[00:18:05] so if you like this show,

[00:18:07] reach out to us on social,

[00:18:08] give us ideas on what we can talk about

[00:18:09] in the next episodes,

[00:18:10] and your shares, your reviews,

[00:18:13] your stars on wherever you get your podcasts

[00:18:15] are very much appreciated.

[00:18:17] We’re doing this because we love to learn

[00:18:19] and we hope you love listening to it.

[00:18:22] Catch you again next week.

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