I don’t really care how many years of experience you have.
Until I know if it is 20 years of experience or one year of experience repeated 20 times.
What have you actually experienced?
What have you learned?
Who have you impacted?
What have you built?
Where have you been?
Did you take yourself on a journey through your work?
Or were you swept through the years in a job?
Some people blame the company, the boss, the economy, the president.
I want to know if you looked inside.
Did you do everything that you can do?
Did you learn and grow?
Are you a different person today than you were five years ago?
If that is the case, then join us.
Infuse your skills into our team.
Let’s grow even more together.
Intentionally and explicitly.
Words matter
Words matter.
Attitude matters.
Choosing what we say, and how we say it, is critically important to communicating.
One section of a book I once read made me aware of how some people, men most commonly, use aggressive language which can make other people, often women, shut down.
This is not usually intentional, on either side of that channel, but it is no less real just because it is not consciously chosen.
I realized that this is one way in which some women are made to feel unwelcome in the workplace.
This awareness was powerful for me.
I am not generally an aggressive person, I am pretty even keeled.
As I started listening to myself talk, and re-reading my written word.
I saw aggression and violent language which I had never intended.
“You killed it!”
“We have to beat them”
Aggression has a time and a place.
It does not belong in the office or in a relationship.
Once I was aware, I was able to make a change in how I communicated.
There was an interesting side effect.
I became more conscious of how I felt toward other people.
I became more gentle.
I became more caring.
My mindset shifted.
More people engaged and listened.
I was more effective.
One man, one small change: it can make a difference.
Just a theory, share if you agree, comment if you want to discuss
Girls and STEM
During dinner last night, I asked my wife and daughters:
What one thing might get 10% more girls into Engineering?
For context:
– One started college in ME, and then decided that Engineering was not for her, so she changed paths.
– The other is starting this fall towards a Criminal Defense Law degree.
– My wife is a retired middle school Science teacher, who originally started college as a MSE major.
Each of them offered a unique perspective.
What was their key consensus?
1. They don’t want to be surrounded in class by men who treat them poorly, and then spend the rest of their life fighting stereotypes.
2. Math is a highly competitive class and they are under the impression that only the best of the best can compete in Engineering, and that all we do is solve tough math problems.
#1 is a known problem and something that takes deep cultural and behavioral changes. A topic for another post.
#2 feels actionable. A light went off for me. I believe that we have done a disservice to our children in how we have portrayed Engineering as a whole.
Do you think engineering is only for the best of the best in math? I certainly look for more well rounded team members, which is why we need more diversity.
Carry on Engineers
I have spent 25 years building silicon. I’ve built every IP, and I’ve built every kind of chip. I’ve learned how to build them bigger and faster, smaller and cheaper. I’ve learned how to optimize for one application or another. In the end, the physical product is just a beautifully polished piece of sand … how that chip is used, is what changes the world.
What excites me; is how we can impact a human, by simply manipulating electrons. That is a God-like power.
I have loved yesterday’s products, I am impressed by today’s products, and I can’t wait for tomorrow’s products.
Ultimately I am driven by how we can work together as humans, to keep inventing better ways to shuffle fewer and fewer electrons around to do more and more magical things.
The potential is still beyond the horizon. As we push the limits, we keep finding that they are not limits after all; there is still more we can do. Our job will never be done; our customers will always want more; and our job is to invent a way to give it to them.
Carry on Engineers – you are changing the world for the better.
A New Renaissance
It is time for a New Renaissance.
We are near the apex of uncertainty, and the world is transforming.
People are increasingly worried about the impact they will have on the world.
We worry about the value we can add to the world.
We may want to contribute to other people,
Or to the community
Or to the world
Some people want to help other people
They just want to improve someone’s life
Some people are builders
They have to build something, have something to show for their work
Some people are artists
They are driven to express the beauty, or pain, within.
We all have one thing in common
We are searching for connection to each other
In the New Renaissance the world has become more and more efficient around us
Humans can not continue to do things the way they always did
We need to do more with less, and we need to think differently
Fortunately, we are also in a world where anything is possible
If we replace fear with excitement
Replace angst with drive
Replace competition with collaboration
We think of “The Renaissance Man” as the person who does it all.
He could hunt an elk in the morning to feed his family.
Write a sonnet before breakfast which draws the ache form our heart.
Build a barn for his neighbor that is strong and safe.
Paint a landscape that inspires us to dream.
Invent a more efficient way to sow the grain in his field.
Teach his children by the fire
Gently bed his wife before she sleeps.
The world then changed.
People hyper-specialized to add value because it was the only way.
Eventually, we needed people to act as automatons
They each followed a single set of pre-programmed instructions
Complete a set of tasks, over and over.
It started as physical labor.
Building our physical world more efficiently.
Hauling materials.
Sewing, bolting, polishing.
Then transitioned into knowledge workers.
Building our virtual world more efficiently.
Organizing data.
Coding, calculating, sharing.
We are on the cusp of a new age that many people fear.
We don’t need all the old jobs anymore.
This create anxiety if we don’t look at the opportunities
If we are stuck in the last century of human activity, then this looks like a dark time.
This is not our way.
Humans don’t get stuck.
Humans adapt.
Humans adopt.
Humans take advantage of opportunities.
That is what got us here, and that is what will take us into the future.
We learn from the past and we build the future.
We optimize for our needs.
We need to feel that we have added value.
We need to connect to other people.
We have a unique opportunity ahead of us now to do this at a higher level than ever before.
This blog is for those who are ready to grab the opportunity and thrive.
Take your fear and convert it into excitement.
Find your drive and create your mission.
You don’t have to polish one skill, you have the power within you to do so much more.
Be the Renaissance
Start with today, and do more every day.
What do I believe, that I can’t prove
I believe that each of us is connected to each other, and throughout time, within a dimension that we cannot perceive
I believe that there is more than what we can perceive
Call it spirit
Call it god
Call it our soul
I believe that it is everywhere, and nowhere
I don’t really care
And I don’t try to call it anything
There is no word
But I have felt it
pinpoint
I knew I loved you from that moment
I can pinpoint the instant in time
I see you so clearly
Your white dress
Your red apron with white spots
Your petite frame
Your powerful presence
You smiled and the world went dark
All I could see were your eyes looking at me
Shining with a life I have never seen in anyone
My heart still stutters when I remember that moment
The most important moment in my entire life
The moment I met you.
I became detached in time
I felt a lifetime of love unfolding in front of me
I had clarity of who I wanted to be, and where I was going
I was to be the man who loved you with everything he had
And I would always be by your side
No matter where we are, we are together
Selling a candidate
I don’t like the word “sell”
To “sell” a candidate implies driving them to make a decision they are not ready to make.
I prefer to think of this as clearing the path, and it is one of my favorite conversations.
By the time we are having this discussion, they have already made their decision, they are just not completely sure what it is, or they have not actualized what it means to their life or their family.
They are afraid.
The final decision may be to not join us, and that is ok too.
We don’t want to push anyone to join us who did not really have their heart in it.
We have already committed considerable time and energy into getting to know the candidate’s personality, technical skills, leadership acumen, and ambitions.
We have convinced ourselves that this candidate is worth a long term commitment and will be a great team member.
We have calculated and extended an offer, then usually negotiated it to some level.
But they are still not quite sure.
This is a big, scary decision.
We know that we want to work with them.
They are trying to decide if they want to work with us.
They have questions.
And ultimately, they have to take a leap of faith.
When you, as the hiring manager, or a potential future peer, meet with the candidate, keep some things in mind:
Their questions are going to be easy.
Some are going to be silly.
What they are really asking is: “Can I trust you?”
They are making huge life decisions based on a handful of questions posed to people they barely know.
Don’t bullshit them.
And don’t just answer their questions.
They need to build some trust, and this comes from some rapport.
Get to know them.
Get to know their needs and their concerns.
Open up to them about your own.
If you paint too beautiful of a picture of what it is like here, they will see right through you.
Tell them a little about why you work here, but only a little.
Remember that this is about *them*
They are not in any mindset to talk about you.
If they have made it this far, they have already made a decision.
Now we just need to clear barriers for them to see it more clearly.
Most of those barriers come from two important areas:
- Our inability to share specific details of the current project or company with them
- Their level of trust.
Talk to them about their motives, hopes, and dreams.
What do they want; deep in their core?
Can we offer them that?
Paint a picture for them.
Tell the story of their future here.
Now that you know them better, weave their own dreams into that future.
First and foremost you have to believe it.
If you don’t believe that you can give them what they are looking for, then this is the time to cut them loose.
It does not help anyone to find out months or years later that this was not the right match of candidate and opportunity.
If the concerns are related to the work; go deep into the work.
If the concerns are family; meet the family.
If the concerns are timing; find a flexible solution.
We are building a team, not building a product.
The products will come and go, but the team is more important than the work.
The team is the machine.
The product is the output.
Connect with the person at a deep enough level that they can start to tell their own stories.
They will start to imaging all the amazing things we will build together.
They will cast their own visions of their future with this team.
Then, and only then, will they choose to join us.
Plant the seed in the first phone screen.
Nurture that seed during the interview process by letting them meet the amazing team we already have.
Then shine a brilliant light on the future to show them how we can grow together.
See on LinkedIn
Ambiguity
We talk a lot about ambiguity.
But we don’t spend enough time giving people the tools to deal with it.
Ambiguity is the nature of life.
The two most important tools to get through it are Creativity and Action.
Creativity does not have to be a grand beautiful plan.
Just an Idea will do.
Any Idea.
This is why we like to hire people from a breadth of backgrounds.
Those ideas can come from anywhere.
The time when you were young and you watched your Grandma fold the tin foil a certain way to perfectly brown a turkey. Maybe now we have an idea for a new thermal spreader.
The time you had to use a screwdriver in your carburetor to start your old beat up car. Maybe now we have a new debug injection mechanism.
Ideas feed all of our work, and they don’t come from doing things the way we have always done them.
The problem with ideas is that they don’t actually get us anywhere.
They lead to us sitting around talking about what we “should” do.
The real path through ambiguity is Action.
Any Action.
Small Actions.
Don’t talk about it.
Just do something.
Then have the discipline to track if it is working.
And have the heart to let it go if it is not working.
If you have to drop it and pivot, that was still a win.
You still did something, and learned from it.
That was more impactful than talking about it.
The path through Ambiguity is Action.
The military uses a concept called an OODA loop.
This is the cycle Observe–Orient–Decide–Act.
Some of you may also have written a simple AI pathfinding program at one point.
This is the same thing.
We are on a pathfinding mission.
I see people spending countless hours sitting in conference rooms bemoaning the ambiguity in our product plans.
If those hours were spent in action – imagine the progress we could make.
Have an idea?
Take a small step.
Test it.
Did it move the ball forward?
Write down what happened.
Take another step.
Every once in a while climb up on a ladder and look back and look forward.
Are you still going the right direction?
If not, learn from it and move on.
It really is as simple as that.
We don’t have to wring our hands in despair of ambiguity.
We need to strengthen our hands working on an idea.
Nothing Harder (For Liz)
We have never done anything harder than say goodbye
It was time to let you move on.
We knew it would be hard.
We had no idea.
A gaping hole was left in our lives.
I missed your smile and your attitude.
I missed your perspective and your open mind.
I missed your opinions and your silence.
I can still see the depth of thought I noticed in your eyes.
I remember your frustration when we did not understand.
I saw every time you rolled your eyes at us and I smiled inside.
You have always been your own person.
Strong
Opinionated
Brilliant
Naive
Free
I love you more than you know.
Some day you will understand
It will hit you like a ton of bricks.
You will have an awakening
We all go through it
In time
Until then, know that we love you
We support you
We will always be there
Just a thought away.
Know one thing
Out of everything we have ever done for you
Everything was easy
Compared to saying goodbye
Setting you free on the world
You are ready
It hurts to let you go
More than I have words to describe
But I still smile
I smile that the world can have you now.
That you can now leave your mark on it’s front page
Show them who you are.
And text your mother once in a while.