Onboarding New Leaders and Identifying Areas for Improvement

Jamie Tischart, CTO @ Bettercloud, discusses how to identify inefficiencies within your eng org & strategies for creating more efficient teams! He shares his experience at Bettercloud as one of several concurrent senior hires & why he discovered that coordination is key when hiring multiple new senior hires at once. We also chat about strategies for identifying / removing barriers that are getting in the way of your eng team’s success, making / communicating meaningful decisions, identifying inefficiencies that come up within cross-functional relationships, and frameworks for turning communication from your org’s greatest area of inefficiency to an asset.

ABOUT JAMIE TISCHART

Jamie Tischart serves as the Chief Technology Officer, where he is responsible for the broader technology strategy of the business as well as the day-to-day leadership of development, quality and architecture teams for the BetterCloud product suite.

Jamie brings nearly three decades of experience leading technology and product teams through periods of rapid growth and product transformation. Most recently, he served as GM and VP, Software Engineering of the Marketing & Growth BU at Twilio where he was responsible for defining the product and technical strategy while focusing on the customer experience and driving highly reliable solutions for Twilio’s customers.

Previously, Tischart was VP, Technical Operations at SendGrid where he led the company’s Global Data Center and DevOps strategies across the business. Prior to that, he served as CTO of the Security-as-a-Service business at McAfee where he led the creation of Intel Security's future generation Cloud solutions. He has also held leadership roles at a number of other prominent technology companies including Intel. Jamie holds an MBA from Aspen University and B.A from St. Lawrence College.

"The biggest value for us is to move purposely and slowly and hear what is going on before we make decisions. The second was, what is the biggest problem that we are coming in to solve? Like why were each of us hired? It came down to, and this was difficult for a couple of the department heads was, 'Look, the biggest problem isn't in your area. I'm sorry. Yes. Let's put together a plan of how do we improve and what do we focus on in your group? But quite frankly, the focus is going to be in this area.' That was difficult for people to accept.”

- Jamie Tischart   

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SHOW NOTES:

• Strategies for creating efficient orgs & getting the most out of your eng team (3:00)
• How the “refine, remove, reduce” framework plays out in Bettercloud (5:41)
• Balancing involving the right people & achieving an efficient outcome (8:06)
• Most beneficial structures for enabling your eng team to be high impact (10:04)
• Jamie’s framework for self-assessing inefficiencies (12:26)
• Inviting new hires to share their perspectives right away (15:42)
• Neuro-leadership principles to help remove barriers for eng teams (18:16)
• Practices for better assessing what’s getting in the way of eng teams (22:20)
• Identifying inefficiencies that come up between cross-functional relationships (25:37)
• Why coordination is key when bringing on new senior eng leaders (27:45)
• Jamie’s approach to making & communicating meaningful decisions (30:08)
• Navigating the balance between onboarding & executing defined priorities (33:28)
• Define your team’s core principles early on together (36:13)
• Strategy for mapping out your org’s changes (38:08)
• Practices that changed Jamie as a leader & he still leverages today (40:50)
• Why communication can be an eng org’s greatest area of inefficiency (43:42)
• Rapid fire questions (45:57)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Grit - Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed—be it parents, students, educators, athletes, or business people—that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.”
• The Speed Of Trust - Collaboration is the foundation of the standard of living we enjoy today. Trust is the glue. This is the first book that teaches the ‘whats’ and the ‘hows’ of trust.
• Gwendy's Button Box - Stephen King teams up with long-time friend and award-winning author Richard Chizmar for the first time in this original, chilling novella that revisits the mysterious town of Castle Rock.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

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