Finding Your North Star

We discuss the four modes of coaching and navigate career growth in expanding / contracting companies with James Birchler. James shares highlights from the recent coaching / mentoring workshop he facilitated, and breaks down how each mode of coaching differs tactically. We also cover the dilemma of linear career/leadership growth vs. exponential company growth, different common communication challenges eng leaders face, why people / organizational challenges are harder than technical issues, and how to prepare for & execute uncomfortable conversations. James also shares his unique journey to technical leadership & how past management roles – even in non-tech spaces – have helped shape his thoughts on coaching & eng leadership today.

ABOUT JAMES BIRCHLER

James Birchler is an engineering and product development leader, technical advisor, and an accredited Executive Coach from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Executive Coaching Institute.

In his coaching practice, James focuses on self-awareness, integrity, accountability, and fostering a growth mindset that supports continuous learning and high performance.

He focuses his technical advisory practice on common mechanisms and playbooks required at different phases and inflection points of startup growth and scaling: Hiring and interviewing, product development methodologies including Lean Startup and Agile, operational meeting cadence and communication flow, people management, technical leadership, vision/mission development, alignment, and execution.

James implemented the Lean Startup methodologies with Eric Ries at IMVU (literally the first Lean Startup), where his team helped start the DevOps movement by building the infrastructure to ship code to production 50 times a day (which was a lot at the time!) and coining the term “continuous deployment.”

He has more than 20 years of experience leading high-performance teams in growth environments, including startups and scaled organizations, including Amazon. He has delivered great consumer software products and implemented product development and innovation processes based on continuous learning and improvement.

Presently James advises and coaches Series A+ startups in the US and Europe, and leads innovation practices in hyper-growth areas of last mile delivery technology for Amazon. Previously my roles included VP of Engineering & Operations, VP of Engineering, and Founder at several technology startups including IMVU, Caffeine.tv, SmugMug, iCracked, The Arts Coop, and Letters & Science.

You can find James at jamesbirchler.com, LinkedIn, and Substack.

SHOW NOTES:

• Highlights from James’ recent coaching & mentoring workshop (2:41)
• Shared challenges around building trust in eng teams (5:25)
• The differences between coaching vs. mentoring (7:01)
• Building trust in order to best support your team members as a manager (9:38)
• Defining the advising mode of coaching (11:54)
• How supporting differs from advising (14:29)
• The story behind James’ technical leadership journey (16:55)
• Transitioning from a PhD program & environmental planning career into tech (20:19)
• The dilemma of career growth: linear leadership growth vs. exponential company growth (23:53)
• Why organizational challenges are more complicated than technical puzzles (26:49)
• Navigating career growth during company contraction from the employee perspective (28:02)
• Preparing for uncomfortable conversations as a coach / manager (31:50)
• Strategies for actually having those tough conversations (35:36)
• Frameworks for helping others identify what they want (37:58)
• Rapid fire questions (42:44)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Stop 'Coaching' Your Tech Team (And What To Do Instead) - James’ substack post on the four modes of development breaking down the core differences of coaching, advising, mentoring, and supporting roles and explaining how trust is the secret ingredient to all four.
• jamesbirchler.com - James’ website where you can find info about his executive coaching and resources for engineering leaders and founders.
• How to lead with radical candor | Kim Scott - NYT bestselling author, Kim Scott, has cracked the code on giving valuable feedback in a way that builds genuine relationships, drives results, and creates positive workplaces.
• What Are People For? - In the twenty-two essays collected here, Wendell Berry conveys a deep concern for the American economic system and the gluttonous American consumer. Berry talks to the reader as one would talk to a next-door neighbor: never preachy, he comes across as someone offering sound advice. In the end, these essays offer rays of hope in an otherwise bleak forecast of America's future. Berry's program presents convincing steps for America's agricultural and cultural survival.
• New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That's Got It Wrong - Happiness expert Stephanie Harrison draws upon hundreds of studies to offer a life-changing guide to finding the happiness you have been looking for, all based on a decade of research and brought to life with beautiful artwork.
• Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations - Through four years of groundbreaking research, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance—and what drives it—using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research. Readers will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance.
• Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time: Michel Serres with Bruno Latour - Although elected to the prestigious French Academy in 1990, Michel Serres has long been considered a maverick--a provocative thinker whose prolific writings on culture, science and philosophy have often baffled more than they have enlightened. In these five lively interviews with sociologist Bruno Latour, this increasingly important cultural figure sheds light on the ideas that inspire his highly original, challenging, and transdisciplinary essays.

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/