The Value of Being Direct with Eisar Lipkovitz, EVP of Engineering @ Lyft #16

Eisar Lipkovitz shares the value of being direct as well as other insights on leadership. You’ll hear how to practice the art of direct communication, how to prepare for difficult conversations, and overcome the fear of being direct. Plus Eisar’s insights on where engineering leaders get stuck in their career and how to help them grow.

"At the end of the day, the main reason I think direct is effective is you actually sort of get to the core of the issue where a lot of people dance around the details and they're conflict-averse" -Eisar Lipkovitz

ABOUT EISAR LIPKOVITZ

Eisar is Executive Vice President of Engineering at Lyft. Prior to Lyft, Eisar spent 15 years at Google in various leadership roles, overseeing the tremendous growth of that business while streamlining operations and reducing product complexity. Since 2014, his team of several thousand engineers built Google’s Display, Video, and Apps Advertising products.

Previously, Eisar worked on the infrastructure behind Google Search, driving many innovations during a tremendous increase in scale and a transition from web to structured data. Prior to that, he worked for four years at Akamai during the explosive growth of the Internet. Eisar began his career at Israeli Air Force after graduating from Tel Aviv University with B.Sc and MBA.

Shownotes

• Why being direct is more effective and how to practice the art of direct communication (2:27)
• How to overcome conflict aversion and the fear of being direct (9:16)
• How to prepare yourself for a direct, difficult conversation (13:14)
• How to balance communicating vision and strategy vs. the details (16:42)
• How to navigate conversations when people don’t understand you (20:31)
• How to make your conversation more direct when someone is speaking ambiguously or in code (26:07)
• How to help junior engineering leaders grow (28:29)
• Where people typically get stuck in the engineering leadership career track (32:59)
• How inclusion creates environments for more direct conversations about real world challenges (36:26)
• What has brought you the greatest amount of joy as an engineering leader? (38:00)
   

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