Author: Alexis

Michael Doyle and I are launching a new book in May 2020. The book is I am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge: The book that helps increase your impact and satisfaction at work.

Some people told us that it was not the perfect timing as people surely have other things on their minds. Others told us it was the right timing because people will want something to read. As a result, I think I don’t really know if it is good or bad. I only hope that the book will find its audience and have the impact we wished for when we wrote it.

For April’s fool, we thought about what kind of joke we could make. We opted for a merch store with announces on Twitter using quotes from movies. We thought everybody would guess the joke and laugh with us.

I don’t think it worked. The products were named, the first, the of, and the month. Maybe people did not even get to the page and saw that?

Let’s not all of them, because someone ask it was for real, and if it was possible to order something 🙂 Yes, it is for real and we updated the page with real product names!

Here are two links for if you want to learn more about the book and why we decided to write it.

In this article, I would like to provide information and pointers to information on the Chief of Staff’s role in the tech industry. As a member of the Engineering Leadership Team at Red Hat, I have been in that kind of role for almost three years for the SVP of Engineering.

People instantly connect the role to the one that John R. Steelman was the first to hold in 1946: White House Chief of Staff. The definition of the role varies immensely between every presidency. Even more, as Chris Whipple states in the subtitle of his book The Gatekeepers, “The White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.”

As for the White House, the job depends on the company and executive the Chiefs of Staff serve. The general acceleration of the pace of business is the main reason mentioned for the emergence of the role in tech companies. CEO and Executive tend to shift their focus from inside their organization to outside. They need someone trusted to cover for them. Mark Organ, the CEO of Influitive, describes the Chief of Staff job as making him a superhero.

Rob Dickins, who served as Chief of Staff for several executives at Autodesk, describes the role using three orientations. I find the framework useful to structure the conversations with other Chief of Staffs, or with executives looking for Chief of Staffs (CoS).

The first orientation focuses on the executive the CoS reports. How do we make the executive operate at the highest level of performance?

The second orientation includes, in addition, the executive’s leadership team. I love that aspect of the job, transforming a group of people reporting to an executive into a true team leading the company or the business unit. Being part of a team, each member levels up his game and benefits from the diversity of the group.

The third orientation is the organization itself aiming at answering the question: How do we best set the organization to accomplish its objectives. One aspect of that is why I love using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to establish a continuous two-way street dialog between the people in the organization and their leadership team. The dialogue helps to clarify the strategy and to evaluate what are the right things to do to implement it.

Julia DeWhal, Chief of Staff to the CEO at Opendoor, describes the role as the right-hand person and the force multiplier. Brian Rumao, Chief of Staff to the CEO at LinkedIn, uses the same description in the short course he made available, and adds, that the CoS have to stand in for their executive as needed. Mark Organ even says that the CoS is his stunt double.

As Ben Casnocha, who was the Chief of Staff for Reid Hoffman, surfaces very well, the more connected the Chief of Staff is with the executive he or she served, enable better decision making and better tradeoffs.

What are the attributes you will want as or for a Chief of Staff:

• Expert Facilitator: you manage conversations, synthesize multiple points of view, align on strategic orientation, either in-person or remotely,
• Trusted Organizer: you bring order to things, you get things done, and you manage sensitive information in confidence and discretion.
• Strategic Thinker: you can see the big picture, evaluate importance and urgency, and provide context for decisions.

I often wondered how Elon Musk was managing his time between his three main companies: SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company. Surprisingly, Sam Teller was the Director of the Office of the CEO for the three companies.

It seems that the “Alter Egos” were doing well together. Jonah Bromwich used the term in his New York Time article, Hail to the Chief of Staff, The title is suddenly everywhere. It can mean almost anything.

Can it mean almost anything? Yes. So it means that you can define a role so that your contribution has the most significant impact on your organization.

To find out more about the Chief of Staff role in tech, follow the CoS Tech Forum.

Edit on April 20: Here is another article to add to the references. This is from the Harvard Business Review: The Case for a Chief of Staff. The three-level model makes a lot of sense to refine the role.

I have been asked thousands of times to facilitate small or large gatherings. When I worked on Changing Your Team From The Inside, I wanted to make clear that self-organization is the most powerful way for people to organize, but that based on their history, you will need to help them get there. You will need to create the conditions for self-organization to happen.

Chapter nine of the book is titled Organize because self-organization requires organization. I focused the chapter on meetings because it is something easier to change, to adjust, to experiment on, than to change the whole organization. And I believe it is much more impactful to change the way we meet than to change the reporting structure.

The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker, is a perfect book. The structure brings you gently to think about all the aspects that matter about your gathering.

It starts with the purpose of the gathering. Why do we really gather? And, of course, the answer is not because it is Monday.

Then you cover the uncomfortable question of who should join. And, no, inviting everybody is not an inclusive option. It is even the opposite. Why would someone who attends a meeting on which he or she will bring no value should feel included?

In the role of the host, you have power, and you have to use that power to serve the purpose of the gathering and your guests.

The time of the gathering is a temporary alternative world in which the traditional rules are not necessarily valid. You can, and in fact, you have to create rules that once again will serve the purpose and the guests. The author gives a ton of inspiring examples.

I know that, and even knowing it, I understood reading the chapter that I was not investing smartly enough on the openings of my gatherings.

In conferences or other gatherings, my frustration level grows each minute that passes. Why that? Because people are not true and authentic. Okay, I am over-generalizing. Not all people are manipulative and insincere. And not all people behave all the time the same way. The big idea is that it takes intentional efforts to create conditions for people to be true and authentic.

In meetings, when we stay on the surface of things, we can be very polite and respectful, avoid any potential conflicts and keep the status quo forever. If keeping the status quo is what you need, you probably don’t have to push hard to get to that. If not, then it is on you to organize the controversy so we can really discuss what matters and initiate a change.

We are approaching the end of the post, and you have to know that ends matter a lot. I would like to, once again, thank the author for having created that perfect book. I would like to thank you for reading and sharing this post. I would like to encourage you to read the book, and to share what you learned and how it affects your next gatherings. Working on ending the meeting properly is probably one thing I would change in Chapter 9 of Changing Your Team From The Inside.

And finally, what I would love is to have Priya Parker on Le Podcast to discuss how to apply her expertise and experience to online gatherings. But I guess you will all have to ask for it to happen!