ADAM SCHWEM

Full Transcript



Douglas:

And we are live. I'm Douglas Ferguson and I'm here with Karen Holst.



Karen:

Hello.



Douglas:

We are coauthors of the book Start Within and we've been hosting these weekly sessions where we invite a doer as we like to refer to them. People who like to get their hands dirty, who are passionate about getting things done and have successfully navigated the complexities of large organizations to get things done. Today we have Adam Schwem who is a senior software engineering manager at VRBO and a good old friend who I've always been amazed by. It's going to be a pleasure of chatting today. Welcome Adam.



Adam:

Hey, thank you very much. Thanks for having me guys.



Douglas:

For sure. Thanks for being here. I just want to kick things off Adam when I first mentioned Start Within for you and the concept of navigating large companies and you have a perspective of being a leader and not only navigating from the standpoint of your own goals and dreams, but also helping those that you are developing, helping them with the work they're doing. What jumped out to you as far as that crazy world and dealing with these issues?



Adam:

I think one of the hardest parts for, I think, all of us to really come to grips with about navigating is a leadership role in a large company is the same thing as being a leader at a small company. Looking at the whole world, it's just a different kind of social network. But you don't really get to say what's going to be going and have any kind of authoritative way of driving things forward. You have to be good at taking ambiguity and influencing the ambiguity in order to make other people successful with their ideas. Even if it's like your idea that you really think is valuable to be putting forward, you have to empathize with other people and figure out how is your idea related to their perspective.



Douglas:

It's interesting that you bring up ambiguity within the context of a large organization because often when we talk to startups we're coaching or people that are... Especially recent grabs, they're like, "I'm thinking about going to a startup." Then my number one thing, my number one question is, "how well do you handle ambiguity?" because it's the number one skill for anyone working on a startup, no matter what position you're in. We often think of big companies as having it figured out and having lots of rigid set structure rules. But the fact of the matter is, maybe that's a reason why new ideas are so difficult because you've got all the structure to maneuver. Yet, you're talking about something ambiguous and you're talking about something that is somewhat unknowable because it's new. I don't know. Does that resonate? Does that seem...



Adam:

Yeah. If you take a look at when you think about ideas at scale, it's the same problem. Let's say I was CTO of a company of 30,000 people. I don't have time to explain to everybody exactly what their job should be. I have to find some way to provide clarity in a way that's going to make what I want to have happen, happen. Maybe I'll dive in and try to unblock some things here and there, but ultimately they have to set the vision so that people can take what they're trying to drive and then make it their own.



We have that at larger organizations too where sometimes it seems almost tone deaf because the people at the top are just not telling us clearly what they want to have done. But, they're actually doing it on purpose in my opinion. They're trying to let those ideas percolate down because they don't actually care about the implementation details. They just want to make sure that the right value or the right focus is being set by other leaders in their company. It's just a different thing to manage leaders than it is to manage a direct IC or somebody who's on the line.



Douglas:

Yeah. That's interesting. This whole notion of specificity and how that can really unlock autonomy and empower people to... You've got a big idea, but it's going to take a lot of little ideas to make that come to fruition. If you plant the seed for the big idea and let the little ideas percolate, that can really empower people. It's almost like [inaudible 00:04:22] right? We've got like someone starting with them, but then we've got all these people going, "Oh, well now that inspires me to go do the thing that I think is exciting to do within that context, that lane that I can swim in."



Adam:

Yeah. I think one of the things... Something that my father told me. He ran a telecommunication company to success. I asked him as a young kid, I said, "What is it that CEOs do?" His response has just haunted me ever since. It was, he said, "CEO's jobs are to prevent bad ideas from getting traction." I love that because it's really is what you see in really good leaders. They really let other people be themselves with their ideas. They really just try to make sure that when there's a bad idea that it doesn't start to get life in that organization. They stopped that in its tracks.



Douglas:

Yeah. That's a good point because the more it grows, the more the harder it is to carve it out then to reverse at all because communication is so difficult. If it's found its ways through the organization unraveling, that can be quite an ordeal. I think there's a slippery slope there because you want to get people latitude enough to fail and learn their own lessons, but you don't want it to metastasize and be something that you have to just go wrangle in and whatnot.



Karen:

Yeah. Keeping bad ideas, but also how you can be the conduit for the good ideas and not get in the way of it. Big companies do struggle with that and look for leaders within the organization to help make sure that those come to the top. That goes back to a really interesting point you made early on with leading without authority. I think people that don't have a title of innovation or aren't given the mandate to go do this kind of work can get hung up on needing permission. Someone tapping them and saying, "You're allowed to go do this." Letting that go, the next part of it is that they're not this rogue cowboy. Now they've gotten the itch and you're excited to do it, but you're also not doing this alone. I would just love to hear about your experience in seeing examples of where that flourished or maybe where it failed.



Adam:

Sure. Yeah. It's a good setup. I'm trying to think. I was actually just in a philosophical conversation with myself over... It doesn't even actually matter the idea. But, there was a big idea that got pushed through the company that we're seeing a lot of people adopting and it's really exciting. It really has to do with using a different methodology for discovering the customer journey and getting all teams on board to how they describe how our products work. I hope my boss isn't actually watching this.



But I wondered, "Was he managing me or was I managing him?" because we had the same idea. My entire vision for what was going on was to make him as successful as possible with that idea. I was not a credit taker, but it was am inverse relationship. Is this his idea that he's managing me to help make a reality? Or is it my idea and I'm helping him make sure that he's doing it? At a certain point in time, you don't have ownership of really where you want things to go if you want to be successful. It's just weird to think of things that way where it's like, yeah, there isn't really like one person who can be the official shepherd for like big ideas.



Douglas:

Man, that's awesome. It makes me think of these layers of consciousness. When you can mature in your own self identity and your own confidence to the point where you don't have to take credit for things that you can still get personal value out of seeing them come to life, that's really phenomenal. Congratulations to you for being there. Also, I think what you're talking about really relates very closely to a portion of the book where we talk about working with your manager and give people some tools on how to have some of those conversations. Because one pitfall we see often as people... You've matured way beyond this. But in the early days... I'm sure you can relate. You probably were there at some point.



I know I was in my career. At some point I had some idea and I just ran into the office. I'm just beating with energy and I rattle off why it's all awesome.



Adam:

We got to do this. We got to do that.



Douglas:

My managers sitting there tapping their foot waiting for me to finish up. Then, they tell the five fatal flaws that it has and I walk out dejected. Our advice to that was to plan that conversation more carefully because if you go in and maybe you haven't ruined everything, but you definitely set it off on a strange trajectory. Anyway, it's interesting to hear you talk about the total opposite end of that where you're starting to self realize that, whoa, we're kind of becoming this unit that's influencing each other in this amorphous way. That's pretty fascinating.



Adam:

Yeah. That excitement issue that you just brought up, I don't think I've moved past it. I think I have. Because also, it's an exciting thing as a human to broadcast to another human, "I have a great idea and I think that you should hear it." It's a human thing to do. What I have learned, I think, is that the forum for that is to do that multiple times more one on one with people to socialize an idea rather than doing it during a meeting where you have everybody's attention because what you're saying when you're in a meeting with eight people listening to you're not able to say, "Hey, my idea is better than your ideas." That's what you're accidentally communicating.



Whereas, if you're doing it one on one, then it becomes a back and forth. You can, "Okay, here's what I think. What do you think?" Then, they can add onto it. You can reinforce what you like about your original idea with that person's new version of it. You can get adding on to it. That's probably the better way to bring that excitement around to socialize. It's not good when you're sage on the stage because you really are communicating something you're not meaning to accidentally.



Douglas:

Yeah. Or at least... Go ahead, Karen.



Karen:

I just love that idea. I think going into that, people don't like the politics of selling an idea. I don't want to go to the meeting before the meeting. I just want to go and have it be real and authentic. How you frame that is actually real and authentic and still makes it exciting is that you're learning individually. Then, you can go back to the group and start to talk about it in a group setting. It might change the diversity of the ideas or how it fluctuates. But, I love that idea of socializing beforehand. It's not just about politics, but it's about the human part of being excited about something together with someone else.



Adam:

Yeah. To me, the way that you know whether or not you were successful in that type of influence is when you hear from somebody that you didn't know at all your idea. Then, you know. You're like, "Oh man, okay. So, my idea has gotten out there and now I don't even know how you got it. It definitely jumped ship somewhere and now it's coming from you." That's always a beautiful thing to see as a leader where you're like, "Cool, okay. That was a good thought and it's gotten even better. I'm hearing it now from some other part of the org."



Douglas:

That's incredible. How do you decide you who's safe to share with early? Is it more organic where you just bump into someone and like, "I'm just going to tell them," or do you premeditate it?



Adam:

Yeah, I don't know. I think that's just down to personal styles and your personality. I'm pretty blunt and transparent about what I think and what I feel. I hope it comes across mostly charming to people where they don't feel personally attacked about my thoughts, but some people aren't like that. Some people really like to ideate beforehand. They don't want to come across in a certain way and might need to be more specific about it. Whatever it is, it's got to be authentic. It's got to be you. Because if we're not being authentic, then all these other red flags come up about communication where people are like, "Hmm, are you manipulating me? Are you playing politics? Are you? Are you?" All those other.dot dot dots. Again, now they have filters and walls up about what you're trying to say and what you're trying to communicate.



Douglas:

Yeah. That's important this notion of being authentic. Not only being authentic because it could be authentic for some people to be manipulative and spiteful and things.



Adam:

Totally.



Douglas:

Are we putting everyone's best interest ahead of things? Then also, are we focused on shared values?



Adam:

That's right. You know how there's all those different leadership games where you try to unpack how to be better leaders and sometimes you play very silly games? One that was really successful that my previous boss shared with me was this shared value solitaire where you discovered through different cards are you more of somebody who values merit or autonomy or power. The useful part of it wasn't really to learn like about yourself. You're like, "Oh, well that makes sense. That's kind of who I am." It was the reflection of knowing that other people might value something differently and you need to adjust your communication to match their value system.



If I think that something is cool because it's really, really good and I'm talking to someone who really only cares about job security, I need to change my communication to reflect that their value system and my idea have something simpatico. As you were saying about certain people, some people value power. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But, you should know when you're talking to them or if that's the kind of thing you value so that you can adjust your communication to people who really don't like that stuff at all.



Douglas:

Yeah. Sometimes people go in with the entire like smorgasbord of benefits and values. You'd be much better off if you just like winnow it down into, well, here are the things they care about. Let's just talk about those things so they don't get distracted by the stuff they don't care about or miss out on the important piece because that's the thing that's going to get them listening.



Adam:

That's an interesting thing about how people pitch ideas in general. It's so much more valuable to do a weak pitch and know that you have the answer to the question. It's almost like a Gestalt theory sort of thing. The Gestalt theory where you draw the circle, but you miss a quarter of it. But, your brain fills it in. It's like it's so much more effective to, instead of covering all your bases, have all your bases covered and leave obvious gaps so that when people are engaging with you, you can fill them in being like, "Oh yeah, I know that." It's entirely inappropriate to pre-anticipate that everybody needs to hear all of the context and how well you thought it through up front. It's like eyes glaze over. I don't know.



Douglas:

Yeah. It reminds me of in the workshops we run, we design them based off that same concept. If we do a little micro lecture before the activity, we leave out a ton of things. Often if there's some myth or there's some big gotcha, we'll totally leave that out because we want the participant to experience that. Afterwards, then we teach. Then, there's that micro-teaching moment of like, "See what just happened? That's what we don't want to happen when you're out there doing this work." You're right. Leaving things out intentionally so that people can have that personal experience and then you connect with them on that and help them through it, it's very, very powerful.



Adam:

Yeah. I think it boils down to the human element of it. We need to understand that when we're trying to influence another person with an idea, we need to let that person also be a human and take success and to be excited about what they're contributing to it even if it's something that you're trying to influence.



Douglas:

That's a beautiful sentiment to end on. We're a little bit over time, so I'm going to end it there. Adam, it's been a pleasure chatting with you as always. Karen, any final thoughts?



Karen:

Yeah. Well, you can find the book on Amazon for sure. We do this every week. Yay, thank you. If you have any ideas you want to share or you want to hit us up with topics that we should be covering, just reach out to us via LinkedIn.



Douglas:

Excellent. Well, again [crosstalk 00:17:11]. Absolutely.



Karen:

Thank you.



Douglas:

Thank you