⏱ Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Table of Contents

Interviewed by Eddy Montus, Head of Infra & Dev Advocate @ HelloAsso

Backstory

Getting into computer science

Michael studied sound engineering then reoriented to electrical engineering. Unsuccessfully, except for the part of the curriculum that was sound-adjacent. He approached code early with assembly and liked it. Then startups, hiring look-alikes, management roles, making mistakes and so on until today.

Hiring look-alikes is not necessarily a bad prospect as it facilitates information sharing.

His story with the United States

To create something, go to San Francisco. He didn’t prepare much but was very enthusiastic about this. Product culture was not as developed in France as it was in the US at the time. The United States are a big country: 5 time zones, a team that is spread out, no remote, phone meetings. Michael did not get to see most of his colleagues.

In his first startup, he was promoted from Junior to VP during his first month because he presented an initiative through a plan to the CEO. That company had some challenges ahead:

  • Three isolated sub-organizations;
  • None of which talk to the CEO;
  • Many cultures, nationalities and accents to compose with;
  • The history of the company.

After a while, the necessity of the role transformed into a passion. This took determination, effective prioritization and automation. Eddy followed a similar Individual Contributor to Manager path, including the frustrations.

CTO, management and so on

About management style

Michael aspires to bringing support and help to his peers, to make them autonomous and independent. This takes time. To do so, he engages with managers to refine their role. In other words, he is aiming for the Servant Leadership in his organizations, structuring it so that most decisions are taken at the operational level. This management style may not produce the same results in two different organizations, though.

His worst experience was burning out after giving his all. When the body becomes unresponsive, you are facing an insurmountable obstacle. His best experience was some person who followed him during four consecutive companies, praising his management style. One of the best validations.

For aspiring CTOs and managers

Here are some key messages:

  1. Everyone has Impostor Syndrome;
  2. Manager roles are vague, so much so that it does not translate well from company to company. Managers build their responsibilities;
  3. Everything can be improved. And if you don’t like something don’t wait for someone else to do something about it, fix it yourself!
  4. Find fun in your assignments. If nothing motivates you, change your environment to avoid suffering them.

Whenever you join a new company, start by requesting 1-to-1s with every party you are likely to interact with. For tech managers, this is not just about tech but also about business people. Ask about their interactions and what they like in their job. This will determine who will be important in your future projects. Michael follows a framework to analyze organizations.

Taking on a new position with responsibilities is overwhelming. Arriving with nothing is risking to miss the fundamentals of the company. Finally, working laterally in the organization is often undervalued and sometimes impossible. Networking laterally is essential! Speak with other managers and learn from them.

Working your influence

When authority is at play, it’s not influence but obligation. Influence starts local:

  • Find supporters for your ideas and projects. They confidently believe and defend them;
  • Find common ground with close parties to echo some topics stronger;
  • Work on your relationship with other parties. Remote makes this more difficult. Never lose sight of anyone!

Influence comes with a risk: when you are in a position of authority or have been in the same company for a long time, decisions are not being challenged as much leading to worse outcomes. Ideas can also be contorted by each person they pass through, so much that alignment and imposing the way forward becomes necessary.

Fighting the lack of challenge is not simple: you may inject errors and see if supporters report them or find ways to motivate feedback without forcing it. Feedback depends on company culture: some are more direct than others. Not all feedback is good, especially when it lacks moderation: some people tend to monopolize the debate. There are techniques like letting influencers speak last, which requires building a trust relationship with them. Alternatives include passing the baton and round robin.

Dealing with people

Disengaged people are a fact of projects: there will often be some, so you’ll have to learn to deal with them. Understand their arguments and steer your strategy or dynamic in the right direction. Have a talk and let them express their needs and their position. If they don’t want to contribute then escalate tactfully. Never underestimate the power of job profiles. Do spend time perfecting them.

Then there is Inflated Self-Awareness, or experts without experience or competence. Use job profiles, a skill matrix and the company culture to understand how they fit in the picture. Conversely, mind performant people that break things where they go. Remember to check hard and soft skills. Some elements are hard to quantify such as those of value and culture that cannot belong in a skill matrix.

Finally, if a promoted manager is disliked, try to understand why. Are they against change? If the behavior is not particular to the person and emerges from the organization then the battle is lost. Create with that person an environment that motivates them and work with their direct superior to prevent this situation from happening again. If the issue is not organizational —and that is rarely the case— then you must be ready to move forward.

Innovation

A perfect organization strikes the right balance between innovation and stability. A CTO does not need to be a tech enthusiast as long as they are aware of the trends such as Cloud and Generative AI. At the company level, things are more relative: from the end customer standpoint, a feature or a platform update are not seen the same. They can extract value from the former but not necessarily from the latter. Pursue client value even with internal innovations: does it make the service more available, performant, stable?

Each innovation takes some time to getting used to. For instance, Kubernetes is a paradigm shift for devops and dev teams, such that evangelists are essential to reduce the effort.

Tips and tricks

  • Be an audacious manager but analyze the risks of your decisions before deciding if you accept them, then commit;
  • Unpleasant meetings can get people on the same page;
  • Don’t be needlessly heavy-handed;
  • Use temporary fixes to move forward but don’t forget to clean up afterwards;
  • Make the rules clear for managers so that they share the same practices and so that employees can project into the future (evolution, objectives, job profiles).

Recommendations

  • The first 90 days by Michael Watkins for the methodology, framework and his feedback;
  • Thinking in systems by Donella Meadows, a transformative book that introduces an alternative way to think;
  • Radical Candor by Kim Scott which is about the art of good feedback. Very American on its approach;
  • An Elegant Puzzle by Will Larson is a tech encyclopedia and deals with recurring topics and practices for VPs and CTOs;
  • Dream Team by Jack McCallum.