The show’s guest in this episode is Greg Poirier. Over the last 20 years, he has established himself as a capable leader and a visionary in the technology industry. He is a principal Software Architect at Solar Winds. And he works with engineering product and executive leadership to ensure solar wind, engineers are building the right thing at the right time. Not only that, but Greg has been Melanie’s client for many years now.

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Leadership Through Influence with Greg Poirier

Hey, everybody, welcome to our live show the experimental leader, I am so excited to be here with you today, it’s going to be a great show. And I’ve been really thinking about experimenting in my own life. For the last two weeks, I did a diet. And, you know, I don’t really like diets, the research doesn’t really bear out that diets help you lose weight. Especially not if you’re a grown up. It’s more genetics than dieting, you can lose weight short term, but to keep it off, it’s not great. But I really have this thing in my life where I try not to be a procrastinator, and I kept having this diet pop across my Facebook feed, and I kept being like, oh, maybe I should try that sometime. Maybe I should try that sometime. This probably happens to you. And so, I thought, well, I’m going to, I should try it. And I kept thinking I should try it. And I try also not to live with should. And so eventually, I was like, well, I should either stop thinking I should try it, or I should actually try it. So, I tried it. And it didn’t work. And I know it didn’t work. Well, it didn’t work for me in two weeks. So, the reason I knew it didn’t work is because I actually did a really good experiment. So, I bounded it. I knew when it started, and I knew when it stopped. And I did it perfectly. I didn’t cheat, I didn’t try other things, I didn’t have multiple variables. In my experiment, I did the diet, I gave myself every chance of having it succeed. I did the learning I needed to do; I bought the products I needed to do to help support it. And I didn’t lose any weight, which was there was actually a measurable. So, I stopped. And I’m happy that I stopped. And that my thing I was doing before the diet was better than the thing I tried.

So, I tried the experiment. It was bounded in time. And I think it’s useful to think about this because sometimes we start an experiment, because we want something to change, or we’re curious if something might change if we might be able to better our situation. And in fact, it doesn’t get better, or the data that we collect doesn’t show that the thing we’re doing to try to make something happen isn’t any better than the thing we were doing before. So I want to just challenge you to look at where you’ve started an experiment. And where you should stop that experiment. Is there any are there any experiments that you’re doing in your life or any things that you’re doing that are hard or take energy or emotional labor, that it’s time to stop? So that’s my challenge to you this week is what should you stop doing? Because it might free up time for something else. And I am super excited about our guest today.

Our guest is Greg Poirier. And he over the last 20 years has established himself as a capable leader and a visionary in the technology industry. He is a principal Software Architect at Solar Winds. And he works with engineering product and executive leadership to ensure solar wind, engineers are building the right thing at the right time. Not only that, but Greg has been my client for many years now. And so, we’re going to have a talk about leadership in technology. And also, I’m going to ask him some questions about coaching and what that’s been like for him and how he thinks about coaching in his life as well.

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So, Greg, I am super excited to have you here today.

Hey, Melanie.

Hey, Greg, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

I’m super excited to be here. It’s always fun to talk to you and I love talking about this stuff. So yeah, I’m super dressed.

Well, and we’re doing book club. And I know, you know, when I wrote the experimental leader, you know, it took me a long time to write it. And as I wrote it, I always was I always had my clients in mind as I was writing, I wrote it, I don’t have a large client roster. My clients stay with me a long time. And you were one of the people who was in my mind as I wrote the experimental leader. And we’re doing for those of you who are just tuning in and don’t know what we’re up to. We’re going to look at the experimental leader book all year. And each week, each month, we’re going to look at one chapter, and we’re just in the introduction phase. So, this we’re just going to talk about the introduction, which is really all about sort of leadership can people learn earn, how do they learn leadership? You know, all of that. And I just wonder if you have any thoughts or comments on, you know, sort of the scientist’s approach to leadership?

Yeah, no, I in rereading like the introduction in the first couple of chapters, because, you know, I just started my new position at SolarWinds. And I’m trying to get my feet grounded. It was funny. rereading it, you mentioned, you kind of have me in mind, as I was going through it, I was just like this, that this is just being 100%, like, just feel sort of, in over my head sometimes go through impostor syndrome. And it used to be a lot worse, you know, years ago, we first started working together is very different. But, you know, learning to look at problems in delivery in every aspect of in software engineering, specifically for me, and taking a step back and saying, like, Okay, I see these 1000 things, right. And you sometimes you have this inclination to want to change everything at once, like, burn it down and rebuild it, ideally, and you can’t you have to find those bits and pieces where you’re like, Okay, I think I think I have an idea on what to do right here in this one instance, that might remove some roadblocks. And so, you figure out again, like, how do you measure how bad it is? How do you decide which thing to look at first, and, and really learning how to have that data driven approach that scientific method, I have a hypothesis, I know how to measure if my hypothesis is working. And then being very sort of results driven, is it’s really made things a lot more organized for me and my thinking, and I love having that systematic approach to figuring out how to lead the teams I work with.

Well, and I’m really curious, because you brought up impostor syndrome, and I think I have to go on a podcast later this week. And one of the questions they sent me, they sent me a whole pile of questions that I have to answer. And one of them is, how do I cure impostor syndrome? And I was like, oh… if I could do that in 20 minutes, like, wow, that would be amazing. But I’m like, when do you think you might experience or what do you think people experienced impostor syndrome? Because I think that’s, it’s it, there are certain circumstances that really elevate that.

Yeah, I mean, you say it in the book, and it, I can’t really, I can’t think of a better way to put it. But it really is, when you’re at that, like that area of extreme growth. You know, you’re, you’re really on the edge of your capability. And you’re having to move into just unknown area, areas of skill. And especially in an environment where your feedback is not going to be what you might be used to when your kind of lower on the ladder and management or as an individual contributor, you know, you’re, you’re used to having those one on ones, or you’re getting direct feedback, or you have like code reviews, or, you know, you get routine feedback. But when you’re in leadership, and you’re not writing code, or you’re not writing feature specs, or doing whatever. It’s really, I have to sit back and watch and see what’s happening, what influence Am I having on people. And it can be really unnerving to have to take time and to be comfortable with uncertainty that just yet on those growth edges, that’s, that’s where you get at them.

And I think a new job really puts you up against those growth up edges, like, immediately and quickly. I think as we as you get comfortable in a job that you your day fills, so you don’t have so many empty spaces. I know one thing I see new leaders do is they want like constant feedback from the people below them. They want sort of constant affirmation like even if they get an attaboy last month they needed again this month. And that’s just kind of not what the people who report to us are for. But it’s painful because we were stretching so far when we when we’re in that uncomfortable place. And we have this need for that constant affirmation. And yet there’s no one in our chain of command whose job it is to give it to us. And so, it’s pretty the days can be pretty empty. Especially in a new job as you try to figure out what what you will busy your time with.

Yeah, and it turns out that you’re going to miss your time wondering if you’re doing things fast enough or good enough? And in the absence of real work to do, it turns out that thinkers think, you know, in a vacuum, I think it’s we try and think of, you know, what can we be doing? How can we do it faster? How can we get to delivering value faster, and it’s this like vicious cycle of anxiety that only feeds impostor syndrome?

Well, and, and, okay, so it can be a vicious cycle. And then there’s the other side of that, which is, it’s also I think there’s also that glorious, fresh eye, that you have coming into an organization that you never get again, no, you never get that sort of unbiased look at things because you become, as you’re stepping into a system, you aren’t yet completely part of the system yet. So, you, you don’t have skin in the game in the same way you don’t have your project that you’ve put your heart and soul into, you have fewer blind spots. So, in the same way that you are busy, you also have this fresh way of seeing the organization for what it is.

Yeah, and really leaning into that and embracing that freshness. I mean, that’s how you kind of get out of the imposter syndrome spiral. You just sit back, and you observe reserve judgment, really try to ask yourself, why over and over again, and get clarity from other people and just try not to leave into wanting to do and instead learn and really take notes.

I want to move away from sort of the book club piece. But thank you for you know, diving into that with me, I I’m finding it so interesting to hear sort of how other people think about the book and how they think about the concepts of the book, because none of them are unique to this book. And I think we all, you know, like impostor syndrome, everyone has grappled with it at some point in their life. And we’d all like the answer to never feel it again, because it’s so uncomfortable. But I Do you think it tells us where our edges are? You know, we know we’re growing if we’re feeling that something’s happening in us when we’re experiencing impostor syndrome, and it tells us that we are growing developing human beings.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, I’d love to hear a little bit about how you think of your own leadership journey, kind of how you have cultivated that, because I think you’ve done an amazing job of cultivating your own journey, career wise. And I know people are very curious about that. And also, I just want to put sort of a general, you know, hey, out there, if you’re listening to this, and you have a question, feel free to type it in the chat and we’d be happy to, I’m happy to answer it. Greg would be happy to answer it. If you have anything you want to hear from us today.

Yeah. Yeah. My, my ride has been wild. I, you know, really kind of got thrust into technical and organizational leadership. Just by virtue, I think of having opinions. You have no shortage of opinions, and sometimes they are strong opinions. And, you know, I like to charm my way into the decision-making process a lot.

So, can you say that, like, can you draw the line between how opinions move you into leadership?

Yeah, yeah. So, I think I mean, everyone has opinions, right? But there is a way that you can sort of, you know, get your opinions in the right years and start to cultivate consensus about things that pushes your ideas forward. And, you know, as you learn to do that in a way that doesn’t constantly cause friction, the people around you start to value your input and value, you know, your judgment, especially if you know, your opinions and your judgments start to pay off for them. Right. If you what you’re saying advances their goals and your goals and the shared goals of the business, then I think you kind of fall into positions where people are asking you, hey, we want you to lead this this area of the product or we really want you to kind of be over Are this part of the business? Can you say more?

Like, I want you to say more? I have some things to say do but it’s like, how do you know? Like, what are you saying? Specifically? What are not specifically, but what are you saying to people? What’s the timeline? How early? Are you starting to see these ideas?

Yeah. So usually what I do is if I, if I see something, and I’m like, Okay, this, this needs to change. I try and get an idea of, okay, who do I need to talk to? And then I go to them, I’m saying, like, hey, look, I see this problem, right? Like, we’ve got a couple of teams over here, I’m just going to use like a concrete example, right? We have a couple of teams over here, who have inconsistent execution. And, you know, as I’ve been kind of embedding with them, and sneaking into meetings, and being a fly on the wall, you know, something that I’ve noticed is, there seems to be this disconnect between, you know, their product manager and their engineering manager, right. And so, you know, I’d love to get your thoughts on this, right, like, solicit input from them first, because they are going to feel heard, they’re going to feel respected, and you start to build that relationship up. sounds sort of like, oh, yeah, I’m playing social engineering over here. But like, it’s like how to be a human right? But go to them, solicit their advice, and then start to say things like, well, you know, one thing that we could try, right, like you just experiment with this, is, let’s just, let’s just be in a meeting with them, like, I want you to come see what’s happening over here. And here’s, here’s what I kind of want us to do when we go into this meeting is, you and I are going to get on the same page. Like we’re not going to contradict each other in this meeting, we’re going to make sure that we are kind of supporting each other’s ideas or this idea or whatever. And we’re going to go kind of lead them to the conclusion we want them to get to, or discover just how deep this problem is right? Like can they simply never agree. But really just working with other people to kind of build consensus around things, but slowly, which you can then snowball into movement for the organization. And I’m not saying you need the like, like 40 people to come to consensus Really, all you need to know is who are the real decision makers here? who wield the most influence? How can I get them to see my point of view? And how can I then leverage their influence to make something happen in the lack of your own influence or authority?

Well, and you’re actually talking about, and I kind of pushed you for a concrete example, which is part of the problem. Because when you have a concrete example, you’re not actually just seeding ideas. But there’s also just sort of starting to talk about things sort of watercooler talk and one on ones. I’ve been doing this in the Unitarian Church for about 20 years, the Unitarian Church makes their decisions at the church level through Robert’s Rules of Order, which I hate them, they’re young adults make their decisions through consensus decision making formal consensus decision making. So, for 20 years, I’ve just been subversively working on trying to make decisions through consensus at the committee level, teaching people how to use consensus decision making skills, talking about consensus decision making, refusing to make decisions, you know, without a consensus process. So, I’ve been subversively talking about it. Now, I think my husbands on a decision-making panel with the Canadian Council about decision making, because now I’m starting to tie it to racism and, and social justice, because marginalized groups are less likely to know the rules of Roberts, and that’s got some traction. So, it’s a really good way for people in power to maintain powers to use Roberts. So, I tie it to everything I can, because I think it’s really so anyway, so I’ve been seeding these ideas and just like a dog with a bone on it. But as you do that, you start to be the go-to person like, oh, well, you know, Mel and Melanie are the ones that you’d want to talk to you about this. You’d want to include them because they’ve been they’ve been talking about this for 20 years. So somehow with no work at all, really, other than just complaining. We’ve become stakeholders in the process.

Yeah. I mean, that’s that was my journey at New Relic. You know, I my job before SolarWinds is I You know, I got put on a project sort of like some concrete, here’s the thing, we just need you to deliver the right, and made it happen and built some goodwill and got a little capital. And then, you know, they started to insert me into other interests related to compliance and our government sort of environments. And, you know, they started to think of me, like you said, like, as the subject matter expert on this thing, even though like I was one of multiple people that worked on this, like, it, just the things start to kind of get funneled to you, and you start to wield more and more influence over domains where people see you, as someone who knows these things knows this stuff.

Yeah, I think this influence stuff and, and if he, I want to break this down just a little more to like, you can’t just do this out of thin air, you have to have a vision for what you want to have happen. That’s the magic, there’s no magic to that part, you have to have enough expertise or understanding or even just, you know, belief in your own your own value system in order to be arrogant enough to know, to believe in what you want, as the right way, in order to see these ideas, but that’s part of that’s the, like, way more important than bossing people around is that belief in your yourself, and what you see that you want to have happen, so much of leadership, is deciding what you want to have happen in your organization. And then helping seed those ideas to help people take you go with you. They’re not bossing people to get them there.

No, you’re right. I mean, it takes a certain amount of charisma, it really does. And in lieu of charisma, of just having a stellar vision that people see as a true shining city on the hill, like they just get it, right. And that clarity of vision really is what’s important. That’s how I that’s how I tend to get my coconspirators, like I collect people in positions of authority or influence. And I say, look, here’s how it could be, here’s how we can turn this thing. Or here’s what we could turn this terrible nightmare mess into. Like this could be something that provides value instead of is thought of as just a tax on the organization. And when that’s you know, that’s how you do it, that’s how you roll your ideas out there is you have a compelling vision, you sell it to the right people, and then they help you make it happen, because they want it to happen.

I love the shining city on the hill. I think, I think that if there were one thing that I would want senior leaders to do, it’s not running around looking busy being in zoom meetings, it’s quietly knowing that vision each morning when they wake up, if they knew that, and had 15-minute meetings every day about that shining vision on the hill. That to me is the work of leadership. Because there’s other people to do the running around of leadership, that and it’s difficult to hold that shining vision on the hill, in the midst of the busyness and running around. The one takes from the other, there are two different jobs, they really are.

It’s funny, when you are getting into leadership or transitioning from like one level of leadership to another, it can be especially if you think like middle management to upper management slash that executive layer, especially. That’s where it turns into Oh, right. I’m not really executing anymore. I’m holding the vision; I’m holding the strategy. And I’m making sure that the people that are executing are going in the right direction at all times. That’s what I do. That’s my job here is holding clarity for the organization and maintaining that shared model of what it is we’re trying to do here.

And any tips like for because you’ve been doing that for some time? What tips do you have? Like how someone should think about that as they’re making the leap sort of, I’m thinking and that’s from like the director level to the VP level or the, you know, some organization that might be from the VP level to the C level, it depends on the size of the organization, but sort of to that visionary, it depends on the organization, which level is visionary, but somewhere in there. What do you how do you how do you hold that for yourself?

Yeah, it’s a constant battle. Have between the part of me that wants to go just make things happen. And the part of me that knows, no, I need to be getting other people to do things because I cannot scale. And that’s the thing that I have to keep reminding myself of. It is great. Everyone wants to feel needed. We’ve, if we go back to the beginning, we were talking about how you start to lose feedback, a way to get that feedback for us to just start doing, right. Yes, yeah. And, and finding that inclination to do. Is, is really like, I think the first thing that you need to lean into, because when you think about the things that you do, do, they take a lot longer, right? Like, if I’m an engineer, I’m on a two week, I take two weeks to do something, always, it’s just two weeks, two weeks over and over again, one step up from that might be a month or a quarter a step up from that might be six months. And then you start to get into that 135 1020 Year Vision level, where like, you are doing something all the time for the next 20 years and holding that for the organization. So really step back from wanting to find the things that you can go right or the tickets you can go up, they are the code that you can go, you know, review. And instead, just take one step back and look at the forest from the trees and resist the urge to just constantly do.

I have talked to so many new leaders, new being whatever the new position is not that they’re brand-new leaders. And so many times they’re so they have this feeling they’ve stopped doing the tactical and they’re like, what if somebody notices I’m not running value? That’s always their first fear. What if I get fired for not doing anything? Then there? And, and then they’re like, and then it’s like, well, you are, I promise you are. And then they get really busy. Because you’re right, it is a trap. It’s like this is the trap. The trap is you can get the I’ve never seen this trap before. I love that we’re talking about this. The trap is that if you need that affirmation, if you step back into doing something tactical, that you know, really well, someone’s going to go, oh, my gosh, Greg, you’re so good at this. And you are because you’ve done it for years. And then you get the positive affirmation. But then all of a sudden, you start doing tactical things again, and no one’s holding the vision of the city on the hill. Exactly. Ah, oh, my heart breaks, like breaks for the new leader, it breaks for the organization that no longer has anyone holding the vision on the hill, like, oh, it’s like it’s heartbreak all over the place.

I feel like our coaching sessions since I started a solar wind sounds similar to the conversation we’re having right now.

Great job stepping into a new role. But there is I think it’s important to name this agony of the new role. There is agony. There is some agony in the new in leadership, new brand-new leadership, there’s some agony stepping up a level there’s agony, any new role, there’s agony, there’s something that you leave behind. And it’s not just the problems of the previous role, which was set probably somewhat safe. Because you know, the devil, you know, and there is this sort of poignant agony of leadership.

Yeah, in you know, it’s kind of also in a way I want to say affirming, I’m like really trying to find the word for it, but there’s a certain amount of pride that I take in learning to cope with that agony, which is really just uncertainty, right? Like, nobody likes to not know. And learning to just hold that that discomfort and to recognize it for what it is transformational. Because you can go through a day, and you can say like I don’t like what am I doing here? What Why did I leave on and I joined and really just you think about it like oh right now this is this is just new. This is just newness, this is uncertainty. This is confusion. Okay, now we know what it is. Let’s move on next.

Well and you know, we will coach in coach training they always ask it’s not up Question I use a lot with my techie, you know, people who like more concrete questions, but coaches often ask a question, which is what’s hard to be with? Yeah. And that’s what we’re talking about, like, it’s hard to be with the, the gaps in time, it’s hard to be with the not knowing it’s hard to be with. It’s hard to be with the lack of constant affirmation. You know, it’s, it’s all those things are really hard to be with in a new role.

They really are, they really are.

Well, I don’t want to let you leave without also asked about coaching. Because I’ve never had, I’ve never talked about coaching with a client on my show before. And I’m just curious about, that’s not actually true. By the way, I don’t want to make any of my previous clients who’ve been on the show, you know, mad, but I am curious, you’ve invested in coaching for a long time, I’m curious about how you think about coaching, why you’ve invested in coaching, and kind of just, you know, how you think about it for you?

Well, I think if you’re just kind of my work therapist know it for me, I, I think people that see me do things might disagree with this, but nothing comes naturally for me. I train for everything that I do. And I try to be very conscious about it and deliberate. And when I do something brand new, it is immensely helpful for me to work one on one with people like I when I used to dance, like when I was doing ballet, like I got extra help from one of the teachers who took like an interest in me or when I was growing up, it was my mom. Or as I’ve been swimming, you know, I’ll stick around after practice for five minutes and say, hey, look, this is the thing that I’m kind of like thinking about while I’m swimming and you know, where I’m trying to, like find swimming in my body and what to hold on to when I’m doing it. And because of how critical learning to lead is. Like I was just like me I am I am going to pay money to have someone sit with me regularly and help me work through my problems of being a new leader and of learning how to continue to grow as a leader. Because right it’s not like suddenly I’m a great leader, and I’m never going to improve again. It’s that that mindset of being of wanting to continuously get better at things and to be as good as I can. And so that’s you know, that’s why I came to you. It’s I felt lost. And, you know, a friend reached out and said he talked to Melanie. And yeah, it’s just been it’s been transformative for me.

And I don’t know how long we’ve coached. It’s been over five years, I think, yeah, let’s spend some time. Yeah, you remember, like, what you were like, what the initial reason was? What was the reason you hired a coach? What was the cue? For someone? Yeah, and it’s not about hiring me to coach in general, like, what should someone be thinking when they hire a coach?

Sorry, I’m laughing because for me, it was just sheer. I really got thrown into the deep end, really small startup. And all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, we need you to hire, you know, 810 13 engineers and manage them, and figure out how to make this all work. And I had, I was like, Okay, I’m going to read books, I’m going to talk to people, I know that they’re doing this and there’s like, at a certain point, you start to exhaust your resources. And you realize, like, I don’t have six months, to teach myself how to be a leader. And no one here has time to hold my hand and walk me through this. And my friends are getting tired of me fucking one on ones with them. So, you know, finding someone dedicated to helping you learn how to do this very new, very different thing you stepped into is I mean, it’s all I could think to do.

Thank you. Thank you for that. I don’t know if you want people to find you. Sometimes on my show. At some point, I’d say things like, you know, if you Where would people find you? But if if people had questions for you, would they find you somewhere or follow you? Somewhere?

Yeah, I’m Grepory on everything. G RE P O R Y. I’d like Gregory but with a pee in the middle, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, all the things. I don’t I don’t post as much anymore. But I do get on check my notifications and DMs pretty regularly, I am always happy to chat with people about coaching about leadership about tech. Yeah, feel free to reach out.

Sounds great. And it’s been really great to have you on the program. I want to mention, and I know that you’re a little bit familiar with it. But again, my clients always inform the work that I do. And that panic moment that that I’ve talked to so many people on that journey when they’re panicked.

And so, one of the programs that I created was our Leadership Essentials Program. And, and I’m really excited about that program. I actually was talking to someone who went through that program, and I was asking, they are signing some of their team up for it right now. And I said, why are you signing them up? And they were like, well, it’s just what you said it is. It’s leadership essentials, it’s everything you need to know to lead a team. Okay. That’s really cool. And it really is. And so, you know, I just want to put a shout out there for people who are in that place of feeling scared about leadership, if you want to reach me, and want to know more about that program, our leadership essentials team talks about delegation and things like accountability, how to develop your team members, like how do you have a better team next year than you have today. Because if you don’t develop them, and they stay, then you’re in trouble because your team isn’t growing. So, you really want to make sure your team is constantly growing. Send an email to me, melanie@experimentalleader.com, I’ll be happy to get you information, talk to you all of that. And I definitely want you to know about that program, because it’s near and dear to my heart. And I want people to suffer less in this leadership place. Oh my gosh, it’s so it breaks my heart that people suffer so much when they step into this into a leadership place.

So, thank you so much for being here. Greg, it’s been really fun.

Pleasure is all mine.

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It’s been so fun to be with you here today. And it was super fun to hear Greg talking about how his leadership journey has evolved. I just want to reiterate that idea of, of sharing thoughts. Sometimes it’s a year before they happen. Sometimes it’s two years, my example of the Unitarian Church 20 years. That’s a bit long, but you want to start to share your ideas, seed your environment with the things that you want to have happen. It helps you emerge as a thought leader. And it helps people see the things that you’re interested in, be a thinker, and then share those thoughts freely. Because it helps you in your career development and it helps people see what you’re interested in. I hope that you have an amazing week. Go experiment!

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