Forget computer science class — the most important lesson for software careers is hidden in the world of fine dining
Good afternoon, my name is Bill, how can I help you today?”
This was how I started the call with two frustrated program managers in Schwab’s recruiting team. Their implementation of our product was not going well and we couldn’t afford to lose them as a client.
I was a software engineer who’d been lent to customer support and tasked with rescuing an implementation that was off the rails. This was our first call and I wanted them to give me their worst issues.
Because I was a new contact for them, they were cordial and gave me a list of issues. They were not happy.
Two months later they became our first referenceable customer.
Communicating with strangers
How did they go from angered to an advocate?
Because of a skill I learned in college — communicating with strangers.
This wasn’t a course I took, rather it was what I learned working in a high end restaurant.
That restaurant was known for 3 things — service, amazing food, and the highest prices in town.
Our goal was to provide an amazing dining experience and the high volume of repeat customers and word-of-mouth newbies proved that it worked.
Everyone on the floor was trained to talk with the customers. To be cordial, listen carefully, offer suggestions, and solve any problems. That training translated perfectly to my work with software teams (and frustrated customers).
Results
Software teams thrive (ok, every team thrives) when their leadership practices and masters the skills of communication — with everyone. You may be a skilled coder but if your communication skills are lacking, your career is capped. This is a reality of every career path — communication is critical to advancement.
Improving my communication skills earned the opportunity to help that Schwab implementation. It also earned my first leadership promotion, catalyzed every team’s performance, and even inspired executives to change their language.
I listened carefully to the Schwab team’s issues, force-ranked the problems, then went about solving them as fast as possible. I kept up a stream of emails with them about progress (people hate being left in the dark). We met live twice per week. And I suggested business process improvements that could make their lives easier.
They started seeing fixes in production the next day.
Inside game
Here’s the other part of that lesson — we changed company policies so I could successfully help Schwab and our other clients.
When my VP offered me the role, I needed a couple days to devise a system that could achieve his success metrics. One of the key elements was changing three company policies regarding data changes, code changes, and prioritizations of bug fixes.
The VP said “yes” to my policy change requests because of how I communicated. The framing of the need, the new process structure, and the cost of not changing were compelling — he didn’t think twice about saying “yes”. This is the other part of communication — internal communication matters.
Communication is the meta skill that empowers career progress.
Over the span of his tech career, Bill has built products, teams, and solutions for mobile, recruiting, ecommerce, social media, and now education.
He has helped companies ranging from Google and Walmart to hotels and restaurants.
Building high functioning teams has been fundamental to Bill’s success.