509: Swarmed by Engineers
Transcript from 509: Swarmed by Engineers with Steve Hinch, Christopher White, and Elecia White.
EW (00:00:06):
Welcome to Embedded. I am Elecia White, here with Christopher White. Our guest this week is Steve Hinch. We are going to be talking about writing a book, being at HP for quite a while, maybe some hiking. Maybe some Harvey Mudd stuff. We will see. It will be fun.
CW (00:00:28):
Hi Steve. Welcome.
SH (00:00:30):
Thanks. Thanks Chris and Elecia.
EW (00:00:33):
Could you tell us about yourself, as if we met at the Harvey Mudd alumni table?
CW (00:00:38):
<laugh> jeez.
SH (00:00:41):
Sure. I am Steve Hinch. I have spent my whole career in high tech. I graduated, as you know, from Harvey Mudd College with bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering. I joined Hewlett-Packard right out of college. I worked at HP and its spinoff company, Agilent Technologies, for a total of about 35 years. First in manufacturing engineering. Then I led a research and development department.
(00:01:09):
Near the midpoint of my career, I moved into marketing, as the division marketing manager for a $300 million a year business. Then took on the role of general manager for an entire business. But then I realized I wanted to be a CEO of a whole company, and that was never going to happen at Agilent.
(00:01:30):
So I took an early retirement package so I could start my own company, but I did not want to start a company totally from scratch, so I decided to go the route of buying a franchise of a national company. So I opened the Santa Rosa franchise of TeamLogic IT. A company that provides IT support for businesses throughout the nation.
(00:01:53):
That gave me the chance to be the CEO of my own company, but take advantage of proven business processes that were already developed by that franchise network. Now I sold that business after six years, and I have served as a consultant to the high-tech industry ever since.
EW (00:02:10):
And you have written a book.
SH (00:02:12):
And I have written books. Yes. We will talk about that at some point?
EW (00:02:17):
All right. We are going to do lightning round. We will ask you short questions and we want short answers. If we are behaving ourselves, we will not say, "Are you sure?" and, "In what year did that happen?" Are you ready?
SH (00:02:32):
I think so.
CW (00:02:33):
Which Harvey Mudd dorm was your favorite?
SH (00:02:37):
I lived in West Dorm all four years.
CW (00:02:39):
Aha.
SH (00:02:39):
Which makes me sort of weird.
CW (00:02:42):
<laugh> We were all sort of weird, wherever we were.
EW (00:02:48):
Which HP division did you start with?
SH (00:02:51):
It was called "Santa Rosa Division," at the time. It has had a number of changes in names since then. It is now Keysight Technology. I actually retired before it became Keysight Technology. But I have lived in Santa Rosa the whole time.
CW (00:03:05):
Which Agilent division did you leave from?
SH (00:03:08):
Oh. I was the general manager of my own division called, "Digital Communications Test Division." That division does not exist anymore, but it did at the time I retired.
CW (00:03:24):
Was that the big network, high-speed test gear, and things like that?
SH (00:03:29):
It was a smaller portion of that. It was actually broken out as a separate division, primarily for high-speed fiber optic telecommunication test instruments.
CW (00:03:40):
I am sure we used some of that, at various places, I was at.
SH (00:03:43):
Wise.
EW (00:03:45):
Favorite plant of Sonoma County?
SH (00:03:49):
Favorite plant of Sonoma County. I like the California poppies.
CW (00:03:56):
Do you have a secret hike or just place to visit in nature, up in Sonoma County?
SH (00:04:03):
It is called the "Kortum Trail," along the Sonoma Coast from a place called Shell Beach, up to Goat Rock.
EW (00:04:16):
Do you prefer to complete one project or start a dozen?
SH (00:04:20):
Well, I prefer to complete one. But that is much easier to do, if I start several.
CW (00:04:25):
Interesting way to look at that. Yes. <laugh> Favorite fictional robot?
SH (00:04:31):
Data from "Star Trek: Next Generation."
EW (00:04:34):
Do you have a tip everyone should know?
SH (00:04:37):
Yeah. Here is a tip that I always tell to new managers to keep in mind. No job is ever too hard, for the person that does not have to do it.
CW (00:04:47):
<laugh>
EW (00:04:48):
That is so true. I have fallen into that, and I have been a victim of it too.
CW (00:04:54):
Yeah.
EW (00:04:54):
<music> Before we get back to today's discussion, I want to share a new resource for anyone curious about the rise of AI in engineering. Mouser Electronics has a dedicated Empowering Innovation Together hub, that covers the latest breakthroughs in tech.
(00:05:16):
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(00:05:33):
If you are ready to see how AI is powering the next generation of engineering, head over to mouser.com/empowering-innovation. Now, let us get back to the show. <music>
(00:05:48):
Okay. Enough with the lightning round. We met when you were leading a team to do interviews at HP, for summer internships and new hires.
SH (00:05:59):
Yep. That is right.
EW (00:06:03):
I was shortly out of college at that time. When I first got to HP, they gave me a book called, "The HP Way" by [David] Packard.
SH (00:06:11):
Yep.
EW (00:06:11):
Do you know the book? Do you remember much of it?
SH (00:06:17):
I have that book right on my bookshelf right behind me, and along with one other book called, "Bill and Dave" that was written by somebody else. But yeah, those books-
(00:06:29):
In fact, my experience at HP has really shaped my career. I have to say, when I started at HP, it was still run by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. Not for too many years, but they really showed me what it takes to run a company well.
(00:06:46):
Even after they retired, they were still the majority owners. So they still saw to it, that it was run the way that they would have done when they were still leading it. It was really not until they divested their majority ownership, near the time of their death, that things really changed.
(00:07:08):
It split into HP and Agilent, and that was really when HP- They hired this new CEO, the lady that will not be named-
CW (00:07:18):
<laugh>
EW (00:07:18):
<laugh>
SH (00:07:21):
That caused it to go downhill. Fortunately by then I was with Agilent Technologies, so I missed the brunt of that disaster. But I have always tried to bring the management philosophy that I learned from Bill and Dave to my job, which has not always endeared me to my superiors.
EW (00:07:38):
A lot of their philosophy was about enabling people to do their work, and making sure that they were well cared for. I do not know many HP folks who faced burnout as badly as I did, after I left.
SH (00:07:54):
That is certainly true. It was a challenge. When I first joined HP, it had such a high reputation that I felt I was not able to live up to the standards that everybody had. That was certainly a stress for me. Until I discovered that everybody was not necessarily as good as they thought they were, and I was as good as a lot of them.
EW (00:08:21):
How did their management style shape your own management style?
SH (00:08:28):
It had to do with- We talk about that there is this myth that was even at the time that I was there, that HP was a forever company. You join the company, and as long as you are not completely screwing things up and doing things illegally or whatever, that you had a job for life.
(00:08:50):
That was never really true. Even when I started, Bill and Dave had done lay-offs at least a couple of times as far back as the 1960s. But it was only in the sales organizations. So those of us in the division never really noticed that.
(00:09:11):
Bill and Dave ran the company so that it was profitable. But it was also a company that employees wanted to work for. Because they knew they were going to be supported, and as long as they were delivering results, they were going to have a job.
(00:09:31):
That certainly changed after Bill and Dave left. But that is a problem with a lot of companies as well. It is not unique to HP.
EW (00:09:47):
No. No. It is not unique to HP. In fact, it seems like none of them are unique to that. At HP when I was there, which was not that long, when I look back at my career-
CW (00:10:02):
I thought you were going to say, "It was not that long ago when I was there." <laugh>
EW (00:10:03):
Oh, it was forever ago. I had training. I had good mentoring. I had specific mentors. I was encouraged to continue my education, and given time and money to do so. I was allowed to talk to different people in the company. And switch over from giant servers to wet biology. It was a for life company.
SH (00:10:29):
Mm-hmm.
EW (00:10:29):
Are there any for life companies now? Or is it all just profit margins and burning people out?
SH (00:10:38):
Yeah. That is a really good question, that the whole world is struggling with right now. Here is what I see the problem is. In the US, Supreme Court decisions as far back as I think the 1970s, have ruled that a public company's responsibility is to manage the business in the best interest of its investors.
(00:11:03):
So if the C-suite is making decisions that are not in the best interest of investors, they are not doing what is in the best interest of the company according to the Supreme Court. So if laying off employees is seen to deliver better results for investors, that is what management does.
(00:11:21):
But there are two problems with that. First, the legal definition of investors is limited to shareholders who invest money in the company. But according to industry research, the average shareholder only holds stock in a company for I think less than six months.
(00:11:39):
That means the shareholder only cares about company results for the next quarter or two. They do not care whether the company mortgages their long-term future to deliver those short-term results, because they will not be around by then to worry about it.
(00:11:52):
Second, companies should realize that employees are investors in the company too. They may not invest money, but they invest their time. Employees have far more interest in the long-term status of the company, because they will be around hopefully for a longer than the typical shareholder.
(00:12:11):
Companies do not recognize that, so they do not really treat employees the same way they treat investors who have put money into the company. I do not have a good way to change that.
(00:12:24):
I know that there are a few companies that take the approach of including employees as shareholders, or as owners of the company. But I have not seen enough results from those companies to know how well that works.
(00:12:36):
But that is what I see the big problem is, is too many companies have too limited a view of who the quote "investors" in their company really are.
EW (00:12:49):
That is a very different perspective. And useful to think about why is a company behaving this way, and who they view their shareholders are. It helps to frame that, to figure out the actions.
SH (00:13:04):
Yeah. It is really something that- The leaders of the company do it this way, because it is the old story of you do what you are measured on, and they are being measured on short-term results. Until that is changed- That is one of the big differences with a company like HP back when Bill and Dave ran it, is they did not have to worry about short-term results.
EW (00:13:33):
Right.
SH (00:13:35):
In another example, Michael Dell took Dell private for that same reason. It had been a public company. He took it private because he did not want to have to worry about just the next quarter's results. He wanted to make it more focused on the longer term future. He could not do that as a publicly held company.
(00:13:54):
I think they have gone back to being a publicly held company now. I have not followed that. But that was a couple- I was really impressed with Michael Dell when he did that back- What? A couple of decades ago, I think.
EW (00:14:07):
You said you were a general manager of a division. I am not sure if folks understand that that basically is CEO of a small company.
CW (00:14:17):
Mid-size company.
EW (00:14:18):
Mid-sized. How many people did you have in your division?
SH (00:14:29):
It changed, because I took over just as the recessions were coming on board. I am almost embarrassed to say this, but I was hired on as the general manager of this business. And the day that my boss hired me, he told me, "Steve, your first job is to lay off half of your marketing department."
CW (00:14:55):
Yeah.
EW (00:14:56):
Oh. Ohh. It is like, "Can you not do that for me, before I get there?"
SH (00:15:01):
Yeah! Right.
EW (00:15:03):
Can I not be the good guy?
SH (00:15:05):
What I was able to do- I talked with my team. I was responsible for marketing, R & D, manufacturing. The only thing I was not specifically responsible for was the sales teams. The sales teams were managed totally separately. So I had the whole rest of what a division runs.
(00:15:30):
We were able- Because we had good people that we were going to have to lay off, we were able to find jobs elsewhere in Agilent Technologies, for about half the people that we otherwise would have had to layoff. But that still- We had to layoff like 20 people.
(00:15:49):
Maybe a better question than, "How many people did I have?" which was- I am not sure I can exactly answer that. It was about a $50 million a year company when I took it over. In three years, my team and I grew it to about a hundred million dollars a year business.
EW (00:16:09):
That is probably a better answer. Yes. Okay. Marketing and sales. And I am sorry, because I know you did come after engineering, through marketing. But I cannot imagine you have not heard this before. That HP would market sushi as, "Cold dead fish."
SH (00:16:30):
<laugh> Oh yeah.
EW (00:16:33):
Can you explain why people say that? And how offensive it is? Is it offensive?
CW (00:16:37):
<laugh>
SH (00:16:39):
Well, it was probably true back in the HP days. I do not actually use that term in my book. But I talk about the early days of HP, when it was a test and measurement company.
(00:16:53):
The claim to fame that I think maybe Bill Hewlett even wrote about in his book, was when they needed to figure out what new product to invent, they did not go out and talk to customers. They went and talked to the engineer at the next bench. Because whatever that engineer needed, was going to be probably the same as what their real customers were going to need.
CW (00:17:19):
Mm-hmm.
SH (00:17:19):
I remember Bill Hewlett talking about that in presentations when I was there. They were proud of that fact. That only worked for as long as the kind of customers that they were selling to, were the same kind of people that were at the next bench in their R & D labs.
(00:17:44):
When they started getting into computers and printers, they were still trying to use that same next bench syndrome. Which is why the first computers from HP- I do not know whether- Well before your time. HP-150 was supposedly the HP version of the IBM PCs. It could not run the same software as the IBM PC ran, because HP thought they could make it better. Because that is what their next bench engineers said.
(00:18:31):
Once they started going out and talking to real customers and finding out what was important, the computer and printer divisions eventually realized they got to get a lot better at marketing. And that does not mean talking to somebody at the next bench. That means actually going out and talking to real customers and finding out what is important to them. That was a real change in philosophy.
(00:18:59):
I cannot say- The test and measurement side of HP is now Keysight Technology. I cannot say that that same trend is as prevalent in the Keysight test and measurement side. I think they still talk to the next bench engineers more than customers. But that is something that, at least on the computer side of things, they got better at.
EW (00:19:25):
It was not bad marketing, if you are a test and measurement company, and you are really selling to the engineers. Who tend to appreciate the dry accurate marketing, instead of the whizzy flashing...
SH (00:19:40):
That is a really good point.
CW (00:19:41):
To be fair, I am looking at the HP-150. There was a version of it called the "HP Touchscreen MAX," which sounds very 2025 Apple. <laugh>
SH (00:19:52):
<laugh> It was a terrible touchscreen. But it was the first personal computer that had a touchscreen, so that was their claim to fame. Their marketing department was- Their approach was, "Why would you want to buy an IBM PC that does not have a touchscreen, when we have one that does?" "Well, because it cannot run any of the programs that I want to run."
EW (00:20:15):
That probably all led to HP-UX. <laugh>
CW (00:20:17):
<laugh>
SH (00:20:20):
It did, actually. Yep. Ahh, boy.
EW (00:20:26):
I remember having to translate something from Linux to- Actually, I do not even know if it was Linux yet. It was before Linux. To HP-UX.
CW (00:20:34):
Probably was not before Linux.
SH (00:20:35):
Well, I remember the first HP computer I learned to program, used a programming language called HPL, which was- Nobody ever used it except HP. I think I am probably the only one that still knows how to program on it. But there are no computers around that run it anyway, so that is lost knowledge.
EW (00:20:57):
There is a balance between building things and buying them. It seems like maybe they should have bought a few more things.
SH (00:21:09):
That is true. Ahh, boy, I can tell you all sorts of stories. This may have nothing to do with it, but let me tell you the story anyway, because I think it is interesting. This is back in the time when I was in manufacturing engineering. I was actually head of the corporate manufacturing engineering. We were deploying a new printed circuit technology across the whole company, called "surface-mount technology."
(00:21:40):
This was back in the days when there was a big push toward improving reliability, by reducing the number of components that you had in your computers. So this one division that I was working with, made a big claim that we reduced the number of components in our computer by 300 components.
(00:22:07):
I asked them, "How did they do that?" "Well, we took the power supply that we used to build ourselves, and we subcontracted that out. So now that is only one component, not 300." But it has still got the same 300 components inside of it. But that was the objective that they were given, and so they were given kudos for doing that.
EW (00:22:29):
So many bad decisions are based on fulfilling the letter of your requirements, and ignoring the spirit of them.
SH (00:22:40):
I have always tried to make sure that my team did not do stupid things like that. I cannot even say that was stupid. Because it was probably a good idea to subcontract that power supply out to a company that really knew what they were doing, and was designing hundreds of thousands of power supplies per month, or building that many.
(00:23:00):
But just look at what you are doing, as opposed to, "Boy, this is a way to reduce the component count," which is not what you are doing. But it was still a good decision. I do not question the decision, just the way they framed it.
EW (00:23:18):
Yeah. One of the privileges that I got at working at HP, was getting to move over to the HP Labs area. It was an established central research laboratory, to lead the development of disruptive innovations.
CW (00:23:41):
Sort of like Xerox PARC, or?
SH (00:23:44):
Yep.
CW (00:23:44):
Okay.
EW (00:23:44):
Yeah.
SH (00:23:47):
Or the Bell Labs.
CW (00:23:47):
Right.
SH (00:23:47):
Bell Labs was the analogy that we always used at the time.
EW (00:23:53):
What are the advantages and disadvantages of having an established research lab like that?
SH (00:24:01):
Yeah. So that is- In my book, I talk about four ways to drive disruptive innovations. That central research laboratory is the first one I use, because it has been around for a long time. In the old days, Bell Labs and HP Labs were really focused on innovative breakthroughs.
(00:24:25):
Bell Labs invented the laser, the digital telephone systems and all sorts of neat stuff, that did not necessarily- I think they even- They have done stuff with astronomy and quasars and stuff, that do not have necessarily any immediate obvious application for what was then the Bell Telephone Company. But it was really disruptive innovations, that you never know whether they will turn into something good or not.
(00:25:02):
HP Labs was never quite as far out as Bell Labs was. But they still did things like when I was working on the digital communications analyzer, which was basically an oscilloscope that you can use to look at fiber optic signals, instead of electric signals.
(00:25:21):
HP Labs was the place that invented the photo detectors, the high speed photo detectors that we used. And they invented several other parts of the high speed technology, that was necessary for these 50 GHz oscilloscopes.
(00:25:43):
Today, the problem is that upper management expects to get more out of those laboratories, quicker than they did in the past. So the laboratories these days focus more on, "What can we invent, that will have a fairly immediate impact on our bottom line, within the next year or two." And so-
EW (00:26:13):
That is not inventing. That is just developing.
SH (00:26:15):
That is developing. That is right.
EW (00:26:15):
You cannot invent on schedule.
SH (00:26:19):
What they do is, they actually contract with universities to do more of the fundamental research work. The problem with that is that the universities cannot do the kind of research that you can immediately hand over to a company, and turn into something productive. They can do stuff that breaks new ground, but is years away from turning something into a profitable product for a company.
(00:26:51):
So there is this gap that has turned- Over the last probably ten years, a gap that is how do you close what the universities do, and turn that into something that companies can actually get value out of. There is a bit of a gap. There is a fair amount of research that is been written about that gap, but nothing has really been done to close it yet.
EW (00:27:17):
I took that question out of your book, which we have danced around. But you wrote a book recently called, "Winning through Innovation." How do you define "innovation" and "winning"?
SH (00:27:32):
Okay. I have a two part definition of "innovation." We talk about innovation now, I am talking specifically about innovation in the business world. I am not going to tell you how to innovate in the music industry, or the art kind of stuff. It is business innovation.
(00:27:57):
My definition of innovation is, it is the ability to see opportunity in places others do not, and turn that vision into profitable reality. So there are two parts of it. The opportunity, which is the innovative idea, and then the ability to turn that into a profitable reality.
(00:28:17):
Lots of people have innovative ideas that never go anywhere. That is not going to help a company. If you cannot turn that idea into something profitable, you are not going to be winning. So that is the winning part of it, is can you turn that innovative idea into something profitable for the company?
EW (00:28:39):
It is true. I have had several really good ideas lately. None of them technology related, so they are all pretty silly. But there is a big black box to the profit. They are just ideas.
SH (00:28:54):
Yeah, I have written a whole book about it. I have to admit, I cannot tell you how to come up with the innovative ideas, because that is very unique to particular applications. But what I can do, and what I do in the book, is show you how to create an environment in your company, that allows innovation to flourish.
(00:29:17):
Now, you are not ever going to be innovative or have innovative people, if you are just telling them, "Get the job done. Do not worry about anything else. Just produce what you need to this week or this month."
(00:29:32):
There is a whole culture that needs to change, in order to create an environment that allows innovation to flourish. Not only coming up with the innovative ideas, but also what it takes to turn those innovative ideas into profitable reality.
EW (00:29:50):
I am thinking over my career, the times when I have had ideas and taken them to bosses. Good ideas and profitable ideas and bad ideas. It is the communication aspect of trying to- As an engineer, I do not always know that this will ensure $50 million worth of profit. All I know is that it will help me get my job done a little faster.
SH (00:30:20):
Yep.
EW (00:30:22):
How do I get better at telling those around me, that I need time to explore this idea?
SH (00:30:32):
It takes support from your management in order to do that, first of all. Let us talk about the different kinds of innovations. Different books talk about as many as 14 types of innovation. I have simplified it down to four types of innovation in the book.
(00:30:49):
But focus for now just on two of them, incremental innovation and disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation is where you are coming out with something brand new, that brings something entirely different to the market, that can blow away the existing leaders in that market.
(00:31:09):
Incremental innovation is where you make small changes to products that make them better, but they are still the products that people are familiar with.
(00:31:20):
Let me give you just a couple of quick examples of the two different types. Incremental innovation. The automobile industry has been driven by incremental innovation for decades. Now, let us not talk about EVs. Let us just talk about gasoline powered.
(00:31:35):
The cars that you buy today are better than the cars you bought 20 years ago, because they have got improved anti-lock brakes, anti-crash technologies. They have longer warranties than they used to. But they are still the same cars, basically. People are familiar with them.
(00:31:57):
Here is an example of a disruptive innovation, that I talk about in the book. The change in the locomotive industry from steam powered locomotives, to diesel powered locomotives, was a disruptive change. Not a single manufacturer of steam locomotives survived that transition.
(00:32:16):
So those are the two types of innovation that we can focus on for now. So the question is, "How do I instill an environment in my company, that allows those to flourish?" Let us talk about incremental innovation first.
EW (00:32:32):
It would be easier to allow that to flourish.
SH (00:32:35):
Yes. When I was general manager, I always told my teams, "I want you to take about two hours per week outside of your normal job. I mean, you are working 40 hours a week. Take two of those hours, not necessarily together all two hours in one lump. But on average two hours a week, where you and maybe a small team of people that you are working with, get together in an environment away from your desks. Use that as time to talk about innovation."
(00:33:12):
It could be incremental ideas, "How do I improve my process here?" Or, "How do I improve this product in some easy way?" Or it can be, "Here is a great idea for some brand new idea that is really disruptive."
(00:33:28):
But you need to create an environment that allows people to do that. That two hour window, which- A lot of times the best discussions take place when people are gathered around a coffee pot at break time. Or they are sitting together at lunchtime talking about stuff.
(00:33:46):
And they are not getting interrupted by somebody that needs an immediate problem solved. Or go off to a coffee shop somewhere, so you are not disrupted by immediacy, and you can talk about innovative ideas in a conducive environment.
(00:34:10):
That is what I always encourage people to do. Now, they could not spend two hours every week, but they understood that I gave them the authority to do that. A lot of managers will not do that. It is like, "You have got to get these production quantities out by Friday. Do not do anything except work on those." That is not a way to encourage an innovative environment.
(00:34:38):
You cannot take three days on this week and just do nothing but innovation. But at least you have got to give them the authority and knowledge that it is okay to spend some time. And then bring those ideas to the managers for discussion.
(00:34:55):
You are not going to have all the answers. You are not going to know, "Will there be a $30 million a year market for this?" "I do not know. But boss, can I at least spend a little bit of time finding out and doing some research?" If the boss says, "We do not have time for this," that is not the way to encourage innovation.
EW (00:35:17):
<laugh> No!
CW (00:35:19):
A lot of companies have maybe monthly, or every couple of month, hack days. Where, "Okay. The whole company, whole engineering organization, do whatever you want. Then we will present what you came up with next week or whatever." Sometimes they are competitive kind of things, sometimes they are not. But do you think that is as effective as putting in a culture of continuous, having some continuous time, or not?
SH (00:35:49):
It can be. I have to say that I do not have firsthand experience with companies that do hack days, to know for sure. But the success- You do not want innovation to be just limited to, "Well, today is the hack day. I am going to innovate. And then I am not going to worry about innovation until the next hack day." That does not work very well.
(00:36:16):
That is one part is, it needs to be part of the ongoing culture. Hack days can be part of that. But if they are the only part of that, that is probably not going to work very well.
(00:36:26):
The other thing that I stress is that those employees really need to understand what this company is all about. What the priorities of the senior leadership are. That way they can be putting their thoughts into innovative ideas that support the company's objectives.
(00:36:48):
If the employees do not understand what the company is all about, and what is important to the senior leadership, then any innovative ideas they come up with are, if they are valuable, it is just going to be due to blind luck.
(00:37:01):
So there is a whole process that you need to put in place, to make sure that employees understand what the company is about, have the time to think about innovation. And then get support from the senior leadership, when they have innovative ideas that they want to explore some more. So there is sort of that three part process.
EW (00:37:22):
That requires a lot of transparency.
SH (00:37:25):
It does. It requires that the senior leadership team- I use "senior leadership team" sort of broadly, not just the C-suite, but third level managers as well. Need to understand that not every idea that employees come up with are going to pan out. But you need to give them the opportunity to see whether they pan out.
(00:37:50):
Some of those ideas are going to fail. Thomas Edison failed 3,000 times, before he came up with the incandescent light bulb. But that did not stop him. And he learned something about each one of those 3,000 times. The leaders of the company need to understand that that is likely, that it is okay. And that they need to be used as learning experience, to how to make the next innovative idea more likely to succeed.
EW (00:38:24):
Okay. So two hours a week for innovation, plus or minus. What about education?
SH (00:38:32):
Education is very important, because that is part of innovation. Let me give you an example, that is very relevant right now. Artificial intelligence, AI is- It is the buzzword throughout all of industry. A lot of people do not really know what that means. But they are trying to figure out how to take advantage of AI.
(00:39:00):
Education is a critical part of that. There are ways that- You can take courses on AI. You can go to conferences where AI is a major topic. That kind of learning is essential. You are not going to be good at AI-
(00:39:17):
Just the same way as a Major League Baseball player was not great the first time you ever tried to hit a ball with the bat. But the more you practice, the more you learn, the better you are going to become at it. You have got to give the employees in your company the opportunity to learn and practice.
(00:39:39):
Getting education is part of that. That is outside of the two hours. I would not include that in the two hours. But I would include it as part of me developing my workforce, so that they are relevant for the needs of my company in the future.
(00:40:00):
That is not going to just happen automatically. The employees are not necessarily going to know how to do that on their own. The leaders need to shape that, spell out what the employees need to know. What I used to do is I would say, "These are the kinds of things that are going to be important for our division in the future." But I did not go to the employees saying, "You need to learn this."
(00:40:30):
What I said is, "You come to me with your proposals for what you would want to learn." If it is reasonable, if it is something that we are going to need in the future, and if I can economically afford it- I would try to fund one class per year, for every employee that wanted to do something. I would support it, but it would be up to the employees to be deciding what they want to do.
(00:40:58):
Because if I tell them, "Go learn about AI," and they are not at all interested in AI, that is going to be a waste of my time and their time. But if they come to me and say, "Hey. I really want to learn about this type of AI, that I do not know whether it will be useful for us or not, but I will not know until I learn it," good. That is the kind of thing I would support, because they are all fired up about learning it.
CW (00:41:21):
I am going to ask you a question that is going to get me in trouble. I do not feel like industry as constituted right now, is working this way.
EW (00:41:32):
<laugh>
CW (00:41:32):
I do not feel like there are a lot of conscientious companies. Conscientious toward their employees, toward their place in society, whatever. I feel like we have shifted away from- Even away from the nineties' startup culture, to a new culture where it is sort of wild west and everyone is mercenary.
(00:41:56):
Are people receptive to this? Coming back to this? Or do you find this an uphill struggle, to convince people at companies and management?
SH (00:42:13):
Let me give you a roundabout answer to that. It certainly is not something that resonates with everybody. If you frame it as, "You have got to spend money to train people," and the senior leaders are saying, "Well. We are trying to make profit this month in this quarter, so we do not have time to do that," that is a disconnect there.
(00:42:39):
But if you frame it as, "This is going to be important for the company's future. This is an investment in the company's future," it is going to pay off. If leadership understands it as an investment that will make the company better in the future, that will work and does work.
(00:42:58):
It is certainly easier to do, technically easier to do, in a company that is privately held. Although privately held companies, sometimes the CEO or the owner of the company feels like they need to run everything themselves. That is a different problem.
(00:43:17):
But I think that it does- It can work. But it will not work without the support of the senior leadership. You are right, that companies, not every company, will support that. Of course, if they did, you would not have a podcast, because they would already know what to do.
CW (00:43:42):
<laugh>
EW (00:43:44):
You mentioned four types of innovation. We have talked about incremental versus disruptive. But in your book, you also talk about product versus process.
SH (00:43:52):
Right. Product innovation. That is either the next new product, or improvements to the existing product. Process innovation is not only how you build that product, that is one process. But it is all of the other processes in your organization. Your financial processes, your HR processes, your sales processes.
(00:44:18):
When I was a production engineer out supporting production lines at HP, occasionally somebody from the production line would come over to me and say, "If we could just change this thing in the process, I could produce twice as many product in the same period of time."
(00:44:38):
I was the engineer that was in charge of writing the processes for that production line, so I could go in and change it. I would have never thought to do that, if I had not heard from that person that was actually struggling out on the production line every day.
(00:44:56):
Process improvements can actually have more impact on the success of a company, than product improvements, because- The latest sports car from BMW, is going to hit the press and people are going to be impressed with it. But if you make a change to the process of building BMW automobiles, that is going to improve every automobile that goes through it, not just the fancy sports car.
(00:45:27):
So a process improvement can have lots of benefit, beyond just what a new product innovation would do. I actually use an example in Amazon in the book, where they came out with the Kindle reader. That product in the first three years, they estimated- Amazon does not publish it, but the industry analysts estimated, that the Kindle reader accounted for about $700 million worth of business for Amazon, which sounds great and was great.
(00:46:03):
But Amazon, almost without people knowing it, made changes to their process, that allowed third parties to come in and sell their products through Amazon, so Amazon did not have to stock everything. That, in the same three years, that change accounted for almost ten times as much, as the Kindle reader. But that was a process change that nobody paid attention to.
(00:46:33):
That was another good example of where changes to processes can have much more value, than new products. But you really need both. You cannot just have processes, if you do not have products to go through them.
EW (00:46:48):
That goes all the way down to the developer level. If you end up with a debugger that loads your code in one-tenth the time, that is worth it. Because it helps you do your job a lot faster.
CW (00:47:02):
Oh, but that debugger cost me a thousand dollars. I am not going to authorize that expense.
EW (00:47:05):
It is so worth it.
CW (00:47:06):
<laugh>
SH (00:47:08):
Yeah, that is right. That is a great example.
EW (00:47:12):
If only so that you do not get lost in doing something else, while you are trying to wait for your downloader.
CW (00:47:18):
Yeah.
SH (00:47:19):
Yep. Yep.
EW (00:47:21):
Anyway. I have a couple listener questions. Are you ready?
SH (00:47:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
EW (00:47:25):
This one is from Bill. "Many people have struggled with the shift, from being an individual contributor, to being a manager." As a manager of a small team, Bill still needs to make technical contributions. He would be interested in hearing how to navigate the move, from the perspective of a manager of a manager.
(00:47:45):
So, IC to manager. How do- See. HP actually sent me to a class. I remember calling it, "manipulation for idiots." But I think it was like, "win-win negotiation," or something.
CW (00:47:59):
<gasp>
SH (00:47:59):
No wonder they sent it to you.
EW (00:48:00):
<laugh>
CW (00:48:00):
<laugh>
SH (00:48:00):
End of conversation.
EW (00:48:10):
<laugh> No, no.
SH (00:48:10):
Ahh, boy.
EW (00:48:14):
Yeah. Barring a class that Bill can go to, and the support like I got at HP, how do you recommend folks go individual contributor to manager?
SH (00:48:29):
Yeah. There are a couple of points there. When I first became a manager, after being an engineer for about four years, I was managing a team of engineers. I was really struggling with it, because I had gone to a bunch of management classes and I had taken some stuff at Harvey Mudd. I had learned how to run a team in- We have engineering clinic there, that I was leader of a small team. But I was still finding that there are a lot of challenges as a manager of a real business, that I had never learned how to do in my classwork.
(00:49:13):
So finally after four or five months, I went to my manager and explained all the challenges that I was having here. He said, "Steve, you need to understand this. You are going to learn a lot about management in classes, but you are not going to learn everything you need to know.
(00:49:33):
"What you need to do is supplement that class learning with going to talk to more experienced managers, that have already dealt with problems that you are dealing with now. They will coach you what they did to solve the problems. And give you insight from a real practical perspective of what you need to do, to become a better manager."
(00:49:57):
For me, that was real insight. Because I was embarrassed to go talk to senior managers, or more experienced managers. Because I was afraid that they would think I was incompetent. But they were all incompetent when they first became managers too.
(00:50:12):
They understood the challenges I was going through. They gave me a lot of insight. I became a much better manager, after I learned that there are people out there that have already gone through the experiences that I am going through now. I can talk to them and get advice. That will help me get through these challenges better.
(00:50:32):
Now. The other thing that I will say is- I am not sure whether this was particular for Bill. But a couple of times I have had jobs where I was a manager of people, but I was also an engineer. They expected me to do engineering work, as well as manage people.
(00:50:53):
That is the hardest job in the world to do. Because managers need to work with people and coach them and guide them, so that they are successful. If you are also trying to solve problems yourself, you do not have time to do that.
(00:51:10):
So I would caution people against taking on a job, where you are expected to manage four or five people, but you are also expected to spend half your time doing engineering work. That is going to be really hard for you to do. Do one or the other, and avoid those other jobs.
CW (00:51:29):
<laugh> I am over here sobbing. I have done that twice. Twice? Three times? I do not know. Too many times. You are right. It was not fun.
SH (00:51:35):
Yeah.
EW (00:51:35):
Well, engineering and technical work requires a heads down, thinking about it, approach. Being interrupted is hard. A manager needs to be interruptible, for the most part.
CW (00:51:50):
Right.
EW (00:51:50):
Because they are dealing problems.
CW (00:51:52):
It is like, "Okay. Here I am thinking about code, and oh, I have a marketing meeting that I have to go talk-" Complete context shift, to go talk to senior management about- Whatever. It is completely different way of thinking, or- Yeah.
SH (00:52:06):
<laugh> Let me give you another example from my career. I think I was still a first level manager, maybe a second level manager. I cannot remember now. Of R&D engineers. I would come into the morning, park my car and start walking into my office across the parking lot.
(00:52:28):
Before I could get halfway across, like three or four times a week, I would be jumped on by engineers saying, "I got this problem! Steve, you need to help me figure it out!" I could not even get to my desk, before I was swarmed by engineers.
(00:52:41):
I finally had to tell these guys, "Please, let me get to my desk. Give me a half an hour to get organized, before you come over and start jumping on me with your problems. After that half hour, I am yours. That is my job, is to help you through. But I need to get organized first. I need to get a chance to figure out what else I have to do in the day. What my boss expects me to do during the day as well."
(00:53:12):
The other thing that I asked them to do is, "When you come to me with problems, do not just come to me with problems. Come to me with your ideas for solutions as well. You know the problem better than I do.
(00:53:25):
"You might have two or three different ideas. You are not sure which one is the best. But come to me with those ideas, and let us bounce them around. As opposed to you coming to me with just the problem, and expecting me, Steve, to figure out the answer to it." That helped. People actually started doing that, after I gave them that coaching.
EW (00:53:48):
It is a matter of triage. Just having everybody throw everything as you walk in the door, you need to figure out which problems need to be solved immediately. And which ones actually will get solved, if you tell them to just go think about it a little bit more.
SH (00:54:05):
Exactly. Yep. That is right. There were very few problems that you needed to solve in the next five minutes. But that was not always the case. I remember when I was a- After I had left Agilent, and was the owner of this IT support business here in Santa Rosa. One of my customers was a company that dispatched air ambulance helicopters throughout the northwest, the states in the northwest.
(00:54:39):
I remember once getting a phone call from them at two o'clock in the morning saying, "Our computers are down. We have got helicopters in the air, and we cannot talk to them." That is not the kind of problem I can say, "Well, I will get right on that first thing Monday morning." But that is the rare exception.
EW (00:54:57):
One of the things- To reply to Bill myself. Camille Fournier's "Manager's Path" is a great book. I wish I had had it when I started the manager's path at HP, because I was not ready. I was too young. I just did not- Not only did not have the social skills, I just did not have enough breadth.
(00:55:17):
I wish I had known that, because it made me stay away from managing for a long time. When I finally was a manager again, I was great. I understood what I needed to do. And thanks to HP, I had the skills to do it. Although I was like two jobs passed when I left Agilent.
SH (00:55:38):
Mm-hmm.
EW (00:55:38):
Do you find that there is a checkpoint? Or a number of years? Or? How do you tell when somebody is ready for management? And how do you tell if somebody is never going to be ready for management?
CW (00:55:53):
Hmph.
SH (00:55:56):
Yeah. Well. <laugh> I wish I had figured that out before I hired a few people.
EW (00:56:04):
<laugh>
SH (00:56:07):
But I am getting, and have gotten better, at it. I cannot say that I know exactly how many years somebody should work as an engineer, before they become a manager. It really has to do with when do they understand the difference in a role between a manager and engineer.
(00:56:27):
I have always found that the best engineers rarely make the best managers. Because they still want to do engineering. and tell their engineers how to do engineering. As opposed to being a coach, to help their team become more skilled themselves.
(00:56:53):
In my case, I had been engineer four years before I became a manager. That was sort of the minimum. Elecia, I was probably similar to you. I was a manager for five years before I had said, "I have had enough of this. I am going crazy." I went back to be an engineer for a year, before I went back into management.
(00:57:13):
But part of it depends on what kind of support you get from your leadership team. In my case, I was getting no support from my leadership team. I was having to try to figure out how to solve complicated problems, that there were no easy solutions for. And I was not getting the kind of help.
(00:57:34):
So it really- You need to understand what the job of a manager is, before you know whether you are ready to move into it. You also have to recognize that you are not going to be the perfect manager from day one. It may take you a year or two before you feel comfortable in the role.
(00:57:57):
You have got to take advantage of all the resources you can. Your boss. Other managers. Taking courses on management to build the skills that you need to have, in order to eventually become strong in that area.
EW (00:58:17):
Okay. So Scott had a different question, and it is kind of complicated. I am not quite sure where I am going to start with this. I guess he wrote it out well. "What is the interplay and differences between CTO, engineering manager, product owner, and team lead?
(00:58:33):
And while you are thinking about that, in specific, "How do you balance strategic business objectives, paperwork and process, individual project success, and herding the cats to get the project to actually happen."
CW (00:58:48):
The whole book.
EW (00:58:49):
Yeah. That really does sound like a whole book, does it not?
SH (00:58:53):
Oh. Yeah.
EW (00:58:54):
Do you have opinions on how a healthy organization should work with CTO, engineering manager, product owner, and team lead? Are those even the roles you would say are in the engineering organization?
SH (00:59:06):
Well, that was the first thing I was going to mention is, I am not sure I agree with this. But there is a trend in companies like Microsoft and Apple, to reduce the number of layers of management in the organization. So when you talk about CTO, engineering manager, product owner, and that- What? Was team lead?
CW (00:59:28):
Mm-hmm.
EW (00:59:28):
Mm-hmm.
SH (00:59:31):
There is sort of a push in the industry to reduce those number of people that are not direct contributors. I am not sure that is always the right way to do it. But let us talk about the two extremes first.
(00:59:45):
The team lead is responsible for the day-to-day running of the- It will be different, depending upon whether you are in R&D or marketing or-
EW (01:00:03):
Let us do engineering. Since most of our listeners are in the-
SH (01:00:07):
Yeah. The R&D. So the R&D team lead. Typically the team is going to have a specific project that they are responsible for delivering over a specific time period. The team lead needs to be driving the weekly success toward achieving those objectives.
(01:00:27):
I would not necessarily say a team lead needs to be working with each of the individual engineers every day. But they probably need to be checking in once a week at least, and more often if the engineer is coming to them with questions. But the team lead's responsibility is to drive the near-term success of that project.
(01:00:51):
The CTO, at the other extreme, is looking at the next three to five years, "Where does this company need to be headed? What do we need to set as priorities?" And mapping out a strategy for, the R&D strategy for, that next three to five years. And, "What organization do we need to put in place in order to be able to deliver that vision? What skills do we need to have that we do not have today, in order to make that team successful?"
(01:01:34):
So those are the sort of the two extremes. The CTO also has got to send that message out to the entire organization, so that the team knows where the company is headed. Not necessarily down to the nitty-gritty detail. But at least the overall vision of what the R&D strategy is for the next three to five years.
(01:01:57):
Then there are probably going to be one or two levels of management between- Depending upon the size of the company, maybe even more. Between the CTO and the individual contributors, the engineers. So the first level, that team lead is what I would see as the first level project manager.
(01:02:26):
What I think you have called "engineering manager," maybe what I see as the second level manager, who has several projects that they are responsible for. Second level management really is- Their job is to serve as a buffer between higher management, and the people that are actually doing the work.
(01:02:50):
To get the people that are doing the work, the budget, and the resources that they need. And to satisfy the upper management that the team is delivering, or going to be delivering, on results that are important to the company.
(01:03:06):
So that second level manager, and sometimes there will be a third level manager as well, is their job is really to serve as the buffer between those. The pressure is on both sides, from up above and from down below, to get the resources that they need.
(01:03:20):
The product owner. Typically in my experience, product owner has been somebody in marketing-
EW (01:03:29):
Yeah.
SH (01:03:31):
That is defining specifically what the customer requirements need to be. In the old days, the product owner at HP never worked that closely with R&D. Or maybe a better way to say that is R&D never really listened too much to the product owner and marketing.
EW (01:03:49):
<laugh>
SH (01:03:49):
But that is something that I really changed in the organization that I was working on. I had a product marketing manager who was basically the product owner, that he and I worked very closely together on setting strategy. That needs to happen.
(01:04:09):
It did not necessarily need to happen when HP was only building products for engineers, just like the engineers that were designing them. But these days where your customers are not necessarily anything like the engineers that are in your organization, you need to have a team that can work together to understand what the true customer needs are. And deliver products that really meet those needs.
EW (01:04:37):
In your answer, I heard a couple of timelines. The team lead is more in the next week and next month timeline. And the CTO is three to five years out. This depends on how big the company is. A small company, your CTO might be one year out. But that is different.
(01:04:58):
I thought that was something to call out, because as you look at how big your team is and how many levels there are, it is sort of a time-based thing. The engineer needs to get things done today, tomorrow, this week. A lot of engineering problems are not easily solved that way. But on average, a team lead can figure out what will probably get done by the next month.
(01:05:26):
Then their manager- Setting aside the people management part, that is a separate issue. The coaching, the mentoring, that all needs to happen too. But if you are looking at the roles, for me it is about how far out are you looking. And how much strategy are you applying, to filling the gaps you can see.
SH (01:05:49):
I think that is a really good way to frame the difference. The window of time that you look out, and the urgency of what you need to deliver, is probably considerably different.
(01:06:03):
The team lead, I may have made it sound like they need to be focused on just this week or this month. It is really, they have got a specific project that they need to deliver on, that that project might take a year or two. They are not going to focus on all two years of it right now. They are going to focus on what they need to be delivering over the next couple of months, in order to stay on track for what that two year window is.
(01:06:31):
So it is a different frame of month or two that you are looking at as the project progresses. But as you say, the CTO is somebody that he or she is not going to necessarily focus on how well that individual team is doing this week or this month. There is engineering management team between the two of them, that can make sure that the deliverables for the project you are working on right now are being met.
(01:07:01):
The CTO needs to frame the longer term future. And make sure that we understand where the markets are likely to head. We make sure that we have sold our story to the C-suite, so that we get the funding and the budget and the resources that we need to deliver on this vision.
(01:07:23):
Then in between, are a layer or two of engineering managers, that need to deliver on a time period that is in between those two.
EW (01:07:35):
So yes, Scott, if your CTO is taking over your code and writing the code, someone is behaving badly.
SH (01:07:48):
If you are in a startup that only has five people-
CW (01:07:52):
Maybe that is okay.
SH (01:07:53):
You do not have that luxury.
CW (01:07:54):
There is a lot of title inflation in small startups. <laugh>
EW (01:07:56):
Yeah. <laugh>
SH (01:07:57):
There is a lot of title inflation. That is right.
CW (01:07:59):
I am a director. I have one report. <laugh>
SH (01:08:02):
But you will never get to the point where you have that, if you do not have that vision of, "This is what- I cannot run the business when it gets to be 20 million a year, the same way I am doing it when it is a million dollars a year."
CW (01:08:16):
Yeah.
SH (01:08:18):
I see too many owners of small companies that do not know how to make that transition.
EW (01:08:26):
Before we let you go, I want to ask about your other books.
SH (01:08:30):
Okay.
EW (01:08:32):
I have been reading John Muir's "My first summer in the Sierra," which has been really fun.
SH (01:08:38):
Oh yeah.
EW (01:08:40):
Do you have favorite books in that category? The naturalist guides, and the exploring the world?
SH (01:08:52):
Yes. And it may be controversial. My favorite author, outdoor related author, is author by the name of Edward Abbey. His most famous book is book called "Desert Solitaire," that he wrote back in 1968. He has long since passed away. I always have to caution that he is my favorite author, but he is nowhere near my favorite person.
CW (01:09:22):
<laugh>
EW (01:09:22):
<laugh> Yeah.
SH (01:09:22):
If you look at his actual life, he is not somebody I would want to associate with. But he wrote well, about the outdoor world particularly. Not always in the desert, but he was a desert rat, so he wrote a lot about that. That really inspired me.
(01:09:42):
I am nowhere near a good as writer he is, but I hopefully I am a better person than he was. So he is my favorite author in the outdoor world, that is sort of my second career.
EW (01:10:01):
Could you mention your other books?
SH (01:10:05):
Well. Yeah. Actually, my very first book was for the high-tech industry. It was called "Handbook of Surface Mount Technology," written in 1988. Surface-mount technology was a brand new technology back then, and mine was the definitive book on that new technology for a number of years. I have written chapters in other high-tech books.
(01:10:29):
But I have also written, depending upon how you count them, three books on the outdoors. The first book I wrote about the outdoors was called, "Guide to State Parks of the Sonoma Coast and Russian River." It was a hiking guide to several state parks in northern California.
(01:10:52):
I have written a guidebook for outdoor navigation called, "Outdoor Navigation with GPS," that talks about how to use map, compass and GPS in the outdoors.
(01:11:12):
And then the last book that I have written there is called, "The Slickrock Desert," about the canyon country of southern Utah, and my explorations of that area. The only reason I wrote those books, is I needed an excuse to get out to the outdoors more. Because in high tech I am sitting behind a desk all day.
(01:11:31):
So I told my wife one day that I was going to write a book about the outdoors, and "I will see you in a week. I am headed off to Utah to do some research for the book." Once I wrote that book, I needed to write another one, to have another excuse to get outdoors. The whole reason I have done those books is just to have an excuse to get outside.
EW (01:12:00):
You know you do not need an excuse, right?
CW (01:12:01):
It helps. <laugh>
EW (01:12:05):
Steve, thank you for speaking with us. Do you have any thoughts you would like to leave us with?
SH (01:12:11):
Well, I think we have covered a lot of ground. I hope that this has been useful for your listeners. They are always welcome to reach out to me, if you have got questions about what it takes to be a successful manager or anything about innovation. I am happy to answer questions.
(01:12:33):
I am not going to do day's worth of consulting for free. But I am happy to answer telephone calls and talk about things. I am partially retired now, so it is not like I need gigantic amount of income.
EW (01:12:49):
Our guest has been Steve Hinch, author and executive consultant. You can find "Winning through Innovation: Lessons from the Front Lines of Business," wherever you normally buy books.
CW (01:13:01):
Thanks Steve. It was great to talk to you.
SH (01:13:03):
Thanks Chris. Thanks Elecia.
EW (01:13:05):
Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. Thank you to Mouser for their sponsorship. Thank you to our Patreon listener Slack group for questions. And of course, thank you for listening. You can always contact us at show@embedded.fm or hit the contact link on embedded.fm.
(01:13:21):
Now a quote to leave you with. This is Steve's dedication in "Winning through Innovation." "To managers everywhere, who must balance the needs of investors, executives, customers and employees, without mortgaging the future in the quest for short-term results."