Why CTOs Must Evolve from Techies to Strategic Leaders | Interview with Adelina Chalmers, Founder of The Geek Whisperer

Ryan Purvis 22:40:26
Hello and welcome to the digital workspace works Podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host supported by producer Heather Bicknell. In this series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field story from the frontlines, the problems they face, how they solve them. The areas they're focused on from technology, people and processes to the approaches they took that will help you to get to grips with a digital workspace inner workings.

Adelina, welcome to the digital workspace works podcast, you wanna introduce yourself, please.

Adelina Chalmers 22:41:00
Oh, thank you, Ryan. Thanks for having me. I run a company called the Geek Whisperer. And Adelina Chalmers, as you'll probably see from links the Ryan will put under this episode. And Geek Whisperer does essentially four key things. We do want one's advisory for CTOs. It could be first time CTO, we worked with CTOs from 10 people per 100,000 people. We do technical audits, which are essentially, we review the architecture as you need it, as, for example, one CTO is leaving and another one is arriving or buying a company. We also do engineering reviews. So for example, if the CTO has left, and you have a non technical board, who have no idea what to do next, we might have several consultants that can do an engineering review to tell you what's the best way forward and what sort of people you should be hiring. And then the other thing we do is kind of leadership training, but also internal engineering engagement programs, especially of the company has gone from, for example, engineering, r&d lead to a commercial entity that you know, needs to produce a product now, because the rest of us are not going to invest unless there's a product on the market.

Ryan Purvis 22:42:14
Interesting. So I'm going to challenge something that you said to me a couple of times now that you don't understand, you're not the right person for value. And in the series, because everything you say there is everything that I've done in my personal capacity, but it's driven by value, because..

Adelina Chalmers 22:42:31
It was about IT digital value, and that's where I'm going...

Ryan Purvis 22:42:36
Well, you have a but values, okay, value for me is value. It's across the board, you know, you you're how you define value that and the reason why we don't say return on investment, and we say return on value is because there's not always about just a commercial money thing. Your return on value could be a risk mitigation, it could be productivity, it could be organizational structure, it can be any thing that part of the conversation is, what is the value of doing this? Why are we doing this?

Adelina Chalmers 22:43:03
I agree with that. 100%? I mean, I have to tell you the, I don't do all of this alone. By the way, of course I need it, I sell it. But I have you know, colleagues, for example, the architecture, there's no way on earth, I would have the skills to do a tech audit. I just thought that's not who I am. You know, also the engineering review. My colleagues can do that better than I can. So yeah, of course. Yeah. I have. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I mean, value is. And this is, I would say probably one of the key weaknesses of a lot of CTOs that I've worked with. And obviously my view of CTOs might be skewed here because of that. One of the key weaknesses I've noticed is they don't often think about technology in the context of business outcomes, profit, customer acquisition, customer retention, it's just saying, and I'm going to hang on, hang on, that's not just everyone else's job. Your entire job with technology is to make sure that that happens, because often without your technology, they have nothing. There is no company it doesn't exist.

Ryan Purvis 22:44:05
Oh, yeah. 100. Right. I have this conversation also often, and I'm the same as you don't get me wrong. I'm not an expert at everything. I was bringing the right people to do the right things. And one of the reasons why I have driven the value execs, community because I want people that are those experts that I you know, someone comes to me and says I need this thing. I know that's not my I can't help you there are these cannot point them to somebody that I know and go Yeah, you know, Roger is the right guy. That's his thing. Let me introduce you. And I think that's the way you've got to be in this world that we live in. Because there's just so much stuff to know, you cannot be an expert at everything. And I think there's a there's a there's an expertise to knowing when you're not an expert. And also knowing how to step back and just join the dots together and say, You know what, we need an expert on legal crypto, whatever, or we need an expert on HR in, in wherever. And a technical background will help you because you're using these tools that that don't work very well and we weren't mentioning names. But you know, having that having that little bit of substance to say, I know that this is not actually just an accountant that you need. We need an accountant you understand SAP who understands SYSPRO understands whatever dynamics is called the new version of the ERP system. And that's fine too. You know, having that that level versus the thing, but your point around struggling with the technical people to understand commercial value and outcomes is a very difficult one. I mean, I've had this conversation a few times this week, where the argument has been about the technical complexity of doing something versus the business value down the road of doing it right the first time. And spending a little bit extra time now, where it might feel like we're going to upset a customer. Yeah, will the customer be upset? That's fine. We can manage that expectation. If we know that when we get to the future thing, we're we're going to be 10x better and have not the technical debt, which is what we end up with all the time, because we avoid the complicated thing upfront. It Yeah, it's just that

Adelina Chalmers 22:46:04
one of the challenges is, which is the reason of my post today on LinkedIn is that a lot of CTOs don't realize that they need to be telling stories about what, what this will get us, you know, when and I think a lot of the time was the same, by the way, I'm not gonna lie, I was one of the one of the problems is that when you're working in engineering, you're not studied maths. You know, it's, it's very black and white. It's either two or four, you're not sure, you know, you'll say, oh, it could be a three, well, if it could be a three must be one, you know, two plus one or whatever, but you can't, you know, so we like to have precision, we like to have an a confidence and safety in exact numbers. And the problem is that when you are working towards a vision, there is no exact number. I mean, you know, when Bill Gates set up Microsoft, he didn't say, we're going to have 5 billion computers on every desk. He just said, there would be a computer on every desk, we didn't know how many desks there would be. There was just kind of a vision, right? And it's the same here is that a lot of CTOs think, well, I don't know the exact number. And I would be lying if I would say would be this number. And I'm going to continue to estimate the number. You know, can you come up with something that is likely to be right, considering the situation, the context of that? And under that? Oh, yeah, but I could be lying would be lying there. No, you're not lying. So I find that fascinating at all levels. This is not just first time CTOs, by the way.

Ryan Purvis 22:47:38
Oh, no, no, look, it could be anybody. I mean, I've got someone who's not a CTO who's exactly like that. And you know, there's a bit of a German heritage coming through sometimes. And she's also built satellites and stuff like that. So you have to be very exact. But as you all know, building software is not an exact thing. No, because because you could change it in a second, from one thing to another, you tend to become a lot more fluid. And it takes an adaption for people to do to accept that that actually, in a timelines will shift, because the need has changed. And if you're working, you know, agile doesn't necessarily mean, you know, flexibility to the to the nth degree. But it does mean constant feedback, and also been aligned with the business that the potential is also changing. And, you know, I was talking about with my product manager this morning, and we're talking about the priorities. And I said, so can we change those priorities, not because we've now decided to do a different thing. We're not changing the core essence of what we do, we're still doing what we do. But the priorities are now that that thing you've put in three months from now, is actually we need that like, that we need yesterday. And because now the strategy is changing, we need to we need to enable that strategy for the business. And she deals with very well. So it's not a problem, but I've had people that will fight you tooth and nail, because the contract with the customer says this, and we must say no, but you gotta you know, we can manage equitation with the customer. As long as we are transparent, and we explain and we have to explain all the dirty laundry, just explain the good is good, because a good value position to what we do.

Adelina Chalmers 22:49:06
The value position, that's the thing, you just raised several important points, two of which I remember just now, one of them was the fact that I think a lot of CTOs particular struggle with negotiation, and conflict. Yeah, because negotiation is a minor, but a minor source of conflict. And the other one is the fact that when you are in a startup who doesn't, which doesn't have product market fit every week, every quarter, every month, every quarter, if you're lucky things change. And therefore the priority that was yesterday, a priority is no longer a priority. And that kind of constant course shifting, in constant need to adapt is exhausting to people. It's exhausting to engineers in particular. And they need a very skilled leader to smooth out that insane, right, that engineering he's taken on in that kind of scenario. That's something that I've noticed a lot. And what do you think?

Ryan Purvis 22:50:09
No, you're right. And I mean, I was I got a call yesterday, and someone said to me, oh, we need to see the roadmap for the next six months. And I tried, I tried very hard not to laugh. Because I was like, you know it in just in the short time I've been involved with this. If I did a roadmap now I'd be changed that roadmap literally four times a day. Yeah. Because as much as we say things are like we're doing this thing, and we're going down a route, the roadmap is the little things that you have to deliver all the way along. And those priorities change are changing dynamically right now. So I'm waiting as long as I can, to not publish something I've said I'll do it at the end of this month. But even then, it's going to be a high level milestone based plan. Because, you know, at this stage, we're customer driven, we're not driven by by a big seed round of, you know, couple million, and we can, you know, do customer stuff, but then also do the cool stuff we need to do, we still have to deliver on customer stuff. So yeah, and people, some people don't like that, that ambiguity of life. And I think we sort of like doing COVID When there was no end in sight of all the lock downs. And people were struggling with us working from home and they were so used to be in an office and they had that cohesiveness that they could go lean on somebody and have a cigarette or have a cup of coffee and talk to them and it kind of petered out. And I was sitting at home by themselves and going, I'm really struggling with this thing. And I'm getting anxiety from it. And you know, I think there's people that the depth that stuff. Well, people that don't and you got to help the ones that don't to to be better, I guess.

Adelina Chalmers 22:51:47
Gosh, you've touched on other topics. I'd love to unpick, but I'm not. I'm not sure. Which of these are kind of areas of priority for your tickets can go go the way you want to go? Well, you know, you mentioned that, you know, people working alone from home and struggling. I mean, I worked at a company that during lockdown, which was it, you know, it was illegal for people to go into the office, you know, there were people breaking into the office because they wanted to be away from and they were penalized for it because they wanted to be away from the screaming wife and kids or screaming kids really. And then obviously then now the tide has shifted, and the people who want to work remotely, have the privilege of extra rooms and whatever, and they don't want to go back into the office. So it's an I think this kind of blanket, you know, Nick here, mixed messages of leaders know secretly that actually, you know, people don't want to return to the office. And then leaders Oh, expect everyone the next few years to be full time five days a week back in the office. And I I actually want to ask you a question and see what you think of this, because I was discussing. So when my colleagues, the pattern that I've noticed with regards to leaders who expect people to be in the office, they're usually over 50 55. They're usually people you know, who worked 20 30 40 years in, you know, before internet was really, you know, able to help you. What do you think? Is that is that part tender that we were discussing through? What do you think?

Ryan Purvis 22:53:20
So I think there's a few things to it. So one is, I think there is a cultural, stereotypical bunch litical cohort of people that are like that, no doubt about it. I've worked with two guys that were sea captains. So they were at sea for 25 years. And we used to have in the beginning, and they're both good friends of mine now. But in the very beginning of getting to know them, they used to freak out with me from working from home. Yeah, and they want to be in the office. And I used to say to them often, like you got to understand for me to come to the office is a two hour loss of productivity for me to sit at my desk and do phone calls that I could have done at home. But from their point of view, it was they're so used to having a crew of 26 people at the beck and call for six months at a time. Yeah. And their physical. And, you know, one guy would say to me, I just want to be able to look up and talk to you. And I'd say but you can look up and type a message to me, or you could look up and press the record button. And you can see me it's the same thing. But but it were I think there is. And this is why I've always been a fan of hybrid work I mean. And when we lived in South Africa, before we moved here, I worked in an office every day. And I used to drive through a lot of traffic. And in the South Africa, you could do phone calls and stuff. So it wasn't a complete waste of your time. Because you would do stuff on the move. But I used to sleep at night at my desk, I sleep under my desk sometimes because the drive home was a waste of productivity time. Sometimes we'll drive to work and there was a really tough period. But the point I was gonna get to is that when before we moved to this country we live in because in the UK obviously, I used to get up at four in the morning is to work till seven on all the stuff that needed brain work. I used to go to gym seven to eight. I was all I used to go play golf from seven till nine, you know hit nine holes or sometimes even more. See some customers like in and around where I needed to be. I'd be home my three I'll do some more work or whatever I had to do. But I had complete autonomy on my time and where I spent it. And I was hugely productive, like like extremely productive. And then I got to the UK and I was working for one of the big banks. And we were building all the technology to allow you to work on any device anytime, anywhere. That was our motto. But we had to be in office five days a week. And I actually said to my boss, said to my boss, like this stupid, like, oh, how do we know this shift works? Like, how do we know that it works from anywhere else? Like, if I go down to the Starbucks down there? Yeah. How do I know it's gonna work? No, you know, there's other people testing that I'm like, Yeah, but that's not that's not the light, like those people testing it are going to do the typical thing that a tester does. They will go down to the coffee shop, they'll open up, they'll connect the press one to things, and they'll disconnect and say it works. But the real test is that I used to live in Kettering, which was north of town a half an hour train ride north. And because we weren't allowed to have laptops, we had to use this VDI infrastructure. You had to connect in to your remote session to do your work, because you wouldn't let you know, there was nothing to carry. So I used to have border left for myself and whatever. And I said, That's the test. Can I go on a train ride from London to Kettering? Because I was my station and cannot work. And I can't work? Because the connectivity is shit. You know, that's, that's before now. It's even, it's even worse now? Because it was probably usable then. So to answer your question, I think there is there are some jobs that you have no choice you have to be in the office.

Adelina Chalmers 22:56:48
Of course, especially like, the hardware design stuff. I mean, you know, but

Ryan Purvis 22:56:53
But I think, you know, the key thing for me has always been about this, if you trust your employees, to be adults, and to behave like adults, then they will give you high productivity. If you mandate things, you get the complete opposite. Yes, you need physical interaction, no doubt about it. I'm losing a staff member now because we're remote team and she needs She needs an office, she needs to socialize with people or so I said, Look, I can't give you that. Like for me to go and meet you once a week, it's like an hour and a half drive for either one of us. You know, I'm happy to put you in a shared working space, but just a little bit your own because you have to get to know him to get you started. It's things she needs to go to a bigger company. You do need those things. And I think for for young people that are starting off in their careers that don't know how to manage themselves. And I'm seeing another friend, a friend of mines kid that's running a community. Like he literally needs to be taught how to prioritize his work. He has no idea. He's very good to go and study stuff. He's, you know, very highly rated, very intelligent guy. But I've seen just in a month, like how little he understands how to how to prioritize tasks, and how to like, just because we talked about it now does not mean it's the most important thing in the room. Yes, yeah, that's a little bit of experience. So these are all things to think. So I think having people in the office of that stuff. That's why I think Harvard makes sense. And I've noticed that like, I go into the hinterland once a week and I go to a friend of mines house for to work a day a week with a whole bunch of other people that just get you that little bit of human contact and share some stories and stuff. And this, I was never completely for like work from home five days a week, I always, always was the opinion that you go to the office for a reason, which is, we're going for a workshop, we're gonna go do these things. This is a meeting we do in person, because we need that stuff. That makes sense to me. But the mandated, you know, be in the office five days a week. That makes sense, man, when I was working for one of the other banks, we literally had a sixth floor building of all technology. And we'd all sit on the meeting in over Skype for Business in the same building. That because you didn't have time, between your meetings to actually meet to go meet in person, you'd be in the same building, but you'd be talking to you the only time you saw each other was when you walked out the building at the end of the day. And yeah, we should have done that meeting in person like, Yeah, but then there's no time to get to the other meeting with the other guys. So yeah, yeah, I think people need to be adults. That's, that's,

Adelina Chalmers 22:59:22
I think you I think, to be honest, you hit the nail on the head there. And I, you know, I had this conversation with the CTO this week, they were complaining that their engineers are behaving like 12 year old children. And I was saying, well, they are behaving like 12 year children, because everything has been pulled down. Maybe some top down now that you join, but before the previous CTO was tucked down, and when you treat people or children, they act like children. It's as simple as that, you know, because then it's not their responsibility. It's not, you know, they feel like they feel entitled to act like that as well. And, you know, it's a chicken and egg situation. You know, if you don't trust people, you don't, you don't trust people. You don't trust me. You don't trust people, you know, if you don't give people enough kind of autonomy, and kind of empowerment to get stuff done.

Ryan Purvis 23:00:11
Well. Yeah. And it's funny you say that because I think there are people that don't want to be empowered, I think are people that like to be told what to do?

Adelina Chalmers 23:00:20
And that's the sort of people you want.

Ryan Purvis 23:00:23
Well, and this is the interesting thing. I mean, I sort of said, I think Mo's Instagram or something a little short, where the guy said, the difference between the military and a business is in the military, you have leaders in the business, you have bosses. And, and what he was saying, which I think was, which is exactly what you're saying is in the military, the head person will come and say, here's the problem to his direct reports, or who direct reports and say, how you gonna solve it, come back to me with a plan. And then all the people that are involved, come back with a plan. And these are the experts in the field. What happens in a business often is the boss comes in and says, here's the problem, here's how I want to solve it. Go execute the plan. And, and the people around the room. And I mean, I've seen this with a few customers, they've bought technology. And they've literally said to me, Well, I didn't want this technology. My boss bought this technology and told me to use it. And then we're sitting with this thing a year later, and they haven't adopted it, because they never wanted the technology in the first place. And in some cases, the job security to not use the technology in some cases as well. It was forced on me, why would I want to use this?

Adelina Chalmers 23:01:32
Yeah, yeah. It the amount of Yeah, the amount of it, you know, what I find the basis that people often don't even realize that they're being topped down, they often seem to think that top down means having a harsh tone, you can be top down, I have a very soft tone pproach. And one of the things I've noticed in a lot of CTOs that I work with has been the Well, I told them, This is what we need to do. So why are they upset about it? So well, you haven't won them over? You never told them why you're doing this. You never try to explain? What is the business problem you're trying to solve by pushing everyone in the office five days a week? Exactly. And that's the thing that I find shocking. It's just like, the this. It's almost like they assume that because you mentioned something once. That's it, they will agree with you automatically on everything. Just because you're the boss. That is the essence of top down. Yeah, I just find that fascinating that just communicating wants to people, there's, you know, there's no acknowledgement or, or awareness that you need to win people over. You know, this is not 200 years ago, where people were desperate and doing stuff, you know, it's just no.

Ryan Purvis 23:02:49
Well, I mean, 200 years ago, and if you've ever read the 48 Laws of Power, by what's his name, Robert Greene, do yourself a favor. It's a really good, good book. And he a lot of his, he basically explains the law of power and explain but the the example is historically based. And when you read when you read the law, and you read the power, and you're like, holy cow, I understand now. Now, going back to your example of 20 years ago, a lot of the time those people in the power was because if you didn't do what they told you, you were going to eat or you'd have shelter or you'd be killed by the army that they had. You know, I mean, Shaka Zulu would kill people. They showed any pain when they're running on thorns, you know, they'd stay at the moment with a spear. So he had had an army because, you know, he ruled by fear, and he got beaten up by every tribe, down the coast of Africa. But yeah, that's a separate story. But the point that you're making is, I totally agree with and this is something that took me a long time to learn. And coming from South Africa will be very direct and very blunt.

Adelina Chalmers 23:03:49
Actually prefer to be honest, let's be

Ryan Purvis 23:03:53
From where we from originally was a bit of a 22 accent.

Adelina Chalmers 23:03:57
So I mean, I was born in Romania, but I don't feel Romanian I never have was my Romanian is rubbish. I've never worked there. I have no idea what they're like when they work. But I always felt that you have to be democratic, you know what I mean? But I also like, I mean, I'm, I'm on the spectrum, right? So I like to be more direct. I do. I do like, because I sometimes can't guess what people are thinking, you know, I can't guess. You know, I was prepared to just tell me tell me what it is, you know, rather than read this area?

Ryan Purvis 23:04:29
Yeah. So what So when you say on the spectrum, what is on the autistic spectrum, the Asperger's, the ADHD.

Adelina Chalmers 23:04:34
The definitely Autistics but, you know, I have lots of traits women's trade, I think I didn't realize I had for a long time until my fiance pointed out with a book written for autistic women. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Yeah. It was like what because you know, as a woman, it's different than, you know, manifests differently than in a man. It's, it was hard to identify. Yeah, sorry. Go on.

Ryan Purvis 23:04:56
No, no, it's fine. I mean, well, so you know, I am blind has been diagnosed with ADHD. But I definitely think there's other things that I have on that I'm very so in what you were saying about. I don't know what other people are thinking. Like, my wife and I fight about this all the time. When she's subtle about something. Yes, completely. I plead it doesn't mean anything to me like me. So I'll say two things. Like if you want me to do something, just talk to me about it. Tell me Yeah, also, don't don't come and tell me like 20 things at the same time. Because the minute you get past three, it's it's a hold on, hold on, forget about the three things is all gone now. Now now I'm not beating my brain has already gone to the other things that is that that's been. That's the, you know, the working memory is now focused on something else. And it's tough. I mean, it's it is a very tough thing. But what I was gonna say is.

Adelina Chalmers 23:05:46
Our family in my fiance and I, he says You are always so subtle. And by that means I'm hyper direct.

Ryan Purvis 23:05:54
Yeah, so when I moved to when I moved here from South Africa, I actually got pulled aside often by my first week and said, by somebody who said, Listen, you've been very harsh in those meetings. And I was like, harsh. I don't even I thought I was being pretty gentle. Like, I don't even got to the highest point yet. You know, I said, I was I was laughing when I said that. Yeah, it's like, yeah, no, no, in this country, you got to be a little bit more like around the bush, you got to talk. Like, like, whatever, and you cannot hold people to account. You cannot you cannot say, because you said you do this person's going to do it. You can't say that. It's like, well, then how do you get anything done? Yeah. I mean, I was really it's like, like thing that I learned, I learned that the trick which which I'm actually coaching somebody now. And at the moment, I said to him, what you got to do is you got to actually speak to the people before the meeting, just phone them for 10 minutes, have a chat to them, tell them what to do, like, ask them a few questions about what you know what they think about the meeting. And then just tell them what you're going to be, you know, based on what they say, you know, what your angle is going to be, and get the feedback on it. And you got to if there's 15 people, and you don't want that, obviously, people meeting, but if there's a few people to talk to, you need to do it to the majority of it, because the meeting is not where the decision is made. No, the meeting is over, you know, the meeting is for everyone else to know what's been decided. And there'll be a few people that won't be on boarded. But by then it's too late. And he's really struggling with this concept. And as I could provide Why Why isn't that the whole point of having the meeting? Everyone's so they can discuss this? Yeah, but the problem is, when you put them in that forum, it's an ego thing. Or it's the all the all the all the other things come out, because now that I want to show weakness that I want to do this, you know, and yeah, you just become the whipping boy. Yeah, because you've tabled this thing. Because you haven't given them time to, you know, like, if you've got the deck, and I remember a CEO that I was working with a long time ago. So you cannot send me a deck the day before expect me to read it. Like, you need to give me at least three days, four days. And even then I might not read it. So you know, if you want to have this meeting, you've got to give people three or four days of thing to talk, like you got to tell them the thing, they might freak out, they might not whatever it is, but then you need to give them time to digest it. And also to talk to their people about this thing, because you might have completely rocked the world, or, or reposition things and they need to get like if you leave it to that forum, we're not dumping this new idea on them. You're getting pretty good No, no adoption or no buy in because they've got to go talk to their key people. Because there'll be like, I'm just the boss here, or the leader. I don't know how to solve this problem. So I don't know what you're saying is even right or wrong. I need to have John here. John knows this stuff. So now you delay the whole thing, because now John has to be involved, John. So if we're up to speed, and then you end up with this, this trying to move Titanic feeling? And it feels like dice. Yeah, because now everyone's been pulled in unwillingly. Versus if you just gave them a heads up, just want to do that. And they've had time to talk to John. And by the time he gets that meeting, John's had 10 ideas he's come in, he's armed his boss with the 10 ideas, or Gill come in with 20 ideas, and whatever it is. So that person comes in go and you know, it actually might teams are reborn into this very, like, I'm gonna give you Jack and Jill with John and Jill or whatever it is. And we're in it, then the other people in the room are like, yeah, we're also in it, because it's momentum. And it's completely changes the game.

Adelina Chalmers 23:09:23
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And this is the thing is these kind of soft political things that a lot of I'd say, engineering folk, don't necessarily or science, science, background folk as well don't necessarily get. And he puts them at a disadvantage, because you know, they just go good. And then they say the thing is, I've noticed is that I mean, I saw in 2019, just before COVID hit, I interviewed lots of CEOs about their perspective on the CTO, and CTO role and everything. The theme that emerged from all of those meetings was that CEOs felt the CTO was a junior, only sometimes not Junior, but non business like person at the table that they have to have in the C suite because they are the ones who create the technology, or they have to have in the C suite because it's a technical product. It's a platform, it's a SAS, it's this it's a that and without that they don't have a product and that's why they have to involve them, but they don't want to evolve them because they don't speak the same language. And that was a huge wake up call for me, because I didn't realize we're still spraying. I mean, it was like 90% of the CEOs.

Ryan Purvis 23:10:38
And the market hasn't helped that because if you go look at the average CTO role, it's really a tech lead role, that being given a better title. Also, you know, in a lot of companies, when it came to choosing the person at the senior level, to be the technical person, or technology person, that pick the most senior who's been there, the longest technical person, who typically was an infrastructure person or a developer, who didn't have any of those skills or knowledge isn't, there just were, you know, what's really not expendable, indispensable. And I didn't want to lose them. So they gave them more responsibility. But actually, what they did is gave the person who didn't want that gig, probably the wrong thing, square peg, round hole. And then that skate of all these other people who are not technical, because what your point is that I speak the same language. And it's kind of scuppers the role so that so then you have the CIO role, which which, even that is sometimes considered to be the bigger role than the CTO role. And it actually look at technology and how that's become so split. I mean, you have a CISO, you have a security, you have, you know, you have risk, you have, obviously, you know, digital products. So that typically would be your CTO thing, because you're building technology solutions. But that's also can be a CPO in the sense of product owner, you can have a digital officer, you can have a data officer, you can have a privacy officer, you can have, you know, you can just have all these C levels, which dilutes the role of technology, but not because technology is not. It's a big thing. It's because technology embedded in everything. So actually, what has to happen in some respect is the, the other C's, CEO, COO, CFO, whatever CHRO, it will people officer have to become more technology savvy, which means it actually needs to develop better relationships with the technology leadership, and vice versa, there has to be that translation. And that's why some teachers are successful, and some failed dismally, because they can cross that bridge over. And a good CIO can become a good CFO, or the CEO. Yeah, but but a CEO, the CEO doesn't need to become a good CIO.

Adelina Chalmers 23:12:50
No,no,

Ryan Purvis 23:12:50
No, that's it I don't know what you think. I mean, that's kind of my rough.

Adelina Chalmers 23:12:58
Yeah, I mean, so you don't heard it was at the engineering conference a few months ago, and I was hearing the CTOs on the panel talking about how the investors and the board need to be educated and educate themselves about engineering. And I just thought, that is never gonna happen. I mean, honestly, realistically, you know, there's a lot more than that there are of you, therefore, you as the CTO should learn it, you should be able to teach them why they should care, and teach them volunteering works, and teach them the value that engineering is bringing to the product to the company to this to that, I hate to say it, but I just can't see how these people will ever learn how engineering works to bridge that gap on behalf the CTO of a sudden CTO doing themselves in a shred of evidence of that yet.

Ryan Purvis 23:13:47
Yeah, and I'll be honest, I mean, you know, that one guy that I was speaking about in the Capitol, I mean, he, he was a fascinating guy, you know, didn't have kids, so your time, but he would go and do all the training courses he could do, he did a training course on product he did training course and be technical, he wrote some code, like he went through all the stuff he was learning. And he is so well equipped to have conversation with anybody, because he just knows enough to do that translation. And to understand so when I when we first met, so talking about stuff, he didn't have a clue. And then after about three months, you'd calculate so you know, now I understand what you're trying to tell me. I now get it. And it is as simple as you saying, but I couldn't understand. Because I didn't have that background. And it's sometimes it's a spending enough time with somebody taking their own journey, which, which can be difficult, depending on how much how much time either party has, but also it's about a mutual learn each other's business or point of view, and then have that discussion. And that's also

Adelina Chalmers 23:14:48
To challenge this. Realistically. I mean, this guy is an outlier. He's exceptional. He's, great, you know, and I wish everybody else was like him. But from my experience, reality says that, especially HR people, probably marketing, they would not be bothered to try and go to a coding course or something like that, to understand what it's like code, you know, or to understand what the engineers are going through. And that's why I think it's so important for the CTO to take on that translation role. And be very, very good at it.

Ryan Purvis 23:15:22
What it's funny because I actually put a board through one day coding code was many years ago, because they were bitching and moaning about how long it takes to break code to build this piece of software, it's not so easy. Why can't you just build this thing? And you know, you get you get abused a few times. And you said, You know what, actually, I'll show you our difficulties. When we played with what we play with logo, remember old logo, you know, RT, 90 ft, TN, whatever it was, we put them through that kind of thing. And after that, it wasn't like an open admission by everyone. But you could see in the in the next meeting, it was a little bit less argumentative and a little bit more. Okay, so tell us how you're going to achieve this. What is it like? Yeah, it was just that a little bit of the Penny had dropped to say, actually, this is not as easy as I thought, because like this is how we teach a bunch of kids how to code. And we're, we're not kids building code, like we're building software. And I think you've got to sometimes do that kind of stuff. And I think that's where the, again, that the personality of the CTO has to be one that's an integrator, or a collaborative person, and willing to be a little bit, I don't wan't to use this outlined, again, but a little bit willing to do stuff that is not normal. Yeah, to try and bridge those gaps, because I think it is trying to get respect at the table. Much like you buy the first round drinks when your new company or something like that for the people so that they don't know you're prepared to chip in. Even if you don't drink.

Adelina Chalmers 23:16:53
Yeah, it's funny you say that because obviously I never drink. I always thought I was thinking. I'm glad you said it was the key. I didn't have a drink.

Ryan Purvis 23:17:03
Yeah, I'm not like I don't drink either. And, and we'll go, we'll go for dinner people. They'll be like, what, why don't you have and I'll be like, well, I can pick the wine you want. But, you know, I don't? I'm not going to drink it.

Adelina Chalmers 23:17:13
Yeah, yeah, it's funny, isn't it? How all these kind of things, you know, go, I was seeing one of any journal article, one of my clients sent me and he was saying something about doing pizza days and ice cream days or something. And I was just yeah, all of that is carbs. I can't have I can have ice cream but you know, like I was thinking they don't think that you know, they wouldn't even think that that excludes anybody but you know, it could go to it's like so many things are based on carbs, alcohol peds, you know, all of these kinds of sweet things that honestly, yeah, anyway, that's another story for another day.

Ryan Purvis 23:17:51
Yeah, but Well, yeah, I live in. Yeah, my wife told me yesterday. She was supposed to go to a company thing in Sunbury and to play putt putt, and she's like to play put put, mini golf. Okay, yeah. So that as well. Sorry. Yeah. Well, it's an Africa we have. We have many names for things that are different. Like we call we call we call traffic lights, robots.

Adelina Chalmers 23:18:18
You call the robots? Robots?

Ryan Purvis 23:18:20
Yeah. chatbots or robots? Lift elevators or lifts. There's a couple other thing. Corn corn on the cob we call that's a "mielie". A "mielie". Okay. Yeah. M I E L I E. So we have lots of different names for things. But anyway, so Well, ah, yes, yeah, yeah, we all kids are as well, then we jump national. So we have both passports. But yeah, so it's just saying that, like, they were doing this team building thing to go play mini golf. He said that or even like golf. And this is the thing sometimes is this is as much as is the need to socialize, and to do team building stuff. No matter what you do, you're always going to pick something that someone doesn't want to do. And I think this is where you got to be collaborative and say, you know, what I don't like mini golf, but I'm gonna go and join my team and do it. You know, like, I hate ten pin bowling, but we had a few good nights of ten pin bowling. And I think that's just an open mind, or not a fixed mindset. It's the it's the open mindset, you got to have a growth mindset, growth mindset. That was what I was looking for. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. So So I mean, we were talking initially about what you what you did in the sense of CTO, coaching and due diligence.

Adelina Chalmers 23:19:34
And I call it coaching, you actually because I've noticed, there's a difference between coaching and what I do. So a lot of CEOs come to me when they've already had coaching and they've had enough of it. So the key complaint I get to go about coaching from my secure clients is that it is why Policy Advisory is that the coach says that there is a problem with the coach and the coach says to them, what do you think you should do? And the CTO goes, well, what why am I here? Like, the only reason that me being here is to figure out what to do. And I would really like you to come up with a you know, from your experience to say something or, you know, contribute to this brother asked me the question back, I'm just asking, you know, and it was just like, this is one of the key frustrations that people had with coaches and worked with in the past and that's why I don't really consider myself a coach. I don't have Coaching qualification. It's an I don't like. So I think there's two things from my my view. So I could call the lecture on this is about helping the person find the answer that within them, but that they can't find because they call them out or whatever. Advising is when you help them find the answer that they don't even realize is an answer. But it comes because you put in unknown unknowns that might not have realized or thought about, you know, because for example, when I work with a CTO, I also interview their CEO, their CPO, and an engineering manager that works for them. So then I know lots of blindspots that aren't even aware of. So this shouldn't be like I bring stuff to the table that a coach will never bring, because they have no idea they will never know this information. And that's why I call it Advisory rather than coaching. Sorry, I didn't mean to Lecture that, but it's about because he's not, you know.

Ryan Purvis 23:21:23
Well you answered the question that I wanted to ask you is what? Because I don't think I don't think I don't think I mean, don't get me wrong. I've had a few coaches in my life and for different things. So I know there's value in coaching, specifically and in sport, you know, we're we're the coaches are usually called coaches, but actually not coaches. They're more like what you're saying they're more advisory, actually, exactly.

Adelina Chalmers 23:21:44
Exactly how to change the kick, rather than just, oh, how do you think you can do that kick better? I can?

Ryan Purvis 23:21:53
Well, well, yes and no, I think this is the the differences is the marriage of experience with the bringing you along the journey piece to it. So yes, you can. So I mean, I'll use the rugby example at the moment, because that's obviously relevant to the World Cup. So we've got a guy who's kicking, the coach can do the video analysis of his kicking to see why he's missing. Yeah, but he also has to ask the kicker, why he thinks he's missing, of course, but but then he can also show him, what are you seeing in the analysis, and they can both look at the analysis and go, Yeah, I can see you're lining up wrong, I could see you you're waiting too long to kick, I can see you're getting too much room at the same as both. There's too much movement, there's too little movement, whatever it is. So that's where the coaching thing kind of blurs into the advisory thing. Yeah. And, and a lot of coaches, because they're involved with the team, by default are talking to all the players around their player anyway. So they're already seeing all those blind spots, and then the experience kicks in. And so I like the way you position it as advisory for the same reason that I would be doing it. I'm not a coach either. But but like the guys that I do end up coaching. And I use the word coaching as an act as an active thing. Yeah, is more than I'm involved in all the parts of what they're doing. And I'm just saying, Look, you're not like, you've got to change the way you approach this, because a good example is I said to this guy, you need to provide a weekly update to your boss. That is for the fourth bullet point update. Right. And the four bullet point update is literally four bullet points. Yeah. And one reports, a 50 page with with one extra thing that says if I had more resources, I could do this thing. And you've got to remember that when you send this email, and I had a very good boss, he told me that you gotta remember that the person who's reading this is probably going to read it on the phone. Yeah, so we used to he used to, we used to send each other we sent test mail emails to each other before we sent this email off to the to the big boss, to see how it looked on the phone, can you hear me have mobile points on the phone. And then the fifth bullet point, which I had later on, which is if I had more resources, I could do this thing. Because what I was trying to say to this guy is that when you get to the crunch time for this thing, you know, for decisions to be made, or whatever it is, you want them to know, for a good period of time, just the highlights of what's been going on. So when they are getting talking to their peers, when they're talking to their boss, whatever it is, they've always got something to say, on this thing. So that time it gets to a budgetary approval thing. They're not going, why must I approve this million dollar thing, I don't know nothing about this. They're gonna you know, this has been this has been going well, or this has had issues for so long. But they've been trying to get through this for so long. And they keep telling me if they had more more money and more resources I need like a data engineer or a data scientist or whatever it is, they'd be able to solve this problem five times quicker, you know, it's a million bucks, but you know, we'll put a million down and we'll put 500,000 down just in case. Just need some more. Because this is something I think will solve a lot because they've been educated for a long period of time. It's layered learning as opposed to you know, this guy was literally writing five page reports. There's an update, I had to take I took his five page report and turned it into four bullet points. Okay, it was actually four bullet points. And I said to you, you basically written this big thing for like three months with the work here are the four bullet points for each month that you would have said.

Adelina Chalmers 23:25:31
Well, that's the thing. Nobody likes surprises in the boardroom in the team meeting and whatever, you know, surprises in business are not good idea. Even if you said surprises, I've just won, you know, a million units, I just sold a million units in this customer, do we have the capability to deliver a million units within a timeframe, you know, it just surprises to never surprisesa good thing in business, I'm saying no.

Ryan Purvis 23:25:56
And you know, another thing I was taught a long time ago is if somebody gives you something to do always add value to it. That value could be distilling information from a lot of information down to the most important thing. So even just that, you know, five o'clock on a Friday afternoon, just thing is has happened and needs to be escalated, you know, not just not just escalating, not just forwarding the email. But because it's been sent to you, and you can add value to it. The value could be, Hey, boss, this is coming up. This is bubbling. It's been raised to my attention, that's going to become an issue. Here's what we need to do I need your help to do this. And then obviously, there's the follow up. But a lot of people don't do that just for the moment. Yeah. And then the boss is going well, what would you do? Like now you're like, I don't know. That's a decision I have to make, like, all the bosses are going I don't know what to say, well, I've got this guy or girl. So I need to hand this to somebody. I need to find someone to handle this for me, which is a natural thing when you're when you're in the in the depth. So you lose your credibility, because you just fold it on. And people don't think like that. They just think that that they've told the boss, I'm fine. I'm going it's fine afternoon. Five o'clock. I'm out here. Yeah. labor. So it's been great chatting with you. Do you want people to go to your website to geekwhisperer.co.uk or do you want to meet you on LinkedIn? What's your preference?

Adelina Chalmers 23:27:16
Probably the best is to connect via LinkedIn because my website needs updating.

Ryan Purvis 23:27:22
It doesn't look too bad. I was reading through. It's pretty good.

Adelina Chalmers 23:27:25
Yeah, I mean, it's just that I need to update it with the stuff that we actually do. If you see none of the products I've mentioned to you is mentioned on the website. So yeah, clearly founders, the founders, the founders, the limo.

Ryan Purvis 23:27:38
Looks good. Great. Well, yeah. It's great to chat with you. Super. All the best.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. Heather Bicknell is our producer and editor. Thank you Heather for your hard work for this episode. Please subscribe to the series and rate us on iTunes or the Google Play Store. Follow us on Twitter at the DWW podcast. The show notes and transcripts will be available on our website, www.digitalworkspace.works. Please also visit our website www.digitalworkspace.works and subscribe to our newsletter. And lastly, if you found this episode useful, please share with your friends or colleagues.

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