GitLab Learning & Development, 24 Feb 2022

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From YouTube: AMA With GitLab CFO, Brian Robins on Leadership

Description

As part of the GitLab Manager Challenge, L&D hosted an AMA with Brian Robins, GitLab CFO, on all topics related to management & leadership.

Learn more about the Manager Challenge: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/manager-challenge/

Learn more about Learning & Development: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/

A

Amazing, well, thank you, everyone for joining the last session of the february manager challenge. I'm super excited that we're going to be joined here with brian robbins for an ama style, uh the first 25 minutes and brian. You know the last three weeks we've been talking about all sorts of different topics related to leading teams from coaching to giving feedback to performance management. You know building trust the full gambit of leading all remote teams, and I appreciate you taking the time to be with us, I'm going to pass it over to jim.

A

For the first question.

B

All right, good morning, brian, so a company like get lab, that's in hyper growth, a lot of opportunities for personal growth and development and be curious just over your career kind of how you've thought about promoting folks from within an organization what kinds of things you look for.

C

Absolutely so thanks josh for having me today and and thanks for everyone for joining and thanks for all the great questions in the doc um great question, and so you know when, when I look to promote someone you know typically, you know I depend heavily on my team, and so, if it's a direct report, you know they're typically promoted almost to the the highest level they're going to be at um you know in in fast-growing companies.

C

You know. If I leave, then someone maybe can take my role in a succession plans, but you know if you're the, if you're the principal accounting officer you're at the highest level, so um a lot of times. I really depend on you, my directs and your sort of assessing performance.

C

When you look at the development plans as we go through high potential employees in the organization, you can really tell the team members who are who have set themselves apart, who take on additional responsibility who are able to drive change within the business.

C

Who are you know, you know, create change in a very collaborative way which is really important, and so, if you create change with breaking a lot of glass around the organization, that's not necessarily the kind of change that you want, and so you really try to look for characteristics of people who can be promoted to continue to drive that change at the next level to add value to the company. And you know I do that. You know by my own self-assessment, but also look.

C

um You know to my leaders as well for their input and then also go outside the organization. So it's like a 360 to understand people outside the organization as well, how they view those individuals and what impact they're making on the company as well.

C

Rumer, you have the next one if you like to verbalize.

D

Yes, um uh in your experience, ryan, what will be the two three skill that aspiring manager should develop or improve in order to become a great manager and leader.

C

Yeah great great question: let me take this from a cfo perspective and I'll apply it to sort of um regardless of what what role you're in and so I'll look at it from a accountant and I'll look at it from a lawyer, and so let's take the lawyer first, when you first graduate law, school um you're, basically spending a lot of time. You know reading and writing. Briefs and you're you're a lot a lot of time, and then you know you're. Actually you know maybe you're doing litigation you're doing some kind of um other law.

C

Then eventually, when you make partner, you actually have to go out and sell business and you're still practicing law, but most of your time, you're actually making an impact on the firm because you're actually selling the business spring business then same thing is you know, thinking about an accountant, your accountant, you join a firm like kpmg, you know, you're, going into companies, you're, doing audits, you're you're, getting into the weeds of everything, you're understanding.

C

You know everything around accounting, um then you make managers so you're leading people. So your program managing the people that used to do what you used to do and then you get to a point where you're a partner and your most your responsibility is client relationships and still in business, and so not unlike any other role within the company. You think about. I see to manager to sort of business impact think about that is, as you go up the career ladder sort of where you need to be at and then also it's important.

C

To note that you know you may be a superstar in a certain role, but that role may only be a manager level role like within a company.

C

It may not go from manager to senior manager director to vice president to senior vice president to executive, vice president to chief whatever, just because that role within the company may only be manager level, and so you know one thing that I always tell people is make sure that whatever you're in you understand that your aspirations are aligned with that role within a company and then the skills you look at is you the ability, the versatility of the individual, to be able to go from an individual contributor to sort of a project manager to a people manager to driving?

C

You know cross-functional impact within a company, and if you think about that evolution, that's sort of what you can think about from what I'll call career trajectory? And you know if you, if you see people across a you, know certain types of careers. um You know that sort of applies almost any position that you can think of.

D

Okay: okay, thanks.

C

Hans, would you like to verbalize.

E

Yeah um we had a session on performance management with uh his name was.

F

E

Was that disneyland and uh the other day, and um I'm just curious if it differs fundamentally at a the senior leadership level compared to first line and and if you have any insight on how that changes as a first line manager, goes up to ranks.

C

Yeah, so um you know it, you know, there's every company has their own compensation philosophy and um you know every, and so when you talk about performance management, um you know you're you're, talking about um you, I guess there's two things that you can actually talk about here. You can talk about the variable compensation commitment or you can just talk about the strict performance management.

C

If you're talking about the strict performance management, um you know, there's one company that actually had a really good, you know buy level, there are sort of expectations, and so you know, senior leadership definitely did differ considerably from first line management and it's really similar to question number two that rumor asks around.

C

um You know the characteristics that you look for in a manager or a leader and how what that career, trajectory and profile look like, and so a senior level manager. Someone on the e-group you know, you're. Looking for someone who is, you know, has a lot of external relationships.

C

You know can be a understand. All aspects of the business you know. Can you drive change across the business and lead large cross-functional projects can make an impact to the financials of the business is responsible, for you know the p, l outcome and so forth. If you're an individual contributor, you know the performance manager that is going to be more in management by objectives. It's going to be more mbos. What are your quarterly goals? Is it getting out this set of code or meeting these specific objectives, and so it's going to be very, very specific.

C

You know when you think about bonus systems which are very similar to performance management systems.

C

An ic typically is 80 their own sort of performance and 20 company performance, and then, when you get into senior management, it's usually 80 company performance and 20 mbo, because your impact to the company should be that much, and so you can see how that sort of flips and management level is sort of 50 50..

C

um You know: that's that's not our compensation philosophy here, um you know just because yeah we have a different philosophy and every company has different philosophies, but I just point that out to tell you sort of the difference between ic and sort of um e-group level type person on sort of how the impact is expected on company versus individual contribution.

E

That's very interesting. Thank you. The the background behind that question is primarily because we're such a fast growth company, I mean what what level of expectation is actually realistic or what's a stretch, and how do you measure performance and it's it's something I feel that you know management getting at the line level.

E

It's it's uh it's a topic so that that was the background. So thank you. Yeah.

C

And you know I would, I would encourage um you know, encourage everybody to lead those conversations with your managers right, and so um you know, if, if you don't have the conversations um you'll either be pleasantly surprised or pleasantly disappointed right, uh and so I I just I I would encourage everybody um to have those conversations and and all managers across the enterprise should be having conversations around performance.

C

You know with their team members you and if they aren't, it only happens once a quarter or twice a year, um then it's not happening often enough.

E

Great. Thank you.

D

Yeah you're not.

B

Just yeah, so you know what you look for is the kind of the non-negotiables most important things when you're thinking about hiring someone, I know so it's a hard question because there are a broad range of things but uh they're usually a couple key things. I find folks look for and I'm curious what you might.

C

You know, there's you know to me, culture is number one right, and so, if you have a extremely talented individual um who's, extremely smart, you can do incredible work, but the they culturally don't fit in it's just not going to work out.

C

There's there's under no circumstance has it ever really worked out in my experience, and so you have to make sure that there's a good cultural fit, um and so you, when you get you know when, when I get when I interview someone, you know, you know, competency, career trajectory, all that's like table stakes like all that has to be done, and so really now it's about culture and ambition and what they want to do.

C

And so you know I am most of what I really want to really focus on is is: will they culturally fit into the company? And then I always like to ask a question and it's amazing the answers you get is: where do you want to be in one three and five years? And I say I call it the mr potato head exercise because I don't know if everybody had the mr potato head um when they're little kids growing up, but it's it's.

C

Basically, you can create whatever you want to create, and so I said if you had a mr potato head or mrs potato head and you could create any job you wanted to in one three five years. Where would you want to be and what would you want to be doing and it's amazing people will tell you like completely different careers and what they're interviewing for and so you're like nope, you know I mean or they'll say like.

C

I want your job in like eight months no, um and so it's it's a um there are some really interesting questions that you can ask that will talk to you a lot about the individual um and then the other thing I really like to get at is you know, understanding what they drove in the organization, the impacts that they had and if people say we or the team or you and can never say what they did. um Then then it's a um you know to me: that's a flag as well. So number one is culture.

C

Number two: is you know? What do you want to be when you grow up? Mr mister missus stayed at exercise and then and then three is like you know: what are your accomplishments, that you drove that you're most um most uh happy with and talk to me about that.

B

D

Was almost aligned to what jim may asked and what you said so we can move to pilar thanks.

G

D

G

And thanks for making the time today, brian, um I was curious to know if you could walk us through an example of when you had a team member or multiple members that were underperforming and how you are able to either help them get to their goals so meet their performance, metrics or readjust their responsibilities.

C

Yeah so um I'll answer this two different ways. um You know you know one way is you know I get asked to mentor uh a lot.

C

A lot of uh I get asked to mentor a lot of different people, and you know I walk through this process and I sort of made it up myself and it seems to work so I continue to do it, but I you know I asked um them to go: do some soul searching of where they want to be personally and professionally in sort of one three and five years and to come up with three to five bullet points.

C

You know personally and professionally for each of those time periods and for them to actually be measurable and objective goals, and you know that's really really difficult for people to do and you know typically, it involves a lot of tears and you know um deep discussion and and sometimes career changes, and so, when you're going through the mentoring, you know sometimes people think they want to do something, but they do it for the wrong reason, and so, when someone's underperforming, um you try to find out the reason why they're underperforming and find out if it's just a good fit, and so if it's, if the fit's wrong either try to find them a different place within the company or help them find a place outside the company.

C

But if the fit's right and their hearts in it and that's really what they want to do, then you help give them the capabilities and tools to be successful, and um you know, and sometimes sometimes that's easy. um Sometimes it's not um sometimes um you know some self-awareness things. uh You know there's so there's a whole bunch of different way. You know it's, you know it.

C

It's really a case-by-case basis, but um I think the important part is recognizing it um addressing it and having a conversation and you, those discussions are always tough to have, and people tend to put them off, but putting them off always creates situations that are more dire and less desirable, and when you address them earlier, um the person receiving the news is always more appreciative and you always have better outcomes for both parties, uh and so I'd encourage you.

C

If you have, you know, um you know, individuals in your organization, you know that you could feel could be performing to a higher level or underperforming. You know is to have those discussions and that and and to be, you know very um to have very productive, positive conversations with them.

C

um You know they don't have to be derogatory or negative, but come with concrete examples and come with observations on how to improve and invest the time in trying to make them better, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised uh on what you'll get out of it.

G

That's great, thank you. I think sean has the next question.

F

Okay, thank you yeah, so gitlab has um so thank you for joining us today. By the way, um um uh gitlab has grown very quickly from being a small startup to being a public company.

F

So you know part of that is small teams working closely with each other, using the latest technology delivering quickly um to to we're now pivoting towards enterprise customers, long sales pipelines, federal customers, um quite a different uh atmosphere, and um I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on. How managers can help team members um transition through these changes.

C

Yeah so as the company grows, um you know, we've brought on team members, who've been there and done that who've had experience operating, you know sort of at these levels, which is which is great, and then we have some team members to you know they're operating at a scale that they haven't seen this before um and so to me. I think the number one thing is um regular in active communication, uh and so you know in in you know I always in my team meetings it with any. Does anybody have any questions, concerns or comments?

C

um One of my favorite sayings, as you know, surprises, are only good. You know during the holidays or birthdays, you know surprises at all other times. You know people really don't like, and so um you know you if you think something may be wrong or you think someone should know something. You know whether it's true or not communicate early and often- and so um you know, I think, when you're you know when you're a public company, you know the the stakes change right, because you have to report quarterly.

C

You have compliance, um you know sid and I sign you know things.

C

Every quarter that, if they're wrong we're personally liable and we personally can go to jail and personally you know all of our financials can be taken away, um and so we have a high dependency on all team members of the company um to make sure that everything's done right, and so um you know I always want to know if someone thinks something's not working or something can be done better or you know if, if there's something out there, so um you know, I guess um you know I would, I would just say, communicate early and often um you know, uh failure is okay, like don't don't um create a culture where you know failure gets punished.

C

um Failure should get recognized and you know it should be good. um You know, uh you know, encourage people to talk to one another. um You know if you have new team members that are struggling or people in your team that are struggling or who haven't operated the scale you try to help them. uh You know in areas where you may need see that they may need help, but it's um you know it takes everybody in the company to actually do that.

C

And so um thanks for asking a question and yeah, I would encourage you to do it and also encourage others as well.

F

Thank you very much, brian, um a great answer, um jim. I think you have the next one.

B

Yeah, so this is kind of a follow-on to the question six. I guess, if we've gone through all that development effort, we've, you know really worked with the team member. You know what. How do you think about what point is enough enough and we need to look towards the separation.

C

Oh, this is always so tough right, yeah everybody hates to do this, but um you know it's it's evident right. um You know, and- and you know I I've gone into a lot of companies- um I've been brought into a lot of companies taken public. A lot of those companies have been sold. I knew gitlab would go public, and you know this is a very special company and look forward to a really really bright future as a standalone public company.

C

But you know, as is as a leader if you have a difficult employer, if you have an underperforming employee like that, employee is doing two things. One is they're impacting other team members right and so other team members are picking up the slack for his or her. You know under performance and then two, your your credibility is at stake right. um You know you know, and so you know one is. I think you should have empathy as a leader and try to you know rectify the situation.

C

But if it's just not a fit, it's just not going to work out. You really need to be decisive and deal with it.

A

B

E

So just quickly.

B

uh One or two books that have you know really influence your leadership style. Any recommendations for the team.

C

You know I yeah I peaked at this and and I'll I'll be truthful, I'm not a big book reader, and so um you know I learn more from other people and and what they do and talking to people um you know, and so there's really not. um You know books that I've your books tend to. I try to read them, but they put me to sleep so I'll pick up a book when I want to go to sleep, but um you know you know, I think it at the end of the day.

C

It's um you know uh be humble, have lots of respect, learn from others, and um you know and just be a good person right.

C

I mean it's not really difficult to be a good leader, and um you know it's it's uh you know and and watch and observe and and so forth, and so you know I've tried to do that throughout my career and um you know- and you know I learned more from observing others and actually taking that in then sort of reading a you know book on, like hey here's, the five keys to leadership um because they can be applicable to almost anything. You know it.

C

You know, I guess the um you know there we used to have it one of the mobile companies we used to have a lot of speakers come in and there was a speaker um a couple books. I have read that I'll talk about, but it's been a while ago.

C

One is called it's your ship and there was a. It was a navy captain and he was given. He was given the worst performing ship in the navy and he basically empowered the people on the ship to make change opposed to following the navy protocol, and they became the best performing um the best performing fleet in the navy and actually changed almost everything around in the navy um and when he left um he actually said a few words.

C

You could hear a pin drop on the boat and he basically said you either leave to tears or tears, and he said there wasn't a dry eye on the boat because everybody said he's leaving, and you know when they do the switch out of the commanders to the boat. If everybody's cheering, they want you to get the heck off the boat right um and the the guy who, when he came in, gave like a 30 minute speech.

A

Everybody's yelling.

C

And everything else, and so um you know it to me- it's it's. It's pretty amazing. If you empower the people around you uh to drive change within the organization, how much change you can drive and if you think about um you know he the he had all you know what was you know perceived in the book to be the misfits of the navy within this fleet, but they actually made radical changes to become the best fleet in the navy it and it's a super, easy read.

C

You can read it just like that um that that was a really good book and then harvey mackey um is an individual. That is a really individual he's a new york times bestseller. He actually wrote a book called swim with sharks. He um yeah. I learned something about him as an author when he came to speak and the book's interesting, but you know he's he's fluent in five languages.

C

He's he's almost at like a professional grade. Tennis player he's. um You know a ceo of an envelope company in the digital age, um and he has all these other things. But you know he is like at the height of everything and all these verticals, but he has like coaches and all these and he still takes tennis lessons.

C

He tells it still takes speech lessons and still does all the stuff, and it's actually pretty amazing and and the thing you know it's, um you know the thing that you learn from that is, like you know, innovate or die, learn or die, and so you constantly need to improve yourself and there's a number of different avenues that you can actually do that with and so there's there's a lot of good books out there. um You know, I would say leadership in general.

C

Is uh you know more for me observing, but there are some good books out there, where you can pick up some interesting things around philosophy, around leadership.

A

Thanks brian, um do you need to.

D

A

If we're right at time, I just want to be.

C

I know we have one more question: let's do the last question. They did schedule me for another meeting in four minutes, but um let's go through the last question and then um we're good.

G

Yeah, this is a hot topic and I'm afraid it's probably not a quick answer, but I was curious. What tips you had for maintaining a good work-life balance for yourself and also the team member and kind of the the place I'm coming from some context is obviously this current pandemic has brought a lot of extra challenges in that balance.

G

So, for example, when team members are out of the office when you need to step away because you're not well, uh is there anything we can do to navigate that and hopefully lessen the impact on those additional workloads.

C

Yeah you know this is this has been a topic at um at e-group and you know it's also been something that I've personally struggled with. You know just because you know last year you know we took the company public, um you know we we've added a number of people to the organization. I mean this year alone, we're gonna, add a thousand new team members to the company.

C

um You know, and so you know we're um you know, a hyper grow super dynamic company, and so you know it's it's it's tough right because there's just a lot of stuff going on. um You know I I guess some of the tips that I use. I don't do them that well, but I can tell you some of the tips I use. um You know I try I'm on the east coast. I try not to start my day meeting-wise before nine. I try not to have meetings after five.

C

I try to block 30 minutes in the morning for email and slack 30 minutes an afternoon for email, slack and an hour for lunch for impromptu meetings. You know, walk outside email or slack and so there's sort of two hours. A day built in for that um I I have tried to carve out, I believe it's an hour and a half to two hours a day for my team.

C

Just because I really want to you know have meetings with my team to help develop mentor and guide and whether I have one-on-ones team meetings or what it is. I want to have that time and then the rest of time will be filled up with key meetings. Group reviews, ama investor, calls um you know all that stuff and so uh yeah. That's what I try to do. It's it's it's. It's really managing your time and prioritizing, and so I try to do it through calendar management.

G

Got it? Thank you hope.

C

That's helpful. I really enjoyed this thanks for all the awesome questions. uh If I can be helpful uh on any follow-ups, uh please don't hesitate to reach out.

A

C

Thank you. Thank you. Everyone.

B