You Don’t Have to Live at Work to Become a Director of Engineering

And at the beginning, the rewards are for expanding your capabilities, those skills, so that you can take on more difficult assignments, move up to more difficult projects, be delegated a bigger scope, have more responsibility, a bit more leash. And all of that makes sense. And it’s really fun to expand and you’re willing to work hard. You’re young, you just got out of college and you got nothing else to lose. So you go and pour it into your career. I remember those days fondly. It was fun. But eventually, you get to a level in your career where you’re pretty busy. You got a lot on the calendar. You have a scope that’s already difficult to juggle, and one more project or one more meeting or one more thing just feels really hard to handle. And going to the whiteboard, let’s look at an org chart. You might relate to an experience like this. Here you are with a team already reporting to you. You’ve got one-on-ones, you’ve got career development conversations, you’ve got project updates. You know, you’ve got a big group of peers, especially with the flattening of organizations that’s happening across the country, around the world. It’s amazing what I’ve seen. Just got off a call recently with a leader who has 26 direct reports. If he spent 1 hour a week with each of them, that’s more than half of his week. He can’t afford even to do that. So you’re busy.

And then you think about the level of your boss and you’re like, man, I really want that promotion. I’d love to get to that level. But Zach, How do you do it with all of those directs and the downline scope and all the projects and all the pressure? And you look up 2 levels at your skip and it’s like, man, of course I would love to have that opportunity to lead at that level, to have the vision and the impact and the strategic, you know, opportunities to really drive the organization from that level. But the pressure, the stakes are so high, the number of people that they’re expected to lead. The VP walking into their office and barking at them for hitting those KPIs. It’s like, man, I just don’t know if I want what they have because of the sacrifices that it looks like they need to make. And what you see from the perspective of your role, looking up, thinking about what you see in your boss, it’s like, man, maybe I could handle that. But when you look at your skip and you see the hours that they’re putting in, you see the pressure that they’re under. You’re not so sure if that’s something that you actually want because you’ve got other commitments. You have a family, you have hobbies and passions and things you want to do outside the office. And that makes it difficult to know where you want to go. So let’s look at 2 sides. I want you to grab a piece of paper and follow along with me and add your own perspective to what I show you here on the whiteboard. Draw a line right down the middle of your piece of paper. And on the left-hand side, it’s what you can see From below, looking up at those aspirational roles, your boss, your skip, maybe 2 levels beyond that. What are the things that you can see? And be honest, especially with the things that you’re not so sure that you would want if you got there, the things that make you hesitate to gun for that next promotion.

I want you to add to your own list. Just pause. the video for a moment and put some of your own items down, and I’ll meet you on the other side. Just give yourself 30 seconds and I’ll show you what’s on my list. All right, if you’re driving or working out while you’re watching this, I’ll let you off the hook if you didn’t write anything down. But if you did, let’s see if it looks similar to mine. First thing that I captured are the long hours. It always felt like my boss was at work before me and at work after I left. Long hours, late nights, Slack, email. When I was in my engineering career, it felt like if I emailed my boss before I left work, there was a reply already back that same night. And then it made me feel pressure to log back on and check for those replies and reply back before I went to bed. Weekend work, traveling a lot, global time zone calls. I hear this one all the time. Man, Zach, if I get promoted, I’m going to pick up that team in India or China. or Europe, and then I’m going to be on calls early in the morning and late at night, and I don’t want that. More meetings. Zach, my boss is in every meeting. They have their own meetings with up the org chart. They have all the meetings with their directs and these other projects and cross-functional. And how can they possibly do their own job when they’re in meetings all the time? And you see these things from your perspective looking up and think, I just don’t know if I want that job. Maybe the level that I’m at is good enough. But there’s a real problem with that perspective. It’s like when I was traveling recently and I stayed at an Airbnb. And when I got up in the morning and stepped outside, the driveway and my car was wet. So I assumed that it had rained. And I went and met a friend for coffee and I said, man, it must have rained last night. He said, no, it didn’t. Turns out the Airbnb had sprinklers that came on early in the morning, soaked everything, and I just assumed because I saw the water on the driveway that it must have rained. You see, the observation was real. I was correct in my observation that everything was wet, but the cause was something that I just assumed. I guessed, and I guessed wrong. And that can happen to you when you’re looking up the org chart Your observations are real. It’s very possible that your leader is putting in crazy hours. They are going to all of the meetings. They do have the challenges that you observed. But to draw the conclusion that those behaviors are the ones that got them to that level, it’s the same risk of me going to coffee and saying it must have Rained. The truth could be something very different. Taking that observation and drawing the wrong conclusion leads to 2 really dangerous failure modes. The first one is called the imitator. The imitator. What the imitator sees might be the director or the vice president online at 10 PM at night. And what they conclude is, well, that must be what it takes. Being online late at night after the kids are in bed is what it takes to get to that level.

So I’d better start logging on and being available late at night. And so what happens is you pay a price that may never have been required to get you to that level. And there’s a cost— your evenings, your health, your marriage. I experienced divorce as the result of bad decisions just like this. Maybe you’ve already paid a price for imitating a behavior that you saw above you on the org chart. But the second failure mode is called the refuser. The refuser. The refuser sees those late nights. It sees 2 predecessors who had that job, who each were working 12-hour days constantly. And they conclude something a bit different. The refuser says, if that’s what it takes, I’m out. I don’t want this. I’m going to stop growing, stop pursuing the next level, because that’s not something that I want. And so you end up disqualifying yourself from a role that you might be great in, that you might be the most qualified to do, Because you don’t want the lifestyle that you see above you from your boss or from your skip. And the cost of that may seem lower because you’re not giving up your life, but then you have the next 5, 10, 15 years or more of your career at the same level, doing the same kinds of projects in the same kinds of teams, and eventually— You will burn out from boredom, like I’ve talked about in another video. You still pay a price. You don’t then earn that income to be able to take your family on that extra vacation or buy that house or really leave a legacy in your family line. You don’t get that opportunity to do those things because of the decision to see from below something that you don’t want to repeat and conclude that therefore it’s not For you. And I’ll tell you right now that both of these failure modes can be overcome. The imitator, I think of Alec. He was working 70 hours a week. Through the Blueprint program, he brought that down to 50, and then in the 40s. And it was during that downshift in his work that he then got promoted to the next level. It was the reduction that led to the promotion. And I think about the refuser. I just started working with a gentleman named Kyle. The last 2 people before him who held the job that he just got promoted into were working 12-hour days, traveling nonstop. And he has decided, I will not follow in those footprints. And the reason we’re working together is to change that blueprint, to show him a new way. Both of these failure modes, the imitator and the refuser show up everywhere that I look in engineering, and I don’t want it to be you. So if this is already resonating and you want to jump ahead to what the full blueprint looks like, I’ll show you in a different video, which will be linked in the description below. 3 of the career killers that I see the most at these levels, the 3 shifts that matter in order for you to be able to create a different outcome. Than what you see happening above you on the org chart, to live a more balanced, more complete, more whole life while you experience the success that you want in your career. The same blueprint that I’ve used with hundreds of engineering leaders to connect career growth with the lifestyle that you dream of and a system underneath both to help you sustain that growth without burning out. So if you want that full model and you wanna jump ahead, Go ahead and click through and watch that next. But for now, let’s continue on how we can change our perspective and not fall into that wet driveway trap that I did when I was traveling. The key is this: what’s visible isn’t always what’s valuable. What’s visible isn’t what’s valuable.

So back to our list. What you can see from below is limited in your perspective. You can only see so much. Here’s you, you’re looking up, and that perspective is bringing your own experience, your own capabilities, your own skills. And I don’t mean this as an insult, but you can only see it from below. You aren’t able yet to see from above. What is it that the leaders above your skip are seeing? What is the actual value that matters? And so the right-hand side of this chart really matters. What actually gets seen from above? What is it that the VP is really looking for? So I’d encourage you again, before you just let me tell you the answer, pause this video, take 30 seconds and ask yourself, if I do my best to put myself in the shoes of maybe my mentor who’s at that level or things that I’ve read, other things that I’ve listened to, other career development that I’ve done. What is it that actually creates the value that somebody from above my boss, from above my skip on the org chart would see? Where is the value from above? I want you to just take a moment and consider that. Pause the video and then meet me back here and I’ll share with you some of those keys and the shift that we must make. All right, put your vice president hat on, put your CTO hat on, and let’s look down the org chart. What you see is good judgment. By the way, good judgment often comes from making mistakes and having bad judgment. That’s how you get good judgment. What else? It’s decisions. Not just are you making decisions, but are you making decisions that no one else could make? Are you making them with speed, with accuracy, with ownership? How’s your decision-making? I hope that you captured business results. It’s not just about tasks. It’s not about to-do lists. It’s about driving the business. We’re here to win as a business. Team leverage. What can your team now do that they couldn’t do before? Have you increased their skills? Can they do more alone, more without your support? What about the scope that you can handle? And I added on my list, not just the scope, but Scope without escalation. The scope that you can handle without bothering me all the time. If I’m the CTO, I don’t want you constantly coming to me for every little thing, right? You must be able to handle the scope without escalation. Thinking about problems that are permanently removed. How have you improved the way we work overall? These kinds of things that are looked at from above. It’s a totally different lens. Notice now that none of these things, none of them are about time, late nights, weekend work. That’s not what the leaders above you are actually paying attention to. And you’re making the assumption that weekend work is what’s required to get business results, that it’s a wet driveway, it must have rained. You’re assuming that because they’re in more meetings, That it’s improving their judgment. Wet driveway. Did it rain? You’re assuming that all of these things were necessary to create those outcomes. And what I want you to know is that that is not necessarily true.

In fact, it is not that often true. What I have seen over and over again is that those behaviors of taking on more and more and more, this nonessentialist way of thinking, this— undisciplined pursuit of taking on everything that leads to those late-night slacks, that leads to that weekend work. That is a leader bringing along the baggage of their bad habits from their lower levels in the org chart where they never did the work in personal development and in career development to find a better way. And so they just keep adding on and adding on And adding on when in fact a very small chunk of their work is what got them the visibility and the decision to promote them in the first place. So how can you discern what actually creates the value versus what’s just visible? To help you see this more clearly, I’d like to share a story about an amazing leader who I worked with named Jeff. Jeff been a client of mine for many years now, and let me tell you exactly what he said when I interviewed him. He was talking about his role at the power plant. He said, we got married right when I started the plant, and that first kind of 4 years of our marriage was like we were probably headed towards divorce. And I didn’t know it. We were roommates. I was constantly thinking about work. I can relate to this. I did the exact same thing. And he also went on to say that he didn’t even realize until he left. There were a lot of different reasons, but I didn’t articulate that I was burning out. That strategy, that work hard, become the go-to guy strategy, then led Jeff to start a side hustle. He started building additional income streams on the side. He continued to move up and succeed at work, and these things piled up. And when he and I got together for coaching, the first couple of things that came up was, how are we going to change the strategy? And let me share with you what Jeff said when we got going. He said, man, it’s not just knowledge. It’s not what you know. It’s about being able to take action on what you know. A lot of these things weren’t new to me, but I never had the tools or the mindset, everything that I actually needed to apply it. And the Blueprint gave me the courage to say, no, it doesn’t have to be this way. I can influence what’s going around, going on around me more than I think. And that’s what I want you to really understand.

This shift from what you can see from below, This I see grinding, work harder, add more to your calendar mindset. It takes courage, but there is another way. You can influence it more than you believe you can. Just because you’re not the VP yet doesn’t mean that you must say yes to everything. Jeff needed the courage to say no. And let me share with you what transformed When he started to do that. First, Jeff put in a new set of rules around his time and how his focus would be directed. Rule number 1, he decided not to answer his phone. He always calls people back. Here’s what Jeff said. It’s not just ghosting people. It’s like, because I’m so busy, people can’t get ahold of me. I’m working on the highest priorities. So if I am answering the phone, it’s because it’s related to my top Priorities. And now that people know that, me not answering the phone isn’t a big deal. He thought it would be huge. Turns out, once people understood it’s because he was working on the highest priorities, nobody cared. Rule number 2, he said no same-day meetings. Jeff totally changed the way he approached his calendar. And if somebody sent him a meeting invite day of, he would just reply back and say, I’m sorry, Absolutely not. I’m already committed to my highest priorities. Now, I know you’re already thinking, but Zach, and you have some exception in your mind. And even for Jeff, there are exceptions. If a true crisis on one of his top priorities came up, he would take the call. The problem is most of those things were not crisis situations. And Jeff told a story about a time when he got invited to a meeting on a $20,000 project. And there were already 4 other leaders in that meeting. And I’m looking at what he shared and he said, it would only take a few hours of our combined salary to take away all the profitability from this $20,000 project. Meanwhile, he had a multimillion-dollar proposal to be working on that he was not working on because he’d gotten pulled into that meeting. And those were the moments where he recognized, I must change my strategy. And he went to his leader and said, Will you care if I decline all of these low-value activities and put all of my effort into making sure this multimillion-dollar proposal goes to the best it can possibly go? And what do you think his leader said? Of course not. Focus on what’s most important.

That shift then forced Jeff to learn how to lead better, how to delegate better, how to control those boundaries better. And as a result, Here’s what Jeff said. The blueprint was just a series of actions that were like the first domino that fell, this huge chain reaction at work that ultimately led to us restructuring our division, our entire engineering organization. And that reorg included me getting my promotion to director that August. And we started the work in March. So in just a few months’ time, Jeff was able to completely change the way that he worked, and it ended up in a director promotion for him in just a few months. That is the kind of growth that we want, one where you’re not overworking, you’re not putting in all the hours, and you are still seeing that aspirational growth that prevents burnout from boredom and also prevents you becoming an imitator of behaviors that don’t serve you. Or refusing opportunities that you could absolutely crush at. And let me be honest with you for a moment. I have fallen into the wet driveway trap in my personal life outside of work as well. I did it in fitness. I really wanted to build muscle. I was getting remarried to my now wife, Johanna, who I love so much. She’s amazing. And I wanted to get in shape and build some muscle. And so I looked around and said, all the guys with a lot of muscle are in the gym a lot. So I started doing P90X and I started putting in hours and hours at the gym, working out more and more. And I did get more lean and a bit more ripped, but I really didn’t gain any muscle mass at all. And I was super frustrated. What I found out later is that I simply was not eating enough protein for my body to grow. So hypertrophy couldn’t happen even if my body wanted to grow because I wasn’t fueling my body the right way. And I’m back in a growth phase right now, and I’m focusing all of my effort just on eating right and getting the protein levels that I need. And I’m working out the same, and the gains have been great. And come back in 6 months and see if you could tell a difference. But I’ll tell you that it’s harder to change your paradigm, to change your mindset, to change your viewpoint from looking up the org chart and thinking, oh, I don’t want what they’re doing. To looking from the view of a leader above, to stop thinking about more hours in the gym and start thinking about just eating more protein in your career. And the sting of this is that your boss, your boss is just evidence that their career strategy got them there, but it’s not evidence that their current habits are the strategy that you should copy. And it’s not evidence that that strategy is the only way. And I’ll tell you, there are companies, there are bosses, there are places that reward heroic hours, that expect some of the things that are here on the from below side of our chart. They want you to work those late nights. They’re expecting you to be on at 10:00 PM replying to emails and, and doing calls at all hours and being in every single meeting.

And I understand that those places do exist, and if that’s the kind of environment that you’re in, it still doesn’t prove that overwork is what makes someone a better leader. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to be what’s required for you now, or that it’s the only path forward for you in your career. Don’t let one bad environment, one bad place that’s not aligned with your values, ruin it for the rest of your So like I said, if long hours aren’t the real cause, if it’s just a wet driveway but it didn’t actually rain, then what actually moves the needle as an engineering leader from feeling stuck with already at your capacity as an engineering manager or senior manager? How do you get into that director, senior director, VP-level scope without doing everything on the left-hand side of what you can see from below? Well, that’s what I unpack in the next video. Like I said before, I’m gonna show you 3 career killers, the ones that I see the most in this middle management level, the 3 shifts that matter the most, and the blueprint, the tactics, the tools that I’ve used with hundreds of engineering leaders to connect career growth with their ideal lifestyle and a system, an operating system underneath both. If you want the full model, click through to the video that I’ve linked below in the description and will show up here on the screen. Watch that video next if you want to put all the pieces together from what we talked about today. I’ll see you there in the next video.