As leaders, it’s our responsibility to unlock our team’s full potential. Or, as our guest nicely puts it, “Life is too short to lead an average team.” So, today, we’re diving into strategies to help you avoid this pitfall in your company and, instead, empower your software engineering team to thrive. Join us for a fascinating discussion!
Meet Aviv Ben-Yosef. He’s a technology executive consultant who helps companies create high-impact, needle-moving teams. He hosts the Tech Executive Podcast with short tips on building high-performance, autonomous teams. Aviv is also the author of the Tech Executive Operating System and Capitalizing Your Technology, which are essential reads for tech executives and their direct reports.
In this episode of the Scaling Tech podcast, Arin and Aviv talk about ways engineering leaders can amplify their teams’ impact, foster innovation as a habit, and ensure alignment with overall business strategy.
Tune into this episode for firsthand advice about empowering your software engineering team and making significant contributions to your organization’s strategic objectives.
ABOUT GUEST
Name: Aviv Ben-Yosef
What he does: He’s a Tech Executive Consultant.
Company: Aviv Ben-Yosef Consulting
Noteworthy: Aviv is also the host of the Tech Executive Podcast and the author of the Tech Executive Operating System and Capitalizing Your Technology.
Where to find Aviv: LinkedIn | Website
KEY INSIGHTS
⚡Tech leaders play a crucial role in helping their teams reach their full potential. As leaders, we need to harness our team’s full potential and create an environment where they can thrive so that they can deliver meaningful impact to the business.
Aviv says, “If someone is average but working to maximize their own potential, I cannot ask them for anything more. So if I’m seeing a team that has a bunch of junior people who are delivering what a solid junior engineer should deliver, I’m okay with that. But I saw repeatedly teams where you had people who were stellar, brilliant people, and yet the team didn’t even make a dent in the business. They were moving slowly, or they were delivering things that didn’t really matter. And that’s what always pained me. I’m looking at people wasting their best, the best years, and wasting their talents.”
⚡Tech capital is about adding long-term value. As Aviv nicely puts it, tech capital extends beyond feature development. He explains, “Tech capital is about saying, okay, I’m an engineer, I understand things, I have this capability of making the computer listen to me. How can I do that not just for the company’s users’ benefit as in the feature work, but what else can I do? And that’s how I came up with framing the concept of tech capital, which is about technology that we write that gives the company more and more value; features aren’t tech capital because whenever you develop a new feature, like buying a car, it gives you some value, but it starts decreasing in its value immediately. It’s not something that actually gives you more and more value once you have it. And tech capital would be, for example, creating internal technology that makes things better.”
⚡The engineering leader’s role goes beyond technical expertise. As a tech executive, you’re more than just a technical expert; you’re a genuine leader. So, bringing strong leadership skills to the table is also essential if you want to contribute to your company’s growth.
Aviv says, “We want to make sure that they talk to their peers so that they understand what’s important and find even new opportunities to deliver value. And third, when I talk about profitable engineering, it’s how do we ensure that the features we’re doing and, the work that we’re doing, and the organization I’m building as a tech executive are all towards being a profitable, healthy organization.”
Arin adds, “We’re definitely past the era of the startup world where you can just build shiny things and get a lot of funding for it and not worry about being a real business. It is incredibly important and should have always been to build an actual profitable, sustainable business around your idea, but for the tech executive, for those engineering leaders to make sure that their organization is contributing to that, providing innovation that improves the tech capital in that organization.”