A Passion for Growth: Storytelling and Interpersonal Skills with Joseph Griffiths (1/2)

Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional

How well do your personal and professional life align to your passion areas? For returning guest Joseph Griffiths, seeking mentorship helped uncover his core passions (service, honesty, faith, and growth) and fueled the decision to pursue people management.

This week in Episode 327, Joseph details his transition from solutions architect to business solution strategist and why he sought mentorship along the way. You’ll hear about the impact of storytelling in executive conversations and job interviews as well as the concept of a value hypothesis. Joseph shares a perspective on management interviews, leading seasoned teams, and the critical nature of interpersonal skills for career advancement.

Original Recording Date: 04-17-2024

Topics – Joseph Griffiths Returns, Storytelling and Conversations with Executives, Discovering Passion Areas, Management Interviews and Interpersonal Challenges, A Passion for Growth over Technology, Leading a Familiar Team and Progressing as a Manager

2:15 – Joseph Griffiths Returns

• Joseph Griffiths has worked in technical sales in some form for the last 10 years. Before that, he worked for a multi-tenant service provider and the state of Ohio as a systems administrator and enterprise architect.
• Joseph last joined us as a guest in Episode 18a and Episode 18b. At that time, we spoke to Joseph about his experience as a solutions architect. We wanted to learn more about what made Joseph want to pursue people leadership within technical sales.
• Full disclosure – Joseph was Nick’s manager up until about 4-5 months before this recording took place. But Joseph and Nick knew each other for many years before Joseph became Nick’s manager. Nick invited him to speak at Spiceworks user group events, for example.

3:55 – Storytelling and Conversations with Executives

• Going back to when Joseph was a solutions architect, his role was focused on understanding the pain and gain from a business perspective for customers.
  • He would often run workshops to understand the current state (pains that exist) and build the future state (the gains a customer could get).
  • As the company changed over time, Joseph’s role changed to business solution strategist. While the role was similar, it had a greater focus on speaking to C-level executives.
  • Joseph recalls meeting some wonderful people on this team who taught him how to talk to executives and how to do value management.
• What was the biggest lesson Joseph had to learn in order to communicate effectively with executives?
  • “You have about 30 seconds, and you better be talking about money. That’s the short version of it.” – Joseph Griffiths
  • A good friend of Joseph’s is an assistant CFO at a large corporation, and Joseph decided to pick his brain on how and why certain IT purchases get approved, and others do not.
  • “And he said, ‘it’s really simple – story and a spreadsheet…. You had better tell me a story that makes sense to my accounting brain, and you better have a spreadsheet that shows me how we’re going to make money, save money, or reduce risk with the spreadsheet…. Those two things put together…if the numbers make sense on the spreadsheet…I’m going to approve it. You come to me with a story about how you’re going to install some new widget, go find the money in your budget. You come to me with a spreadsheet, but the story doesn’t make sense, go find it in your budget. You want money outside of your budget? They better make sense in the form of dollars.’ And so, for me, the biggest thing to learn was I had 30 seconds with a customer to establish why they should keep listening to me, and it’s always dollars.” – Joseph Griffiths, on learning to speak with executives
  • The executives Joseph would speak with likely would need to sell their ideas to a CFO or CEO to get new purchases approved. The business case has to be about making money (improving revenue or margin, for example) or saving money.
  • Joseph had to learn to talk in dollars and understand how the money was being used.
  • This is good advice even if you don’t work in technical sales. Anyone trying to get a purchase approved within their company needs to understand how to speak the language of the decision makers and make an effective business case.
    • Listen to the example Joseph shares related to putting gourmet coffee machines in gas stations and why someone thought this was a good idea.
    • “At the end of the day, businesses speak dollars. It doesn’t matter if you cannot convert what you sell into some sort of dollar metric. You’re going to have a hard time getting approval outside of budget times…. If you really want to accelerate a sales cycle of whatever you’re selling…you need to start to talk about to dollars and the impact to the business of the dollars.” – Joseph Griffiths
• Was there discomfort in needing to talk about money?
  • Joseph says it was uncomfortable for him initially and for the team he managed.
  • The challenge in these situations is we do not have all of the information. Joseph tells us about the idea of a value hypothesis and sharing this with a customer.
    • “You have a hypothesis of what you think the value is, and it’s going to be wrong. That’s something that…I had to learn early on and sit in front of a customer with the wrong value hypothesis…. I had to be brave enough to put that number in front of them knowing that it’s wrong and having them correct me.” – Joseph Griffiths
    • This exercise was difficult for Joseph. He wanted what he was sharing to be correct.
    • But in sharing the detailed value hypothesis with a customer, Joseph was able to learn the real numbers. It creates a conversation and collaboration with the customer to adjust and correct the hypothesis.
• Outside of talking about dollars, Joseph has really embraced storytelling in his discussions. What made him put such an emphasis on this skill?
  • Joseph tells us he’s in the middle of writing a book at the moment. One of the chapters is focused on storytelling.
  • “Storytelling is elemental to humans as a race. One of the amazing things about storytelling is it allows you to learn something and be surprised, which are both dopamine hits. That’s really critical in our world where everything is centered around dopamine hits.” – Joseph Griffiths
  • If someone tells us we are doing something wrong, we could be defensive, submissive, or react in any number of ways. It’s not going to motivate us to change. But, if we were told an engaging story about someone who went through something similar and have a realization while hearing the story, it would motivate us to change.
  • “The real power of stories is you see yourself as the protagonist, and when you see yourself as the protagonist of my story, and I’m leading the journey along, you can come to some very interesting aha moments that are very powerful and motivating for you…. Instantly you want to take that story and tell other people so they can have that same aha moment because every time we have an aha moment we feel smart. We feel like we’ve discovered something amazing.” – Joseph Griffiths
    • Most religions in the world and their teachings are based around storytelling.
    • Joseph also tells us that stories have applications at different times in our lives. Stories allow us to use our intelligence to come to some incredible conclusions.
    • Analogies (a close sibling to storytelling) are also commonly used by technical sales professionals to explain difficult concepts. They are useful to help with understanding but miss the aha moment that comes from using stories.
    • Joseph would highly recommend using stories in any kind of selling (even if selling a project or idea inside your own company).
• After learning to tell stories with dollars, what kind of feedback did Joseph get on his approach from executives he spoke with?
  • Joseph remembers one instance during his time as a business solution strategist involving the CIO of a company who was near the end of his career. This CIO became very interested in coaching people. After Joseph did a presentation with a value hypothesis at the front of it, the CIO looked at him and said, “That’s impossible.” This was a challenge, and Joseph had to make a decision on what he would do next.
  • When Joseph pressed forward a little bit, the CIO stopped him and provided the same response.
  • When Joseph asked why what he proposed was not possible, the CIO provided some of the most useful financial information about the company anyone on the team had learned to that point. It led to a number of sales.
  • “We have to be able to stop and say, ‘why?’ His why was totally different than I thought it was.” – Joseph Griffiths
  • After this specific incident, the CIO in question told Joseph he should have stopped the first time and asked why. This CIO continued to provide feedback to Joseph after future conversations.
  • “That’s one of the biggest dangers…. We’re afraid of those yellow lights or the red lights that come, and we try to speed through them. Never a good idea…just let them talk.” – Joseph Griffiths, on discussions with executives and being challenged
  • Joseph says some of his stories have not landed with people, but the only way to get better at storytelling is to practice.
  • Joseph mentions a friend and co-worker of both his and Nick’s joined Toastmasters and improved his storytelling ability. It’s a great place to get some practice.

13:10 – Discovering Passion Areas

• Joseph’s role as solution architect and business solution strategist was more of a technical overlay. What titled him toward management?
  • The answer lies within the things Joseph is passionate about – growth and change, for example. The business solutions strategist forced a lot of growth for Joseph.
  • Joseph enjoys being of service to others. In his role as an overlay, he was able to serve account teams inside the company and customers.
    • “I’ve always really found that I am happiest when I’m helping other people.” – Joseph Griffiths
    • This same desire to be of service has driven a number of Joseph’s colleagues past just being technical workers to working in sales, customer success, or some other similar role.
  • When COVID hit, the role Joseph was in as a business solution strategist was becoming less and less utilized (less opportunities, less in-person meetings, etc.).
    • During this time, Joseph found himself struggling to feel happy. He was employed by a company that was doing well and even getting feedback that he was doing well in his role. But Joseph did not feel like he was really being of service to other people.
  • As Joseph started to explore other career opportunities, he joined a mentoring program. This program allowed mentees (like Joseph) to connect with leaders in different business units for mentoring.
    • “I’d had lots of mentoring from my business unit people, but it was somebody totally outside of that. His name is Zac. And the first thing Zach had me do was do this survey that helped me understand myself. One of the things I learned from that was…that I’m passionate about growth and service, honesty and faith. Those are my four things that I’m passionate about.” – Joseph Griffiths
    • Zac had taken the survey earlier in his career and encouraged Joseph to take the survey and fill out a rubric to see how well he was fulfilling his passion areas at home and at work.
    • “And I saw a lot of gaps there. And so, he and I started exploring other career opportunities that would scratch those gaps that were being missed. I had always had some interest in being in management, but I wanted to do it for the right reason. I wanted to know why I was doing it, not just because it was a logical next step in my career…. As a manager a lot of your job is promoting growth in others, serving them, and helping them look good…not looking good yourself. I always struggled when I was on stage receiving an award. It felt weird. I didn’t like it. I much prefer to see someone else on my team on stage getting an award. That means I did my job right.” – Joseph Griffiths
    • Zac created formalized mentoring when he worked with Joseph and would ask a lot of open-ended questions so Joseph could talk through different things.
    • Joseph did seek mentorship from others who provided specific, prescriptive guidance. He tells us the combination of both approaches is exactly what was needed.
  • Working with mentors helped Joseph understand he needed to try people management.
    • “You owe it to yourself to try it once in your career and see if it’s something you like doing or not.” – Joseph Griffiths, quoting a friend’s advice
  • Nick has heard that in many ways, being a people manager is analogous to being a parent. We cannot fully understand what it is like until we do it.
    • Joseph says as a parent there is a need for authoritative control and direct teaching.
    • Joseph tells us the teams he managed were comprised of people who were highly capable. His job was to provide guidance to team members and promote growth in areas that were blind spots.
    • “I was blessed with a very mature team and a team of people who were very good at their jobs and had been doing it for quite some time. Because of that, my management was very different than a bunch of college graduates…. I guess a lot of that depends on your situation, but I didn’t use a lot of authoritative power with my team. It was not necessary or helpful. I spent a lot more time telling them that I trusted them and just trying to remove roadblocks for them.” – Joseph Griffiths

18:11 – Management Interviews and Interpersonal Challenges

• What was the interview for a management role like for Joseph compared to when he interviewed for an individual contributor role?
  • Joseph had worked with some of the people who would be interviewing him when he was a business solution strategist, and they were kind enough to provide some guidance.
  • When interviewing for a people manager role, there’s a pretty strong expectation that you will bring a visual or a set of slides to the interview. It should cover areas like your management style, what you want to do in your 30-60-90-day plan, and an overview of who you are.
  • “They want to see that you came prepared to tell them who you are, why you want the job, and what your plan is once you get it.” – Joseph Griffiths, on management interview expectations
  • After getting specific guidance from a co-worker, Joseph created a presentation to use in the manager role job interviews.
  • Joseph would recommend answering questions with stories or examples rather than a simple yes or no. Stories land much better with the interviewer regardless of the job you’re seeking.
  • Being a manager does not mean you need to be a robot. You can have emotions about things. In one round of interviews for a people manager role, Joseph remembers being asked what he was most scared of.
    • At this moment, Joseph shared a story about a conversation he’d had the previous day with a co-worker. The co-worker was a woman who was getting harassed at work and needed advice. Joseph listened carefully, provided some suggestions (i.e. that the woman share the situation with her manager for support and help, etc.), and offered to take another call if the person needed to speak further. What scared Joseph the most was having a future employee call him in that same situation. It was an emotional moment during the interview.
    • “Those are the kind of things you have to think about. What are you going to run into, and do you want to deal with that? The one thing about being a manager is your job moves from dealing with customers to dealing with interpersonal problems. Ninety-five percent of your work, the stuff you have to deal with is interpersonal…and that stuff’s hard.” – Joseph Griffiths
• Was Joseph trying to help people with interpersonal problems regularly even before he was a manager?
  • Yes – Joseph found himself doing this regularly as an extension of his desire to be of service to others. He has helped others in this way for most of his career.
  • Joseph tells us most any book about advancing your career will have a chapter or section about interpersonal issues.
    • He remembers reading a book about an executive coach that the board of directors would hire at a company to help work through an interpersonal issue (i.e. a CFO or COO who is a problem).
    • “The problem is always they have a blind side in understanding how their behavior impacts those around them negatively. So, the higher you get in your career in a company, the more it becomes about interpersonal capabilities and your ability to influence others and less about what you can do. And that’s the reality of the world. We get paid for our ability to deal with interpersonal challenges not our ability to be the smartest person on the earth.” – Joseph Griffiths

23:07 – A Passion for Growth over Technology

• Joseph is someone we know who has achieved multiple VCDX certifications in the past. Was there any point at which Joseph was afraid of losing technical chops during the transition to focus on the interpersonal issues that come with being a people manager?
  • Joseph reminds us that technology continues to change. Around 4 years ago many people were focused on blockchain. Right now, and probably in the near future people are focused on AI. We’re not certain exactly what it will be like in 5 years.
  • “The reality is that technology changes very fast, and you can’t keep up. No one can. What you can do is have a foundation of understanding how technology works and educate yourself as you’re going along.” – Joseph Griffiths
  • Joseph says he was the most technical when he was working to configure servers, network, and storage every day. That was 10 years ago. Though Joseph’s technical chops have been going down since that time, his salary has been going up. While there is nothing wrong with being someone who is extremely technical, Joseph believes interpersonal skills will be more valuable from a compensation perspective in the long run.
  • “At the end of the day, I’ve never been concerned about becoming less technical as long as I’m growing. Because remember, one of my passions is growth…and it doesn’t have to be in technology. It can be interpersonal.” – Joseph Griffiths
  • In the last few months since leaving a management position, Joseph has spent time learning AI and programming. He’s enjoying doing this, and more importantly, it’s growth for him right now.
  • Joseph feels if you’ve shown aptitude in learning technical skills, you can do it again in the future.
• Nick reiterates that growth can translate into a lot of different things that aren’t necessarily technical things. We may not always understand this when we work in technology.
  • When Joseph was early in his career as a systems administrator, he did not understand this.
  • Joseph tells the story of a time during his role as a lead systems administrator when his manager left the company.
    • The open manager job was posted, and both Joseph and one of his peers applied for it. Both went through the interview process with their director.
    • After going through the interview process, Joseph’s director stated he was not getting the manager job and gave some very pointed feedback – “you’re not ready for it yet.”
    • Joseph was gracious at that moment but was devastated to hear this.
    • “My initial response was the same response we all get – defensive. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I can tell you… 14,15 years later, he was absolutely right because I was focused on being the best technologist. Leading people is a totally different skill set, and I hadn’t shown any of those skills or developed any of those skills. And I was interested in doing things authoritatively…. That’s not a good way to lead people. It’s not a good way to run an organization. And he made the right choice…. He had the courage to give me some very real feedback that I didn’t understand until years later. And I’m thankful to JJ for that. We’re friends to this day…. When I became a manager, I was ready for it. I wasn’t then, and it would have been disaster…. A lot of people get into management because they think it’s the next step in their career because they’re the best technical person they can be. There’s nothing wrong with being the best technical person you can be and staying there.” – Joseph Griffiths
    • Make sure you understand yourself and why you want to pursue people management. Otherwise, Joseph would advise not pursuing it. We need good managers in companies and want to avoid having poor managers.
  • If someone wants to stay technical / stay individual contributor and there isn’t a role at your company, it might mean changing companies. There’s nothing wrong with being extremely technical and continuing with that pattern throughout your career.
  • “My passion is growth, not technology. You might be passionate about technology, and if you’re passionate about technology then there are plenty of places to go and…great careers in being the greatest technologist you can be. The only guidance I would give you is find a specialization, specialize in it, and prove that you’re the best in that specialization. Don’t be a generalist.” – Joseph Griffiths
    • The growth would come through developing the specialty based on Joseph’s guidance. He tells us that being a generalist can sometimes block your progression path.
    • If you want to be the best administrator of a specific type of storage array, for example, go do it. You would likely end up working for the vendor who makes the storage array if you have that depth of expertise.
  • Nick suggests maybe we should choose our specialty strategically for longevity.
    • Joseph mentioned his brother-in-law’s 23-year career in the Army as an officer. After getting out of the military he struggled to find a civilian career.
    • Once Joseph asked his brother-in-law about the work he did, they found he managed 10,000 people at an Army base. But he wasn’t wording it that way on his resume.
    • “You get specialized, and you don’t translate it to other things. You’d be surprised. The people who were doing blockchain 4 years ago…they’ve got a lot of the basis of understanding AI today…. I just suggest that we’re all going to pivot throughout our career. I’m in the middle of a potential career pivot trying to figure out what I want to do next, and maybe it’s management. Maybe it’s not. As I do that pivot right now, all the things that I learned before are benefits.” – Joseph Griffiths

30:35 – Leading a Familiar Team and Progressing as a Manager

• What approach should someone take when they are peers with certain people and then become the manager?
  • This is a pretty common question and something Joseph was asked during interviews for the people manager role he occupied.
  • If no one else on the team was interviewing for the people manager role in addition to you, Joseph recommends doing some things to build trust:
    • Meeting with the team to acknowledge team members are good at what they do
    • Admit you have a lot to learn
    • Seek feedback and guidance from team members on what is / is not working, where people need help, what individual team member challenges have been
    • “Ultimately managing people is a game of trust. If they trust you, they will want to do what you ask them to do. If they don’t trust you, they will question every motive and struggle to get those things done. It will be drudgery.” – Joseph Griffiths
  • If someone else on the team was also interviewing for the manager role but lost because you got it…
    • Have an honest conversation with this member of the team, and offer them the chance to get feedback from the interviewers on skills gaps.
    • Give this member of your team the opportunity to develop into that manager role by being the second. Let them fill in while you’re out of the office, for example, to provide some experience and help deciding if people management is really what they want.
    • If this person becomes very unhappy as a result of not getting the manager role and discussions don’t become more positive, it may mean the person needs to move on to some other role. Find out what the person wants to do, and help them get there.
    • Earlier in Joseph’s career when he didn’t get the manager role, it was time to move to a different job. It was (at the time) Joseph’s way of finding something that would give him the opportunities he wanted.
    • “The other thing that I learned from Zac…my mentor in management…sometimes what you want to get done and where you want to go is totally right. But you’re not going to do it in your current organization because sometimes no one sees a prophet in their own land, so sometimes you’ve got to go to a different organization to get what you want. Don’t be afraid to jump and try something totally different because managing people is managing people. If you think that you need to be really good at the job that you’re managing, you’ve missed the boat. The people that you’re managing are really good at the job. That’s why they’re there, and they can help you understand what’s necessary to be successful in the job. I don’t need to be the smartest engineer to manage solutions engineers.” – Joseph Griffiths
• What are some of the challenges to progressing in your career once you become a people manager?
  • “I consider progression growth of myself, not career ladder. So, what are the things stopping me from growing?” – Joseph Griffiths
    • One thing inhibiting growth could be running into the same situation over and over again and not having opportunities to grow and change.
    • Joseph will often tell his manager not to let him get bored in his role, which can happen every few years. Without enough change, he will get bored and not grow.
  • If we’re talking about progressing to second-line manager (or manager of people managers)…
    • Joseph would recommend determining if this role is aligned with your passions before pursuing it. If it is aligned with your passions, Joseph emphasizes the importance of understanding the greater organization. To a large degree, this is about people and politics.
    • “Some organizations are focused on execution – getting things done. Some organizations are focused on marketing – looking good, looking like you’re getting things done. You need to understand which kind of organization you’re in and do the appropriate type of activity to the appropriate people. But ultimately, the next step of your career…is going to be managing a large group of people. You’re going to get that because you’re able to manage a large peer network of people and manage up to them. You need more people saying ‘yes, that’s the right person for the job.’ And that only happens because they know you…. The day of being handed a job or being tapped on the shoulder…it’s not the culture of corporations is America anymore. You’ve got to put yourself out there and say, ‘I’m looking for that job’ and convince a wide net of people that you should get that job. And that’s something that especially technology people struggle with.” – Joseph Griffiths

Mentioned in the Outro

• If you could interview a former boss on your podcast, what would you ask?
• Joseph is more passionate about growth than technology, but he emphasizes that growth can mean different things for each of us at different times in our career.
  • Growth might mean learning a new skill, sharpening an existing skill, expanding the scope of the problems you need to solve, working in a specific job role, or working at a specific type of company.
• Joseph’s suggestion of finding our passions and aligning them to a specific role pairs nicely with Tim Crawford’s advice on the decision between pursuing management and staying an individual contributor from Episode 244 – An Array of Decision Points with Tim Crawford (2/2).
• If you’re looking for more on how other guests have used storytelling in their careers, check out these episodes:
  • Episode 122 – Write, Interview, Tell Your Own Story with Brianna Blacet (2/2)
  • Episode 301 – Always a Winger: People Person and Unapologetic Marketer with Amy Lewis (1/2)
• In Joseph’s story we also see a theme of needing to seek an outside source to learn more about ourselves. In this case it was working with a mentor.
  • It’s amazing how questions from other people can provide clarity.
  • You can also listen to our recent episodes with Daniel Lemire on how he sought clarity from different sources:
    • Episode 325 – Overwhelmed by Ambiguity: DevOps, Innovation, and the Search for Clarity with Daniel Lemire (3/4)
    • Episode 326 – AI Mistakes: Focused Resilience and a Specialization Bet with Daniel Lemire (4/4)

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