TT: Thrive Through the Challenges with Robert Worrall, former SVP and CIO for Juniper Networks

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:01) Today, we're bringing you an episode of Tech Titans. Bob Warrall, former SVP and CIO for Juniper Networks, joins us in this episode to share his best advice on embracing challenges to grow as a leader. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Tech Titans.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:21) So I'm curious to know what your first experience was getting to lead your first team.

(Bob Warrall at 00:00:27) You know, honestly, I was scared to death. My first team was a really crusty group of old guys who were twenty years my senior and had gone through, you know, technical school and got all the credentials and everything else that I didn't have. Honest to God, I'll never forget when I was given the opportunity to go lead this group, kind of stepping out of the business analysis role into my first infrastructure job. I was going to lead this team. I knew nothing about what these guys do and probably lost more sleep that weekend than I can ever recall after that, worrying about it.

(Bob Warrall at 00:01:03) And I guess I used a trick that has served me well since, which is I went in that morning, gathered everyone around the table, and I said, "Let me get one thing perfectly straight. I'm the stupidest guy in the room. You all know more than I will ever know, and I will never profess to know everything." But I said, "Here's what I think I can lend to the group, right? I can lend some organizational skills. I'm a pretty good communicator. So don't think of me as, you know, the superior or the boss, but think of me as a team member who's got a different set of skills." And I kept at that theme for a while.

(Bob Warrall at 00:01:40) And now, over time, as we encountered lots of crises as you do in IT, and I was able to kind of lend those skill sets, it began to build a rapport and some credibility with them. But through my entire career, I've kind of taken that. So as I've moved into each of these functions, I've been the guy in the room who's had the least knowledge about that subject. And though I work really hard to gain a functional knowledge of the topics, I don't profess ever to be the smartest person in the room, but only to have maybe a different or a unique skill set that hopefully helps the team at large. So, you know, it was a scary moment.

(Bob Warrall at 00:02:16) And I guess the other takeaway—if I, sorry to prolong this—but the other takeaway from that experience and a series of other experiences in my life is the best thing that my manager did for me in that experience was not help me. What I mean by that is, you know, the guy I was working with was a good friend of mine. He could have stepped in and said to the team, "Here's Bob and you're going to listen to everything he has to say and he's going to come to me if you're screwing up," all those. He basically said, "You're going to manage these guys. I'm not going to help you at all. You're going to live or die by everything that happens in the next, you know, seventy-two hours." And so, that crisis of conscience that you have, whether it be mouths to feed or those new functions that you're leading, you've either got to deal with it or you're going to crash and burn. And so there's that crisis of self-reliance and self-confidence and everything else. And you come out of that when it's successful.

(Bob Warrall at 00:03:21) You come out of that with kind of a renewed confidence, right? And you kind of take that to the next gig. So it was a small team. Yeah, I think we had six or eight guys at the time, but the experience and the lessons were invaluable.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:39) What is happening that, like, makes them stand out? What have you noticed? Like, what will catch your attention as, "Oh, man. That person's just, you know, doing things that stand out as they're going to be fantastic leaders in the future"? Like, what catches your eye about that?

(Bob Warrall at 00:03:57) Yeah, it's a good question. I've done a lot of mentoring over my career. But in terms of the one thing that stands out, this might sound kind of silly. But above everything else, if somebody walks into a room and can articulate their thoughts and ideas in a very succinct manner, I'll listen to that person all day long. On the contrary, if somebody walks in and they can't effectively communicate and they sort of ramble on and they're literally reading the slides and so on and so forth, I will mentally tune them out instantly. And so that's just my personal thing where that's my personal pet peeve. So that distinguishes the makings of potentially a good leader because I think a good leader needs to be able to get to the point quickly, make the sell, and get out, right? And I'm not claiming I'm really, really good at this.

(Bob Warrall at 00:04:47) But I think one of the things that has helped me in my career is that if I need to go into an executive session to make a pitch for something, I will strip down the messaging to the absolute bare essentials, right, and always be conscious of the audience, the lack of patience that they're going to have, and so on and so forth. And so to this day—in fact, last night, I had to go to our audit committee, the board of directors, with an update. And I was in and out of that presentation in about ten minutes, answered all their questions and got out. And I think back to this thing that I cherish so much, this ability to be succinct and articulate. I try and be a living example of that. And I hope in the course of that, show people that if you're in this for the long run, you've got to attend to both your technical skills, your leadership skills, and your communication skills, right? It's got to be a whole package. It can't be one or two.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:45) The advice that you'd give yourself ten years ago, what would it be?

(Bob Warrall at 00:05:53) You know, I guess ten years ago, I'd kind of—as we spoke earlier, I'd grown accustomed to this idea of rotating from job to job. And I guess if I spoke to my younger self, it would have been, don't be afraid of it or hesitant. Just embrace it, right? Embrace the unknown, so to speak. That's kind of pompous way of it. But that fear of stepping into a new job, every time you do it, it just makes you a better leader, a better person than your executive. And that ten years ago, twenty years ago, I was, you know, like all of us, maybe struggling with some of those transitions. I'd say, "Don't worry about it. It's going to work out okay. It's actually going to help in the long run. Just don't stress as much." And maybe that's the other commentary I would have. Our jobs are really stressful. My job is a twenty-four hour, seven days a week job.

(Bob Warrall at 00:06:51) There's always going to be a crisis. There's always going to be some network problem or a PC problem or something. And I've probably looked over and managed teams that have closed millions and millions of tickets over the years. Life will be okay. The sun's going to come up tomorrow, no matter how bad the problem is. Just get the right team of people focused on it. Give them the resources they need. Give them the support they need. Communicate to the stakeholders about what you're doing, and it'll be okay. So don't lose sleep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:24) A little hard work, a little patience.

(Bob Warrall at 00:07:26) Yeah. Yeah. Hard work, patience. Yeah. I think whether it's my job or your job or anyone else's, my advice generally to people is show up early. I was here early, right? I was here early. Show up early. Show up early. Work hard. Be willing to do whatever they ask you to do. Don't complain unless it's appropriate, and help the next guy, right? So all of those, that advice, I guess, is kind of transferable to almost any job, but just work hard.