Extreme Ownership in Technical Leadership

Arnaud Lucas joins Richard Lowe (The Writing King) on Leaders and Their Stories for a thoughtful conversation about the human side of technical leadership.

A French-born engineer who has spent 27 years in the US, including time as a CTO, Arnaud reflects on why people are harder than code, how to lead up, what extreme ownership really means, and why the learning never stops.

Arnaud Lucas is a technical leader at Cambridge Mobile Telematics and a former CTO. A software engineer by training, originally from France, he has spent 27 years in the US leading engineering teams.

For more conversations like this one, see the Leaders Hub.

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Full transcript of the interview follows.

Richard Lowe: Hello. This is Richard Lowe, and this is the leaders and their stories. Podcast I am the writing king and ghostwriting, Guru. And I thank you for coming to watch and listen to this. Podcast I’m here with Arnaud Lucas. who is an expert at leadership. And we’re gonna have a great discussion about leadership and his.

How he’s done leader leadership. I’ll edit that and so forth. So, Arno, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

From France to Technical Leadership

Arnaud Lucas: Sure. So my name is Arnaud. Thank you for me having me on the podcast. as you can hear from my accent, I’ve been. I’m originally from France, but I’ve been the Us. Now for 27 years. 1st 8 years in Texas doing startups. And then since then I moved to the Boston area.

So I’ve been Boston for a while. I have in Boston. Now I have 2 kids, 2 teenagers. So which is in terms of leadership. That’s interesting as well Exactly. And but yeah, so and nowadays I work for a company called Cambridge Mobile Telematics. As a leader there. Technical leader.

I’ve always been an engineer all my life doing software. But since Tripadvisor, which is now for a while now, I’ve moved into management and leadership effectively

The Hardest Lesson: People, Not Code

Richard: All right. Alright! That sounds like an interesting story. You’ve been in leadership for many years. Then What’s the what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a leader

Arnaud: So there are a couple of lessons I learned, I think, that some of them actually don’t miss it come from the work itself, from the work itself. I think my 1st lesson when I moved from being a strong, like technical contributor to management. was the fact that you know effectively, Even if it’s faster to do the work yourself, you should not do the work yourself.

Right, you know. Otherwise you’re not. You’re not going your team. You’re not going their expertise. So so there’s a lot of things about making sure that you know it’s not about this. Is you doing the work as a leader. It’s about you giving ownership to other people, and for them then to think about the work. If you do the work right here. And obviously you’re here for support, for for giving direction and other things in some ways. But it’s really not on you to do that. So that’s 1 1 thing, the other lessons of leadership really come from actually, hobbies.

I love to garden. So I feel like there are a lot of actually parallels between leading an organization and gardening. In my opinion I love to bake, and for me I see a lot of a lot of parallels between baking and and kind of extreme ownership. So all you know different things that I do outside of work that tends to influence how I work as well

Richard: Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. The 1st thing I learned about leadership, I, was the the director of technical services and computer operations at Trader Joe’s. That’s a mouthful and I learned that it’s hard Because nobody really tells you. I mean, there’s all kinds of books and stuff, but nobody can really give you the experience of actually leading people until you actually do it. That’s why

Leading People Versus Ones and Zeros

Arnaud: The prime with people is there are people. I mean, I come from software, right? Computers are ones and zeros. There is a certain structure to that. People are not like that. Well, it’s easy. Once once you get the the hang of it, you know you.

It’s kind of repeatable in some ways. People are not like that. And that’s why experience comes handy. Because to your point, yeah, you can read as many books as you want. you know, get get expertise in different ways, podcasts and other things. But at the end of the day, you know, at you have to experience it effectively.

Richard: Yeah, I I remember the 1st time. The and the cross cultures makes it even more difficult. I had an Israeli and a Palestinian working together on the same team. And oh, boy, there were fireworks. literally we had to separate them like with a wall, because they were pretty passionate and then there were Russians, and and even a French person.

Oh, French people! Whoa! No kidding and then led, of course, consultants. We had a consulting team from France that was very interesting, a whole different set of expectations that we had to come to a mutual understanding on. So you’ve worked with cross-cultural teams, I’m sure

Arnaud: Well, yes, not only that, but I would argue. I’m already part of the problem. If you are, because I learned in an American Company. I’m like at this point. I feel like I’ve adjusted pretty well, but especially in my 1st days in Texas. That was quite a shock, I shall say, but yeah, I’ve led teams across across the the world effectively, the team in Oxford in the Uk.

For a while, and multiple teams in the Us. Between the West Coast and East coast. I was working very closely with teams in Australia. So so I’ve had my fair share. And nowadays half of my team actually is in Budapest. So in Hungary. So what’s that?

Richard: That’s actually that’s actually quite common. I hire as a ghostwriter. I outsource a lot of my stuff because I can’t do it all, especially marketing stuff, and I just hired 2 people from Pakistan. I’ve hired people from Argentina, from Philippines is excellent for hiring good consultants to do things for me so all over the world.

When I was at Trader Joe’s I used to hire veterans a lot, so I’d hire ex special forces and ex marines. I loved having military people work work with me. They were very disciplined. They just said, You say, I need this. They said, Okay, and when you need to buy blah blah and it gets done.

Magic, you know. Don’t have to. Don’t have to worry about it. The discipline Very reliable. That discipline is hard to find. outside of the military people, I mean, you know, as people get older, I think they get more disciplined. you know that that’s just a part of get.

That’s just a part of growing older, or they don’t. If the habits become ingrained. Then you’ve got a problem

Arnaud: Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on the company as well, because I’ve worked for bigger companies for small companies. The small companies. I feel like, you know, there is more place for people that are more like mavericks and that kind of thing where we promote the fact that people need to think outside the box and do things quickly, and where reliability is not necessarily the the main wall.

But as the company matures perfectly, being valuable because of becoming a thing where you know you have a deadline, you expect things to be done by the deadline and not like. Oh, now you focus on something else that has nothing to do with what was being asked. So I think that’s part of that, too. I think it depends on the companies. Maturity to vendor needs effectively

Learning to Lead Up

Richard: The thing that surprised me the most is when you’re leading a team, you’re actually also leading up

Arnaud: So I had to. I had to leave my boss

Richard: He wasn’t technical person. I had to leave hit his boss, who also wasn’t technical, and his boss, who was the CEO and I had to provide leadership all the way up to get what I needed to get done to meet the goals that they gave me. and that was very odd, because I didn’t speak the right language.

I was a tech person also. I came from, you know, Assembly language programmer. So that’s that. It was a whole different culture that I had to learn. And I was very irritating to them for a while, because I was speaking. Tech. I’m I’m sure you’ve run into the same kind of thing

Arnaud: Yeah. So in my previous company, I was a CTO. So I was reporting to to the CEO was not technical. So definitely. Some of that. And I think it’s more. I don’t think it’s not. It’s not just a prime of having to work with technical people versus non technical people.

It’s also the fact to understand what everybody needs at the end. Right? So the CEO, for example, cares about impact and business results and and things. She she could care less about. Oh, these things is broken. And we need to fix, you know. Yeah, that’s how the sausage is being made.

Take care of that. But really, where do I get my thing that you know? Will you call my business? That’s really what you care about? And and I can appreciate that right? So at least, you know. And even when you have all your technical people, because my current CEO is very technical.

But it’s more about? What is that thing? And you know, why are we doing this? Why, it’s less about the technical things more. What? Why are we spending time on these things versus that other thing. and so default just default like your needs that people have, that you need to be able to answer effectively

Richard: We have to speak the language that they have, and you have to understand what drives them and what they’re going for. And, as you say it’s different for everybody. When I was there I reported to the Vp. Of Mis. Who reported to the Cfo. Who reported to the President, who reported to the CEO.

I still have that memorized 12 years later, and the Cfo. Didn’t care about technical stuff at all. I mean, he didn’t know it. He didn’t care. He’d walk in and talk about technical stuff, and he’d throw you out of the room he wanted if you even got to talk to him.

He wanted to know Roi. And you know, what’s it gonna cost? And what is how we’re gonna pay for it and all that kind of stuff and does it fit in the budget? And it was a different language than I was used to

Arnaud: Yeah, no, I exactly. So that’s if it’s adjustment. There, that that said, I guess to go back to managing up. So yeah, I think what’s what’s critical, especially when you, when your boss is actually not technical. is actually to be very transparent into what you’re doing. So, for example, something I learned since an event where I wasn’t being asked is to send a kind of a status report on a weekly basis to my boss.

Well, everything that’s top of mind for me. I put everything as top of mind for me in there that way. My boss knows exactly. Okay, this is what I know cares about. This is what he has done. This is what what is driving. And so I think that alignment, I think, is very important right here, because even if you don’t have like often one on one, even if ultimately, what the person cares about is something else, be able to show.

and everything that you are doing, I think I think, is important, right so. and can promote alignment as well, because that person can say, Oh, why are you? Why are you doing this? That doesn’t make sense like you should not be focusing on that

Richard: Yeah, when I 1st started I had an interesting boss, and he hired me and the networking person. We were both directors at the same time, and we fought like cats and dogs. Oh, my! We were! We practically almost came to blows. Sometimes we go out in the back, away from everybody else and just scream at each other.

And finally we both looked and said, Why are we doing this? So let’s check our job description. We got the idea chat, and we looked at our job description. They were the same. We were managing the same people, the same resources, the same everything. Obviously the boss just copy pasted.

And we said, Okay, we can fix this. So we we split the duties. We didn’t have even ask her, boss. We split the duties. He was a network guy. I was the infrastructure guy. And we basically led at that point, saying, and we went to our boss said, This is our new duties, and he’s managing these people.

And I’m managing these people. And the boss was like. Okay, and from then on we got along just fine it was. It was just simply we had the same duties, and we didn’t actually know it.

Onboarding Without a Manual

Arnaud: Yeah, not not only that, but I think that reminds me that in a lot of my job at this point. from the onboarding aspect. I remember from the last 2, my last 2 jobs. I didn’t have anybody that could tell me what I should be doing effectively. I didn’t have that luxury to some extent of that, so how to figure out my own.

Right now to figure out you know what I should be doing. Why, what’s what should be the vision, and that, you know, to start almost from scratch effectively for doing that. and so be able to obviously look at systems and things that are sure, but also having a kind of a process where you have a very.

you have. You have very kind of high level questions. You can ask everybody you talk to right having this, you know, onboarding interviews with a bunch of people and asking the same questions over and over. And that way you can start quantifying. What are the pain points? What are the opportunities?

Why are we not doing something? I think for me has been super beneficial. Since then, since I’ve started doing that, so you have to create your own destiny. I guess

Richard: Well, my 1st 2 jobs. I was a Vp of 2 startups. So on one and then another one one for 4 years, one for 5 years, and they they were startups. So there were no manuals. There were no nothing. So they, you know, I got hired and I walked in and said, Okay, here’s your desk.

Have fun. And it’s like, Oh, what do I do? You’re a Vp figure it out. Yeah. It was. It was interesting

Arnaud: Yeah, I I remember even my 1st job. So back in Texas the person that was that was before me left. So they say, Oh, we have this piece of software. We need to release it today. And I was like, so how do you do that? No clue. Figure it out.

Surprise. Okay? So it was a, I was in charge of the the Middleware, the security solution. I was like, Okay, I guess I’m spending time trying to figure out how to build that thing, and it’s like we can release it. I guess that’s what I’m doing today for my 1st day

Richard: Yup! Yup! And then there’s times when you you don’t have the authority. We had a a crash. and the database administrator who was responsible for the oracle database was in an airplane getting ready to para jump from in the desert. So he wasn’t available. Yeah, like this. And this is this.

All we had was pagers. So we were talking to him through a pager. We didn’t have smartphones. So okay had to deal with that. So I had to hire people on the fly to come in and do it, and to some of them actually flew in to to help because it was a bad one.

and then we had other resources that I had to gather and stuff, and I didn’t have time. My boss was unreachable, and I didn’t have time to try and hunt him down, so I just did it. I didn’t have any authority for all this. but you know we, the number one rule was, the stores come 1st always.

And I I was like, well, this fits into that. I have to get this computer going to get the stores. We got it going. It took a while, but we got it going. But the the goal, the rule, is the stores. So we know we know the goal customers.

Obviously, customers in that stores And that made the decision simple. They can’t get mad at me for spending a lot of money hiring these people to get stuff to the stores. and it’s okay. Fine, you know. And then I did it, and I was fine. You know. Everybody was happy

Extreme Ownership

Arnaud: It’s a great example of extreme ownership, right? You do what you have to do

Richard: Sometimes. Sometimes you just got to do what you got to do, and and you know, if let the chips fall where they may, when you when you get there. and if they’re mad at you, they’re mad at you as long as you can. You’ve got good reason for doing it.

You come out in the end. Okay? Or you won’t. That that’s that’s just this is the way it is. Cause, you know, there’s always the option. It’s not my problem. but that wasn’t an option. I was in charge

Arnaud: I think it’s a lot of tech companies that have been at actually the not. My program is actually not the thing like in order for you to. because it is a strong leader. Everything is your problem effectively. Every everything that you care about should become your problem. There’s no like, you know, part of the organization that’s off limit kind of thing.

If there is a way to make something better and make it better. And obviously you want but to be careful how you do that. But there is a way of making sure you don’t people piss people off. But ultimately I think that you know there, there is that expectation that you know.

If you have great ideas and you can make something better, then do it figure out, figure it out and and make it happen.

The Danger of Taking On Too Much

Richard: Right, although you had, like you said, you have to be careful that you don’t take on too many responsibilities that are outside of your responsibilities, because then you’ll find yourself not getting paid to do things that aren’t really your job. and that just happens in all businesses. You know, the boss might come to you and say.

Sally’s quit the company, so you need to take on Sally’s role for a little while. You say fine, you know you don’t. You’re not thinking compensation or anything like that before long. You’re doing Sally’s job for grid. and you didn’t get raised, for you didn’t get a promotion.

You’re just doing 2 jobs now. Got to be careful of that. And you should have that conversation immediately. So Sally’s left the company. good! I could take. How long is this going to last, and is there compensation considered for this extra work that I’m doing? And if not.

you know what about time off Comp time, you know. Blah blah blah I getting, I mean. are we gonna train somebody else? You need to make sure that’s known upfront, because you do have the option to say no. sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, but you do

Arnaud: No, that’s fair. That’s a fair point. I’ve seen plenty of example of that. And the problem with that actually is from a performance management aspect. It’s even a double whammy, because from personal performance, management, aspect. when it’s time to to be evaluated for your performance, you know, a lot of companies would say, Well, that’s great that you’re doing 2 job.

But we’re only paying you for this job. So how are you doing against that job? And like, well, I’m doing 2 jobs. Obviously, I could not do as much on that job. What’s a problem

Richard: Or you can work 40 h or 80 HA week, or something ridiculous. And it’s your choice. And you find yourself working 80 HA week, or 60 HA week, or whatever, or working weekends you probably need to take a good look at what other duties you’ve taken on. And what can you delegate and things like that?

Because you should be working a normal week at least the weekend should be free Because you really need an outside life. That’s that’s very important, I think, and good leaders know that for their troops and for themselves, they know that they need it, that people need to have their lives.

And barring emergencies, you know, like a major computer crash or something like that. You. You let them have their lives. Everybody have their lives

Arnaud: Oh, exactly!

Richard: And I know that the younger people coming on board these days tend not to accept encroachment on their life as much as we used to in the older me, and it was older. Guy No, it’s not. I wish I’d been a lot more not flexible, inflexible on that.

because I did a lot of things that I probably should have pushed back and said. so, how are we gonna manage this, boss? I’ll manage it if you want. but I’m gonna I’m gonna get consulting help, or I’m going to do whatever I need to do. And that was usually my fallback is okay.

I’m gonna get a consultant to help me with this. And they okay, fine, you know. Do what you need to do

Arnaud: Yeah, that makes sense

Richard: Consultants aren’t usually a long term solution. They’re good stopgap. I think there’s even laws about making them a long term solution for for many hours in California, especially. So interesting. Well, I think we’ve talked about leadership for a good amount of time. Do you have any closing words you’d want to say to people to help them

Clarity, and Never Stop Learning

Arnaud: I’m in. I think that that’s interesting. I mean, I would say, whether you’re baking or gardening or leading a global engineering team. Actually, you’ll be able to have the right clarity to your point. Care right? So you care about the people you you want to have that trust and continuous continuous learning, because I believe that you know, in order for you to I mean, obviously in technology.

But now I would argue in industry. Right? You have to learn. You have to keep on learning, you know just, you know, not loving. It’s not an option. And so you have to do that. And I believe that you’re through that. I feel like you’re that’s how you can be a be a strong leader

Where to Find Arnaud

Richard: Cool. Well, thank you very much for appearing on the podcast. How can people get hold of you if they need to

Arnaud: Best way is my Linkedin linkedin.com slash Lucas arm. That’s my handle best way for sure. So appreciate. Feel free to reach out

Richard: LUCA, SARN, Good, and I’ll the the link will be in the description also, of course. Yes. Well, that’s very good. Thank you for appearing. My name is Richard Lowe, and this has been the leaders in the stories. Podcast I’m the writing king and ghostwriting, Guru. And if you need my help writing a book.

Then you can go to my websites and you’ll find a I’ll click through for my scheduling. Thank you for appearing, and that’s it.

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