I've always struggled to explain to people what I really do here at EMC. It's a rather untraditional role, and thus doesn't fit neatly into the accepted hierarchy of official roles and responsibilities.
Many years ago, we had some friends over, and - after a signficant amount of adult beverages - my wife put it perfecly.
"Chuck is a Splain Manager. It's his job to 'splain things to people". Lots and lots of laughter all around. But it stuck.
And, to this day, I've been hard-pressed to come up with a better description.
IT Moves Fast
In our happy little IT-centric world, things tend to move fast. Not only do we have new technologies to consider, but new use cases, new organizational models, new value propositions, etc. etc.
With all those pieces in play, there's a lot of 'splaining that needs to be done. Especially at a place like EMC.
The concepts and ideas are always cool. But making the accessible, relating them back to other ideas, making them relevant to your audience -- well, that's not always done well in the IT industry.
As a result, I've always seemed to be one of those people who can make those impenetrable concepts somewhat easier to understand, digest and act upon. Indeed, this blog is nothing more than me trying to explain what I think might be interesting to all of you.
From Presenting To Explaining To Engaging
If you think about it, explaining something well demands a lot of context: technology context, industry context, competitive context, and -- most importantly -- understanding the context of who you're doing the explaining to.
It's this latter part -- understanding the audience context -- that inevitably leads me to ask all sorts of questions about a specific situation and world-view that helps me tailor my "explanation" to be all the more effective.
Presentations become discussions. Discussions become ongoing conversations. And, before long, you're entirely engaged with your audience -- and they with you.
You start to see the world through their eyes, and not so much yours.
To Be Fair
You might think I spend all my time working outside the company, or -- at a minimum -- writing all these blog posts ....
In reality, I spend about 50% of my time externally (customers, partners, service providers, etc.) and about 50% of my time internally with various teams helping out in one aspect or another -- sort of an internal consultant, as I've been described.
Strangely enough, the same engagement habits I've developed when working outside the company can be amazingly effective inside the company as well. Tell me what's going on with you and your team. What are you trying to get done? What makes it hard?
Basically, understanding their context.
Interacting with internal teams shouldn't be about resolving various conflicts, it ought to be coming to a common understanding of the best path forward after considering multiple scenarios. And that takes a shared context.
Just like working with customers and partners :)
The other big win of this 50/50 mix is being able to frequently bring real-world perspectives and examples from outside the company back inside, where there can characteristically be a bit of isolation.
Reading reports from industry analysts can only get you so far ...
Some People Want A Role Like This
In my travels, I meet people who've gained an appreciation for the sorts of things I do, and find themselves wishing they could do something similar. I have to tell you, it's a lot of work, but it's also a blast. I can't imagine a better role for myself, and I have to believe that there are others out there who'd aspire to do something similar.
Heck, just the fact that EMC is the kind of place where I can do the things I do says a *lot* about the company.
It wasn't easy. After slogging away in a variety of traditional roles, I was finally given the opportunity to craft something for myself. Then I had to consistently prove to everyone that my non-traditional role was actually creating unique value in a way that traditional roles couldn't. So far, so good!
Here at EMC, I think we're on the verge of formalizing more roles like mine, and investing in making more people proficient at the sort of cross-disciplinary conversations that I tend to gravitate towards.
Personally, I think that's a good thing.
Because the world could always use a few more good 'splain managers ....
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