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320- Yousif Asfour on International IT Leadership and Innovation · You've Been Heard

• 0:02
  Speaker A: Welcome back everyone to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I'm your host, Doug Kameen and today I'm talking with Yousef Asfoor, Chief information and Transformation Officer at American University in Beirut, Lebanon. Welcome to the show, Yousef.
• 0:16
  Speaker B: Good to be here.
• 0:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. So this is, we were talking about this right before the show started. This is my first international podcast interview individual. So you are not based in the United States although you are here with regularity, I presume, is that correct?
• 0:36
  Speaker B: Correct. The American University of Beirut is actually a New York based university, but our campus is in Lebanon in Beirut, Lebanon. So I am based in Beirut, but I'm in New York and the US On a regular basis. Yeah.
• 0:51
  Speaker A: So Beirut is, I know just little bits about Beirut. So for us here at the United States, Beirut ends up in the news a lot for a variety of other reasons. But I think Beirut is a very cosmopolitan and unique city of its own. Right. You know, maybe just, I guess I'll ask for your affirmation on that. I'm sure you're going to tell me.
• 1:10
  Speaker B: Yes, of course, of course. Actually, Beirut is quite lively the way I like to describe it, although I'm not sure if everybody agrees it's if you take New York City and shrink it down a thousand times, that's Beirut. It's very lively, very cosmopolitan and has been what was known to be the Paris of the Middle East. Beautiful weather, lots of stuff to do. And yeah, it's always in the news for the bad, for all the bad reasons. But it's a great place to be. You should come visit sometime.
• 1:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, we go tooling around the Middle East, I think. I feel like I have a friend of mine who I know in years past, I don't know that I talk to him too much nowadays, but his family is also from Lebanon and he would go back pretty regularly too and talk, talk very highly of just the, you know, the countryside and the, and the city and just all the things that are there. It's just very, it's a very striking place to be.
• 2:09
  Speaker B: The weather's nice, it's very moderate. I mean, in the winter you can get snow in the mountains so you can ski. And it's also very small. So the tourist tagline is in the spring you can ski in the mountains and swim on the beach on the same day.
• 2:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, nice. So going turning into a little bit here with your current role. You're the chief innovation and, oh my gosh, chief innovation and transformation officer for the American University. Can you tell us what does that.
• 2:46
  Speaker B: Mean, very good question. Actually, that role evolved from my initial role as being the cio, the Chief Information Officer. But part of the reason we transform it to the Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer is two reasons. One is the acknowledgment by the President and the Board of Trustees that technology is the heart of all the transformation we do and all the innovation we do, but also the role grow in scope. So in addition to being cio, I'm also responsible for two things, two additional things. One is running the Innovation park, which is our own startup accelerator and incubator and where we try to develop entrepreneurs and help startups get started. But also I'm also responsible for setting up and running the AUB Online, which is basically which my view of that is our global campus. AUB is about 157 years old. We've been very impactful and influential in the MENA region, Middle east and North Africa. And now we want to become, we just want to grow up and we want to become basically have impact both in education and leadership, not just in mena, but in the global South. So what we're trying to do is expand our reach and we are doing that through. We opened up a campus in Cyprus this year or this past year, and that's targeting mostly Europe and North Africa and the broader region. And online is really kind of sort of our global campus where we're trying to have a bigger impact and broader reach to people outside the region as well. So the innovation comes in from both the fact that technology is at the core of it, but also basically by doing online. By doing that's also a way to transform aub because as you do online education, you're not only putting technology in place, but you're changing the way you do, you teach, you're also changing the way you DO, administrative processes, etc. A simple example could be, for example, up until online, we had a three term calendar, right? We had fall, spring and summer.
• 5:03
  Speaker A: Oh yeah, I remember those.
• 5:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. With the introduction of online, now we've introduced a five term calendar on top of the three term calendar. And eventually we'll go to open enrollment. And hopefully once we do this right and if we do our job right, what we're doing on online becomes part of the regular campus as well. So a lot of the things that we're doing for online are, I'd like to say my not so secret agenda in AUB online is to transform the campus as well. So I don't know if that covers it, but that's the scope and that's why we're calling it Innovation and Transformation.
• 5:39
  Speaker A: That's awesome. So thank you for sharing. So your part of your background here is. So our podcast is it. I call mostly operations leaders as well. So you have. And you come from a background of IT operations leadership and your scope has expanded to include this innovation mandate and really build transformative work in the university. Correct?
• 6:05
  Speaker B: Correct. So basically I started my career as a hardware design engineer. I used to design computers. I'm not going to say which computers because then you'll find out how old I am, but we talk about that.
• 6:20
  Speaker A: A lot on the podcast. What was your first computer here that we released that dates everyone.
• 6:27
  Speaker B: Well, I'll spill it out. I used to work for dec, Digital Equipment Corporation. Many people don't even know who they are, but they used to be the number two computer company in the world after IBM. And part of my claim to fame is I was the hardware design engineer for designing the Artifact 300, which was one of the first. It was a 3 by 5 embedded controller, embedded CPU that was designed to be embedded in OEM products and it was based on the VAX computer, which was a mainframe. So we shrunk the mainframe into a three by five. So that was my claim to fame there. So. So yes, I am a nerd. I used to be a nerd.
• 7:11
  Speaker A: Nerds here.
• 7:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, I continue to be nerdish. And then from then on, from there I moved into software. From software I moved into management consulting and from management consulting into architecture and IT leadership. And then the last several roles have been a CIO role, basically building and running IT operations. So.
• 7:37
  Speaker A: Mm. So turning, turning into the leadership, you know, the ship into the leadership part here, you know, podcast about leadership and your leadership journey. I appreciate you sharing your background here and how you got to where you're at now. What I think, I think listeners of the podcast would find it interesting given your just international pedigree. And you've moved, you work for American companies, you work for, you know, international companies and stuff like that. And, and in large parts of your career have, have moved back and forth and you yourself, you know, you hail from, you know, from, from the Middle East. What leadership lessons have you. Maybe, maybe, maybe I'd frame it a little differently. I know you've got leadership lessons you share with us, but maybe in comparison. And actually, you know what, I'm going to use this as a moment to plug your book. So I always forgot I'm sitting here staring at it. So of course the listeners can't see me staring at it. But the, you know, wrote a book about leadership called From Geek to Lead, A Techie's Guide to Leadership with a good friend of yours, Sandy Malloy as well. And that's how you and I crossed paths actually, was you were here in the States for a conference for CIOs across New York State, particularly educational focused CIOs, and you gave a presentation on leadership lessons and some thought exercises and stuff like that. But I think. So I'll now reframe the question I was going to ask you like a minute ago before I rolled all that out. When you have leadership lessons that you share with folks and you talk about maybe could you dive a little deeper into what some of the differences are and the biggest changes and differences between leadership that you've had to learn about, like in, in say, like the United States and how it's different from leadership internationally and stuff like that? I mean, there's a lot of similarities, but there's also differences. Some of them are cultural and some of the other stuff. So like, what are the big things that jump out to you or that you always have to keep in mind?
• 9:32
  Speaker B: I think the biggest difference between the US and I would like to say possibly the rest of the world. Right. Although my experience is mostly in the Middle east and the US and the Middle east, most of the experience is a mixed, most of the, especially in the UAE and in the Gulf, people are from all over the place. So it's not just dealing with the Middle Eastern culture. You're dealing with multiple cultures from the Far east, you're dealing with cultures from Europe. But if I were to describe things, the biggest difference I think would say between the US and the rest of the world is the interactions with people. And basically in the US People are more a matter of fact, they're more about. At least that's my take. Right. And people might disagree, but they're more focused on the problem at hand. They're more direct in the Middle East. And then the rest, as you start going east, I guess from the US all the way to the Far east, the personal touch and the grayness between yes and no. Right. And becomes fuzzier as you start heading east and east. So building relationships with people is very critical. And actually we talk about that in the book, but in fact, that was the exercise we did in New York, if you remember. Right. Yeah. Basically building connections with people and establishing a good relationship with people becomes extremely critical as you start going east from the, from I would say, starting from the US going through Europe and then going to the Far East. So that's, that's a big, big difference. The other big difference, I remember when I was in the UAE and we were getting culture sensitivity training by some locals, we were told actually to, when you present, to present things backwards. And I said, what do you mean? Yeah, and actually it's a technique I found that works with everyone. Maybe you should try doing it. And basically they said, well, typically when you're going to present to somebody, you start saying who you are and what you've done before. Then you start by saying why people should trust you. And then once you've gone through that, you tell them what the problem you're trying to solve is. Right. That's how you typically do it in the West.
• 11:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:51
  Speaker B: In the Middle East. And the rest, it turns out that you're probably better off saying it backwards. Start by saying, I'm here to solve this problem. And if they continue to hear you and they haven't gone bored by them, then you can tell them who you are and why they should trust you. And by doing that, actually, I found it just doesn't only work in the Middle East. Actually, I found it works everywhere. So because people, especially when you're talking to execs and you're talking to higher ups, their attention span is very small. Right. So you want to get to the bottom line very quickly. So that was one of those cultural things that I actually picked up in the Middle east, but I found works globally. That trick is tell, tell your story backwards. I'm here to solve this problem. Here's, I'm going to solve it. And by the way, the reason I'm able to solve it is because I have a track record. And by the way, here's who I am, as opposed to saying, here's who I am, here's my track record. And this is a problem trying to solve, because if you say the front to back, by the time you got to the problem, you have all these people sleeping already. So.
• 12:53
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• 15:50
  Speaker A: Well, that's, that's great. That's, that's a, that's a pretty cool piece of advice. I appreciate you sharing that.
• 15:55
  Speaker B: Well, I'd love to get feedback if others have the same feeling, but it seems to work for me.
• 15:59
  Speaker A: Well, you know, and you mentioned about relationships particularly as, like as you go further east and the. There's. So I serve on an international advisory board that. It's called the American Registry for Internet Numbers. I'm on their advisory council. They're the people that hand out IP addresses because nobody knows what we do. I joke to my friends, I'm like, okay, I'm going off to help run the Internet when we go to a meeting. But there's, you know, there's, there's, there are what's called a regional Internet registry and there's five of them around the world and one of them is the. Some of the folks that I. Yeah, you do with. Okay. Yeah. So you're in the RIPE region. So like an APNIC which covers Asia Pacific. Some of the folks who serve on, some of the more internationally focused, the ones that coordinate between them and they have to work with, you know, all these different entities. The discussion you had about relationship and the specifics of, I would call it like a level of like protocol and things like that. It, they. I remember them sharing some stories with me at different times about the importance of that and how much more emphasis is put on that in those areas instead. Like, like, they sent out an agenda, but the folks from APNIC were, were, you know, I don't use the word highly offended in, like, a negative way. They were just. They were. They were offended by the fact that it wasn't sent out with enough lead time for what they perceived should be appropriate, you know, and like that, like, so, like the protocol, the cultural difference, the. The sensitivity to their cultural norms became critical. And it wasn't clear at first what was happening because they were not. They were not participating in the calls as the person expected. And it turned out that it was because they. They hadn't. You know, they had to develop that relationship to understand this one distinction. And when those folks went that way, if this was in the US People would have just likely overlooked it because it would have been a very transactional type of thing. They would have been like, nope, got to get through this matter at hand is here. And these folks are like, no, if I'm. If I'm not, you know, if you can't, like, respect us enough to send this in the right time frame, like, we'll just tap out and we won't participate.
• 18:11
  Speaker B: Well, well, if we have time. Let me tell you a quick story about relationships, actually. When I was in. In the Gulf, right, my client, I was working for an IT outsourcing company, and I was basically the. The outsourced CIO to that agency. And my client was an Algerian, and my team had a bunch of different cultures on it. And so I was responsible basically for all the IT for that agency. And I was talking to my client and saying, Mr. Client, you know, we're building for you the ERP system today, and the project's going really well. Let me give you the project manager, who's Australian, to tell you this story. So the project manager went on and started telling them how things are on time, things are on budget, functions are working well, everything's working well. He finished. And then at the end, my client started talking to this PM and ripped him to shreds and basically just destroyed the guy. And I was thinking, oh, my God, now I have to tell him the infrastructure is bad. So I said, okay, now that you're done, George, you can leave. Let me talk to the client about the infrastructure. I tell him, you know, the help desk is in shambles. We're getting outages left and right, the backups isn't working. And his response to me, well, oh, don't worry about it. It's okay. And it turns out that he likes me and he couldn't stand George. And so basically it's the relationship that made the difference. Right? And it's like, so. So relationships are very critical.
• 19:40
  Speaker A: So yeah, that, that, that's great. Like, so. So this guy was perfectly willing to be like, you got a full pass. Everything's falling apart. He's like, you. It's totally cool. Don't worry about it, man. We're all good. Other guy walks into the room and he's like, he's like, I want. You will be fired next week if. If these problems are not solved. And it was exclusively because this guy just like didn't like that guy.
• 20:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And by the way, you mentioned that also. Again, the shameless plug too, for the book. It's in that we use that story in the book, I think. But. But the point is relationships are at the core of what I find if there's one lesson that I've learned through my leadership is relationships and building those strong relationships and communicating properly is at the core of leadership, certainly in the Middle east, but I think it's part of everywhere as well. You just have to manage them differently.
• 20:38
  Speaker A: So let's talk for a second about your book and what you've done there. So I mentioned before, it's called From Geek to Lead, A Techie's Guide for Leadership. What inspired you to sit and write this book?
• 20:53
  Speaker B: It goes back to a question you mentioned before you started saying, through my leadership experience. How do you communicate your leadership experiences to other. And one of the things I noticed is that I tend to tell a lot of stories. You might have noticed it already. And typically when I'm in a leadership or when I'm working with my team, somebody would jump and say 56. And say, what do you mean 56? Well, this is use of rule number 50, leadership rule number 56 being. So it got me thinking, well, what if I started putting all those rules and anecdotes into a story and into a book, but I never got around to doing it. And then one day I was talking with Sandy, who's my co author, who's also I've worked with on multiple projects, developing different teams. And she comes at leadership from a. Different. From the coaching and leadership and the softer side of things. Said, Sandy, you know what? I've been thinking about writing a book. And she said, yeah, me too, said, okay, why don't we put our experiences together and write a book so we can and share our experience and our stories together. So we sat down together and over a year we developed the book and here it is.
• 22:04
  Speaker A: Nice. So now you mentioned Sandy here as your partner and co author in the book. I think that the part that I was struck by because both of you actually came and presented at the conference that I saw you at, is that you had. Each of you brings a different set of background, a very different set of background and perspectives. So you're coming up from hardware engineering and CIO leadership and that type of stuff. And Sandy was coming at it from a different perspective, but also technical and technical adjacent leadership as well.
• 22:44
  Speaker B: So.
• 22:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, so go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
• 22:47
  Speaker B: No, no. So I was trying to figure out what that question is, but.
• 22:50
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, so sorry, I probably. Yeah, I did. I don't know if I asked a full question in there. I kind of stayed a statement. So what, what do you think from both you and Sandy's the, the difference in your leadership? How do you think that influenced how you wrote the book and what kind of leadership lessons you and you infused into the end of the book?
• 23:11
  Speaker B: Well, like you said, I'm a geek by nature and I'm an introvert and I came to the leadership roles by lessons I learned through my career. So I'm more transactional and I also bring in the context of the technical environment and the IT environment and how. One of the things I notice is throughout my career is leadership is huge in itself, but leading technical teams and technical folks has its own special quirks and special challenges. So I come at it from that perspective and I also bring in that context. Sandy, on the other hand, has been actually developing executives and leaders in the technical field. But she comes from the point of view of leadership, from neuroscience and also from coaching and from mentoring. And that's where her expertise is.
• 24:09
  Speaker A: So.
• 24:09
  Speaker B: And she's more of an extrovert. So like they say, opposite set tracks. So I provided, I guess, one way to think about it. I'm providing the technical context. She's providing a lot of the leadership skills. I've learned a lot from her writing this book, but also working with her over the past. I guess we've been working together since, gosh, probably since 2009 maybe. So. So that's quite almost 20 years. Yeah. So it's been a good partnership and we've learned from each other. Like you said, I'm coming from the technical world. She's coming from the neuroscience and coaching and mentoring world. And that's why you see a lot of. In the book, there's a lot about communication styles, about how best to communicate. It's about building relationships. But there's also a lot of about how technical teams differ from regular teams and how basically. So that's what it is. So I don't know if that answers the question.
• 25:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, that was great. Just thinking for you specifically and for the benefit of the listeners of our podcast, you alluded to I think one or two of these you mentioned there's some folks to keep track of the rules of Yusuf's rules of leadership and things like that. But if you're sharing with folks, the listeners of our podcast, what leadership rules or what, what lessons do you take away that you practice every single day? Like what is the thing that you walk into a room and you're like, I make, I must make sure I'm on point with these things to make sure I'm successful.
• 25:39
  Speaker B: Let me answer that in a slightly different way. I, I, I view, I view leadership, the role of a leader really is actually I was in one of the leadership programs and One of the CIOs said something that struck me and I wish I could remember his name, but he basically said as a leader you're being paid to be, not to do. It's about basically leader is about presence. It's about making sure you're present, making sure. And it's not necessarily to do the work, but it's make sure that the work gets done. And so that's one of the key insights that I always trying to say. Am I being present and what does present mean? Am I listening? Am I available? Am I being seen? Right? Am I. So these are the kinds of things. The other thing I always say is that leaders role is really about basically a couple of things. One is it's about making sure that everybody on the team knows what the mission is, what we're there to do and what it's all about. And then also making sure that as a leader I make sure that they know where we're heading, what we're trying to do. Also it's about making sure we remove any obstacles out of the way. So my job is really to move any obstacles out of the way, whether it's political, whether it's technical, whether it's financial, and then to make sure that the team is equipped with the tools, with the knowledge, with the to do things. By the way, I believe this is mostly US Air Force kind of view of leadership. But so to me my role is really to, so I always try to be present and make sure that I'm reinforcing and clarifying what the role is for those people, for my team to do, making sure I understand if there are any issues or obstacles, and then work on removing them and making sure that they're well equipped, whether it's knowledge, it's, or it's technology or it's financing to get that work done. Done. And so when people ask me, what do you do all day? I say, oh, it's simple. All I do is drink coffee, walk around and drink coffee all day. So, but, but to me, that's. And, and if, if, if you frame it that way, then everything else falls into that, that place here.
• 27:59
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, as a CIO myself, like, I, I definitely hear the things you're saying because the, there's a, there's a transition point where you move from, I would call it operations leadership to strategic leadership. And you know, so an operations leader is the person who shows up that's like, hey, all the network gear needs to be replaced. It's going to be amazing when we're done. A strategic person says, you know, is more that approach of, of we're gonna, we're, we're working towards this larger goal that's gonna get, you know, move, move the whole organization forward. One piece of that is, by the way, my IT manager person, take care of the network gear that needs to get addressed.
• 28:43
  Speaker B: But I would also argue though, that even if you go down to the operational stuff, right, you still as an operation leader would need to say, okay, we're going to change this network and here's why, and here's what we're trying to do and clarify what aspects of the network. So basically, leadership always involves clarifying objectives, removing obstacles, and then ensuring that the team has the tools they need. Right. No matter. You don't have to be a CIO or strategic leader or an operation. I believe this is aspect of every single level of leadership that you might have.
• 29:16
  Speaker A: Absolutely. Yes. Yes. And I'm glad you really clarified that point. Like, this isn't just, you know, you and I talking like, hey, this is what CIOs do. Everybody else does something different or something like that. Like, like these leadership lessons are valuable up and down the chain of, of hierarchy, whether you are an operations leadership person or a strategic leadership person, but it's also knowing where your seat is. So, so like, for me, I talk about, like I talk to my teams and other things about understanding that my seat might be different than yours, but that doesn't mean I'm more or less important in the organization than, than you are. And that the role that you do is, you know, you're doing a critical role. Your role is just different than mine.
• 29:57
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 29:58
  Speaker A: You know, so we all, we all fill different seats and we all have to be really respectful of the fact that, that your seat is different than my seat. And sometimes I'm asked to make the larger, bigger, if you will, like more bigger in terms of more consequential decisions for how it might impact things. But that doesn't mean that it's a more important piece of decision making or work than the person reinstalling all the network gear and upgrading those systems.
• 30:24
  Speaker B: Absolutely. And I would also argue to some degree that everybody in the organization, all the way from the very bottom to the very top, can play leadership roles. You don't have to be a CIO or a manager to have a leadership role or exhibit leadership capabilities. Even individual contributors can play leadership roles in their scope of work and where they're going.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: So, and I'll turn that for a second here. If you were giving some advice to folks who were more on the individual contributor level and they're looking to get into more management and those types of things, what, what pieces of advice would you give? You share with them about leadership and what you think that would be either some of the most important things to focus on or strategies that they should think about using.
• 31:11
  Speaker B: And those types of things, I think think of the bigger picture. No matter what your task is, think about the bigger picture, how this task fits into bigger things, and try to communicate that. Work on communication and presentation skills, work on building relationships, and don't be afraid to take risks.
• 31:34
  Speaker A: So you brought up communication skills. And that's a challenge up and down the line too. How many IT folks that we run into that, for lack of a better way to put it, or maybe just to be blunt, can't put a presentation deck together to save their life. Sometimes.
• 31:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's a challenge to be fair. It's not just it, folks. Right. I've met with execs and C suite people who can't present either. Right. I think the trick is to. One of the lessons I learned during actually when I was doing my PhD is basically I was trying to put a presentation together for a group to present some of my research work. And I gave the draft to my advisor. And my advisor said, keep in mind, keep focused. Said. What do you mean? Said, well, if you. Anytime you present something, keep in mind that people will get lost. So in an audience of 500 or 300 people, you'll be lucky if they can capture one of your ideas. Right. So whenever you're presenting, try to focus on one thing. Break up your story into one, the other one to just think of one idea at most, two ideas in any conversation you're trying to have. The other one is try to tell a story. People like stories. And the third one, of course. So if you think of those two things, basically that forces you to step back and say, okay, what is the message I'm trying to convey? Whether I'm trying to upgrade a network or whether I'm trying to write a piece of software or whether I'm trying to do something strategic? What are the key elements that. What are the key messages I want to convey? And then try to put them in a story. I joke around with my team. Say you always, even if you're presenting a budget, start with once upon a time there was, and then this happened, and then they lived happily ever after. Right. I mean, it doesn't work that way. But think in those terms and that helps and keep focused on one or two ideas. But if you go beyond that, it'll just become extremely difficult for people to follow.
• 33:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. I remember back during, when you were giving the presentation that I was at in the workshop, one of the pieces of that workshop was to have a role playing setup where you had a scenario and you had somebody who sat in the seat of the executive leader and you gave him a set of criteria. Like, okay, you're upset about this. You're what this? And then somebody was the CIO or the tech leader who had to present. And then one of us was the observer. And I happen to be the observer in my group.
• 34:12
  Speaker B: Oh, good.
• 34:12
  Speaker A: Giving, Giving feedback. And, you know, you mentioned about the narrative of the story, and that was like, to me, that was like the, that was like the first thing I told these folks because I'm, I'm a huge person about that. Like, I don't really care what it is. If you can't narratively fit in to. Into an arc that the person is going to latch onto and understand. Like, they're not going to, like, I don't want to say they're never going to care, but they, they will be less, far less invested in the success of whatever it is you're trying to bring forward. If you're like, oh, this is going to do this and this is going to lead to. And these people are going to be happy with it, and then we're going to get this, this, like, positive impact or this thing from it. People are like, oh, Yeah, I want to invest in that. And they come right along for the ride.
• 34:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, humans are emotional beings, right? And so, as you and I know, techies are very transactional, very technical. The trick is to start including the emotion into the technical so that we can connect. Right. And once you connect, then it becomes much easier to convey the idea across.
• 35:15
  Speaker A: This will just be a kind of a humorous note about the group that I was in, but the person, the people. There was somebody who was the senior leader, like the president of the university or something like that. And when they talked to each other, at first they were so congenial to each other, and I actually had to call them out a little bit on it. Not because somehow everybody's mean to each other, but more of a. They were like, the person showed up is like, well, this project is off. It's off track, and we're working hard to get it done. And then the person who was in the leadership thing was like, well, are you. Are you doing everything you can? And he's like, the other person's like, yes. And he's like, okay, well, please, please work harder to make sure that you get the success done. And I'm like, hold on, guys. Like, if. If the president of the university that you're at is really so upset that they're considering canceling the project, they're not just going to call you into an office for a big meeting and then except be like, Be like, oh, I'm glad you came here and told me that it was all on track and that you're working really hard on it, and please, please make sure you are successful. Thank you. You know, and the reason I bring that up is because it's really hard for people in, I would call it that, like, middle tier of leadership to. To understand the seat that the. The leaders, the. The. The ultimate leader in the organization can sit in it at times and to understand the mindset that they have because they're all be. Obviously, I should entrust the IT leader. Or obviously if, like, they picture themselves in the seat as opposed to picturing themselves as an outsider in that moment.
• 36:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I think a big part of it is one of. To go back to tie this to some of the things you said before. One of the lessons I learned a long time ago is put yourself in the other person's shoes right when you're having a discussion. Actually, I do that sometimes to a fault because sometimes I put myself in the other person's shoes and I start arguing against myself. Right. And end up being convinced with the other side. But the point is trying to see it from the other person's point of view helps you get a better picture of what's going on. And then you can start getting, you can get the arguments better to fit and understand what the other person's trying to do.
• 37:33
  Speaker A: So, yeah, so I'm gonna turn it just to support maybe some more lighthearted discussion for a few minutes here and just have a little conversation about, about our backgrounds and those types of things. So did you grow up at Beirut? Is that.
• 37:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, I grew up in Beirut. I moved to the US when I was about 20. I lived in the US for about 20 years and then after that I moved to the UAE. We lived there for 11 years. The plan was to go to the UAE for one year and then go back to the US. The one year turned into 11 and then, and then the opportunity at AUB opened up and I could. They made me an offer I couldn't say no to. So here I am.
• 38:16
  Speaker A: So those are the best kind of offers sometimes, right? Yeah, yeah. So what, just dive into your background a little bit? What, what's something that's. That folks may not know about you that might be interesting? You know, something like, interesting like tidbit or detail. And I always lead off with something. So I'll just, I'll draw from my little list here. I once DJ'd a wedding.
• 38:43
  Speaker B: Oh, wow. I'm not surprised.
• 38:48
  Speaker A: So there's a little tidbit, something you do, you know, you're like, oh, I was a world judo champion when I was like 17. And you know, when you do that or something like that, like, like, like what? What little like, like funny or interesting tidbit or just something about you that like people wouldn't expect?
• 39:02
  Speaker B: Well, they might expect this because most techies are. I'm left handed. No, but I, I used to be a scout leader actually. And that had a lot to do with what I learned about leadership. In fact, one of the things I usually say is out of all places, I learned about politics and scouts. So. Which is quite interesting. What else can I say? What can I think of as well? I left Lebanon on a Chinook. There you go.
• 39:34
  Speaker A: What's a chinook?
• 39:36
  Speaker B: It's a U.S. marines helicopter.
• 39:39
  Speaker A: Oh, got it. Sorry. I think the connection at first. Yes. Okay.
• 39:42
  Speaker B: So that was quite an experience.
• 39:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, These are big machines too. Like, you just see them on, you just see them in videos and stuff like that. But, but like For a helicopter. These things are enormous. They're.
• 39:57
  Speaker B: They're enormous and, and they shake a lot. That's all I could remember. It was very, very shaky.
• 40:04
  Speaker A: So. So, you know, you mentioned you worked for, for digital back in the day. You helped build a. You, you've helped build tools that ultimately went into the. The VAX or were part of the vax. Right as that was.
• 40:17
  Speaker B: Did I actually, I. Yeah. One of my first projects was as a hardware engineer was I designed an ethernet adapter that basically used to. That was used by the VAX workstation. Again, I'm beginning to show my age here. So it was an adapter that would convert the thick ethernet cables, I don't know, the 15D cell, I don't know if you remember those 15 wire D cables into coax.
• 40:48
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 40:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, that was one of my first projects. My favorite project there was developing the Vax RTVax 300, which was actually a complete Vax system on a 3 by 5 board. So all you needed was RAM and power to turn it on and it would connect to the ethernet and it would run the VAX ELN operating system. So. And it got embedded into multiple products, which was kind of cool.
• 41:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I remember when I was in college, I was using VAX VAX to do so I learned cobol. That was cobol.
• 41:28
  Speaker B: Oh wow.
• 41:28
  Speaker A: Cobol. Yeah. My first class was cobol.
• 41:33
  Speaker B: Well, to be fair, I mean, when I was in college we were using vaxes as well at Northeastern in Boston. But as you recall, the vaxes were mainframe, so they'd fill like two or three racks. And the RTVax 300 was literally a 3 inch by 5 inch board that was a complete VAX except for the ram.
• 41:57
  Speaker A: So coming from the Middle east, where did you get exposed to technology first? Was it as a child? Was it like, like did you come like how did you get into being in technology?
• 42:09
  Speaker B: Good. Quite. I've always loved tinkering with electricity. So growing up I used to dig up. My favorite books to read were books about electronics or at least to beginners. So I taught myself a bit about electricity and a bit about electronics. Unfortunately, unlike the U.S. i know when I was in Boston, I don't know in the north in the rest of the U.S. but in Boston there's a store called you do it Electronics where you could buy all kinds of components like chips and resistors and transistors and stuff like that. None of that.
• 42:45
  Speaker A: We had one of those in my town too, back in the day.
• 42:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, actually we used to call it, you blew it electronics as you had.
• 42:53
  Speaker A: To keep going back for the stuff you destroyed. Oh, zap. Oops, sorry.
• 42:58
  Speaker B: Well, unfortunately, Beirut and Lebanon, we didn't have any of that. So I used to draw the circuits but didn't know how to do those. And then one day I was about in my teenage years, I said, do you know the game Mastermind? Yeah, I figured, well, could we build an electronic mastermind? Could we design one? So I basically sat down for a few days with a friend of mine and we drew up circuits using switches, relays and light bulbs to play Mastermind electronically. So you put the four colors and then it'll tell you how many black and how many red, white, and then you change them, it tells you those. And then my uncle was going to this day, so I said, hey, when you go to Boston, get me all those components from you do it. So they got me those, we built them up and it worked. And so I've always been interested in electric, but I never quite related how relays related back to transistors, back to chips, because we never had them to play with. But I've always had interest in them. So. So that's why I went into electrical engineering. And then when I started studying at AUB and I did a couple of years of engineering before I transferred to Northeastern and over there we started learning about electronics, about PNPs and about circuits and all that and the rest is history. And then when I was in the US I guess part of my college, I did a co op at Analog Devices and then another co op at digital and the rest is history.
• 44:28
  Speaker A: So that's, well, that's a great, that's a, it's a great background to be able to just understand like it think about the different challenges like. So, you know, most of our listeners are US based folks, but. And we have a, I would say, I'll generalize, you know, dangerously generalized of course, you know, but in the US like there's a, there's an understanding that the things that we have access to are not always universally available everywhere else. You know, like there's, you know, the fact that we could just walk to a corner and pick up stuff. And so, you know, going back to the 1970s or 1980s and stuff like that, when a lot of this stuff was really taking off, the personal computer revolution was taking off and stuff like that. It was very much focused on odd stuff in the United States and in, I would call it like, you know, the United States and Europe and these other folks. And it took A while for it to filter out into other areas of the world with significance, I think is maybe the right way to describe it.
• 45:31
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I was growing up at the beginning of the computer revolution, Right. And a lot of this stuff that was beginning to become available in the States hadn't trickled down to the rest of the world. I mean, I remember I got so excited when my cousin got his Apple II. Right. And it was probably one out of maybe 10 in Lebanon. Right. So these were very difficult to find. But the excitement is there, the awareness of it was there. It's just not. The components were not, if that makes any sense.
• 46:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I feel like you mentioned about drawn circuits and this other stuff like that. I feel like that came in handy once you started designing those things because you had this perhaps compared to the other folks who were like, oh, I was tinkering. And then they don't understand the. The documentation side. Like you came into it from the documentation up, almost.
• 46:22
  Speaker B: Well, good point. I never thought about it that way, but yeah, possibly. Yeah, yeah. Because I was always excited and interested for some reason. I've always had a passion for electronics and I started teaching myself and then that's part of the reason I enjoyed having a co op at Analog Devices. Right. Where there were more analog things to do. Do. And yeah, so it's built on itself. Right. One thing after another.
• 46:53
  Speaker A: Story about building your own Mastermind game. That's pretty sweet.
• 46:56
  Speaker B: I wouldn't know how to do it anymore.
• 47:01
  Speaker A: Notes. Maybe save a notepad from when you were like 18 or 16 or whatever.
• 47:07
  Speaker B: And try to rebuild it.
• 47:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. So as we're coming up to the end of the podcast here, just what I always try to ask our guests, what maybe parting advice do you have for listeners of the podcast when it comes to leadership? What do you want to share and what would you share with folks, whether they're up and coming in their leadership journeys or they're leaders themselves and you want to, you know, they're looking for advice on how to grow and expand their scope of leadership and their practice.
• 47:35
  Speaker B: Good question. I think a couple of things I would say, one I always say, and I say this to my team, is it is not about technology. It is really about solving real world problems using technology. So focus on the problems you're trying to solve and then see how technology can apply versus this is cool technology. What can I do with it? But the other part of it is, we've talked about this earlier. In my mind, leadership is really about two things. It's about building relationships and making sure that you have effective communication. And sometimes communication is not just about communicating about things, but what Sandy likes to talk about is having leadership conversations, having conversations that are sometimes tough, but actually having to have them as opposed to avoiding them. So it's about clarity. It's about communication. It's about setting expectations. It's about building relationships. So thanks.
• 48:34
  Speaker A: Awesome. Well, Yousef, I appreciate you investing the time with us on the podcast today.
• 48:41
  Speaker B: I'm so glad to be with you. Thanks for inviting me.
• 48:45
  Speaker A: So, just a reminder for our listeners, Yusuf's book is From Geek to Lead A Techies Guide to Leadership. So you go out and grab your copy today. And that's a wrap on today's episode of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I'm Doug Kameen, and we look forward to coming to you on our next episode.