Breaking Engineering Stereotypes and Becoming CTO with Sam Tam

What is happening behind the closed doors of Human Resources? Do you know what it takes to become a CTO level leader? How do you deal with engineering stereotypes?

In this episode, go behind the scenes with my good friend, Vice President & Global HR leader at Visa, Sam Tam. You will immediately feel his energy, experience, and passion to see leaders like you succeed. He is in the room for the highest level talent decisions and development planning for Fortune 200 organizations.

Now you are too.

Originally from Ghana, Sam spent his childhood years in Athens, Greece. He has lived and worked for leading companies in New York, Boston, Michigan, Italy, San Francisco, and Asia Pacific. He loves traveling, eating and more traveling! Discovering new cultures, exploring the unknown and being adventurous and spontaneous is what keeps him ticking. His passion for food is balanced with a love for being active and outdoors

Sam is a true Lifestyle Engineer at heart.

So press play and let’s chat… it’s time to accelerate your career with insights from the inside.

The Happy Engineer Podcast

WATCH EPISODE 18: STEREOTYPES AND CTO’S

LISTEN TO EPISODE 18: STEREOTYPES AND CTO’S INTERVIEW WITH ZACH’S DEBRIEF

Listen on Apple Podcasts // Spotify // Android // iHeartRadio

ENGINEERING STEREOTYPES AND BECOMING A CTO

You may not be the gregarious, outgoing, extroverted type, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have other things that are going for you in a major way. Use those to your advantage.

Listening is not enough. What is the action that you are going to take, and how do we use it to accelerate your career and get what you want? The first thing I want to go back to are these three key areas that Sam pulled out as that golden through-line between all the engineering leaders that he has seen and interacted with both in big business – places like Whirlpool, Electronic Arts, and Visa – as well as what he saw in the entrepreneurial world there in the Bay Area, when he lived in California. All of the common threads revolved around these three areas.

One was that passion. I love that. One of the things that I see with the engineers who I coach, is that after a decade, maybe two decades in engineering, we disconnect and lose sight of our passion. The original driving force of why you became an engineer in the first place, fizzles out and gets buried under red tape bureaucracy, frustration, bad bosses, toxic culture, colleagues who drive you bonkers.

All of that buries the passion for engineering that is so necessary for you to (1) just love your life, love your work (and 2) to create the success and the achievements that you want to create in your life. If you’re not connected with your engineering passion and with a passion for life, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the episode with Seyka Mejeur, where we talked about choosing passion. But also, I want you to know it is not out of the question to get reconnected with that passion right now. So if you need help with that, let’s connect. 

Number two, intelligence. I know that you have this, if you’re an engineer and you’re listening to this podcast. But it’s a reminder that you still do want to continue to nurture and build your intelligence, your knowledge, your skill set, and stay up to date. Even as you move into management and people leadership roles don’t get completely disconnected from the technologies and the products, et cetera. You always want to maintain that edge. 

And number three, those communication skills. So cliché, in some ways incredibly obvious, but I just want you to pay attention that here’s a vice president of HR who is in the room when the engineer promotion decisions to director and VP are being made, telling us that communication skills are essential.

That ability to bring a complex engineering problem down into the basic basic fifth grade level communication is essential. I want to give you a little tip, a little hack on how to practice this. Speak into a voice recorder on your phone and transcribe what you’re saying into text, then take that text and load it into an app such as the Hemingway app. This app will take what you’ve said (now in written form) and help you simplify it so you can make it easier for others (especially the non-engineers around you) to understand the core concepts you are trying to convey.

Another great way for you to check yourself on this is to go into your inbox and grab your last couple of emails that you sent to someone who was not an engineer about engineering topics. Take that email that you sent them, copy and paste that text into the Hemingway app and see what grade level that writing is.

Challenge yourself then to edit it down to something extreme, you know, a third grade or second grade level, and actually realize just how simple the sentence structure and the word selection must be to reach a fifth grade level. It may surprise you. So use a tool like that with your practice. 

The art of feedback is something that we do not take advantage of enough.

Sam mentioned that practice makes perfect. Well, I want to put a little spin on that. Some of you may have heard that practice makes permanent, but perfect practice makes perfect. So if you practice communicating the wrong way over and over, you’re not becoming perfect. In fact, quite the opposite. You’re reinforcing the bad habits. This is why feedback is so important because practice makes permanent, and it is perfect practice that makes perfect. So make sure that as you do this, you’re doing it the right way and that you’re getting the coaching and feedback you need to improve.

Now, for those of you who want to make it truly to the top levels of the organization. I want to take the next couple of minutes and talk specifically to you, if you’re not sure, or you’re content with your career at a level that’s below director or vice president that’s completely fine. There is no judgment for that, and there is no problem with that. 

I love it when I hear someone who has a clear vision for their career to stay at a lower level, because it works for your life balance. It works for your goals, and you’re happy right where you’re at. That’s great. But for those of you who do want to make it to those high levels, I want to come back to this topic of having a sponsor. Sam Tam, VP of HR at Visa, giving us his perspective on what it takes to break through to those senior level leadership positions.

I remember so vividly, being at Whirlpool in my career, looking around the organization and seeing the results that some of these leaders who had, I used to say, “been picked” by someone. It’s like, how do you get picked to be the one who gets all of the attention, opportunities, and promotions? That was the way I always thought about it as if somehow the stars had to align and the universe had to be favoring you in order for this to happen. Yes, some of you will get picked to be sponsored. 

Congratulations to those of you who do, you should celebrate that. You deserve it, you earned it, and I’m so happy for you! But for the 90% plus who don’t get picked, 99.99% of you are not going to do anything about it, except complain. And stay stuck, stay on a slower path, or you’re going to try and grind it out by working even harder and somehow prove to everyone that you should have gotten picked. (Good luck with that)

Begin by sponsoring yourself and then go ask for a sponsor. Just do it. Go and ask for a sponsor. This is not a hard thing. I wish that someone had come up to me when I was at Whirlpool and said, “Hey, quit waiting around hoping someone will come help you. Go find someone to build a relationship with and ask them for help.” This isn’t a Marvel movie, nobody is coming to save you. You have to step up and be your own hero. Even if all that means is to find someone more powerful than yourself to help you achieve the success you desire. If you find this idea uncomfortable, or even frightening, then reach out to me. That’s exactly the kind of thing that we help our clients to build the courage to do.

“Ex-e-cution. Get things done. Do not come talk to me about promotions or moving forward if you’re not able to really – consistently, by the way – execute, do your job, and get things done.”

Remember this, you’re not ready to go find a sponsor until you’ve got the basics covered. If you’re so busy dreaming of being VP that you’re dropping the ball on your daily responsibilities then take a moment to check yourself. Make sure you’re consistently and reliably delivering results as you should be. Make sure you are seeking that feedback, developing a reputation of being coachable, and making your intentions clear of what you want and where you want to be in the future. Then, when you’re ready, start searching for your sponsor. 

If you need help with this, just ask. If you don’t feel confident in how to do it, we’ll show you how to make that conversation easy and make it something that is not this big, ominous, scary, impossible thing. Thank you, Sam Tam for bringing that from the outside perspective, in that it is okay and encouraged to go ask for a sponsor.

And in fact, there are people in your organization right now who want to sponsor someone. I hope this conversation spurs you into action because it’s action that gets results. That’s what we’re about here, and that’s what this podcast is all about. So connect with me, shoot me some feedback. Let me know how this episode and this show in general is working for you. Share the results that you’re getting. I love being connected to all of you – let’s do this.

Previous Episode 17: Social Anxiety with Mark Metry

Back to ALL EPISODES

ABOUT SAM TAM

Sam currently serves as Vice President, Head of HR Business Partners (HRBPs) in Asia Pacific for Visa. In his role, he leads a team of HRBPs consulting with executive leaders to drive the talent agenda across Asia Pacific. Visa is the world’s leader in digital payments technology and its mission is to connect the world through the most creative, reliable and secure payment network – enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive. As the world continues to become more digital, Visa applies its iconic brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce.

Sam joined Visa in late-2016 as the Head of HR for the Global Merchant Sales and Acquiring organization and a few years later assumed a role of increased responsibility leading HR for the Product organization at Visa. 

Originally from Ghana, Sam spent his childhood years in Athens, Greece. He came to the US to pursue his undergraduate degree which he earned from the College of Wooster with a BA in International Relations & Economics. Immediately after his undergraduate degree Sam moved to New York City and Boston where he worked, respectively, in Finance for JP Morgan and Sales at EF Education.  

Upon completing his MBA from Thunderbird, Global School of Management, Sam spent several years with Whirlpool Corporation, based in Michigan, where he held various roles of increasing responsibility. During his tenure at Whirlpool, he was also stationed in Italy for 2+ years where he led the Whirlpool EMEA HR team for the Procurement, Engineering and Industrial Design groups. 

After Whirlpool, Sam relocated to San Francisco to explore the world of Silicon Valley and technology. He spent 3 years with Electronic Arts (EA) in a global HR capacity where he partnered with some of the most creative studio leadership teams to launch stunning products. The last year at Electronic Arts Sam spent time building out the Mobile Gaming organization as EA embarked on a digital transformation journey.

His hobbies include traveling, eating and more traveling. Discovering new cultures, exploring the unknown and being adventurous and spontaneous is what keeps him ticking. His passion for food is balanced with a love for being active and outdoors (running, biking and soccer more specifically).

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Please note the full transcript is 90-95% accuracy. Reference the podcast audio to confirm exact quotations.

[00:00:00] Zach: Engineers. I am so pumped to have you back today with one of my old good buddies from what was kind of a past life now, my man, Sam Tam. And when it comes to happy people, if you could see the smile, those of you who are listening, you’ve got to go check out the YouTube version of our podcast here and just see, Sam Tam is one of these guys who radiates energy and happiness around him from the very first time I met you, Sam until reconnecting today.

[00:00:34] It’s just obvious. So thanks a ton for making time.

Back to ALL EPISODES