Solutions Engineering: Tech Prowess and Soft Skills

Striving for Great in the SE World.

Being understood is the best gift you can give. My family owns care facilities for those afflicted with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. I've spent many days and nights holding hands, listening to (the same) stories, and seeing the fear in eyes that previously led visions in collegiate fields of study. Those afflicted by these terrible diseases cannot communicate effectively. What's worse, those unafflicted cannot communicate back. The struggle to engage is painful yet necessary. Yet, once you finally 'understand' and address what ails these tired, loving souls, you see the fear drain from their face. They sleep well even if it repeats itself tomorrow.

I see similar pain and concern in the eyes of engineers and executives alike. As Solutions Engineers, we are expected to understand the technology and to communicate its purpose, value, and technical elements in an 'easy-to-understand' way. Customers may be buying the technology; however, they are more buying you, your team, and the relationship. They want someone to call to empathize. Your customers have engaged many vendors, and they chose you.

We are here to take the fear out of the tech and hopefully allow them to sleep well at night.

Some Back Story

Joining Hortonworks in 2018, I debated some of our seasoned Solutions Engineering (SE) Managers over the most difficult task in our job: whom do we hire and what skills do we prioritize? Prior to Hortonworks, I served within Solutions Engineering leadership roles at wonderful startup data and technology companies. In each institution, the hiring dilemma was the most difficult. I'd argue it's a top issue in nearly all software and hardware companies.

What is great talent? That's defined by your customers. With whom do they want to work? Who understands their pain and can formulate and articulate a legitimate plan of attack?

Solutions Engineering has many appropriate life comparisons. My personal favorite is from one of "The Bob's" scenes in Office Space --

"You take the specifications from the customers and you bring 'em down to the software engineers." - Bob #1

SEs must understand their products' developers; that SE then must translate and articulate that same message to the customer and vice-versa. The customer should then feel comfortable and confident with the message they heard and feel the SE has their best interest at heart. In other words, I've just defined a teacher, an orator, and an empathizer.

I believe strongly that an SE is a negotiator. The individual must constantly be reading people in a room, dissecting speech and nonverbal cues, providing knowledge and insight to the customer, and therefore generating value to her business. I believe most SE Managers would agree -- but here's where disagreement starts.

What's more important: Engineering Prowess or Soft Skills?

In my opinion, empathetic mastery and other soft skills are oh-so-slightly more valuable than engineering prowess. In nearly all cases, Customers will never utilize the knowledge possessed by developers and application architects. Thus, the most technical SE may rarely, if ever, utilize their deepest knowledge. However, to become great, they will always utilize soft skills. As long as the SE builds a well-rounded understanding of the technology, nuances and unique issues in the technology are secondary to core soft skills.

Here's a test for you. You talk with a customer; it's your first time here. You already know that customer's vertical as you've sold into it for quite a while. Without any real discussion, Customer says they want to buy your product. Which is the best response?

1. Yes; we've been effective at other customers like you.
2. Yes; but there are things to consider. Let's spend some time walking through all those nuances in our tech.
3. In similar customers, it works well; please walk me through your challenges and what's driving the priority?

Depending on your reference point, any of these answers may be 'correct'. A sales person is compensated and rewarded by #1 and closing the deal quickly. An engineer probably leans towards #2. An SE should use #3.

An SE's role is to understand and articulate both sides of this equation: your company's engineering team AND the customer's project team. If you're too busy talking about yourself or your company or just have happy ears and sell to anything that moves, you lose any empathetic opportunity.

When working with SEs in the past, here are five most important skills for teams to learn and attempt to master. There are more than five; however, these are big starters:

1. Legitimate, Active Listening

Said a different way, are you listening to understand or listening to respond? Or, even more crass, just shut up.

If you already know your response to the person's question and that person hasn't stopped talking yet, then you've failed.

There are simple ways to force yourself to listen actively:

• Take good notes. Ensure you understand what you're writing. In 2018, I had the privilege of helping solve a highly complicated data problem involving personally identifiable information (PII) and massive data movement. The VP of Engineering at this large financial institution spoke at length regarding their reference architecture; abruptly, he stopped talking mid-sentence. He looked at a member of my organization, and he inquired as to why the SE wasn't taking notes. The VP then questioned whether or not the SE would ever be able to remember what he said. At this point, the VP lost significant trust in the SE. Even if the SE was perfect and remembered everything, he wasn't showing the VP he cared enough to write anything down. For good measure, use pen and paper; avoid opening a laptop.
• Give yourself time to think about what was said. Allow for quiet time. There's an additional benefit: if you wait long enough (ex: three seconds), most times your customer will start talking again. Your goal is to understand them and articulate back to your business as well. You add value to your business by gaining as much information as possible to help ensure you're doing right on both sides. Therefore, let your customers keep talking.

Action: Just be quiet! Don't be known as the person who always interrupts or says, 'sorry, go ahead.' Don't start thinking about a response until after the customer is done.

2. Always Summarize What You Heard.

Using this method tells your Customer or Engineer that you heard them, too. If your customer just finished a seventeen-minute dissertation on their problem, you need to say more than just, 'got it!', or 'I understand.' It's doubly worse if you then start hawking your company or product. It's not about you; it's about their problem and being understood.

Additionally, let's assume your summary was wrong or incomplete; the customer will then clarify and amend your summary. It bolsters your understanding and is a secondary confirmation.

Try to keep summaries less than 30 seconds.

Action: When a customer speaks, listen and craft a summary especially if it's a particularly important piece of information or following a long dissertation by the customer.

3. Empathy

Empathy is the most difficult to master as it requires mental exercise and not a physical response.

When your customer e-mails you or panics on the phone, how do you respond? The answer is, 'it depends.' What are the circumstances that led up to this panic? Has this customer been complaining about this for six months? Did you tell the customer not to do this? Why doesn't this customer ever listen?

Here's the hot tip: it doesn't matter. We're not there to play, "I told you so." Our job is to understand where they're coming from. How would you feel if you've been complaining for the past six months and nothing appears to be changing? What changes if your customer just received poor evaluation because of his or her failures to complete this project? Motivations must be understood. Plus, if it's really been six months, then you're missing something big.

Empathy is always about putting yourself in their shoes. You may not agree with it. You may not like it. You may think they're wrong. However, that doesn't matter -- we need to at least appreciate why they're feeling that way. Then, you need to be able to articulate that feeling, in a non-emotional way, to your developers and team. Don't bash the customer; don't say, "I told them not to do it!" (unless it's pertinent to the discussion).

Action: When the customer is speaking, really consider yourself in their shoes. How would you feel?

4. Give The Feeling a Name

Chris Voss' book, "Never Split the Difference," is fascinating. I believe I've read it about eight times, and I find it to be very influential in my daily interactions. When I read this book, I feel empowered. It seems like I get a new sense of understanding of the psyche. Combine that knowledge with Simon Sinek's, "Start with Why," you have a power duo. What fascinates me most is how both of these men, with insanely different approaches, collide in the same conclusion: emotions are critical and people really suck at articulating it. Therefore, sometimes, you need to.

Voss gives this approach a name: labeling. In other words, take the feelings you get from your empathetic skills, and just like Jeopardy!, give it a name.

Example: You have been working a proof-of-concept for the past two months. You walk into a meeting with the customer, and the customer appears distant and distracted. Up until now, the PoC dragged on due to setup headaches with your software. The customer then abruptly indicates that this PoC isn't going to work and has caused significant troubles for him with his boss and product manager.

Label: It sounds like you're losing face and good reputation in your company because of my product's setup issues. It looks like if we can't get this figured out now, we'll be shown the door.

By labeling, you're moving that sentiment from their limbic brain to the neocortex. The limbic system is responsible for your feelings and emotions. However, it doesn't control or even talk (pun intended) to your language and logic center. Language and communication are controlled by the neocortex. Thus, when you label an emotion, you're helping someone move from one part of their brain to the other.

Why does being in the Neocortex matter? You now have the ability to logic and reason. If you're strictly in the emotional center, you face a much tougher challenge for agreement, alignment, and assistance. The customer also feels heard.

Action: When you can tell something is bothering or impacting your customer, label the emotion they're feeling to bring it to the fore and into a logical discussion.

5. Storytelling and Passion

Three years ago, I received a phone call from Windows. This passionate gentleman informed me that my laptop had been hacked. To confirm the diagnosis, he asked me to open a terminal window and type 'netstat.' "Does it say, 'Foreign Address,' anywhere?" Oh my goodness, it did! I hollered, and in his late-night DJ voice, he said, 'Don't worry; I will help you handle it, but I have to charge you for the incident. Do you have your credit card handy?'

I forgot to mention that I enjoy stringing-along telemarketers. I like to see how they sell and how badly they sell. This guy was selling it -- he had so much passion, even if it was fake. Given he removed body language from the equation (because he was calling, remember), he had to master specifically what he said and how he said it. If you do it enough, you get pretty good at it. Obviously, it was all crap, and he happened to call the wrong fish that day. I kept him on the phone for 15 minutes before he realized the jig was up.

When you have passion, you can break down barriers. People respond to your love for your craft. Try this out -- the next time you call your friend, force yourself to smile the entire time. Your friend will most likely notice.

Coupling your passion with a good story, you have something people will remember. Stories are the language of our minds. For any Trek fans, you may remember the day that Picard, with a smile in his voice, tried communicating with the Tamarians. However, the Tamarian's language was nearly indecipherable (https://youtu.be/WCmwClf0F8g). Spoiler Alert: The language comprised of storytelling and metaphors by relating current experiences with past events.

Action: Add inflection in your voice and avoid over-talking. Share stories about your own experiences or your other customers' experiences. Tell that story, and you'll have the attention of your customer.

Lest We Forget

To be a great SE, you must have both technical and soft skills. The argument completely surrounds which set of skills leads you to become great. You can be good and lack empathy. You can be good and have limited technical abilities.

However, as a hiring manager, we're looking for the great or those who want to walk towards greatness.

Great Additional Resources:

• The Storyteller's Secrets by Carmine Gallo
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek
• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss