Dave Lyons Video

Performance vs. Peers, Video Case Transcript

Challenge

My name is Dave Lyons. I'm the Vice President of Engineering at Glacier Bay. We're a venture back startup in Union City, California in the power management and clean technology space.

Before that, I was the Director of Engineering at Tesla Motors for four years and two months.

Before that, I spent 11 years at IDO Product Development in Palo Alto.

I joined Tesla Motors in October of 2004 as the first mechanical engineer they hired and setup all of the powertrain technology development teams.For an electric vehicle, like a Tesla Roadster, that means the batter packs, the electric motor, the power electronics, and as it turns out the transmission, which is unique to a battery electric vehicle.

By September or October of 2007, the transmission development program was in a state of complete disaster. Late in the year, I found myself on a private jet flying to Detroit with Elon Musk.Essentially, he sat across a table from me in this jet and said, "We have got to have this new transmission in the vehicle in September 2008, and you - I'm gonna hold you personally responsible and you have to use Special Forces methods to get it to be."Essentially, he said, "I wanna break through the bureaucracy that's slowing things down. I wanna make sure that you have whatever resources you need to make sure that you can deliver this program on time."

Decision

Looking forward, it looked fairly daunting, I realize, and continued to take to heart this concept of like using this Special Forces methods to make sure that nothing stood in my way. I decided to take a completely different tact towards this. Basically realizing that what I was doing - I internalized that what I was doing was the more important thing to the company. That I wasn't gonna allow a lot of critique into my style because I didn't have - I just didn't have the bandwidth to live with discussing the feedback and to make people feel comfortable with what was gonna happen next.We just had to act.

I invested heavily in building the team, my personal teams, internal personally and ex, but we really neglected what was going on in the rest of the organization. Through the course of the first part of this single speed transmission development, like I said, the vice presidents had all essentially disappeared, and the engineering directors were trying to figure out how to manage all the tasks that we had.They spent a great deal of time kind of organizing themselves while we were on the road with these engineering consultants and the supply base.

What happened was they developed a whole program management set of expectations, so they had weekly meetings, biweekly meetings on progress reviews.My boss had essentially given our program a by from all these and said, "Look, you don't need to be. You really need to get the work done."

We were really in isolation. For the first couple of months, I liked the isolation because it allowed us to solve some of these really big problems and really get our program setup for success, in isolation that is.

Results

It culminated in August with the eve of the launch of the car and the transmission. We just happened to go inside with our annual reviews, where I walked into my annual review expecting to have just the best possible rating 'cause I had delivered what appeared, and I was convinced, the "save the company" program. He said, "Listen, you've alienated your peers, and you really need to be careful about that. You really kinda missed the bullet on culture on this."I stepped back and said, "You're kidding me, correct?"

I said, "Let me ask you this. How - if I had delivered the transmission three months late, but been nice along the way, as opposed to what I did, which was I bruised some toes along the way and delivered on time, do you think I would be having a better review right now?" He said, "Yes." I said, "You know, I frankly just don't agree with that." I just - I really couldn't - I just couldn't believe that he was telling me that with a straight face. That one particular moment was what really made me reflect, still to this day.

Lessons Learned

Almost all of my entire career, I had really focused on the content of my work.Making sure that there was excellence in everything I did. That it was - it kinda felt that is was - that life was gonna be a meritocracy and that that would be recognized in the end and rewarded consequently.

I started to realize that something's wrong with that model for me.That the context of how I'm perceived in the organization is actually far, far more important to my long-term happiness, first of all, on a selfish level, and all so the - my ability to become influential, and how I could actually deliver long-term on what I'm hoping to do, which is kind of develop a good life for myself and do some good work along the way.

I absolutely would've invested more in those peer relationships. I think I would've also tried to be - I think, in the future, I work really hard to try to step back from the competitive nature of these relationships and try to - I think I still need to find ways to make sure that I don't - I'm not perceived as competitive in that, as well as trying to make sure that what I'm doing is actually right for the organization and for the team rather than right for Dave.

Make sure that you really focus on how you are being perceived, and find ways to both explicitly and implicitly check that perception. Whether it be the subtle clues that are people, when you walk into a meeting, do they - are they happy to see your or they just kinda distance themselves.

Things, and find ways to get the feedback that - how you are really working in that organization.

Questions

What does Lyons' boss (Elon Musk) seem to be suggesting when he tells Lyons to use "Special Forces" methods?

Are there any potential risks or downsides that Lyons should be thinking about when following his boss' instructions?

Evaluate Lyon's thoughts on what he learned from this experience.