Narrator: You're listening to the humans of DevOps podcast, a

podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills,

knowledge, ideas, and learning, or the skil framework.

Grant Fritchey: We still focus first on tech. And it's, it's

really hard to get into the idea of like, okay, yeah, that's

important, right? It's very important. But if you really

want to do this stuff, you've got to have communication skills

to

Eveline Oehrlich: welcome to humans of DevOps podcast, I'm

evolutionarily Chief Research Officer at DevOps Institute.

Today's episode is titled, from a DBA jerk to a collaborator. We

know, well stay with us, I think you're gonna enjoy that. Because

today we have a very special guest, Grant Fritchie is with

us. And let me tell you about Grant. Before we give him the

open mic to tell us a little bit more about himself. So grant is

a product advocate advocate software, he has worked for more

than 30 years in it as a developer and a DBA. He has

built systems from the major enterprises to distributed

systems to small boutique companies. So you can see he has

lots of experience, he writes articles on various data related

topics for SQL Server Central, and simple talk. He is the

author of multiple books, including SQL Server execution

plans, and SQL Server Query performance tuning. He develops

and presents complete structured learning plans to teach assure

AWS and other data related topics to developers and other

it or is personnel use a Microsoft data platform MVP, and

the AWS AWS community builder. Welcome grant to our podcast

today.

Grant Fritchey: Oh, thanks a lot for having me. I love this

podcast.

Eveline Oehrlich: I am glad you are here. You know, I have been

a DBA. Myself. And that really, when I read your, your

introduction, when we found you that really caught really caught

my eyes, because when I was a DBA, right out of graduate

school, at a very large tech company, I felt very much the

same. So let me quickly share what Grant had said about

himself. He said, I proudly wear a nickname, The scary DBA. I got

that in part because people just find me generally intimidating.

And in brackets, not sure why. But also, in part because I was

a jerk. I was one of those DBAs that developers rightly complain

about. So that's the first part of what caught my eyes. And then

he said, and he of course, he's here now, but I'm quoting now,

I'm all about teams collaboration, and focusing on

that fact that everyone within the organization really does

have common goals. So quite a turnaround, right? So give us a

little bit more insight on those two statements grant.

Grant Fritchey: thing? Well, me I'm I am a slow learner, I

freely admit it. But back in the day, when they you know, there's

a joke, everyone cracks, you know, what's a DBAs? Favorite

word? No. You know, I really kind of live that life. I really

did. And it hurt me. I mean, it actually made it more difficult

for me to to do things well within the organization I was

working for. And I learned while I was there, that, you know, you

get better results if you work with the people that you need to

work with. And the fact is, is that we actually do all need to

work together. And it you know, it was a hard lesson, but it's

one I picked up on and ran with, to the point now where I just I

focus first on collaboration, I would much rather I would much

rather talk to people and and figure out things that are going

to make us both happy and you know, make it possible for us

all to achieve the goals that we need to achieve rather than, you

know, I'm right, you're wrong kind of approaches. And it's,

you know, it's turned things around for me in a big, big way.

I mean, I've been much more successful since I adopted that.

Eveline Oehrlich: So as a product advocate, that is of

course very different from a DBA being a DBA in an IT

organization. Tell us a little bit about what does a product

advocate? Do? What does I used to be a an evangelist, it sounds

a little bit like that. But tell us a little bit about what does

the product advocate actually do?

Grant Fritchey: You kind of nailed it. My initial title was

evangelist, ah, absolutely, they just slightly changed it. It's

the idea is the same Redgate software in this instance, makes

database development tools and database management tools, and

cross platform, a whole bunch of stuff. But the key here is that

as an advocate, I don't want to simply teach you Red Gate tools,

what I want to teach you is why you may want to go to Red Gate

for your tools, because it's more important you understand

what it is that we're doing, how we do things, the way the

underlying database systems work, and the way you know the

interactions occur and the automation methodologies that

you have available. All of that stuff is more important than

simply showing you how to use Redgate tools. And so my goal

is, and my remit from the company is to do a lot of

teaching on general topics, you know, DevOps as a concept, you

know, database performance tuning as a concept, you know,

stuff like this, as opposed to straight up, you know, here's

how you use our tools. Funny enough, after I teach that, then

I go, Oh, by the way, our tools make all of that easier. And so

here's ways that can improve. You know, what you do through

the use of our tools, but we focus first on education.

Eveline Oehrlich: Love that. I do like the advocate title

better than evangelist. I, let's like go in there. Because we'll

have that conversation over a cup of coffee or an adult

beverage when you come visit me. All right, so great. So we all

think we know what collaboration is. And, you know, if I go out

here, and I asked some of our folks, hey, what do you think

about collaboration? They say, Oh, yeah, it's very important.

But what does effective collaboration actually look

like? What would you say?

Grant Fritchey: Well, honestly, that's hard. Collaboration is

not difficult. It's easy to say, you know, oh, well, we're all

going to work together, we'll, you know, we'll sing Kumbaya,

we'll have a coffee, you know, and off we go. But in reality,

what's going to happen is that, you know, speaking strictly from

a DBA standpoint, for a second, the development team is going to

walk up and say, Hey, we need sa privileges? Well, your, your

answer is going to be no. Right? But But what your answer needs

to be to be collaborative is to say, Well, why do you think you

need these? And what is it that you're trying to do? And let me

figure out how I can help you deliver whatever it is that you

need to do, rather than simply say, No, it's all about

achieving understanding with the people that you're working with.

That's why it's hard because it, it's frequently very difficult

to go for understanding, especially when someone walks up

and asks for something that you simply can't give them. Maybe,

even if you wanted to. So like essay privileges on production.

So it, you know, I mean, it does get hard to figure that out. But

but it really is all about communication and understanding.

That's the driving to collaboration. And until you're

working first, on your communication, understanding

skills, you're going to have a harder time with your

collaboration skills.

Eveline Oehrlich: Now the challenge is, and I remember

that, when, of course, I was, you know, I started out in

support on the HP 3000. Now that gives away which company I

worked for, I guess. And then of course, I became an ingress an

Oracle DBA. We never had, we never really had time to

collaborate, it felt like I was always in a rush. I had to go do

whatever I needed to do to whatever. We did data warehouses

at the time. So strip the data, blah, blah, blah, right? It

feels like the time the challenge of being very reactive

makes it very difficult to collaborate. Would you agree

with that?

Grant Fritchey: Oh, yeah, 100%. I mean, the more reactive your

situation is, the less you're going to be able to collaborate

because collaborations, communication, and communication

takes time. And that's gonna slow things down a bit. But

that's also why you want to be looking, I mean, we're sitting

here talking on the humans of DevOps podcast. That's why you

want to be looking at stuff like automation as a mechanism to

free up some of your time to find methodologies that are

going to make it so that you can focus on the more important

aspects and not simply be reacting to non stop little

bushfires everywhere.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, I agree. So we do a Every year, we do a

fairly large project around skill building, we call it

upskilling. It, we just actually just finished the report, it's

in draft, and it's with a beautifier, meaning a marketing

person who knows how to make it pretty. But in that research,

it's based on survey data. And there we found that

collaboration and cooperation is ranked as the biggest skill gap

across a tea. That's the first piece of data and all while at

the same time our survey respondents voted that

collaboration and cooperation is the third must the third must

have skill behind diversity and inclusion and problem solving.

So of course, problem solving. Yes, that is a something we do.

I think people go into it because we love to solve

problems. But again, one end, it's the biggest skill gap. On

the other end, it is the number three must have. Why is it so

difficult? What stands in its way? We talked a little bit

about toil or right waist at the time, the challenge? What other

things stand in its way to be such a difficult or such a big

skill gap today?

Grant Fritchey: Well, I think it's, I think it's down to the

way we approach it. A lot of the stuff we do is we focus first on

technology. And we ignore the fact that it's got to be humans

first, right it, you know, how to Donovan Brown put it it's

people, people process products in that order. Right. So people

first, then your process, and then your products. And I think

that we tend to reverse that, you know, we're nerds, right? I

mean, I and what do I care about, I care about really cool

tech, and really cool solutions, and really cool mechanisms, new

code, and all this fun stuff. And we forget about the fact

that it is all about humans, and it's people that we need to

communicate with. And what we don't do is work on those

skills, those those soft skills that allow us to collaborate to

allow us to communicate. And I think that that's why it's such

a huge gap. And I also think that's why it's the third most

important thing. But funny enough, we put it behind what,

you know, not diversity, that's great, but we put it behind

problem solving. What's what's problem solving? Well, that's

all about doing the tech. So you know, we still focus first on

tech. And it's, it's really hard to get into the idea of like,

okay, yeah, that's important, right? It's very important. But

if you really want to do this stuff, you've got to have

communication skills to

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Eveline Oehrlich: You know that? That is, of course, music to my

ears, because when I introduce myself to my family, friends, in

what I do, they roll their eyes and they go, Oh, you code. Like,

I mean, it. That means I code No, I don't code. I can code.

But I talk, I collaborate. I research, I do human things. I

have a lot of EQ, I have a lot of passion. I have a lot of

conversations. And sometimes they're just like, startled,

they don't understand because they think that when you are in

it, you are a nerd and you code. Yes, we do that some of us do

that. Most of us have done it and right. That's part of it.

But I think that is a big misconception we have and

therefore we stay in that little in that little cubicle because

there was an additional detail when we looked at the training

or the upskilling. What organizations and team members

set in the survey response what they were focusing on is

technical skills. Right? So might it goes exactly to your

point so can you This is something you know, personal

postal question for me to you. Do you think people can learn

how to collaborate even if they're not good collaborators?

Or you are one of them? You? You said you, you said you were a

jerk, obviously, because you were thinking you were a joke,

but probably you weren't. You just had a job. But you learned

how to collaborate. So it's possible to collaborate, right?

To learn. It's possible.

Grant Fritchey: Yeah, I think it really is possible. And I talked

about my scary DBA nickname, because I kept that one. I don't

talk about my other nickname, which was a play on my name. You

know, my name is Grant, and the other nickname was rant. Meaning

I would go off and scream and yell, because people did stupid

stuff. It really is possible to learn, but you do have to focus

on it. You have to it's one of those almost like, acknowledging

that you're an alcoholic. Right? It's the beginning to solving

that problem. Well, acknowledging that, you know,

yeah, I was a jerk, right? I really was. That was the

beginning of the solution. And, you know, it's just

understanding that you just can't be, you can't be mean to

people you kind of have to be, you kind of have to be kind to

really make things work. Well.

Eveline Oehrlich: That gets me into the next question. So what

have you found works best to foster that as yourself as a, as

an individual contributor? You said, be kind, what other things

Tips Tricks, do you find helpful? To, to know or to test

yourself? Am I a good collaborator? Anything? You you

can remember? You did?

Grant Fritchey: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I love this one? That's a great

question. The one thing I learned, learned us again, a

long time ago, is a really hard conversation and a difficult

conversation in that moment where like, you need to

influence somebody, you know, and you're trying to

collaborate, use their language, to figure out the way that they

talk, figure out the way that they communicate, are they? Are

they more of a tell person or more of an Ask person? Well, if

they're an Ask person, and you're a tell person, change the

way you communicate to theirs, you know, ask them questions,

could move them towards where you need to move them, and use

their language. So if, if you're a DBA, go and learn some

development language, understand how source control works,

understand some of the details behind compiling code, and you

don't even get get the language that they use. If you're a

developer, same thing go the other way. Why are DBA so

obsessed with backup? I mean, get, get a little bit of an

understanding of their language and use that language when you

communicate with them. That's a that's a huge step forward in

terms of getting collaboration going. Because if you're if

you're using a more common language, it's much easier than

to see the other side and find those places where, oh, hey, I

can help you. Not I'm simply standing in your way or stopping

you or trying to find a way around you, I can help you. And

it makes it much easier to have that communication and that

conversation.

Eveline Oehrlich: What about a leader? Because we all know, but

we all know leader. So yeah, let's leave it at that. But what

can a leader do when he or she sees their challenges within

their team? Or between two individuals or whatever? What

What are your thoughts there?

Grant Fritchey: Okay, so let's let's break leadership and

management and path. Yes. And then and let me try to answer

that question. Because I am a wretchedly horrible manager, I

tried moving into that area, and I'm really, really bad at it. So

I'm not going to try to advise anybody on how you manage

collaboration. But as a leader, you know, whether a team leader,

a technical leader, you know, a thought leader, I mean, there's

a lot of leadership you know, there's there's that whole

business possibility versus personal responsibility,

personal responsibility, a leader, someone who's looked up

to thought upon as you know, oh, yeah, that's the person who runs

stuff in our organization. That's the first go to person.

Leaders have to set the example. They can't be cracking jokes

about you know, stupid developers or anything like

that. You You've got to be setting the the kind of

communication you expect people to do. Second thing you have to

do is bought those moments where there's conflict, and where and

when you can rope the people together and get them to, you

know, who communicate with you. Hey, what's the deal? What Why

are we having conflict here? Why aren't we cooperating and figure

that bit out? Um, I've done it multiple times from a technical

standpoint, you know, when people are no, no, no, we need

to go left. No, no, no, we need to go right. And you sit them

down and go, Okay, well, hang on, we can't do both. So what is

the right path and work it through them on that it's, it

really is still back to communication. But as a leader,

your goal is you've got to set you've got to set the, you know,

the tone that everyone else is going to follow.

Eveline Oehrlich: I've heard this phrase, casting the shadow.

I think it was during my time at forest or where we did a great

workshop of casting shadows, in terms of of leaders. All right.

Excellent. Love that. One more question. So this is, of course,

touching on our favorite or so favorite topic on the pandemic,

right. So we won't be tucked away in our home offices

forever. And we were using and getting back to offices slowly.

Some are not. Some are. Yeah. But my question is, what would

you say has changed in terms of collaboration since the

pandemic?

Grant Fritchey: That's also a great question. So I've been

working remotely, my, the company's headquarters are in

Cambridge, England, and I live in Oklahoma. And so I've been

working remotely for 12 years. And when the pandemic hit, to my

whole thing was well, hey, you know, Don MacLean, welcome to

the party pal. You know, it's great to have you now in my

boat, where now you're, you no longer have those hallway

conversations, you no longer have that fast, fast, effective

face to face communication. I think the big thing coming out

of the pandemic, now that we're coming away from it, I think the

big thing is, is that a lot of people have a better

understanding of the difficulty of remote communication and

remote work. And as we move into this more hybrid environment, we

all tend to think of, oh, you know, Peggy's going to be

sitting at home, how do we bring her into this conversation

better? And because they've all experienced it now, whereas

before, you know, I'm going like, hey, please, no one's

listening to me. No one's listening to me. Now, they all

feel that way meant no one listened to me when I was

remote. And so I think that I think that's roping a lot of

people into a better path.

Eveline Oehrlich: That is a great one. Yeah, that makes me

think of I have to find that tonight. That was a great video,

I have to look at it YouTube, it is a funny one where a variety

of folks are in a meeting. But they're not in a meeting in the

space. They're like calling in from different places. It's a

it's a, it's a comedy, 10 minutes, laughing about making

jokes about that past of where you felt like you. I've been

home office since I would say 20 years. And every time I'm in a

meeting, I wanted to say something. Nobody listened. And

this is exactly what I feel now is like I'm part of it. So that

is that is one great outcome, if I can say that that's an

oxymoron. But one great outcome of the pandemic, right.

Excellent. Well, Grant, this has been fantastic. I have one more

closing question has nothing to do. Well, maybe it does. What do

you do for fun?

Grant Fritchey: Oh, I love radios. I am a amateur radio

operator. And I love playing with radio tech. And I do all

kinds of crazy stuff with it. From analog work, to digital

work, stuff inside the house stuff outside the house. I'm not

even going to try to bore anyone with all the details. But I love

my radios and I play with them a lot. How

Eveline Oehrlich: my colleague at Forrester, my former

colleague at Forrester was or is still in that he actually put a

tower next to his house. Do you have a tower?

Grant Fritchey: No, not yet. Right now. Got a couple of small

antennas outside. But I've been looking at bigger one. For my

wife.

Eveline Oehrlich: There we go. I was just going to say the

spousal unit will need to approve I can understand that.

Well, this has been a great conversation. Grant, thank you

so much for joining me today on humans of DevOps podcast.

Grant Fritchey: No, thank you. I really appreciate it. Like I

said, this is a great podcast. I listened to it.

Eveline Oehrlich: Great. Thank you. Humans of DevOps podcast is

produced by DevOps Institute. Our audio production team

includes Julia Pape Daniel Newman, Schultz and Brendan

Leahy. Shout out to my teammates. I'm humans of the

Rob's podcast executive producer Evelyn earlyish. If you would

like to join us on a podcast please contact us at humans of

DevOps podcast at DevOps institute.com. Please No, I did

not misspeak, any of that. I'm Evelyn earlyish. Talk to you

soon.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of

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