Transforming Industries with Entrepreneurial Spirit
Rich Lau, VP of Software Engineering at Omnicell, shares his approach to team management, emphasizing the importance of providing engineers with customer context and promoting an entrepreneurial spirit to drive innovation.
Passionate Transformers
Rich appreciates Omnicell’s core values, particularly “passionate transformer,” which resonates with his mission to transform the industry. He believes in solving customer problems, which requires an entrepreneurial mindset. To foster this spirit, Rich connects his team directly with customers to understand their needs and pain points.
Getting Customer Context
Rich’s team visits hospitals and acute care facilities to observe medication distribution, storage, and ordering processes. This firsthand experience helps them develop innovative solutions, such as Rich’s patented drone-based fire system testing solution. By seeing things in practice, engineers can better understand customer needs and create effective solutions.
Biasing Teams for Action
Rich advocates for a “getting stuff done” approach, encouraging his team to take action despite uncertainty. He uses the analogy of driving down a foggy road, where you can only see 100 feet ahead, but you keep moving forward. This approach allows for course correction and adaptation to customer feedback.
Failing Fast and Learning
Rich subscribes to the “fail fast” philosophy, believing that it’s essential to try new approaches and learn from failures. He shares an example of evaluating MongoDB, which ultimately didn’t work out due to business decisions. However, the experience provided valuable insights and helped the team determine what they didn’t want to use.
Innovative Initiatives
When team members have ideas for new product features, Rich encourages them to relay their vision to product management. If the idea resonates, they pilot it to see if it works. This approach has led to innovative solutions, such as a virtual fire panel for mobile devices, which eliminated the need for a two-man test.
Hiring for Cultural Fit and Hunger to Learn
When hiring, Rich looks for individuals who are a good cultural fit, hungry to learn, and willing to adapt to new technologies and domains. He believes that programming skills can be taught, but a willingness to learn is essential.
The Influence of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Rich’s experience as a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor has taught him the importance of humility and continuous learning. He applies this mindset to his professional life, recognizing that there’s always room for growth and improvement.