They can't take away my birthday
What a mantra and wardrobe malfunction taught me about finding my voice
In a previous career, I was blessed to work with a cast of characters in the defense industry’s “lead system integrator” segment. LSIs were the big companies in the defense industrial base that took the customer’s requirements, broke them into systems and subsystems, and coordinated the many contractors, vendors, and suppliers to deliver a solution. In a lot of cases, the parts of that solution hadn’t been invented yet, and the risk was astronomical. As an engineer in Boeing’s Network Communications Systems group, I got to support the design and development of missile defense systems, software defined radios used across ships, aircraft, and fixed stations, and the next generation of network-connected systems for the Army. Pretty crazy stuff.
While in that role, I had no shortage of influences and mentors. I’d had some experience in the Navy, but now I was learning from people who had designed the International Space Station, combatant aircraft, satellites, weapons systems, you name it. Working with these people, I saw how much a diversity of backgrounds and opinions mattered to their past successes. Each of them brought a different blend of soft skills, biases, and scar tissue that shaped how the team argued its way toward a program. That friction slowed things down sometimes. But almost always, it stress-tested our ideas and made the program better. As a new engineer on a very senior team, I was intimidated. How could I possibly measure up?
They cured me of that pretty darn quick.
The team was stacked with people whose personalities helped me refine my own, but the most important thing they did was unlock my own perspective and put it to work adding tension to the team. From the chief engineer down to the engineers I looked up to, they built a safe space for me to add to that dissonant chorus, and they didn’t ease me into it. They threw me in the deep end.
I struggled to figure out how to respond, until my old Navy training came to the rescue. As a nuclear operator, the Navy teaches you to question everything and seek understanding before committing to an action that could hurt the plant. Rank didn’t matter on matters of the reactor. If you didn’t think something was the right move, you pushed back until you were relieved or convinced. My chief used to jokingly call his Electrical Division his tools, and like any set of tools, each of us was suited for a different job. He figured out quickly that I was most useful when I was given room to learn, share what I learned, and act as the division’s conscience.
But one of the most helpful moments came from a senior competitive analyst at Boeing, Drew Pappas, who had a mantra he’d say to me before I walked into a room to take a stand: “What’s the worst thing that can happen? They can’t take away your birthday.” He was right. No matter how badly I stumbled or how wrong I turned out to be, I was going to be okay. I was being paid to bring my perspective, and the only way to get better at it was to test the waters without fear. Just like in the Navy, I didn’t really start contributing, or feeling fulfilled, until I turned on that “question until I understand” mentality and stopped worrying about how my opinion might land.
I gained confidence with every contribution, right or wrong, and found my voice. Eventually they let me present to audiences of dignitaries, large groups of stakeholders, hostile crowds, and key decision makers. Every one of those had something I messed up or could have done better. I once gave what I thought was a riveting presentation to a few hundred people on the controversial topic of Technical Performance Measurements, and I thought I’d nailed it, until our Deputy PM leaned over and whispered, “You did an awesome job, and it was especially bold to do it with your fly down.” Yep. Zipper down for 60 minutes in front of 300-plus government and military program team members, and my own team. Nobody argued about my choice in underwear that day. They were too busy absorbing my bad news that the mission-critical cold reboot was still running 12 times longer than required. Good, productive dissent, and a healthy dose of discomfort. And I still had a birthday right on schedule. Now I also always check my fly before I get in front of anyone.
These days, wardrobe checks aside, I still say it to myself before every audience, virtual or in-person, internal or external: what’s the worst thing that can happen? They can’t take away my birthday. It’s not about lowering the stakes or taking the audience less seriously. It’s about remembering that I do my best work when I’m free to speak my mind, and that being perfect was never the bar. Being authentic was.