As engineers push to meet approaching deadlines, temptations to cut corners can intensify.
Should the team slow down to ensure a successful, long-term implementation in exchange for a missed release date that has been communicated to all stakeholders? Or, should the team adopt a few shortcuts to hit the agreed-upon timeframe, which often leads to additional cleanup work afterward?
There are pros and cons to both, but when Butterfly Network’s SVP of Software Engineering Stacie Frederick found herself in this situation, she only saw one way to proceed.
“Proposed shortcuts could have been taken that would have meant satisfying the short-term project deliverable,” Frederick said. “But this would have resulted in higher cost overall, longer timelines for follow-on features and more complicated support needs.”
So, Frederick pushed back, despite mounting pressures from her executive colleagues, to invest in the right technical framework for features being built on the company’s medical imaging platform.
That — standing up for what is best in the long term for the customer, business and team — takes moxie, Frederick said.
We turned to Frederick and Thirty Madison’s VP of Data Joanne Chen to learn how else they embrace moxie in their work, and how other women can manifest their own version of this aspirational trait.
At Thirty Madison, a direct-to-consumer platform specializing in chronic conditions, VP of Data Joanne Chen said moxie is a team characteristic reflected by their ability to challenge the status quo.
What does the word moxie mean to you, and how do you embody it in your work?
The word moxie reminds me of a great book by Nassim Taleb, “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.” He captured it quite well: “It is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”
I think what separates great leaders from good is leadership manifested during the challenging times, rather than the smooth times. Great leaders ensure their teams take the right course in the face of challenges and ambiguity and come out stronger, better and more effective with their learnings from the journey. That, to me, is Moxie.
What separates great leaders from good is leadership manifested during the challenging times, rather than the smooth times.”
How does your team at Thirty Madison embody the idea of moxie?
Moxie is only as powerful as how united it is at the team level. I’m so fortunate to be working with a group of dedicated, brilliant individuals who embody moxie, are genuinely mission driven and place the best interest of the patient in everything we do. While constantly challenging the status quo, we’re happy to share that we are on track to build the next generation decision tech from growth to care delivery, which will empower real outcomes at scale with data for every patient who begins their journey with us. We have increased our intelligence muscle by three times over the past year and look to further strengthen our data capabilities in the future. United around the vision of a tech-empowered accessible and affordable tool for people with chronic conditions, we know what we are doing is defining for the generations to come. This is where our collective moxie comes from.
What advice do you have for other women when it comes to building up and embracing their moxie?
Moxie has many aspects to it. It requires vision, grit and focus, and at the same time, intellectual humility to constantly adjust and iterate with new information. Above all, I’d say it’s important to know why. The genuine answer to the why question is of utmost importance during the time when our moxie is put to the test, and the answer has to come from our own internal, authentic soul-searching — the deeper the better. Ultimately, it is our deep understanding of why we are on this journey that enables us to stick to the course, power through and accomplish the extraordinary.
Changes at the Butterfly Network’s executive level tested Frederick’s moxie. She explained how she leaned into her strengths — and moxie — to overcome the challenges that follow gaps in leadership.
What does the word moxie mean to you, and how do you embody it in your work?
Moxie isn’t a word you encounter often. I initially think of a strongly rooted leader who’s not afraid to take some heat for the sake of doing the right thing for the customer, business or team. I had to do this when I transitioned a team from vertical silos to more horizontal thinking, organization and architecture. Incremental iteration of the status quo would have been much easier, but would not have solved problems of communication and duplication of effort, or the migration from legacy to next-version solutions.
Finding your voice and learning to identify opportunities within challenges and determining when to take a stand come with practice.”
What’s a recent project that tested your moxie? What was the outcome?
Recently, changes at the executive level left a void during a time when we needed close alignment among product development leadership to create company-critical deliverables under difficult conditions, specifically a short timeline, thin resources and little room for error. By pulling the engineering, design and product leaders into a single team, we were able to break through previous blockers in operational efficiency and establish comprehensive product requirements and accurate sizing for major lines of business. In times of leadership change, it’s easy to rely on incremental improvement, especially if that’s been the focus and “right answer” for years. But this situation was an opportunity to reach across previous boundaries to pursue what was needed to overcome long-running problems.
What advice do you have for other women when it comes to building up and embracing their moxie?
As with most things, it’s not a matter of whether or not you have it. Finding your voice and learning to identify opportunities within challenges and determining when to take a stand can come with practice. The right support system makes all the difference.
