Mike Tuchen of Talend: Watch the Road, Not the Wipers

Q. Tell me about your early years.

A. One of my biggest influences growing up was my parents. My dad had an incredible work ethic. On weekends we were always doing projects around the house, like amateur carpentry and landscaping. The other big thing I learned from him was that you can probably figure anything out if you just try hard enough and look at it long enough.

He applied that approach when we’d travel. If we were in Germany looking at a lock that they used to move barges up a canal, he would say: “How do you think that works? Let’s figure it out.” It helped build my confidence early on.

And what about your high school years?

I went to my local school for junior high and then to boarding school. I actually started causing all kinds of trouble there, and even got kicked out of school for a couple of weeks and was sent home to think about whether I wanted to be in school.

Because?

My dormitory room was like the party room. I had this routine where I’d go and buy a case of liquor every few weeks. All the liquor stores right around the school were always on the lookout for underage students, but I figured I would outsmart them.

I wouldn’t shave for a couple of weeks so I had a bit of stubble. I’d put on some old overcoat. And I would walk all the way into town at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday to buy liquor. The people behind the counter assumed that no kid would ever do that, so they never asked for ID. That was back when it was actually hard to get fake IDs.

But I got caught doing that and some other things, and they booted me out. It really woke me up. I didn’t want to be someone who was kicked out of high school. So I went back. And I decided that the one thing I can do is work harder than everyone else. I got on the dean’s list every quarter from then on. I went from worst to first.

Another critical experience for me was rowing in college. I’m tiny for a rower. The average guy in my boat was six inches taller than me, and 40 pounds heavier. I had to figure out how I could make myself as efficient as possible, pound-for-pound.

I had to make sure that every ounce I had was going to be as effective as I could be. So I asked, what could I do to make my diet as effective as possible? What could I do from a training perspective to work harder than the other guys?

I was fanatical about it. With every single workout, I’d record the weight and the number of reps, and each day I would ramp it up. That approach, focused on results with incredibly detailed measurement and course correction when needed, is so transferable to a work environment.

I learned so many lessons from our coach. When you’re on the water, you’ve got waves, wind and whatever else is going on. You can choose to either focus on that and use it as an excuse later on or ignore it. He had this great analogy: When you’re driving and rain is pouring down, with the windshield wipers going, you can either watch the windshield wiper or you watch the road. Which is going to be more successful? That was just a fabulous reminder about staying focused and calm.

What’s your approach to leadership now?

My basic philosophy is that there are three things that matter in building a company. The first, and by far the most important, is getting the right team together and having it really be a team, who have shared cultural values and who work together and support each other. It’s not just about having the right people.

The second one is have a strategy of how you’re going to win. This is the chess match part of being a C.E.O. And the third one is execution. That’s about having a clear set of goals, with everyone aligned around them. And we have a scorecard that we share with the board and the whole company each quarter, and it shows red, green and yellow for our progress on each of the goals. We don’t pull any punches on how we’re doing.

How do you hire?

The first questions are always going to be about management and leadership style. And I’ll ask a number of open-ended questions about what’s important to get right as a leader. Some people will talk about the people on the team and the best way to motivate them. The answers that kind of scare me are from candidates who talk about people as if they’re something on a spreadsheet. Leadership and management are all about people.

Then I want to make sure that you’re resilient, because things don’t always go the way you want them to. So I’ll ask questions like, what’s the hardest problem you’ve ever solved? Why was it hard? What did you do uniquely well that someone else wouldn’t have been able to do, and why?

What career advice do you give to new college grads?

One thing I encourage people to think about is to look not just at the company, but look at the specific person you’re going to be working for. When you look at exit interviews, across the board, 75 percent of the time, people leave because of the manager.

So look carefully at the person who you’ll be working for. Do you want to work with that person? Can you learn from that person? Are they going to help you? Are they going to support you? Make that a key part of your decision.

Because if you work for a great company for a poor person, you either have to find a way to change quickly or you’re going to be unhappy and you’re going to want to leave, regardless of how good the company is. Most people are blinded by the brand of the company, and they ignore what the experience day-to-day is going to be like. And it’s that experience that is going to ultimately matter the most.