Navigating Change

All you have to do is take a look around you and it becomes obvious that people just simply don’t like change. Conversely, all you have to do is look around you and it becomes obvious that our industry is in almost a constant state of change. How do we reconcile these things? How can we adapt to the ever changing world around us, and how can we utilize this knowledge to be more effective influencers of change within our organizations and within our jobs.

Links

• YouTube Live Stream: https://tnc.li/youtube 
• Nick Buraglio’s Website: https://forwardingplane.net/
• Kevin Myer’s / IP Architechs: https://iparchitechs.com/

Show Notes

Now this topic, like many of the topics that have become episodes on Network Collective lately, was prompted by a conversation in the Network Collective Slack. It has an IPv6 bend to it, as IPv6 seems to be the change the industry continually likes to avoid, but the avoidance of change isn’t something new. Nick, I’m going to start with you. Do you think the aversion to change in our industry is just a reflection of being human, or do you think there is more to it than that.

• What are some examples of where reluctance to change is causing us challenges
  • IPv6
  • L2 adjacency dependence (legacy applications)
  • The SDN “revolution”
  • Automation (cattle vs. pets)

• Are there justifiable reasons for networkers to be resistant to change
  • Everything depends on the network so stability is key
  • We’re constantly being sold change as the answer to every problem – sometimes mature/proven solutions are the way to go
  • Marketing fluff
  • Money/ROI

• What are some of your tips for navigating change 
  • Attitude (cynicism, snark is killing us)
  • Confidence
    • Specifically in fundamentals
    • Fear of failure
  • Stop firefighting
  • Stop being the victim
  • Try to make data based decisions (remove emotion from the equation)

• What are some of your tips for influencing change
  • Take the time to understand motivations
  • Understand it’s natural to fear change
  • Communicate, communicate, communicate
  • Build trust

 

Thank you to BlueCat Networks for sponsoring today’s episode. BlueCat is putting together some great content and a great community surrounding the topics of DNS, DHCP, and IPAM. You can join the Network VIP community and register for the next roundtable by going to bluecatnetworks.com/certainty. Thank you to Unimus for sponsoring today’s episode. Unimus is a fast to deploy and easy to use Network Automation and Configuration Management solution. You can learn more about how you can start automating your network in under 15 minutes at