Could a greater understanding of what people managers do make you a better individual contributor? And would it also cause you to treat your manager differently?
For Daniel Paluszek, our guest this week in episode 338, it definitely did. And though this was a short stint in Daniel’s career, he refers to that experience as priceless. This week in part 2 of the story you’ll hear about Daniel’s experience working in professional services both in pre-sales and post-sales and how he built expertise to help increasingly larger customers over time. Daniel will reflect on the lessons learned from his time as a people leader, and pay special attention to the moment when Daniel turns the microphone on John during our discussion!
We also explore the reasons why Daniel eventually chose to move back to the individual contributor side of the house. How do you think your mindset would be different when making a move like this? Listen to the full story from Daniel’s perspective.
Original Recording Date: 06-11-2025
Daniel Paluszek is a Principal Partner Technology Strategist at ServiceNow. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Daniel, check out Episode 337 – Finding Drive: The Parallels of Mentoring and Technology Partnerships with Daniel Paluszek (1/3)
Topics – The Nuances of Professional Services, Getting to Know Service Providers, Becoming a Practice Manager, Difficult Conversations, Returning to Individual Contributor
2:46 – The Nuances of Professional Services
It seems like Daniel would have been able to bring some of the government work he had done into conversations to help build credibility and relationships.Doing federal defense contracting is certainly different but provides a level of expertise that cascades to any government organization.When Daniel joined the partner, most of the conversations were about getting into virtualization, and the projects focused on consolidating infrastructure. Daniel had direct exposure and expertise in designing and orchestrating these kinds of projects from start to finish (design, build, migration, providing a day 2 runbook).Daniel had the technical expertise he needed but did not at first have the sales and consultative skills he needed. Daniel had help from mentors (his sales rep, his leadership chain, other colleagues on the professional services team) to improve in this area.Daniel would later join Cisco Systems doing professional services. This was around the time they launched the UCS computing platform. He had worked in in professional services for DynTek for a couple of years previous to making the move.Working in professional services granted opportunities to work with many customers across multiple industries. Daniel calls gaining this experience getting “at bats.”Working within a large professional services organization can also be challenging.Usually, the person who creates the scope of work for a services engagement is not the same person who will execute the statement of work.Something could have been scoped incorrectly or improper expectations set, for example. Daniel tells us part of the role was about overcoming these types of challenges and mitigating risks.“You had to work through these situations and challenges on an ongoing basis…. Not only make your customer happy (do what’s right) but also make your organization healthy from a profit and loss perspective because…companies and PS organizations, their largest cost factor is people….” – Daniel Paluszek, on life working in professional servicesDaniel tells us that a professional services organization has to balance executing well for customers with remaining profitable.Before Daniel joined Cisco, was he 100% pre-sales or doing a mix of pre-sales and post-sales?Daniel says it was a mix of both and refers to it as a hybrid role. He was brought in at DynTek as a professional services engineer but began getting exposed to the pre-sales side of things. In fact, Daniel wanted to learn more about pre-sales.Over time, Daniel began scoping professional services engagements and presenting to customers followed by later delivering the work (i.e., "wearing both hats).Nick stresses the importance of determining whether roles are post-sales, pre-sales, or both to ensure you fully understand. Ask these questions in interviews so everything is clear! Maybe doing both can help one decide which area is more interesting.“I also think that doing both and then doing professional services delivery for many years also shaped me into the individual I am today because I had to live and go through delivery of projects…. When I scoped it…I knew that this is something to watch out for from a field-level direct exposure perspective. So, I knew the nuances to my area of expertise, my domain, and I was able to scope it in a way that ensured success and mitigated that risk just because I had that direct experience.” – Daniel PaluszekProcesses like the one described above will not scale for large organizations. Sometimes a large organization will give people the chance to move from delivery to pre-sales to round out their experience. Daniel was fortunate to have the chance to do both and gain exposure to different areas.John mentioned there is usually another level of separation and complexity in these scenarios. He highlights 3 distinct roles – someone selling a solution that includes professional services, someone who scopes the professional services, and someone who executes the professional services. John has seen this divided even further and mentions sometimes there is a special professional services workshop that helps provide the inputs to the person writing the statement of work.“Again, if we’re talking about roles and educating people about roles, the number of different types of roles that are out there just continues to amaze me. Going to school, I have no idea how you would know any of these roles existed.” – John WhiteDaniel says for multi-pillar transformations within large enterprises, it can require subject matter experts (SMEs), architects, and engagement managers to make a professional services project successful.When Daniel began working in consulting / professional services, he started working with smaller companies. It was the move to working for Cisco that helped him gain experience working with large enterprises and service providers.Daniel speaks to the complexities of delivering engagements for these organizations. He might have to design an engagement that required dozens or hundreds of people over a multi-year period.Starting off small helped Daniel focus on understanding the fundamentals, and he was able to build upon that through varying experiences with larger customers across different industries over time.11:20 – Getting to Know Service Providers
What is a service provider? Let’s define that term.We’re talking about a company that provides a service like a cable provider, for example. They might be considered a traditional service provider.Cable providers offer telecommunications services to end users / consumers.But a cable provider can deliver services to a business too.If we’re talking about the business-to-business market, a service provider (could also be called a managed service provider) is providing a discrete service injected into a customer’s business. That service is a function of a customer’s overall organization.Daniel gives some examplesBusiness Process Outsourcing (or BPO). This could include processing accounts payable or accounts receivable transactions.An MSP (Managed Service Provider) providing service desk operations for an end customerA service provider can help a customer scale their business. Daniel gives the example of a retail customer.Retail companies exist to sell products and goods. This is their core business – driving incremental sales of products. Anything else required to operate that business, according to Daniel, is context.In the retail example, management of back-end IT systems, management of the service desk, or management of finances and supply chain would be considered context. In some cases, companies like this will partner with a service provider (or GSI / Global Systems Integrator) to assist in these areas.“It ultimately comes down to…what is your core business, and what’s your context? And…is this something we want to staff and skill in-house, or do we want to partner with somebody that’s going to provide this as a service to us?” – Daniel PaluszekNick mentions there is usually someone in-house tasked with working closely with service providers to ensure business operations run smoothly.Daniel says there is always an interface on the customer side, and in very large companies, it’s usually a small team which will manage the line of business in question and work closely with the partner / service provider executing much of this function. The team on the customer side would work closely with business leaders to ensure everything aligns with the business strategy.Nick liked Daniel’s description of his progression of experience from small customers up to large companies like service providers. There is an increased need for availability and resiliency as we get into talking about service providers who may have systems accessed by end customers and not just internal employees of the service provider.During Daniel’s tenure at Cisco, service providers spanned telecommunications, media, and technology partners.Daniel worked with many telecommunications providers and says it was incredible to learn about all the systems required to deliver a cell phone, for example, and the network functions that were part of it.When Daniel was working with telecommunications providers, Network Function Virtualization or NFV was the next emerging technology which extended the benefits of virtualization to help service providers in the telecommunications space provide better services to their customers.16:12 – Becoming a Practice Manager
Did Daniel go fully into pre-sales at Cisco even though he was focused on professional services?Daniel started off as a delivery engineer in the datacenter and cloud group but soon became a practice manager. During this first experience as a people leader, Daniel managed about 14 people.“It was an interesting and incredible experience…. When you get into people leadership, that’s a totally different approach and perspective.” – Daniel PaluszekDaniel had to focus on the people he managed as a first priority. That was a mindset shift. It was about supporting his people’s success by ensuring they had the necessary tools to execute.Another element of the role for Daniel was communicating things like status and current challenges to his own leadership.Daniel was a practice manager (i.e., people leader) for a little while before moving to pre-sales inside the datacenter and cloud group.What was it like to go full-time into a more focused pre-sales role and make the transition from people manager back to individual contributor?“You have to have the right mindset to manage and lead individuals from all different backgrounds and experiences and also realize that everybody operates differently. And I think, at that time, I don’t know if I was fully ready for that position…. But it was something that gave me a different perspective, which was priceless, on managing people and also providing a view into people leadership that I never had before. We will all work for managers, and sometimes we take for granted. It gave me a unique exposure into what our managers deal with and how a corporate hierarchy works within a large organization….” – Daniel Paluszek, on people leadershipDaniel was asked to take the practice manager role while still young in his career. He did well and kept in touch with the people he managed.Daniel feels he may be self-critical of his time leading people, but he learned a great deal from it.Daniel really aspired to work in pre-sales as a solution architect and would eventually make the move away from people management to this type of work.John thinks many people do not realize that the move to people management requires a pretty drastic career change, even if you manage a team on which you once worked.“Your job is no longer doing the work. It’s managing the people.” – John WhiteWhen people aspire to be a manager or higher-level leader of some kind, they are often looking at it only through the lens of the individual contributor and not truly understanding the role of manager is quite different.“Management and people leadership is a diametric difference, especially for technology professionals. When you get into management, you almost have to let go of the technology reins because that’s not your job anymore. And I think personally at that time, I wasn’t ready to let go of that. I think that was part of my challenge internally that I struggled with…. For you to become a successful people leader, you have to let go of the technology and having that skill because that’s not your job anymore…. I was presented that opportunity, and I took it, did the best to my abilities…and I said it’s ok to say, ‘this isn’t for me right now.’ It’s not saying the door is closed. I just don’t feel like I was ready personally for that role at that time.” – Daniel PaluszekDaniel’s mindset is quite different now than it was then, having learned much since then.After being in the management seat, John feels like he understands better now how to be a great individual contributor. Did Daniel’s stint as a manager make him a better individual contributor since he understood what managers were measuring?Daniel says yes and that he was naïve in the past regarding what his managers experienced. He is extremely grateful for the opportunity to experience the role of manager.“Putting yourself in that role, you realize very quickly, it’s sink or swim…. I took away from that experience having a level of empathy for every manager I’ve ever worked with since then. You just take it for granted because you’ve never seen it before…. It just gives you a totally different mindset. I just don’t think individual contributors understand that and realize that until they’re in those shoes…. There are things that you’re just not aware of, and until you experience it firsthand, you’re not going to see it.” – Daniel PaluszekJohn says often times our managers are on vacation or are on leave, and there is a chance for members of the team to fill in during these times. Even for those who have no aspirations to be a manager and just want to be the best individual contributor possible, filling in for your manager temporarily can make every employee better.Daniel says becoming a team lead can also help your manager, especially when it comes to developing others on the team. He initially thought his path to career progression was to become a manager and keep moving up.“I realized you don’t have to be a manager to help others. It doesn’t matter if they’re on your team or not. Mentoring and guidance crosses any logical boundary. It doesn’t matter where you live, what company you work with. Helping others…with their journey and their success…you can do that…. You don’t have to be a manager or a people leader for that. You can just be a good professional that helps others.” – Daniel PaluszekDaniel reminds us how much he enjoys helping / mentoring others on their personal and professional development journeys. In management, you’re supposed to do this along with all the administrative functions. Providing your objective perspective can be a great help to others. We don’t have to manage people to help people.John mentions managers might need help with the administrative overhead of the role. It’s hard to send updates on status to your management if members of the team haven’t made updates to specific systems on time, for example.26:15 – Difficult Conversations
When he was a manager, Daniel had to handle situations where people were not meeting their core job responsibilities. It was a learning experience and required having some very tough conversations with individuals on the team. Daniel asks John for his words of wisdom when handling these difficult conversations.John says a good way to prepare for this is by working on cross functional teams where you don’t have managerial or role power over someone but need to hold them accountable for completing specific work to help the overall team.Before becoming a manager, John was an account sales engineer. He would work with partner sales engineers, specialist overlays, technical account managers, and others on a specific campaign / set of activities. It fell to John as the core account sales engineer to be the project manager of these activities.“I think that it’s really good practice to have those kinds of conversations before you become a manager. I don’t think that it’s good to have that be part of your core job without ever having done it before.” – John WhiteIn the cross functional team example, we might be dependent on someone else doing something in order to complete our own work. You don’t have real power over the person who needs to be held accountable other than the power of persuasion. It’s about cultivating that influence.Once you are in a people management role, it’s important to establish clarity of job expectations.Job descriptions being written does NOT mean people have internalized them. Often times these descriptions are very broad and not well maintained.The manager can reiterate the deadlines for completing essential tasks for a person’s role and the expectations for quality. It will eventually need to be put in writing.It is essential to build relationships with the people on your team so they know the context in which things are coming to them.Do people have the tools to accomplish the tasks which are expected of them? If they don’t, just like in the case of lacking clarity, you will not be able to hold them accountable effectively.John suggests thinking about this from cause to effect.John references The Talent Code and its mention of John Wooden’s coaching method to focus on the difference between what good looks like and what a person was doing.Daniel remembers some challenging situations as a manager and needing to have some very uncomfortable conversations. He calls it a raw learning experience.We as individual contributors do not always understand what our managers go through on a daily basis. Daniel advises us to treat our managers well.John recommends the book Crucial Conversations to learn how to have the difficult conversations. It isn’t just managers that have difficult conversations. All of us do!The ability to have difficult conversations is a skill. John says we don’t want to be novices at this skill when it’s an important time to have a conversation.32:46 – Returning to Individual Contributor
How much of Daniel’s management experience was he asked to discuss in interviews for the individual contributor role in pre-sales? Is it a strike against you when you try to move back to the individual contributor’s path?The team Daniel managed did professional services delivery. They sat in the same organization as the pre-sales personnel focused on selling professional services, and Daniel had expertise in delivery and pre-sales.Daniel thinks there was probably a question about why he wanted to move to pre-sales but doesn’t feel like his management experience was looked upon in a negative light.“I wanted to get closer to the customer and closer to the solutions and technology, and that was my passion at that time…. If you’re a manager for many years going back to IC, I can see just like any other skill it does degrade over time. But, you know, in the industry I’ve seen people move from management to IC, IC back to management. I think if you have the right qualities, the ability to take on those responsibilities, and ensure you have the right frame of mind, especially when you transition from IC to manager…. I think it rounds out an individual and a professional, from my perspective.” – Daniel PaluszekLooking back, if asked to do it again, Daniel would still have taken the role in people leadership. He gained a level of understanding that one can only get by performing the responsibilities of a manager. It made Daniel a better leader.The cross functional leader (an individual contributor) has to create a collaborative team and ensure accountability while still needing to have those difficult conversations to hold people accountable.“Every career journey ebbs and flows, so I think everybody has a varied path on how they experience these things.” – Daniel PaluszekNick thinks Daniel’s experience as a people leader was transferrable.He gained a measure of empathy that was transferred to co-workers and customers.In pre-sales, we often work with people at different levels within an organization. Daniel has a perspective from his experience as a people leader that helps him better relate to the leaders he works with consistently (in his customers or elsewhere inside the same company).Mentioned in the Outro
There was a theme of scaling one’s experience in that discussion…a slow build.Daniel didn’t start out understanding how to work with service providers. It took those “at bats” he described. These were opportunities to work with different customers in organizations of different sizes. Each of them had slightly different challenges and unique needs for specific technology solutions. There were nuances to scoping professional services engagements across many different customer environments.One way to build expertise even if we want to do the same job is to scale our experience by working across different industries and environments or even supporting different business units inside our own company.What if we took John’s advice and volunteered to fill in for our manager sometime even if we never want to be a manager one day?We can approach this with the intent to learn and understand, and it can make us better individual contributors.It’s a chance to communicate with skip-level leaders and learn how to better communicate with them.It’s a chance to gain empathy for those in leadership.Debrief with your manager on how the experience goes if you decide to do it. The full context of those situations might help you learn a lot about your company and management chain.Daniel learned a lot about empathy as a people manager. One of Nick’s favorite episodes discussing empathy is Episode 278 – Uncovering Empathy: The Greatest Skill of an Inclusive Leader with Marni Coffey (1/3).How can you be more empathetic?Contact the Hosts
The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte.DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourneyConnect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneymanConnect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_Leave a Comment on Your Favorite Episode on YoutTubeIf you’ve been impacted by a layoff or need advice, check out our Layoff Resources Page.If uncertainty is getting to you, check out or Career Uncertainty Action Guide with a checklist of actions to take control during uncertain periods and AI prompts to help you think through topics like navigating a recent layoff, financial planning, or managing your mindset and being overwhelmed.
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