Eliran -What toppings do you like on your pizza?

Testimonial of Eliran Hayun

Identity & Access Management Leader

Junior to IT Executive Coaching

From 2007

5

eliran.hayun @gmail.com

The use case

I met Eliran in a professional setting. We bonded over a work incident, and we've been in contact ever since. I've been mentoring him on and off for the past 20 years, from a junior to an executive in a major insurance company.

"Very calmly, Joe explained that everything would be OK"

What toppings do you like on your pizza?

This question is one of, if not the most important, questions someone asked me at the start of my Cybersecurity journey. Let me explain. My name is Eliran Hayun, and I have loved computers and technology since I got my first PC in the 3rd grade. At age 20, I decided to take my passion and make a career out of it.

In 2007, I found myself at Bank Leumi supporting the Web Development environment. As the bank was highly secure, we had a separate network for the developers, and one of my responsibilities was to manage the AD Domain for that area. One evening, I needed to do a big upgrade work. During that work, I made a mistake that crashed my process, and I could not recover the AD Domain.

In panic mode, I have gone to my team leader, Joe. I frantically explained what happened, and that is when he asked me, "What toppings do you like on your pizza?" At first, I thought he might not understand what I had just shared with him or if he was trying to be funny. Scratching my head, I asked him how this was related to what I had shared with him, and this was not the time for this. Very calmly, Joe asked me once more and explained that everything would be OK, but if we were pulling an all-nighter, we would need to eat dinner, and he wanted to know what I would like to have on the pizza. We have spent all night trying to fix the AD until we call it quits and restore the server from backup, so we will not block the team from working.

I have learned a few important things that day. The first one was that it is OK to make mistakes; this is how we learn and grow. Be smart about these mistakes, think about your risks, and have a backup plan. After you have corrected the error, sit down and think about what went wrong, what the trigger was for it, and how it could have been avoided.

The other thing I learned that night was who Joe is. I knew right there and then that Joe was someone who would be side by side with you along the way regardless of how you got yourself to that point. There will not be finger-pointing, no buses will lease the station, and you can use him as your rock in the hard times.

This is why I call Joe one of my best friends even 20 years after that night when he asked me the most important questions in my professional life: what toppings do you like on your pizza?