How I Got Here: Comcast’s Elad Nafshi learned 3 lessons about leading tech teams from the military

In the military, the best leaders never yell or get in your face, according to Elad Nafshi.

Instead, if you speak with a calm voice, you’ll get your point across — and you’ll “build up” instead of down, Nafshi said. It’s the way he’s led and interacted with teams across his career.

Nafshi recently became Comcast’s EVP and chief network officer after 15 years with the company. He said he learned a lot about how to be a manager from his time in the Israeli Special Forces.

“It was the best experience of my life,” he told Technical.ly. “How do you care for those people, how do you build a relationship that is always constructive and do that under pressure? I use that as a best example for how I communicate with my teams.”

The road to tech

After leaving the military, Nafshi earned a law degree, and followed advice from a mentor who told him to seek out an MBA in the US. He had technical training and knew he could start a career in engineering. But what was really intriguing to him was the space in which tech and business were intersecting amid the rapid growth of the dot com era. So, in 2000, he entered the telecom field at cable television corporation RCN. He was especially interested in telecommunications because he felt it held the potential for real impact.

Nafshi took on product management and development for the company’s entry into video on demand and voice. He launched the product — “a huge technical milestone” — on Nov. 30, 2001, the same day his second son was born.

He worked on other interactive functions and eventually RCN’s high-speed data product, before joining Comcast in 2005. He joined an effort to reinvent digital encryption across the industry, which morphed into the company’s video product roadmaps. He moved into video, and led the team behind Xfinity’s Stream application.

But his main interest has always been in networks, he said. Nafshi recently oversaw Comcast’s test of 10G modem technology rolled out in January.

“I always wanted to be on the network,” Nafshi said of his career. “I always wanted to work on, ‘How do I make internet better, how do I make the internet faster, how do I make these services better?’ That’s my passion, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Advice for managers

Nafshi has worked with many teams over his more than two decades in the tech industry, and he has advice for other managers that falls into three buckets. His early days in the military are clearly reflected.

First, “always seek feedback as a manager,” he said. “Never assume that you’re right, because most of the time you’re not.” Being humble, open to feedback and honest with your team is the only way to grow better as a person and a manager.

Second, you have to care deeply about your team. It’s common, he said, for a younger manager to feel empowered that they have leverage over others, but he warns: Whoever you manage today, you will work for tomorrow.

“When you look back at your career — and I have a lot to look back at — the managers that transformed me treated me like a friend and really helped me and mentored me through the good and bad,” Nafshi said.

And third, as technologists, you have to be open-minded in how you approach tech solutions. It’s not like mathematics, where there’s only one right answer.

“There’s many ways at arriving at the decision, and you always have to be flexible and nimble and open to course corrections,” he said. “There were countless times I was convinced that ‘this is it, that’s what we’re doing’ and it’s not. As an engineer, when you look at these things, it’s not all black and white — there’s 100 shades of grey. When you’re working with a technical team, and building from scratch, it’s the way you make the product the best.”

Humility, empathy, collaboration. All lessons that can be spoken quietly for greatest effect.