Managing with empathy, for impact

00:00 Thanks for the patience. Uh, and thanks everybody for joining. What is sure to be a wonderful panel discussion with some, uh, very esteemed panelists.

00:10 Uh, I'm John Paz, I'll be your host. Um, I'm currently the documentation manager at Menlo Security, um, but that's a new role for me.

00:18 Um, so this is an especially, um, um, meaningful and insightful panel for me. And I hope I'll be learning a lot myself, but I'm going to let the panelists introduce themselves out and we'll start with Alicia.

00:31 Uh, hi, I'm Alicia, Ostarello, pronoun. She, her, um, and I am the head of content design at Lyft. And if I know how to do my alphabet correctly, I think I'm going to pass it to Michael.

00:44 Hello? Yes. You do know how to do your alphabet correctly. Hi, everyone. Hope you're enjoying Perspectives and having a great time.

00:50 Um, my name is Michael pronouns. He him, his, I manage part of the content design team at Instacart. Um, a little bit about me and outside.

00:58 There's plenty of other stuff outside of content design, but for now let's stick to the content design part. I'll hand it over to Nadine.

01:04 Thank you. Uh, I'm Nadine Anglin, um, content design manager at Meta, formerly known as Facebook. Um, I specifically support our virtual reality app, which is called Horizon Worlds.

01:17 Um, and I will pass it over to Yvonne.

01:20 Hi, my name is Yvonne Stull and I'm the content design manager at Indeed for our small and medium business group.

01:29 Fantastic. Uh, you all, if you don't realize these are our rockstar rockstars of the industry and, uh, it's a, it's a pleasure to have them here.

01:37 Uh, so Yvonne, I'm going to start with you. Um, can you tell me what does empathetic leadership mean to you?

01:43 Um, what does it look like on a daily basis? Um, and maybe why it's important.

01:48 Yeah, I mean, I think it's important because people can't perform their best if they don't feel like you care about them as individuals.

01:56 So that's always where I start with. I try to care about people and their needs, their goals. Um, I don't just look at them as workers or performers.

02:05 And one of the ways I do that is by getting to know them. One of the things I try to do as people join my team is have a career conversation.

02:13 It's sort of a retrospective of their education and their career, and trying to understand why they made the choices that they made and what motivates them, and also where they want to go.

02:23 Uh, because as I get to know people, I can look out for the right opportunities. If, if I know that that's what they're interested in.

02:30 And then the final piece is challenging people. Um, sometimes it's necessary for us to hold each other accountable. And there are occasions when someone isn't meeting deadlines or, or they're not performing at the level that I believe they can perform at.

02:44 And so part of management is having some of those tough conversations at times as well.

02:51 I love it. The two sides of the conversation there, um, Nadine, anything you want to add on, how do you define a empathetic leadership?

02:58 What's that look like?

03:00 Sure. Um, I think being an empathetic leader means that you are not using a blanket approach to managing your team, that you actually understand that a team is made up of individuals and every individual has their own quirks, their own needs their own style that they prefer to be managed under.

03:18 And so I really try to understand my reports so that I can shift my management style depending on what they actually need.

03:25 There'll never be a situation where I manage everyone the exact same way, because that's not at being an empathetic leader.

03:32 And I think as you progress and you get further in your career as a leader, you know, there are different archetypes.

03:38 I'm definitely the servant leader archetype. Um, I often tell my team that I'm here to coach you. Um, even if I criticize you, it is for the betterment of your career.

03:49 Everything I do is to help you succeed about me. I win when you win. So that's how I think about empathy and I'm an empath by nature.

03:58 So I definitely couldn't be any other type of a leader to be honest with you.

04:03 And I think there's a reason why a lot of people who are kind of called to people, leadership is, is because they're empathetic because they want to help people.

04:11 Uh, thank great. Great answer. Thank you. How about you, Mike? You got anything to add to what is empathetic leadership look, look to you look like to you?

04:18 Yeah,

04:18 Yeah, absolutely. And big plus everything that's been said, totally supportive, all of that. Um, the only thing I'd add, or the thing that I try to think about too, is I haven't found a good term for this yet.

04:26 So if anyone has one or, you know, have one hit me up in Slack, but thinking in kind of plurality instead of singularity.

04:31 So like saying things like we are as, instead of I, my, and the reason for that is as a leader, it, your ego does come into play.

04:37 Sometimes this is true. If you're an IC, it's true. If you're a leader too. And I find that like part of being an empathetic leader is constantly every time you're making a decision, whether it's for another person, for the team, um, just checking in with yourself and being like, am I doing this for

04:49 the betterment of my team, for my reports for other folks?

04:52 And Nadine just referred to servant leadership? I totally agree. I think that, especially now, just with everything going on in the world and what's happening in the industry, that is what we're being looked to be as leaders is kind of being there for our teams and being that servant leader.

05:04 And part of that is being able to check your ego and be able to say, okay, am I making this decision for me?

05:10 Um, or am I making this decision for other folks? And thinking in that kind of plural way, that's something that is honestly, it's really hard to do.

05:17 Like, it's very hard. I was going to refer to this in my bio, but I'm a yoga teacher outside of managing a content design team.

05:22 We talk about ego a lot in yoga and how do you check it on the mat and make sure you're not falling or lapsing into it.

05:27 And it holds true for management as well. We always want to be thinking in we, and our, instead of me and my, and getting into that mindset and becoming a true servant leader, it takes a lot of time and a lot of self interrogation to get there.

05:38 I love that. I love that we have shared interests in, in the sooner that everyone plays as a team. It's like the better we can, we can all be.

05:45 Um, and, and I don't, I don't want to leave Alicia. I want to give her an opportunity to, to, to, to jump in about what, how she defines them empathetic leadership.

05:54 Yeah. Um, again, plus one to what everyone said. Um, and I think something that I would add on is just the idea of considering a person as a whole, not just as their, who they are in their job, but who they are in the rest of their lives and really thinking about, um, what is going on in the world and

06:11 how is that impacting people's day to day and how is that impacting their work life and their personal life. And when I think about empathetic leadership, I think about considering a person as a whole and considering just what they are, um, what they are going through outside of work and how I can support

06:28 them both in and out of work. Um, and on a day-to-day basis. I think that looks a lot, like actually told my team recently.

06:36 Um, I've been struggling with having people escalate things to me and that's because I think they're worried about what does it mean if I have to tell my boss, I need help you guys, no matter what, like, I love you, no matter if there's no question that, um, you can come to me with or no issue that you

06:53 have, that I will, that will make me think less of you.

06:55 And so really thinking in, like I was like, maybe it's weird to tell your coworkers and your reports that you love them, but like I do.

07:01 And like, that's like really like, and telling them that maybe it's creepy, but it's like, what is really important to me.

07:10 So that's actually a great segue to something that I planned on talking about later in the conversation, but maybe, um, at Alicia, you want to say, um, I, I can completely understand that you want to love your employees, but, um, I hear that setting boundaries is really important.

07:24 So how do you, how do you balance those kinds of things with wanting to wanting to do a lot, everything, all the things for the people who report to you, but then also understanding that their boundaries are important in that, um, you know, work is work is work and home is home.

07:39 Totally. I mean, I think we spend a lot of our time and spend a lot of time with our coworkers.

07:45 And so it's important to have, for me, it's important to have a good relationship with them. And it's important to always be offering.

07:52 I try to continue to offer people space, um, to like not engage or not be, not feel this way, um, and really allow there to be different types of people.

08:03 And, you know, like if you don't want me to say, I love you to you. That's not, then I'm not going to say it.

08:07 I start every, I start a lot of meetings by warning people like, Hey guys, I swear a lot. And if that's not okay, that's totally fine.

08:14 Please just let me know. Like, I don't want to offend you. I'm trying, like I can't, but I won't know your boundaries unless you tell them to me.

08:20 And so it's super helpful. We talk a lot about like, how do you express your boundaries and how do you say no?

08:25 Or how do you push back

08:28 Boundaries? They're there, they're huge. I love that. Uh, the, the permission to not engage is, uh, is important. Um, uh, Mike, you have any tips about setting boundaries or any, uh, anecdotes to share?

08:39 Yeah, for sure. I think, I think Superman syndrome is real. And I think I fell into this trap a lot when I first became a manager where like, Hey, I'm Mr manager, and I'm here to unblock all of your problems.

08:49 Be they at work, perhaps be they at home. Really, anytime you have a problem, please come to me. And that gets dangerous really quickly.

08:55 And that gets dangerous really quickly because you suddenly become the person that's holding all of the emotional baggage, including your own emotional baggage, again, in a world that is very much full of baggage these days.

09:05 Um, so I think it's very important. I think Yvonne referred to this in the first question actually, where you kind of have to set expectations about like, I am here for you, but this is my role.

09:13 And my role is to make sure you do your best work it's to show up for you in these hours that we're working together.

09:19 It is not to be overly invested in your personal life, unless that works for you. And that works for us.

09:24 And we can talk about that, but it is really to set very clear lines around like what you can expect from me and where I will engage, because if you avoid that or those start to get crossed, you run into burnout.

09:33 Right. Um, and it's very real for managers to burn out in addition to ICs. And I think in a lot of ways that it can even be a little more dangerous.

09:39 So, um, much like you check your ego. I think it's important to check your Superman syndrome sometimes too.

09:45 I love that. I love that. Um, now, um, uh, I want to, I want to pivot just a little bit and if anyone has something burning to talk about with regards to setting boundaries, uh, we can, we can, uh, come back to this, but, um, I'm so very curious.

09:57 Um, um, what do you do when an employee's, uh, underperforming? How do you support them? Um, and, and what's your role as a manager?

10:05 Um, and let's, let's go to Nadine. And, um, do you have any tips or, or, or strategies for helping an underperforming employee?

10:13 I think, um, it does go back to seeing the employee as a whole person, not just a report at the company and, you know, life gets in the way.

10:22 Sometimes it happens to me as well. And, you know, having that relationship with them and like speaking to them as a person and saying, you know, what's going on in your life?

10:31 Are you busy right now being empathetic around that? Maybe you should take a couple of days off, you know, rest up, come back fully charged and try again, understanding like what their strengths are.

10:43 So I think someone mentioned this off the top is like having that career conversation early days and understanding where are your strengths?

10:51 Where are your growth areas? And if you're struggling, then I will coach you and try or help develop you, um, find you resources, finding a mentor.

11:01 Um, some I'm constantly sending my reports, articles related to their projects.

11:07 Um, it's really less about saying, oh, you're underperforming and finding out what the crux is, and then addressing that versus just the output.

11:15 Um, sometimes people are on the wrong projects, to be honest with you. Um, and you know, it's not what their S their strength is in as someone who was an IC before myself, an independent contributor.

11:28 I know there are certain areas that I don't perform well in. And so I'm very empathetic with my team and saying to them, this is just not your bag.

11:36 Okay. It's just not spark joy for you. Um, I think, especially for me working in product, I'm dealing with, you know, very elite, um, innovative, creative people.

11:48 They know how to perform. So if they're not performing, it means I, as a manager need to help to find them the track when they do their best work, it's less about saying, oh, you're not a growth CD, and you don't know how to do it.

12:03 We need to level you up there and more about saying, oh, you're a storyteller. Let me help you find opportunities to do storytelling because that's what you do best.

12:12 So, you know, we have regimented performance cycles, just like any other company, but I aim for my ICs to not be surprised when it comes to those performance cycles, we should be conversing through the whole year.

12:25 We should be checking in through the whole year. So by the time we get to a performance cycle, you already have an idea of how you're doing.

12:33 And if you are surprised at a performance cycle, I feel like I haven't actually done my job. Well,

12:39 I love that. I love that that's a wonderful performance review should never be a surprise for anybody. Um, that's fantastic.

12:47 Um, Yvonne, any other, any other, um, tips or things you might want to call out for help supporting under performing direct reports?

12:56 I, I agree with so much of what Nadine said. Um, I would, I would also add that it just starts by listening.

13:01 Um, as she mentioned, it could be something going on in their lives. Um, I've had situations myself where, you know, I'm a caregiver.

13:08 I had two kids who were homeschooling during the pandemic, and there were periods of the day when it was just tough for me to get work done.

13:15 So I had to set that expectation with both my team and my manager, like early mornings are really tough for me.

13:21 That's not a great time for me to have a focused meeting with you. Um, so part of it is listening and understanding what's going on in someone's life.

13:29 Sometimes it's workload, um, it's helping people prioritize or advocating for more head count because one person simply can't cover that much space in a product.

13:39 Um, I think the other thing is style. That's something that I've seen come up with teams. Um, I saw a metaphor that I thought was really good and it's mapping compass.

13:49 So there are people who are map people and people who are compass people and map people. They want to know where are we going?

13:56 What are the steps? And compass people are more like, tell me the destination and I'll figure out how to get there.

14:02 And sometimes I have a map person on a compass team and it's just not a good fit. And so I need to find a different opportunity for them, where they can really excel.

14:12 Um, so I, those are some of the ways I, I think I've helped direct reports. Um, and then the final way is just being really clear.

14:19 We're all human. And sometimes our perceptions are different than other people's perceptions. And so somebody can think I'm over-communicating and then their team is like, I don't know what's going on.

14:29 And so sometimes it's just connecting the dots for people and letting them know what you perceive is not what these other people perceive.

14:37 I love that. I love that. That's one thing I get them thinking about as listening to everyone's answers is that a lot of times it's, it's about making sure you clearly understand what the challenges are.

14:47 The problems really are. And you'll find that there's more often than not, is that the right people aren't sitting in the same art sitting in the same room, or there's a miscommunication, or someone will stress out about something that deadline was coming up and they didn't let anybody know.

14:58 So there was no urgency from the rest of the team. There's always solutions to the problem. Very rarely is there other insurmountable problems at work?

15:04 So it's, it's, it's important to have leaders have cool heads and can, can hash things out. Um, great answers. Thank you so much for, for that.

15:11 Um, so I'm going to pivot to, um, to another question here. Um, can you, uh, I'm going to start who who's just answering.

15:18 Uh, we'll go with Mike. Mike, can you tell me about, um, how do you help, uh, actually, how do you balance competing priorities, um, between the business interests, um, the people who pay the who pay your paycheck and the interest of your employee, um, cause at times they could be conflicting or competing

15:34 . Um, um, can you give me some, some anecdotes for that?

15:38 Yeah. I think this one is a bit of a trick question. I will say though. I absolutely do see like things, but to the theme of servant leadership, I do feel that if we focus on people and being empathetic to people, you've heard this panel talk a lot about active listening about aligning people with the

15:52 right opportunities, if you do those things well, then I think the chances are the spaces you run into where, um, the kind of your obligations to the business and your obligations to your people are misaligned.

16:02 So I often think that the best way to kind of get yourself out of this one is just really be honest with yourself as a manager and say, am I doing right by my people?

16:09 Do I have them on the right projects? I love the compass and map analogy. I'm going to steal that one, Yvonne, thank you for that because it's totally, it's totally true.

16:16 Sometimes like sometimes people just aren't aligned to the right things and if you can get them into the right spaces, then suddenly everyone's a lot happier and it's a lot easier to make those cross-functional commitments.

16:25 It's a lot easier for folks to do the work that's impactful because they get excited by it too. Um, so I think people always trumps all for me, like for 100%, um, I don't want to say there's never a need to have empathy to an organization, but I think by and large, we focus on empathy for people.

16:39 You will unlock organizational empathy too,

16:43 I love that it was a bit of a trick question in that if ever you think that the, the they're conflicting, it just means that, um, there's, there's some more work to be done that there's, uh, some better understanding that needs to happen and, and maybe just need to adjust what people's workload looks

16:57 like. Um, uh, uh, let's see. Um, so actually, uh, Nadine, I'm curious about if you feel the same about competing priorities and if there's almost always an answer around it, um, I know you work for a really big organization, um, in, uh, lots of big teams and lots of I'm sure.

17:13 Competing, conflicting interests. Um, how do you deal with that when, when there's teams that are fighting for your resources' time, or, or maybe don't agree with how things are split up or, or divided?

17:25 Yeah. First I want to flat out say like, this is difficult. This is not an easy thing to juggle different priorities and pivots, especially in my space, there's constant pivots and changes in strategies and, you know, no one ever feels like they have a big enough team.

17:40 Quite frankly, you always feel like you could have just work reports. Um, I'm very transparent and I'm transparent with my team.

17:49 I say to them, look, we work for a company, a company has objectives and key results. And we, as much as I want to support you in what you're interested in, we're also responsible for meeting those results.

18:02 And so I make that very clear. I'm very transparent. I communicate with my team often. Um, I'm very much a person who will like download.

18:10 Like here's what leadership is thinking. Um, it's very important when you're a leader that you're communicating up down and across.

18:18 And so it's very important to me that my team is in the know at all the time. So they also can think about like, how do I prioritize my time knowing that this is what the company is prioritizing right now.

18:29 So they're never in the dark about that. Um, when it comes to my stakeholders, I'm exactly the same way. I'm very transparent.

18:36 I'd say, okay, you want to prioritize this. So that means something else has to be at lower priority, which one of these projects do you want me to deprioritize right now, sometimes you have to put on your project manager hat, right?

18:48 Um, and really I've worked with a lot of great project managers actually. And they all know that you have levers that you can pull.

18:56 So it's like, is this a time lever? Are you going to give us more time to finish this project?

19:01 Is this a budget lever, or are you going to give us more money to finish this project? Which one of these levers should be pulled to meet what you want right now?

19:09 And then I'm very, like I said, transparent with my team and I'll tell them, you know, we got to pause this right now to focus on this.

19:15 When that's over, you can come back to this. But at the end of the day, there's only so many people and so much time, and we're trying to make it work within those constraints.

19:24 And if you're transparent about it, I don't think anyone's going to like, you know, be upset with you. If you say, look, I just, I don't have the head count to do this.

19:33 Help me make a case to get head count to do that. Um, and we all know what projects are on the go in our org.

19:40 We all know what's happening, what the deadlines are, et cetera. So for me, it's about trade-offs, um, and risk too, right?

19:48 Cause content design is often responsible for quality flagging, different kinds of risks. So something is high risk. I will say I'm prioritizing that design manager because that's part of my job it's to mitigate risk.

20:03 Um, but yeah, it's a conversation with your stakeholders and your reports. It's never like I'm laying down the law kind of thing, because again, that's not an empathetic leader to do that.

20:13 I love that. Thank you so much. If you actually, I love how you changed the conversation from competing priorities to more like conflict resolution.

20:20 Um, and I, I wanted to give, uh, Alicia an opportunity to talk about some some, um, some strategies that she might use.

20:27 And, um, cause a lot of times a lot of what Nadine was describing is, um, um, some people can see as being the bearer of bad news or delivering bad news, but a lot of times it can be reframed in other ways.

20:39 Um, how do you handle that at work? Alicia, when you have, when you have these moments where, um, things, things aren't right, and you got to help put it right back on track.

20:47 Um, this isn't exactly. This is it's. I think about that reframe a lot. That word reframe is something that I, I think every leader has to do all the time.

20:57 Um, and something that comes to mind. Um, last year, Lyft announced that we were going to be coming back into the office as a hybrid model.

21:05 And my team was not, I think about this, like when the organization makes a decision that I have no say in that I am now delivering news to people.

21:12 I now have to frame this news to them in a way that, how do I, some people are excited by that.

21:18 Some people are not excited by that. I'm personally was not excited by that news. And like, how do I empathize?

21:23 How do I react to a large team? That's like thinking it has a lot of different inputs and how do I help them see that the business is making a decision that they think is right.

21:32 Even if I think it's wrong and something I think about a lot is when these sorts of things come down from a pie, from a pie, from the powers that be, as I call them, um, is like the business itself is an, or it's an organism.

21:48 It's, it's an organization. It is alive. And I have to, I try to think about it as the organization is trying to stay alive.

21:56 And the organism itself is staying alive. How can I have empathy for that? Even if I don't agree with what's going on here, or even if I'm like, you know, I wish that we were doing something different.

22:06 How do I, um, help my team have empathy for the organization? And I kind of hate that as a person who wants to care about only people, but I think as leaders and as we grow as leaders, like we can only be as successful as our buy-in to the company itself.

22:22 And in order for me to, in order for me personally, to have buy-in to the company, I have to like allow myself to have empathy for them.

22:29 Um, luckily I want to, I want to finish that by saying Lyft is now fully remote and I'm very excited about it.

22:36 They changed their mind. And I have a lot of, um, I have a lot of respect for a company that can say, you know, we were wrong.

22:43 We like thought about it. And we listened to the people and we like watched attrition happen and we listened to our employees.

22:49 And I think about like, I'm like Lyft is an inherently empathetic company. And I think that's, you know, one of the reasons it works for me to be here not to make a plug for Lyft, sorry, everybody.

23:01 No worries. No worries. If you, if you, if you're not passionate about the place you work at, then you should probably look for a new place to work.

23:07 Uh, so, um, thank you so much for that. And I, and there's a common theme amongst the things that you all are talking about.

23:13 And I want to dig in a bit and pivot to a different question. Um, and, and Michael, I'll ask this to you directly.

23:19 Um, um, why, what we're talking about is trying to help employees be successful or, or cause, or resolve conflicts, but how do you measure your team's success?

23:28 Like what does, what does it look like? How do you know when your team's thriving? What signals do you measure?

23:33 Um, is it something that can be measured? Um, and, and how do you keep an eye out for, um, actionable?

23:39 What do you use to measure success on your team?

23:42 Yeah, that is a tricky one, for sure. And I think, I don't think there was one true, like only metric that is definitive of a team self.

23:49 Obviously I'm sure every organization does something like a pulse survey where they get a sense of how are people feeling and that's often helpful, but I find that to measure that you want to pay attention to people's actions versus what they say a little bit more.

24:00 Right. So if I ask you, Hey John, how are you doing today? No, I'm good. Fine. You know, like, I, it typically is like almost a dead end conversation sometimes, but, um, the things I pay attention to are like, are people showing up to crits on time?

24:12 Are they excited to share work? Um, how are they in my one-on-ones with them? Are they like five minutes late to them constantly?

24:18 And then we don't really talk about much.

24:20 Is there too much to talk about what are they active in our Slack channels, giving feedback to folks when they're asking for stuff, um, how engaged are they essentially?

24:28 And like, can I see that engagement through their actions? And if I can't or I'm across my team, if I don't see that, then I start to say, there might be something up here.

24:36 And if I start to suspect, there's something up here then perhaps the next one on one, I'm like, Hey, I noticed you haven't been crit two weeks is, you know, can you tell me more about that?

24:44 What's going on? Is there something I can do to help get there? And then oftentimes I feel like you go in a little bit more direct.

24:50 You start to unlock the, oh, Hey, um, yeah, I'm just like busy and like I have 20 meetings a week now and it's getting really overwhelming.

24:57 Um, I don't think I can make time for crit and I say, okay, cool. Well, like how can I help you clear your calendar?

25:02 How can we work together to figure out what meeting you should be in versus what you shouldn't be in? Um, so you kind of have to pay attention to people's actions here versus what they say, because I find, if you just look at what they say, oftentimes we're all conditioned to just say fine or all conditions

25:13 say things are good, even when things perhaps may not be so good. Um, so I think actions again, will tell you way more than words will hear.

25:21 I love that you, oh, sorry.

25:23 No, go for it. Go for it.

25:24 I love that theme of curiosity that you're talking about, Michael, where you're like, that's something that I think when I was a new manager, I didn't, it was easy to go to someone and say like tell them something.

25:35 And rather than active listening, rather than being curious about let's understand what's going on here rather than me just being like, yo, why aren't you coming to crit?

25:42 That's important. Um, so yeah, I just love that.

25:50 That's fantastic. Yeah. Uh, um, uh, Nadine, anything you want to add? How do you guys measure success?

25:56 Um, I would plus one, everything makes sense. To be honest with you. Of course there are the official ways of measuring success.

26:03 Um, but I think one of the things that I love about my team currently is this, uh, level of like psychological safety and people feeling like I can really rely on my teammates.

26:15 I can go to them for help when we have our, uh, crits, people can give you criticism and you're not taking it personally because you trust your teammates.

26:25 Um, when we have our social meetups, you know, people can let down their hair and talk about what they want to talk about outside of work, because we've already established this idea.

26:34 Like you are safe here. We are one team and we're here to support each other. There's no like competition against each other in the that's how I know my team's not doing well where it's like, we have like a social event.

26:47 No one's speaking. Or, you know, two people feel like they're competing against each other on projects. That's not a team.

26:54 That's not the kind of team I'm building anyway. And so, yeah, so for me, um, one of like more of the soft skill stuff I'm looking for is like, does everyone feel safe here to express themselves and to be who they truly are, um, with other teammates.

27:10 That's interesting. So, um, uh, Yvonne, uh, how about when you find things that could be considered inequities or, or some unfairness or when there's some imbalance in your team, um, how do you, how do you correct these things when you, when you find them, um, is there, or what's that discussion look

27:27 like?

27:28 Yeah, I mean, I think the important thing to remember is that first of all, all of us have unconscious bias.

27:33 And so part of it is letting our teams know, please keep me accountable. If you see me falling short of my own expectations, but it's also challenging our team when we see that they're falling short.

27:45 So I have heard people, you know, whether it's in an interview or in a review, uh, talk about others and, and, you know, describe somebody as too emotional.

27:54 And so I like to ask probing questions, like, what does that mean? How will that person know if they've successfully been less emotional?

28:01 Uh, and then I have, I have peers who are way more direct and just say, that sounds biased. And so I think we can all play our part in, in challenging each other respectfully when we see that we're not living up to our own standards, you know, another one that I've seen as is women described as aggressive

28:19 in interviews. And, you know, so one of my questions is what is, what does that look like to you? And would you describe a man in the same way?

28:26 Um, so I think it just goes back to challenging people, directly asking probing questions and also giving people a little bit of grace because we do know that we will all make mistakes at times.

28:40 That's fantastic asking probing questions. I love that it's all those ties it back to just being curious about situations, asking questions.

28:48 And I think, um, as, as, uh, as writing as content professionals, as word people, um, many of us, we we're we have to act like journalists and a lot of our jobs, individual contributors.

28:57 And I don't think it's any different as a manager is that you just always need to ask why and figure out what's really going on here.

29:02 And is it all as it seems? Oh, fantastic answers. Um,

29:07 One thing I wanted to add is just that I really love one of the things I love about my company.

29:11 And I think a lot of companies recently is they're just offering so much more training and education and giving people the language and the vocabulary to use so that they're aware of some of these things and they can talk about it more openly.

29:25 Oh, sorry. Well, I think when we have that, like language, that common language, then we get to that psychological safety than Nadine's talking about.

29:32 And like, if we have that, then we are able to have those like probate, those like pushing, not pushing those, like those like conversations that don't feel threatening to someone, if I'm like, Hey, it's kind of that kind of, would you say that about a woman or a man what'd you do this?

29:46 And like, when you have that psychological safety, you can have those conversations so much more freely and they're so much less stressful.

29:56 Fantastic. Uh, great answers. I'm going to pivot a bit and Mike, I'm going to ask you directly. Um, and this is something that, um, uh, I, I jotted down as you all were talking, and I'm more curious about thinking about my own career path and how in the path that I took to get to people.

30:12 Leadership was a very winding one where I was not sure what I wanted. I wanted to be a craft specialist, um, or maybe even change into a different discipline at one point.

30:20 Um, so, um, so then I had a lot of trouble, um, kind of charting a, um, a growth path, um, along almost my entire career.

30:28 It wasn't until very late in my career. I kind of found what I thought was going to be my calling.

30:32 So, so Mike, how do you help a direct report chart, a growth path when they either have lots of options or lots of interests or, um, they just, aren't super sure about what they want to do with the next phase of their career.

30:44 Yeah. So I think it's important to get to the why and typically you get to the why in a few ways, sometimes it's an individual development plan.

30:50 Sometimes it's a career framework, a bunch of different organizational tools to do that. But to give you an example, I had a report who came to one day and said, Hey, I want to be a manager.

30:58 And I said, awesome. Okay, well, tell me why you want to be a manager. Like, what about it jazzes you?

31:02 What gets you excited about that? And the thing that they said to me was I really want to get closer to the work.

31:06 Like I really liked the craft. I really want to like, influence the craft and like, I want to manage and be that manager.

31:11 And I want okay, funny because you know, my day-to-day actually is spending not as much time with the work and a whole lot of time with the people.

31:18 And it's one thing for me to say that and be like, oh, you know, actually managers tend to focus a lot on people and not as much on craft, that's part of the role, but to really get someone to feel that I think you have to make space for them to experience it too.

31:28 And that's really where you help them start to understand. So what I look for is like, how do I create trial opportunities for this person to actually see what management might be like, dip a toe in, so to speak, and then learn based on that is this actually what you want to do.

31:40 So for this person, we basically had let them get to a place where we had a contractor at the time, we had a relationship with a contract agency and we let them kind of manage that relationship.

31:49 Um, and the contractor that we got through that space.

31:52 And I think that was educational enough for them to realize that actually they wanted it to be a senior IC a whole lot more than they want it to be a manager.

31:58 So, um, places in the past often there's opportunity for folks who wanna be managers specifically to like manage an intern, then that's a great educational opportunity to, to get that trial to people management.

32:08 But, um, I think it's really, again, two fold. It's like, you know, why do you want to do this thing truly, what's motivating you to go for this career path.

32:15 And then once I understand that, how can I get you to help experience a taste of what that's like to make sure and validate that it is actually where you want to go?

32:24 That's fantastic. Um, yeah, I wish there'd been more probing questions, uh, along my career growth because, uh, and what you just described as I'm getting closer to the, to the work, but wanting to be a people leader it's like, Ooh, right away immediately, there's some correction in thinking that needs

32:39 to happen. Um, um, let's see. Um, Yvonne, do you have anything to add about, uh, helping to helping, um, the, the multi-discipline people, um, chart career paths?

32:50 Yeah, I think the, the one thing to remember is that really talented people generally have more opportunities than they have time.

32:57 So it's just letting people know that as you become more successful, as you become more skilled, you are going to have to start saying no to some paths or opportunities.

33:07 And that's okay. And so what is it that really excites you? Is there some area that you really want to grow or learn in, or is it people, is it projects?

33:17 Uh, so part of it is, is giving them some space to really explore what excites them and not just what they're good at, because if they're truly skilled and talented, they're going to be good at many things.

33:28 And so it's, it's going to be a question of choice and narrowing it down. I also think mentors can be really helpful.

33:35 I love the trial idea, um, but people who have done it before and can give you sort of the benefit of their experience can save people time, too.

33:43 So if somebody was interested in exploring mentorship, um, you know, at I'm sorry, exploring management, pairing them with a manager, uh, who has been doing it for a long time talking through what the challenges are, what the benefits are.

33:56 Um, and I think giving people space to try and fail, uh, and, and sometimes even not try and fail, but just try and decide.

34:04 That's not for me. That's that's okay too.

34:08 Oh yeah. I love that. And actually, um, speaking of failure, uh, one thing I noted that it's important to, to remember when you were, when we were discussing, um, how to help an underperforming employee, that there's lots of different kinds of, of failure, and it's important to understand and, and weigh

34:21 them all the same. And what you're describing with the psychological safety is giving folks permission to, to stretch themselves, to work a little bit outside their comfort zone, maybe change projects, change teams, temporarily, um, adopt a new mentor.

34:33 And then there's a kind of professionalism type of failures, which, um, you know, not showing up on time or missing deadlines, not communicating when things are going wrong, like, you know, lots of different types of failure.

34:44 And, you know, we all, we all want to try to be successful. Um, but failure does not necessarily mean that it's over.

34:50 Like, we're, we're still, we're still breathing. We're still working. And we can always work towards being better than we were the day before.

34:56 And I think it all ties back psychological safety has got a great big star next to it in my notes.

35:01 Um, it's, it's, it's really important. And it's, it's the kind of thing where to be an empathetic leader. Um, you, you have to create a place where, where people can push back against you.

35:09 They can tell you you're wrong or that, or no that I don't want to do this. I don't, I spend enough time at work.

35:15 I don't want to go on the weekends to the, to the, to the family fun day. And that's, that's okay.

35:19 That's totally, there should be no punishments for any of those things. It's. Um, but they don't feel that they can say that those things, um, then, you know, you'll, you'll never know, and they'll just be this sprinkled employee for something that's probably very fixable.

35:31 Um, so, um,

35:33 I think it's about trust. That's like a big thing they have to trust. You have to trust them, especially as a leader, you're sometimes, um, holding the vision, right.

35:45 Uh, for what the company wants to do, the projects that they're working on. And so if they don't trust you, they're not going to internalize that vision either.

35:55 And so knowing that, you know, I have your back, um, yes, you can disagree with me. I'm not always right.

36:01 I'm a human being. Please do disagree with me. I love discourse. So please do push back. Occasionally if you're not pushing back then I, I don't know that I can trust you because it feels like you're just saying what I want to hear.

36:12 And that's not what I want as, as a leader or a manager. I want you to genuinely, um, talk to me about your projects and I in turn will earn your trust by genuinely telling you, look, this is the vision the company's going for.

36:25 This is what's coming up in the next couple of months. Here's how you can plug in. Here's where you may not be able to plug in.

36:31 Um, I think that's just the way leadership is today. It's not old school like top down. Um, I'm dictating everything.

36:38 It's more of like building the trust in this two way communication, um, with your reports.

36:46 I love that. I love that. And something that's kind of got me, um, got me thinking maybe a little bit outside of what we might traditionally think of as a, as where we need to show empathy.

36:58 Um, and let's see who haven't I spoke to in a bit. Um, I think maybe Alicia, um, what does empathy look like in the recruiting or hiring process?

37:05 How, how does, how does a good manager to show empathy to candidates?

37:09 Um, well, the way I show empathy to candidates is by looking for the good, I think a lot of times it's easy to, it's easy to say, no, it's easy to look for the nos.

37:21 It's easy. Um, I'm an active dater. It's easy to swipe left. Um, but is it, how, how can we make, what are how can we look for swiping, right?

37:30 How can we look for the places where someone is an untraditional candidate, but like, how do we look for the talent and the skill, um, with someone and not just immediately say no, no, no, no, no.

37:43 Um, and I, that takes time and that's like, not what we're trained to do, especially as a hiring manager. Like we don't have a lot of time.

37:50 I spend a lot of time looking at resumes. I've had to learn to look less deeply.

37:54 Cause I would look at like every single link that any person had because I wanted to give them the opportunity to show me that they were good.

38:01 I wanted to see the good. Um, but I think finding that balance of like, how do you, how do you find, how do you look for the good and how do you like build off of that and like coach your team and coach your other, your interview panels to, you know, look for the, don't just look for the red flags, look

38:16 for all the green ones too, even if someone is putting up some red flags. No, one's perfect. No one's going to come in and just be all green flags.

38:23 And if they are, then I have a lot of questions.

38:27 Uh, I love that. I love that. So, so Yvonne, when you're thinking about the recruiting process and showing empathy, how do I know term culture fit and hiring for culture interviewing for culture gets thrown around?

38:40 Is it started off as, as a buzz word that seemed like a really good idea and now it's can, can feel less.

38:45 So, but culture is still something that is important to kind of manage on, on, on a team. Um, so, so what does that look like in, in trying to, um, to, to not necessarily vet for it, um, but at least keep it in mind in, uh, in the recruiting, hiring process.

38:59 Yeah. I guess I've become more sensitive to the idea that, that, that hiring for culture can introduce bias. You know, that I don't want people who are just like me, it's too easy to look for people.

39:10 Uh, you know, we have an affinity to, to find people who are like us and agree with us. And so I don't try to look for fit.

39:17 I do try to really focus on skills. One of my counterparts, um, read a book and I, I'm sorry, I can't remember the name.

39:23 I'll try to track it down. Uh, but the idea is you create a performance profile for the position you're hiring for and you understand what are the projects that this person is likely to work on in their six first, six to 12 months.

39:35 And so then you really look for the experience that could track to that.

39:39 And so that doesn't necessarily mean a specific job title. It could just mean like they have project managing and experience, and this position is going to really need to shepherd projects all the way through the process.

39:49 And so that can, that can help reduce bias. It can help the team understand these are the skills we're looking for, not the specific kind of person we're looking for in terms of, um, you know, empathy for the candidate.

40:02 I mean, to me, it's, you're starting the management, um, experience with the interview. This is a potential person on your team.

40:11 So one of the things I look at is are they the right fit for my team because their skills may actually be a better match for someone else's team.

40:18 And so I try to be, uh, not, not just think about who I'm hiring for, but who, some of my other teams at indeed are hiring for.

40:26 And often I will be talking to a person who doesn't match a role I have, but they're going to be a great fit for somebody else and I'll connect them.

40:33 I always try to make sure that candidates are getting communication. We all hate when we're just left hanging and we don't know what, what happened.

40:40 Um, and so the other thing I do is I do give people feedback. If someone asks me, um, you know, why did you decide not to move forward?

40:48 Or, or how could I have done better? I am honest about the fact that, um, you know, maybe they gave us too much detail or maybe they didn't describe their, uh, personal involvement in a project.

41:01 And it was too focused on what the team did. I try to give people actionable feedback so that they can have a good career search, even if they don't end up on my team.

41:12 That's fine. That's fantastic. Uh, and, and just, just generally speaking as a, as kind of a new manager, um, I just, you know, recently, uh, had a second, um, my second technical writer, uh, hired recently, some super excited I've been through this recruiting process just, um, since about November.

41:29 Um, and it was, uh, it was, uh, a wonderful experience to be on the other side of the desk finally.

41:33 Um, but, um, a couple of important things I tried to keep in mind during the hiring process and all the things you just said.

41:40 Uh, and just to reiterate that, that feedback is a gift that, um, you know, if they made it to the round where you're talking to the hiring manager, or you're talking, you know, it's like, you know, you could, you could always provide them with some, with some really, really important feedback either

41:52 about their candidacy or generally about the job market.

41:54 Um, uh, and, uh, just as importantly, it's number two is to know what you want then, and by knowing what you want in terms of the person to fill the need that you have, um, you, you should also have a really clear and well-written job description, and that will attract the right candidates when you have

42:10 , when, when you have really clear requirements, then you, you attract the people who you, who are most likely to be able to fill that.

42:16 for that role, um, and lastly is transparency and communication. Like it, if it's going to take a long time, it's going to take a long time.

42:22 There's, there's, there's no, there's no big deal about that, but you've got to make sure that you're communicating with folks.

42:27 Um, and if it's not you, but it's just not an appropriate channel to talk to them directly and make sure that the recruiter you're working with is, is, is reaching out early and often.

42:34 And that they're always, uh, you know, up to date about what the status is, because something, you know, things happen, you know, requirements change, head count, gets pulled or moved around.

42:43 And, um, but no, like, um, like Yvonne said, you don't want to be left in the dark it's it does not feel good.

42:50 Um, we're, we're coming right up at time and I I'm. So I'm so glad that this, this went down and, uh, um, I can't, I can't remember, uh, another time where I, I want to watch my own presentation, uh, as much as this, I hate watching my own self speak.

43:05 Um, but this is a recording where I, there was so much value here. I'm for sure going to go back and watch, and I want to thank all the panelists for, for their, their, their, uh, their candid conversation and answers, um, and their time.

43:18 Um, and, and thanks to, um, um, the people who put Perspectives on what a fantastic idea. And I'm, I'm honored to be a part of it.

43:26 Um, this is something that will help me personally and professionally, and I hope that everyone who watched got a lot of value out of it as well.

43:35 So, yeah, so I, I think that's, I think that's all right at a time, which is unusual for me. I'm almost, I almost always go over.