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Blind Spots and Better Leaders with Jill Macauley · Definitely, Maybe Agile

• 0:04
  Peter: Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where Peter Madidson and David Sharrock discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale.
• 0:12
  Peter: Hello, everyone.
• 0:13
  Peter: Wonderful to be here again.
• 0:15
  Peter: And uh I'm here with Dave and Jill.
• 0:17
  Peter: So, Jill, would you like to introduce yourself?
• 0:19
  Jill: Sure.
• 0:20
  Jill: I'm Jill Macauley, based in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Jill: I am this chief operating officer of a very fun company called Behavioral Essentials, which is centered around the concept that awareness is the catalyst for all, catalyst for your career, your team, and your company.
• 0:38
  Jill: So powered by executive coaches, leadership development consultants, and org dev specialists.
• 0:46
  Jill: We are here for your people problems.
• 0:49
  Dave: Well, I just wanted, Peter, before you jump in, you just said awareness.
• 0:53
  Dave: And I'd love to know awareness about like there's so many things.
• 0:57
  Dave: What is your kind of prime focus?
• 0:59
  Jill: We start with awareness of self.
• 1:00
  Jill: That is, oh golly, gentlemen.
• 1:03
  Jill: Um, I wish I could tell you whether it was Socrates or it's one of the Greek philosophers said the most important wisdom is know thyself, and everything comes back to that.
• 1:12
  Jill: So awareness of self is where it starts.
• 1:14
  Jill: Awareness of your strengths, your gaps, your tendencies, your core core motivators, and then bringing into the awareness of how does that play with others and understanding that dynamic.
• 1:31
  Jill: And then that extrapolates into awareness of culture and organization.
• 1:36
  Jill: Um, but again, the primary piece is know thyself.
• 1:40
  Peter: I like it, and it's such an important part that uh I know that Dave and I have both been in situations where we've worked senior leaders who have maybe been a little reluctant to take the look in the mirror and uh maybe consider that perhaps their behaviors might be what's in the station.
• 1:55
  Jill: Well, I I actually think that's one of my core motivators for doing what I do and why I'm with behavioral essentials.
• 2:03
  Jill: We all know the pain of working for that leader that is unwilling to take that moment of reflection and understand how they are actually creating more work.
• 2:18
  Jill: And we're all having to do the work around them.
• 2:20
  Jill: And we're having meetings about managing them in order for us then to do our actual task, which is in our job description.
• 2:28
  Jill: So, yes, our worlds would be just that much easier if we all did the hard work.
• 2:35
  Jill: But it it is, it is ultimately what we as a company lean into with a concept of blind spots.
• 2:41
  Jill: Yeah.
• 2:42
  Jill: Um, we have those leaders, we all have blind spots, but there are leaders with many more blind spots than others.
• 2:48
  Jill: And because they are unwilling to be vulnerable, they're unwilling to as you put it perfectly, Peter, look in the mirror.
• 2:56
  Jill: Um, they don't want to.
• 2:57
  Jill: It's it's a little scary sometimes to look in the mirror and to sit with that and to sit with your gifts.
• 3:02
  Jill: And it's it's nice to sit with your gifts.
• 3:05
  Jill: The interesting piece I'll bring forward is as we talk about blind spots, often your blind spots are when your gifts are overused.
• 3:12
  Jill: So to play with that concept, sitting in the mirror, like I know I bring energy, I bring speed, I move fast, and that helps us get a lot of things done.
• 3:24
  Jill: It's also really frustrating when someone tells me to slow down.
• 3:28
  Jill: Um, but I know that is a huge task.
• 3:32
  Jill: So as leaders often think I've really been successful in this way all of my career.
• 3:38
  Jill: Guys, I know how to do this, I'm the best at this.
• 3:41
  Jill: I have done it this year.
• 3:42
  Jill: In 2018, I did it this way, in 2012 I did this way, in 2006.
• 3:46
  Jill: Well, the situation has changed and you're still relying on those same strengths.
• 3:50
  Jill: And now they've tipped over and you're unable to see how they're not applicable.
• 3:56
  Jill: So that awareness, then it becomes very much an attack.
• 3:59
  Jill: Like, oh no, no, this is my gift, guys.
• 4:01
  Jill: You're attacking who I am, and that makes it even harder sometimes for someone to do the reflection.
• 4:08
  Peter: When was the last time you learned?
• 4:09
  Peter: What was the last book you read?
• 4:12
  Jill: I I I would love to give some books to people and find yourself in here.
• 4:17
  Jill: Yeah.
• 4:18
  Dave: I'm I uh what I find interesting about how we've started this whole conversation, how so many conversations that I end up having around capacity, around how we're going to resource things, and this whole con this discussion around people, like they're fungible assets, like they're they're cogs in a machine that you can just kind of swap one out and put another one in.
• 4:36
  Dave: And yet the immediate conversation we've just had is realize we're all we all bring different motivations, different traits, different experiences.
• 4:43
  Dave: And those experiences change over time.
• 4:45
  Dave: They're contextual, they depend on what happens around us.
• 4:49
  Dave: And yet we have this sort of invalidated assumption that still is used over and over again to justify uh you know 15% of your time on a project, or you don't need to be dedicated on a team.
• 5:01
  Dave: I need you to be here and I all at the same time.
• 5:04
  Dave: Or we can just bring someone, we'll just outsource that and bring somebody in.
• 5:07
  Dave: There's some sort of really weird balance there.
• 5:10
  Dave: What is your recommendation when you see that?
• 5:13
  Dave: How do you start drawing attention to the misunderstanding or helping people understand what can change their what's your approach?
• 5:22
  Jill: It's an interesting piece.
• 5:23
  Jill: We often think about there are people who are very oriented to results, and then that tip teeter-totter kind of tips away for relationships, and then there's people who are really oriented to relationships, and sometimes results tip away.
• 5:35
  Jill: And we see it a lot in business because, especially with like private equities in there or a publicly traded company, you're living quarter to quarter.
• 5:45
  Jill: So we have to be about results, results, results.
• 5:47
  Jill: We become transactional.
• 5:49
  Jill: And so that that teeter-totter that like balances between results and relationships, because there's sometimes you have to give and take to like manage an equilibrium of that teeter-totter.
• 6:00
  Jill: It's it really becomes about understanding what is needed for the organization today, and how do the people we have serve that?
• 6:11
  Jill: And how do we have some gaps and looking at the ecosystem of the team because you're better together?
• 6:19
  Jill: We we have teams for a reason.
• 6:21
  Jill: We can't do half of this alone.
• 6:24
  Jill: And and thinking that someone shows up just to do a job, just to get a paycheck, means you're ultimately leaving work output on the table.
• 6:35
  Jill: And so you have to balance those results with relationship.
• 6:40
  Jill: And for each of us, it looks differently.
• 6:42
  Jill: But knowing that leader, like so, understanding when you you come against that leader that's like results.
• 6:47
  Jill: I don't care if you're crying, I don't care if you're struggling, just do what I ask of you.
• 6:54
  Jill: Like we work in some five-star restaurants, chefs.
• 6:57
  Jill: Yeah, oh, chefs.
• 6:59
  Jill: They they are not ones that are known for taking care of their people and slowing down and making sure you're okay.
• 7:06
  Jill: They're like, the food must be served.
• 7:09
  Jill: Yeah, but what they realize is how how do they get those same results and not demean or diminish the people along the way and say, I'm just gonna get another line chef or sous chef or whatever they need as they're pushing those results forward.
• 7:27
  Jill: So it is it's about them understanding themselves and how they're gonna show up in those circumstances.
• 7:34
  Jill: If we just go to people are your greatest asset, well, the greatest asset that they stop taking onus in individually on that.
• 7:44
  Peter: I can imagine chefs in particular would be very difficult to persuade of that.
• 7:50
  Jill: It is not something you do in one sitting, usually.
• 7:54
  Jill: Restaurant nightmares kind of imagine there is other But it goes back to this concept that our gifts are usually our blind spots.
• 8:04
  Jill: So it's just as we think about what our gifts are, and that chef's like, I know how to cook, I know to get things done, I gotta protect this.
• 8:11
  Jill: Where where is that serving us?
• 8:13
  Jill: And where might I make that?
• 8:15
  Jill: It's not a huge tweak, it's typically a smaller tweak.
• 8:18
  Jill: How do I tweak that so that I can get that same result?
• 8:21
  Peter: Do you see that uh occurring more often?
• 8:23
  Peter: I mean, one of the common problems we see in uh in technology, especially, is that people who get moved into those leadership roles uh can, if they're very talented or very smart, it may happen very quickly, and they haven't necessarily been given the time or the opportunity to develop um soft skills or leadership skills.
• 8:41
  Peter: And so they know how to do the job.
• 8:43
  Peter: And I know I've personally have many stories on these lines, but where even though they know how to do the job, their ability to lead others in doing the job is sometimes uh not so good, I must say.
• 8:57
  Jill: Well, I I know we don't have three days to talk about this because I probably have three days worth of scenarios.
• 9:04
  Jill: Actually, tomorrow, Martin Dubin, who wrote our blind spotting book, is speaking to a group of technology engineers in California because it's a growing company, it has just gone public.
• 9:15
  Jill: They need their engineers to continue to build and develop as managers.
• 9:21
  Jill: And they're like, I am an amazing engineer.
• 9:25
  Jill: You don't need me to do anything more.
• 9:28
  Jill: And what they found is as they transition, their identity as engineer is the loudest identity they wear.
• 9:37
  Jill: And as they have to put on a new identity that says manager, leader, they aren't ready to part with that kind of engineering identity.
• 9:50
  Jill: And that becomes an identity blind spot.
• 9:52
  Jill: They haven't realized that they have to take one label off to put on another or diminish, put one down kind of lesser on the priority list.
• 10:01
  Jill: It's also they kind of have perceived in many ways that they haven't needed that to be successful, and so it's shifting that information.
• 10:11
  Jill: Marty, who again wrote blind spotting, a key concept he always brings forward, because he worked with a number of startups in Silicon Valley, was engineers and technologists and kind of those doers, they don't tend to lean into the emotion.
• 10:24
  Jill: And if we frame emotion as just data, you wouldn't leave certain pieces of data on the table.
• 10:31
  Jill: Why are we leaving emotion on the table?
• 10:34
  Jill: So if if kind of reframing emotion as data helps those that are more kind of like, I can just do what I'm doing, and is like, okay, well, you wouldn't do what you're doing without a certain piece of information.
• 10:49
  Jill: So add more information to your table.
• 10:51
  Jill: So therefore, you have to learn how to compute this information and process it so that you can lead.
• 10:57
  Jill: But yes, it's it is an important journey on someone, whatever subject matter expert, they go from that doing role to leading role to being a leader of leaders role.
• 11:07
  Jill: There is a grief process that comes with kind of mourning I was a really good doer, and I hung my hat on being that really good doer, whatever that is, whether it's a surgeon or a chef or a technology engineer.
• 11:23
  Dave: I I loved it in the in the book, when I guess Marty is talking about the identity of founder to founder plus CEO to CEO, and that whole as you're describing it, I can almost picture in my own mind where I am.
• 11:35
  Dave: I'm not going to pretend like I'm actually in my office, but luckily nobody of the team is here because they'd all be making faces at me and saying, That's not you, you're a hero.
• 11:44
  Dave: So we need to redo this with your team opposite.
• 11:46
  Dave: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:48
  Dave: They'd be giving me a hard time, put it that way.
• 11:50
  Dave: But the the that identity, and it's it is a crisis because you don't want to let go of what you've always known and what you I what you carry around with you, and the way you describe yourself to people that you meet.
• 12:05
  Peter: Yes.
• 12:05
  Dave: And yet as your as your role is changing, it's different yeah, I can really see that sort of balancing out and not wanting to quieten the voice which is your primary identity, and yet we need to shift that.
• 12:18
  Dave: It's that was really just one of those things that resonated very, very well with a lot of the challenges that I mean, Peter and myself, we talk a lot about you know growing our organizations and what the the difficulty of leadership is, and that identity really nailed a piece there.
• 12:34
  Jill: Yeah, especially from startup to sustaining business.
• 12:38
  Jill: That's a really hard transition.
• 12:40
  Jill: And and some people never want to change that identity, so they just go start up again.
• 12:45
  Peter: Yeah, we there's often that there's the sort of cliff at which you hit a certain amount, and it's the organization's this big and I'm this type of leader.
• 12:53
  Peter: I I don't want to be the next type of leader.
• 12:55
  Peter: And uh there's the schools of thought that say, well, this person is no good at that, so I'm not gonna ask them to do it.
• 13:02
  Peter: Well, maybe it's that they don't want to change their identity, they don't want to relearn some of the things they learned or to grow with the organization, and they're more comfortable going back to what they like, which is the starting the new piece and building that initial part and not growing it.
• 13:19
  Jill: Well, oftentimes, I don't know if you've experienced this, we see it in leaders across all roles when they get pro truly promoted to uh a C-suite, and sometimes that leader of leaders role is too far removed, and they're like, I I love the title, I love the power, but they really want to go back to that contributor because that's their their true happy spot.
• 13:45
  Jill: And it then then the dynamic becomes well, is it a demotion to say, I don't want to be a C suite X uh role, I really want to be a Y role and like a like a chief marketer who really just loved being a graphic designer or an artist, and they have just gotten too far removed from their passion.
• 14:09
  Jill: But it's now they're afraid of the perception of demotion um or like losing power, losing pay, but their greater potential is going back to being that contributor role versus the leader role.
• 14:22
  Peter: The impact to status is is huge.
• 14:25
  Peter: And once status starts to change, people uh get scared.
• 14:29
  Jill: Yes.
• 14:30
  Peter: So it's where what do I do now?
• 14:32
  Peter: How do I how do I react to this?
• 14:34
  Peter: And uh it's partly that as a society we tend to look at people as well, the higher up the ladder you are, the better you are, and uh the more kudos you get.
• 14:46
  Peter: So it the society as a whole makes it feel like you're taking a demotion, um, even if you're really just doing it because that's the place that you feel happier.
• 14:55
  Jill: And Dave, to your opening question about awareness, that's where awareness is now beyond yourself.
• 15:00
  Jill: As a leader of leaders, if you are a CEO and you realize that you have promoted someone because they are really good at a task, you it's the onus becomes back on you as the CEO or whoever is above that person to help that person understands their gifts and where they need to go back to.
• 15:21
  Jill: Because it's that status, Peter, it's so hard to give up.
• 15:26
  Jill: And you really have to scaffold it with communication and support.
• 15:30
  Jill: So it doesn't look because it the perception become is just so the shame uh of it is really hard for people to navigate.
• 15:39
  Dave: I find it um, as we're just discussing some of these very um that they're on the emotions and the feelings, and as you were saying, the bits that I was thinking when you were describing it from a developer's perspective, it's all the unstructured data.
• 15:52
  Dave: We don't need to deal with that.
• 15:52
  Dave: We've got structured data over here, we'll deal with that.
• 15:55
  Dave: But um, one of the things, again, that we keep coming across in our conversations around this sort of the environment that we're working in nowadays is the complexity that we're seeing everywhere, the the pace of change, trying to stay on top of all of these things, moving as quickly as they are.
• 16:12
  Dave: And part of it being that the demand for leaders who are aware, who understand these sort of kind of um transformations that people are going through individually as they take on more responsibility or as they they change their identities within an organization, uh seems to be much more prevalent today than was, say, a decade ago.
• 16:36
  Dave: And I'm just wondering if you see exactly that, whether that sort of complexity of the environment is driving a change in leadership, the need for different leadership behaviors.
• 16:47
  Jill: I would definitely say it is one of the factors.
• 16:49
  Jill: I do also think there is generational shifts that have created more acceptance of how we work and understanding this.
• 17:03
  Jill: So there generational shifts from millennials to Gen Z to Alpha, like they're raised in an era where it's okay to share your feeling.
• 17:16
  Jill: Perhaps be you know, there's consequences to that too.
• 17:19
  Jill: Like we we've all read the articles of Gen Z not doing anything more than they're asked in pieces and be like, nope, that's my boundary.
• 17:28
  Jill: But if we go to the silent generation and the boomers, like they they were just like, we gotta survive, we gotta just do our work.
• 17:35
  Jill: It was carrot and stick, it was the way of work.
• 17:37
  Jill: It was factory line work, it was a very different task that many people in the kind of middle class did.
• 17:45
  Jill: And so it was very much reward punish, reward, punish.
• 17:50
  Jill: And that's how we got the best out of our people.
• 17:53
  Jill: And what both science, social sciences have taught us is we'll actually get more out of our people if we look at them as whole humans.
• 18:01
  Jill: And what do they need on all of the different facets in a different complexity of a workspace where most of us are not working in a factory industrial setting anymore in kind of our corporate America?
• 18:16
  Jill: And so there is more thinking time needed.
• 18:20
  Jill: There's so in a thinking environment, carrots and sticks don't actually get best thoughts.
• 18:26
  Jill: And so if we look at out, like I think the change of business has changed the awareness for sure, but it's also the work has changed in the sense of what do we need as outputs?
• 18:38
  Jill: We need creative thought, we need strategic think kind of problem solving, we need collaboration and communication.
• 18:48
  Jill: And those don't come when you are in a thumb on the back of your neck environment.
• 18:54
  Jill: Um, they come when you're supported and people recognize when you're in bereavement or you're navigating new parenthood, or you are in the complexities of a midlife journey.
• 19:09
  Jill: Like those are all things, if we can recognize them, then we're gonna get more buy-in, better work, better thoughts, better for a company out of those things.
• 19:17
  Jill: And millennials and Gen Z are just less tolerant of accepting anything less.
• 19:24
  Jill: So I do think that generational push versus Gen Xers that are kind of stuck in the no man's land between boomers and millennials.
• 19:35
  Dave: No fair enough.
• 19:36
  Dave: I think my kids would agree with pretty much everything you've said in the last few minutes, and they'd be going the same, nodding their head, going, see, we keep talking to you about this.
• 19:47
  Peter: Yeah, expectations, right?
• 19:48
  Peter: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:49
  Peter: Yeah, the a lot of the new generations have a different set of expectations out of the workplace than uh the this us older people, I guess.
• 19:59
  Jill: Well, I I Put it also this way is a person like a solid Gen Xer.
• 20:04
  Jill: So someone is between 50 and early 60s, I think is Gen X, 45 to 65.
• 20:09
  Jill: I don't know what the actual ages of Gen X are.
• 20:12
  Jill: In that range, you just don't have a lot of practice because you weren't, you didn't start in high school reflecting about yourself.
• 20:20
  Jill: You were like, just wrote memorization, know your times tables, know your periodic table, memorize history, get it written, get it done.
• 20:28
  Jill: Like there, whereas they education has changed.
• 20:32
  Jill: So the school systems have changed and the classrooms have changed, and there's much more.
• 20:37
  Jill: Let's reflect on who you want to be when you grow up.
• 20:39
  Jill: So it started in the classroom.
• 20:41
  Jill: And so there's just more practice and more understanding of how to use those muscles of self-reflection, perhaps to their benefit or to others' schgrin, but um that than someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s.
• 20:59
  Peter: Yeah, I think I think that um it will often depend uh on the who's gonna react better to that too, whether they take those lessons with them, because I I'm just thinking to the the variety of uh what are now basically young adults coming into the uh workforce now, and I think some of them have uh learned some of those lessons better than others.
• 21:19
  Peter: Uh so there's probably not that much difference in some cases.
• 21:24
  Peter: It it is it is fascinating though that um the the reluctance to go into that space.
• 21:32
  Peter: I mean it but it applies not just across workforce, it applies across your personal lives too.
• 21:37
  Peter: Um but so it's um one of those things of having to understand, like, well, why that one of the questions you ask is, well, why are you reacting like that?
• 21:46
  Peter: Like what is the what's caught what is it that the person you're talking with has caused you to react in that way?
• 21:51
  Peter: Like what is it about what they're saying or how they're behaving that is uh getting that reaction from you?
• 21:57
  Peter: And that sort of uh introspection, the ability to look at yourself and say, okay, I can I can see what it is that they said.
• 22:04
  Peter: Uh I'm gonna count to 10 before I reply.
• 22:08
  Jill: That is a helpful tool for everyone listening.
• 22:11
  Jill: That one actually works.
• 22:13
  Jill: There's data behind that.
• 22:15
  Peter: Yes, but that email you're about to send when you're really, really angry, you send it tomorrow.
• 22:19
  Peter: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Jill: Still works.
• 22:21
  Jill: Promise everyone, if they're looking for a how-to tip, that is a key one.
• 22:24
  Jill: But it it it's also I think, Peter, you just also positioned it in a way that perhaps is more palatable.
• 22:31
  Jill: It's just practicing asking the question why instead of being like, oh, you need to be vulnerable, you need to like because sometimes the work we do actually gets put into the like woo-woo space, like, oh, you're so in touch with your feelings.
• 22:44
  Jill: That's not business.
• 22:44
  Jill: No, like, no, this is just practicing curiosity, practicing smart decision making by asking why.
• 22:51
  Jill: So there's ways to reposition it for audiences in the way that resonates with them.
• 22:59
  Jill: But you just went through a series of why questions, Peter, that are all self-reflection questions that are pragmatic and helpful in any and every meeting all of us are in.
• 23:10
  Peter: There's there's a reason as a coach that I would not normally, for example, ask, like, who are you when you're in that situation?
• 23:16
  Peter: It's like, and they your typical business leader is gonna probably throw you out the window if you start asking questions like that.
• 23:23
  Peter: And unless you've already established that there's somebody who's gonna respond well to that type of uh question.
• 23:28
  Peter: Uh so it's I always find it's better to ask things like, what role do you play in that?
• 23:33
  Peter: Like, uh what's your role in making this happen?
• 23:36
  Peter: So that it's still about identity, but it's not so tied into something that's um I think as you put it, woo-woo, fluffy fluff.
• 23:45
  Jill: Woo woo.
• 23:45
  Jill: We we often position it too in our work is like sh share what others might be perceiving of you right now.
• 23:52
  Jill: Um so that you again, it def safety in the deflection.
• 23:57
  Peter: Yes, yes.
• 23:58
  Peter: Perception is actually a very interesting word too.
• 24:00
  Peter: It's uh it's one you should always listen to in business conversations.
• 24:04
  Peter: If uh somebody's saying, well, this is how I perceive it, or this is what I see, it's like, or it's what I hear.
• 24:09
  Peter: And it's very much a that's their viewpoint of it versus uh what might actually be happening.
• 24:15
  Peter: And so in its case of, well, maybe we need to dig a little deeper here.
• 24:19
  Jill: Well, I I actually think that's the beauty of teamworks in the work team work in the workspace, because there how much do we actually have an accurate perception of what's going on?
• 24:32
  Jill: And it sometimes it does take two or three sets of eyes, minds, hearts, ears to to actually make sure we're seeing it in the fullest of light.
• 24:42
  Jill: And that's also the work that isn't always done in kind of corporate America or corporate environments, because it's where we're like, no, we just we made a decision, we're gonna move with it.
• 24:54
  Jill: But like, where is it my point of view versus your point of view versus Dave's point of view?
• 25:00
  Jill: And how do we wrestle with the conflict, the the healthy conflict and the safety of talking about why your point of view is your point of view, Peter versus Dave's versus mine.
• 25:12
  Peter: And if you never have any conflict, that's almost a sure sign that everybody is just listening to the highest person's opinion.
• 25:20
  Peter: And and if nobody is ever disagreeing with anything you say, then you probably also should take a look at yourself.
• 25:27
  Jill: Yes.
• 25:28
  Dave: I was gonna one of the things, whenever I sort sort of um explore some of these areas, I'm always intrigued by the the benefit that is generated by having teams that can really work with one another and and talk through those perceptions because sometimes people get obsessed with the speed of which something is happening, but of course, going really quickly in the wrong direction just means you're further and further away from where you need to be.
• 25:58
  Dave: And but I don't know how to articulate that in some sort of number of how much more of the decisions we need to make require multiple people coming together, how much better, more productive teams are working in knowledge work, in that work where they've got to explore and be wrong and try different things and work with one another, um, compared to that environment where the thumb's on the back of the neck or it's it's a carrot and stick approach.
• 26:26
  Dave: Because there's it feels to me like the scoring system from the carrot and stick approach is still being used, and we don't know how to adjust the storing scoring system for that more emergent collective intelligence that comes out of Teams.
• 26:41
  Dave: And I don't have an answer for that.
• 26:42
  Dave: I wonder if there's anything that if there is an answer for that yet.
• 26:45
  Jill: Or it's it's always the challenge as a company that sells services like we do.
• 26:51
  Jill: What are the KPIs of this?
• 26:52
  Jill: Show me how this is going to impact my bottom line.
• 26:55
  Jill: And then say, well, the markets were this, the environment was that.
• 26:58
  Jill: Like, what is actually your role in this?
• 27:01
  Jill: It's it's very challenging to demonstrate that impact when especially you're living quarter by quarter and you have shareholders that are like, how did this work of reflection actually create?
• 27:16
  Jill: And where do you see those measures?
• 27:18
  Jill: And you can see some of the pieces in engagement surveys and retention, but how do you actually see it at the C-suite layer?
• 27:27
  Jill: That's I think is very subjective, but you can see the beauty of chemistry of teams that are have that chemistry.
• 27:37
  Jill: And you can see the consequences.
• 27:41
  Jill: How much time is a team spending talking about each other at the C-suite level versus doing the task of running the company?
• 27:49
  Jill: Like that would be a very measurable even if you looked at, okay, your team, let's go to your your team, whatever your cadence of meetings are for that team.
• 27:59
  Jill: Record one of your sessions, have AI in there, and say, How much time do we actually talk about business today?
• 28:06
  Jill: And how much time were we talking about people and our struggles with people?
• 28:10
  Dave: That's one of those thoughtful moments where I'm sitting there imagining the last few conversations I've had.
• 28:16
  Dave: Okay.
• 28:19
  Jill: As a company that talks about people all the time, there's a piece of it, but there's you have to think about how much of it is just talking in a uh complaining way versus a like I'm I'm now learning you better, Dave, and I'm learning you better, Peter, so that we have more trust.
• 28:37
  Jill: We have the cut the recipe for trust.
• 28:39
  Jill: We have connection, we have understanding, we have the ability to have disagreements and not feel like you're attacking me versus I'm attacking you.
• 28:48
  Jill: And then I'm gonna go run to Dave and tell him what Peter did to me and then waste another hour talking about Peter.
• 28:53
  Peter: There's always a waste of talking about me.
• 28:56
  Jill: But I think that one might be our measurable metric.
• 28:59
  Jill: I I will I'll play with that over the year and report back.
• 29:02
  Dave: Well, it's so the other area, the other area I like to look at is we're we're very familiar with it when we look at sports teams.
• 29:09
  Dave: And we look at sports teams and the coaches and the general managers, and we expect them to, it's all about people management.
• 29:15
  Dave: That's talked about from the the commentators box, it's talked about in the the articles that you can read, the journalists and so on.
• 29:23
  Dave: And yet we don't have the same perspective.
• 29:26
  Dave: There's that sort of perceive perception again in a business context, and yet again, when we follow team sports, that's a big, big component that feeds into the success of the teams that whoever are the six the teams that are being supported.
• 29:41
  Jill: I think we we actually reference that in the blind spotting book a lot because it is about tweaks, and the more as you elevate as a professional athlete, the more coaching you get.
• 29:54
  Jill: So an NFL player, I mean how long is a football game?
• 29:58
  Jill: An hour without advertisements, like um, so for one hour of game time, they practice 40, 60, 80 hours a week.
• 30:10
  Jill: And in the work world, we are in game mode.
• 30:16
  Jill: All right, 39 of those 40 hours.
• 30:20
  Jill: And maybe there's one hour of, hey Jill, let's talk about how you're doing, let's talk about how you're showing up.
• 30:27
  Jill: Hey, Jill, let's let's invest in you and how and where where you have some strengths and it might need some tweaks, or where that um opportunity is like and because at the at this elite level of business, we're experienced.
• 30:46
  Jill: And so it's not teaching you how to hit the golf ball, it's tweaking that swing ever so slightly so you get 100 more yards.
• 30:54
  Peter: I'm getting a lot out of uh series of very short conversations, like what so it's how can I cram as much as possible into uh this this conversation to help you think about like what's the next thing you could try?
• 31:05
  Peter: And like let's check back in and uh we can see how did that work?
• 31:08
  Peter: What did you get out of that?
• 31:10
  Peter: What did you see could be valuable?
• 31:12
  Jill: Absolutely.
• 31:13
  Peter: It's uh I I think it's really interesting conversation.
• 31:15
  Peter: I mean, we could probably talk about this for several hours.
• 31:18
  Peter: Uh but uh just to sort of bring it somewhat to wrap it up, we we normally like to uh do that with uh at least three points, and so we get one from uh each of us today.
• 31:32
  Peter: And so I I think I'll hand it to you, Jill.
• 31:34
  Peter: What uh would you like our listeners to take away from this conversation today?
• 31:38
  Jill: Recognizing we all have blind spots.
• 31:41
  Jill: And so that starts with reflecting and talking to those that you work with to better understand who you are.
• 31:48
  Jill: So, first thought is spend time thinking about where do you have a strength that if you put the adjective T-O or the amplifier, whatever the word is T O O in front of, it has now turned into a gap for you.
• 32:06
  Jill: And then talk to your team about that because that's the start of self-awareness is looking at that strength tipped over into a blind spot.
• 32:16
  Dave: I'm just following on to what Jill's just been talking about.
• 32:19
  Dave: That immediately brought me straight back to that identity conversation and that sort of progression of being an individual contributor to a leader, to a leader of leaders.
• 32:30
  Dave: And I I would say that's something that is already I went through the the assessment and had a look at a lot of different things coming out of that.
• 32:40
  Dave: I've had a read through some of the things that came to mind from it, and that one is sticking in my mind already.
• 32:46
  Dave: That was like one of the first things that came out of how that identity shifts as the responsibilities shift and what that means, because it is difficult to.
• 32:55
  Dave: I don't know if it's a grieving process or a letting go or a balancing process as we go through that, which is really kind of helping me rethink that journey.
• 33:04
  Jill: It is grief.
• 33:07
  Dave: Yes, and that's what I was I was kind of thinking it really is a grieving process, but not wanting to quite label it like that just yet.
• 33:15
  Dave: But I guess I have done now.
• 33:18
  Jill: It's grief.
• 33:19
  Peter: Pizza, back to you.
• 33:20
  Peter: Uh I put on the that that point the first time I moved into from an individual contributor role into a leadership role, they offered me the position and I said, nope.
• 33:31
  Peter: I was far too comfortable in what I was doing, and I it took me um two to three days.
• 33:37
  Peter: I came back and said, Okay, I'll try it under certain constraints as long as you let me out of it.
• 33:42
  Peter: Because I was really tired, I wanted to carry on doing what I was doing.
• 33:46
  Peter: So yeah, I mean it takes a lot to move, and I I think sometimes we we don't give people enough credit um for what it takes to actually do that type of shift.
• 33:56
  Peter: Uh anyway, for my my point, or the third point, I think uh I really enjoyed a lot of the conversation um we had tonight, Jill.
• 34:04
  Peter: It was uh really good.
• 34:05
  Peter: I think there's uh some of the pieces around how we frame it within organizations, I think, are very good takeaways for our listeners.
• 34:12
  Peter: Like the it's I think you brought up a lot of good points there around how it impacts people if we frame it in the right way and it's received in the right way, that can be very valuable.
• 34:23
  Peter: Um I like the not too fluffy, but uh that's partly that's some of my own things.
• 34:28
  Peter: I have blind spots in that I should work on.
• 34:31
  Peter: So uh there are but I think it's very important to understand uh who you're talking to and what's gonna resonate with them.
• 34:40
  Peter: It's a good point.
• 34:42
  Peter: So as well.
• 34:43
  Peter: So thank you, uh Jill, and uh thank you, Dave, as always.
• 34:46
  Peter: And this is maybe the our last one of the year, I'll have to see, but uh we we sometimes take a break over the holiday season, and uh we'll look forward to seeing all our listeners in the new year, but we'll see how that goes.
• 34:58
  Peter: And uh look forward to next time.
• 35:00
  Peter: So thank you very much, Joe.
• 35:01
  Peter: Thanks, Dave.
• 35:02
  Peter: And you've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock focus on the art and science of digital, agile, and DevOps at scale.