The Art of Leading Leaders | Develop:Brighton 2024

All right. Good morning. Welcome to develop. It's my first day. Who's been here in the last couple days enjoying it? Hands. Yes, I see some hands. Awesome. I am Charity Joy. I started my career in game development in 2006. Part of the Club Penguin startup, was quickly acquired by the Walt Disney Company. Worked for Disney for 10 years. Left games, finished an MBA, became a coach, did a health tech startup, came back to games three years ago as part of EA, specifically on the sports side with UFC. Now I'm the GM of Criterion. We're looking at Need for Speed and co-development of Battlefield. I am excited to be here today to talk to you about leading leaders. As you know with any craft, wait,

I'll use my fingers. All right. With any art or craft, you have to have the tools of your craft. And there becomes uh an inevitable time in everyone's career where you have to make a choice. Am I taking the path that allows me to continue in my expertise or am I taking a path where I have to manage people who are smarter than me at a lot of things? How many people in this room are already leading leaders? Managing people whose expertise you do not have. Yeah. Okay. A lot of you. How many of you aspire to that someday? Yeah. Awesome. Today I want to share with you some of the tools that I have learned along the way. That path for me happened day two of my startup career in game development when the head of tech says I don't like managing production you manage production and I said okay and the only tool that I had at the time was naivity

and it worked for the first week and then after that I had to collect a couple more. So, this is by no means exhaustive, but I want to share with you six key tools that I have learned that I hope will allow you to continue to hone your craft. Let us start with curiosity. You've probably heard this before. The ability to be open, the ability to ask questions, to have a curious nature. I want to talk a little bit today about what gets in the way of curiosity. And I think what gets in the way of curiosity is a sense of knowing. We bring expertise and experience to our roles. And so there's a lot of things that we know. And the problem with knowing is it's closed off from learning. It's closed off from other opportunities. And when we know, it is dangerous when it comes to leading people who have different expertise than yourself. And it closes off you to

opportunities to understand. When I was a coach, I knew a lot. I had a lot of frameworks. I had a lot of really good questions. I had a lot of really good scenarios. But it was like me knowing that the difference between painting with watercolor is is quite significant to painting with oil. The truth is I've never painted with either. I just know. And I knew a lot in coaching, but I didn't have the actual lived experience of many of the things that I was telling other people to do. And so, we have to know that sometimes it's just information, but it other times it needs to be transformation. It needs to be into our bodies in a way that is actually meaningful. The other trap that we get into with knowing is, well, I've seen this before. You know back in 2007 when I was doing this I've seen this before and again it

is something that prevents us from understanding what is the true thing that's happening now. What is the experience of the people in the team or the product or the players? It is changing so often that when we think we know we might be missing something really really big. I would encourage you not to know. And the antidote to knowing is to be okay with being the non-expert. It's okay that you don't know. In fact, it can be really fun not to know because then you get to get actually curious. Then you get to go and have the joy of discovery of like, well, I think I know, but do I really know? What do you think about it? What do you think? What have you seen? What have you heard? And be able to learn along the way. There is a joy in finding out. And the main tool of curiosity is the tool of asking. Asking a question. asking for permission maybe or forgiveness, whichever you choose. Asking for an opportunity.

The ability to ask is incredibly important. And there's many types of questions. There's questions like, "Are you sure that was a good idea? Not a not a great question. There's a better question. Hey, what what about that idea makes you excited? What what are you trying to achieve with that strategy that you have?" There's better ways to ask the question. There's leading questions where you're like, "Well, I know where this should go, so I'm just going to lead you along the way and you're going to follow me." No. No. You're leading experts. You're leading leaders. Ask a question. Find out what is below the surface. And be open to what you might find. If you're truly curious when you're asking a question, you might be surprised. And surprise is good. You might not also like the answer and that's okay too. If you don't like the answer, you can ask more questions and you might want to ask yourself, why does this rub me the wrong way? Getting curious about the people around

us, getting curious about ourselves. This is an integral skill when you're leading leaders. Knowing will get in the way. One of my favorite habits that I try to habituate is to answer a question with a question. I had an all hands a couple weeks ago and one of my team members asked, you know, what are you doing about the culture in our studio? And so I launched into this beautiful saliloquy about culture and the importance of values and and then I went, wait a minute, am I answering your question? He said, no, I just want to know if we're having a summer party. Huh. Okay, I could have asked, right? Oftentimes we hear the question. We're also conditioned as leaders to have the answer. We're conditioned as children in school to have the answer. Having the right answer is how we've been conditioned. People look to us for answers. But I would ask that you pause a little bit before you answer and ask. Even if you think you know the answer,

dig a little deeper. to see if there's a nuance there so that the answer you are giving is thoughtful, helpful, appropriate and not a monologue like me. Which leads us to the next tool. Again, obvious but want to talk a little bit about communication. We know a lot about communication. We do active listening courses. We know it's not just about talking. It is about listening. all of these things. I went to a musical improv workshop not long ago. Very fun. You learn to improvise a fulllength musical, including all of the songs. It is a challenge. Now, the most challenging part of improvising a musical is not the course. Sorry, it is the course. Is not the verses because you can kind of make up a verse on the spot and it's fine and you're doing it alone. But the idea with a singalongable chorus is you want to

get the rest of your cast to sing along, which means the first time you sing the chorus, you're you're making it up. The second time you sing it, you have to sing it exactly the same. And then the third time you sing exactly the same as the first time you sang it, or else nobody's going to be able to follow along. It's got to be simple. It's got to be memorable. And it's got to be something that people can pick up really quickly. When we are leading leaders and we are leading large teams, we need to create singalongable choruses. Whether it's a vision for a project or the creative direction for a project, something around our culture or values, we want something that's repeatable so that it's clear, right? And why is that? It's because clear is kind. Thank you, Bnee Brown. But it's true. I am a firm believer that our teams come to work wanting to do a good job. I really don't think there's anyone's like ah just gonna be I'm just

here for the paycheck. I think maybe you'd be in a different industry. Although games is not bad for that. Um but if it is not clear what we are expecting of our teams, how can they show up in the best way? And if we are not clear as leaders, how can we expect our teams to be clear? And so this idea of a singalongable course is really important and not unique to improv musicals. I spoke with the leadership team that designed the animal kingdom in the Florida Walt Disney World park and the creative leader of the animal kingdom said he came up with a one-word sentence for his team which was something like an authentic encounter with nature. That was the theme. And so that the thousands of people that were building this park, if they had to make a decision, they could make a decision based on an authentic encounter with nature. So even if you're the person picking the doororknobs for the toilets and you see one that's silver and shiny and square

and then you see one that's rugged and pitted and brass, you know which decision to make. You don't have to go ask. And this is the power of a clear and simple message that everybody can connect on. And the reality especially in leadership and I see this all the time with my team. I'm by no means perfect. But when we are confused at the top, that confusion is just magnified down. If there is no clarity at the leadership level, there is no clarity at the team level. And that's our responsibility as leaders. And so becoming really clear and succinct is important. Sports teams do this. I could probably sing a football song. You could all sing along. Religions do this. We could quote scripture. A lot of places that allow multitudes of people to be on the same page have adopted this mentality of a simple singalongable chorus.

On the other side of communication, it is both of the what you are saying, but also the how you are saying it. I am so excited to be here with you today. So excited to be here with you today. Same words, different posture, different tone, different meaning. Our teams are watching us. We are wired as humans to look at facial expression, to understand the tone of voice, to know what a smile means, what a frown means, what a little twitch in the eye means when you say something you thought was a good idea and maybe someone else didn't think it was such a good idea and then you're wondering for the rest of the day. What we say and how we say it does matter. And one of the traps that I see we as leaders fall into, I as a leader fall into when it comes to communication is, well, they should know. They're experts. They've been building games for 30 years. They should I shouldn't have to

tell them. Do you know how many times I'm surprised that we forget how to build games every cycle we build a game? Like we we Okay, we can't expect people to know. We also the other side of this spectrum is well actually I've got this bad news but I don't think they can handle it. I think this is going to be really upsetting for people. And we might think that's empathy, but we're actually making a judgment call of the maturity of our leadership and our team and their ability to manage their own emotions. It's not really fair. Yes, we want to construct a message in a in a positive way and be cognizant and intentional about that. But thinking that we know what people should know or we know how people are going to react is kind of putting ourselves in a little bit of an elevated position where I'm not quite sure we belong. It also robs us of the ability to

actually understand what our team will do, how they will react, what they will say. The other thing that I think is extremely important in communication is this concept that I call sentiment spreading. And this is what happens when somebody decides that their emotional state or their mood needs to leak out to everyone around them and needs to leak out to everything they're doing that day. This is when I show up to work and I didn't get a good night's sleep. I got a parking ticket on my car and I'm angry and I show up to a meeting and I show it. It sets the tone. The team's like, "She's off today. I wonder what happened. Is it me? Is it oof?" It's not fair. We're adults. We can manage our own emotions. We're setting the tone. The team is watching. And so the sentiment that we do spread should be intentional. Now, I am not saying stop your emotions

down. What I am saying is your team is not your therapist. They are not there for you to process with. You are leading a team of leaders. You show up consistently in the way that you choose to show up. And it is a choice. no matter what happens in the day. All right, let's move on to the next one. Coaching. How many of you have taken any coaching training? Yes. Yes. Good. Good. A good number of you. How many of you have noticed that there is a coach for everything nowadays? Everything. Yeah. I'm a big fan of leaders as coaches. I think it's incredibly important especially when you are leading people with expertise that you do not have which inevitably you will. I am also a really really big fan though of coaching training so that we actually understand what coaching is and what it is not. Oftentimes when we're coming up

into leadership and we start coaching people we think coaching is telling people what to do. that's consulting. Or we think it's telling people what you would do and that's mentorship. Or we think it's telling people how to do a new skill and that's teaching. And those are all absolutely legitimate hats for leaders of leaders to be wearing, but they are different hats. And I think it's very important that we are clear with our team which hat we're wearing and actually offering the opportunity for them to ask for a hat. I have a senior leader on my team that will literally come to me now and say, "I want your really direct hat." Okay. I want your coaching hat. Okay. It makes it clear what role I need to play to best support the people in my team. And one of the easiest ways to set the stage for that is to ask the question, do you want me to hear, to help, or to handle

this? If you're hearing, you're just being a sounding board. Maybe they need to vent. If you're helping, this could be in the coaching capacity. It could be in a consulting capacity. It could be in your training capacity or handle it. Maybe they're done and you just need to go figure it out for them. Here, help handle. How many times have you walked into a oneonone where you just wanted to vent and then that person goes and like does something about it. You're like, "Ah, no. That's not what I wanted." or you really want them to take action and they're just asking nice active listening questions and you're like, "No, that's not what I wanted." We have to be clear on what we want and what that relationship is in that moment. And those hats can change and they should change. The other thing to remember, and this is a great quote from Bnee Brown's new book, Atlas of the Heart, not so new anymore, I know, but that help is the sunny side of control. Sometimes we want to help

actually we just want to control the situation and that is something where we need to be aware as leaders and as our leaders leaders this is a slippery slope and a really easy nice thing to fall into but it's not that nice actually and so checking ourselves in our intention and our motive of why am I really trying to help here am I actually trying to help and it's okay if you want to correct a situation or take control but again be clear. Don't put it under that help umbrella if that's not truly what you're doing. The other thing that I believe about true coaching in my coaching training is the belief that the person in front of you actually has the right answers. It's not yours, it's theirs. And your role as a coach is to ask questions, to provide frameworks, to guide them on a journey to discovering what those answers might actually be, what might actually work best for them.

How many of you have taken voice lessons before? Singing. Anyone? Yeah, couple of folks. I've taken vocal lessons. You might not be able to tell. It was a while ago. But one of the things that was most interesting to me about a vocal coach is that vocal coach cannot know what's going on in my body, how it feels, how my voice sits, where it is in my mouth. But she can tell me how it sounds to her. She gave me exercises to try movement, different ways of breathing, and together as she coached me to figure out what worked best for my body, we found something that worked. It's the same idea with our coaching. And our coaching becomes more dangerous when we're actually coaching people in our area of expertise. It's almost simpler if you don't know what this person is doing. My head of technology easy. I can't give them any advice on anything technological. But I can coach. I can ask questions. If it's something that I do know, it's it's more dangerous because I'll start to get into, well,

this is what I would have done or back when I not appropriate. One of the tools that I really love to use with my team in a coaching session and in general is this idea of fantasy versus reality. Reality is the facts. What happened? I applied to speak at develop. I got accepted to speak at develop. I'm speaking in front of you now. Facts. Then there's the fantasy. And the fantasy is the story that I choose because I am a meaning making machine. As are you, as is every human. And so we're going to make those facts mean a thing. I can make those facts about develop mean I'm amazing. Clearly sought after as a speaker. Probably the first pick in the business track. Probably going to get a book deal out of this whole thing. You know,

amazing. Or I could make it mean there was probably no applicants. Uh they probably thought I was American, not Canadian. Uh I don't even know if the audience is listening. Like probably the worst speech I ever gave in my life. We make the meaning and we get to choose the story. And I will ask my team and my leaders and myself often, what is the reality? What is the factual things that happened? And then what are you making it mean? What is the story you're telling yourself? And it is so important to check the story that we're telling ourselves. The other way that I like to use this with my team is to talk about perception. We often get feedback as leaders. We get feedback on the leaders that we manage. And rather than say, "Hey, so your team thinks you're a total cold jerk." I would rather phrase that as hey you're

being perceived some of your actions and behaviors are having you're being perceived as cold. What might that be? Why might that be? Because we are talking about perception because everybody is doing their own meaning making. And so when there is meaning making that feedback is great. Oh, I'm being perceived as being too fluffy and not concrete enough. Okay, I did get that feedback when I was working in Montreal. They called me a puro d a cloud shoveler. That's what the engineers called me when I arrived because I was too up in the clouds trying to inspire rainbows and unicorns and they didn't like it and I was like that is good feedback of how I am being perceived. Guess what? I can change my tact. And so when we know what the perception is, we can go and say, okay, what behaviors or actions do we need to change to change the perception to

something that we would rather let's go on to the next tool, facilitation. I believe that when you are a leader of leaders, you have to be a good facilitator. You're a facilitator of goals. You're a facilitator of excellence. You're a facilitator of large groups. And part of facilitating is knowing when to lead and actually when to follow. I took some dance classes a while back and it was a partner dance and what I noticed in the workshops is that you could not tell who was leading or who was following in this style of dance. And many of the instructors that I encountered that summer on my exploration of this style had mastered both the lead and the follow. And it was incredible to watch. And I thought to

myself, this makes a lot of sense when we are leading other leaders. There will be times when you want to intentionally take the step back and follow. And we talk a lot about what it means to be a good leader when we're in leadership positions. But I think it is important that we also understand what does it mean to be a good follower. How can you intentionally and be intentional say to your teams, hey, this is where I'm going to step back. This is where your expertise is going to shine. Maybe it's a project, maybe it's a period of time, but allowing the leaders to step up and take the lead. Again, you're managing experts, you're leading leaders. Some of the sometimes the best way to allow them to shine is to get out of their way. Take a chance. Give it a try. Because one of the other traps that we as humans fall into, we as leaders, I myself, is

this simple game of us and them. Us the leaders, them the team. Us the executives, them the workforce. Us the creators, them the consumers. When I worked in health tech, it was us the developers, them the patients. But who hasn't been a medical patient? It was the separations, creation of space that doesn't really exist. And so we have to remember to treat our teams and our leaders for what they are, which is humans that have expertise and areas of opportunities that are honing their skills just like us. You may have heard the phrase leaders speak last. Some people like to use this because leaders get the last word. That's sometimes true. Sometimes like

this just read the room, give my opinion at the end once I've collected all the information also completely valid. I don't necessarily believe that a leader has to speak last if they're playing the role of facilitator. But if you are playing the role of facilitator, as you should be, what you are saying should be eliciting the ideas from the rest of the team. not giving your own opinion, but getting the rest of the team to give theirs to bring it out from the team to allow all of the greatness in the room to come. And oftentimes when I have new leaders facilitating a brainstorm or a meeting, they tell me that they're nervous that, well, it's going to go off track or my team's going to take it in a totally wild direction and it's just going to be a waste of time. And I like to remind them that they manage a team of experts. So let's trust the expertise. Allow them to surprise you. And truly at the end of the day, you're probably going to be the one making the decision. So don't rush

the inevitable. If it's hairbrain and you hate it, you can change it. But give them the space to be heard. Give yourself the space to be surprised. Uh and who knows what might come out of that. The next tool I want to talk about is trust. We talk a lot about trust. Do we trust the people we work with? Do we trust our partners? Do we trust the sources of information? Do we trust that that picture is not AI? A lot about trust. However, it's often quite difficult to decide like why don't I trust that person? I just there's something about them that I just I don't know I just don't trust and so we have a framework that we use for trust now that I use with my leadership team and it is a framework of looking at trust through these three pillars capability your actual skills and what you're capable of your reliability do you do what you're

going to say do you show up and then your motive what is the intent behind what you're doing and I encourage my teams to use this if they have an issue with a a stakeholder or a team member to go, okay, what is it about this person that you're struggling with it? Is it something in their capability? Is it in their reliability? Or is it in their motive? And when we can break it down like that, it makes it easier to have a conversation about it, to actually go and to fix the thing that's the problem. An example of this is, do I trust my mom? Yes, I do. I love my mom. She's a great woman. Would I trust my mom to do my UK taxes? Let's break it down. Motive. Would my mom want my taxes to be good? Get me a good return. Yes, she would. She has a great motive. She would want what's best for me. Reliable. My mom is always on time. Uh, it would be meticulously done. Her handwriting is beautiful. It probably be early. So, yes, she's reliable.

My mom knows nothing about UK taxes. She has zero capability and competence in this area. So no actually I would not trust my mom to do my taxes. And when we have a framework like this we can look at things situations people differently. Now I encourage my team to look at this not only in the relationships but also in the feedback they get. So again you're being perceived as okay what's being perceived? Is it your reliability that's in question? Do people question your motive? Do pe people question your capability or your competence? You can actually start to unpick that feedback and go, "Oh, people don't trust my intention. Okay, what am I going to do about that? How am I going to change that perception?" The other area that this becomes really interesting is in our self assessment. When I first encountered this tool of trust and this framework, I realized that there's some areas that

I was breaking trust with myself, my own reliability, things that I said that I was going to do that I never did. I was able to look and go, "Oh, I actually have some areas of capability that I probably need to increase." Or even questioning my own motive in certain situations. Am I trying to help or am I trying to control? That is a great framework for self-reflection as well. One of the good things about trust and why we want it is because when there is trust in an organization, there is speed in an organization. When there is not trust in an organization, things tend to slow down. How many of you have worked with a team you really really trust? Yeah. Did things move fast? Worked with a dream you don't trust, a little slower. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't feel good. It

doesn't feel good at all. And one of the things from an organizational perspective that I think is really quite fascinating is this idea of big laws and little laws. Most organizations, teams, cultures have a couple big laws. Many of the teams I've worked with, the big laws are be on time, be on budget, and be at a high quality, right? Familiar in game development. But any time in an organization that a big law is broken, guess what? We get a bunch of little laws that say, "Oo, well, we can't break that big law again." So, we'll put a bunch of little laws in place, a bunch of little checkpoints to make sure that we don't break that law again. So, you were off budget. Okay. Now, we're going to do more forecast reviews. We're going to do more budget reviews. We're going to we're going to do a lot of these checkpoints along the way. You were not at quality. Okay, we're going to do more testing, more user experience, more consumers. And all of that might be helpful in getting to the big law, but

all of that slows the process. And so when we look at our organizations and we look at our leadership teams, I want you to think about what are the big laws, the things that we really really have to rally around and cannot break. And then where might we have legacy little laws that are just slowing us down? And as you're looking at efficiency in your team through trust, I would encourage you to consider subtracting instead of adding. It seems like the solution to so many things in our organizations and our team is to add another insert meeting, add another process, add another person, add another head. Is that really what's going to solve and increase the speed and increase the trust? When I was a kid, I thought that a pencil eraser was just for mistakes. Then I went to art school and I realized

that an eraser is actually a tool of creating art. Subtraction is a tool of creating art. This brings me to the last tool of the day. Consistency. There was a study that was done in Canada some years back that asked employees why they would quit their job. And the number one reason that employees quit their job was having a bad manager. And the number one characteristic of a bad manager was inconsistency, not knowing what they were going to get. sentiment spreaders that come in one mood one day and one mood the other day and you don't know if you're going to get praised or yelled at. Even managers that were consistently a

jerk were higher rated than those that you just didn't know what to expect. I think that consistency is really key. And maybe someone is sitting in the audience going, "Well, I am just a jerk. That's my authentic self. Great. I would like to remind everyone that we can author our own authenticity. We can choose who we want to be and how we want to show up. And especially as we are leading leaders, we want to be intentional about what that is. And so I encourage you to think about the script. And one way to do that is to think about who are you being, not what are you doing. We often get caught up as leaders in the doing. I got to do the goals and then I

got to do the hard conversations and then I got to do the next thing on my checklist. But we don't spend much enough time thinking about who am I being? Am I being clear? Am I being trustworthy? Am I being reliable? Am I being consistent? Am I being a good coach? If you've ever been in acting and you know you want to get into character before you walk into the scene, this is the same thing. Who am I being so that my being can leak into my doing? Not my mood, but who I am choosing to be can leak into my doing. And the doing will come from there. If I am saying I am a good coach, I will do everything I can do to be a good coach. I will do the things a good coach does. And so one of the questions I ask myself and I ask my leaders on a regular basis is who do I need to be now? Who do you need to be now? through every change,

through every promotion, through every pivot of your team, through every phase of your project. It might require that you as a leader show up differently. And that's okay. As long as you are cognizant and intentional about how you are showing up as I've moved through my career, even moving here from Canada to the UK, who do I need to be now? Moving from executive producer to GM, who do I need to be now? moving from a single franchise studio to a two franchise studio. Who do I need to be now? There's great stuff I can take from who I was before, but there's probably something more. And finally, with consistency, it is like any art or craft or yoga or meditation or anything we are trying to do. It is a practice. We have to practice is a minute by

minute, hour by hour, day by day practice so that we are showing up in the way that we want to show up. That we are setting the tone in the way we want to set the tone. That we are uplifting and supporting our leaders in the way that we want to do that. A couple of my practices include mantras, how hip and modern. But one of my mantras is my mood is not my master. When I walk into a meeting room, I reset. When I walk through a doorway, I reset. I plant myself cues to know, okay, get out of your head. Get into your body. Be in this room. How do you want to show up for your team now? And the other thing that I have found probably the most transformative practice in my life is I am statements. I am a coach. I am a facilitator. I am a great support for my team.

I am queen and my kingdom thrives. That is one of mine. I am here now. Again, when I know I need to go into a difficult conversation, I say to myself, I am clear. I am patient. I am kind. If I have to stand up in front of my team, I am inspiring. And it is through this taking on of the being that my doing can come. And it is such a good reminder for me. Is it perfect? No. It's a practice. It's a continuous evolution and it's a practice. And so as you are honing your leadership craft, authoring who you want to be, choosing how you want to show up, I would just like to remind you to have fun. We are making games after all.

And if we are having fun, it is more likely that our teams are having fun and it is more likely that our players are having fun. Thank you. We do have a little bit of time for questions if you would like to ask. There are some folks with mics and we see some hands. Thank you. Oh, thank you.
That a really great talk.
Thank you.
My mood is not my master. It sounds very interesting.
It does sound a little like you decide on a setting and maintain the setting during your career, which doesn't sound very human. So, so I think that my take on that would be I am honest about the fact that I am a human.
Yes.
And sometimes you'll come into my office and I'll attempt to be honest about the

fact that this is probably not a good time for that deep conversation.
Absolutely. which is not quite the same as I'm going to be that jolly person that you need right now.
Yeah, I I I completely agree with you. One of the ways that I interpret that or use that is something like I am clear and I am kind. If I'm in a bad mood and you come into my office, I am always still going to be clear with you and kind with you. And to your point in your example, being clear is now is not a great time, right? We can still do that kindly rather than get the out of my office. Right? My mood is not my master in that situation. That it doesn't mean I don't feel it doesn't mean I don't experience um I'll give you another example of of that combined with sentiment spreading. I I I will never forget there was um a time where there were many resations in a studio I was working in and there was just this feeling of like h another one so sad and everyone was really sad about

it and and we had another and I asked the manager and I said well how not going to be sad about it how do you feel about he's like I'm really happy about this one it's like see I could have gone in there and been like this is so sad again isn't it and it's like that's me assuming someone else's emotion at the same time. And how I feel about it might not be how the team feels about it. Right? Another example, our team recently shifted from being just a Need for Speed studio to working in code development in Battlefield. I didn't know how that message was going to land with the studio. It's like it's going to land one way for one person and a completely different way for another person. And regardless of how I felt about it, I needed to be a neutral place for that message. or else however I felt about it was going to influence how other people felt about it. And I didn't feel it was fair as far as people processing their own their own emotion. Um so I hope that makes sense. But yes,
I think we're on a similar page.

Love it.
Thank you. Great talk. Um maybe there's a scenario uh potential example um where there's a situation where a leader is in let's say it's in your words um set in their ways essentially you can't really change their opinion or that's at least the perception or the belief.
Yes.
How have you in the past maybe mitigated that to be able to make sure that they can potentially be open to the idea of being on board with an idea that you have?
Yes. Um, so in this scenario, is that leader on my team or is that leader a leader that is superior to me?
It it could be it could be anyone that you collaborate with, but
I collaborate that's closed. I find coming back to the why are we doing what we're doing conversation is really important for me. Um, so having that like shared vision, shared goals, say I believe that you have the best intention and that we are

trying to do this thing and there's multiple ways that we can do this thing. we talk about other perspectives around this thing. Um that would be one approach. I do think there are certain personalities that don't want to change. Um I would also question sometimes it is our perception, right? I have people on my team who are just personality, culture, communication style just aggressive and you're like whoa. And then you realize that's just how they communicate and they actually want to be challenged. And so often I will have a conversation with people I collaborate with say, "How do you like to communicate? How do you like to be challenged? Do you like to be challenged? What's the appropriate time for me to challenge you? Is it in front of the team or is it behind a closed door?" Um, and so getting to know the behaviors and preferences of the people you collaborate with, go like, "Hey, at the end of the day, we both want something great and we have to collaborate to make something great. So let's figure out how we're going to do that. How are we going to fight well? How are we going to collaborate well?"

uh and set up kind of the rules of war. Uh if the person is a waring person that's how I would approach it.
Hi uh I have a question regarding feedback like uh one thing is uh sharing feedback to general employees and the other thing is sharing feedback with leaders. Yes.
How do you approach like and how often do you do you set specific times for that or how do you approach Yes. giving feedback.
Yeah. So, specifically with leaders, uh is it leaders on my team or my leaders?
Uh leaders who are under your uh Yeah. leadership
in my team. Yeah. So, I try to give the feedback as soon as I get it. If somebody says, "Hey, I need to tell you this thing about so and so." Great. Thank you. Can you give me more context? If I don't understand it, I won't deliver the feedback. Can you give me examples? If I don't understand examples, I won't deliver the feedback. I want concrete. Hey, you are being perceived as and these are the types of

actions and behaviors that are causing that perception. Um, and I will do that again as soon as I get it. Annual review time. Obviously, we also have multiple surveys that we go out to our team with that gives us more of that information. So, I try to do it as much as we can. Um, and then out to the team in general, I would say in my role now, it's more project feedback than it's individual feedback. I expect the managers to deliver the individual feedback um to the rest of the team. And then if it's to someone above me, someone I report to, again, I try to be pretty darn direct and pretty quick. Hey, this is my perception. Can we talk? Hey, when you did X, Y, and Zed, this is how it came across to me, but I would love to know more. Tell me more. I'm curious.
Thank you.
And I think we're at time.
Oh, sorry. I I could ask one more one more. Um, on the topic of AAA teams,
yes,
massive amounts of people,
yes,
um, communication lines get harder. Uh

what are some solutions to finding ways that people can align on, you know, common tasks that need solving or, you know, finding solutions collaboratively where, you know, people are in different departments, different different teams, different um task force, you know, uh groups working remote. um what's some solutions that could help uh without loading up people's calendars with with meetings,
right? Um I think one of the most important tools in that to get everybody working towards the same goals is to be really clear on what the goal is, right? I I remember learning smart goals a long time ago and be like me. Now, when I start to look at KPIs and going, this is the thing we're trying to do. This is how we're going to measure our success. There is many ways that we can get from here to here. Now, we can also talk about how how do we want to achieve this and let's align and collaborate on those things. But to me, as a leader, setting the goalposts of

what it is exactly that we want to achieve, how exactly we're going to know that we've achieved it and then allowing the expertise of the team to come in and decide, okay, how are we going to get from A to B? And that's where we would ask for the collaboration. And then hopefully when it comes to meetings, you don't even need a meeting to talk about this and this. And then you don't even need a meeting. You need a brainstorm session. You need an interactive session. You need to facilitate. And this is where the facilitation tool comes really handy. Facilitate that conversation between the experts to get some outcomes and some possibilities of how you're going to go from here to here. Narrow them down based on the best information that you have to pick the right one. Try it. It might fail. Try the next one. Um, that would be my approach. Awesome. Thank you all for coming. Thank you for participating. Appreciate it.