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foreign
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and now I have the privilege of introducing Crystal Martin crystal is a
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software developer and principal consultant at slalom she is also one of the co-organizers of strange Loop has
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anybody gone to strange group yeah so she you can give her thanks a little
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bit later and as an advocate for diversity and Tech in business as a Detroit public schools graduate crystal
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is passionate about equal access to education at all levels Sharon to BS at in nutritional science
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at Michigan State University ghost party and she started teaching in St Louis
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Missouri as a 2010 Teach for America Corps member and taught middle school math in St Louis
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for four years after her time in the classroom she wanted to explore a career that would allow her to bring together her love for
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creativity science and Community and Tech was just the right place crystal is a lifetime learner and a
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Serial hobbyist who is currently learning photography knitting in all things Tech while fighting the patriarchy one keystroke at a time
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yep that's right and you can find her on Twitter at coder
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meow c-o-d-e-r-m-e-o-w and her talks including a super cool Ted Talk are all
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on YouTube uh she can also really crush it at karaoke which I learned on Monday night please welcome Crystal Martin
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well good morning thank you all for coming I know the first session of the day is always kind of like whoo kind of make it
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um I'm Crystal Martin as I said uh so I just kind of wanted to start with uh Mercury's and Gatorade right now
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foreign so Grace and space if I say something weird you know so Mercury is the if
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you're into astrology Mercury is the ruler of technology and communication
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and here we are at a Tech conference so um but yeah you know just Bryson space I
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say something weird come talk to me afterwards like I don't really understand what you meant by that
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so I want to start before I get into the content of this talk I have to tell you all a story so
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keynoting this conference is actually a full circle moment for me and I will tell you why one this is like may like
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literally mid-may is the like what uh six year anniversary of me even knowing
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that technology technology was a path that I could take um and is is Brad urani here
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there he is I won't ask you to stand just give a little wave um so essentially this guy probably
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unknowingly launched my Tech Career and so first of all I feel the needs I
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have to like confess I'm a JavaScript developer um but I'm kind of a fan I'm a realist
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fan girl I'm a ruby fan girl because of this three reason this community is where I landed first in this in in like
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trying to explore whether technology was a career path for me and so
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um this community is also where I met Brad and so before I was a technologist as mentioned before I was a public school
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teacher I was a middle school math teacher dealing with a little crazies if
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you know middle schoolers wow they are so entertaining um and in my fourth year of teaching I
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realized that I needed to hang out the hat and I would tell you it's not because of the kids which you could probably Imagine School Systems
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bureaucracy all of that one of the most important jobs of my life nothing would be harder than that which is why I don't
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get really pressed about tech stuff because nothing's actually on fire um
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and yeah literally there were fires so this code doesn't get deployed you know
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we'll all survive um so you know oh that decision was really
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a key you know that's a keynote in itself why I decided to leave teaching but I'll just leave it at that so I was trying to figure out what was
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next I kept hearing about boot camps and this was back in like 20 2014 actually
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um but at the time the only people that were going to boot camps were like ex-investment bankers and lawyers paying
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a MIT to go to boot camps I saw the like the price and I was like I my little poor you know teacher salary self with
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school student loan debt no I can't do this and so I decided to make a profile on meetup.com
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and you know like at that time it was like the hotness so I go on there and I type in coding meetups and when I say I
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had no idea what programming actually was I needed and I'll show you how so I'm scrolling and I see St Louis Java
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user group and I was like ew that sounds boring
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and then I saw c-sharp.net Meetup and I was like I don't want it but then I see
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the STL Ruby Meetup and it had this cute little 8-bit logo
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and I was like oh I want to go to this one that logo is so cute and like I'm a room I like rubies you know I'm a cancer
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it's my gemstone this is perfect it's like a sign from the heavens
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so the day comes around I go and I show up to the Ruby Meetup and I walk in and
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everyone just looks at me I look at them and they're like kind of thinking like is she lost
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and it's kind of in this weird part of town like you don't really know the places there so I walk in my little
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backpack and throw and I'm like hey guys and I'm the only person of color this
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room the only woman at least that night the name is King who is the was the
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organizer at that time kind of like runs up to me and is like hey hi so happy
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you're here get some pizza get some beer sit down and so that night they were doing this mob session and of course I
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have no idea what's going on and Amos grabs me and assist me down he said we're going to just pair on this problem
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that we have and he's like I'm going to show you how to use the Ruby Rebel and that my friends is when I realized
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that Ruby was a programming language I truly thought that Ruby was what the
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it's the reason I came back to a second one you think about that could have gone so differently like literally just walking in being truly idiotic
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and then being like hey come back I think that like basically determined
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that like yeah maybe I can actually do this but anyway because of my awesome experience I came back from a second
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visit and I meet this guy Braddy Ronnie and at the time he was mentoring an
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entry-level programmer at his company through a program called launch code which is a organization in St Louis that
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trains people in technology and then places them in apprenticeships so they can learn on the job with local with
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local businesses and so we're talking and I'm like I want to do that and he's like wow you seem really excited but you don't know
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anything so my friend started this like you know girl coder thing a coda girl something
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like that here's our email you know email address phone number go talk to her
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well that thing ended up being coder girl and this is where I actually learned how to code and I eventually
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became one of the founding members of that non-profit uh organization at the
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team at launch code and I just want to side note the program is now called women plus at launchco so
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their marketing does not kill me um but in essence Brad you're the reason
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I'm a software developer and why I'm standing here today talking to you on the stage at Railcar
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so thank you and I have some funny I have some more
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funny rails and Ruby connections I actually almost wore red shoes not I like had them and then I was like okay that is so corny don't do that
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um but yeah I have some funny stories about like just strange connections with this
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community ask me after if you're interested to tweet at me I'll tell you more so when I was asked the keynote at
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rossconf of course I went through a range of emotions like oh my God why me call somebody else I'm not qualified oh God it's existential dread I haven't
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been on the stage since 2019 I can't do it um but I ended up saying yes and I had
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this whole idea to do a talk on lateral thinking and I had a grand plan
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you see I was on this difficult project I mean it was a classic kind of Phoenix project you know scenario changing
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priorities onboarding new devs every two weeks you know difficult client all that stuff everything that makes a project
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and you know technology difficult and especially Consulting projects just that was this project
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and so I thought maybe this is one of those scenarios where I can just try anything like anything goes everything's
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on fire let's just do some stuff you know and I thought let's experiment let's try some new creative approaches
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to problem solving and I remember reading this article about lateral thinking during the pandemic and essentially it was saying you know
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maybe we should use lateral thinking to solve tough problems in in tough situations instead of going in this
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linear direction of like we've seen this before let's do it we're in a totally different environment maybe we should
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try something else and so around in this also this is the definition of lateral thinking so lateral thinking is a manner of solving
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problems using an indirect and creative approach via reasoning that is not immediately obvious so
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um so but anyway I rallied my team around this and we brainstorm all these different approaches that we can employ
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to experiment with lateral thinking to try to do things differently and you know I had to hope that like maybe we
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can kind of pull ourselves out of this rut you know and pull our client out of this you know sort of reactionary
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pattern of thinking and so this got me really jazzed right like I feel like I had this renewed
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sense of excitement and energy around this project and I was going to deploy these lateral thinking tactics like
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defining a transitional object or instead of thinking about what you should do do the wrong thing or you know
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one that my one of my teammates Chris came up was like instead of making the clients problems our problems make our
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going to be genius I'm going to test all of this out and then I'm going to come to rails kind of and I'm going to tell you all about how he did it and how
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exciting it was and it like made our team so like revived and everyone loved it and the clients hated it but we like
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reveled it anyway and we had fun doing it and then the project proceeded it to blow up in my face
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and I won't get into details um but I was still pretty determined to
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stick to this topic so I did the thing that every neurotic you know the public speaker does and then I read the
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arguments against lateral thinking does anyone else do that I always try to find the counter arguments before I get on
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the stage it's probably like that's another thing for another day um so I made the Fatal mistake of
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looking at the counter arguments and I just want to show you some of the quotes that I saw so debono who is the guy who kind of coined
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this term in this Theory um is popular the bonus popular theory
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is textbook pseudoscience unsound untested derivative of real unacknowledged research
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and their willful attitude about lateral speculations could be adverts for GK chesterton's Maxim there are no rules
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for architecture for a castle in the clouds so needless to say this kind of
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describes the situation that I was in I was going to come talk to you about Theory with not putting anything into
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practice so that kind of put the nail in the coffin for my talk and I was pretty stuck like crying stuck
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doing I used to have too many ideas but I was talking to my wonderful friend Liz and you know I was telling her how I
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was stuck and I just didn't feel I I can't do this idea anymore I can't get up here and just talk about theories and say go try it good luck
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um I mean I could but that'd be wax so we're talking through it and she asked me she's like Crystal why did you want
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to talk about lateral thinking in the first place was it just was it about the concept of lateral thinking because it's kind of all over the place like it's
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actually that interesting to you but what she helped me realize is that the reason I wanted to talk about
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lateral thinking and the reason why I wanted to employ that on my project is because I like lateral thinking in and
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of itself is inherently collaborative and that's the piece that I felt like I was missing and that's what I wanted and
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so she really helped me sort of realize that and that what I really want to talk to you today about is collaboration with
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others and the fact that we need people and I have to be honest with you the reason why I got into technology is the
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people component that's the thing I love the most about being in software way more than the brass tacks of engineering
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and I have to say that that made me feel like I wasn't I was it was hard for me to admit that to myself because I was
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worried it made me feel or made me seem like I wasn't serious enough um but the in the engineering aspect for
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me is only exciting when I get to do it with people working towards a common goal and creating a working product for
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people as an example I was literally on a project where I was building a warranty
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claims app for tires tractor tires do I look like a person that is interested in farming or
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tractor tires no I did not care about but I didn't care about that but I love
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that project so much because I was collaborating with the client on a day-to-day basis I was meeting my users and they were looking at what I was
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doing and saying oh my God this is going to be so much better to use in what we have now and I worked crazy hours on
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that project and loved doing it because of the people the tech didn't matter to me that much and so today I want to talk to you about
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the most important element of our jobs in my opinion and that is the human component
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the people I don't get some water because
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so since we're talking about you know the people element of this job this people me
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I'm kind of burned out I don't know about you this year has been tough and a lot of my Teamworks were too
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and I think it's because so often as developers we become so ego attached to our outcomes we get defined by what we
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do and we forget the people that we're dealing with the systems that we're dealing with are built for people and by
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other people and this whole notion of the meritocracy of this myth that you know we we exist in makes us actually
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believe that we what we produce is our value that's it
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our value tool organization our team and it's I feel like it's how we've been conditioned and especially like in
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Consulting like we call people resources excuse me I am a human being I am not a
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resource you are not a resource how many people got promotions this year
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yeah congratulations
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me too yeah I feel like I've experienced you know pretty rapid career growth in the past year but you know what happened it
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made me feel less confident does anyone else I feel like once I got the promotion I was like
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oh my God now I have to prove myself and like you already got the promotion but but this is what happens you kind of get in this tunnel vision and you know you
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know what helped me get out of that people people who actually care about me as a person and also see me as a
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valuable human being regardless of my technical delivery many of us have spent the last two years
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standing behind rectangular boxes pushing and shipping code feeling completely disconnected from our
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colleagues and community and jobs I don't know for you jobs kind of just became a job it was lonely it was tiring
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but I feel like the only thing that got me through that time were my people so I want to discuss how we control we
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can actually show up people first and I want to break this conversation into two parts
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I want to talk about and I'll talk about later but your your personal element but then also the
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element of others so building teams and technology that
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actually works for people requires one knowledge and acceptance of yourself so I think a lot of time in leadership
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we learn a lot about how to like manage teams how to support people how to grow folks and we never talk about like where
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are you starting from what's going on with you so number one we need that and then two
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once we're able to do that introspection we can then Intuit the needs of others
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and meet them and you can't do number two without number one as I just said it's kind of
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like the whole oxygen mask concept you got to put yours on before putting it on anyone else you might be running around
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like halfway like stumbling passing out passing out Mass to other people and you don't have one on yourself you've got to
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remember you're the first person you have to take care of and then you are ready to take care of others and I want
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to do this using a couple simple Frameworks for you to look at so let's talk let's talk about the first
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step of knowledge of self so you can't really be intuitive about
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other people around you if you don't know where you are so I want to give you some language and
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some techniques that can help you cultivate a greater sense of awareness for yourself that you can use on the spot
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this way when you're dealing with other people and supporting them you always know where you are eventually and
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emotionally and how to act based on that mental and physical awareness and when I talk about leadership I want
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you to understand I'm not just talking to people leaders in this room everybody here if you work on a team of people you are a leader right like you're a leader
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of the future you're writing you're a leader of whatever you're doing on a data but you're a leader of yourself any
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day so it's not just like a talk for people leaders or anything like that so one concept that I really love is
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this above the line or below the line one of the best questions you can ask is
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this and this is where you want to land and this language is You is from a book
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called 15 commitments of conscious leadership some of you might have read it I highly recommend it it's a little
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woo-woo but it really helps I love it and I like it as a shared language for
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your team and this is taken directly from the website but I want to describe what this
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means so in our experience at any time at any time we are either above the line or below the line
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when we're defensive and closed and committed to being right we are below the line or put another way we are
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committed to the survival of our ego when we are open Curious and committed
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to learning we're above the line
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so when you're below the line essentially what that means is you are acting from Fear
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and when you're acting from fear that means your ego is under a threat and so let's go ahead and just quickly define fear
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fear is a mental and physical response to a perceived threat and fear really literally inhibits us
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from being able to to understand what's happening in the situation we're literally cognitively and emotionally
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hijacked we are back in the place we think there is a sabertooth tiger coming for us
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and I talk about fear because I don't think we always kind of associate um fear was like
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being cowardly but fear is honestly the Baseline emotion for a lot
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of the like anger that we feel have you ever heard the phrase anger is The Bodyguard of fear basically even when you're angry that
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means you're probably concerned about something maybe yourself or other you know or your perception and that's
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really important to be conscious of so when you're in that hijacked State you cannot think correctly because you can't
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literally your brain can't access your prefrontal cortex to tell you there's no no threat and you need to think clearly
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about where you are and so the thing about fear and the
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thing about anger is that it's a physical response and a mental response to a perceived fair so
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think about the last time you've been in a meeting where you go I mean this probably happened last week I know I was
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going to be in last week or out two days ago I was like I'm mad I shouldn't say anything but I
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want to I actually did so I'm like I gotta practice what I preach here but
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um it's very easy to get on the stage and tell you but the techniques work is we're going to talk about so think about
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a time you were in a tense meeting a tense conversation and what was happening to you physically
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because our bodies have all this intelligence to actually tell us what's going on in the moment so I'll tell you some telltale signs that I'm below the
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line is an accelerated heartbeat short quick breathing a clenched jaw I
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know for some people it's nail biting or chewing on the side of your jaw or your your inside your mouth or another thing
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to to even uh recognize is that everyone's fear response is different so
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you know the whole concept of fight flight freeze some people don't feel they'll like need to like
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confront maybe you freeze maybe you maybe you start holding your breath or not you know not saying anything
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and then here's the mental manifestations of being below the line so you might be thinking about how am I
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going to look if I don't speak up you know how's my team going to look do I look like a good leader
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um are you intent on being correct are you thinking your mind like I already know how this is going to go you know
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I'm the one that knows this are you are you focused on being correct no matter what
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can you not let it go right whatever that it is and are you feeling kind of paranoid or like feeling like there's a
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lack of resources or lack of of time having that scarcity mindset these are all things you can think about
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when you're in these kind of conversations to think where am I and so addition to this below line above
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the line concept I also want to talk about the drama triangle has anyone ever heard of this drama triangle I love it
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um so this was just developed and described by a psychologist in the 60s by the name of Stephen Cartman and it's a way to
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describe social interactions specifically around conflict and so you could think of the uh the
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triangle as actors in a play this is you below the line
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am I the drama you are the drama
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so let's look at this uh these rows in this drama let's talk about the persecutor first
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it's all your fault this is what the persecutor says oh my God why would you do it that way
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didn't I show you how to do this last week were you listening you know like well if your team had to set up a
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deployment pipeline it didn't break every three days we could deploy my team is ready persecutor it's your fault
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The Rescuer says don't worry I'll handle it oh you're having trouble with that I
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got him don't worry don't worry and it's really cool because you know you get to
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have control over how the outcome is and you get to do it the way you want it
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done and you also are able to like a hero while you're doing it and the victim says
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why is this happening to me why is this always happened to me I just didn't know it wasn't my fault
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this other team you know they're the other they're the reason why this feature didn't get finished
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um what did you expect I have two early career devs on my team it's too much that's the victim
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so in the spirit of self-acceptance and knowledge of self my next question is
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which one are you because you can't really be intuitive about other people if you are you know
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stuck in your own Loop so think about like which one of these are you and I'll show up to you for reference here again
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and I also want to note here that it's you can jump from you know from role to row even in one conversation you can
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jump from you know persecute like no you didn't to like oh be like oh it's me like used to this all the time and I
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actually kind of like this even for like relationships your kids your family your you know parents uh Partners this stuff
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applies to that you can and if you're like concept you can watch someone being like okay victim oh okay persecutor you're here
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it's pretty helpful and so I'll tell you instead of asking you to tell me I'll tell you my go-to is
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victim so raise your hand if your role you think on the drama trials victim it's
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funny because a lot of people will say like I'm not the victim I'm not a victim I'm not a victim
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um Rachel has your persecutor raise your hand if you're a rescuer
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so watch this so which one do you think is the most people in this room
00:24:45.179
I got it I got it 80 hours later you're like oh my God why am I doing this to myself
00:24:51.900
but you get it right like these are the safety rules we go to when we feel like
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our Identity or our ego is being threatened and it's vitally important to be aware of this because it shows up in
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how you interact with other people think about being a software developer and being a rescuer and how handicapping that is to the rest of your team right
00:25:09.539
that no one else gets to learn no one else gets to to take on challenges and make mistakes because you're constantly
00:25:15.240
saving them from that while beating yourself up in the process you think on the on the first hand you
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think it's helpful but then you realize how destructive it actually is and so you're probably wondering okay will I be late with the point how do I get off of
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this triangle so I have a couple strategies that I think are important and again even if
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this is kind of we would just go along with it think about it open your mind you know um the first thing is to breathe
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you're in a meeting you're realized you're below the line you are hijacked you're ready to come off of mute and
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like go off right breathe because I've noticed that when I'm
00:25:52.440
pissed off or when I'm like ready to go I feel I'm holding my breath I realize
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I'm holding my breath in that moment and that like literally cuts off like
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cuts off your like your brain you're like not getting enough oxygen so the first step is to breathe
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and I actually learned recently and I I tried to find a source and I couldn't find it so y'all can I don't know this I
00:26:14.580
thought it was interesting you know how when you cry you do like two short in-breaths like and then a long out
00:26:20.039
breath Apparently that is a mechanism for self-soothing so when you are upset
00:26:25.140
or when you are hijacked you can literally do two breaths in quickly and a long out breath and calm yourself down
00:26:31.620
I'm telling you it actually works but the cool thing about breathing is that
00:26:36.900
breathing requires presence so you have to be conscious to remember that to do it intentionally and then
00:26:42.659
breathing gives you time between that stimulus and that response
00:26:48.539
so you can give yourself a moment and give yourself an opportunity to stop and think about where you are before you act
00:26:55.260
especially as Leaders write your decisions in a way you show up it's not going to affect you it's going to affect everybody else
00:27:01.020
another question to ask yourself is where do you feel it again this body intelligence uh the
00:27:06.900
concept the more acquainted you get with your bodily reactions and your physical
00:27:12.240
reactions to threat the faster you can detect it and get to a state where you're able to shift from it
00:27:18.120
so take notice where you feel it in your body when you're triggered for me I feel hot on my face and in my like chest or I
00:27:24.539
have like you know like a feeling in the pit of my stomach when I know that I'm at that point I know that
00:27:30.480
I'm hijacked and anything I say after that is probably going to make things harder for me and everybody else
00:27:37.559
so think about that what are your sort of like physical triggers that come up for you and the next thing you want to
00:27:42.960
do is ask yourself am I ready to shift because there's awareness and there's
00:27:49.020
acceptance right there are some times where you are not ready to shift you still mad
00:27:54.480
and so knowing that you can be honest with yourself and say I should stay on mute
00:27:59.880
I sometimes even clean I like under the desk I hold my hands on the desk if I'm
00:28:05.520
in a meeting in person I squeeze my hands to expel what I'm feeling so that I
00:28:10.559
don't lose my job it's helpful
00:28:16.799
and then if you're willing and ready make the shift and shifting can look like a lot of
00:28:22.320
things there are times where I will turn the camera off and I will literally stand up
00:28:27.360
stretch out I'll walk across the room I pet my cat but shifting in this sort of
00:28:33.299
theory of thinking they even say like stepping into another role being like okay I'm hijacked here now I'm going to step into like a conscious I'm ready
00:28:39.779
anything that works for you that's one thing you could do you could even also try opening yourself
00:28:45.299
so like taking a more open approach you know when you're mad sometimes people do this in meetings I feel like
00:28:52.860
your clothes off so opening literally opening your posture it basically clears your brain that you
00:29:00.539
are you're open you are trying to shift from the state that you're in it could be sitting up in your chair it
00:29:05.700
can be reframing your questions sometimes I like write down what I want to say and then I write down the reframe in a
00:29:12.419
more positive and productive light before I said and not often but I'm I'm
00:29:18.120
working on it we can support each other so you want to give yourself a physical cue that you are shifting from being in
00:29:24.779
that below the line state to hopefully moving to about the state above above line state
00:29:30.299
and so now that we've talked about getting clear with yourself and where you are you can now work with other
00:29:36.059
people you can look at what's happening around the room with other folks and Intuit what they need
00:29:43.140
and that shift helps us do that so what is above the line above line is being open it's being
00:29:50.100
curious committed to learning and being detached from being right literally letting go of the eye that you
00:29:56.820
are right and above the line leader speaking of the eye and they take responsibility for
00:30:02.760
their own feelings and what they feel is important so when I say speak in the eye it's like I feel as or I notice or I'm
00:30:10.020
making up the story rather than saying this person did this and this is why it happened speaking in the eye from your
00:30:15.360
perspective and owning what you say and so now I'm going to talk about an alternative to the drama triangle that
00:30:22.320
allows you to be an above the line leader and that is the empowerment dynamic
00:30:28.380
so in David Emerald's book The empowerment Dynamic he illustrates an alternative to this dreaded drama
00:30:34.440
triangle and it suggests a mindset shift and it's kind of a corny book as long
00:30:40.260
they asked us to read it but it's actually amazing it is so good it's such an important thing to read and to
00:30:46.320
integrate into your your work but the empowerment Dynamic can help you make that shift you need it you need so
00:30:53.220
that you don't fall into the trap on the driving triangle and so for this part instead of talking about the theory I actually want to I'm going to tell you
00:30:59.039
what the roles are here but then I'm going to illustrate those roles with people in my life that have actually
00:31:04.500
helped me so the first one
00:31:10.860
we talked about the persecutor and the empowerment Dynamic the persecutor turns into a Challenger
00:31:19.260
and a challenger says I believe you can do better than this I've seen you do it before
00:31:25.080
still clear is still direct but is not accusatory it doesn't beat you down
00:31:30.899
your rescuer Rescuers the restaurant becomes a coach
00:31:37.440
the coach says what do you think is the best way to handle it
00:31:42.779
and the victim becomes a creator
00:31:48.779
what can I do to create the most positive outcome given these circumstances
00:31:57.299
so what I think I actually want to go back I feel like a simple someone to get okay I got you oh wait you know actually
00:32:02.820
it's going to come back up I promise so if you want to go for sure just look back up and now I have to go to the build again so yeah
00:32:09.539
you can uh happy got time damn it y'all I'm sorry
00:32:15.899
it's going to come back up does a Creator do
00:32:23.159
well creator they do not allow themselves or others to become a victim
00:32:30.120
they focus on forward movement and outcomes and they look for wins when it feels
00:32:36.539
like there aren't any and so the Creator in my life is Dory
00:32:43.020
Davis Dory is a senior principal at slalom she is an amazing technology leader Enterprise architect total badass
00:32:50.399
if you ever get an opportunity to meet her work with her in Islam let like she's amazing she's my mentor and my
00:32:56.820
friend and the thing about Dory as a Creator this is what she does I saw from I want
00:33:02.220
to talk to you about Creator from the actual human perspective she and she's always like she's like Crystal how can you be a Creator in a situation I'm like
00:33:09.059
oh I don't want to be a Creator I don't want to do it but she gives me a limited amount of time to Prout and lick my
00:33:16.260
wounds and be like I'm a victim they're beautiful but then she says
00:33:22.019
okay we're done with that and when I say sort of like mean things about myself or my ability she literally
00:33:27.659
makes me repeat them and then reframe them in a positive light so not I can't do this I don't
00:33:33.960
know how to do it I don't know how to do it yet but I believe that I can she's a creator
00:33:39.480
and she talks through the situation that I've in to help me figure out how can I create value for myself and for others
00:33:46.440
and along these you know if you know Dory you'd also think that she's probably a challenger which she absolutely is but the Creator aspect I
00:33:53.220
love about her is that she always makes me come up with a plan no matter what situation I find myself in she listens
00:34:00.120
and then she asked how can you be a Creator and then she says come out the plant on the spot even if it's not that
00:34:06.000
well you know worked out but coming up with a plan to supersede and not be a victim that is what she does for me
00:34:12.659
and this is important for the creators are important for our teams because of this they find the opportunity to do
00:34:18.780
something even when it feels like there isn't one and so the next let's talk about a
00:34:25.320
challenger what does a challenger actually do well challenges are truth tellers none of this stuff is about
00:34:31.740
skating around what's obvious there are problems on teams right there's problems with products we have to bring those
00:34:37.320
things to light it's just the way in which we do it and so a challenger they tell the truth they say this is what's happening
00:34:44.460
but it's not to accuse other people or to or to focus more on the problem but they're also willing to go against
00:34:50.760
the grain for what is right and they encourage others to go for the highest good
00:34:56.520
and so the Challenger in my life and in my my career is Cheryl
00:35:02.599
Cheryl is on our Global team in operations she is also a woman with a
00:35:07.800
ton of experience and I love her because she always challenges my perception
00:35:14.339
and she challenges any assessment that I have a situation she'll say well is that really what's happening
00:35:19.680
you know is that a story or is that fact she also pushes me to do the leg work
00:35:25.020
based off of what I say or you know my assumptions are she like literally goes to say okay no go find out if that is
00:35:31.500
the case before you start operating off of this assumption she challenged me to find a way to be
00:35:37.680
successful find a way and she also cultivates the Challenger in me
00:35:43.560
so that she helps me figure out how to be productive in my pushback rather than Burning Bridges
00:35:49.740
because sometimes that's what I want to do and then finally what does a coach do
00:35:57.720
well coaches see the Creator and the people that they support they see what your ability actually is
00:36:04.140
your ability to get things done and your ability to figure things out and they also guide you on the how
00:36:11.099
instead of doing it for you and they are a good coach is not
00:36:16.619
attached to the outcomes I know that sounds like a weird thing to say but they're not attached to the outcome of you what you're doing they are merely
00:36:22.859
there to facilitate what you're trying to do and they're supportive and encouraging along the way
00:36:29.700
but they also coaches hold you accountable for what you say you're going to do for what you say you want they hold you accountable for that and
00:36:36.300
they reorient you and help regard you based on what you've said you want to accomplish
00:36:42.420
and so my coach is also my mentor he's the director of ite practice at slalom
00:36:47.820
St Louis Nick is my coach he guides me on how to solve tough problems myself
00:36:54.660
he makes me get clear on what I want and what I want to do and he holds me accountable for that he
00:37:00.900
says well Chris you said you wanted to learn this so like why are you why are you shying away from this project why
00:37:05.940
are you shy away from this challenge this is what you said you wanted to do but the thing about a coach is they
00:37:11.880
wholeheartedly he wholeheartedly believes in my ability to figure it out and he acts on that assumption
00:37:18.960
so he doesn't go oh I know Chris is going to be afraid of the things I'm not going to put on that he's like no I'm putting you on that and you're going to
00:37:24.300
figure it out I'm going to help you along the way literally just the other day y'all I got staffed on this project it feels way out of my league I'm going
00:37:31.020
to be very honest with you it's like Enterprise architect level and I was in the meeting with the client and I was
00:37:36.240
freaking out I was like I can't do this take me over here roll me off and he called me he's like Crystal like
00:37:41.880
what is going on and I was on a tizzy I'm like I don't know if I can do this blah blah and so everything that I said
00:37:47.160
I was like I don't know if I can you know figure out how to push back on with this architect he said so you're telling me that you don't really know how you
00:37:53.460
would formulate an argument based off of the current architecture and talk to a a client architect about that and
00:37:59.339
everything I said he just kind of restated what I was saying to him and then I was like still kind of complaining and then eventually I was
00:38:04.920
like okay what I mean is I'm afraid and I don't feel prepared but I believe
00:38:11.700
that I could do it but I'm gonna need your help and that he was like okay that's what I
00:38:16.859
want to hear I can work with that I can't work with I can't do it and I'm I'm rolling me off right
00:38:23.099
and so we formulate a plan like we're going to get together we're going to white board and he's going to guide me but I am still going to be the front man
00:38:29.339
I can't take him to the meeting with me that's what a coach does and you know if somebody work in
00:38:35.099
Consulting I know on Consulting projects sometimes this is what especially technology technology leaders do they go oh this
00:38:41.520
person's not ready for it so I'm going to go ahead and roll them off and I'm going to go on the project the fourth project that I'm on right technology
00:38:47.099
leaders do that all the time rescuing right but a coach says now you got it you're gonna have to have it but I'm
00:38:54.060
going to lead you and help you along the way and so
00:39:00.180
this is what we need leaders who empower having Empower leaders who do their best to operate above the line these are the
00:39:07.619
people who have fueled my professional growth and personal growth and I want
00:39:12.900
this so badly for you and for the people that you manage or work with
00:39:18.960
so I want you to take a moment to reflect how can you shift from that place on the
00:39:24.180
drama triangle to that new place of the empowerment Dynamic so think about Rescuers but wherever you fall on that Spectrum
00:39:31.500
on that drama triangle think about where you are right now even if you want think about a situation that you're in that
00:39:38.160
you were realizing maybe in this talk that you are acting like one of these things
00:39:43.500
if you want take a minute write down your thoughts
00:39:48.839
and think about how you can shift and another thing I want to add here too is are there people that you maybe need
00:39:55.079
to say sorry to or have a clearing with right so that you can reset your relationship
00:40:01.079
with them and kind of get off that drama triangle with them and invite them to get on the empowerment Dynamic with you
00:40:07.380
and how can you use some of this language that you just learned to do that so I'll give you a minute we'll take a
00:40:13.920
little drink give you a moment to reflect and think about what you could do
00:40:28.260
so with that I'll give you an example just this week
00:40:33.960
when I was definitely on the drama triangle as a victim and then a persecutor I was at that account team
00:40:39.359
you know I had to go back to one of my colleagues and say you know I am sorry that I
00:40:46.619
showed up like that and I did kind of explain why I don't think that's actually appropriate you
00:40:52.140
should just apologize for the behavior I was like I'm crabby and just got up early this morning but I had to go to him and say I know that I was acting
00:40:57.839
like a victim in that and I appreciate your refrain I appreciate you helping me figure out how I should look at this
00:41:04.200
situation and it it helps even when you're a victim being a victim on the team can be very awesome it can
00:41:09.540
be very um destructive obviously and also kind of tiring for the people that have to deal with you so
00:41:15.359
I feel like I needed to do that so think about some folks that you can you can um
00:41:20.579
have a clearing with and I'm actually going to go back to this if you need a minute to actually see the the slide where how can you make
00:41:29.339
that transition from persecuted Challenger rescuer to coach
00:41:35.040
victim to creator
00:41:42.660
and so in closing during a very stressful time in my life someone told me the best advice
00:41:50.579
when you're back back to the corner when you're feeling blocked when you're feeling like you just don't have it focus on gratitude
00:41:57.960
and this is this talk that's this talk this talk was written by so many people who have helped me supported me and
00:42:05.579
guided me and quite frankly led me through some of the hardest parts of my career and I really really am deeply eternally
00:42:11.640
grateful for that and I would not have been able to be to successfully do this talk without those
00:42:16.980
folks so thank you to the people that I talked about thanks Brad all those folks
00:42:22.140
but in closing what I want you to do is I want you to take a minute and I want you to think of the people in your life or your community job wherever family
00:42:29.220
even that you can play one of these empowerment roles for
00:42:34.920
who's someone in your life that you can be a coach too that you can be um a creator with
00:42:43.500
um or a Challenger so right now those names written on like three names
00:42:48.839
and give them some focus in the next few weeks put it into practice and then finally I want you to think
00:42:55.440
about people that have played these roles for you in your career and take a minute and make a plan to
00:43:02.339
thank them think about those folks because we are all here because someone
00:43:09.000
else created a way for us to be here thank you