Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to another Hacking Leadership author podcasts
Speaker 1: for the Leadership series. Here we are so excited. I know,
Speaker 1: we've had some amazing content and dialogue with some not
Speaker 1: just tremendous leadership book authors, but tremendous leaders themselves who
Speaker 1: have done some really great, great work with their teams
Speaker 1: and their industries and have taken the time to really
Speaker 1: share their thoughts and perspectives with the world. So today
Speaker 1: I'm super excited to introduce you to Elizabeth bien Nick,
Speaker 1: an innovator who led the team developing WebEx Hologram. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the author of Cake on Tuesday, which explores her approach
Speaker 1: to fostering innovation through culture building and leadership. So Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show and say hi to our audience here.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Lorenzo. I'm super excited to be here, super
Speaker 2: excited to talk about this. This is awesome.
Speaker 1: I love it. Well, let's get started right away. I
Speaker 1: Cake on Tuesday. You got me with the title. I
Speaker 1: love marketing, I love ideas, I love the ones that
Speaker 1: go what how does this work? So walk me through
Speaker 1: the title? First and foremost, how do we get there?
Speaker 1: For the title of this book?
Speaker 2: Sure, and I'll give a shout out to my publisher
Speaker 2: for giving me some leeway on this one, because we
Speaker 2: went back and forth a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, I love it, I love it, Thank you.
Speaker 2: I really wanted something that stood out and was not
Speaker 2: traditional because everything about this book, everything about myself, everything
Speaker 2: about my leadership journey is different and non traditional. So
Speaker 2: I needed a title that reflected that. And there's a
Speaker 2: chapter in the book called have Cake on Tuesday, and
Speaker 2: it came from one particular stretch on the project that
Speaker 2: the book is about, where things were just a little
Speaker 2: little slow, a little bit of that slog a little
Speaker 2: We had to make our own magic at that season.
Speaker 2: And I was having a conversation with my opsoleet at
Speaker 2: the time, who was fantastic about how do we interject
Speaker 2: some fun, some levity, how do we create something to
Speaker 2: rally the team around when there's not a major milestone
Speaker 2: to do that, And she had this great idea of
Speaker 2: creating a wheel Fortune style Wheel of winning and put
Speaker 2: everybody's name on it that was on our team at
Speaker 2: the end of our staff meetings, we'd spend it and
Speaker 2: if it landed on your name, Lorenzo today, all right,
Speaker 2: you're getting the cake. This week and a cake would
Speaker 2: show up at your door two days later for no reason,
Speaker 2: no questions asked, and it was our staff means were
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays, so that's where cake on Tuesday came from.
Speaker 2: It was just a way to really celebrate the journey.
Speaker 1: I love that, and I love you know, we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about kind of moving people from the core,
Speaker 1: like how do you create that moment where like something
Speaker 1: is different, something is exciting, something is unique when you're
Speaker 1: building teams and culture, and it becomes a part of
Speaker 1: what that culture is. And I love that approach because
Speaker 1: I think sometimes it's really easy for us to trip
Speaker 1: and fall and get caught up in the day to
Speaker 1: day and the minutia of the work. And then a
Speaker 1: lot of times when you have great people and great leaders,
Speaker 1: we're so hyper focused on the work that we need
Speaker 1: that silliness or that thing or that's something that's not
Speaker 1: like a part of the normalcy that kind of breaks
Speaker 1: us out of that shell. So I absolutely love that.
Speaker 1: And then what as you kind of followed up on
Speaker 1: that over time, you know what I mean, like, what
Speaker 1: was the were there any ideas or any elements of
Speaker 1: impact to the business or to the team that kind
Speaker 1: of like grew legs from that initial approach.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think for sure. I think everything every time
Speaker 2: you're trying to do something hard, something different, it's almost
Speaker 2: more important than that season when you're when you're working hard,
Speaker 2: you have to play hard. They have to go in parallel.
Speaker 2: I think. So if you're working on a project and
Speaker 2: you're asking a lot of your team and you're trying
Speaker 2: to go through uncharted waters, you're you're doing long days,
Speaker 2: you're you're dealing with tough problems. If you're not injecting
Speaker 2: some fun into that, you can burn out really really quick.
Speaker 2: And I think that's something you can see anytime you're
Speaker 2: working specifically on a bleeding edge tech where you don't
Speaker 2: have a guidebook to fall back on. You're really figuring
Speaker 2: it out as you go. So I do think in
Speaker 2: those scenarios, I mean you see this in all different industries.
Speaker 2: Paramedics and firefighters like usually some of the funniest people
Speaker 2: that you'll find because they're great at just balancing things out.
Speaker 2: When you're dealing with major problems, you need major humored
Speaker 2: to keep you saying and grounded. So I think that
Speaker 2: did set the tone with our team. I think culture
Speaker 2: is something that's incredibly important and you really have to
Speaker 2: work to build that right from the get go. And
Speaker 2: once you have that, you have to foster it. You
Speaker 2: have to keep feeding it. It's not a set it
Speaker 2: and forget it kind of a thing. So having that
Speaker 2: level of fun and making sure that was important, it
Speaker 2: wasn't an afterthought, it was part of doing work. I
Speaker 2: want to go be happy to go to work. I
Speaker 2: want to be happy to show up and enjoy this team.
Speaker 2: And if I'm not having a good time, then you're
Speaker 2: probably not having a good time and we're not gonna
Speaker 2: want to keep doing this. So if we need to
Speaker 2: be elbow to elbow all the time, like, let's enjoy
Speaker 2: the journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that. I think I've had the honor
Speaker 1: and pleasure of working with some really high performing teams,
Speaker 1: and I think that the one thing that always pops
Speaker 1: out of my head about that is that we had fun.
Speaker 1: We worked really hard, but we had a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what made it something that was
Speaker 1: enjoyable even in the hard times or the times that
Speaker 1: were really really focused. So I love that. I want
Speaker 1: to jump into the book a little bit here, specifically,
Speaker 1: on some things that you talk about, and one of
Speaker 1: the things that really stuck out to me right away
Speaker 1: was kind of this the power of disagreements. You have
Speaker 1: no idea how much I love that. I'm a sucker
Speaker 1: for really great, healthy debates, and for me, I get
Speaker 1: really nervous when it gets quiet, when my leaders, when
Speaker 1: my teams aren't kind of like, you know, grinding against
Speaker 1: each other a little bit and having some disagreement. That's
Speaker 1: when I get nervous, because then I feel like we've
Speaker 1: given up, like nobody cares anymore. And I know it's
Speaker 1: not the case, but that's how I feel. So so
Speaker 1: walk me through a little bit about that. What do
Speaker 1: you mean when you say the power of disagreements and
Speaker 1: why that's so important to fostering not just innovation, but
Speaker 1: great cultures you were just talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I opened that chapter with the Monty Python quote
Speaker 2: of good morning. I'd like to have an argument from
Speaker 2: that great skit they have hold skin about arguments. Disagreement
Speaker 2: is something I think it gets a bad rap at
Speaker 2: times in certain areas, certain cultures. I worked with a
Speaker 2: very global team, and I think different groups of people
Speaker 2: can look at disagreement in different ways. And sometimes we
Speaker 2: look at it very negatively of we need to be
Speaker 2: aligned and all get along. But I think there's a
Speaker 2: very fine distinction between we need to be working together
Speaker 2: in unison towards the same mission and moving together as
Speaker 2: one towards that. But that doesn't mean we're going to
Speaker 2: agree one hundred percent on everything. And if we do.
Speaker 2: Another quote I use in that chapter, is it something
Speaker 2: I heard of one as a kid that always stuck
Speaker 2: with me that if two people always agree, one of
Speaker 2: them is not necessary. And that was very impactful to me,
Speaker 2: just thinking that's kind of a good point. So if
Speaker 2: you have a team of people that are just yes, ma'am,
Speaker 2: yes theirs kind of thing, and nobody's bringing up dissenting opinions,
Speaker 2: every idea that gets brought up is going to remain
Speaker 2: as shallow as it first was. You need those disagreements
Speaker 2: and dissenting opinions to help make it better. And if
Speaker 2: you have an environment that fosters that and welcomes that,
Speaker 2: and that's something you have to do that in action,
Speaker 2: not just the word. And there's a lot of times
Speaker 2: I'll say like, any idea is welcome, and then somebody
Speaker 2: brings up an idea and it gets shot down, So
Speaker 2: you have to make sure your culture and your behavior
Speaker 2: back set up. But if you do have that environment
Speaker 2: where you want the descending opinions like help make my
Speaker 2: idea better, that's how you can go fast. I think
Speaker 2: specifically an innovation where you are again building the proverbial airplane.
Speaker 2: As you're flying it. You can't wait till you have
Speaker 2: all the research and all the facts and have that
Speaker 2: all figured out and I've got evaded, I've got my
Speaker 2: market validation. You're going to be too late to the game.
Speaker 2: So you're moving very quickly with minimal data, and so
Speaker 2: you really rely on other people to poke holes, and
Speaker 2: hopefully the holes are getting poked by your friends and
Speaker 2: your colleagues before it goes out there and the market
Speaker 2: and flops. So you want the people that are going
Speaker 2: to bring up those conflicting opinions because the end goal
Speaker 2: should be what I'm bringing to the table, what you're
Speaker 2: bringing to the table, all these other people are bringing
Speaker 2: to the table. We've all got a piece of that puzzle,
Speaker 2: but when you put it together, the sum of all
Speaker 2: the parts is greater. That's that's what you're going for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that And I think one of the
Speaker 1: questions that we get a lot on the podcast is like,
Speaker 1: how do you create the space for that to actually happen?
Speaker 1: Like as the leader of a team and you're in
Speaker 1: a meeting, or you're in an ideation session, or you're
Speaker 1: in a blue sky meeting, whatever we want to call it,
Speaker 1: Like you have people, they know that there is you
Speaker 1: know that we have to kind of push up once
Speaker 1: again against one another, maybe shoot holes in the plan.
Speaker 1: But how do you make that happen in a healthy way,
Speaker 1: especially initially, like again once once you have the team
Speaker 1: down that path and they all understand the value that
Speaker 1: they each bring and that this is an expectation that
Speaker 1: we have to do to make sure the best idea wins.
Speaker 1: What are those first maybe couple of meetings look like
Speaker 1: or what are you doing to open up the space
Speaker 1: to make it okay for us to have these different
Speaker 1: opinions and not necessarily take it personal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. One is
Speaker 2: it's important to set guidelines and boundaries. I think it's
Speaker 2: they're referred to this a lot. I have three small
Speaker 2: kids ten and under, and I say that leading is
Speaker 2: a lot like parenting. You have to have firm guidelines
Speaker 2: and boundaries because your kids are going to push for
Speaker 2: those and find to find those. Where's my end? How
Speaker 2: far can I go? But then within those boundaries you
Speaker 2: need to give freedom. And I one hundred percent I
Speaker 2: think it's the same when you're telling leading a team,
Speaker 2: you need to as a leader, you need to set boundaries.
Speaker 2: You need to be clear about that. Can't just be hey,
Speaker 2: we're gonna have an open dialogue and debate about anything
Speaker 2: and everything and who cares what the outcome is and
Speaker 2: we can talk for seventeen hours. You need some sort
Speaker 2: of parameter because there's there's some goal you're trying to achieve,
Speaker 2: Like we need to make a decision, we need to
Speaker 2: build something, we need to move forward. I this game
Speaker 2: when you were being up the question that gave me
Speaker 2: a flash back to my first management job twenty some
Speaker 2: odd years ago, and I remember having this conversation with
Speaker 2: my team back then, or did I They asked me
Speaker 2: what my management style was, and this was my first
Speaker 2: management job, so I'm like, well, I'm to figure it
Speaker 2: out as I go. But I had made the answer
Speaker 2: of I am a collaborative leader until the clock runs out,
Speaker 2: and then I'm command and control. And I think that
Speaker 2: worked really well, and that's something I have continued to
Speaker 2: use throughout my career of I want to hear upfront
Speaker 2: all those opinions and your question of how do you
Speaker 2: make room for that? I think if you say it,
Speaker 2: I'm big on say what you mean to me what
Speaker 2: you say. So when you have those first meetings, when
Speaker 2: you're still figuring out what a project is going to
Speaker 2: look like, be very crystal clear on here's the end
Speaker 2: goal of what we're trying to do. This is what
Speaker 2: we're trying to build, where we're trying to go, what
Speaker 2: we need to accomplish. Here are the known parameters that
Speaker 2: we have, time, budget, money, resources, whatever case is. But
Speaker 2: then within that, say, now we got to figure out
Speaker 2: how we're going to get there, how we're getting from
Speaker 2: A to B. Thoughts ideas and open it up and
Speaker 2: you can throw some thing out as the first idea.
Speaker 2: Just be careful you don't throw that out with the
Speaker 2: feeling that, oh, I can't I can't poke holes at
Speaker 2: that because that's the boss's idea and I can't go
Speaker 2: against that. So you definitely have to poke holes at
Speaker 2: your own idea and throw out and say this is
Speaker 2: where it's impartial. This is where I'm getting stuck in
Speaker 2: my own mental process, like this is a problem. What
Speaker 2: do you guys think? How can we do this better?
Speaker 2: What can we add to it? And I think, again,
Speaker 2: if you back that up with behavior, you don't shoot
Speaker 2: down people's ideas, you don't call somebody out in a room,
Speaker 2: you don't make somebody feel stupid in front of a
Speaker 2: crowd of their peers. So you have to back it
Speaker 2: up with behavior. But once you start having some meeting
Speaker 2: like that, like that, you get some really great dialogue
Speaker 2: in collaboration and people build on each other's ideas. But
Speaker 2: then when you start running out the clock, then you
Speaker 2: all right, great, those awesome. Here alls different opinions. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of different approaches we do. We can't do
Speaker 2: all of them right now. Let's do this, and then
Speaker 2: you can throw that out and you can get feedback
Speaker 2: on that, like any thoughts, feedback on that approach. But
Speaker 2: the end of the day, you do have to make
Speaker 2: a decision. That's the buck has tot up with somebody.
Speaker 2: So collaborative up until a point and then command and control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that collaborative into the clock runs out,
Speaker 1: I'm writing that down. I love that's such a great
Speaker 1: point there. It's phenomenal. And and you know, I also
Speaker 1: have two young daughters that are in second and third grade,
Speaker 1: so it's we have it ongoing joke with the Hacking
Speaker 1: Leadership podcast. It's like people have made bingo cards about
Speaker 1: the things that we kind of always talk about, and
Speaker 1: like the parental reference is one of those things we
Speaker 1: do it so often because it's so true. There's so
Speaker 1: many things there from yeah it is, we're living it,
Speaker 1: you know, like we're living like this is exactly what
Speaker 1: leadership is, right. I think it's so great. So I
Speaker 1: do want to take a quick break to hear from
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors. But when we get back, I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask Elizabeth about going outside.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And I love this because it made me think immediately
Speaker 1: about some of my childhood and some of the elements here,
Speaker 1: along with a meeting that I just attended around sportsmanship
Speaker 1: for my daughter who is about to start playing basketball.
Speaker 1: So we'll be right back with Elizabeth after these messages.
Speaker 1: All right, we are back here on the second half
Speaker 1: of this show with Elizabeth, and we want to talk
Speaker 1: about going outside. You mentioned this as a childhood mantra.
Speaker 1: I saw this term and I immediately thought of like me
Speaker 1: taking my bike to the big field to play with
Speaker 1: all the kids and there and there were no parents around,
Speaker 1: and it was a lot of like we had to
Speaker 1: figure out number one, what we were gonna do to
Speaker 1: have fun and not get in trouble, and then number
Speaker 1: two whatever we were going to play a lot of
Speaker 1: times we had to make up the rules and make adjustments,
Speaker 1: but there was so much just joy, and looking back
Speaker 1: on it, I think innovation and courage and confidence and
Speaker 1: all these things that came with it. So I'd love
Speaker 1: to dig a little bit deeper into this, just around
Speaker 1: going outside as a metaphor for you. What do you
Speaker 1: mean by that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think of my mom when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: and how many times she said that. I think I
Speaker 2: grew up in the geography and an era where the
Speaker 2: answer to everything was just going outside. I grew up
Speaker 2: in rural upstate New York, just outside of Albany. I
Speaker 2: lived on a dishy of forty acre small farm for
Speaker 2: our own sessenence and whatnot. It was all woods. It's
Speaker 2: all woodland back there, and it was anytime we weren't
Speaker 2: in school or occupied in some way helping with the farm.
Speaker 2: There was no such thing as on board. Can I
Speaker 2: play Mario? Can I do?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Was? Say? No? Go outside, go outside, come back when
Speaker 2: it's dark. I'll call you when it's dinner. And I
Speaker 2: spent a huge amount of my childhood outside just exploring
Speaker 2: and dealing with nature and wandering through those thirty eight
Speaker 2: acres I think it was. And I have a talk
Speaker 2: topic that I say, the value of poking things with sticks,
Speaker 2: and a lot of that is based on those same
Speaker 2: stories and remembrances of upstate New York is pretty wet
Speaker 2: in the spring, so you end up had just everything's mud.
Speaker 2: And I remember there's this little stream that ran and
Speaker 2: through the woods in our backyard that if you poked
Speaker 2: it a certain way, move some rocks around, move some
Speaker 2: leaves around, you could actually make it run a fair
Speaker 2: a fair amount. But otherwise it would just get a
Speaker 2: little stagnant and get filled filled up. And so I
Speaker 2: spent so much of my time just outside playing around
Speaker 2: with stuff like that, And like, hey, if I divert
Speaker 2: the water path here, what does this do? And like, oh,
Speaker 2: let me just make a mud puddle over here and
Speaker 2: like I find a critter and stick it in there
Speaker 2: and do so much is just expiration. And I think
Speaker 2: because of having that ingrained and me as a kid,
Speaker 2: it's something I still well. I tell my kids to
Speaker 2: do it all the time. Team just go outside. But
Speaker 2: I think it's something I use more metaphorically when I
Speaker 2: when I get stuck with something, anytime you get caught
Speaker 2: up in your own thinking, trying to solve a problem,
Speaker 2: really trying to look at things from a different angle,
Speaker 2: just physically taking a break and going outside. We are
Speaker 2: creatures that were designed to be a nature. We weren't
Speaker 2: designed to be in these little cubical boxes. And I
Speaker 2: think that's very stifling on your creativity and your perspective
Speaker 2: when you have a literal four walls closing in on you.
Speaker 2: So the ability to just get out of your environment
Speaker 2: figuratively and literally and allow yourself the luxury of a
Speaker 2: different perspective, I think that's really what helps thinking, problem solving, inspiration, innovation, ideation.
Speaker 2: It's amazing for that. So when I want going through
Speaker 2: the process of writing the book, I kept hearing I
Speaker 2: think my mom's voice talking to me from heaven of
Speaker 2: like just go outside. When I get stuck like godside.
Speaker 2: And so that theme is recurrent throughout the book because
Speaker 2: it is just a huge metaphor for problem solving in
Speaker 2: my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that, and that resonates with me quite
Speaker 1: a bit, and I think it's such an important thing.
Speaker 1: It's like it's the actual sense of getting stuck. It's
Speaker 1: a real, real thing, and it happens quite often, and
Speaker 1: many times we have to change the environment, you know,
Speaker 1: change change something that's going on to kind of break
Speaker 1: ourselves out of that. And I just love the idea
Speaker 1: of just kind of like get out there and and
Speaker 1: and go go poke the mud with a stick, you know,
Speaker 1: like just go do something that is going to is
Speaker 1: going to just have you go experience things in a
Speaker 1: different way and then bring that back together. So I
Speaker 1: love that metaphor for sure. You know, in the book
Speaker 1: you have you have five parts, and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about each of them. The first one, starting is hard.
Speaker 1: I think it's such a great call out there, and
Speaker 1: there's something in there that that that stood out to
Speaker 1: me around being disagreeable. You know, you talk about going
Speaker 1: outside of your comfort zone, finding uniqueness and embracing simplicity,
Speaker 1: but but being disagreeable. I read that and I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's it's such a great call, but I think that
Speaker 1: sometimes people may not. You know, it's one of those
Speaker 1: words that when you read it, you kind of project
Speaker 1: your own definition onto it. Yeah, right, versus like what
Speaker 1: you mean? So I'd love you to maybe talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about what do you mean by you when
Speaker 1: you say being disagreeable?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think looking at it in the context of
Speaker 2: starting versus how we were talking about it earlier in
Speaker 2: the in the podcast. But looking at in the context
Speaker 2: purely of starting, it is related to go outside. And
Speaker 2: I actually, I'll be honest, my drafts of Cake on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: I flip flopped those chapters a few times of which
Speaker 2: which one should I start with? And I ended up
Speaker 2: starting with be disagreeable because the whole first section that
Speaker 2: is about starting. I felt like that was the most
Speaker 2: important thing. And it came from I start out the
Speaker 2: book with a story having a chat with my former
Speaker 2: manager of it was very much like that Monty Python,
Speaker 2: good morning. I'd like to have an argument, And part
Speaker 2: of it is just me being native New Yorker. I'm like,
Speaker 2: let's let's just let's go things go. Let's let's let's start.
Speaker 2: And he's based in California, and we like to have
Speaker 2: that coastal conflict, I think. And we were having a
Speaker 2: coffee one morning and he oversaw he was a VP
Speaker 2: in our department over several different groups, and I was
Speaker 2: just in one small facet of that. At the time.
Speaker 2: I was working on business relationships and strategic relationships. He
Speaker 2: had a separate group that was working on strategy, and
Speaker 2: I was not really involved in that other than tangentially,
Speaker 2: we do some long range planning and I might have,
Speaker 2: you know, the relationship angles to it, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: really involved in corporate strategy at all. He had a
Speaker 2: great leader that ran it and the whole process and
Speaker 2: all that. But I was just feeling confrontational that morning
Speaker 2: give him our time over coffee. And we were in
Speaker 2: the process of doing this long range strategic plan, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, why do we call it a long range
Speaker 2: strategic plan? You're only looking three years out and you're
Speaker 2: only looking internally at adjacent technologies. That's not long range
Speaker 2: and that's not strategic. Why do we call it that?
Speaker 2: And he was very very patient, very kind, very patient.
Speaker 2: So he put up with all my Shenanigans. But I
Speaker 2: think that morning he just kind of took the approach
Speaker 2: of like, calm and bluff if you will, of all, right,
Speaker 2: what should we do? If you think you could do
Speaker 2: a better, longerach, strategic plan, show me do it. And
Speaker 2: he gave me some leeway to go do that. So
Speaker 2: I decided to take that, give me an inch, I'll
Speaker 2: take a mile. So I ran with that, and I
Speaker 2: spent that led to going outside. I spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time going external to our company, going to all
Speaker 2: these every incubator, accelerator, startup conference, everything I could go to,
Speaker 2: and trying to figure out what's on the horizon in
Speaker 2: this technology space, like what is some emerging tech that
Speaker 2: could really disrupt our current business model? What's out there?
Speaker 2: And that led to one thing led to another, and
Speaker 2: a lot of that was the project behind Cake on Tuesday.
Speaker 2: But it started with being disagreeable, and I wanted to
Speaker 2: start with that. In the whole concept of how do
Speaker 2: you start starting is hard because a lot of times
Speaker 2: it's simply looking at things from a different perspective. It's
Speaker 2: having that contrary view, that contrary approach. And you mentioned
Speaker 2: that you end up parenting references so I'm gonna throw
Speaker 2: it in. I feel like you open the door on
Speaker 2: that one. It's fair day. So it's the you're familiar
Speaker 2: with the Chick fil A logo, It's like the little
Speaker 2: chicken head with the the rooster with a comb on
Speaker 2: top of it. My son when he was I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe five at the time, we were driving by one
Speaker 2: of those restaurants and he saw the sign. It's like, Oh,
Speaker 2: that's that restaurant, the one, the one with the foot
Speaker 2: on the sign. I'm like, but once I saw it,
Speaker 2: I couldn't unsee it. And if you look at it
Speaker 2: in the mind of a five year old, it kind
Speaker 2: of looks like a foot. And so that's just there's
Speaker 2: so much about having kids. It just immediately they don't
Speaker 2: have the preconceived notions, they don't have the bias, they
Speaker 2: don't have all this baggage of this is how I'm
Speaker 2: supposed to look at it, like an I kind of
Speaker 2: drawing up a chicken head and like it looks like
Speaker 2: a foot. So sometimes when you look at things from
Speaker 2: a different perspective and you have that disagreeable thing, it
Speaker 2: might be like, look, this is your great strategic plan,
Speaker 2: because it's the same thing you've done for fifteen years,
Speaker 2: but I'm looking from this little side angle and it
Speaker 2: doesn't look that good to me. So I think being
Speaker 2: willing to have those contrary opinions and bring them up
Speaker 2: and bring them I was maybe being a little vivid
Speaker 2: of a jerk with my boss at the time, but
Speaker 2: bringing them up in a point of like, how do
Speaker 2: we make this better together? I think when it comes
Speaker 2: from that perspective of can we do something different for
Speaker 2: both of our benefits, then it's usually pretty well received.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. It's funny because I tend to
Speaker 1: reference the idea of like the curiosity of a seven
Speaker 1: year old right also lived experience like what's that? What
Speaker 1: does that do? How did that happen? What's that over there?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, why why?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Do you? Like, for a minute, it's annoying, But when
Speaker 1: you apply it in the workplace, you're like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: like why do we do that? And why is it
Speaker 1: that way? And whenever I bring on a new leader
Speaker 1: to a team, it's exactly what I asked them to
Speaker 1: go do. I'm like, ask all of the questions and
Speaker 1: just keep asking why. And I was like, and if
Speaker 1: we can't explain it in like less than a minute,
Speaker 1: then we probably don't actually know. And if you ever
Speaker 1: get the answer, well that's the way that we've always
Speaker 1: done it. Hit the time out, but right, and let's
Speaker 1: break it right now, right right, Like yeah, those are
Speaker 1: the things that we have to do. So I love that.
Speaker 1: That's so great. You know, in the in the second
Speaker 1: part and set your idea in motion, you talk about
Speaker 1: strategic hiring like not really being a necessity, and I
Speaker 1: want to just like pause there for a second because
Speaker 1: I think that then a lot of research, a lot
Speaker 1: of dialogue. I have spoken with a lot of recruiters
Speaker 1: around hiring and the importance of it. But what does
Speaker 1: that look like when you're thinking about that in your
Speaker 1: own lens of like strategic hiring? What do you mean
Speaker 1: by that? And who are you hiring to build the
Speaker 1: team in a positive way?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to hire people, but it's even harder
Speaker 2: to offload people if you get the wrong people. Taking
Speaker 2: that extra time and care upfront is really really important,
Speaker 2: And a lot of this goes down to what is
Speaker 2: what is your core culture or what is it you're
Speaker 2: trying to build or do or accomplish. What is that
Speaker 2: mission or north Star And if you're clear on that,
Speaker 2: the rest of it is less important. You want somebody
Speaker 2: that can jump in and really get excited about and
Speaker 2: about that long term goal and fit with the rest
Speaker 2: of it. But you don't need necessarily the nitty gritty
Speaker 2: details of did you do this exact same thing at
Speaker 2: this in a different environment or the same environment as
Speaker 2: a competitor or something like that. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of times we get hung up on this. I want
Speaker 2: to prove an entity, so I'm only going to hire
Speaker 2: somebody based on what they've done. And if somebody's applying
Speaker 2: for jobs because they want to do something different. So
Speaker 2: I think when you approach that from okay, yes I
Speaker 2: need some level of validation of what have you done?
Speaker 2: But what do you want to do? What are you
Speaker 2: excited about? What gets you jazzed about coming to work?
Speaker 2: What sets your soul on fire? Like? What do you
Speaker 2: dread or love or hate? Oh? Get let's get into it.
Speaker 2: And I think when you have those conversations, you get
Speaker 2: to know people a little bit better and understand how
Speaker 2: they might plug into your environment. I have what I
Speaker 2: would say is maybe non traditional interview practices. I mean
Speaker 2: I have to adhere to HR guidelines. I'm not doing
Speaker 2: anything crazy and try to go and bungee jumping or something.
Speaker 2: But I would have usually different questions that I would ask.
Speaker 2: I've had several people go through an interview with me
Speaker 2: and land nobody's ever asked me that before, but some
Speaker 2: of them are. Some of the questions are, well, actually,
Speaker 2: it's one kind of like what you just said. I
Speaker 2: went on hiring Blitz for a while because we're trying
Speaker 2: to staff up at one particular time on this project,
Speaker 2: and I had several open RECs at once, and you'd
Speaker 2: be coming into a team that was tasked with a
Speaker 2: charter of corporate innovation, and that was one of the
Speaker 2: things I would ask people. I'm like, tell me what
Speaker 2: you think corporate innovation is like you're talking to your
Speaker 2: eight year old nephew and just seeing how they would
Speaker 2: put it, because it's so easy when you get into
Speaker 2: these fancy schmancy fields to be like use all the
Speaker 2: acronyms and buzzwords like that has no meaning, Like talk
Speaker 2: to me like a real person. And I always found
Speaker 2: that like your eight year old niece or nephew is
Speaker 2: kind of a good because it's a fun age like
Speaker 2: they get a lot, it ain't, So how do you
Speaker 2: explain it in those terms? And I usually find people
Speaker 2: they'd have to think on the fly. For that, you
Speaker 2: have to really stop and think. I can't rely on
Speaker 2: buzzwords and industry acronyms and I can't use any of
Speaker 2: that that has no validity to an eight year old.
Speaker 2: So how do I actually break it down to nuts
Speaker 2: and bolts and explain the concept behind it? And I
Speaker 2: feel like that was always a good indicator of how
Speaker 2: you're going to deal with in biguous situations and working
Speaker 2: with new stuff like innovation. I also I'm very big
Speaker 2: on panel interviews and case study interviews and preferably both together.
Speaker 2: I have a downloadable on my website about hiring for innovation,
Speaker 2: and I talk about this is the process I use,
Speaker 2: and this is why I liked it. Why I think
Speaker 2: did it worked because you get to see how people.
Speaker 2: Case studies are great to see how people think, and
Speaker 2: panel interviews are great to see how they would work
Speaker 2: when the dynamics of your team. It's like a mini experiment.
Speaker 2: And it's fun too to just throw somebody into something
Speaker 2: that don't know what they're expecting and you're more likely
Speaker 2: to get an honest reaction if it's not too scripted.
Speaker 2: I gave a I was hiring a biz dev person
Speaker 2: at one point, and I gave them the interview question
Speaker 2: of it. You're gonna you're gonna present to a panel
Speaker 2: and they want you to make a pitch. You got
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes to make a pitch and then we'll ask questions.
Speaker 2: But your pitch is supposed to be about. Pitch me
Speaker 2: a merger of any two companies. That was it. I
Speaker 2: gave no further direction. They would ask for more. Fore
Speaker 2: you get nothing else, Just pitch me a merger of
Speaker 2: any two companies. And people came with all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: Some things would be very relevant to the business who
Speaker 2: were in in the space and be a logical thing.
Speaker 2: Somebody pitches like dog treats in an ice cream shop
Speaker 2: or something. Anyway, you can get all sorts of interesting
Speaker 2: And it didn't matter. It didn't matter what they pitch.
Speaker 2: What I wanted to know, how do you think about it?
Speaker 2: And how do you present an idea and how do
Speaker 2: you handle them field questions in a panel? And I
Speaker 2: think when you are looking at hiring, getting to understand
Speaker 2: one what really drives and motivates somebody and to how
Speaker 2: they think and how they approach problems and how they're
Speaker 2: going to approach ambiguity and crazy questions. Those two things
Speaker 2: together can give you a pretty good insight of how
Speaker 2: they're going to work and jive with your team and
Speaker 2: towards your mission.
Speaker 1: I love that. I think very familiar are very similar
Speaker 1: approaches to panel interviews and then kind of the non
Speaker 1: non traditional questions. Of course we're going to ask the
Speaker 1: ones that we need to ask, but there's always follow
Speaker 1: ups that you can do that maybe give you a
Speaker 1: little bit more of an insight into who the person is,
Speaker 1: how they see the world, how they define success for themselves.
Speaker 1: Things like that I think are great. And I probably
Speaker 1: would have pitched you a Chick fil A and a
Speaker 1: shoe store. I mean, that's what I would have gone
Speaker 1: with the right exactly. Yeah, we're going all in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that. So I know the third part of
Speaker 1: the book you talk about adding oil and reducing friction,
Speaker 1: and then the fourth part you talk about leading through
Speaker 1: the barren middle, and you specifically speak about shielding and
Speaker 1: protecting the team. And I love that language because I
Speaker 1: know what it means to me, And I also know
Speaker 1: that sometimes this is one of those examples where it's
Speaker 1: like it can be overused. People like we have to
Speaker 1: protect the team, and I'm like, well protect them from what?
Speaker 1: Like is there a line on the loose, Like what
Speaker 1: are we protecting them from? Right? Or are we talking
Speaker 1: about like keeping them focused and doing the work? Like
Speaker 1: like what are the you know, what are those things mean?
Speaker 1: But I'd love to dive into that a little bit deeper,
Speaker 1: just around when you say shielding to protected the team,
Speaker 1: what does that mean to you? And can you give
Speaker 1: an example of maybe how you have brought that to life?
Speaker 2: Sure for me, like I said, it was very important
Speaker 2: to get the right people on the team and put
Speaker 2: them through the gallet to get there. But once once
Speaker 2: that was done, and once we'd established parameters and here's
Speaker 2: the sandbox you can play in, but you can do
Speaker 2: whatever you want in that sandbox, then allowing them to
Speaker 2: do that was very important. So the shielding and protecting
Speaker 2: I use the analogy of an umbrella and a shield
Speaker 2: a lot because an umbrella being at the time, was
Speaker 2: working for a large organization. We were basically trying to
Speaker 2: run a small, stale startup inside of a big tech company,
Speaker 2: and there are certain things that come with a large organization,
Speaker 2: and the proverbial things rolled downhill. So the idea of
Speaker 2: an umbrella was, I'm gonna protect you from all that
Speaker 2: corporate noise and the forums you gotta fill out and
Speaker 2: the checkboxes you gotta do, and the analyst reports here,
Speaker 2: and the make sure you're you know, getting your funding
Speaker 2: pitch there, and all those kinds of things. As much
Speaker 2: as possible, I would protect my team from that, and like,
Speaker 2: you don't need to worry about that, just you just
Speaker 2: do you. And then the field is more is protecting
Speaker 2: from the sides. There's all that stuff that comes up
Speaker 2: with just I went to so and so in this
Speaker 2: department and I couldn't get this because we're outside of
Speaker 2: the normal practice and they need a special approval from
Speaker 2: this or this group won't won't sign off on this
Speaker 2: for that reason, or these people want to know what
Speaker 2: we're doing and they're not part of the NDA, or
Speaker 2: what's just stuff. There's there's red tape, and there's back
Speaker 2: and forth, and how do you protect them from that.
Speaker 2: I was very big on streamlining as much as possible.
Speaker 2: I have as few mandatory meetings as possible, have as
Speaker 2: few mandatory forms as much as possible. And this probably
Speaker 2: came honestly from I used to work in OPS a
Speaker 2: long time ago, and I was an OPS manager for
Speaker 2: an organization that when I inherited that role kind of
Speaker 2: interesting inherited. It's probably the best way I could say.
Speaker 2: When I inherited that role, there were certain practices in place,
Speaker 2: and I knew these vpgms that I worked with the
Speaker 2: dreaded this one monthly OPS prop like, send me this
Speaker 2: form and I gotta fill it out and it's got
Speaker 2: hieroglyphics and I hate doing it. And so when I
Speaker 2: first took over that job, I sat down with each
Speaker 2: of the vps that was responsible for their thing and
Speaker 2: I said, look, this is the information I need. I
Speaker 2: will take it in whatever way a format is easiest
Speaker 2: for you. Do you want to call you we have
Speaker 2: a twenty minute chat. Do you want to me to
Speaker 2: send it to somebody on your team they'll fill it
Speaker 2: out for you. Do you want to attach it to
Speaker 2: the leg of a carrier pigeon and send it to
Speaker 2: me on a napkin. I don't care. I just need
Speaker 2: the information. I'll make sure it gets into all the
Speaker 2: forums and the right check boxes are ticked and all that,
Speaker 2: But you have a business to run. You don't need
Speaker 2: to decipher this. I just need to know what's in
Speaker 2: your head. And that worked really well in that scenario
Speaker 2: in that my approach was different with each VP that
Speaker 2: I worked with because you're trying to meet them in
Speaker 2: the style that they're they're working in. But I felt
Speaker 2: I applied that with my team as well, because it's
Speaker 2: you're shielding people from the noise, You're shielding people from
Speaker 2: the red tape, Your shield people from all this, all
Speaker 2: the things, the extra the other is needed that's bogging
Speaker 2: them down from actually being themselves and doing their core competency.
Speaker 2: So shielding is protecting them from all that, whether it's
Speaker 2: coming from tops, down from the side, or just general paperwork.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. That's exactly kind of what I
Speaker 1: think as well. It's kind of like the For me,
Speaker 1: it was about helping them to stay focused and with
Speaker 1: positive energy and not having to deal with like hurdles
Speaker 1: and distractions that can come from from anywhere, from every
Speaker 1: direction and that type of thing. So I coached remember one.
Speaker 2: Of my engineers on the team saying he needed a
Speaker 2: certain specific type of equipment, and it came saying like
Speaker 2: you could get it from these couple of vendors, but
Speaker 2: it looks like that a star from here, and then
Speaker 2: this price point out I think we can get we
Speaker 2: have to import it from nothing. I'm like, why are
Speaker 2: you looking at that? Just tell me what you need.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I need these specifications. Great when you
Speaker 2: need to buy, well, I really needed by next week. Okay, super,
Speaker 2: you'll have it. And then I work with why are
Speaker 2: you spending all this time figuring out you're not a
Speaker 2: shipping logistics person. I have somebody who's really good at
Speaker 2: shipping logistics. Let me work with them on that. So
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, allowing people to shine where they shine
Speaker 2: and step back from the area so that that are
Speaker 2: not their core competencies, you allow people to have a
Speaker 2: lot more productivity. It's also a great way to get
Speaker 2: way more performance out of your team because you allow
Speaker 2: them to tenx and the thing they're good at and
Speaker 2: not waste their time and stuff that they struggle with exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. And then the final part insights
Speaker 1: from the review mirror. We're big fans of reflection and
Speaker 1: considering a lot of things. That we've learned. And I
Speaker 1: love that you talk about like the value from every experience.
Speaker 1: You know, we share a lot around just the once
Speaker 1: you kind of click into that mode of realizing that
Speaker 1: you're gaining your you're gaining development, you're gaining training, you're
Speaker 1: gaining experience over time of doing the work, and you know,
Speaker 1: open up to new perspectives. I think that takes away
Speaker 1: sometimes our hyper focus on things like titles, promotions, the
Speaker 1: next job, and it's like just just realizing that those
Speaker 1: things are can can continue to happen as long as
Speaker 1: you're applying yourself to the work. And then you talk
Speaker 1: about gratitude and joy and problem solving. So I'd love
Speaker 1: to just kind of you know, as you thought about
Speaker 1: that last part there, you know, of all those things,
Speaker 1: if you said, hey, you're facing rejection, finding mentors, maintaining
Speaker 1: self preservation, long game, you know, and then the the
Speaker 1: riving value piece, like which one of those things for
Speaker 1: you is like, this is the biggest thing for me
Speaker 1: that I think has the most relevancy and impact, you know,
Speaker 1: of the collection of all.
Speaker 2: Of them, I think the finding joy in the journey
Speaker 2: probably encompasses all of it, because that includes the taking
Speaker 2: time to reflect, taking your learnings, and applying those making
Speaker 2: sure you're you're enjoying everything that you went through. To
Speaker 2: some extent, I think this was probably around coping mechanism
Speaker 2: at some point of if you look at my career progression,
Speaker 2: it's it's it kind of does like one of these things.
Speaker 2: It's it's not like it's nice clear line. And I
Speaker 2: think early on in my career I had to come
Speaker 2: up with a story of why are you trying to
Speaker 2: pursue this area or this job, and looking at each
Speaker 2: of the roles I had had and the things I
Speaker 2: had done, what I was good at, and what I
Speaker 2: liked to do, I did come up with a story
Speaker 2: of these can look at first glance like completely separate things,
Speaker 2: but when you think about it, I learned this skill here,
Speaker 2: and then I was able to build on that, and
Speaker 2: learn this skill here, and build on that and learn
Speaker 2: this even though the things looked all over the place.
Speaker 2: And so I think that very last chapter of the book,
Speaker 2: all experiences are useful if you learn from them is
Speaker 2: kind of the best way to capture that of find
Speaker 2: joy in all that and pull out the useful nuggets
Speaker 2: and discard the rest, because experiences are never going to
Speaker 2: go exactly according to plan, and what's logical to you
Speaker 2: might not be logical to somebody else. But if it
Speaker 2: works for your long term journey and you're learning one
Speaker 2: bit of information from that, awesome, that's a step forward.
Speaker 1: I love that. Well, thank you again, Elizabeth for an
Speaker 1: amazing conversation. You know we are.
Speaker 2: We're going to.
Speaker 1: Continue this dialogue in our Pillars and Pitfalls series onlines
Speaker 1: guide dot com. But before we wrap up, I'd love
Speaker 1: for you to just share with the audience, maybe you
Speaker 1: know social media, where can they find you? Where'd you
Speaker 1: like them to go to purchase the book and things
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: Sure, Elizabethiannick dot com is my website. You can find
Speaker 2: me on LinkedIn, Elizabeth Bianchill. There's not that many of us.
Speaker 2: He'll find me out there, and then I'm also on
Speaker 2: Instagram and x at Cake on Tuesday. My book is
Speaker 2: titled Cake at Tuesday twenty five Lessons to Unlocked Corporate Innovation.
Speaker 2: You can buy it Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, Target pretty
Speaker 2: much anywhere you can get a book.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, thank you again, Elizabeth Biennick. It's been an
Speaker 1: amazing conversation. We'll have all of the links and everything
Speaker 1: in the episode notes for anyone who wants to get
Speaker 1: there quickly and check it all out and support some
Speaker 1: amazing leadership content. Thank you all, and we'll talk to
Speaker 1: you all next time, all right,