Episode 105: What Works in Distributed Teams: Stories of Growth & Learning
John O’Duinn, pronounced John Oh.Dinn, is an engineer, and he sees almost everything in his life as a system. That means that with every problem he experiences or obstacle he needs to address, he sees it not as a stand-alone issue, but as part of something bigger. He understands how to dig into a problem by seeing it from a larger perspective, that a solution must address the overall health of a system, not just one small part of it.
Our Human Workplace Requires Clear Communication Systems
John O’Duinn, author of Distributed Teams
John O’Duinn (pronounced Oh.Dinn) is an engineer, and he sees everything in life as a system. That means that with every problem he experiences or obstacle he needs to address, he sees it not as a stand-alone issue, but as part of something bigger. He understands how to dig into a problem by seeing it from a larger perspective, that a solution must address the overall health of a system, not just one small part of it.
This unique way of seeing things makes him really good at problem-solving, and made him exactly the right person to write about remote workers, what makes remote work appealing and beneficial, and how to make remote working effective. His book, Distributed Teams, dives deeply into the benefits of remote teams, and then gives step-by-step guidelines to make remote working a successful endeavor.
There is so much to consider when hiring people, building a business, and setting up for an intentional culture, and one of those decisions must be whether to require people to work in a specific physical office location. It’s not easy to create a culture of communication in terms of clear processes and rules, but it’s critical as a company grows beyond 4-6 people, whether you’re sharing an office or whether your team is distributed.
My biggest take-away from the book is the dramatic improvement in the diversity of workplaces when remote working is an option and well-planned and executed. There were so many interesting parts to this conversation with John, and I came away from it with a huge appreciation for that aspect of his book and our discussion. There is plenty of evidence to support the value of diverse workplaces in terms of innovation, productivity, problem-solving and the resulting bottom-line improvement. This conversation, plus John’s book, make an excellent case for increasing the opportunities for people to work remotely, on distributed teams.
He referred to a study funded by the World Bank on urban mobility, which took place in Buenos Aires. Here’s the piece that we discussed:
If women are indeed constrained to smaller commutes, it also means they have access to fewer employment opportunities – with inevitable consequences on their wage rates and related labor market outcomes.
To read the full article, click here.
Connect with John on LinkedIn, and I highly recommend you check out his book, Distributed Teams, whether you’re a remote worker, work from home, or simply want to improve your team’s communication and processes. John referred to a book by Michael Lopp, Managing Humans, which can be found here.
Episode 104: Truly Effective Leadership Begins with Self-Reflection
Rajkumari Neogy loved her job, but couldn’t shake the feeling of being excluded. As a leader in the organization, it was difficult to pinpoint where that feeling of dissatisfaction and exclusion was coming from because she had a great boss and an engaged team, but something just wasn’t right.
Leadership Development Requires Stories of Self-Reflection
Rajkumari Neogy loved her job, but couldn’t shake the feeling of being excluded. As a leader in the organization, it was difficult to pinpoint where that feeling of dissatisfaction and exclusion was coming from because she had a great boss and an engaged team, but something just wasn’t right.
So many of us feel disconnected from the communities we’re expected to feel close to, the community at work, at church or synagogue, even with our own families. Many of us feel like we’re out here on our own, like we simply don’t belong to any one community, like we just don’t fit in anywhere.
When Rajkumari left her job, her ultimate goal was to learn more about why those feelings were so persistent, to study the neurobiology behind those feelings of disconnection and exclusion, even when there was no evidence to support those feelings.
During our conversation about resilience and the impact of genetics on trauma, Rajkumari mentioned two scientists well-regarded in the field of epigenetics, Rachel Yehuda and Moshe Szyf.
From an interview with Dr. Yehuda: “Rachel Yehuda is a pioneer in understanding how the effects of stress and trauma can transmit biologically, beyond cataclysmic events, to the next generation.”(1)
Also mentioned was a book by Sarah Peyton, Your Resonant Self, which you can find here.
Our conversation spanned from that feeling of exclusion and where it comes from, to the strategies we can use to address trauma in our bodies and minds. Rajkumari is committed to self-reflection to continue to grow and improve as a coach, to and bring others along for that journey.
(1) https://onbeing.org/programs/rachel-yehuda-how-trauma-and-resilience-cross-generations-nov2017/
Episode 103: Good Career Advice Might Not Be What You Think
When Eddie Wilders graduated from high school, all he knew was that he wanted to go to college. He didn’t know which college, or what programs he would be interested in, but he knew he wanted to be the first in his family to get a degree and do something different.
Career Guidance Stories, Reviews, and Regrets
When Eddie Wilders graduated from high school, all he knew was that he wanted to go to college. He didn’t know which college, or what programs he would be interested in, but he knew he wanted to be the first in his family to get a degree and do something different.
Eddie’s guidance counselor in high school was anything but, friendly and open, there for support, but did little to actually guide and help her students with important decisions.
He didn’t have any more success with that kind of guidance in college. When he was about to graduate with his Communications degree, rather than giving him some concrete ideas for jobs to apply for, his counselor said: “You can do just about anything with that degree!” And left it at that.
Eddie and I met in the comments section of a post on LinkedIn, asking about career advice. I responded to his comment on the post that I received plenty of decent career advice, but looking back now, none of it applied to me. All the advice I received was general, not specific to my tendency toward passionately learning something for a while, and then getting bored, self-sabotaging, and then switching jobs.
His questions and concerns were geared toward how he could guide his young daughters, since he didn’t receive useful guidance, and I immediately reached out to ask him about his experience and to record it for this episode.
Our conversation spanned from dressing appropriately for the job you want and for the environment you find yourself standing, to taking a trial and error approach in career decisions from early on. Eddie didn’t feel like he had the luxury of the trial and error system because all he knew was the experiences of his parents: Find a good job, get really good at it, and stick with it because it’s a good job and it pays.
Looking back now, he knows he wants his daughters to feel confident in trying different professional environments until they find one that feels right.
It’s always a pleasure to speak with someone with an important message, and Eddie shares one I’m sure most people can relate to, getting stuck in something because of the expectations and experiences of others.
Connect with Eddie on LinkedIn, and let him know what resonated with you about this episode!
Episode 102: Finding Soul-Shifting Moments
This episode’s theme is career transformation. My guest, Lorraine Flower, had a moment in her late 30s, when she was quickly and effectively moving up the corporate ladder, really on the upswing of her career, when she realized her soul wasn’t being fed.
Listen Closely to Your Heart When Your Story Shifts
This episode’s theme is career transformation. My guest, Lorraine Flower, had a moment in her late 30s, when she was quickly and effectively moving up the corporate ladder, really on the upswing of her career, when she realized her soul wasn’t being fed. She took what she called a sabbatical from her job, with the intention of spending time to learn what would feed her soul, and when she was offered an incredible opportunity with a different firm just a few months later, she came within a couple of days of starting – and then walked away from it.
Connect with Lorraine on LinkedIn, and visit her website to learn more about how she helps leaders remember to feed their souls by helping them identify and develop the soul of their companies.
Episode 101: Impulsive But Not Stupid
What is one thing you’ve been saying about yourself for decades? What are the stories you share that give you and your listeners the perceptions that match that thing you’ve been saying about yourself, confirming those characteristics in a positive or negative way?
Stories We Tell Have an Impact On Our Perceptions of Ourselves
“Just to make sure I understand this: If I sign the lease before the other two women in the house, I have the option of bringing a small pet. If I don’t choose to have one, I still have one of only two leases with that clause, which means if I don’t bring a small pet, that will be one fewer pet in the house. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Excellent. How much is the deposit again?”
It was the end of the spring semester and I was signing a lease to share a four bedroom house with three other women starting fall semester at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. A few minutes later, I was on my way home to my parent’s house in Colorado Springs to spend the summer working and saving money for the next school year.
It was a fun summer working in a fancy restaurant, mostly lunch service, with a ridiculously fun crew, and the weeks flew by quickly. Just a few days before I was scheduled to move into the house in Fort Collins, I got a phone call from the landlord.
Her father bought the big house for her to live in and manage for the time she was going to be in school. As a student in the pre-veterinary program, they knew she’d be spending at least 4-6 years there and made a very wise investment by buying a house for her instead of renting. If I have any regrets in life, it’s not finding a way to buy a small house there while I was in school. Just a few years later, Fort Collins became a bedroom community for the Denver area, and still retains its lovely, small-town feel, and the property values have sky-rocketed there.
I answered her call to hear an abrupt, challenging tone:
“I’ve decided you can’t have a small pet in the house after all.”
“But that was in the lease I signed, Jessica.”
“I know, but I changed my mind.”
“Um… that’s not legal. Besides, what changed your mind?”
“I was only going to bring one of my cats from home in Albuquerque but I decided I want to bring both, and my dad said we couldn’t have more than two cats in the house.”
I’m not normally unreasonable, and I certainly wasn’t a particularly spiteful 20 year old, but her challenging, abrupt, aggressive tone really put me off. If she had just explained the situation and apologized for trying to change a legal document, I’m sure I would have been fine with it. But she wasn’t. And I was, well, 20, and pretty impulsive.
“What if I already got a kitten?”
“Can you take it back?” Again in a challenging and aggressive tone.
“What? Take it BACK? Are you serious? No! I can’t just TAKE IT BACK.”
“Okay then. We’ll just have to hide him when my dad comes to visit.”
Seconds after hanging up the phone I grabbed the newspaper off the kitchen table and combed the classifieds for free kittens. Two hours later I was driving home with my sister, with a kitten on my lap in my ’74 gold VW Super Beetle, stopping to pick up a cat box, cat litter, cat food, and a couple of toys for a kitten I couldn’t afford, didn’t really want, and hadn’t considered naming yet.
I can’t even imagine what my parents were thinking when I brought that kitten home. We were a dog family, through & through, and hadn’t had a cat since I was five years old. I didn’t even like cats.
But Clawed became an important part of my life, the only stable, reliable thing I experienced for at least six years, until I met my husband. He was all the things a cat can be: Mischievous, snuggly (on his terms), playful, and loving. And he was mine, completely mine. He tolerated other people, but I was HIS. I loved that cat for 9 years through multiple moves, the final one from Washington DC to Montana, where he died just a few months later. He brought me comfort in times of uncertainty, and gave me memories that have become legendary stories in my family. He was a beautiful accident to come out of a spiteful, impulsive decision.
I’ve been describing myself as impulsive for as long as I can remember, and most people who know me well would agree. And while I can be impulsive sometimes, I realize now when I look back, that most of the time my behavior was not as spontaneous as it appeared at the time.
It wasn’t until I started getting deeply into my StrengthsFinder results that I saw myself and those quick decisions as less impulsive and more strategic. As I mentioned in an earlier episode, my top strengths are Strategic and Activator, and it took me at least four months to see where strategic showed up in my daily life.
That’s one of the cool things about that particular assessment: It opens your eyes to the possibility that something you considered a weakness before can be shifted to be seen from a different perspective, even as a strength.
Summit looking south east, Mt. Helena, Helena, Montana
In that earlier episode, I mentioned that my strategic shows up in my hamster-brain thinking process as I’m getting ready to do something. The example I used was that in the seconds it took me to bundle up for a hike on the mountain behind my house, I had a plan for the route I would take that day, complete with an explanation for every part of my plan: I’d take a steep trail up to get my heart rate up and warm my core, I’d take the two-block route to the trail that would allow for the dog to poop where it could easily be picked up and disposed of, and I’d be sure not to take the steep trail back because my knees were a little achy.
It was that “ah ha” moment on the mountain that I could finally see that strategic showed up a LOT in my life, like when I am in the car, and before I even click my seatbelt on, I know exactly the route I will take to run errands, and the reasons for the route.
And in the time between that discovery and today, I’ve started to see how strategic was showing up in my past, impulsive-looking decisions.
Getting Clawed was absolutely impulsive, there’s no sugar-coating that decision, when my Activator went crazy and Strategic took a back seat.
But the time (seemingly out of nowhere) I asked my husband to marry me after 8 months dating wasn’t nearly as impulsive as it seemed. And the time, two days after we moved from Washington DC to Montana, I drove our 218,000 mile Honda Accord into the Subaru dealer parking lot with a failing transmission and drove out less than two hours later in a Subaru Outback Sport. And the time I walked through an 1890 Victorian home for a few minutes, called Bob to come look at it, and made an offer at 4:00 that afternoon. And the time I talked to Neil Hughes in late October about maybe starting a podcast, and launching it on December 26, 2017 with a handful of episodes in the hopper for a weekly publication. Was I thinking long term about any of those things? Absolutely not.
22 Anniversary, Bob and Sarah at the Missouri River, 2019
And yet, here I am, married for more than 22 years (and still like him an awful lot, but that’s another story), driving our third Subaru since purchasing that first one in 1999, all from the same awesome dealership, living in a charming, “project house” for nearly 20 years with loads of extraordinary memories of raising two wonderful boys, hosting guests, parties, and music in it, and here we are at episode 101 of that crazy idea of a weekly podcast I had nearly two years ago.
So. This is what Strategic-Activator looks like in me. None of those decisions were actually impulsive in the sense that they were exclusively spontaneous. Now – to someone with Deliberative or Intellection in their top strengths (like my husband), they certainly look that way, but that’s because a) they’re not in my head with me, where a ridiculously detailed but very fast internal dialog has happened before I take a step, and b) I haven’t taken them along for that ride.
Before asking my husband to marry me, my hamster brain had spent considerable effort (but not time, necessarily) thinking about things like: I haven’t ever wanted to spend this much time with one person, especially a guy, he treats me like I matter, like I’m smart and insightful, beautiful and sexy, reliable and practical (mostly), he brings me an espresso in bed every morning we’re together, which looks a lot like “love” and “cherish” to me, he’s kind, challenges me, is crazy-smart, warm, and tolerates my crazy – and my family’s crazy, with patience and is even mildly entertained by it. Those all felt like real things to me at the time, they still do, and asking him to marry me just felt right.
Buying that first Subaru wasn’t an instant decision either. And I had seen enough houses in the area we wanted to live, that I knew the deal-breakers for me. Of course, I didn’t REALLY understand what he meant when Bob said: “You know this is a project house, right?” But we haven’t ever regretted those decisions, nearly 20 years later. They were both good, reasonable decisions.
And when I took on that podcast project? I knew I had the support and resources to make it work long before I recorded the first episode. So no, it wasn’t even part of my imagination to consider I’d still be doing this, 101 episodes later. But then, at 20 years old, I thought the only thing I’d ever do for more than 20 years was breathe… and have a cat for a while.
I told a story at a live storytelling event a few years ago, explaining the thought process before getting my one and only tattoo at 44 years old. It’s called I’m Impulsive, Not Stupid.
I’ve been telling myself for most of my life that I’m impulsive, maybe somewhat smart, but definitely lucky for how most of those impulsive decisions turned out well. I told myself I simply trusted my instincts. And yet, as I become more intentional with my strengths, I’m able to see those decisions from a completely different perspective. It has shifted my confidence in a big way, and as a communication coach, has offered me incredible insights into others, particularly those with similar - and opposite - strengths from mine.
Being more aware of how my strengths work has also improved my communication with my husband, family, and close friends. When I’m working through an important decision, I now take those involved for the ride on that hamster wheel in my brain, so they can hear the reasoning behind where I’m leaning in that decision. And even more important, they can see the flaws and/or beauty of the reasoning to help me make those decisions more thoughtful and reliable.
If I surrounded myself only with people who thought like me, I’d miss out on making better decisions, and on recognizing and demonstrating that I value the strengths in the people around me, which is always good for relationships.
What is one thing you’ve been saying about yourself for decades? What are the stories you share that give you and your listeners the perceptions that match that thing you’ve been saying about yourself, confirming those characteristics in a positive or negative way?
Consider where those characteristics might not be what you’ve been telling yourself all these years, and maybe, just maybe you’ll see yourself in a more true, positive light.
EPISODE 100: Community is the Key to Your Emotional Health and Personal Development
For this 100th episode, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate theme than Community. It’s my community that make me who I am today. It’s my community - that I built with intention - that bring me satisfaction, challenge, and joy. It’s my community that helped me be the person I aspire to be, and to raise our children to be independent, kind, compassionate adults.
Special Episode: Stories of Building Community and Our Identity
Music was our matchmaker. (Stay tuned to the end to hear the entire song from the regular intro and conclusion music!)
Twila and I met because our husbands were looking for other musicians to jam with. One of them answered the other one’s Craig’s List ad, they played together a couple of times, and then I invited them over for dinner and music. We never considered not making music together after that night. Our voices together created something entirely different than our voices separately. The complexity of our vocal tone and harmonies continue to make the hairs rise on our necks, and on the necks of our audiences. I call her my Soul Sister.
Today’s 100th episode of Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is sponsored by Uchi. Scroll down for more information about this new communication improvement app!
For this 100th episode, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate theme than Community. It’s my community that make me who I am today. It’s my community - that I built with intention - that bring me satisfaction, challenge, and joy. It’s my community that helped me be the person I aspire to be, and to raise our children to be independent, kind, compassionate adults.
The audio contributions from Heather Younger, Lynda Spiegel, Joe Kwon, and Neil Hughes were overwhelming! I am so grateful to you, friends, you make it all worthwhile. Truly.
Sarah and Neil at NLVDenver2018
“Special thanks to Neil Hughes for his critical role in bringing these 100 episodes to life. It simply wouldn’t be possible without him.”
I started to build my LinkedIn community about 10 years ago, slowly at first, finding my footing as a blog writer and contributor to the platform via comments and sharing valuable, relevant content.
The first people I connected with deeply were Heather Younger, Neil Hughes, John White, Dustin McKissen, Susan Rooks, Chris Spurvey, Lynda Spiegel, Karthik Rajan, and Larry Boyer. All of whom have transformed their lives since then, publishing books, starting speaking careers, building businesses, and more. These were the people putting out great content that I was learning from, engaging with, and sharing, which was the reason for the substantial growth of my LinkedIn network: People started to follow me because they trusted me to share relevant content, and to connect them with wicked-smart, insightful professionals.
Melissa Hughes and Zach Messler at NLVDenver2018
Those people are the reason for the existence of the No Longer Virtual events. I realized that bringing them together, face-to-face, would offer even more opportunities to deepen my learning from them, and our relationships. We’re heading into our fourth year, No Longer Virtual will descend on Chicago on March 12 & 13, 2020.
That first event in Atlanta in 2017 brought me face-to-face with many of my favorite LinkedIn voices, including Melissa Hughes, Zach Messler, and Amy Blaschka, who continue to be huge inspirations and support for me. Our relationships began virtually, and now I cannot imagine my life without them - or the others I mentioned - in it. They are my community.
For this episode, I wanted to explore what community means to people, and to share what my community means to me.
One of many music nights at our house - our community!
So I hit the record button in the kitchen at Twila’s house, while sitting with her, her daughter, Joy (featured in Episode 94), and our younger son, Max (featured in an April 2018 episode), and drinking coffee and eating delicious, fresh-from-the-oven banana bread.
Joy Gabiel, Life Coach
Two of us moved around a lot as kids (Joy and me), and two stayed in the same house and small communities all through their childhood (Max and Twila). That dynamic made for really interesting insights and discussion about what community means, it’s impact on us, and why it’s so important to be intentional about building a diverse community of supporters, challengers, and truth-tellers.
Joy’s perspective is significantly different from the others in the room. As an only child and a more solitary soul, community is critical for her emotional health in a completely different way from those of us who are generally more social creatures. She explained that as a Challenger (Enneagram reference), she isn’t a naturally trusting person, so her comfort zone is being solitary. But with that solitary life, she risks spending far too much time in her own head, which can cause what she called “disintegration”.
Max, Freshman at University of Montana
Max’s perspective leaned toward mine, that a healthy, supportive community becomes the foundation for curiosity and exploration of other communities and environments. He said that his foundational community, the peer group he has stayed close with since preschool and kindergarten, continues to help him feel secure in his exploration outside of that comfort zone.
I hope you enjoy listening to this 100th episode as much as I enjoyed recording it.
2011, Sarah and Twila at one of our many dinner parties with our community
Rocket to Uranus performance at the Silver Dollar Saloon, Butte, with guest vocalist Twila Olson
Today’s 100th episode of Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is sponsored by Uchi.
Uchi is proud to sponsor this milestone 100th episode about Community because uchi, in Japanese, means “in-group” or “inner circle”. The folks at Uchi believe people are yearning to feel closer to others. Not to everyone, but to the people who matter most to them.
Uchi is a free app, available for download on the App Store and Google Play, that helps make conversations easier.
It’s like those cards games where you sit around a table and share answers to questions, but this is online so you can do it anywhere, at any time and with anyone around the world. Community is about people and their relationships to each other. Uchi’s mission is to help people connect authentically with those who matter most to them in order to have more meaningful relationships.
As an official sponsor of the 100th episode of the Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will podcast, Uchi is contributing to Elkins Consulting’s, No Longer Virtual 2020 conference scholarship fund.
Episode 99: Motivation Can Be as Simple As Asking Questions
I’ve been asked how I stay motivated, how I keep myself moving forward, and I’ve always had a hard time answering that question. I just go, sometimes to my detriment. In the StrengthsFinder assessment, I can easily see it’s about my top two talents, Strategic and Activator.
Curiosity is the Key
I’ve often been asked how I stay motivated, how I keep myself moving forward, and I’ve always had a hard time answering that question. I just go, sometimes to my detriment. In the StrengthsFinder assessment, I can easily see it’s about my top two talents, Strategic and Activator.
But as I was hiking on the mountain behind my house yesterday, I realized I don’t just GO.
I was breathing hard as I made that first ascent, following my big dog up to the first high point on the mountain, and found it frustrating, really. I take that path multiple times a week, and it is still hard for me, a challenge to keep my pace as my heart pounds and my hips ache. I pushed on up the mountain, thinking that if I didn’t want to go past that first high point, I could take another path down, making a much shorter loop than the one I had originally intended as I left the house.
But I got to that high point, looked out at the small city below me, and pressed on toward the next high point.
Sarah and Toblerone at the summit of Mt. Helena
Again, as my breathing got harder and my legs and hips started to feel the fatigue of the ascent, I told myself I could take the next loop back down and go to my nice, warm house for a cup of hot tea. I also reminded myself that once I started back down the mountain, it wasn’t going to be so much work, and my heart rate would slow. Knowing that, I looked up the path to see a familiar curve, and chose to keep moving up the mountain, eventually getting to the summit.
That mountain is so familiar to me, I generally know what’s around each curve, but I find myself endlessly curious, despite that familiarity. Curious to see what might be around that curve, curious to test myself, my persistence, my fitness level, just curious.
That’s it, I realized, a big part of my motivation is that simple. It’s curiosity.
There are days, blustery and cold, or far too hot and dry, that I get to a high point on the mountain and take the shorter, easier route to go back down, rather than explore, or choose to get to the summit. Those are the days I consider my state of mind and my physical limitations, and my motivation falters. If I didn’t have those days, I wouldn’t be able to relate to my coaching clients. Everyone has those days.
Curiosity is what motivates me, and curiosity can be cultivated. My strengths are my strengths, but curiosity is part of my character, just like resilience and persistence.
What will happen next?
What is my challenge this time?
What will I learn, who will I meet, will I fail or succeed?
What will my impact be, how will this positively effect someone else?
Curiosity about the future, curiosity about myself and my abilities. Now I know how to answer that question about what keeps me motivated on my journey of self-employment, and life in general.
How can you cultivate curiosity?
Ask yourself a question every morning: What beauty will today bring?
Ask yourself a question every time you hesitate to work on a project or face a difficult conversation with someone: What will happen next, when this is complete? What positive impact can I have in this conversation?
Those questions will eventually become part of your daily routine, and will become instinct, creating opportunities for deeper observation and motivation.
If curiosity isn’t what drives you, what makes you move forward with intention, what does? Is it setting and achieving goals? Is it the work itself? Are you motivated by the relationships you build with your time and energy?
Finding out what motivates you is the key to finding satisfaction in your life and relationships. Because when you discover that simple detail about yourself, you can use it with intention to move forward and build the life you want.
This story was originally published on the BizCatalyst 360 multimedia platform.
Come back next week for our 100th episode!
