Hi everyone. My name is Patrick Akio and if
you're interested in how people communicate, how to get
dedicated teams and how to let people grow and flourish, this
episode is for you. Joining me today is my friend
Julia Sullivan. She does and facilitates all of
that and much more. Enjoy.
I was thinking because I I saw you wrote a book and you said
you've done podcasts and more so broadcasts.
Where is like your sweet spot? Do you like written form content
or also like conversations like these?
In where I think I both really my most of my work happens live
but then I'm training people so nobody's interviewing me about
me and I suppose that's that's what I'm what I'm used to doing.
Working live with people, whatever, with whatever happens.
I'm not really used to people interviewing me about what I
think and and so whenever it's about what I think and about me,
then I like to prepare. So in in that sense, writing is
good because I I tend to kind of edit myself while I'm I'm
talking. So writing the book was a very
good process for me to get my ideas together.
I don't write very easily, so I have to correct myself a lot.
But I suppose I'm a bit of a perfectionist.
And then when when I've got it, when I've got it, that's exactly
the way I wanted on paper, yeah. Then it must have been a
process. So it was a whole process.
It was a whole process, yeah. Funny, I don't label myself as a
perfectionist, but for some reason when it comes to writing,
like a lot of things irked me and I'm like, no, this can be
rewritten and I have to really be like, OK, I'll either publish
it or it's never going to get published.
When it comes to like a social post or or content, even on with
regards to the podcast, somehow I turn into a perfectionist when
it comes to writing. Well luckily I was I I was
supported through the whole process of of writing and and at
the beginning they told us to like just just just sit down,
write, don't even think what you're going to write.
Think of the day before what you're going to write on.
And then just so I would write without my glasses.
Now I need glasses to read, so without my glasses.
So I couldn't see what I was writing and literally and I knew
it was rubbish. And they said, they said to us,
you know, even Ernest Hemingway, you know we started writing
rubbish and then you and you have to edit it.
I'm not claiming that I've earnest Hemingway here at all,
but that was get that really helped us get over the the
sentence has got to be brilliant.
Interesting because I I have a really hard time starting
things. And it's not just in writing,
it's in a lot of things that are new, because I just see a kind
of an uphill battle. Getting to a level of quality
where I want to be and then starting is really hard.
Once I start, I can really find my stride.
And for example, I had to write like a business plan because I
had an idea. And to get that idea I have to
convince people. And the best way to do so is to
make a business plan, talk about costs and benefits and risks and
stuff like that. And I always knew like, OK, the
ball is in my court. I have to do this now if I want
to get it done. And still I postpone it to the
very end. And then when I sat down and I
was like, OK, I've postponed it for long enough and I start
writing. It's hard to stop myself because
I'm like this is a lot of fun ideas go on paper and but
starting is really hard. Yeah, yeah, there's even often
we're not even aware of it. But there's often that secret
pressure we put on ourselves, like it has to be good.
So. So that's often in the
background when we postpone things, this expectation.
But if you say to yourself, you know, just do just, I'll just
write rubbish and then and then start start writing, you know
what you're thinking about and then it takes form and yeah,
yeah. I wonder if that's.
I'm going to try it out, but I wonder if the IT has to be good,
is more helpful or harmful because it has to be good.
Puts pressure on you. It puts pressure in that sense
it could be harmful, but then it also I mean it drives me to do
something good so that it might be helpful.
Yeah, I think. I think there's both sides to
it. It can drive you, but if you
find yourself postponing then sometimes somehow it must be
holding, holding you and and me, because I recognise it as well.
It holds us back and there's there's a kind of arrogance in
in without knowing it, in in that thought.
It has to be good because we expect ourselves to be better
than than we are. And it's normal when you're
starting something new that you've just got to find your
feet. Yeah.
And you know people talk about you've got to fail so many times
in order. I don't actually believe in the
word failure. I we just have to start on
something. And in the beginning you're you
won't be as good as you are when you've done it 137 times.
So yeah, allow us, allow ourselves to start somewhere and
get better. I like that a lot.
I think the hard part for me is the the perceiving what others
do. And then I don't see kind of the
journey they've laid out. So if they've done it 200 times
and I'm starting out from me starting out, I want to be there
already. And that is kind of the, the
struggle because to get there, I have to do it maybe 200 times,
maybe 300 times, maybe a little bit less.
But I have to put in the work, yeah.
And then from perception, I don't see the work that was put
in to get to that level of quality.
Yeah. That's the hard part.
And that you see a lot. And I see that with myself, but
I see that all around me that people you know, they often they
want to be there what which is actually taking themselves for
granted because you're not allowing yourself to be a
learner. And and when you allow yourself
to be a learner, which we do with children, by the way, it's
funny that we stop when people turn 18.
When you allow yourself to be a learner, then, then you, you
know, you, you give yourself credit for, for even starting.
You give yourself credit for trying something you haven't
done before. You learn from the mistakes
you've made. And then?
And then you learn in a real way, rather than trying to copy
someone else. And and then you know you'll
find that you make mistakes that somebody else never made, or you
have a brilliant idea that another person didn't have you.
Only you can only do that when you allow yourself to be a
learner. You said we we start like that
as kids and we get taught like that.
Or maybe it's their innate nature and somehow it waters
down and you'd lose that. Or you could lose that, or you
have to find that again within yourself.
Why do you think people lose that throughout growing up?
I think there were a lot of, let's say, shared stories we're
unaware of. And one of the shared stories is
that, you know, learning stops when you're an adult and you
know, you go through. So we we all accept that when
you're a child and adolescent and you're a student, then
you're learning. But somehow there's this
assumption that from a certain age, whether it's 2324 or
whatever, then you're an adult and learning stops.
Whereas I see that the whole, you know, our whole lives we're
learning. And they're all kind of, yeah,
good question actually where that comes from, I I can't, I
don't really have one answer where it comes from.
But maybe as children we we look at adults and we, it looks like
they know what they're doing. So we expect that when we're
adults that we should know what we're doing.
And then you start your first job and everyone looks like they
know, they know what they're doing and you're being paid a
salary. So you think, well, I should
know what I'm doing and other people expect me to know what
I'm doing because they're paying me a salary.
And yeah, and before you know it, you know, you know, you're
232425 being paid a salary, thinking, Oh my God, I should
know what I'm doing and. I I don't.
It really, really hits home what you're saying, because for me as
a kid, I was like, adults know everything.
I was very curious. I asked a lot of questions.
Sometimes I got the answer I thought was true, sometimes I
got a different answer, but I always got an answer.
Sometimes I got the you asked too many questions.
But still I was like adults know everything.
And I also thought that going into adolescence I was like, I
don't know everything. I don't know how people do this
and especially joining my my first organization as a first
job coming coming out of my educational journey as like
people really don't know actually what they're doing or
they kind of know what they're doing or they're doing a piece
of the puzzle. And they're fine with that and
they've accepted that. But no one really knows
everything that's going on. And maybe in the way that I
joined or maybe the organization.
But I was like, for me, it's obvious that I don't know, like
just because it's my first job, because of my age, because of my
title had junior in, it means obvious.
So then asking questions. I don't really think someone is
going to have an opinion of me asking questions.
And then I saw other people really, how do you say that get
far ahead by asking questions and get a lot of stuff done by
clearing things up and by asking questions that I thought or that
I thought other people knew so I didn't ask.
And because of that, I think I've always hold held on to
that. I I think asking questions is
fine still. Now I don't think I know
everything. I think it would be very
arrogant to say I know everything.
Maybe I do myself a dish justice for some topics that I say.
I still don't know everything, but still, I think that mindset
is better than having the mindset of I've learned
everything. Because then if you've learned
everything, you're learning stops and therefore your growth
also stops. You're very wise.
Thank you. Yeah.
No, absolutely, absolutely. I I really think that well I I
agree with you and and when when when we stop asking questions
then our learning stops and I mean very often it it it kind of
I'm thinking in Dutch here very often people kind of slip into
it unintentionally and it's not that they're meaning to be
arrogant but they there's a kind of hidden fear especially when
you get to a certain age or you get to a certain level in your
job that you get the impression that other people expect you to
know or that you feel the pressure.
And so almost unconsciously, people slip into, well, you
know, I I'm now this level so. And it's not that they they they
they say, you know, I know everything, but there's a kind
of hidden attitude that, you know, I I shouldn't show my
weakness. I shouldn't show what I don't
know. And one of one of the things
that people find very difficult to say, for example, in a
meeting is especially if it looks like everyone else
understands what's going on. I hear time and time again
people say, well actually I, you know, this meeting happened.
It all went very, very fast. There was something I didn't
agree with or something I didn't quite get, but I didn't open my
mouth because I was afraid of looking stupid or what my
colleagues would think of me. I hear that time and time and
time again. What what about that makes the
people not speak up? Is that the environment?
Is that the perception? Is that how other people react
or how their perception is of other people?
What do you think that is? Well, a combination of all that.
Yeah, a combination all of all that.
Because when you whenever you put a team of people together,
whether you like it or not, immediately all this human stuff
starts to play. You get opinions back and forth,
whether they're voiced or not. People just can't help it.
People just have opinions. You get kind of arrogances that
people aren't aware of, insecurities, tensions.
All this starts to come into play immediately in every team,
whether it causes a problem or not.
And let's say under the, under the surface of the water, it's
there. And every team member is aware
that, that's actually aware that that's happening.
You're aware that your colleagues have opinions about
things. They have opinions about, you
know, football and what their neighbours are doing.
So obviously you're aware that they will have opinions about
you too. So before you, you know, before
you realise it, you're kind of trying to, you're taking that
into account and you're thinking, well, what am I, what
are my colleagues going to think if I say I don't understand
this, or everyone in the, everyone in the room thinks
this, but I think something different.
What are people going to think? So it's a combination of all
that, of all this human stuff going on all the time in every
team. Yeah, For for some reason I've
always really enjoyed kind of the team building aspect and if
something was going wrong in my team or I I think something was
going wrong, I would usually point that out or start working
on that. But I don't have a a silver
bullet let's say and I don't think there is one, but let's
say a step by step process of really forming A-Team.
For me that's still very difficult because from CBA we're
consultants. So sometimes we come in as
consultants where we already are aligned on certain values just
through the hiring process just by virtue of being part of this
company. And then the team forming
aspect, I feel like already has a leg up versus people that are
just really random and put together as a team, which
sometimes happens within an organization to a certain degree
and then all of a sudden has to perform as a team.
And the expectation are that they are a team, but they are
not a team yet. They're just a group of
individuals trying to work together and somehow through
tried and true through storming and forming and all of that,
they become a team. But I don't know how to
influence the that, how to expedite that, how to make that
team a real team that it needs to be to perform.
Well, most people don't. It's it's something we're not
taught at school. It's something we're not taught
at university. A lot of people talk about team
building, but nobody actually knows what is a built team.
Yeah, most people don't know. We have a definition.
What is a built team? And once you know what a built
team is, when I talk about we, I mean I have I work with
humanication and there are other trainers there too.
Once you have a definition of what a built team is, then you
can identify what part of the team isn't built yet.
And actually there is a hole when you there isn't a silver
bullet. But once you understand there
are very, very clear, delineated building blocks to building a
team, and once you understand them, it's actually it's very
doable and it's very good fun building a team.
Interesting. But it's it's not one silver
bullet, no, because humans are humans.
So, so first of all it's it's getting, getting the team to
understand what is a built team, which is it's a group of people
with a shared who have a a shared mission and a shared
vision that they each of them understand what that vision
means. They've all bought into it and
they know what it means practically and they've all
given their, let's say, agreement to it.
That's that's a built team. When you know that it's easy to
to be able to well, it's not easy to build a team, but it's
doable to build a team. What makes it not easy is that
human beings are human beings with their opinions, with their
history. Their opinions are off by
definition, formed by their history.
So they aren't necessarily going to agree with whatever whatever
you say. They also have their different
communication styles, which means that they all absorb
information in a different way. And if you trans, if you if you
don't take that into account, you're going to create
resistance. So you need to take all this
into account and once you know the building blocks it's it's
really exciting actually, building a team and then you
know exactly what to do. I remember in my 20s suddenly
being given a position of responsibility.
I was made editor of a tiny, a tiny trade magazine.
But I was suddenly responsible for a team of, I don't know, I
think it was three or four people.
And I can remember from one day to the next feeling this
pressure on my on my shoulders, like, Oh my goodness, I'm not
responsible for this team. And I really didn't know what to
do. All I could do was like hope,
just hope that everyone would give their best and I was
secretly dreading, you know, the day then that I would have to do
some kind of an intervention because I had no clue what to
do. And because because of that
stress of obviously I became a slightly, you know, I became a
less nice person to work with because I was stressed about my
position as a team leader. Because I really had no clue.
Because no, no one had taught me.
And it was only, I suppose, about seven years later when I
understood ah, and I'd learnt, OK, these are the building
blocks. And then it became really
exciting. Yeah, I really like that.
You say a shared mission and vision, but people understand
it. So people not just hear it or
see it or perceive it as a written phrase on a piece of
paper, but really understand what it means, what the thought
is behind it, and why that is what it is.
And buy into it, which is the most important.
Yeah, I was, I was going to say that as well.
They can only buy into that if they've probably partaken in
forming or yeah, I would say forming that vision given their
input and thought about it together.
If someone gives me a mission and a vision says this is now
yours, I'm not going to buy into it.
That's the, I think that's the prerequisite.
Yeah. And also being aware that
everything has its prices. So let's say you have a vision
of an inner vision. So vision is one thing, but to
build a team, you need to translate that into
practicalities of how we work together on a daily basis.
And imagine one of those practicalities is we turn up on
time to meetings and on time means not 10 minutes late.
On time means exactly on time. Now in order to get everyone in
the team to buy into that, they need to understand there's a
price to pay for that and they need to be willing to pray, pay
that price. Now that price could be leaving
home half an hour earlier. That price could be, you know,
cutting off conversation that happens half an hour before
before the meeting. Only when you've got everyone in
the team willing, understanding that the, let's say the the
mutual agreements between everyone in the team is going to
require them to pay a price. They get it, they're willing to
pay the price, then you've got buy in.
Yeah. Is that also the the practical
implications you talked about? Because you said buy in is one
of the components and they need to understand what it means for
them in a practical sense. Yes, yes.
And and also, it's not only the prices but also the benefits.
Then once you've got all of them to think through the prices and
the benefits, then you've treated them like adults.
They've been able to think it through and then then you're on
your way to building a team. Yeah, interesting.
I was thinking about my own context and I have different
different settings with different people, different
amounts of people even. Our unit is quite flatly
structured. Our organization and I'm, I'm
part of the software engineering consultancy unit and it has
about 60 consultants now in there.
I always asked or I recently asked who's responsible for,
let's say improving the unit and the answer quite generally was
everyone. And that means that everyone is
kind of part of this unit, everyone is kind of part of this
team to a certain degree. But then to have that shared
vision, the buy in, the understanding of the price and
the benefits through 60 people, that is quite like a Herculean
task if you ask me. On smaller levels it's easier.
I feel like if we have a group of three immediately, I feel
like we're aligned better or things get explained in a in a
manner which makes sense and we can get this shared mindset and
shared mental model of a goal and what it means for us.
But as soon as it hits and I don't know what number it is,
I've seen it with eight get really difficult within a
software development team and now within my consultancy unit
we have 60. That is very hard to do, to get
everyone aligned on the same matter.
I don't know if that needs to happen, if some people can
understand it better than others.
But I would say that the biggest benefit would be if everyone
understands it to the same degree, and that takes a lot of
time and attention to a certain point, and there's a mismatch in
also vision. Should everyone understand that
or should a few people understand that and there's
consequences to those actions that come based on those
decisions? Yeah.
Do you think you can form a team with a bigger amount of people?
Not even maybe 60, but definitely close to let's say
10/20/30 even beyond? Well, above a certain number it
becomes, it becomes difficult because above, I don't know
whether it's between 50 and 2015 and 20 or to 25 roughly, that
there's a certain number above which you don't really know
everyone personally. It's probably bigger than 25.
So then it becomes more difficult, but it becomes more
necessary for each person to really get, let's say, what the
moral values are in that team and for that person to
understand that it affects them as a human being.
So I'm not just talking about the mechanics of how we work
together and not just talking about the mission that everyone
buys into it, but let's say the moral, ethical quality of what
it means to be part of this team.
So here we're talking about values.
Now a lot of companies work with values, but very often they're
just, you know, I don't know whether it's with a service
oriented team. What does that mean?
It. Could mean everything.
It could mean everything. It's only when you as an
individual understand what at your core what it means and and
that it applies not only to how you handle your clients, but it
also applies to how you handle your colleagues and how your
colleagues handle you. Yeah, both ways.
So that it so that it affects every phone call you have with
each other. It affects every meeting.
So actually, every activity you do with your team should be
should be formed by these ethical values that you've all
agreed to. And then you will notice.
Then people will notice in the team what if they've?
If they're clear on what these are, and they're clear on what
it means practically, then it will be clear to them when when
someone stepped out of it. Yeah, I think the hard part for
me is to for me being in a team, to consciously think about kind
of what we agreed upon both on a moral value and an ethical
value. I usually just go with my gut in
kind of a feeling sense. And then if I were to step out
of that, I don't know if I've ever done that.
But then for someone to call me out on that, we have to more so
consciously be aware of our understanding of what it means
to be a team and our values. And if they're aligned, and if
someone steps out of that more consciously than I'm doing now,
do you think that should be the case as well?
Should I consciously think about those things or how does it get
kind of subconsciously or unconsciously?
Well, what you don't want is, is for it to become yet another
obligation. Yeah, because then you'll get
weighed down by so many expectations.
You want it to be, you want to really get it now that you can
only do when you've when you've learnt.
How can I say this? I do understand what you're
saying. Because it shouldn't.
It shouldn't be like a list of of expectations.
Because then you won't be spontaneous anymore.
It'll wear you down. Yeah.
But for for me when you said some people or or you would just
need to get it. I've talked to people and our,
our. I don't know if it's values or I
don't know if it's it's also vision are so misaligned that
I'm just like all right to a certain point.
We argue we don't understand each other and we just don't get
it. We we cannot align.
It's because of a different past, probably previous
experiences which lead us to believe something different and
then we either have to accept that we agree to disagree or we
can really not align on this and that can that clash can result
in something worse. It's never happened to me, but I
do understand that at some point I were to say I I literally said
to my colleagues like it's it's just not in their DNA, it's
literally ADNA mismatch and that's really hard to overcome.
What of what can be the case? See, I'm, I'm, I'm switching
between Dutch and English cake. What is often the case is that,
let's say deep down, actually you want the same thing.
But there are so many layers of opinions, communication style,
past disappointments, so many layers of the human stuff that
are getting in the way that unless until you've handled
those, you won't discover that actually you want the same
thing. I'm not saying that that it's
not possible for you to have completely different visions,
but in most cases that I work with, once we've got to work and
you've cut through all the human stuff and people dare to be
really real, then they discover actually we do want the same
thing. Because coming back to coming
back to what we were talking about earlier on, why people
stop learning when they're when they've left the university and
they start working, is that somewhere along the line all of
us have learnt that it's not good to make mistakes.
We say it's good to make mistakes, but in practice we
don't like it it. Doesn't feel good.
It doesn't feel good because we feel stupid somewhere along the
line we've learnt this. It may be started by, you know,
at some point, some adults said to us, you know, watch out, be
careful. And then as a child, you learn
that the world is a scarier, is a is a dangerous place, and that
you you need to think, you know, 5-6, seven times before you take
an action. And we we we take that with us
and we remember it. So people learn to be very
cautious and they learn to hold up a kind of a mask and pretend
to pretend in a certain way. Like to pretend, you know, to do
your best to show that you're intelligent, to do your best to
show that you're well informed or that you're professional.
So without realising it, most professionals are holding up a
kind of a mask. And that is one of the reasons
that tensions arise between people and teams, that it looks
like people don't want the same thing.
And yeah, you need to. You need to deal with that
before before getting to the core and realising that actually
you want the same thing. Yeah, it's interesting that you
you label it as a mask because I've I've explained this to, I
mean, in different settings, even to my parents.
When I'm with my friends, I'm a different kind of person than
when I'm at home, because my home was a bit more strict.
And with my friends I had more freedom to explore as a kid, for
example. And even at home or my siblings,
I say when I'm at work, it's a kind of a different version of
me. What you're seeing on a
recording on a podcast is still kind of a different version of
me. They're all different versions
of me, and I hope I am still my authentic self.
And I don't feel like it is a mask.
But yes, I feel like the more kind of stigma you have on how
you should act, the further away you go from being your true self
at work. And the further and further away
all of a sudden then masks clash, let's say, whereas you
really like the person sitting across from you.
But in that setting, in a professional context, you clash,
whereas when you were at a bar you can talk like friends and
it's a different setting. And I was maybe a bit unfair
with the word mask. Sure.
It's. I'm not saying that people
continuously have a mask. Yeah.
It's just that, you know, when we feel attacked, when we, you
know, when you're in an argument or a discussion and you feel
strongly about something and the other feels strongly in a
different way about something, then we find all kinds of
different ways to, you know, to to to to hold our, you know, to
hold it, to take a stand and show that we're right.
That's one way of of holding up a mask or where you can where
people secretly feel you know what you know.
Do you know have I got enough experience for this job?
And so it it, it sounds very cruel to call it a mask.
I don't mean it cruelly, but what I mean is doing your best
to look the part. Yeah.
And and very often it works. I'm not saying it doesn't work,
but there were some places where it doesn't work.
Yeah, I think it's. I'm trying to think because I
was wondering how to breakthrough that.
And the only way to do that is if everyone kind of drops that
mask and literally states their opinion truthfully without being
fearful of what others think. So the environment needs to be
safe enough to do that. Other people need to be aware
and not judging and not hold that against that person because
otherwise they're going to shut down in in any future
interactions. I think a whole lot needs to be
in place for people to be kind of their true self in those
interactions, and especially within our organization, because
an organization has a brand, has a reputation, people have a
certain idea of what they should do to uphold that, look at other
people and perceive them being not really truly themselves,
maybe even unawarely. So it's really hard to break
that down, I think. This is, this is what I do.
It's very and it's very exciting.
It's not hard. You just know need to know how.
How would you start? A good place to start is for a
team to to learn communication styles. 90 to 95% of tensions,
unspoken opinions, unspoken tensions, misunderstandings,
even people leaving their jobs, even projects that fail. 90 to
95% of that is to do with differences in communication
styles. And this has to do with how
people, how people talk, how their body language.
So imagine you you meet a new colleague within the within the
first fraction of a second, whether you like it or not, you
form an opinion of that person. This also happens.
You know you're at, you're at a conference and you you talk to
someone. Within a fraction of a second
you have an opinion about them and you think, I, you know, this
person is a this person is a very charismatic person, for
example. Or this person is a bit unsure
of themselves. Or gosh, this, you know, this
person is chaotical. This happens within a fraction
of a second, and 90 to 95% of that is to do with communication
styles. But we don't realise it.
Now the other person is doing the same to you.
They form an opinion of you. Now this happens in a team all
the time, and we form opinions about other people and we think
they're chaotic, or we think they're unreliable, or we think
they're being unnecessarily cautious.
Or. Or that they're what's the word
bought in Dutch. Which is rude.
Rude, yeah. And most and in most cases
that's got to do with communication styles.
But it causes a huge amount of tension in teams, whether it's
spoken or not spoken. Because let's imagine you're
working with a manager and you think he's rude and you think or
he, she, he or she is uninterested in you.
And that's going to affect your performance, that's going to
affect your happiness, that's going to affect how relaxed you
feel with that person. And in most cases, that is
absolutely not the intention of the person, it's just how you've
interpreted their communication style.
So for a team to learn, to learn, to work with
communication styles is the best, is the best starting
point. And then there we And then what
happens is teams then realise, Oh my goodness, suddenly kind of
50% of the potential tensions just kind of dissolve.
Yeah. Is it more so from the sorry?
Is it more so from the interpreting side or also from
the person that has that communication style?
Because for myself, I like to be flexible in communicating, to
get stuff done, basically to get more stuff done.
And I think part of that would be to switch up my communication
style based on the person that's in front of me.
Yeah, it works both ways. So you want to be able to read
the person who's talking to you. So you understand that they're
not being rude, they're not being chaotic.
It's just their communication style.
But by the same token, when you're talking to someone, you
need to be able to talk in their communication styles so that
they get you, so that they realise that you're not being
rude, you're not being well. If you're too flexible by the
way, they may think, certain styles may think, Oh my
goodness, this is taking too long.
So, so it works both ways. Yeah.
So if you're somebody in a team and you feel that you're not
being heard, you want to learn communication styles so that so
that you get heard. Exactly, yeah.
How does a team get aware of what each other's communication
style is, other than just day-to-day interactions in that
way? It takes it.
It takes half a day of a training to to to see it and get
it. And it takes a day to learn to
work with it. So it's so it's part of you, so
that you work with it naturally, so that you can use it at home
with your kids, so that you can use it at home with your
partner, because it's really about talking to people.
Yeah, I've I've heard this one before of like colleagues in the
past that they're like, I'm aware this is my communication
style and I do not care. I don't want to adapt.
If you have people like that on the team, how how do you solve
that or how do you work around that?
Well, first of all, it's absolutely their prerogative.
It's up to them to decide. When it's about colleagues, they
may not care, but when it's about their two year old kid,
they probably will care. That's a good point, yeah.
So in all the work I do, it's it's it's all about
communication with people. So the way you communicate with
your colleagues at work, you know, is actually no different
from the way you can't you communicate with your child.
Of course you talk about different things, yeah, yeah.
But if you're able to talk, to create connection and
understanding and humour and mutual respect with anyone at
your work, then you're able to do it with your two year old
child. Yeah, yeah, I love that.
I I'm going to use that probably.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, why not?
Once people, once a team or individuals, understand each
other's communication style, understand kind of their default
and even their preference because I think those might be
different or they might be aligned, What would then be next
in kind of allowing people to have comfort in the way that
they're working within a team or within an organization?
It's also very important in a team to create Ocanus, to be
honest, and one of the commonest problems in teams is that past
frustrations or disappointments are not communicated because
people are worried about being seen seen as negative or
whatever. Now people talk about being
transparent, but in practice it's it's it's more challenging
than in theory. So you need to get.
So that would be my second step is getting a team, First of all
understanding the the benefits and prices of being honest, of
not being honest. For them to really get, when am
I honest, when am I not honest? If we agree with each other,
we're going to be honest with each other.
What are the benefits and prices which because let's say we
agree, we're going to be honest with you each other.
Sounds good on paper and it's easy to say.
But if we mean it, that means that if you come to me and you
say, hey, Julia, you know that meeting we were in last week,
well, what you did in that meeting, that didn't work for
me, It means I need to be willing to hear that from you.
Yeah, so I need to get that. That's the price of wanting
honesty between us. So it's first getting this
understanding in the team of what honesty means getting buy
in, do they want it or do they not.
And and also giving them the tools to be able to handle
handle it if somebody else is disappointed, if your partner at
home is disappointed about something and they're, you know,
angry or you can see in their body language that they're
disappointed that that that you know how to handle that.
And there is a way, yeah, there's a very simple tool of
handling someone else's disappointment.
Your client, if you see that your client is disappointed
either in you or in your company, how to handle that, you
need to develop your confidence in being able to handle that.
Now, developing confidence in a team is first of all knowing the
technique. If you don't know the technique,
you will never be confident about it.
And then practicing it. And what, once you're confident
about being able to handle disappointments without feeling
attacked, that will create a huge difference in a team.
Yeah. I think when you lay that out,
kind of the price of being honest with each other, I'm OK
with that. With people saying Patrick in
that meeting, what you did didn't work for me.
That's objective feedback. People sometimes even jump in to
immediately advise I would have done XY and Z, but I'm OK with
that. However, I have noticed that
when I'm trying to do that with someone else, we haven't had
that mutual agreement that this is the price.
I give the feedback that not everyone is OK with that and
people jump into kind of a defensive position sometimes and
depending on the code context can get really emotional and
things. All of a sudden I've been in
situations where I'm like, I don't know how we got here, but
here we are and that's a lot of emotion then, then and there.
So not everyone might be OK with that, being aware or unaware of
that. Yeah, yeah.
This is why I have a job. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah. But.
Yeah. Should people be open to that or
is it also their prerogative to say I I don't want that because.
That's a hard one for the word should.
It's a great word. I mean, it's it's easy to say,
yeah, everyone should be open, but we're all human beings and
we've all been there, haven't we?
You know, I still get defensive. If my partner gives me feedback
on something, you know, it's it's so I I I'm not a fan of the
word should. Fair enough.
Because you know, there there is a theoretical what we all should
do if we were all absolutely perfect.
And then there's OK, well, we're all human beings.
So how to handle, how to handle it?
So how to handle the fact that we are all sensitive.
We all, we we, you know, we don't like to make mistakes.
So if we hear that we've done something that doesn't work, we
do tend to get defensive. So how to handle that?
So how, how to handle it when someone gets defensive, how to
create openness and willingness to listen.
And this is another skill. So these are all skills that
team leaders actually need to have in in order for first of
all not to be scared of being a team leader to be able to handle
anything that happens. And then when you're able to to
do this. So when you know for example,
how to how to immediately see if somebody's going into resistance
before they even notice it and how to how to create a dynamic
that the person is kind of opens up and is willing to listen to
you. Yeah, these are very exciting
things to learn. And when I discovered that you
can learn these things, suddenly the, the, you know, the
responsibility of being team leader suddenly became very
exciting. Did you learn that through more,
so let's say practical experience?
Because you you talked about really early on in your career
having those responsibilities and it it to a point where it
stressed you out or did that come more so from theory and
then putting that into practice? I didn't learn it through, only
through practice because I just didn't know.
And what you don't know, you can't know.
So I learnt it through doing a training.
Somebody taught me how to do it. It's like, oh really?
I never looked at it this way before, and I did several
trainings. You know, I sometimes think that
these are the most important things, like how to hand, how to
work with people, how to navigate tricky situations with
people. And we're not taught them at
school, no, you know? So it took me several trainings,
not, you know, 10 years of trainings, but really several to
to to to learn the basics, to get better at it, to get to get
to feel authentic in it. And the more I the more I
learned, the more exciting it became.
And I'm still learning. And I started learning this when
I was 30 and now I'm 56. I think that's a great mindset.
I for me, it's one of my my joys to kind of figure out and to
make someone really excited and help someone.
I don't know if that's nature or nurture.
It's just something that's in me.
I'm not sure where it comes from and I'm trying to get better at
that. I'm still always also going to
be learning. I feel like because the
complexity of the conversations are, that's kind of stupid,
silly. The complexity is really
complex. Yeah, those conversations are so
complex that there are going to be nuances and differences and
things you could have done differently to get to a
different outcome or to get to the same outcome in so far that
I think I'm never going to stop learning that.
But I do think a lot of experience based I'm.
I'm very practical in a sense and I'd like to go based off
experiences. So when I am in a training, one
of the my fondest memories of being in those trainings is more
so role-playing. And then I think, OK, how much
of role-playing is like me in an actual setting or me in this
kind of safe space where we are role-playing and it's known that
we are. That's kind of the hard part,
putting into practice what I'm learning theory wise or
role-playing wise. The only way to do that is to be
in those positions, but then not being as comfortable because
probably with the same perfectionist mindset or the
stigma of I'm team lead now, I have to do this or I have to be
able to do this. That makes it a bit more
difficult sometimes, being in my position, I feel like.
One of the big eye openers for me was getting that.
I didn't understand what my role actually was as a manager or a
team lead. Yeah, once you get that as a
team lead, as a leader, once you get that, your responsibility is
to make your team members flourish.
Once I got that, that already took off a huge amount of
pressure for me. Why is that?
Because until then I hadn't got that clear.
I thought until then my that my role was to ensure that they did
the job right. Oh, OK, that's different.
It's different, yeah. Once you get that, your role is
to get your team members to flourish and grow as human
beings, first of all. Then you get well, You're on the
you're on the same side. Once they get that, you get it.
Once you get that, they get that you get it, then suddenly things
look very, very, very, very different.
And and any intervention you do then suddenly becomes clear that
it's for their benefit, not for the company's benefit, It's for
their benefit. And then suddenly the whole game
changes once you get once you get that.
Yeah, being in that position and having been in that position, I
I open up more easily. If someone's, if I know that
someone is there to make me grow and to make me flourish, yeah,
because then I I can be open. I can be honest.
As soon as that kind of goes away, that is the hard part,
because then the walls come down and things are not being set
anymore. Yeah.
But I've. I've had the fortune that I've
worked with managers that really gave me the feeling that that
was the case and also acted upon a way that I understood that
that was the case. And with situations where that
was not the case, Yeah, I felt something was missing, I must
say, and that I saw elsewhere to get a feeling in a sense, from
someone else then, yeah, yeah. How do you give people that?
And I don't know how to do that. I think I do it maybe
automatically or I try to because you have to get people
into a place where they understand that and feel that
and see you act upon that as well.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
They need to trust that, yeah. And for them to trust that, they
need to be able to see you as the whoever, the team leader, as
a human being, which means as a team leader, coming back to this
cruel word of the mask, as a team leader, you don't want to
be holding up a mask. You want to be as real as you
want to be real. So as a team leader, you need to
show that you also make mistakes, that you're learning
from your mistakes, which is quite a, for some people, a
scary place to be. Yeah.
And you know, the whole thing of vulnerability that Brett Brené
Brown talks about, this is what it comes down to showing as a
team leader. Not that you're always making
mistakes, but that you don't necessarily have the last word.
You don't necessarily have the answer.
And just in in the way you communicate and the way you are
that your team trusts that that you are being real.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think that's foundational in in building up that
relationship. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that changes everything. I I think so too.
The hard part I have is that it really comes from you having
experienced that with previous managers or previous settings,
having been in that position, let's say from the other side of
the conversation, and with how people grow into those
positions. I feel like if you haven't had a
good experience like that, you're gonna act upon what you
experienced. And in that way you might
automatically create an environment like that and that
foundational trust. Or you might act in a way that
you're more of a manager's manager and you're acting in the
best of the company, not letting people flourish or not letting
even people go when that might be better for their personal
growth or personal career. And you can say things about
that. But I think that's my opinion.
I don't think maybe it's my experience, but I I will always
try and do what's best for the people that are in my team or
sitting across from me in that way.
I I wouldn't be able to see it that much from the other side is
the hard part. Yeah.
And and you're right, people leaders very often take the lead
from the leaders above them. Yeah.
So where the real courage comes in is, is say you're working for
a very, very corporate company and the manager above you, the
directors above you, are very, very top down and they're very
kind of, you know, directive. The real courage comes in daring
to create a different culture in your own team.
So then yeah, that's that, that's that's brave to do that.
I think so too. It's very brave.
I've seen a lot of people do it. It takes.
It takes real courage. Yeah.
That's one of my final thoughts, just because we're touching on
this and I think it's very relevant for some organizations
that are out there. Have you seen this culture,
let's say within a team that went against the stream of the
big organization all of a sudden get the overhand and change
company culture in a way that was beneficial for the people as
well? Because I feel like starting
within a team is is a nice thing, is a good thing.
At some point you do want the organizational culture to also
uphold that because otherwise you're continuously going
against the stream and that chips away at trust.
At some point it chips away at energy.
So without kind of an overarching change, that might
be hard and sustainable. Yeah, that's that's true.
That's true. Now one of my limitations is
that I'm I come in as a trainer and I train a group of people
and I often don't see it the company.
Then the year later, certainly for the hopefully I'm going that
way. But for many years that was the
case. So I don't have a lot of
examples and I'm certainly not going to band around names
without having first checked with those companies.
But I have seen in a couple of IT companies that certain
departments started to create this this culture thanks to the
director of that department that the year later there was a a
call to to do something about the culture in the whole
organization. They looked at what she'd done
in her department and they decided to do a whole culture
change process in the whole organization.
Beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it does happen.
Yeah, that's amazing. It's, it's funny that you say
that. I mean, I'm a I'm a consultant,
so part of my work is going to clients, helping and then
leaving. Making myself obsolete is part
of the job. And then I don't know what
happens after when I found out and things are still happy and
they're still happy with what we've done.
It's part of a fulfillment that I don't know is missing
sometimes, but I'm happy when it gets fulfilled.
So I'm happy. That's the same for you as well,
where you have those tidbits of feedback.
Yeah, where people say, well this is the blueprint how we
want the organization to structure itself, cuz this is
valuable to us. And sometimes, sometimes I hear
from people who say thank you this really, really, you know,
now I get what leadership is. I decided to leave the company.
But the way I communicate with my kids and my partner and the
way I'm communicating my new company is, is completely
different. So yeah, sometimes people decide
to leave because they're clear on the fact that the match isn't
there anymore. Yeah, and that's amazing as well
for those people. Yeah, I've really enjoyed this
conversation, Julianne. Me too.
Talking about how to form a team, what really makes a team,
how to get people to be comfortable within a team from a
leadership perspective, talking about communication styles and
honesty. Is there anything that's still
missing that you'd still like to add?
Not really, no. I think we've we've, we've
covered it, yeah. The thing I would like to leave
people with is once you get that work is actually about
relationships with people and making them work, then work
becomes very, very exciting and meaningful.
Yeah, meaningful is the the essence there.
And that you never stop learning.
Yeah, I love that. Let's round it off here.
Thank you so much for coming on, Julia.
This was a blast. And I'll.
I'll round it off here. Thank you for listening.
If you're still with us, leave a comment in the comment section
below. I'm gonna put Julia Socials in
the description below as well. Reach out to her, let her know
you came from our show. And with that being said, thank
you for listening. We'll see you in the next one.
Beyond coding.