0:00

All right. Before we start the show, we have an announcement and a

0:03

request. Val, would you want to explain what that is to me and

0:07

to our listeners? I would love to, Tim. So we wanna hear from

0:11

you, dear listeners. So we're conducting a survey and logistically we've

0:15

made things as easy as possible for you. Survey.

0:20

I mean, I kind of like just pretending I knew what listeners were

0:22

thinking, but sure, fine. We can do it your way. And I'm assuming

0:26

that because it's you, that there's probably a short URL and there's probably

0:30

a nice little Google Form, that's mobile friendly that listeners can go

0:33

to, to actually give us this information. Ah, Tim, you know me so

0:38

well. You bet. And so starting today, the survey will be live at

0:42

bitly/aph survey. So putting my listener cap on. So, we want something from

0:49

them. We're not going to actually give them anything in return.

0:53

Are we? We sure are. At the end of the survey,

0:56

there'll be an opportunity for you to give us your address,

0:59

so we can get a laptop sticker off in the mail to you.

1:02

And also you can choose to enter a raffle for some sweet sweet

1:06

power hour swag. I don't know who approved this expense, but fine. So

1:11

this means, I mean, I'll take it 'cause we can now kind of get

1:13

rid of those old, branded mouse pads and BlackBerry covers.

1:18

No, Tim, we'll leave those to you to still use as your stocking

1:21

stuffers. This is actually gonna be way better, think comfy, cozy hoodies

1:26

just in time for summer. Hoodies for summer. Good planning. I'll take mine

1:30

and just rip the sleeves off and rock those Analytics guns through the

1:35

summer. Your finance bro look? Yeah. That's right. I've been, I think I'm

1:40

ready. So how long, I mean they've gotta do this sometime before summer,

1:44

so how long do listeners actually have to participate? Yeah. So the survey

1:48

opens today, May 28th and this is 2024, just in case you're living

1:52

in our future and listening back to some old episodes. And we're gonna

1:55

keep it open through the month of June. Okay. So if I was

1:58

paying attention, listeners should visit bitly/aph survey, before June 30th

2:07

in the year 2024, to share their opinions and maybe actually get some

2:11

pretty cool swag? You got it. Sounds good. Now onto the show.

2:21

Welcome to the Analytics Power Hour. Analytics topics covered conversationally

2:26

and sometimes with explicit language. Hi everyone. Welcome. It's the analytics

2:31

Power Hour. This is episode 247. You know, as you progress in your

2:37

analytics career, you'll soon find yourself probably as a manager of someone

2:41

or a team of someone's. And what you learn pretty quickly is that

2:45

all the skills required to be a good manager or leader are honestly

2:49

nothing like the skills you've built, being a good analyst. And sure,

2:53

I mean, there's some crossover but it's really a whole different job,

2:57

and yet it's super important to get it right and be a great

3:01

manager. And maybe you're not a manager today and don't wanna be,

3:04

but this episode will still be useful, because

3:08

this might help you know what to look for as you develop in

3:10

your career and find good managers. Luckily, I am joined by my co

3:15

hosts who are also both amazing leaders and managers. And let me introduce

3:19

them right now. So Moe Kiss, who is joining us. Welcome.

3:24

Welcome. Thank you. You Are actually a really good manager. I've heard people

3:28

on your team say so. So, like. Oh, well that's very nice to hear. There's

3:31

third party verification. Yeah. I was only paying them a little bit.

3:35

And Val Kroll. Also welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Excited to be here.

3:41

And I've realized Val, technically when we were both serving on the DEA,

3:44

you were kind of my manage. So I feel like I've been managed

3:48

by you and I can say you're a great manager, so that's pretty

3:51

awesome. Well, and I have been managed by you Michael, and I can

3:53

speak very highly of that experience as well. Look at this,

3:56

good management all around. Okay. This is now starting like a paid advertisement.

4:00

Okay, that's great. And I'm Michael Helbling. We also are excited because

4:05

we do have a guest. Helen Crossley, is a senior director of marketing

4:08

science at Meta and she's also held data leadership positions at Procter &

4:12

Gamble. She's also an international speaker and mentor. And today she is

4:16

our guest. Welcome to the show, Helen. Thank you so much for having

4:20

me. Excited to be here. Oh, we're so excited to have you as

4:23

well. And I think it's really cool 'cause I know, you were introduced

4:27

to us through Moe, and Moe do you wanna

4:30

kick off kind of like how this all came about and then we

4:33

can jump into some conversations about professional development and leadership?

4:37

Yeah. So, I was lucky enough to get introduced to Helen and she's

4:41

part of my sort of my professional network now. And if you are

4:45

a people manager and you don't have a good network of people outside

4:48

of your company, that's probably tip number one,

4:51

because you do often need to talk about some pretty gnarly situations or

4:56

get some advice, external to your own company. And Helen has been able

5:00

to provide that for me. And so I wanted our lovely listeners to

5:04

all get to benefit from some of the amazing conversations I've had with

5:08

Helen over the last weeks and months, about all sorts of great things

5:13

like development goals and team members and, how we kind of grow that

5:18

analytical skillset and do that simultaneously with communication skills.

5:22

So that's kind of the background. I wouldn't mind just like diving right

5:28

in. I think what I love about Helen's approach is she's pretty direct,

5:34

I would say, as an Australian. So we might kick off and talk

5:40

a little bit about what good development goals look like. Helen, we had

5:45

a sort of an experience where I shared mine with you and you gave me

5:49

some, pretty good feedback. I think I said that they were

5:53

a bit crap to begin with, Moe but we went from there. I'm

5:57

sorry if I said the sharing. Yeah, they were a bit crap to

6:02

begin with. But there was a few points in particular that I thought

6:05

were really useful in terms of the feedback.

6:09

So can you tell me like when you are working with someone,

6:13

what do good goals look like to you? I think for me good goals are things that are obviously linked into

6:21

the business objectives and what the business overall is trying to achieve.

6:25

But beyond that, they have to be something that you actually want to

6:28

do. All too often I see goals, which are just a to do list of

6:34

projects. I have to launch this, ship that, analyze this. And those are

6:39

not goals. Those are your to do list. They might be milestones under

6:44

a goal, but for me a great goal is something where you can

6:48

look at it and say, Hey, if in six and 12 months I've

6:51

achieved this I will be in a better place, the business will be

6:55

in a better place and that is something that I really do want

6:59

to achieve. And I think that motivation is a really critical part of

7:02

it. So a lot of times what I see in organizations is goal

7:07

setting that starts from above and then there's that cascading and waterfall

7:10

down to the different departments and down to individuals. Do you think

7:13

what you're talking about here, about setting goals for yourself as an individual,

7:17

is kind of separate from this task or activity? Or do you recommend

7:21

trying to find a way to weave the two together?

7:25

Personally, I really recommend weaving the two together. I think it's absolutely

7:29

fine if you have goals which are more personal and not linked to

7:33

the business at all. You want to achieve something for yourself in your

7:36

life. And sometimes that can be linked into your analytics career.

7:40

If you wanna learn a new skill that's maybe gonna take your career

7:43

in a different direction, but it's not linked to your day to day

7:46

job. But for business goals or goals related to your work every single

7:52

day, I think they absolutely have to be intertwined. If you are not

7:56

thinking about, what does my manager care about? What does their manager

8:00

care about? What does the company care about? Then there is a very

8:04

good chance that you get to the end of the year, you achieve all your goals. And people are sitting around saying,

8:10

Well what did you actually do? Why should I care? And so absolutely,

8:15

I really do recommend that they be intertwined and that you can really

8:19

draw a very bright line between what your goal is and the company

8:24

or business that you're supporting's ultimate mission. And if you can't

8:27

do that, then really go back and ask yourself, Why am I launching

8:32

this project? Why am I doing that piece of analysis? If no one

8:35

cares, if it doesn't connect into the business, if it's not part of

8:40

a bigger piece of work, then is that even a priority for me,

8:43

let alone a goal? That's actually where I thought you were gonna go

8:47

with it. And I'll say that with some of my past experiences in

8:51

consulting, one of the things that made it a little bit tricky,

8:54

and this was a kind of a complaint that we heard a lot

8:57

of times from some, especially some of the junior analysts was,

9:00

I'm not sure what clients I'm gonna be staffed on over the next

9:03

three months or six months. How can I pin something down?

9:08

Whether it's learning, diving into you are, maybe the next couple of clients

9:12

that you're on really don't have any needs in that direction.

9:15

So balancing some of that uncertainty, obviously, you still need to think

9:19

about the needs of the business of where you work, but if the

9:23

majority of your work is really tied in with the success of other

9:26

organizations, do you have any advice on how to like square that,

9:29

square those two things together? Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is

9:33

quite common. A lot of analysts also have a lot of ad hoc

9:36

work, even if it's not, you know, client based things pop up all through

9:40

the year. How do you think about those? How do you quantify those

9:43

and turn that into a goal? And my experience here, obviously I don't

9:46

have all the answers, but, my experience is a lot of times with those

9:49

more junior folks, their goals aren't aggressive enough, they're not thinking

9:53

big enough, they don't want to put a line in the sand and

9:56

say, my goal is to get my client, whoever that might be,

9:59

or to get the team that I'm working with to think more about,

10:03

you know, this big topic growth, how do I transform the way this

10:08

organization thinks about growth? And that's my goal. And within that I'm

10:12

gonna have a bunch of sub goals, which maybe will change and

10:17

maybe I don't hit all of them or those milestones within it.

10:20

But oftentimes when I see what you're talking about, it's 'cause the goal

10:23

is too small, frankly. Too narrow? That makes sense. Too narrow. Too small.

10:29

And it also is not a disservice to you as the individual,

10:32

if your goals are so narrow. Because if you make them a little

10:35

bit bigger, a little bit more expansive in your thinking, A,

10:38

you are gonna unlock more growth for you and for your business.

10:43

But B, it also gives you more flexibility and how are you gonna

10:47

hit that goal? So rather than launch project X, if my goal is

10:51

to drive growth, project X turned out to be a big fat flop.

10:55

Doesn't matter, because my goal is something that I'm working to achieve.

10:59

And there are five other ways I can work towards that goal,

11:02

even if that one project doesn't work out.

11:05

And that's something I see particularly, particularly with more junior team

11:09

members, who don't want to put themselves out there and really claim a

11:13

big bold goal, because they think it's not their position or they shouldn't

11:17

be doing that. And I always say do it. That is absolutely the

11:21

goal. And if you smash that, then congratulations.

11:26

It's time to step away from the show for a quick word about

11:29

Piwik PRO. Tim, tell us about it. Well, Piwik PRO has really exploded

11:34

in popularity and keeps adding new functionality. They sure have. They've

11:38

got an easy to use interface, a full set of features with capabilities

11:43

like custom reports, enhanced e commerce tracking, and a customer data platform.

11:48

We love running Piwik PRO's free plan on the podcast website,

11:52

but they also have a paid plan that adds scale and some additional

11:55

features. Yeah. Head over to Piwik.pro and check them out for yourself.

12:00

You can get started with their free plan. That's Piwik.pro. And now let's

12:05

get back to the show. I am loving this. I feel like I'm

12:10

gonna... I actually do have to go back and revisit my goals,

12:12

but I'm probably going to do it again. I was thinking in the lead up to this episode a lot about

12:18

the tension with analysts and data scientists around, we have the technical

12:23

skills and we have the communication or like stakeholder stuff.

12:27

And I was actually, I guess my perspective was that we are a

12:31

little bit unique because if you're a backend engineer, you have a PM

12:35

who's going to interface with the business. So improving the software skills

12:39

is not, I don't think as big of a priority for lots of

12:42

other areas of the business as it often is for data folks 'cause

12:45

we're doing that interfacing ourselves. And then I'm thinking of goals often,

12:50

especially with juniors, it's like improve communication skills,

12:54

full stop. And. For the audience, Helen is vehemently shaking her head now.

13:04

Okay. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna pose that and hand over to you

13:08

about, like you have a junior person who comes to you,

13:10

improve communication skills. How would you tackle that?

13:15

Why do you wanna do that? Why do you wanna improve your communication

13:17

skills, Moe? What's that going to drive? To have more influence,

13:21

to be a better presenter. I'm trying to think of like stuff people

13:23

have said to me. Fantastic. I love that you wanna be more influential.

13:28

What do you wanna influence? Whoa, oh. See? See, everyone? This is... I

13:35

wanna help them make better decisions. Fantastic. It sounds like your goal

13:39

is to make this organization a more data driven decision making organization.

13:45

And The way that you're going to do that, is by having phenomenal

13:49

technical skills as you do. And you can't influence them in that way

13:53

if the data is not robust, but you also will need to improve

13:56

your communication and influence skills to drive that goal of changing the

14:00

organization to be more data driven. That should be your goal,

14:04

not improve communication skills. Should we just end the episode here?

14:08

Yeah. I think we're good. This is good. I think we're all set.

14:12

I love it. Damn, that was good. But let me say,

14:17

as you're describing this and playing through it, this is the observationally,

14:23

I'm seeing you kind of abstract out a couple of layers to say,

14:26

Hey, think bigger thoughts or end it to your point before.

14:29

Try to be a little more big picture or aggressive with your thinking,

14:33

which I think is just such a really good set of advice for

14:37

anybody at any level. And maybe talk a little bit about that perspective

14:42

or how you, you obviously demonstrated that how you help people set goals,

14:46

but as a leader, how are you inculcating that and how are you

14:50

bracing that yourself or where does that come from? I don't know if

14:53

I'm asking a very coherent question at this point, but. So the question

14:57

is really, how do we encourage folks to think bigger and take bigger

15:01

risks? Is that? Yeah. I think that's maybe where I'm headed with that.

15:05

Yeah. I think it's about allowing it, empowering it, saying it's okay.

15:11

It's okay to be your best self and to go

15:15

hit some big goals. And oftentimes people just need to know

15:19

that. And you would be amazed, amazed at how much potential people have

15:26

when they have permission. And it's sad that they think that they need

15:30

to ask for permission, but it's reality for a lot of people.

15:34

They don't wanna step on toes. Maybe they're new to the organization.

15:37

It's not necessarily about being junior. It's just, Hey, I'm still finding

15:40

my way and I don't know what I don't know. And to say

15:44

to someone, it's okay to think big and be bold is sometimes enough,

15:48

but often also as a manager back it up with, and by the

15:51

way, if you do do that, I've got your back and I support

15:55

you and I believe in you and I can do, you know, I

15:57

know that you can do these things if we get these goals right

16:01

and we know what you need to get there. So, I think that's how I approach it. I know there are lots

16:07

of different other approaches, but for me, it's about saying, how do I

16:10

empower that thinking and not think small. And what happens when

16:17

people come from lots of different organizations and have had other managers

16:21

and things like that. And sometimes I've certainly experienced where people

16:25

have had really negative experiences, where maybe they've set those goals

16:29

and then didn't hit them. And then what happens in the org?

16:34

Like how do you communicate set that aggressive goal? 'cause

16:37

my mentality is, Hey, if you shoot for the stars and you only

16:40

make it to the moon, you still made it to the moon. That's awesome. Oh wow. That is the corniest shit ever. Yeah. But I

16:47

figured, I am corny as get out, all get out. That's, I own

16:51

that. But, look, some organizations and frankly some

16:56

not great managers will look at you at the end of the year

16:59

and be like, Well you set this goal and you didn't hit it

17:01

so you failed. And it's like, Okay, well I learned my lesson.

17:05

Don't set aggressive goals anymore. And so that mentality is both culturally

17:09

driven as well. I'm just wondering have you experienced where, having you

17:13

had to kind of help people reset those

17:16

as they've entered your team or, you've worked with them as a mentor

17:19

maybe? Yeah, and I recognise I'm in a very unique position at Meta where,

17:24

we have a CEO who says things like, Hey, if you're hitting all your goals,

17:28

they're not aggressive enough. That means you're not taking big enough risks

17:31

and vets and... That's helpful. We shouldn't be hitting all our goals.

17:35

And so definitely I'm in a unique environment and I recognise that not

17:39

all workplaces are like that. But I think what you're touching on Michael,

17:42

is the need to quantify, measure, set some measurable impact. So when we

17:50

talk about, you know, the example we gave earlier, I want the organization

17:54

I support to be more data driven in their decision making.

17:57

How do I quantify that or put a metric around that?

17:59

How do I know if I've hit that? And if I don't quantify it, then the scenario you are talking about,

18:06

where failure is much more likely because we don't know if I hit

18:11

it or if I didn't hit it or we have to rely on

18:14

qualitative feedback. And sometimes our teams around us, as data scientists

18:19

and analytics professionals, we all know that we sometimes have to be the

18:23

bad cop. So they might not love giving that feedback. And so,

18:27

that is definitely something that you need to think about. How do I

18:31

measure this goal? How do I know if I'm making progress toward it? And

18:35

how do I check in on it regularly? So that at the end

18:38

of the year, I'm not getting a surprise, my manager is not getting a surprise,

18:42

if I don't hit it. Yeah, even outside of the psychological safety that

18:46

you're talking about, Helen, with giving people permission to swing big,

18:51

I also think that the quantification piece is huge, because it's so much

18:55

easier to say, "Project was released on time within budget.

19:00

This many users were impacted as planned or whatever." So it's so much

19:03

easier to go to an output to be able to say,

19:06

"Yep, that was achieved." Versus something that's like a little squishier,

19:10

a little bigger, involves other people. It's like outside your own sphere

19:13

of influence, which is that a factor of why you see people tend

19:17

to lean on some of those more project or task list related things?

19:21

I think that's right. But I would say all of those things that

19:25

you're talking about, those quantified projects, those are all great examples

19:30

of the impact or the evidence that shows, "Hey, yeah, I'm making progress

19:33

toward those goals." And so really having the sub milestones is important

19:38

to ensure that you are progressing on them, and that you have the

19:41

evidence that you are actually driving it. That's my kind of mental model,

19:45

Moe, is those things are important, yes, I ship the thing. And knowing

19:49

how does that ladder up to the final goal. That's the part that's

19:52

often missing. I shipped a ton of things and so what?

19:56

So what? I feel like there's a tendency, as data people,

20:00

we do generally wanna have measures, and you did touch on it.

20:04

I have noticed a bit of a theme lately where everyone feels like the only way to get measures of success,

20:12

is to ask their stakeholders for qualitative feedback. And

20:17

I have had a bit of a visceral reaction because I'm like,

20:20

you are then putting the burden on your stakeholders to basically to tell

20:24

you whether or not you did a good job, but you're also asking more of them, which you can't do that for every piece of work,

20:30

right? What are some of the ways that you can...

20:33

And I've realized this is a hard thing to do, but like, what

20:36

are some of the ways that we can measure success without necessarily needing

20:40

to go back to stakeholders? I'd say two things on that.

20:43

And I think one that I'm a big fan of is joint goals. So

20:47

you and your stakeholder have the exact same goal or a same version

20:51

of a goal that you both are working on together, and you agree

20:55

is a good goal. Hey, we both want to drive growth in this

20:59

way. I'm going to do it and here's my sub milestones,

21:02

and this... By owning these elements, you are gonna do it by owning

21:05

those elements. And then we're gonna agree on how do we know if

21:08

that actually happened or not. That's definitely one area. I think in terms

21:13

of the other point I would make though on how can you quantify

21:16

it? Honestly, I think this is where data people have to get creative

21:20

and often do not spend enough time, effort, thought on measuring themselves.

21:25

Very good at measuring other people. Very, very good. Yeah. I'm very good.

21:30

Not very good at measuring ourselves. And that doesn't mean we don't have

21:35

the capability to do it, but I think it's just a time and

21:39

effort thing personally, although happy to be... That to be a debate.

21:46

So let's go back to that discussion about old mate who wants to

21:51

improve their communication skills. And we've kind of evolved their goal

21:54

now to make the business more data driven. I think, was that the

21:58

exact words? Yeah. I think there was a slight tweak on words. Something,

22:02

exactly. And we have a series of milestones,

22:05

to put you completely on the spot. What are some of the ways

22:10

we could measure that? I feel like that one maybe you're looking for

22:15

evidence of a change in behavior in stakeholders. Like that's kind of what

22:19

my intuition says. What are your thoughts? Yeah. So in that sort of a scenario,

22:23

I would say some of the sub milestones should be,

22:27

Hey, I'm producing the data and is it actually being used?

22:31

How do I... If it's a dashboard, how many people are using it

22:34

on a regular basis? How sticky is it? Are they coming back and

22:38

using it time and time again? Same thing, if it's a report,

22:42

is this something that people actually care about? And sometimes you do

22:46

need to get qualitative feedback. There's no kind of bones about it.

22:49

If you don't have the right tracking mechanisms in place, you do have

22:52

to just ask, "Hey, was this helpful? Was it not?" But do that

22:55

the first time you send it out, not the 12th time you send

22:58

it out, and get the feedback. And if it wasn't helpful,

23:01

wasn't useful, then what would it take for it to become more useful?

23:06

Sorry, why did you say the first time and not the 12th? Well,

23:09

you don't wanna send a report 12 times that no one cares about.

23:13

Oh, got it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm with you. I'm with you.

23:15

'Cause ideally if it wasn't helpful, then you've gotten feedback and iterated

23:20

and made it better by the time you send it the next time.

23:22

Yep. Okay. I'm with you. Tracking. And a lot of times if your

23:28

business partners are making this request of the data team, it's to help

23:33

inform a question or decision. And so hopefully you're a part of,

23:37

so did you do that? Did you kind of follow through on some

23:40

of the recommendations? Like hopefully you're somewhat in tune with some

23:45

of the decisions or next actions that were taken. And that in every

23:48

case, especially if it's like a dashboard or it's a little bit more

23:51

independent, but supporting some of those decisions. Like I think that that

23:55

might be one of the easy ways to tell a story about impact.

23:57

Like you were kind of nudging us towards earlier about the,

24:01

"What does it do for the business?" And so taking that story all

24:04

the way up, that could be a good way to do it too.

24:07

Yeah. And I think you're making a great point, Val, around when these

24:10

ad hoc requests come, we all guide our teams, I'm sure to do

24:15

the due diligence of, "What are you gonna use that for?"

24:18

But then not always the follow up of, "And did you?" So I

24:21

really think that's a great point. Okay. I wanna turn a little bit.

24:25

It's funny because Helen's exact example then before is an exact professional

24:30

development goal conversation I had with someone recently. And I was like,

24:33

Oh wow. Those are the exact points that we hit, which is very

24:36

entertaining. But, I do wanna talk a little bit about junior team members

24:40

and their professional development more broadly. I think goals is obviously

24:44

an important component, but I guess my expectations are, when you're a senior

24:48

team member, you are very much driving your own development goals.

24:52

You have a clear idea of where you want to go and sometimes

24:55

they need to bounce off you, but you are leading your development.

24:59

And with junior team members, that's a lot harder. I find sometimes they're,

25:03

I don't wanna say lost, but they don't even... They don't know what

25:06

they don't know. So they don't know what's possible.

25:09

And yes, they need more guidance, but it's also, they're still in that

25:13

heavy learning stage. So they're not necessarily thinking about two years

25:17

or three years down the track. Do you feel Helen, like there is

25:20

a different approach that needs to happen there. Or sometimes they're like,

25:24

"What should I do? Should I focus on my technical skills?

25:26

Should I focus on my communication skills? And they really need a lot

25:30

more guidance. So I think there's a couple of things to unpack there.

25:35

I think, again, personally my approach that nothing gives me more joy than

25:40

having a new person come onto a team.

25:43

Not really giving them that much direction, not that much guide rails,

25:47

but giving them a lot of permission and being surprised and delighted by what they come back with.

25:54

And I think too often we handhold a little bit too much or put

26:00

a barrier around people, which actually is not that helpful and they can

26:04

do a lot more if they're empowered to do that. So my approach

26:08

is typically to kind of get out of the way a little bit,

26:11

particularly for the first few months. Obviously they need a lot of support

26:14

in learning the business, the methods, whatever else they need to onboard

26:18

to. And tons of support there. But a little bit less in terms

26:22

of the professional goals. 'Cause I honestly wouldn't know either. I don't

26:25

know what your next big leap is gonna be. We're gonna have to

26:30

work on that together. I don't know enough about that person to make

26:33

a judgment call on that within the first three, six, sometimes even 12

26:37

months. We'll have discussions around it along the way, but I think being

26:42

a little bit less prescriptive in 'the how' of the work that they're

26:47

doing. Obviously they need prescriptive guidance when it comes to what has

26:52

to happen or what the job scope is, but a little bit less

26:55

on the how is typically how I approach it. But

26:58

I think that doesn't work for all people. And I don't know if Val or Michael,

27:02

you have other ideas or examples of where it has or hasn't worked for folks

27:06

on your teams? Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree with what you're saying.

27:11

It's hard to do what you just said

27:14

a lot of times, 'cause you feel like, "Oh, I've gotta give them

27:17

everything they need to start and be successful and tell them what everything

27:21

is and all the expectations". But a little bit of area to roam is

27:25

actually good for both of you. And I don't know if you've found

27:30

this, Helen, I feel like sometimes that's also personality driven.

27:34

Where I'll have people come back to me and be like,

27:36

"Okay, I need more structure around this, or I don't know what to

27:39

do". And then other folks are more like, "Oh, cool, I'll just jump

27:43

in there and figure it out and I'll see you in three months

27:46

when we do a check in or something". And, it's just totally different by the person sometimes. Yeah. I'm not sure

27:53

what you're... Yeah. You've experienced. I totally agree with that and that's

27:58

great. And I wouldn't wanna get in the way of the person who is like,

28:00

I got it, let me run with it and grow my wings and

28:04

soar. And for the person who does need more structure,

28:07

that's fantastic and happy to give it. And thank you for giving me

28:11

the feedback. Yeah. And by the way, in 12 months time,

28:15

your development goal might be around for a bit more autonomy, a little

28:18

bit more self directed leadership, but we'll get there, for now...

28:22

Yeah. Yeah. Let's work on what structure is helpful for you?

28:25

How do you operate, how to empower that person. Yeah. A lot of

28:28

times I find myself telling junior people, your primary job is to make

28:32

sure you have clarity. If you don't understand something that, you need

28:37

to make sure you're getting what you need to be clear on the

28:40

direction, the approach, the task, whatever it is.

28:43

And sometimes that's helpful. But, yeah. I think that's such a hard thing

28:47

too, though. It's something that I have noticed a little bit lately.

28:51

I don't know, like you said, Helen, it's not the permission,

28:55

but them knowing that they can ask more questions if they don't understand

28:59

something, and it's a really hard cultural thing to influence of like,

29:02

No, I want you to keep asking until you understand when you're a

29:05

junior person who inevitably in the data space is sitting in front of

29:09

a very senior stakeholder. When we think about

29:14

new team members, and, I say new team members 'cause it can be

29:17

in any level, junior or senior, how do we ensure that

29:22

they are set up for success and getting the support that they need?

29:27

And I think there's actually less work to be done in that regard

29:30

with the individual team member coming in. The work is done over days,

29:35

months, and years with the whole rest of the team. So personally,

29:39

I incentivize the rest of my team to help. You are incentivised, I

29:44

encourage you, I recognise those who are putting their hand up to help

29:48

new folks on the team. That's something that I would reward.

29:51

And so we have a collaboration by default, it's about the team,

29:56

not the individuals. And that is the team culture that I wanna foster.

30:00

And yes, it has something to do with new folks coming in,

30:03

obviously, but, you can sense that around you as a new team member,

30:08

whether people are, "Me, me, me" Or "We, we, we". And the team

30:13

culture I wanna encourage and develop is always that I will notice

30:19

people who are helping out new folks. I will recognise it,

30:22

I will make sure that we are supporting those people and encourage them.

30:27

And that new folks should feel extremely welcome and then have a large

30:32

network. Because if the whole team does that, you've got now 10,

30:36

15 people who you can go to. And it's not all,

30:39

"Well by one mentor who's the only person who is being incentivised to

30:44

help me. I feel like I can't go to them 50 times a

30:47

day. Well now I've got a whole team of people, who are being

30:50

rewarded for helping me and I feel like I can go to whoever

30:53

I need to, whenever I need to". So that's how I like to

30:56

approach it. Obviously a buddy is still helpful for a lot of things,

30:59

but, it should be on everyone. It should not be the responsibility of

31:03

the new team member to ask the question. It should be the responsibility

31:06

of the team to reach out and support them.

31:09

Oh, I love that. That's great. I actually just have a new team

31:12

member, so I'm like, can't wait to put this into practice. It's nice.

31:16

One thing I'm curious about, your opinions on, Helen is when it is

31:20

a newer team member or sometimes, I guess I'm also kind of thinking

31:24

the more junior team member with this question is,

31:27

how do you balance getting them excited about taking those aggressive big

31:32

swings versus just being like, collect some experiences. Like enjoy the

31:38

process, explore it. Like, "I'm your safety net. You're never gonna fly

31:43

without that". But just kind of explore. So do you put goals around

31:48

something like that or, I'm just interested your take. Typically,

31:52

and this is going a little against what I said earlier, but typically

31:56

in the interview process, I have a good sense of

32:00

what strengths someone might have or what they bring to the table that's

32:04

unique. And I like to not tell them that I'm setting them up

32:10

with a quick win, but set them up with a quick win. Based

32:13

on everything I know about you and what you're bringing to the table.

32:15

I have a problem here that I'm 90% confident you can smash out

32:20

the park and I'm gonna give you that. I'm not gonna tell you

32:23

that I think you can smash it out of the park. That's. I love this. But

32:26

I'm gonna give you this problem knowing that it'll give you the experience

32:31

and get the wheels in motion and get you riding that bike to

32:34

say, "Okay, well once I've got one win under my belt and I

32:37

know how that works now let me go find some more".

32:40

So that's how I like to do it. But it's not always

32:44

that neat and possible, but finding a quick win for everyone on a

32:48

team is something that I'm very supportive of. What is

32:52

their thing gonna be where in six weeks, 12 weeks, they can come

32:55

back and give a presentation to the rest of the team or feel like

32:58

they've got some runs on the board and they know what they're doing.

33:02

See how fucking good is this? Amazing. Yeah. I'm like... Okay guys,

33:08

I've really got to change tact because I have been dying to talk

33:11

about this for weeks and weeks and weeks, because it's something that's so top of mind.

33:17

I wanna talk about middle management. We've spent a lot of time talking

33:20

kind of about juniors and that sort of thing, but I think the

33:23

middle management step is one that is quite bumpy for most people when

33:29

you go from being an individual contributor to leading a team,

33:33

a small team or that sort of thing. And really making that transition when you start to find out how the

33:40

sausage is made and getting exposure to some of the, I guess,

33:44

the problems or difficulties that happen more at the leadership level.

33:48

And then balancing like the need to shield your team with also listening

33:52

to them. And Helen, what I'm really curious to hear,

33:57

do you think that is just like a growing pain that people go

34:00

through and you have to accept it's gonna be bumpy? Or do you

34:03

think there are ways that you can make that transition

34:06

easier for people that are going into to management?

34:10

So I mean, firstly I'll say I don't love the terminology of middle

34:13

management, because I think everyone is a middle management unless you're

34:16

in the C suite. And so every manager needs to think of themself as

34:21

a leader of the team and a manager of the team,

34:24

no matter what the level or the size of company or anything of

34:27

that nature is. But in terms of someone, I think what you're getting

34:31

at Moe is like, Hey, first time managers that transition from being an

34:35

individual team member into being a manager. How do we make that easier

34:39

for folks? Is that really kind of the crux of what you're getting

34:42

at? Yes, but it's also, I suppose it probably a little bit more

34:47

narrow in terms of you are then balancing sometimes

34:53

the downward pressure in reality. So like hypothetically there's a decision

34:57

you don't agree with, but you're gonna have to communicate that to your

35:00

team. Whereas before you would've been on the receiving end, you could have

35:03

been like, "This is bullshit, I don't agree with it". Now it's like,

35:05

"I don't agree with it, but I'm still going to have to get

35:07

other people to support it". So, it's the tension

35:11

that starts to come up from moving into that role. Got it.

35:16

So I'm a big believer in authenticity and not sugarcoating things,

35:22

but for me personally, it's extremely... I can't think of a single situation

35:27

where that has really happened to me, where I really said like, I

35:30

fully disagree with this. I do not understand it.

35:33

You can disagree with a decision, but you can understand it.

35:37

And so that is what I've be communicating to my team.

35:40

Why are we doing this? Because I understand why we're doing this,

35:43

it's something that's important to me. Now, my personal opinion may or may

35:47

not be aligned to that fully, but if I can understand why as

35:50

a company we are doing it, and that is why I'm communicating that, I

35:54

would tend to leave my personal opinions out of it in that scenario

35:58

if I really did disagree. But I think it's extremely rare and

36:01

I would encourage folks seek to understand because oftentimes, so many times

36:06

we have seen situations like that, what's actually happening is that new

36:09

managers doesn't have all of the context. They don't have all of the

36:12

context on the business, the realities, maybe it's the cost structure that

36:16

they're not fully across. Maybe there's a competitor coming in. There's

36:20

something that they are not seeing, it's pretty rare that senior management,

36:24

and it just makes terrible decisions, obviously it does happen. But normally

36:29

that's reality is, "Hey, I don't have all of the context that my

36:32

manager has. How do I get that context so I can do a

36:35

better job of relaying these decisions and the importance of them to my

36:39

team?" I loved hearing what you just said, Helen. I have literally on

36:44

my desk right now a little post it note that is the two

36:47

triangles. As your responsibilities grow, your rights get smaller.

36:54

So that's something that is kind of true where you're not allowed to

36:59

complain to your team, you're not allowed to

37:02

express your opinions necessarily. I think I agree wholeheartedly with the

37:06

concept of being authentic, but you have to have these checks and balances

37:11

within yourself to not sort of... Does an individual contributor, like if

37:14

you're upset about something, you just can say it, as a manager you

37:18

have to think, What is the impact to my team, if I

37:21

say these things or if I open my mouth about this stuff or

37:24

if I badmouth this department or whatever the case may be.

37:29

And so that's sort of the way I think about it is you

37:32

own not just yourself, but you kind of own a perception that you

37:38

wanna build in your team so that your team

37:40

continues to have the culture you want from it, of the all the

37:44

things we've talked about before. Right? So I don't know. Yeah.

37:47

I've never really thought of it as having less rights is moral responsibility.

37:51

I think it's. It is not having them, it's more like not

37:57

choosing not to exercise them. Maybe in certain scenarios. I'll have to

38:02

sit with that one. Yeah. Maybe I'm, I don't know. Somebody told that

38:06

to me and I thought it was good in the moment, so I wrote it down and, it's sitting on my desk right there,

38:10

so. I can definitely say that was one of the first mistakes I

38:13

made when I became a first time manager is I was like,

38:17

let's start every day at the top of the rollercoaster and as I

38:20

go to meetings and come across new information, I'm gonna drag everyone

38:24

up and down with me. Yeah. And it was like, I'm not being

38:26

a good shit umbrella, to not take, to

38:30

unload my stress of this situation or scenario, the decisions I have to

38:33

make onto my team. So I definitely had to get that in check.

38:36

That was that was a lesson learned the hard way, I have to say.

38:39

So apologies to those teammates. I think about you to this day.

38:45

I definitely approached management early on as sort of us against the org

38:50

kind of mentality. Like this gorilla warfare. Like, we're over here doing

38:54

our thing, I'll take care of you, but all of these other people

38:57

are really bad and dangerous. And that was a process I had to

39:02

go through to start to like look at the rest of the org as not

39:05

an enemy and bring my team into that as well. So it was

39:09

growth I had to do. I think what you're touching on Michael is

39:12

an interesting one. I think sometimes I've seen new managers want to

39:17

kind of showcase that they are still one of the team.

39:21

Yeah, yeah. I'm still one of you. Yeah. I'm still one of you. Yeah. And I think that is quite dangerous,

39:27

for all of the reasons that you just said. There's a tendency to

39:30

kind of maybe bad mouth other departments or decisions and I think that

39:34

is a dangerous place to be. And I see that as well in

39:38

terms of, for someone who's maybe gone from being a peer to being

39:42

a manager, and they want to continue to be buddy buddy and that

39:45

makes it really difficult to then turn around and have to give that

39:49

person some feedback that's maybe constructive, or some direction or guidance,

39:53

that maybe that person doesn't love. So I think

39:56

there is a a point when you go from being an individual to

39:59

being a manager within a team, that you really do have to see

40:03

that as a new job. I am not still... I'm leading this team.

40:08

What does it mean to be a leader? And you can lead in

40:11

every single different way. Lead from behind, lead from the trenches,

40:14

be in the work with them, but you cannot be the leader and

40:19

be the team member at the same time. That doesn't work.

40:23

How do you think that we coach people through that? 'Cause I don't

40:26

think people are always ready for that transition... And it's funny,

40:30

I actually, I think about the military a lot because I had a

40:33

friend once that I said to him, I was like, why did you go in as a soldier? Like, I don't know, he had a university

40:37

degree. He was really smart. I'm why wouldn't you have gone through the

40:39

officer ranks? I was just very genuinely interested. And he was like,

40:43

Because I wanna be buddies with everyone, that's my job. Like if I'm

40:47

the officer, I can't be buddies with everyone. I'm the person that's in

40:50

charge. And I feel like the military has that ingrained in them.

40:54

They so get that. But I think especially when you're in the workplace

40:58

and you go from one to the other, it is a transition and

41:03

you have to find other ways to have your buddies. And they might

41:07

be the lead from another team or like, you have to find those

41:10

relationships in another way. But as the coach of, or the manager of

41:15

the person who's just the manager, like, how else do we support them

41:18

with that do you think? Yeah. I mean, they say leadership is lonely

41:21

for a reason. And I know it's kind of trite and corny,

41:24

but I think there's a grain of truth there for sure.

41:28

I think the set of questions I like to ask people,

41:32

tell me about the best manager you've ever had, and tell me about

41:35

the worst manager you've ever had. So for every new manager and write

41:38

it down, what did that person, who was the best manager for you

41:41

do? What did they not do? And really then using that as the

41:46

basis to have a conversation with that person around what does good management

41:50

mean to them? How do they start to apply a management philosophy and

41:54

grow as a their own kind of thoughts and principles in this?

41:57

Because there's always the same kind of common themes. The best manager

42:01

I ever had empowered me, listened to me, was not my best friend,

42:06

was someone who I looked, like just using that self reflection tool for

42:11

folks. And always, I mean the worst manager, and I'm curious for all

42:16

of three of you, if you, without naming any names, think about the

42:20

worst manager you ever had. I almost guarantee they were a micromanager.

42:24

They were in your hair on things. It's the same themes over and

42:29

over that tend to come up, because that's another really big track that

42:33

a lot of new managers fall into is, I know I can do

42:36

this job 'cause I was doing it last week, so let me tell

42:39

you how you should now do this job in very minute detail.

42:43

That's another, I know that's my safe space. I know how to do

42:46

this technical work, so I'm gonna tell you how to. And that is,

42:49

I mean, people hate it, right? Starting off as a new manager of that

42:52

is just a recipe, the disaster. Well, and that's really great.

42:57

And it's such a hard thing to let go sometimes as that new

43:00

manager, because you aren't good at necessarily shaping how like the quality

43:06

of that thing will come out from this person does it versus when

43:09

I do it. And so you have this letting go

43:13

that has to happen in that moment as well, which I, that's really

43:16

awesome. It's really hard. And you're not yet good at your new job,

43:19

but you are good at the job that you can't do anymore,

43:22

because it will just piss everyone off and it's a really tricky,

43:26

tricky place to be. Yeah. Completely. Yeah. Yeah. I've had a boss pull me

43:30

aside as a manager one time because I was still trying to do

43:34

too much of the old work. Yeah. And they're like, that's not what

43:37

you're here for anymore. You've gotta step out of that, but it feels

43:40

comfortable. Right? You know how to do that. And all the stuff you're

43:43

learning and doing in this new role you're not comfortable in.

43:47

And so it's like, well, maybe I could just spend part of my

43:49

day doing this so I could do something. But. And it's also like,

43:52

I can do it faster. Or like better or whatever. Yeah, sure.

43:56

So, I'm just gonna do that 'cause it'll be quicker than teaching someone

43:58

and you're like, Oh, no. Yeah. I've coached some really strong performers

44:04

at my last company who had this tendency, but not out of

44:07

the urges that we're talking about here, where they, it's more comfortable

44:11

or they wanna do it faster and better, but it was,

44:13

I don't wanna get outta touch with the skill. Like maybe I've only

44:18

done this one type of analysis once before, but it doesn't come up

44:21

very often and a second opportunity has arisen and I wanna jump in

44:25

it so that I don't get too far removed from it.

44:28

And it feels like what would happen if

44:31

I'm not as proficient as I used to be in this skill.

44:34

And so like the concept of making space on your coattails and coaching

44:38

other people and doing it. And so again, like some of those newer

44:40

skills, Michael, that you were talking about, but it can be uncomfortable

44:43

for that reason too, for an analyst, especially when it comes to something

44:46

more technical. Yeah. And I think that's a great opportunity to set up

44:50

a review or one of those processes I can set up as a

44:54

team manager that ensure that the work is really robust, but I'm not

44:57

in everyone's hair. I can stay in touch with what are they doing

45:01

and set people up for success by doing really great review process,

45:06

really great, whether that's peer review, manager review. But yeah, I think

45:10

that's a little bit of a trickier one. And I will put both hands up to be a little rusty

45:17

on some of my technical capabilities as yes. Do you think it's just

45:21

you, do you just get to a point where you start being like,

45:25

I accept that I am, my technical skills are going to atrophy because I

45:30

feel like it's constantly a discussion and I often get asked like, how

45:33

do you stay in touch? And I'm like, I don't. I haven't written

45:37

a line of code now in, I genuinely can't tell you the last

45:40

time I wrote a line of code. Is it just that you start

45:43

to accept it and you, yeah. Like you do learn about the concepts

45:47

through your team, but you are not the one applying them and you

45:49

just have to accept that that's reality?? I think maybe, I mean, it's sad

45:57

to say I do still love it sometimes when someone goes on parental

46:01

leave and I get a chance to do a little bit of work

46:03

every now and then, even though it's not my day job. But yeah, I think there is a little bit of accepting that

46:12

I also learn a lot from my team members really. And some of

46:17

I, there's a a saying around Meta Facebook ways, like, You should only

46:22

ever hire people who you would be happy to work for yourself.

46:25

And I can tell you that it's true of my team. They are brilliant, absolutely, technically brilliant, much, much better

46:31

than I am. And I learn a lot from them. And I think

46:34

that leaning into that is good for everyone. So, having the team now

46:38

teach me is good for them and for me. Yeah.

46:43

I think I turned a corner mode too when I started looking at

46:46

learning how to be a leader as something to pursue as opposed to

46:49

like more the loss of other things. So sort of like,

46:53

Hey, why don't I just focus on trying to get as good as

46:55

I can at this thing that I'm now into?

46:58

And not necessarily always sort of looking over my shoulder like,

47:01

oh, I'm losing these skills, or I don't know if I'm still as in

47:04

touch with this thing I used to do.

47:07

I don't know if that's good for everybody, but that helped me a

47:10

little bit in that journey. Not mourning the loss as much?

47:14

Well, trying to pursue this... Yeah. Actively going after it. Yeah. And

47:18

being like, how do I be really good at it as best as

47:21

I can? And I think everyone's got a different style. My style is

47:25

to make every mistake possible and then slowly arrange and then arrange

47:30

around it down experiential learning of like, Okay, so I screwed that up.

47:34

Now how do I not screw it up next time? And so I'm

47:38

a little slower than most, but you know? I want to change gears

47:43

a little bit. We alluded to this before, but feedback is such an

47:46

important part of helping people develop and being a leader. Helen, how

47:51

do you approach that process with your teams and even with people you

47:55

mentor as well? I mean, I think most of it at the top, I'm

47:58

very direct and I think a lot of frequent feedback, lighter weight is

48:04

what typically works for me. Obviously doesn't matter. We have a standard

48:07

kind of feedback process and timeline. But I, particularly for newer managers,

48:12

one of the big mistakes I see people often make is,

48:15

not giving feedback fast enough or thinking about

48:20

not being sure of themselves. I wanna see more evidence, or maybe they're

48:23

just having a bad day, or maybe I just need to step up

48:27

myself as a manager and not trusting their gut early enough.

48:31

And so it doesn't need to be this big heavy thing.

48:34

Oftentimes feedback can just be a question, how do you think you're doing

48:38

on X or Y or Z and let's have a conversation about this.

48:42

This is what I'm seeing, but maybe I'm not seeing everything.

48:44

Help me understand, how do you think you're doing? So that more frequent

48:49

lighter weight is I think what I tend towards, but it's a muscle

48:54

that you built, I think. One of the things actually that Helen has

48:58

helped me kind of have a bit of an epiphany about on feedback,

49:03

like reality is we all think we're doing great and it's like regular

49:07

and yada, yada yada. And everyone says they love feedback, which also sometimes

49:12

is a crock of shit. But I'll give you guys kind of a

49:16

scenario of, let's say someone did a presentation or something and you kind

49:20

of get into the weeds a little bit and you're like, Oh, you could have done this to make this better or you could

49:24

have adjusted this. And I think the bit that has kind of clicked

49:28

to me is also letting them know what the standard is it should

49:32

be. So it's not just about like the tactical feedback on the work.

49:36

It's like for the level that you are at, my expectation is that

49:40

this presentation has these qualities or is done in this particular way.

49:45

And so like you're showing that this is where the work is and

49:48

this is where it should be. And I feel like through some of

49:51

the conversations I've had with Helen, I've actually gotten better at being

49:54

a little bit more direct about that because otherwise they're just like,

49:57

Oh, these are some improvements I can make. Not I need to,

50:00

like, there's not a big jump here, but like, they don't know where

50:03

the bar is that they're trying to get to.

50:06

And it's something about fit. Like it has really been churning in my

50:09

mind of late. And yeah, Helen is very, very good at direct feedback,

50:14

I will say. Sorry. No No, it's a positive.

50:19

Yeah, it's great. And not always, I will say I think sometimes I

50:23

fall into the same patterns with my own team, particularly if we've been

50:26

managing folks for a long time or it's easy to get sucked up

50:31

into the day to day and the week to week work. And so I think that it is easier when you're in a kind of more

50:36

of a coaching, mentoring relationship to have that discipline around feedback.

50:40

That's why we're there to talk about it. So yeah, I think yes, expectation... Like letting people know what type

50:48

of feedback they're getting is a helpful thing. Let's do some big signposts.

50:51

I am giving you feedback that this is missing the mark.

50:54

My expectation was X what I saw as you delivered Y. Do you

50:58

agree with that? Do you not? Am I missing something here?

51:02

As opposed to just like, Oh, you did a great job,

51:05

next time you could do something else, but you know. That's really not

51:08

that helpful if you are actually trying to give feedback. I want you

51:11

to grow. I believe in you, I really want you to be successful

51:15

and next time you will be more successful if this is the feedback

51:20

which will help you get there. I'm curious, and this is a personal

51:25

question. Very much so I find... And you might say like,

51:29

well, all of those milestones that you had in your head were shit

51:32

milestones and goals So that's fair. But I'm very extrinsically motivated,

51:38

and so I oftentimes find value in my work through the eyes of

51:42

other people giving it praise or accolades, or saying that this was valuable

51:47

or helpful. And so, I always thought that a way to measure that

51:50

success was to say, well, I should have director in my title before

51:53

I'm 30, because that means someone in a position of power thinks that

51:58

I should be able to operate at that level and make those types

52:00

of decisions for the business. Or even when I came to Search Discovery

52:03

Michael, can back this up, that I said, I wanna run a test

52:06

that makes a client a million dollars. And that's the way that

52:10

I'm gonna help make sure that I'm feeling some of those successes.

52:12

And I have to say that, I know we talked a lot about

52:15

the juniors and some of the ways that they think about those visible

52:19

signs of progress or ways of setting goals. And I actually think it's getting

52:23

harder for me, the further I get into my career to think about

52:27

discreetly what are the things, what are the line in the sand thinking

52:31

further out three years on the line. Like, what do I want to say

52:33

I've been able to accomplish? And so maybe this is just like a

52:38

little bit of a rut that I'm in, but have you noticed that

52:40

at all that like there's differences in what's hard about setting goals

52:45

for juniors versus more senior people? Or maybe I just have a complete

52:50

I need to come up with a better way to set some metrics

52:53

against the things that I do, set some goals against.

52:57

I think two things. So firstly, hopefully your business partners know that

53:02

you like feedback and thrive off it. And hopefully you've said to them,

53:06

Hey, I'm just the sort of person, if you give me a positive piece of

53:09

feedback, I will cherish that. It will make my day, I will hug it

53:13

all day long and you will absolutely like

53:16

that is what I thrive off of. So that you are getting that

53:18

on a regular basis. If you tell people that, they will give you

53:21

that is my experience. So hopefully you've done that. But in terms of

53:25

like your particular goals as you get more senior, I think it just

53:27

becomes less linear. So as someone new into the business, hey,

53:31

the next milestone is the promotion, which is like two to three years

53:35

or the next thing and the next thing, and then I wanna be

53:37

a manager. And then... It starts out oftentimes with people being very linear.

53:41

And then as you become more senior, I think you have to be

53:43

much more flexible. What is my goal? Maybe it's to experience managing a

53:49

very large team or experience working in a different type of company,

53:53

or what are the experiences I wanna develop, and then being extremely flexible

54:00

on how I get them. So that might mean, I lose the director

54:04

title if I gain that experience. That might mean I go

54:08

take a pay cut or work at a very different company or do

54:11

something entirely different with my life. But prioritising what experiences

54:15

you wanna gain is something I think that becomes more important as you

54:18

become more senior. If it's always just getting to that next level.

54:22

I mean, you're gonna run outta levels pretty soon. It's not something that

54:26

goes and goes forever. And so you can't just keep it being the

54:29

next level, the next level, I think is what you're kind of putting

54:32

at there. Yeah. Yeah. Just wanted to make sure that that wasn't

54:37

too far off. 'cause I, I'm not some super senior, but

54:41

I don't, I'm not, I don't feel like I'm... I'm not a spring chicken. I'm not 10 years outta college or less anymore, so Yeah. And I

54:47

don't have all the answers here either. I think it's for me as

54:50

well, something I think about what are the experiences I want to gain next

54:53

in my career, so. Happy to chat some other time, Val on this for

54:57

each other. Woo hoo, Moe I'm gonna bogart your

55:01

girl That's right. No, you're incredible Helen. I love it. No, this is

55:06

excellent. All right, well we are running out of time so we have

55:09

to start to wrap up. This is incredible and actually so many things

55:13

Helen, you've shared have been so right on the mark. And so thank

55:16

you so much for sharing some of your insights and lessons learned with

55:21

us and our listeners. So one of the things we like to do

55:24

on the show is do go around the horn and share a last

55:27

call. Something we find interesting that maybe our listeners will too.

55:31

And Helen, you're our guest. Do you have a last call you'd like

55:33

to share? My last call is, I recently went on vacation.

55:38

And truly, take your vacation time people, it makes such a difference.

55:43

That is, I know it's not the most insightful new tool out there

55:47

in the world, but that was my big insight for the week is

55:51

take a holiday. I love that. Take a holiday folks. I love it.

55:54

And an actual holiday. Yes. Disconnect. Go on a place where the WiFi is

55:59

a little bit crap. It's a good idea. I've got it planned.

56:04

I know when we're taking it and I can't wait. Oh, good for you. Yeah,

56:07

that's important. That's awesome. All right Moe what about you? What's your

56:11

last call? I am so excited. Oh that's right. You know when you

56:15

find something and I'm sure every single person in the world probably knows

56:18

about it, but when you find something you're like, Shit, how did I

56:21

not know about this? This is insane. It's called Goblin Tools.

56:27

Have you guys, is everyone aware of Goblin Tools? Okay, great.

56:30

I'm excited. So it has a few different things that it does.

56:35

One is magic to do. So you put in a task like I

56:38

need to install tracking for Google Analytics 4, and it will break it

56:41

down into the tasks that you need to do in order to do

56:45

that. Or I need to write a brief for a client.

56:48

It will be like, Here are all the steps you need to do. It has a formaliser. I never ever recommend using that. There is never

56:54

a good occasion to take your written work and make it more formal.

56:58

But there is one called the Judge where you can put in say

57:02

like a message or an email that someone sent you

57:04

to see if you are misconstruing the tone and it will help you

57:08

understand if there's like... Interesting. Yeah, I know. That's cool. Because

57:13

sometimes you get a message from someone and you're like, Wow they're being

57:15

such a dick. And now you can put it in the judge and

57:17

it will tell you basically whether there is a tone there.

57:22

Then there's the estimator, which will help you break down a task into

57:27

like how long it estimates it's gonna take. There's one called the compiler. Oh yeah. You basically put a brain dump

57:34

in and it will break it into like a list of tasks and

57:37

then there's the chef, which is like, you put your ingredients in and

57:40

I'll tell you what to cook. So it's just like this tool that

57:44

I am, feel like I'm gonna be like using constantly and I'm really

57:48

excited about. So, yeah. Yeah. Where has this been all my life?

57:53

The judge would've saved me so many hours of therapy. I know, right?

57:59

It is like 15 years of trying to figure out how to handle

58:04

emails the right way. And I do have to say thank you to

58:07

Stefan. He presented at our Analytics meetup recently and he shared this

58:11

and I just was like, Pooh. Amazing. Sorry. That's pretty awesome.

58:15

Awesome. Thank you. All right Val, what about you? What's your last call?

58:19

All right, so this one's a little left field but I was pretty

58:23

excited about it as well. My favorite type of music is classic rock

58:27

and so here in Chicago I listen to 97.1FM The Drive and they

58:32

have a podcast called Behind the Song and they did one recently on

58:38

the ELO song that is scientifically proven to make you happy and it's

58:42

just a fun song and, I love like breaking it down and like understanding

58:46

how they recorded it and the inspiration for it. So that's always fun

58:50

part of the podcast. But the thing that I was the tie in

58:53

here to the show, I swear it's there is the study about what

58:57

makes songs make you happy. Like what is the happiest song in the

59:01

world and I guess it's this perfect combination of using Major keys seventh

59:06

chords, 137 BPM A strong beat and four beats in every bar.

59:11

So it's thousands of songs were tested over years and years.

59:16

And they evaluated it and this is still to this day the happiest

59:19

song in the world. So if you're having a bad day or you

59:22

aren't in a place to take your vacation yet, while you're planning it,

59:27

listen to the ELO song Mr. Blue Sky. Oh. It's in like tons

59:33

of commercials. As soon as you listen to it you'll be like, oh

59:35

yeah. So. All right. What about you Michael?

59:39

Well, mine is not as good but actually it's funny 'cause Tim sent this

59:44

to me and I was looking through it and I was like, oh this is be my last call. So thanks Tim. Shout out

59:49

So there's a venture capitalist named Sriram Krishnan who actually used

59:53

to work at Meta in the engineering, I think. And he collects corporate

59:58

memos and governmental memos and things like that. And they're all these

1:00:01

different kinds and styles and he puts them out on his webpage. And

1:00:05

so it's a really cool page. It just has a bunch of different

1:00:09

memos and it's kind of interesting because a lot of them are a

1:00:12

more like intimate reflection of the moment that that person or a company

1:00:16

or leader was in. And so they're kind of fun to read,

1:00:18

sort of kind of a fun thing. I was reading through it and

1:00:22

I read the one Howard Schultz wrote back in 2008 about Starbucks and

1:00:25

I was like, well they should have done something with that memo 'cause

1:00:28

he was absolutely spot on and they haven't really capitalized, but those

1:00:35

kinds of things. Anyways, it's fun if you like that sort of thing.

1:00:38

Anyway, so that's my last call. All right, well as you've been listening,

1:00:43

you're probably thinking to yourself, oh, I have a question or I have

1:00:46

a thought about this. We would love to hear from you and it's

1:00:49

easy to do that you can reach out to us through LinkedIn or

1:00:53

on the Measure Chat Slack group or via email at contact@analyticshour.io.

1:00:59

So we happy to hear from you and please do. And of course

1:01:04

no show would be complete without a huge shout out to our producer

1:01:08

Josh Crowhurst. Thank you Josh for all you do for the show.

1:01:11

All right once again, Helen, thank you so much. Thanks for coming on

1:01:16

and sharing with us. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Awesome. All right, so

1:01:21

no matter where you are in your leadership journey, you can lead from

1:01:25

anywhere. Just remember that I think I speak for both of my co

1:01:29

hosts, Moe and Val, when I say, no matter what kind of leader

1:01:33

you are or your leadership style, keep analyzing.

1:01:38

Thanks for listening. Let's keep the conversation going with your comments,

1:01:42

suggestions, and questions on Twitter at @analytics hour, on the web @analyticshour.io,

1:01:48

our LinkedIn group and the Measured Chat Slack group. Music for the podcast

1:01:54

by Josh Crowhurst. So smart guys want to fit in. So they made

1:01:59

up a term called analytics. Analytics don't work.

1:02:03

I love Venn diagrams. It's just something about those three circles and

1:02:08

the analysis about where there is the intersection. Right?

1:02:13

Tim usually does that without telling anyone Val to try to catch me

1:02:17

and telling an embarrassing story. So. That's good that you let us know.

1:02:21

All right. I'm trying to go for miss Congeniality this year

1:02:24

for the APH award. So Oh, hey. That's a good idea.

1:02:30

The atheist. The atheist invented right here. Mr. Blue Sky. Or I could just