How technology leaders reduce stress: For themselves, their teams, and in their organizations.

Participants

• Isaac Sacolick
• Tim Crawford
• Joanne Friedman
• Heather May
• Joseph Puglisi
• Martin Davis
• John Patrick Luethe

Summary

The episode focused on stress management strategies for Digital Trailblazers, featuring a panel of experts discussing personal and organizational approaches to reducing stress in leadership roles. The discussion covered various methods for managing stress, including time prioritization, transparent communication, and building workplace culture through authentic leadership and compatible team dynamics. The conversation concluded with insights on hiring practices and cultural change, emphasizing the importance of finding candidates who align with organizational values and demonstrating kindness and empathy in workplace interactions.

Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker B: Hello everyone. Welcome.

Welcome to this week’s coffee with Digital Trailblazers. I am psyched to be on here and seeing technology work from the other side of the world. For those of you who are here last week, you know I am traveling this week. I’m in Berlin and coming to you live from Berlin. It is 5pm here.

I am having beer with Digital Trailblazers today.

And you know, John is out in the west coast. He said, yeah, it’s 8 in the morning. Get the, get, get the coffee hour going. And I’m like, wow, we’re really on the opposite side of the world.

We have a special guest joining. I’m just waiting for him to get in here.

Tim, just say a quick hello if you’re able to hear us or when you’re able to hear us. We just got the program started and just giving my normal few minutes for everybody to get here. Tim, can you go off mute and just say hello?

[00:01:02] Speaker A: Hello, hello, hello from Berlin.

Glad to be here.

[00:01:08] Speaker B: Thanks Tim. Let me get the program started and you’ll be our first speaker today.

I’m welcoming here today Heather, who is an executive recruiter. Joanne Friedman, analyst, cio now running her own company as a startup. John Patrick Luth, who is done a lot of work in technology.

Say hello to Liz who is currently PMO at a investment. Not at investment, at a. What do you call it?

Oh gosh, credit union. There we go. And Joe Puglisi who I think everybody knows, Joe, our emeritus, our strong CIO who’s always here with us. Folks, thank you for joining this week’s and we have a special episode today and you know, Joanna’s usually pretty good, reminding me of when it’s a special week that we should dedicate the coffee hour to, to a topic that is probably something on top of mind for everybody.

And that’s what we’re doing today. We’re having a session on how digital trailblazers reduce stress in their organizations, teams and themselves. This week on Wednesday was National Stress Awareness Week.

And I did leave a link in the comment from that organization that sponsors this event.

They provide tips for 12 ways everybody can reduce stress.

I will tell you right off the bat, I am not the best person to be talking about stress reduction.

I am a 50 plus year student of how to do this myself and being a CTO in startups, being a CIO and in transforming enterprises and now running my own company is full of stress.

Got a panel here who is also doing lots of very interesting things. Everybody has their own stress to Deal with.

But that’s what our topic is gonna be about today. And I’m thrilled that you are here joining us to talk about this today.

I do have a special guest today.

This is sort of the most random thing that’s happened to me in a while. But here is Tim Crawford, who’s a strategic advisor to CIOs, a good friend.

Tim and I have met each other many, met up many times in sim.

We have spoken many times on Michael Krigsman show the CxOTalk, which will be on in a couple hours.

And here we are. Just a random series of events have brought us both to Berlin and both to the Brandenburg Gate at the very same time. And I said to Tim, we’re going to cover a soft human topic today, but I’d love to have you on the program. And so here is Tim Crawford, strategic advisor for CIOs, joining us today.

Welcome to the floor, Tim. And again, we’re talking today about reducing stress. We’re going to start about.

Start a conversation about reducing stress ourselves and also putting ourselves in the shoes of our listeners. Digital trailblazers and the types of stress they are likely to feel in leading transformation initiatives and working with their colleagues, whether they’re C level or reports to C levels.

I have a dual question for you, if you’re comfortable, Tim, talking about what are some of your stress triggers and your approaches to reducing stress?

Happy to hear you talk about that. If you want to provide advice to digital trailblazers, share some of your expertise about some of the stresses they are likely to feel in leading transformation efforts. Tim, I’m thrilled to have you here with us today.

[00:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks, Isaac. And gosh, I mean, what are the chances?

Two folks in the same city for completely different reasons and having a chance to stand under just an incredible monument here in Berlin. And of course, what do we talk about? CIOs, AI tech strategy, leadership.

But getting to your question, I think there are two things to think about, and I think you framed it really well. One is you have to think about yourself and how do you kind of manage stress yourself? And this gets back to a core question that I ask myself and I think every individual should be asking themselves, which is, how do you stay healthy?

And quite often when you ask yourself that question, the first thing that comes up is, how do you physically stay healthy?

But there’s an emotional and mental part of that, too.

And so, like, for me, it’s really a question of, okay, yes, there’s a lot that comes on your plate and this was true when I was an operational cio and it’s true today running my own company.

You have to be able to manage through that. And you know, it’s. Someone told me years and years ago, just remember, you’ve got to put one step in front of the other.

And what that means is that you can’t take it all on all at once. No human can do that. So you need to think about how you can prioritize and put prioritization schemes in place to be able to understand what you should be working on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

And then I think, you know, when you, when you start to put some of these methods, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about this as we go through the conversation in more depth, but then you have to think about your team and your organization and how do you help them through that process too.

And again, giving them the tools and methods that have worked for you in some cases will work for them and in other cases won’t.

But you. There’s a bit of encouraging them to find their own pathway to deal with this, to deal with stress.

But it’s, but it is important to figure out how you can be transparent in the conversation to also let your team know, look, we’re all human, me included.

I have to deal with stress just like you do.

And that transparency goes a long, long ways.

And that’s something that sometimes is hard for leaders because what it also means is you have to be comfortable being vulnerable.

And it almost seems like those two conversations, being vulnerable and being a leader, end up at opposite ends of the spectrum.

But the reality is that having that transparency and showing a good, healthy balance of vulnerability helps people understand that you’re human too, and you’re having to deal with these, these issues. And frankly, that starts to get the team to rally around the problem and you actually work as a team to, to solve some of these issues.

So I’ll, I’ll just maybe leave it there. But those are some ways that I’ve found that work really well for me and when I’ve led teams to kind of work through some of these challenges.

[00:09:10] Speaker B: Tim, thank you for joining and thanks for those insights. I really like this statement you made about encouraging your team to find ways to handle their stress.

I talk about that a lot in digital trailblazer. We. Sometimes you get a direct message from me, like me talking about taking walks. That was my stress relief valve.

I talk about going to ramen shops and just sitting there and having a good bowl of soup. But I will tell you, I mean, the one thing digital trailblazers feel the first time you really have a role managing a lot of people is that it can feel very lonely at the top.

You don’t have the same group of people that you can confide in and collaborate with when you’re, you know, maybe a team lead or just managing a couple different teams. It really does feel lonely at the top. And I remember once after a holiday party getting into a cab with the CEO of my company. It was probably the first time at all that we had been alone in a non work situation. And I could tell it was his time for unwinding. And I had never seen it before because again, he, you know, obviously more responsibility than I do, had a lot on his plate, a lot of stress. And you could see as soon as he got into a quiet zone, he was able to unwind a little bit, even though it was just a cab ride. Liz, thank you for joining us. I know you’re only here for a few minutes. I’m just interested in your perspective. What are your triggers? How do you approach, what’s your approach to reducing stress and what’s your thoughts for digital trailblazers managing stress?

[00:10:54] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you so much, Isaac. You know, it’s funny because we often think about networking as a useful tool for, you know, finding your next job or finding your next opportunity or, you know, making sure that you know who you can maybe hire in your network or whatever, or learning from your network. But I’m going to tell you that networking can actually provide you a stress relief valve by making sure that you’re networking outside of your primary role.

I have been doing Networking with other VPs in several other industries without the intention of, you know, finding the job from them or stealing their staff or whatever just to learn more about their leadership style because that happens to be what I’m interested in. So in that way I cross industry and I tell you it is an amazing thing to be able to talk to another leader at a senior level position outside of your organization who can understand the kind of stresses that you’re under, but has no direct relationship to the industry or the people so that you can actually speak freely and get some real advice. So I would encourage you to maintain those relationships with your, with your, I mean, maybe sometimes it could be people in your alma mater or in your friend zone or really, you know, outside of the digital arena to find those valves where you can connect on a leadership level that has, you know, really nothing to do with the specific technology issues. That you’re dealing with.

I mean, this goes. Obviously, this is above and beyond personal care, which is, first and foremost, making sure you’re taking care of your body and mind.

But in terms of going to people that are able to talk to you about issues that you’re dealing with, think about networking outside your. Your primary area.

[00:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah, Liz, I mean, I will confess, networking can be stressful for some people, but being. Being able to get away from your screen, get. Getting away from your priorities and getting in front of people that you can have a conversation with, confide in trust, meet on the outside. I think that’s really strong advice for people who, you know, in our line of work, a lot of what we’re doing is behind a screen, behind code, behind a zoom screen, talking to people about just getting stuff done and just being able to step away from that and have a normal conversation to the point where you can actually start confiding in people. I think that’s really good advice. Heather, welcome to the floor.

I’m sure you’re full of advice for those of you who don’t know Heather. Heather is our people person on our regular speakers, and Heather runs the.

The May executive search company. Hello, Heather.

[00:14:25] Speaker D: Hi. Thank you.

I think the reality of us spending so much time in front of our screen is something that we have to adjust to and how can we make the most of it?

I think by setting. Taking off on what Liz was saying about networking. A lot of times, especially when I speak to more senior people who have not looked for jobs in a long time, I give them an assignment to have five meetings, put something on your calendar, put people on your calendar. It gives them. You feel like you’re being productive. You feel like you’re doing something to help yourself.

So I think that using the screen time, using your day productively is a great feeling, that.

Sorry is a great feeling that you’re accomplishing something. I also schedule accountability calls with a number of different executives in their own company, because being vulnerable is at every age and every level.

And there are times that as you get to know these people, more and more, they reveal like, oh, wow, you have the same feeling. I have the same experience. This is how I dealt with it. I don’t know how to deal with it. So you’re sharing on a level that you would with a pint in Berlin or in a coffee shop in New York and letting all the.

The screen, the emotional screen down, even though you’re still in front of a screen, because you really get to know somebody when you see how they, you know, they’re animated and they talk and they. And they express themselves.

I think also the reframing in your mind. So it’s not just that you’re in front of a screen. It’s what do you. This is a part of my life. You know, we are since 2020, at least for people that weren’t coders, using zoom and being able to communicate and conduct business outside of an environment where you just walk down the hall and saw someone. So being able to communicate and reframe that, it’s not stressful. I don’t always have to be on in terms of makeup and a tie, but I’m just being real and I’m just talking because that’s the way we have our communication. And I guess the last thing is, yes, as coders and as leaders, there’s so much that happens has to get done. But someone once said to me, and it was a.

It was a career coach, you know, when people say, you know, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time. So the more that you can just chunk things down into pieces, it doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

[00:16:58] Speaker B: Getting some recurring themes here about being vulnerable, being able to prioritize your time, getting in front of people in ways that you’re comfortable doing, building trust with people and developing relationships. It’s going to be a big cue up for Joe when we talk about relationship building. We’re going before we get to Joe. Joanne, welcome to the floor.

And you know you’re running a startup now. A new set of stresses for you.

How should startup founders handle the stress that’s in front of them?

[00:17:32] Speaker E: Thank you.

I think startup and stress are synonymous these days.

One of, you know, I take lessons from my corporate days, and as I’ve said many times previously, there’s two things that I use on a daily basis, because if I don’t, I would probably go bananas.

You’re working so many more hours in a startup situation than you would be normally because your brain just doesn’t turn off. I need to do this and I need to do that. So to Tim’s point about priorities, the only comeback I have to that, Tim, is they’re all priorities.

And it’s. It’s really a level of granularity and prioritization that I don’t think I’ve ever reached before.

But suffice to say, my two tips are laughter and find a physical activity that you can de stress with instant gratification. To me, it’s in the summertime time or when I can when there’s not snow on the ground, going out to the garden and pulling weeds or moving something around, a physical activity that I can get the instant gratification from.

A walk would be a good thing as well. But sometimes I just don’t have enough time. But I can do a 10 minute break of go move something or go pull a bunch of weeds or some physical activity in. In the garden. In. In.

When it’s not weather conducive, I bake bread. And part of the reason is because I can knead the dough, I can slap the dough around, I can relieve my stress in a physical way where I can get that instant gratification of okay, that’s gone now. I’ve taken it out of my system and I can now move on with a clearer head and a clearer mind. I translate that to the team by scheduling five minute laugh breaks.

And I do it probably every other day where whenever we can of okay, stop what you’re doing. It’s either a bad dad joke, mom joke, whatever. It’s the idea of relieving the stress with laughter. And so somebody’s always got to tell a joke or a funny story or something silly that happened and we all burst into laughter for a good five, ten minutes. And, and you feel better because the endorphins are released because your brain kind of turns off for that few minutes. And is there lost productivity with it? Sure. Who cares?

If you can’t laugh during the course of your day, then you turn into a zombie workaholic. And when we’re working 16 hours a day to get a product launched, we absolutely need that kind of stress relief. The other thing I think about also as a leader and as the CEO of the company, is how much am I a trigger for stress for someone else? And that’s a topic I think needs to be addressed as well, because inadvertently we can create stress for other people.

I make a point of trying not to dump something on a team member at the very last minute if I can at all avoid it. Circumstances change. Sure. You know, very often we’ll get a phone call from somebody that redirects us for a few minutes or a day.

I try and make sure that I can’t, that, that I say no. If I absolutely feel that that’s going to stress out other people and cause them grief, I’ll try my best to say yes. But if push comes to shove, I will say no.

[00:21:10] Speaker B: You know, Joanne, I’m going to deep in, dive into, you know, the idea that we all have too many priorities you know, I usually translate that to others.

In a skill of managing your time.

It’s not just about, you know, prioritizing what do I need to get done today, this week, this month, this quarter.

It’s just recognizing that when I’m sitting down, some of us can have three screens open, some of us can have five screens open.

You know, there’s diminishing returns over how much work in progress you can handle.

And I just remember coaching a CIO about. It was a long time ago, it’s about 10 years ago, and he was really struggling with this. And it led to some research I did around managing time as a C level leader and how you have to. We talked about this a few weeks ago. Shapeshift, right? Yeah. I’m in crisis mode right now. I’m going to prioritize different things and use my time differently than if I’m in budget season and I’m working with my colleagues around priorit of investments. I’m in a completely different zone of thinking and I think not just being able to prioritize what’s important, but taking control of your time. And that means putting things on your schedule that aren’t just about moving the needle forward in transactional ways. And I think everybody here has been commenting on that.

[00:22:38] Speaker E: I would agree. I mean, that’s part of the reason why this five minutes of laughter needs to happen.

Because, you know, for us, it’s not that it’s chaotic because we’re not planning properly. It’s about there just aren’t enough hours in the day to achieve everything that you want to achieve. And yeah, you know, our principal architect has four screens open all the time. And what I say to him is, you also get into a situation where you have a little bit of lost productivity because you have to rethink where you were in each of those screens.

[00:23:12] Speaker B: And.

[00:23:12] Speaker E: And that’s downtime that maybe would be better used as productive time if two of those screens were closed.

And I understand why it happens, and I understand the need for him to, you know, work in his mode. But I also think that, you know, when push comes to shove, you see the errors that come out when it’s either too late in the day or there’s too much going on at one time.

[00:23:39] Speaker B: The.

[00:23:39] Speaker E: The. That becomes noise and it becomes a distraction. And yeah, it is about time prioritization, Isaac, but I think it’s also about event prioritization.

What’s the most significant thing you can work on in that period of time?

And. And that’s where the event where the model becomes the driver in our case because it’s agentic AI, you know, do I have an agent that’s going to do that for me? Is there a better tool I can use?

You’re constantly also having to monitor what’s out there. And that’s a new stressor for a lot of people.

Which model is going to work best for me.

[00:24:19] Speaker B: Joanne, what you’re making me think about here is the, you know, the shift in how you manage yourself. I mean I think about if you’re a DevOps engineer, you know, the thing that you’re always seeking is to be in the flow, right? Being able to just crank stuff out, that you’re in like a zone of concentration where you can think clearly and get a lot done in a very efficient amount of time. That doesn’t really work well for the architect or the product manager who is now working on a more open ended problem. And that’s where you use things like, you know, I do my best thinking in the shower or I do my best thinking when taking a walk or, or just putting yourself in a zone where you can look at things from a different angle.

And so you start building up that skill to use your time a little bit differently. And of course we’re gonna bring Joe in now. Joe, I mean leadership skills and what you have to do to manage stress as a leader often is a different set of skills and things that you’re doing than what you were doing as a contributor.

[00:25:25] Speaker F: Well, that’s true. And everyone’s talking about how to handle the stress. Let’s back up for a moment and talk about some things that create stre like clicking the microphone button and being on live on your show.

I kid three things I, I think cause a lot of stress. And you know, I go back to some of my, my golden rules, my, my core management style.

Being the last to know. Finding out that there was a horrible incident and everybody knows about it and you know, it sort of gets to you.

As I said in a blog post last week, you know, in the Twitter feed, that’s the worst possible scenario. So finding out last is, is a horror.

Having yes men around you, allowing you to do whatever it is you think is best without challenging you, without giving you any sort of pushback or feedback that might make you want to change your, your mind, you know. And the other is, is what I call torpedoes. It’s those things that derail you that you just didn’t see coming.

They’re, they’re below the water constraints, sometimes masquerading as requirements.

It’s, it’s, it’s an interesting problem. So how do I deal with some of this stuff?

People often ask me on panels, you know, what keeps you up at night?

And my answer is nothing. I always sleep well.

And I sleep well because my team always knows that they work with me and not for me.

My team knows that if there is a problem, I want to be the first to know about it.

Tell me before the word gets out so we can already begin addressing the problem.

I don’t dress down people because they made a mistake.

I teach them that it’s more important to fix the mistake and learn from the mistake than it is to hide the mistake. That’s the worst thing you can do. And by the way, I taught this to my children and I’m teaching it to my grandchildren. Don’t hide the mistake. Let’s talk about it. Let’s figure out how to fix it and make it not happen again.

I question things. When people say this is how it has to be and it can only be this way. I go into five wise mode. I’m sure Joanne can identify with this. Let’s get to the root cause. Why is it done that way? Let’s understand it before we agree to it.

And you know, I, I have this basic tenant of arcat. I’ve talked about that before.

Remain calm at all times. It does no one any good, including yourself.

When you’re in a stressful situation, to explode, to blow up, save it. You can deal with the stress release later on in the moment. You need to remain calm and show your team and show your colleagues, your peers, and maybe sometimes the public that you’re in control of the situation. It will be handled, have that sort of confidence.

Finally, how do I relieve stress? Well, if you, if you look at my Instagram feed, it says technology, cars, food and laughter, and not necessarily in that order.

Joanne brought it up. Humor is the great diffuser and I use it ruthlessly.

[00:29:00] Speaker B: Joe, do me a favor before we call you back on, do find the URL for your blog post and share it with everybody. You’ve. You repeated some of those great advice here today was, you know, something I suggested last week that you write a post on it, which you did, and I just want you to put it in the comments stream for everybody here who’s here to, to go click on it during or after the program. It just really is a very good and simple read. And you allude to a lot of the things you said here about working with your team, about working with you about not being the last to know about things that we should be paying attention to, I think those are all ways to avoid or prevent stress. And when you hide a mistake or you prevent, you know, you don’t have the right communications hat on, what those are doing is just essentially postponing the stress that will hit you later on. John, thanks for being patient.

Love to hear about your ideas around reducing stress and reducing stress with teams. And we’ll use the second half of today to talk about culture.

[00:30:11] Speaker G: Yeah, thank you for having me on. I really, really like what people said. I think it, you know, it’s like number one is always taking care of yourself. And I think people did a great job addressing that. I think the other thing that I think is really worth mentioning is that if you want to reduce stress for yourself, for your team, for organization, like, make sure that you are set up for your success at work and in the things you do, make sure your team is set up for success and the things that they do in your organization.

And so a lot of times like the success or the failure or something is completely set at the beginning on when you start a project or accept something and it’s set really with the expectations and with the deadlines and the constraints you have to work with. And I just think if you can do everything you can to help your initiatives and everything you do get set really to be successful out of the gate later on, you won’t quite have such stressful situations. And so that’s putting boundaries on, pushing back on things, making sure that you have enough resources.

If people are trying to add stuff, make sure you’re taking stuff out. But that type of defensive thing I think can make huge improvements in your quality of life and the amount of stress that you’re dealing with.

[00:31:27] Speaker B: Thanks, John. I’m translating some of your advice here to push back on the impossible, right? Don’t push that down to your team saying, I can hit this deadline, I can hit this scope, I can achieve these performance criteria and then push all that work on your team with that expectation when you know it’s unlikely or impossible for them to deal with. Some really good advice here, folks. Welcome to this week’s coffee with digital trailblazers.

Wednesday of this week was National Stress Awareness Week. And so I decided to host this topic this week on how digital trailblazers reduce stress in their organizations, teams and themselves. I’m thrilled to have everybody here speaking and listening, commenting on the common stream and just upcoming episodes. We have some really exciting ones, a little different than what we normally do. November 14th, I have two, and I hope to grow the number of special guests joining us from nonprofits. And we’ll be talking about AI for social good and get their insights about how they’re applying artificial intelligence in nonprofits.

This is a show to get us ready for giving Tuesday, which is coming up in a couple of weeks on the 21st.

I’ll be looking for AI natives. And so if you know anybody who is just everything they do, think and uses AI from the younger generation that may want to come up here and speak and reverse mentor us about what it’s like to be completely immersed in AI and how they’re doing, how they’re running their jobs, how they’re running their lives with it.

I think we’ll learn some good and some bad from this, but should make for an interesting conversation. And then on the 28th, we will take a week off for the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m here this week reporting from you from Berlin.

I was just at SAP’s TechEd conference, and coincidentally, Tim is here, I think, for an AWS event. Tim Crawford is a strategic CIO advisor.

I don’t know how many dice rolls we had to do, Tim, to be able to meet at Brandenburg Gate, of all places, and just catch up about the world of AI and the cio. And then what you and I normally talk about is culture. You know, if you look back at, I don’t know how many programs we’ve done with Michael Krigsman on CxOTalk, everything that we’ve talked about around transformation and leadership somehow has reduced into how as leaders, we have to change the culture. And you and I have been around the block enough to know when you walk into an organization that is too stressful, that there’s too much demand on timelines, that there’s requirements on how you do the work, not just around the outcomes. And many of the folks listening here, Tim, are trailblazers, but not necessarily owners of the culture. They can only contribute or influence culture change. So looking for your tips. When you’re working in a stressful environment, stressful culture, and you’re a leader but not an executive, how are you responsible and how can you help change the culture in your organization? Thanks, Tim, again for joining us.

[00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the invite. I’m glad it worked out that we could, we could both be joining from Berlin and we’re both here for, for two different events. You know, it.

There’s something interesting that I think is important for people just to take a moment and as my wife would say, give yourself a little grace.

So this week, I’ve. The last couple of days, I literally just landed hours ago before this call or before this live stream. So I’m fresh off the plane. Well, maybe not so fresh. It’s an international trip. But the, the point I was going to bring up was that one of the speakers at the event I was at this week, and I was at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event in Napa, California, and Kate Johnson, who’s the relatively new CEO for Lumen Technology Technologies, was on stage. And if you’re not familiar with Lumen, Lumen is a traditional telecommunications company.

You might know some of the background of Lumen through CenturyLink or through Quest.

But what was interesting was listening to her talk about culture and changing culture. So here’s an organization that ostensibly is, you know, created their own path. And you go, wait a second. How can you change the culture, Change the. The mindset for an organization like that?

And I just found it really interesting how a lot of her conversation was around the importance of culture, relationships, empathy and courage.

Culture, relationships, empathy and courage. Now she’s talking about it from a CEO perspective. And I love the.

I love the statement that she made. I mean, she kind of. She kind of crosses me as someone who’s.

Without being vulgar. She’s kind of one of those people that don’t necessarily stand up to.

To a lot of adversity and cower to it. Because one of the things she said is when haters write you off, don’t write back.

I thought that’s. That’s a clever little statement. I hadn’t heard that before. But the reason why I bring that up here, Isaac, is because, granted, she’s the CEO of the organization, but to your question of let’s say you’re not the CEO, let’s say you’re not even an executive with your company, what can you do?

Those four aspects, culture, relationships, empathy, courage.

Those are traits that each and every one of us can exhibit.

And when you start to exhibit these kinds of traits, you know, I talk about in some of my work, I’ve talked about empathy. I’ve talked about humility.

I’ve talked about transparency.

When you start to exhibit these behaviors, it changes how people look at you.

And that’s a good thing.

And so I think it’s important for each of us to not necessarily just focus on the organization and the hierarchy of the organization, but what can we do from our vantage point in changing what we ex. What we are exposed to? But how we operate as human beings within our team, within our unit, within just what we do with ourselves and how do we become a accountable to ourselves.

And so when you start to think about how you change those dynamics, it starts to actually have an impact on how you look at prioritization, how you look at how you do work and what work you do and how you do that work, and people start to take notice and then it starts to become somewhat contagious where people start to realize, wow, what’s, what is Tim doing over there? Because that’s kind of interesting and, and maybe there’s some pieces I can pick up and some other things I can leave on the floor, but maybe there’s some things I can learn from that I can then start to apply to what I’m doing.

So I would, you know, it’s a, it’s a way to say, you know, get that outside in perspective, but also think about what can you do yourself as you kind of walk through that process.

[00:39:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this idea of cultural principles, I mean, I think every company is going to lay those out, or any good company is going to lay those out.

But then when I think about whatever your scope of leadership is, and then whatever you’re trying to do personally and what you’re trying to do as a leader or as a, a human being, finding your principles that you’re going to communicate with others, that’s what Joe is doing. When he’s talking about how he’s working with his team, he’s communicating his principles. They’re both behavioral, they’re cultural. In some cases they’re operational. When you create those, that structure for teams, it does take away a lot of the stress and it does set a lot of the expectations about how people are going to behave and work together. I think this is a very powerful statement. I’ve got a number of people raising their hands. We’re going back to Heather next.

We’re talking about how individuals and leaders, non executives, can help set a culture that reduces stress for everybody.

[00:41:06] Speaker D: Thanks, Isaac. So often when I listen to this call and knowing that everything is focused on digital trailblazers, I come back to myself and I think certain principles are just, as Tim just said, human. So if I take it one step back from my perspective and being a recruiter, I try to look for those kindness elements. I try to look for those, you know, is someone going to be a cultural fit? Well, are they a nice person?

Are they, do they show, you know, a personality? Do they laugh to, you know, during the, the the vetting interview that I do and try to understand, not only understanding very well what the company is looking for, but the people that I talk to, who are they, what are their essence and would I want to work with them?

So I think that so often we have to take a step back and just say, okay, this can be applied to retail, for healthcare, to technology. It doesn’t matter, because we’re all working together. And to find those connections that make being alongside somebody or across in the screen someone that you want to spend time with.

And then I guess the other thing that struck me throughout a lot of the other people’s, a lot of panelists, comments, is being a role model. And it doesn’t have to be just as a leader, because whatever you’re doing, you know, how you take the milk out of the refrigerator in the office and not put it back, you’re just showing, you know, that’s nasty. It’s rude. You know, try to be the kind of person you want to be to everyone that you’re working with, regardless of what level you’re at.

[00:42:46] Speaker B: I’m just curious, you know, this question that comes up in interviews, how do you handle stress?

Is that a good question to ask in an interview? And if you are asked, what are some things that people should think about in answering it, or maybe not in answering that kind of question, I wonder.

[00:43:09] Speaker D: If we use the word stress in an interview, might cause stress.

But I was talking to a candidate just this week, and actually my client, and she said, the last question I always ask of the candidate that you recommend is, what do you do for fun?

And the candidate that she was meeting with as the next screen was very business. She answered the questions. She rarely made a joke, deviated. And I passed her on because she really did have the skills to perform the tasks that are being required. So when my client said to me, her response to that, and they were on zoom, her response to that is, I lift heavy weights. And the client said, oh, wow, I do that too. And then the woman opened up. She let her guard down. She was much more animated. She was much more, much happier and more authentic. And then she just called right before she went to the second round of interviews, and she just called me, like it 10 to 10 to 11, and she said, it really went well. I got a great vibe from them.

So we reduced the stress, if you will, from the vetting interview from me because she felt comfortable enough out moving on. The first interview gave her that sense of, oh, I want to talk to this person. And then the next round went really, really well. Would she have done well anyway? Probably because she does have the skills, but the fact that they gave her this feeling going into it that it was positive and, and something that she can relate to. So asking what do you do for fun? It’s like now you’re asking about me, not just what I’m doing.

[00:44:49] Speaker B: Heather, I love that question of what do you do for fun? Because I think it makes a connection and I actually don’t like asking the question how do you handle stress to any during an interview process? Because I think it conveys a statement that you’re going to be in a stressful environment. So I want to see what are your typical ways of handling that. I just don’t think it’s a good question. Joanne, you know, I want to go back to you around culture and startups and you know, just because you’re living it and breathing it right now and obviously it evolves. But what are some of the things that you think of that should be at the top of everybody’s mind when they’re building the culture and when they’re, you know, ground floor mode where you are right now?

[00:45:41] Speaker E: I would say three things come to mind immediately.

Warmth, empathy and kindness.

I would say that, you know, from, from my own perspective, I try, I, I don’t have to try because I think I am a kind person, but I try to lead by the example of kindness, show people kindness, show people my own humanity and engage with them in a way that’s warm, not necessarily always friendly because we all have, you know, issues that we have to address that are hard conversations to have, but to try and to lead to me, to lead by example. And again, I pull this from my corporate days, you know, I, I kind of have a reputation for my kinder surprises and shocking chocolate being my favorite management tool because it really does smooth the situation and give off a warmer, more empathetic vibe. But to that point as well, I think from an early days startup point of view, if you imbue kindness, empathy and warmth, you attract engagement with your prospects, with your customers, with your team members.

Even if you’re all working diligently and, and highly stressed because of the pressure of a startup and wearing a million different hats, those three things will always resonate. And I think that’s what I’d like our corporate culture to be.

Kindness, empathy, be warm to people, be easy with people.

Unless there’s a really good reason not to be.

[00:47:25] Speaker B: Joanne, I already know you’ve exhibited that. I mean, in a very Big example. We’re not going to go through it here, but it’s core to who you are and I think that’s a big part of the startup culture is being completely authentic when it comes to how you’re working together. And therefore that’s the struggle is finding authentic leaders who are compatible, who can confront each other when required, who can be demanding of each other when required, but then come back and fall back on kindness as a core principle. So I think you’ve got a lot of the elements there. I want to bring Joe and then Tim back. Joe, changing the culture.

Are you going to give us something that’s going to be another blog post?

I’m putting the pressure on you. I’m elevating that.

[00:48:22] Speaker F: I don’t know about that, Isaac, but I would say that it’s really important, beginning with your own team, to build mutual trust and respect.

I completely agree with Joanne. Empathy and kindness, as Heather said, are important.

I think you have to show your team respect and in so doing earn their respect and earn their trust.

Trust is very hard to build and very easy to lose. All it takes is one incident where you throw someone under the bus and it’s gone.

So build a respectful and trusting environment with your team and spread that to the C suite, spread that to your peers, spread that to your business partners, your customers.

If you, you, you get what you give. I, I think at the, you know, bottom line, you get what you give. Mutual trust and respect I, I think are critical.

[00:49:26] Speaker B: Joe, how, how are you handling the situation when somebody is behaving outside of the culture norms and creating stress for other people?

[00:49:39] Speaker F: So I, I live on a three strike rule.

You, you know, you’ll get a warning, you’ll get a stern warning, and then you’re probably not a fit, polite way to say it, right?

I, I always feel like the, the ultimate responsibility for someone not working out is mine. I take ownership of that. If I haven’t been successful at coaching somebody into the proper behavior, the proper value delivery, you know, then, then I need to figure out what I’m doing wrong.

Some people aren’t going to fit. And, and I think it was Heather that said, you know, you got, you got to try to fess that out at the, at the outset. Hire someone who’s going to fit the culture, try to, try to understand it at the outset. But when things change through the course of that individual’s time with you, their career, you know, for whatever reason, if they become someone who no longer fits the culture, then, you know, you have to part ways.

[00:50:44] Speaker B: Thank you. Joe, I think you should talk about your three strike rule. I think you should talk about how you elicit feedback from your team also. I know you’ve talked about that.

I’m encouraging Joe to do more writing. If you like what he’s written in his last blog post, Joe, I hope you shared it in the comment stream. Let’s encourage Joe to share more of his wisdom on his blog and put more stress on him.

[00:51:09] Speaker F: I, I did share it and I hope that people read it, enjoy it and learn from it and I appreciate any and all feedback. I rarely get comments and I would love to get some comments back. So I’ll open it up for that.

[00:51:23] Speaker B: Thank you, Joe. Tim, welcome back to the floor. I want to hear your comments and I do have a question for you.

[00:51:30] Speaker A: You know, there were, there were a couple of things, you know, Heather was. Heather kind of sparked something that I had recently read where a recruiter said one of the things that they are watching for with a new recruit coming into the office is how they address themselves, how they treat the person that is greeting them in the lobby.

And it’s, it’s, if you think about it, it’s a completely natural environment to be able to observe an individual coming in and it provides a lens into who that person is.

Now when I was hiring folks on my teams, one of the things that I always used to joke about is I’m trying to put together a certain DNA for my team.

And so I want to make sure that I have the right mix of different folks so that I don’t have, I forget who, who said it, but so that I don’t have, yes, people surrounding me. Yes, people I think are dangerous because they give you a false sense of security. As a leader, you need people that are going to work to earn trust, but they’re also going to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.

And I think that’s, that’s really important.

But there’s, there’s also a second piece to this that you have to think about regardless of whether you are a leader or if you are a subordinate within the organization. And I completely agree with the point that you have to figure out, you know, who the right people are, but you also have to think about how people are being incentivized.

And what I mean by that is not just, hey, we pay you a certain amount, we give you certain perks that go with that, but rather what behaviors are incentivized, meaning how someone acts, how someone leads, how Someone is transparent, how someone is vulnerable, how do we create an environment and incentivize certain behaviors.

Excuse me, and deincentivize other behaviors. Right. Because both are true too.

And then the last thing that I’ll. I’ll just pile on is whenever I would step into an organization, and it was something that I would do fairly regularly too, because as your customers change your organization, your business needs to change, and then your organization needs to change. And so that genetic makeup of your organization is going to need to evolve over time. An organization is not a fixed entity.

It’s a living, breathing thing that needs to evolve over time. And one of the things I would do when I would step into an organization is I would work through and understand who I had on the team and not necessarily put them in buckets, but really try and understand who’s part of the program, who understands it, who’s going to be along for the ride and really be a great contributor. And then who is in maybe a second category of folks that maybe they’re not part of the program today, with some energy, with some work, they’ll be part of the program, no problem. And then you have a third bucket.

And the third bucket are those that are not part of the program or don’t have an intention of being part of the program.

And unfortunately, you have to work those people out of the organization as quickly as you can because they ultimately will be a hindrance to your success.

And that success. That’s a lot easier said than done. I’ve worked for organizations that even when someone was belligerent and disruptive, it was still hard to work them out of the organization because of the culture of the organization and, and being very anti litigious.

And I’ve also worked for organizations that look when something doesn’t work, if Isaac’s not working out or Tim’s not working out, we need to help them find a good place for them, but place for them.

So I think those are a couple things that I would encourage folks to think about whether you’re a leader or a subordinate or someone else on the team.

But all of these factors apply.

It’s not just applicable to a leader.

[00:56:24] Speaker B: Tim, I am thrilled that we ran into each other, that you joined us today. I’m going to hold my question off for maybe another episode just because we’re running out of time here. But your question about what behaviors are incentivized. I think leaders really need to look at that very carefully.

I’ve done some writing around the hero culture that falls into many IT departments, particularly when there’s a lot of incidents and outages and business folks are thrilled to see the person coming in to save the day and get systems back up and running. And solving a problem that way is just a poor behavior that needs to get called out. So just just wanted to accent that with an example.

Heather and then Joanne, we’re going to close up. Heather.

[00:57:21] Speaker D: Sure.

We’ve talked about how people coming into the organization, people that are already there. One of the thoughts is that maybe this environment is just not right for you. It could be toxic, it could not be the culture that you want and it’s okay to leave. It’s okay to make that decision on your own and be able to say, this is not what I want. This is not how I can contribute and I need to either look elsewhere other than this team or outside the organization altogether.

[00:57:51] Speaker B: Thank you. Heather and Joanne, last word Today I.

[00:57:55] Speaker E: Think Tim raised a very good point. We often forget as leaders and even if we’re not in leadership roles that the organization is dynamic and it constantly evolves. And I think one of the best things that digital trailblazers can do overall to reduce stress across the board for themselves and for their teams and even as contributors to corporate culture is to remember that the word adaptable is critical to your vocabulary.

We all have to adapt.

[00:58:30] Speaker B: Great conversation. They thank you Joanne, Heather, John, Joe and Tim Crawford, strategic advisor for CIOs Tim, you could see here my bottom line pen question this is going to be my question to you how to advise C level leaders. We will do that as a separate episode. It will be a conversation about managing up and we’ll cover that from a number of different angles, not just around culture and stress.

But it was something I was going to bring up here. In this context, if you have a leader who is creating stress on your team or with yourself, I think you have to find the courage from Tim’s earlier comments to be able to go and have a conversation around that. And that will be my last comment to hear from you for you today at this week’s coffee with Digital Trailblazers. Joining you here from Berlin this week. I’ll be back at my home office next week. We’ll have our session on the 14th AI for social good, our session on the 21st digital to AI natives, you can always visit Starcio.com Coffee it will redirect to the next episode.

If you’ve missed an episode, do visit drive.starcio.com Coffee I’ve been putting up all the episodes in the whiteboards there. And if you need somebody to talk to to join, please have a look at our community.

It’s@drive.star cio.com community where you can meet and have a conversation with a bunch of experts that will help you in a number of different ways. Folks, have a great weekend. Thank you for joining this week. I look forward to seeing you all here next week. Have a great weekend.

One second, We are off for anybody who’s still here.

[01:00:33] Speaker F: Oh great. Another great call.

[01:00:37] Speaker B: Thank you. Joe.

Jim, you still there?

[01:00:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I’m still here.

[01:00:43] Speaker F: Hey, great, great to hear from you. I wish I was with you guys under the the the gate, but.

[01:00:51] Speaker B: Still.

[01:00:51] Speaker F: Good to cross paths.

[01:00:54] Speaker B: It was fun. I love running into people randomly. It’s just like one of these great things. They never built the feature. Maybe, maybe we’ll do a startup LinkedIn never built the feature. For those of us moving around a lot to say, hey, let your network know that you’re in town and.

Or let your network know that you’re in the same city. Yeah.

[01:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, okay. Never mind. Well, I was going to actually know. It still says recording and custom live streaming service on my end. I don’t know if you’re seeing the.

[01:01:27] Speaker B: Same thing or the Zoom isn’t recording.

[01:01:32] Speaker G: Okay.

[01:01:35] Speaker B: Your broadcast has ended. You know why you’re saying this is because LinkedIn is broadcast on delay.

[01:01:43] Speaker G: Got it.

[01:01:44] Speaker B: There’s about a 90 seconds to a 3 minute delay from what we’re saying.

What is being broadcasted?

[01:01:50] Speaker A: I was looking in the Zoom app.

[01:01:53] Speaker B: Oh, in the Zoom app. Well, we’re still talking. It’s just, it’s just not streaming into the.

It’s no longer streaming onto LinkedIn.

[01:02:01] Speaker A: Okay. I just want to make sure before someone makes a comment that you wish wasn’t.

Wasn’t out there.

Anyway, back to.

Yeah, back to Joe’s comment. Yeah, it has been a minute.

Great to.

Great to connect with you on the, on the chat. And Isaac, thanks again for the invite. I’m glad this worked out.

[01:02:27] Speaker B: You have a standing invitation. Come join us anytime you find Friday at 8am your local time. It’s 11am Eastern Time.

[01:02:37] Speaker A: When I’m actually home.

[01:02:38] Speaker B: When you’re actually home.

[01:02:39] Speaker F: Yeah.

[01:02:40] Speaker B: Don’t put yourself through the stress and trying to join in the middle of a crazy hectic travel schedule. But I mean, I don’t know. Like my travel schedule drops off around December 15th and usually doesn’t pick up until mid to late February at the earliest. Do you have the same thing?

[01:02:58] Speaker A: Mine will drop off after re invent. I Kind of have a hard stop where even requests that come in for business travel after re invent or for me to. To travel the weeks. The two weeks after Re invent, which is that first week in December, I just push off to the first of the year, but I’m usually back on an airplane within a couple days of New Year’s.

Somewhere in there.

[01:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah.

[01:03:32] Speaker A: And that’s the reason, frankly, that’s the reason why I do kind of push hard not to travel for business after reinvent. I mean, if I had my druthers, I’d love to say as soon as Thanksgiving hits, I’m not getting on a plane until the first of the year, but it’s kind of hard to say no to Amazon.

[01:03:54] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I hear you.

They have programming for you tonight.

[01:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah, so, you know, I. I guess there was a.

So Joe, maybe just to catch up. So you know, Isaac was here in Berlin for SAP Teched, which I was invited to but couldn’t go because I was at. I was already committed to go to the Wall Street Journals tech live event in California.

But I’m here for.

Amazon Web Services is doing some programming. They have a dinner tonight and then.

Excuse me. And then they have programming tomorrow and first thing on Sunday before the NFL game. So it’s all kind of a tee up to the NFL game on Sunday between the Falcons and the. The Colts.

So. Yeah, so I finally got my. Know before you go. That was supposed to be sent to me a long time ago, or I mean, it wasn’t a long time ago that I got asked to go, but I just literally just got it. So.

[01:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah.

[01:05:12] Speaker A: I don’t fall asleep in my soup though.

[01:05:17] Speaker F: Yeah. Well, good, great, great to see you on the show this week. And I. I gotta bounce because I’m spoke down another call now, but really good to hear from you, Tim. And yeah, likewise. I’ll see you Monday night for dinner.

[01:05:31] Speaker A: All right, sound. Sounds good.

[01:05:33] Speaker B: Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about that.

[01:05:36] Speaker A: Wait a second. Joe, are you going to Miami?

[01:05:39] Speaker B: No, he’s saying it to me. Joe and I are meeting Michael Bollinger for dinner in our local area. I totally blanked. I’m like, wait, what?

No, I knew it. I just like. It’s like one of those things, like you’re in a different world when you’re in a different world.

[01:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. All right, guys, well, thanks again for letting me kind of crash. Crash the program and take part and have a good rest of your.

[01:06:09] Speaker B: You were invited, Tim. You were invited. So welcome to the program.

[01:06:13] Speaker A: I appreciate it. Thank you.

[01:06:15] Speaker B: All right, have a good weekend, everyone.

[01:06:16] Speaker A: All right, safe travels.

[01:06:18] Speaker B: Bye.