Leadership, Strategy and Transparency with Keeya Wang-Jones

Hi everyone. My name is Patrick Akew and I love this episode because we talk about leadership, openness, empathy, transparency and how to do that, being in a position like that as well as cultivate talent to grow into those positions. Joining me today is Kia Wang Jones and I love her perspective. I think you'll love it too. Enjoy. But you mentioned one of the IKEA regions.

I don't. I don't know the name, but what region was it responsible for? So I mean for Inca is responsible for a lot of the digital Co worker and customer facing products. So for example, we started in 2019 I think a little, I think a year before that, but in 2019 we were pushing out the IKEA app for shopping also during a digital transformation. It's just a lot of like reassessing where the needs are and a lot of technology that.

May have been used 20 years ago, like how do we modernize that to how Co workers use the products to communicate with people today, right. One of the factors of that is that customers were understanding more about the product than the Co workers. So my goal was to give the Co workers the same experience as the customers. So that way it's past the measurements color, but more of like how? And how do you want to use this furniture in your home? Like, what makes you desirable

to this one versus another one? So there's more of a communication between it and not always just the facts about the furniture that builds relationships and it also carries through to every department of the store, right? And there's a trust factor there. And then there's a trust factor between Co worker communicating

with another Co worker. So if I trust you to handle this customer because I need to go do other Co worker things, then you have every information that you have to continue that conversation without the Co worker. I mean, the customer starting all over again. And that's like the biggest thing about the shopping experience, right, is I want to buy something. I'm super inspired, OK? OK, now I have to tell my story all over again to catch you up so that you can help me.

And that was sort of like holding things up and we wanted to empower the Co workers to be able to have the information they need at the time that they need and transfer it when they need to. The feeling I I get most from that the I have to explain everything again is either when I have a customer complaint or when I'm even talking to a recruiter. It's like, those are those are the avenues where I think I have to oh, I'm I'm talking to a

different colleague. Now I have to do my whole story again. Exactly. And I think when humane linguistics, when you're trying

to speak, you're always you're you're dealing with a lot of personalities, right? And that also is with the customer. That customer might be introverted, that customer might be extroverted, that customer may have different ideas and they're just skipping over. And then the Co workers like trying to follow.

So when you're having these conversations and you're like want to give the best customer service experience, it is good to have as much information but also that freedom to have a conversation and and both enjoying that shopping experience together. And I believe that yes, certain because I was a global position. So any decisions we were making has to be distributed across all the different markets and then in order to do that, we need to make sure that we're designing.

A customer and Co worker journey meeting points that makes sense to their journey mapping. So a lot of journey mapping creations, a lot of testing, user testing with the Co workers as well as the customers and they're really understanding like what services are supporting both. And that was the biggest part of my job, was to not only help

build the digital organization. From the ground up because we're doing a digital transformation but also transferring some of that knowledge over to the Co worker side so we understand a little bit how to make their lives easier and that was like a beautiful thing to do. The other fun fact is I used to

be a Co worker on the floor so I was selling like sofas building them and and I would go through these experiences where everyone comes in with this huge happy shopping like theory of what they want. And then I have to kind of go through all the furniture options, right. But I love having fun with the customers that understand their story more because then I can guide them to the right kind of sofa to try out, right. And then I also like to, I'm also an introvert, so I'm an ambivert.

So I like to go hide downstairs and work on as is furniture. And for me, that was the way of being sustainable at the time before they we started to really think about sustainability. This is many many many many years ago but it was a way of understanding it from the back end of like logistics and oh this is how I help people. This is how I build the

furniture. This is how I also still talk to customers from a different context and you start to see the gaps start to close the more you interact with different types of customers and Co workers that alike. So I thought that was pretty, pretty interesting and in a digital space is just that's very unique.

Yeah. It's very unique, exactly. Yeah, I think. But I think it's very powerful to have that history and understanding because I mean with every product you're building, digital product, physical product, it serves a purpose, right? And usually that purpose is also related to people, especially when it comes to digital understanding, the use case understanding and putting yourself in the shoes of the user in that way. I think it's phenomenal.

It's a skill that we need to do from a software development point of view, from a business point of view, kind of all around in the cycle of creating that product absolutely for you to be able to deliver the best product for that customer. I think the more our engineers and designers have the customer experience, the more empathy we will have and as some of those use cases that we're trying to solve for, it becomes a little bit more of a realistic. Problem.

So we start to think about what's a problem market fit, right, instead of the product market fit, like what is the problem we're actually really trying to solve. And that goes beyond coding right, Like you have to live the experience a bit, at least 25% of it. So that as you're building it, I think instinctually writing code you're like wait, I'm making it if else statement and it doesn't make sense. It could be the most beautiful code ever, but I'm going to deploy this.

It doesn't make sense. I think that sometimes especially in larger enterprise companies where startups, you play multiple hats. So you might be an engineer that day, but you also might be AQA person the next week, right. But in enterprise companies you can kind of get siloed into your positions a bit. What I did like about IKEA is that we had a 8020, so 80% you're on your. You're in your area, your domain knowledge area, and then 20% you're expanding and learning somewhere else.

So I really love that because I'm not one of those leaders that want to incubate a person for so long and not see them grow in other skills, especially from a product design experience level. The UX umbrella is so huge now you should get experience in different parts of it, hone into the skills that you really want. And I believe that the 8020 rule, and some organizations still do this, is that you're handling responsibilities with the same passion, but you have

20% to go explore. And I've found it to be quite proven that that person when they go to another side of the company or domain or another. Cross functional team, they take that 20% of what they learn and they impact what they're already doing in the 80%. They come with more thoughts,

they come with more strategy. They start to think a little bit outside of their comfort zone and that's like really good for business, it's good for managers, it's good for like the goal of the the five year North Star vision or whatever that plan is. And I believe that it also helps the people feel like. I'm being purposeful. I'm being, I'm being utilized and I'm seeing the impact that I'm making versus like just only this is what you do.

Yeah, Yeah, I love that. Please be be careful with the table because I think the mic might pick it up if you if you bump into the thing. But I think what you laid out

aligns a lot with what we do here at at this organization at Xebia, because we get evenings to share knowledge and the knowledge can be around anything. So if I'm if my main focus, my 80%, let's say it's on software development, we get innovation days where we can hack around and we get knowledge sharing evenings where we can talk about other stuff. And I do feel like that helps with the growth of the people, right?

That helps with kind of finding your your space within this organization because you you need to feel like you belong and you matter for you to truly be effective in what you do. I feel like 1 bleeds into the other from the perspective, from the perspective of kind of mentoring those people and fostering their growth. Did you always have to encourage them to kind of find what was outside of their 80% in that

20%, let's say? Because I also do, I also work with people, and sometimes I've experienced people kind of having struggles figuring out what to then kind of spend their time on when it comes to that 20% exploring. Yeah. So I typically do this, especially when I started to when I. Finished a level of mid level and I started to be a senior and I started to now get experience with leading teams a bit.

There's a practice that I do and I do it also because I used to teach at the Art Institute in San Diego, CA and I want to assess where people's confidence level is. And what I do is I typically create sort of like the spider web diagram that is let's just say the UX umbrella. These are all the skill sets currently now. Based on UX. And I have them gauge their confidence level of where they are.

So for example, if it's UX research and they're like I only had maybe one or two tries of that, I don't feel confident that I can do that. That's about maybe 10% of where I want to be. And then what is the primary things I really enjoy interaction design. I'm going to put that 80% there. So we try to put a number. To their confidence level. And then as they grow, I try to give them projects and then there's a little bit more of a concrete understanding of where they want to be.

So there's a lot to go with. Behind that is 1 is really understanding the personality of the person, pulling out the things that they have interest in, even if they think that they might not be good at it, giving them the courage to step out of their comfort zone. Try it out. And then lastly is that we go back after they try these two skills, look at that chart again, wipe it now, tell me where your confidence level is and it helps track and they can see it. This is where I've worked on

this project. I do this a lot because, especially for the African American community, Latin American people of color, we will get happy in a sense that, yes, I got my first job. This is what I'm going to do and we get very comfortable with that because I think it's a little bit more of like just history. We don't want to rock the boat too much, but we want to learn because we're also very ambitious in order to do that.

What's missing is just the knowledge gap and that confidence and being able to see someone that you can confide into, you can that you basically see yourself in them helps you able to kind of have that courage to go more. And I I I feel like that's what I bring to the table. Every job that I have and I look at that talent, I'm always trying to find what is the hidden gem of this individual that I just push a little bit, show them a few different.

Give them a few different exercises, then we can probably navigate their career development from there. Yeah, yeah. And of course there's conferences and things like that to spark, you know, joy and inspiration. But in the job, I want to make sure they're taking on project That pushes their comfort zone a

bit. Awesome. I I've done an exercise like that actually in a training where we have the Spire diagram, spider diagram and you had to place indeed like you say, what is your kind of current level of of competency or where do you estimate it to be? And then also what's the what's on the horizon, what do you want to work on? And I love that exercise. It's kind of like it's many years ago.

So I've never picked that up. But I think it's a great exercise to figure out what you want to work on then, because people within the field will understand all the aspects around the circle, will understand kind of where they are and what they still need to work on or what they want to work on in that way. Yeah.

Exactly. I think when you're looking at this diagram, there's a lot of thoughts, right? There's your confidence level. There's there's even the part where I can gauge when I watch like I'm physically watching this person trying to make that decision is we judge ourselves harsher than we really are, right? Like it could be a kick ass in web development, but you're like but I'm just not as good as John. So you mark yourself a little lower, right.

So those are those are those silent areas that I try to pick out because I want to know why do you feel you're at a three. So I ask questions very much about trying to get them to understand what is holding them back and a lot of times it's comparing themselves with someone else versus like OK, this is truly where I'm at. The other parts that I do is.

There are certain certifications online, but also just like really quick, like like I said earlier is little quick exercises try and solve this problem or take this small certification is free. See like just an assessment of where you are from a book, logistics of learning. And then the next part, which is the best part I feel is the most fun, is we're figuring out your passion.

Right. Like we now know you thought you were at a three with web development, but you're you're at A5, we've got some score from some certification right. But where's your passion in AT And there's oh, I didn't really think about, but I know my passions in front end design. OK, then let's start getting you more on these front end projects so you can actually get the skill sets underneath. Yeah. And it just helps things much smoother. They feel like they're

validated. They feel like they're contributing. And then it's like, yay. And then I feel good because I'm like, this is all, like selfish of me because I just want to feel good about you growing. Yeah. I want bad fulfillment for myself that you're doing well, Yeah, I get that.

I I think more and more, the more interactions I have with people, the more I realize that on my passions is also kind of experiencing that fulfillment, giving back in terms of perspective or experience or advice and just being there also for support along the way. I think it. I think it fulfils me and it will always fulfil me. At least that's my perspective. Now what I what I do find

challenging is from the starting point of OK, this is my passion and this is what I want to grow in, then I can really help because then we we kind of know what this passion is. But from the point where it's kind of still undefined, that is a bit of a harder standpoint, I feel like because then from my standpoint I'm like then we're going to try a lot because from trying a lot you learn what you don't like and then you get closer to what you do like at the end.

Is that also kind of your approach or or what is your approach? It is true because I mean when we think about tech, there's so much, right? It's like and we try to sort of label it right, full stack developer, front end, back end, security, AI, right So and we keep building more titles. So I feel that when people try a lot. They're going to hone into things they're really, really passionate about and then things are really, really good at and what they're really, really bad

at, right. I think as a leader, when we're thinking about learning and development, we want to always educate how to stay up on the trends and what's brand new, right? Metaverse versus AI, OK, Metaverse and AI, right. I think when I kind of gauge that sort of development, I want to put in one particular difference that I've that I've noticed is.

I want the people that are learning from me or looking up to me in any ways to learn the business side of it, so that when you're playing with different technology, it's fun, right? But what is some of the business impact that you'll make And that's sort of the the doer versus like OK, business executive leaders and from leads to directors to senior directors and so forth?

Is that that information or that kind of knowledge is missing because we've been playing and doing and producing at this level versus being able to now say how do we actually get a return on investment on this, yeah, strategy. Strategy, right? Exactly. And I that's the skill set. No matter what level A what level that person's at, I want them to learn. Even at the junior level, what strategy is. Because if you don't, we always say get a seat at the table.

But if you're coming from a marginalized group of people, especially people of color, you might not get that seat at the table right away, but you still should have a very strong sense of strategy. So by the time that if that is a desire, you are not kind of catching up on it. You're learning like cost and benefit analysis, right?

Like if you're, you know, you're learning like I want to change frameworks here, but what's the cost if we go from AWS to Digitalocean to all these other different like platforms? If we put in Kubernetes now, is that the right time? And then what is it going to cost us a few years later or is it good enough for what we're trying to do in this moment? And that I really push into my leadership. Some people like it. Some people are like, that's

just so too much. It's out of my, you know, it's overwhelming. And then it's a little bit more of like, OK, personality balance. Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point because I feel like it

allows you to have kind of the overarching picture of how how it works in this organization and even in how it works either in our domain or in other organizations in that way. And you carry that with you probably in the way that you execute, because most of the time you're you're coming from a

place of execution. You start as someone that executes, and for you to understand the bigger picture of things, you can challenge certain ideas, certain propositions, certain just literally what you have to do that day just by virtue of understanding. And then that understanding can sometimes get addicting as well. You want to do more of it or you want to be in control, Have those discussions and make those decisions than yourself as well.

But you you can only get to that point if you have the understanding of how things work here. Yes, absolutely. 101 hundred, Patrick, because I think that

when we don't have a full understanding because most organizations, you have top level C-Suite, they have their North Star vision. They're going to be like this is where you want to be in five years, in three years, right. And then you have middle management, OK. How are we going to take? This huge fluffy strategy, it makes sense out of it to deliver some sort of product or Q or tertial sort of like plan, right?

Then you have the doers who are like, all right, this is all so cool, I don't really know why we're doing this. But when we blend those together in an adaptive approach, then you have everyone understanding and and is aligned. I think there's an advantage of startups being able to have to be aligned all the time. Cost. And then also like how much can we really explore?

And then there's the enterprise level that's like, OK, whatever the CEO is having here, it has to be adapted all the way down and then you have the huge jobs to be done kind of concept. But I noticed that even through whatever size of the company, the learners at the bottom, the doers are missing out on why. And we're just producing like you said, we're just executing, executing, we're going home like I just wrote the best closure

clause, right. And I just made the best UX experience for an interaction flow and we accomplished these use cases, but not knowing like what, how does it really impact the journey of the company and the user and and so forth. So I typically when I'm internally leading teams, I want them to know and I pretty much make it very transparent. This is what the CEO is thinking, This is what our mental management is thinking. This is what our products and

services are. Now with this knowledge and what you're working on, how can we do things differently? How can we push the level a bit? I love that, yeah. So that's the that's the knowledge part, let's say, from

from cultivating talent into leadership. What do you focus on from kind of a behaviour point of view or even a skills point of view? Communication, yeah. And I think it's even more predominant in my mind living internationally because there's one, there's just context. I think as an American from California, there's a lot of, I typically, I have to be more cognitive about or cautious.

I mean about my references. And they might be movie references, they might be song references or cultural references. And I'm like, yeah, I don't think they understood what I said, right? Like I'm like, you know, when I speak and I do have a little bit of that urban professionalism to myself, and I love that. That's my authentic self, right? I'm like, do you get me? Do I get you? Let's get it right. And there's get what? I was like, OK, maybe OK And then I'll end up making a joke, right?

Like, let's get pushed this right, like in the case of emergency. And like, let's get commit. So it's it's a fun thing to do, but at the same time, when you're communicating across these multiple languages, these different contexts, these different nuances, there's a lot of misunderstanding. So I depend on a lot of communication and it could be a synchronous communication, so we could have like less meetings, right?

But at the same time, I'm a very visual person and it's not just visual when people kind of think of that as UX, like visual design, UX and UI. It's not that. It's more like how are we going to build out these schematic flows, how are we going to even in our workflows, Patrick, you're going to hand over this piece of code development, but how are we going to make that flow all the way through And if you need to pull back, do we have a way of actually making

sure you can pull that back. So it's very much of the communication across and then it's even more intense when it's business and really having to understand the cost, the analysis, the resources, the time, deadlines, the goals. So communication is like the biggest key and I know that in our resumes and all the job requisitions that are being posted, it's like, you know, soft skills. I think communication is a very hard skill. Yeah, I agree. I and I even think about OK, I

fully align that. Communication is one of the biggest factors that I've seen for teams being successful, for organizations being successful in kind of a high paced environment. And then if I think, how do you work on communication other than by doing? Because that's like my default mode is like I practice and the practice makes more and more perfect even though it's never going to be perfect. But how otherwise can you work

on communication? Yeah, I just took a really great certification from GitLab. It's called Team OPS and I really resonated on how they do it. One, because of the atmosphere of future of work that we're all doing remote work, we're doing hybrid works, we're doing in office and I really love that. Their biggest model is just transparency. CEO makes videos explaining the company's position, right? And it's not just in your GitLab type of hub is very much of like on YouTube, right?

Yeah, it's out and open and everything is out and open. And that's the bit that's for all the success that I've had in my career, I've been pushing a lot of that kind of transparency cause one, we make mistakes to fail fast so we can succeed,

right. But if there's also things that like, OK, we could have probably avoided that one if we just actually sat down where we put up a hackathon and we try some new things or we, you know, have our Sprint and we go through a retrospective like how did this Sprint and what happened? What do we could have done better? What should we do the next time? Because everyone has our own

voices in our head. And if you're very introverted, you got to, you have your voices in your head and you're just like, OK, I just need to process this in a different manner. If you're extroverted or thinking out loud and you're like this is kind of how I do things. But when you put everyone together and there's a weather is virtually just making sure that the documentation is clean. Someone's also like it's a living documentation.

All the workflows of ways of working is communicated and then it's just super out there. If you miss the meeting because of this is where inclusivity inclusivity comes in. You miss a meeting because you have a child that's sick. Oh you're too bad. You'd miss miss that part of your meeting. I'm not going to explain it again that think that's ridiculous to be honest with you. It's just like people have situations that happen. They shouldn't be judged by

that. It's not like they don't have the passion to help circumstances happen. We're humans at the end of the day, right? So where can this person on their own time get the same documentation and catch up, right. So I think that that's, I think that's something that we all kind of take for granted of thinking that someone else's going to do what the way we do things. And it doesn't work that way. Everyone's brain works differently as we notice different neurodivergence,

right. So yeah, that's kind of how I feel like the success is always about how transparent the

company is. I like that a lot. I think it's. Like you, I'm an advocate for transparency, and I don't find it in every in every environment I am in. But from a position where I can now do more, I I want to be as transparent as possible. To give you an example, I I wanted to do this business case within this organization and I was like, OK, I need to get buy in, but to get buy in I have to write a business plan. So I wrote, I wrote down everything out in the open.

I put it in my chat. I got feedback from colleagues, everything was out in the open and then we got the go ahead. So then I was like, OK, now that we can do this, I have budget, I have time. I'm going to document everything as openly as I can. Now this was late, end of 2022 and the initiative would have started or or did start actually in January this year and we hired people because of it.

Now this, this whole process, even to the point of how much salary they're going to get, the choices we've made with regards to education and stuff like that, everything was out in the open. So then I talked to the people actually a few weeks back and they were like, is this information like, can I, where can I find it? And I was like, here's all the link, like it's out in the open,

everyone knows it's in the open. I wanted to do it as best I could with regards to transparency because I feel like that helps, that helps for understanding. People can go and read it in their own time, can ask questions about it and they're not in the kind of unknown. Because I feel like being in an in a position where you have a lot of unknowns, it's not a comfortable position to be in and it's a hard position to thrive in.

Actually 100% agree because I think also too when we're that transparent, we're creating loyalty with our fellow Co workers, right. We create trust. We're creating a a safe space and then I think that helps just overall, like I love the idea of as transparent as I am and we can change things if it doesn't work versus like not being as transparent. And I think there is a part of a self-awareness of how much transparency are we actually

doing. Because I can throw something up on let's just say confluence, right, thinking I'm very transparent. But what I love about what you said is you're getting feedback on it because now you have other eyes reading on it and being able to kind of collaborate on this whole entire initiative. I think that's really, really beautiful because I think that's where it's like, how come anyone didn't tell me about this or I didn't know and I just went and

build this thing, right? And I believe the transparency helps with the safe space, but it also kind of gives the go ahead to do something. I agree, yeah.

And I like that you also mentioned the more people we have, like the more eyes we have on this, the brains are diverse. The more brains we have, the better the output, like the end product. And the idea will be at the end of the day, right, Because you're going to have communication, you're going to have feedback. This this thing you're building all of a sudden you're Co creating and just by virtue of doing it together, I think the end result will will almost always be better.

Absolutely. And it shows into the product and it even shows even more when it gets to the end user. You're like, that was team effort. Yeah, right, right. Feels good. Feels really good, yeah. Who's up for rock climbing? Because we kicked ass on that one. Yeah. Exactly. When it comes to kind of environments that are not as transparent, have you seen organizations that are too transparent or what would usually be a hurdle? In being transparent in the first place, I don't know if

there's a real hurdle. I think, if anything, I think when organizations are not transparent and are going through a digital transformation and a lot of that times those transformations include hiring and and laying people off, right. I think that's where it can. It hurts not to be as transparent.

It's not a hurdle in the sense of, but I think it can be if it's if it's just not the exact truth coming out and you leave, the more you leave open for people to use their own thoughts, their own vices, it's worse for the company, right. So I think that's typically where I find it to be the toughest when the company itself is going through a huge digital transformation. Yeah, there's there's a balance to that, right. Yeah, I think.

The more room for interpretation, the the more room for like wrong assumptions and people act based on those assumptions, right? Yeah. How? However subjective they might be it, it does kind of influence what someone does or feels at the end of the day, which might then impact kind of their environment, their surroundings, and then the surroundings of those surroundings can kind of cascade in that way. That's a rough one, yeah. And it's it's hard to manage

too, right? Because I think that like one of those cases I we were doing the reor again, everyone was coming to like I would say it's like a trap on and and and Swedish stairs, the main stairs and everyone's learning about UX. But I think that the one I hired, it was people that were already doing the work and learning and that was my transparency with them is that if you're already learning these skill sets, then sure, come talk to me, let's do an informational

interview. Let's see like if there's a but mostly internal first because the digital transformation versus I'm going to take the key points out of this presentation and I'm going to try and use that. And there's no real passion behind it because I believe when we don't, when we don't kind of nurture a good space to be transparent and create that safe space, then at least people to kind of really intense their survival mode.

And that doesn't work well for whether it's a digital transformation, whether it's brand new on the job, you're on a probational period. So you already have the stress of I have to prove myself all the time. And then there's the, OK, I'm working on a new project, but if you're starting off with the culture of some transparency, then you're approachable And someone that really do desires to see themselves longer relationship with the company, they can come to you and say yes.

Hey Patrick, I know that there's a digital transformation going on. I'm really strong here, but I really am curious about this. I would like to know if there's anyone you know within a company that can help mentor me right before it's at the edge of like okay. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do, and I believe that comes a lot to just the good and bad of transparency. But for the most part, I think transparency is always good. I'd rather know what's going on, yeah.

Yeah, I agree completely. Whether I stay with the company, whether I'm laid off, I just want to know what's going on so that I know what my options are and I can. I can navigate my own emotions through the transitional time. Yeah, yeah. And I can. I can offer help. I can offer help. I understand. Now that makes one of the interesting thought experiments I was thinking about is, I

think. Sometimes you can find yourself an organization where they're not as fan of transparency as you and I are. But let's say you get into a position of leadership where others like look up to you from that position and you want to create that change. You want to make the organization more transparent. How, how do you start and kind of moving, move an organization towards a vision of transparency that you have? Well, I do have my conversations at the top level, just so that I

understand. As much as I want to be transparent, I ask questions, Why don't you want me to be transparent here? What's the, what's the blocker? What's the hold up? Because sometimes it could be legal, right? It could be the context of legalities. All right. Now I know that first and then what I do is, like you said, there's your lunch and learn, there's the brownies.

But I take my team and I kind of tell them what's going on and where opportunities are or where it's going to change or or just the simple I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. But if we want to discuss it, you want to talk about it, we can because especially through transformations, things change on a dime, right. You have let's hire quickly, OK, hiring freeze. And as we're living in this climate today, right.

So as much as I can understand from a top level the executive suite, even to the, you know, senior director levels, I can be able to gauge the conversation with with my team as transparent as I can be with the information that I have.

I love that that's true. Lead by example? Yeah, exactly. What what other behavioral aspects do you kind of cultivate within the people you're mentoring or look for within your leadership? I'm always about boosting your skills. Like what is it that you need to work on, just in case you have to move around quite a lot, right? But within leadership, I'm I'm, I'm. I try to push a lot of people empathy. But I do have some. I do have a rule, and that rule is pretty much is for all my leaders.

We can't teach ambition or motivation. We can inspire, but we can't like we can. What is the saying of here? It is being a very American, you get a little taste of it. Now you you lead a horse to water but you can't make a drink, right? Yeah. So it's like, if I can, I put all my energy in, but if I feel that I'm putting more energy in than the person themselves, then I'm going to move on to the next. And that then that's very

transparent. And I say that anytime I join a brand new team, this is how I lead, this is my expectations right away and it kind of grounds everyone to understand what kind of leader I am. I'm approachable. I will see the best benefit in you.

I would even sponsor some of you that are really like I want to move on. I want to be able to do this certain skill set or I want to grow in a certain manner, especially for employee resource groups like erg groups or another term is business resource groups for safe spaces, marginalized groups of people, right. These are areas that I really bond to to see them grow. But the moment I get someone that just likes the idea is it's like a little bit of a write off to me.

And I'm sure HR, but you can't just tell your people right? You're done. But I but I have to tell them to be transparent like you have. I can't help make you be inspired or motivated. Sorry, I can inspire if you're willing to listen and see. But I can't motivate you. Like I can't tell you AI is conversational. AI is a key piece for UX writing.

I give you that nugget. I expect you to go, I want to go learn about conversational AI and how I can use it in UX or product design or business requirements, right. And I think that's where with all of this, there's boundaries. And that part I am working on myself because I just my heart is like, I want to help you. I want to see you grow, especially if they're coming from marginalized groups where they're being under represented. I want to see you grow, but I

make it a clear cut rule. I cannot teach you to be ambitious. I love that, Yeah.

One of the, I mean, one of the reasons I asked that also because I'm looking forward and I can see sometimes working with people that just want to coast, that are happy with what they are. And that sometimes I would say that the ambition is kind of lacking, at least if I compare it to myself. I've always said it when I join an organization, I want to grow as fast as possible. I still kind of have that drive, like it has ups and downs, but that is always like I want to grow.

I want to see what's next. I want to do more. I always have kind of that feeling, that urge you've asked me. Where it comes from, I have no clue. Maybe it has to do with my upbringing. I always saw my parents do a lot. But if I don't see that in someone, then like you, I'm like, I I want to help, I, I we can do something. Like I always have kind of this high hope of we can do something.

But I like, like your full honesty and kind of tough love in being like, these are the ground rules, right? If if this doesn't work, then maybe it's a mismatch for you and me. Maybe it's just a mismatch in general. And I really like that. I might, I might have to adopt that, but that's tough. It's tough, but I think it's fair. I. Also think so, right? Especially the first day someone joins the team is is I try to give as much expectations coming from my end what I expect?

Yeah, I don't want to wait until your your job review. It's too late, right? It's too late, right? It's wait, some companies a year. Some companies are six months. Yeah, you could have told. Like, I felt always when I got those reviews, like, why didn't you be honest with me? Where I can grow or what I can fix or what I can do in the moment, in the moment or right when it happens? Or maybe you wait 24 hours and

tell me the next day, right? But six months from now, I'm still trying to figure out what I did last week. Exactly, yeah. And I have to recollect what happened then. Yeah, with my emotions and maybe I maybe there's resentment there and I don't even I pushed it so low underneath because that's culturally like, OK, you can't be shaking the boat too much, right?

And I think to your point is like the again to our transparency, let me know what's going on even if I is tough, but it's fair and give that person responsibility or choice to either, you know, be nurtured by that straight up advice or just observation, right. Or they make the decision that's best for them and I think that's the best way we can, especially in our. Tech industry where things are moving so fast at the same time we're we're we're slow and

trying to figure things out. The worst thing I feel that anyone can do is get someone that reviews 6 months and have it affect their ability to fix in the year or in or at the end of the year and be like and it affects their pay, it affects their you know benefits. That's just way too much cost from a business perspective. That's a lot of cost. Absolutely it can. It can impact the motivation for the whole coming period, let's say.

And just by virtue of bunching up that information, giving at the end, that's kind of a period of view. That's kind of a horrible period. Horrible. Horrible. Exactly. That's that's very hard. And then they talk to each other and they're like, man, did you get your review? Do you even agree? And you're like the feedback was supposed to help you, but it's a year later, it's. Critique. You can't do anything about it exactly. Impact that's rough in in kind of mentoring.

This group then that is ambitious that wants to grow really fast let's say their their vision is set on your position or leadership positions, people of management, people that help other people grow in that way. What are some of the gaps that you've seen that they have to

close before they can do that? A lot of it is, I think for me when I was also going into my leadership, it was about really understanding people management at different levels of like I said, their confidence level or where they want to grow and their ambition or non ambition, it depends on that person, right? But when it comes down to the part, because I've been doing that for quite some time, I'm like I still need to work on and I ask my own feedback, what

feedback can you give me? So it's usually always a 360 feedback. I think that's something that leaders and managers should work on like because we're so like, I know we try not to be at this hierarchy, but it's very nice to have a balance of equity here. I would like feedback also. So because it's going to make you a better leader, right.

It's valuable. And the other part is for me is that I believe when you're such the executor for so long, you don't see the cost you're building, you're designing your your construction, right. And I find a lot of leaders have the lack of understanding what cost is and it doesn't necessarily have to be monetary. It could be energy, time, it can

be quite a lot of things, right. But the other part of that is if we are understanding cost and we're understanding energy and time, do we understand strategy then because maybe we're building so much strategy we don't ever execute it and then that's that's a cost too of course, right. It's the strategy sitting on the shelf.

So what is it SOSS. So it's very much of, you know, I think in those categories as many leaders have I tried to work with at the senior level, the lead level, even the director level, the strategy piece is missing. The other part that I think that most leaders just just coming

into their first job has to really understand how to build partnerships. Stakeholder management is one thing, but the other partnerships. So for example, product design and development, you're going to have partnerships with customer facing people. You're going to have partnerships with just pure engineering, like who is your partner in engineering, so you can assess the reality of getting something done on time

or whatever the scope is, right? And then you're going to have partnerships in design, you're going to have partnerships in sales. So whatever your other domains are, it's really crucial to have a coffee get to know what their domains are capable of but what they're inspired to do because maybe that feeds back into the work that you're doing especially for innovation, right. You're not just maintaining something, you're building some

new concept and idea. And I think that leaders, we get excited about it, but I think that we can have stronger relationships with partnerships and then is a fine line to that too many cooks in the kitchen, right. So those are things we balance through. We get to know we're like, all right, we're going to let's make a little prototype, let's do it all in Figma before we actually have conversations with anyone. So because visuals and videos, they help tell the story a lot better.

So I always, when I'm building something and it comes down to your point of really understanding what you need as to grow, I typically build my own sort of prototypes around it and then I try to and then I actually execute it to team members. If it if it's just a sketch, it could be a napkin sketch giving that too, because I'm like this is this is now a tool to tell that story and it helps drive

those conversations, right. So and that's just because of the domain that I'm in. Other people may have something quite differently. They might just have a PowerPoint. But like these are kind of the thoughts that we have and that still is strategy. So the more strategical work is being done, the more you're ready to be at, excuse me, at the next level?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I love the emphasis and highlight what you mentioned about people management as well because most of the time if you're working through and across departments, departments adjacent to kind of your skill set. You need to collaborate, you need to cooperate with each other. It needs to be a win, win. I think those are the best situations and usually you can create a win win. It's just by virtue of doing it the right way.

Because if you're like no I need this from you, then all of a sudden you give someone a task and they have to do it. Otherwise like something doesn't happen. That's not really a win win. But if you come to someone and say I have this idea, what do you think? Then they start kind of Co creating, then it's the idea together and all of a sudden they they run for you and you run for them. That's a win. Win. That's a partnership. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, As true as it can be.

That is the partnership. Yeah, yeah, I think so as well.

And kind of this conversation talking about true leadership. There's also one thought I had that I love the things you lay out. You look for communication and skills to develop, or more hands on things and kind of the spired diagram you make with people, the focus on empathy. Empathy, sorry, and transparency as well. But there's not not every manager or not every leader is

like that, right? You have the typical kind of manager, manager that does bunch up the feedback and gives it to you in kind of an end of year review. I don't know how to change that, but I do see and perceive that that behaviour within other organizations. Like it's it's interesting because I have the point of view of a consultant, so I see that sometimes within within

organizations. And that's a hard change, especially if I'm kind of bottom up creating change like that because I feel like that trickles down from top down rather right. But you made an interesting point. So and this is a clear there is a, there's the definition of you're a manager versus a leader, right managers, not every manager.

So I won't kind of generalize it in that way, but you're managing, you're managing schedule, you're managing projects, products or you know, but then you have the leader kind of mindset where they're like, yeah, we're all managing in this. You're responsible. And this is kind of the vision. This is where we're going to get there. We're going to start from here.

We're going to get there. And then there's a combination of both, right, because you need to manage how is being processed over time, ways of working, collaboration, empathy. But I'm sorry, empathy will go with leadership, right? So dividing that up and knowing when you're a manager, when you're a leader, and I think that helps a lot especially. And then it's also the wanting of it. If you are a manager and you're like, that's really not my thing. I'm not.

I'm not that kind of empathy type of person. Then that's how you your leader style. That's fine, right. That's fine. I think just again being transparent about that, but I also believe that there's a responsibility the higher you go up and that responsibility and it's my backfire me, but that's OK. This is my true self, is that you have to have some sort of empathy, right? You want people to follow you, whether you're at the manager or the leader level. You must empathize with them and

understand them. And this is not sympathy. This is like, really understanding. Like, OK, I'm want to understand you. Maybe I don't understand the full thing, but how do we progress? Because when those situations do not play well, their next card is HR, right? And there's probably times before it got that bad to, like, kind of intervene a bit and then granted, you can't save everyone, you can't manage everyone, you can't lead everyone. But at least you tried.

And I think from being in an international company, I learned that a lot. I was like, OK, yeah, this is not the US. It's not at will. People can put their guard down a bit. You can really get to know them. You still have a job tomorrow, you still got a job for at least three months. So. So it's very good to like really

appreciate both styles of management and leadership. But at the same time I think a lot of self-awareness of what type of leader do you want to be. So and we have our own mentor, like I want to see myself in you and I want you to see yourself in me, right.

So what leader in this organization do I admire that I want some mentorship maybe even sponsorship, which is quite different, but I want to be an apprentice to that person because I really resonate with their leadership style and I think they're that's the responsibility. It's growing even though you're because I've had managers who are like, well, I'm a manager now, I don't really need to grow anymore. I've made it.

You're like, people are different and they're going to always be a challenge with humans, right? Yeah. I I love the focus on on empathy. I I think without empathy you're you can't be a great manager like I I hate it when people say resources when they're talking about people because it's it's people right? Why why do we talk about resources like even the word HR. I'm like some companies say people team. I like people team. I like people call it like, yeah, with like people culture,

Yeah, right. The people culture team, yeah. So absolutely, it all trickles down and it boils down to empathy. I feel like building up those relationships allows for trust. Allows for transparency in the 1st place. People to believe you and stand behind you and then you can do the thing. Get it. Go get it. Yeah, yeah. Go get it. Get pushed, get pushed, and get out. Yeah, I've I've really enjoyed this conversation. Kia, thank you, Patrick. Thank you so much for coming on.

It's been an honor. This was a blast. Thank you. Is there anything you still want to share before we round off? I'm, I'm, I'm all good. I think every time I think about these kind of conversations I just when I have my empathy on, I come back to the same sort of like in statement was get seen, stand up and get out there. Yeah, don't forget your passions. Have a passion project on the side, bring that passion to work and just kind of keep going with the things that drive you the

most, right? So for me, it's just be you. Be as authentic as you can be, build that trust and just just step forward. Yeah. Right. Be you and be as authentic as you can be. I love that. Cool. Then I'm going to round it off here. I'm going to put all Kia socials in the Caribbean below. Reach out to her and let her know you came from our show. And with that being said, thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one.