Lara Hogan

Welcome to the Humans Plus Tech podcast. I'm Aaron and this is Amy. Hi. And today we're talking to the mighty Lara Hogan. Lara's previously VP of Engineering at Kickstarter. Engineering Director at Etsy and more recently founded Wherewithal, where she coaches managers and leaders across the tech. Lara, thank you so much for talking to us today. Thank you. And honestly, I've never been referred to as Mighty before. I'm gonna put that on business cards. Thank you. Yeah. Hey, you're welcome.

Very mighty. Amy and I actually we first saw you speak back in 2017. It was 2017, right? Um when we uh when you presented the Lead Dev conference uh in London. And I remember us looking at each other after your presentation and we were like, uh, that was so good. Um So we so we went on to read all your books um and your blog posts and Uh so yeah, to say we're a bit excited to be talking to you.

It's an understatement. Listeners can't see how beat red I've gotten. So, um, dive straight in. Uh uh congratulations on the releasing new book, resilient management. Uh for those who haven't had the chance to pick it up yet, can you tell us what it's about? Yes, so uh I wrote this based on all of the coaching conversations and workshops I've been giving for line. I found myself saying the same thing.

Poor new baby managers, just like finding their way in the forest. Um, and I wanted to create this book for people like them, you know, people who are either new to management or just wanna get like level up their skills. Um people who were just like feeling a little bit shaky but also really want

as you all know, like being a manager is both is equal parts exciting and terrifying. Um so resilient management is my my hope is is that it's gonna help fo grounded, like have a little bit more solid footing while also acknowledging kind of all the challenges, trials, tribulations. Fantastic. And actually I have to say I was telling Aaron. yesterday. I was rereading your book this week. Lara in preparation for this conversation.

And I missed my stop on the tube. It's amazing. I was like deep in there. It's fantastic. That's such a good review. Thank you. I know, I was like, I don't know where I am. What's happened? Um so your book has the M word in the title. It's only for management. It's funny, it's actually it's cracking me up how often I get this question and I'm I was I shouldn't be surprised by that because of course, you know, people um people who are not managers probably look at it and are like, Oh that's

But that never literally never occurred to me while I was writing it. I was like, no, obviously it's for anybody who like has a manager, is a manager, or just wants to support other humans with the Which you know frankly also are required to leverage a lot of the same skills about growing other people around them, giving feedback, you know, those kinds of things. So it is absolutely a book for anybody. work with other humans and be resilient through like But it's I upon retrospect I probably

Something else can be told more applicable. I mean, for what it's worth I have told uh after I read it, I told one of our um senior architects to also read it. So it's not just not just the managers, but Yes, definitely.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. Um so you started out um your technology career as a developer. Uh can you tell us a bit about how you got into managing? Yes. So I am a self taught front end developer. Um and so I kind of found my way Tech company.

do. Uh and I started to get um more and more frustrated with how things were gonna be run, you know, at each of these companies. And I was like, I can help, I can add clarity and I can add we need all this more process and what people really need It's a jeerboard, you know, and In retrospect, those are not the right reasons necessarily. Um, or I guess not the right goal, right? Your goal can't be just to affect.

And I found myself as a as a baby manager working with like one or two other people, both of whom were super different than me, meaning they Needs, different things that excited them. Annoyed them and my style of management was like what I want as a manager, which is like process and Stand-ups and look at all of these cool confluence pages I'm building. You know, like I could nerd out about Google Calendars all day. And that's not I'm gonna say that's not exactly what they needed.

Nice. So so I guess well my thought up question was gonna be what do you find most difficult about that change to management? It sounds like you're you're sort of you're alluding to some of those things already. Yeah. Yeah, I just was so surprised when everybody didn't like

'Cause like, you know, it was one of those like I want this from my manager, you don't want this from your manager, and they were like, one act one guy actually started giving me the silent treatment, which is like a perfect introduction to how different Even in childish ways. And like for sure, I was messing up, but like Come on. So I remember going to my manager who was actually a great manager. Um, and I was like, this person's giving this, like, I don't know what to do here. This is so my

And he was like, Lara, here's the deal. Like you're gonna have to adapt. You're gonna have to figure out what works for these people and also for you. Um and that was eye opening. Again, the fact that like I was I could not believe that everybody wasn't like me, which I feel like is a very early to mid-20s perception of the world. Maybe not, I don't know. Uh so it was like a good it was a good hard first

How did you go about I I I need to hear more about how you got this feedback. Like how did you go about getting this feedback from your team that actually things weren't going great and you need to learn? Yeah, it was honestly that was a silent treatment because nobody was saying it. No one was like, here's what I need instead.

And no one was like, Here's what you can do better. Because honestly, we don't get that. We're we're not surrounded often by people who are phenomenal feedback givers or feel like even take Work to give good, concrete, specific, actionable feedback, which is why I spend so much time on it in the book and in my workshops. Because like we're

Bad at it. I mean, myself included, we were all often really bad at it. So no one was giving me the feedback. I just started to realize something was wrong. And I'm the kind And so when it was clear to me that there was a huge gap between what I was aiming for and what was actually what I was actually doing, that's kind of when I started to go, you know, talk to my manager, what else should I be doing?

Turns out asking lots of questions and doing lots of listening is the answer to most humans' problems, I believe.

Yes, definitely. Yeah, that's a really, really great one. Um, so maybe that ties in, but like what advice do you wish you'd been given, like right when you started? I think right when I started managing I wish that every manager was Oh just a succinct little list of what they are responsible for or what they are expected to do or what they're

Any of those things. Doesn't have to you've like it's it's too high of a bar to expect all of those things, right? Yeah. Um because management means so many different Like for me, I I'm a person like would play school at home, you know, like I love some process, I love some worksheets, you know. Um you can see this in my workshops these days. Um but not everybody needs the same thing as a manager and not every company

like positions the role of a manager in the same way. So what would have really helped me and I think it does help lots clear expectations about what this role is for, and then some support in helping people build the skills they need to do that job effectively. Which by the If you have it if you've had manager training, consider yourself so lucky because most of us did not get that at first. Yeah. Well it was funny actually. I remember when I started

And I got manager training. Well, it was called manager training. And I was like, you know, I was like, fantastic, this is great. They're going to tell me what I need. And I went along and it was all about me And I remember like now that makes total sense. But at the time I was so confused. I was like, I'm fine. I've got me. What about everyone else? So yeah, it was only like years later that I was able to connect that together.

Wow. Yeah, man, the the state of manager training in the world right now is little rough. Which is why I'm really trying to help. Yeah, it's my I've also now at this stage been to a lot of like not just overarching manager trainings but also like And also the skill in like facilitation is so widely varied. Like I'm right now taking a lot

designer, better facilitator, because I want to make sure that like my educational style will actually work for again people who aren't just like me. It's hard. It's really hard.

On that, um, you know, you talk about the expectations of managers and that being different at different places. Um it sounds like you're I mean you're kind of in the territory of manager readmes, which I know is like has been a fairly hot topic in our industry. Um yeah, discuss. Are you gonna are you gonna try to like weave this like touch on it a little bit?

So I used to be firmly in the pro manager README camp. Manager README as a Title for it, I wasn't always super bought into, but like the idea of a manager writing down their general approach. Um I have found this useful in my managers, meaning like when my managers Here's my deal. Here's what I think you should lean on me for. Here's what where I'm like where I'm lacking. And so like I can help you, you know, find other people to lean on for those skills.

Here's where we work together. Like those kinds of like the clarity, like the brain dump of expectations, I have found really valuable, especially when I have managers that are not like me. You know, I've had one manager that uh really when okay, let's let me take a step back. What I want Someone to help me verbally process. Like I'm a I'm a person who thinks as I or talks as I think, right? It's just like, let me like get this all out.

I'm a person who wants stretch goals. Like I crave being thrown in the deep end, being given challenges that will actually And I also want lots of autonomy. That way I can go and like do my stuff and also bring it back and get feedback. That's the the other the last big thing. It's like give me some feedback, some specific and actionable feedback.

And I had this one manager that did none of those things except for the autonomy one. He like left me high and dry, which uh I was going through a particularly difficult time. I I um had like a really, really tough situation with a direct report. uh I probably needed to fire them. And I went to my manager and and like tried to lean on him for help and he

not able to help. Whether that was because of time or skill or whatever, you know, unable. And it was helpful in that stage for me to say to him, Hey what How do you perceive your role here? Like give me something to know like wow how we're supposed to work together. And he was like, Oh, lean on me for like strategy and execution, like forward things.

That's my that's what I'm here for. That's what managers are here for. And I was like, Oh, what about this other list of things that I need? And he was like, Oh, do not come to talk to me about those things. And that kind of clarity was so so So what I think about manager readme is in this original People one of our core human needs is predictability. We want to know what's expected of us, what how this is all gonna work.

can help with that core need. However, and I I super duper agree with a lot of the hot takes on this, there's also failure mode wrapped up in that, right? Like if a manager It's just like here's all my faults, deal with it. Or like by writing these down, it gives me an excuse to n never have to address the things that I'm bad at. Or um what's e what's a even a worse failure mode is and people think that they're great and they write down all the things they believe about themselves.

So obviously, there's lots of failure modes, which is which is why I think this whole idea has evolved over time. So the way that I frame it now is in terms of setting expectations with what people can expect of you as And it's any like cross functional peer leads. What's expected of the cross function?

And also what's expected of the individual team members. So it's much less about like, hello, this is the Laura Hogan Readme, you know, and it's much more like, here's what managers, or here's what an engineering manager, here's Here's what you can expect of us. So I like I like that. The other the last thing I'll say about it is I think for individual leaders to kind of self identify their their approach, like a one liner philosophy about their

Which is gonna evolve over time. But sometimes just that like elevator pitch, that one line nugget, is just enough for you to know what things you're gonna be most helpful with and communicate that to your team. It's gonna help. why you do the things that you do. For example, my my philosophy is like, uh, I believe that humans already have the answers inside themselves. It's my job just help them find them, which is such a

Which also helps all my teammates know if they wanna come to me for advice, they gotta say it. Like they say, Hey Laura. I know you'd rather just ask me lots of open questions, but actually what I need right now is some mentorship or some advice for me. And that's it's cool. It's just having that one liner. Helps give us a foundation. That's great. So I guess one thing that um Before I jump into something else, I'm just really curious.

Well, how do you deliver that one liner?'Cause that feels like it could be very awkward. Like a you know, again, like a hey, by the way, just like drop that in or like I So I find it's useful when friction pops up. Meaning I don't think I think you know when you've hired can be helpful to share it then like or even during the interview process like hey just if why here's here's how I think

Which can help people kind of like figure out is this a kind of manager that I do want to work with or or is do I want something else from a manager? Um so definitely hiring like early stages, but then like as friction comes up, like say a person came to Hey Lara, in every one of our one oh ones I come to you with with challenges I'm working on and you just ask me.

That's when me sharing, like, oh, got it. Here is my default. Like my default is asking questions. Thank you so much for flagging this to me. Let's figure out a better way for us to work. So it ends up like really helping in those sticky conversations. I am not advocating for you sitting down and every one on one at the top saying, please repeat back to the

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Um th so um I guess Well, I it very relates to this, but y you know, you talk about in the book about the importance of getting to know your team and them you and maybe not having your self serving

uh one liner written above the wall. But the door, sorry, but um but as a manager, what we've like what ways have you found, like more interesting, impactful ways you've introduced yourself to teams Yeah. Um, so it's funny, uh w the biggest transition I I made was when I left Etsy and went to Kickstarter, which meant that no one there knew me. Every time I I changed teams at Etsy, you know, I I like I came in as a manager, which meant that like every time

They kind of already knew me. So when I went to Kickstarter, I realized like it's probably gonna be helpful for me to have uh like a normal like hello, here's my deal to everybody, like here's what I'm thinking about.

Um so like in a in a like an all hands, like an engineering all-hands setting, it was helpful for me to be like, hello, here's my deal, here's where I've come from, um, here's my plan for the next 30 days. Because again, people crave that predictability, right? People want to know like who is What are they here to do? What are they gonna change? And I'm really nervous about it. Any kind of like unpredictability.

So I frame my first thirty days as just sponge mode. And actually when I coach managers, I always recommend don't About what you want to change in your first 30 days. Your job for the first 30 days is just to be in sponge mode, right? Just ask lots of questions, gather lots of information, figure out And then still don't feel obligated to change things in your next 30 days. Start to just like test the waters. Like ask people about.

So like the when I sit down in a one and one as a data Kickstarter with everybody who's in engineering. So for the first three days I had lots and lots of individual one on ones, I would ask, um just like what should And like what do you really, really want to be different? Like both sides of the same coin. That way I could get a sense from them, like, okay, what is it that they're And like what do they think it's like time for? Like what might

Up with the, you know, obviously like there's change already happening. I've joined. How else what else can we like roll into this so it feels like less Is there a risk, um I mean I love the idea of sponge mode and

being really clear about that. But is there a risk if you don't communicate to that actually people are like, what is this person doing? They've made no changes in thirty days, maybe ninety days. Exactly. So it's I think it's also really important just to be super like I'm an over Meaning like I try to respect the fact people don't want to hear from me all of the time, but especially in those like big introduction all

the things that you think are obvious about your approach and about what you're there to do are not obvious to everyone. Everybody's carrying their own baggage, everybody's carrying their own desires. Fears, it's so important to just say. I've started to use this phrase as just like say the thing that's happening. Like just describe what

Like basic. Just say the thing that's happening. That's both true in a team dynamics conversation, in a feedback conversation, in your introductions, just with your mouthword. Just say the thing that that's happening right now. And people can our poor little amygdalas, our fight or flight responses, can chill out knowing that we have new certainty, we have new predictability and clarity.

Like it it it's a really interesting one, isn't it? Getting that level of sharing right? Like, you know, p I think Well, I guess from my experience, it feels like I'm oversharing. I'm definitely not, right? And you're like, I'm gonna tell you all this stuff again and again and again, and still people come and then Why didn't I know about this thing? And it it's so hard, isn't it? Well and I think that that's a great

So, like the the seventh time you say something, they may r might remember it. But that's also why one of the skills that I think managers should build is the elevation. Like what is the one liner, the thing that you want to say? Whether that's your approach and philosophy to management or whether that's what

Or whether that's this desk move that's happening, here's why. Like no matter what the thing is, developing your one liner that you can repeat that like beat that same drum over and over and over again actually helps people hopefully remember And I love you mentioning that desk move because desk moves are like you talk about it in the book, but they are the most Hardest thing in the world. And it's so surprising, isn't it? You're like, we're just gonna do a quick, quick desk move and chaos. Um

But like Yeah, absolutely I mean, I have interviewed people in the past and we were like, What you know, why are you looking for a new job? And the answer was literally they had been moved to a desk they didn't like And we were like, Wow, okay, like that's the level that you know a death

Um you talk about in your book then in the biceps model. Uh so we've got the uh do you wanna do you wanna talk us through the model? Like you probably do it way better than us. Well no, I I love talking about this stuff because like and desk moves is my perfect experience. So so the biceps model is an acronym, biceps. Um We don't have one or more.

Our which I kind of hinted at before, our fight or flight response, it can wake up, and if the threat feels significant enough, it can go into overdose. our our lizard brain, right? Like our emotional, not rational part of our

can go into overdrive. It's not helpful or productive for that to be the case. And desk moves is my favorite example of when this can come up because desk moves can trigger any of the six core needs feeling threatened. And so like that person who came to you in the interview When we don't feel like we've b we belong to the group anymore, we feel othered, we're left behind, that sense of the core need.

The I stands for improvement or progress towards a goal. You know, we want to feel a sense of progress in the things that matter to us, whether that's us learning or our career developing, or it could be for our team or for our company. Just we want to feel that. The C stands for choice, like we all want to have some level of autonomy over our work life. The E stands for equality and fairness. Like we want to believe that. their work, equal access to resources, to information.

We've been talking about this whole time. Like we want to have a sense of what's happening in the future. This is a funny one though. Um, it's actually similar to choice in that too much predictability will actually.

Like demo de-energizing and like we can get bored from too much predictability and also too little. Same thing with choice. Too much autonomy and we get stressed out, and too little autonomy and we get stressed out. So those are two funny ones. But then the last one is significance, which is the fact that we're going to be able to do

you know, informal or formal hierarchy. So desk moves, that person, that poor person Who knows which of their corn needs, maybe multiple of their corn needs were like really And um I mean I know when I read through this that like I was you know, I've been managing people for a long time and I was just even now reading it, I was like, Oh yeah

For me it explains so much about the way I reacted to things. I think that was my main thing was like, Oh yeah, no, that one's really important. Oh no, that one's even more important. Well that's back to our thing at the beginning, right? Like what's true for you? Like what's going on for you in your heart or your brain is going to be super different than the people that you manage. And so, like, you like let's say you're going through a death.

And your uh sense of significance is threatened, you didn't get to choose where your team gets Everybody else on your team might also be having emotions, but for different biceps reasons. Like it's it's wild. And we're and by the way, we are really bad at guessing which. 'Cause we'll project our own. So it's r this is yet again another reason to get curious, ask lots of questions, like help this person introspect and explore like what's going on for them to come to their own

Um I guess like back to these biceps. Have you have you seen in your time that obviously we're all different and we switch between these different t points in time, but have you seen like a general pattern as an experience manager? Like do people tend more of these than others?

No, because it's just such a core human experience. It's like this is our limbic system, right? It's just like the way that we've been hardwired. You know, this is one of those universal truths. The way that they are expressed is different. Um, like there's five forms.

portray to when the when they're being made to the hijack. So like they'll avoid stuff, they'll look for an escape route, they'll fight, they'll bond with each other, you know, they'll play devil's advocate. There's there's a bunch of different ways that this might manifest, but again, it's just Awesome. So actually before we move on from that, I was actually really curious as to what are your techniques or or great questions for helping work out where people

So the first thing I'll do is reflect back what I'm hearing them say. And when I say reflect back, I mean like literally say, okay, just to make sure. It sounds like what's going on is blah. And I'll say like, you know, I'll repeat back again in my own words, whatever they've just said. And the act of doing that often makes people be like

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. And that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the like the feeling seen and heard and just like I'm not just moving forward to solution mode. I'm just like sitting in a moment and just saying, like, cool, is this right? Is this what you're People feel so reassured that someone's actually living.

Um and then step two uh often is actually showing them the biceps model. This won't work for everybody. Like this feels if this feels too cheesy or weird for you, don't do it. But like for many engineers, they like a framework. I like a framework, I'm an engineer. So showing them like, okay, here's this experience.

Let's walk through them. I and I as we walk through them, I want you to think about like which one of these might be going on for you, maybe multiple. And you know, as I read them to you, I'm sure you were thinking, oh that Like for me it's significant, right? For some of us belonging.

'Cause they'll read that list and be like, Yeah, no, it's this one. And maybe it's also this one. I had a coaching call the other day where they were they named five out of the six. It wasn't a decimal, it was something else, but it was like I was like, Yeah, right. It this is a awesome

It's threatening so many things for you. And just that act of like thinking through it, sometimes what that does is it can help bring someone's prefrontal cortex back online. So our prefrontal cortex the rational logical thought, like any time we're involved in deep complex problem solving, our So the act of sitting through and reading this list together and trying to almost we're not problem solving yet, but we're like doing some critical.

Sometimes that can bring that prefrontal cortex back online and bring us back Because when our amygdala is hijacked, our prefrontal cortex is offline. We are no longer making rational and logical decisions. So yeah, it for me it's like a nice little way to help people just chill out for a minute so we can figure out

So moving into senior roles, like I think probably everybody uh as you progress, it starts to feel quite lonely. You realize that you no longer have a great team around you. Um So you introduce in the book the idea of the uh manager Voltron. Um can you talk us through like what that is and how that can help? I mean, I like to usually ask other people to define Voltron.

answers. Do any of you feel like defining Voltron? I mean oh I mean I can give it a bat I mean I've done it so I have already I I have mine. So so I've d I've defined my I actually printed out

a copy from your book and um I know no you have it on your website actually don't you have PDF so I printed that out when I filled it in and actually did it with my engineering management group at Songkick. So we had the five of us sit around and complete together, which was really fun. Um did you so did you all feel like

Like what was the peer pressure there? You want them to be the the idea was to steal some time to actually complete them. It could be yeah, you didn't have to share them with each other. But yeah, everyone shred each other. No, no, they didn't agree. Um but but essentially what it you know what it is, I guess the answer question is this kind of

Skills and responsibilities that other people may have that you respect or you want to get better at. And you can fill in the names of people that can help your coach or mentor to level up in those skills. Hopefully I've done that justice. Beautiful. Yeah. Well, right, because so often we we're lacking in we have our one man. Like the mantra I mentioned before, who was just like strategy and execution. That was his bag. Like he there was no way.

thinking about the other stuff I might need. Some direct part. So that yeah, building out that like matrix of people that you can lean on of you know, manager crew doesn't even have to be managers, just people you can lean on as different pieces parts of an I I As you learn and grow. Beautiful, beautiful. I love So I guess actually I had two things that I I took away from that. And maybe I'm I mean you're the perfect person to pick the brains up, but the first one was how many gaps there were.

Like across all of us, which I guess that's the whole point of this, right? Is that if you fill it up fill it up correctly and it's awful, then probably you're doing great anyway. But for all of us there were some pretty big gaps if you look at what those subjects were, those skills They were definitely things that we needed support in the world.

Which is one big thing, which was great, I think, to go through the process. But the other the follow-up question was like, now what? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which was so weird, right? It's like I have all these gaps, or sometimes you like write in a name and the the way they have like

The little bingo card is you can circle um when I like a printout version I have, you can actually circle whether you already have as from a person, whether you have as person skill before so you probably need to like ask them or Um so it's so weird to try to like introduce First of all, don't you don't need to tell them what you're doing. You don't need to say like

Here's what a manager Voltron is. I'd like to add you to mine. Exactly, exactly. So uh my favorite way of doing this, uh a uh a friend of mine who's to be

CTO of Meetup, or Vet Pasqua, she added me to her Voltron without me even knowing about it. So the way that she did this was we had bumped into each other at some event, you know, so we like had met each other just briefly, like we hadn't ever had And at the time I was the director of product infrastructure at Etsy, and she'd emailed me and said, Hey, um It's me again. Uh I know that you are leading a bunch of infrastructure teams. I'm thinking about reorganizing my infrastructure.

Do you have any like opinions about this or like, you know, war stories you want to share? Um, and can I like talk to you about The beautiful part about this email was like she guessed correctly that boy did I ever For infrastructure teams, right? Like she correctly accurately Spidey says, like, okay, if Lara is the director of of infrastructure, probably she has about this process. So she'll want she'll be eager. And this is it was true. Event really was reorganized.

for coffee and we ended up hanging out for like three or four hours. And so it wasn't just us talking about that infrastructure team. It was also just like sharing a bunch of other stories. And at the time I was dealing with some Amazing to be able to lean on her for that too. We ended up yeah, we hung out for so long and it was the beginning.

Like she correctly identified something I would be excited we all love talking about ourselves. So she like correctly identified a thing that I was gonna be eager to talk about with my experience. And then I was able to lean on her too. And that's like the most easy, beautiful way to add

Oh that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean I know I definitely when I did mine there w there were quite a lot of gaps and I was a bit like oh oh panic but there were also ones where I was like oh no actually I have somebody but I'm not leaning as I can. And it was really great to realise actually, you know, I have someone I can Um I just need to do it. Yeah, it's so it it it's so rare for us to get that like little check-in with ourselves, like oh hey, oh yeah, I probably should

Like, why haven't I just asked them? My favorite thing to do with my with members of my Voltron crew is to walk through my performance reviews with them. It's like I'll pick three or four and then just like, Hey, here's my performance review. Can we sit down and chat through it together? Like I would love to hear your idea. You know maybe I'd come up with even better ideas.

Oh, that's really amazing. Yeah. Um I think that's so powerful, isn't it? Like performance reviews are always treated as such a private thing. But actually I love that. I love the fact that, you know, getting someone else is Just open up the stuff. Really? I'll feel s I feel so exposed, I guess. But you that's like the vulnerable piece, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And like your Voltron crew wants to help you. If they're actually members of your Voltron crew, they're there to like support.

figure it out. Also, by the way, you know, being a lady in tech means like I've gotten some performance pretty biased feedback and it was so helpful to talk that through with members of my Voltron crew where they could be like, you know what, I see why they wrote that thing. You can discard it. You don't have to. And that was really, really powerful.

That is fantastic. Like the bias that goes in a review is like it's really hard. Like even writing them, you know that you're like, Oh, this is just one perspective. So yeah, wow.

So you dedicate a section of this book um to managing times Yeah. Can you tell us about a time where it all went wrong and maybe more more importantly, like how you handled it? Oh gosh.

So many crises. I mean, like the reason why I originally wrote this um the whole thing was because of external crises, right? Like I'm in America, y'all are in England, it is October of But also of course, like the hardest times of my management career, you know, a lot of them were because of internal crises, whether that Or layoffs, or um, you know, just something horrific happening. Um, so for me, probably the the starkest.

with an internal um internal crisis was when at Etsy, you know, we had an executive team turnover and on the same day layoffs were announced. And I found myself pretty ill equipped. I'd never before. And because of a series of events, I found myself up on stage uh at the end of the day.

And again, being ill prepared, ill equipped, like not really knowing I was what I was doing, I just kinda went with intuition about like how to answer questions from the crowd, how to wrap it up and move forward. And I was joined by like Um but like my my boyfriend.

The room staring at me, like some of my closest, dearest friends were staring. Like it was a hard just an awful, awful, awful day. Um, and the way that I approached that was trying to both acknowledge how I as an individual was thinking. This event and also acknowledged the That way it wasn't just me regurgitating like top down messaging, but also saying like here's how not not necessarily like here's how I'm feeling right now'cause I don't think it's fair

Trying to get other people to care about how they're feeling, like you're in a position of power. This is you need to get your emotional support elsewhere, but just to acknowledge, like this. There's lots of questions that we don't have answered. And like acknowledging that there's still more that we need to find out, that there's, you know, acknowledging where there was no

And then saying like, you know, here's what I am personally am going to be doing to either follow up on this or here's the answers that I'm eager for us to like follow up on and get in the future. Here's when you can next hear from me is a So like here's what we know.

Can help again with that core biceps native predictability. Like people are craving more information and they don't know when they're gonna get it. They don't necessarily need that you haven't earned their trust yet, right? So it's really important to say when Um I think, you know, when you're talking about working through a crisis and then back to the beginning of this uh

Chat when you're talking about you know mistakes you made as a a new manager. There's a there's a line actually it's a kind of a spoiler to tell me if we can't talk about it, but at the end of your book. At the end of your book you have this metaphor for growth, which is probably like one of the most favourite things I've ever read and it really stays with me. This idea this idea. I know can you can you talk about the Caterpillar cocoon metaphor?

Yeah. You know what? No one's ever said that to me. Like no one talks to me about the conclusion. So thank you for bringing it up. I love the conclusion. Um this came to me from a coaching session I had. So I've had And she there was going through like a really this is gonna sound after talking about something as horrific as layoffs, this is gonna sound a lot less serious, but like I was going through a personally horrific time when I was trying to figure out what it was to be a director.

Manager, I didn't really know the difference. I didn't know how to exercise those muscles. I didn't know what it looked like with it with a response. Like it's so unclear that those differences. and I was going through this this exercise of like trying to show up more as a director. Um and so we w at the time we were talking about like you it's feels growth is so

Gross. Like we talk about growth as is this like beautiful thing we all wanna aim for and like it's just exciting and whatever. And actually growth is Painful and it's messy. And we use this metaphor in coaching, um, my coach and I about this I I didn't know this, but I listened to this, I think it was a radio lab about caterpillars. And I I had thought that when caterpillars go into their

They like sprout wings and then like bust out of their cocoon, like, What's up, world? I'm a butterfly now. It's like happy and glorious. Actually, what happens? You may know this, I didn't know this, um, is that when they go in their cocoons, they like dissolve. Like it's gross and probably I don't know, I assume it's painful, you know? Like and then they like reform as a butterfly and then they bust out. And I love this as a metaphor for growth because totally growth is goopy.

like growth is painful and like we all it's like we're all aspirational about it but actually it sucks when you're going through it. And so I included it as a conclusion to be like if this feels Right now, probably that means you're growing. And sometimes, you know, obviously like that kind of growth is not sustainable or worth it, but I call it out because like it's often an indicator that you're actually doing the right thing. I love it. Massive thing. Thank you very much. So um

Donuts. Lara, talk to us about eating donuts. Yeah. Um Did you like you you celebrate your achievements with donuts? I think anyone who doesn't know this, um, I'm gonna assume you're still doing this, but like most important, how many donuts did you eat when uh resilient management was released? So Don't tell anyone, slash this is a podcast. Um a lot of people are gonna tell.

Got over donuts. Like for me, donuts became like I got so many donuts. Oh, and then and then very, very generous, kind people started giving me donut really Donut pens and cards and whatever. And like that's so so so sweet. But also I was like, Oh, I can't eat any more donuts. Um so now it's sushi. So for me, I ate so much sushi as I was finishing up and shipping uh

Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. I maintain that um anybody it can be any way to treat yourself. Like the way that I've now phrased it in the book and then in the place When you are like thinking about this for yourself, like what's the way

Like my one of my friends is a hot tub and a margarita. Like he'll go find a hot tub and bring a margarita. And like that's such a nice way of thinking about treating yourself. So it doesn't have to be food-related, it can be literally anything. So for me these days, it is still food-related. Amazing. That's great.

So you've written about web performance, uh public speaking and people management. So what's next for you? I am itching to write another book, but I don't have any topics yet. So if you have ideas, I love the process of writing a book, I'm a weirdo that So if anybody listening to this or if you do have any ideas on what I should write next, please pass.

figure it out. Yeah, we'll definitely yeah we'll send you a load of ideas. Okay, awesome. So super quick questions to just wrap things up. What are you reading right now? Ooh, I'm reading The Art of Gathering. It's all about how to like gather people together in ways that are actually smart and useful and not just like let's get together. Amazing. And what's your number one tip for keeping up with the industry? Uh I am so sad. Twitter Ugh I hate it and also it's so

Yeah, I totally agree. I sort of love it. Like you can find the stuff you need. You've just got to ignore all the bad stuff. And who inspires you? Oh, the person who I d dedicated uh resilience She's the one who originated the biceps model. She is just brilliant. She's a better trainer than I'll ever be. She's absolutely incredible. She's ugly. I look up.

Amazing. And where can people find out more about you? Yeah, I mean on Twitter, Laura underscore Hogan. Again, I'm so sorry. Also, um, I have uh uh Instagram for wherewithal, um, it has underscores And wherewithal is spelled a little bit differently. So if you want to go on my Twitter, you can probably find a link to the wherewithal Instagram. That's my current format these days for like putting out stuff that I

Amazing. We'll put all these links in the show notes and share them out so people can find all this good stuff. Thank you so much, Lara. This has been amazing. I have we've made loads of notes. Like we were like we were all prepped and now we're gonna go away. Wait, I've got more work to do. Brilliant. Thank you so much. Yeah, no, it's great. Thank you.

A massive thank you to Lara for talking with us and if anyone listening hasn't yet read Lara's book, Resilient Management, then go and check it out. I'm Aaron, this is Amy, and you've been listening to the Humans Plus Tech podcast.