You're selfish. I'm selfish too. I guess it's human nature to be selfish to an extent, but it's a fine line between selfishness and self care taking care of oneself. So we can take care of others, selfishness versus uplifting inner work on this episode of the agile within
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Welcome to the podcast that challenges you from the inside and discover the agile within. And now here's your host, Greg Miller. Okay. Welcome back to another episode. It's Greg as usual on another day here. So in my neck of the woods, it is snowing out and it's January here around the world, dealing with the pandemic. I am tired of talking about the pandemic. So today to get my mind off, actually I'm off of work today. I don't have work.
Today is a MLK day, Martin Luther King day in the United States. So a lot of people are off work. Some people are not. So I've been taking care of myself today. I did some errands around the house, took my dog for a walk, got ready to do this podcast here. And now here I am. So I guess you could kind of say I was selfish self care there. And that kind of leads into our topic today, which is about selfishness versus uplifting, inner work all about that. We're going to dive into that.
I would imagine there's a fine line there. If I can read into that. So our guests today to talk about that is from Munich, Germany. Her name is Elena proper 10 sky . Sorry. If I butchered that she is a software engineer who has turned into a leader and now an agile coach and just a darn right. Awesome human being. She likes to support others and welcome to the show Elena . Oh , my pleasure. Be here
Such a lovely introduction. And , and coincidentally, it's also snowing in the neck today, so yes, yes.
How much do you have any, any significant accumulates ?
Uh, yeah. Quite a lot. Uh, yeah. Yeah. I'm not able to convert to Imperial, so I cannot inches and things like that.
I wouldn't know what you meant cause we, yeah , we don't do that. We're we're still backwards. We do. Uh , we don't do the metric scale yet. Yes. So I would understand what you're talking about, but yes, we probably have , uh , it's it's slush now. I don't know. It would be a half an inch, whatever that converts to in metric, but yeah, so it's wintertime it's snowing, so yeah, hopefully you're doing well. And um , let's dig into this.
Let's dig into selfishness , uh , versus uplifting inner work. Uh , what do you have going on there? What's on your mind about that?
Well, you know, I had so many conversations with , um, my colleagues, my friends and my , um , coaching clients, because I also work as a personal coach and that's a common refrain. Um, whenever we talk about focusing on self, many people, they automatically jump to conclusion. Focusing on self is selfish in the negative sense hoses work .
And that's , it's kind of ironic because it's often this kind of jumping to conclusions that focusing myself as selfish happens in the context when we talk about actually , um, topics related to inner work and , um, making the better human of yourself. Um, I find that [inaudible] because I, I personally believe that actually is this inner work working on your inner world, caring for yourself, growing in inwardly and outwardly is the most selfless thing we can do actually for people around us.
And yeah, it's, it's funny how , how, how we growing up. We will kind of, at least at my culture, I'm from Belarus. Um, and we're people are always thinking about people around them and focusing on self is considered always automatically selfish. And I was the same. I was the same most of my life. And um, but like in the recent years I realized that, well actually not focusing on self in terms of like doing this uplifting in the work is more selfish than , um , doing it. Yeah.
Right. So yeah, one thing I heard you say there is that if we don't take time selfish in the sense that we're filling ourselves up, right. So that we can then help others. Cause if you do , if you don't, if you give and give and give and give and constantly selfless, which is all about being agile and putting the team first servant leadership, not just on the team, but in the world.
Um, if you don't have a way, if you're not taking care of yourself being a little bit suffered , like I was saying, you know, I'm off today, do some things to relax rejuvenate, then you can be there for others. Is that kinda what I, what I heard you saying there?
Yes . Uh, well partly like I think for me, this topic consists of maybe two sub-parts . Um, when it comes to being selfless, while focusing on self one is taking care of yourself self care , and there is aspect of this is this inner work in our growth . Um, and I I'm feeling like when you mentioned this , um, aspect of going out and it's more about self care , which is super important.
And like in coaching , um, like the first thing that drilled me , um, as a , the drill into my head and coaching school is an oxygen mask principle, right? If you don't take care of yourself, you cannot take care of others in a meaningful way. And especially for us , uh, agile people , um, where it's, it's quite quite the psychological, a demanding job. Um, if you don't take care of yourself, you burn out very quickly and that doesn't help you, that doesn't help your team and people around you.
Right. So it's the , the oxygen mask. Yeah. If people haven't heard of that, I think a lot of people have, if you've flown on a plane where they tell you to the flight attendants, tell you to when the oxygen masks drop down, put yours on first, before you put the other people's on my natural tendency. If they hadn't said that and I was left to my own devices, I would probably put on my kid's oxygen mask first I'd probably pass out and then I wouldn't be able to help. So yeah.
Yeah. I, I like that analogy a lot. That's great.
You might not be even able to do it in time because you'll start before you can finish putting the oxygen
That's right .
So that would be actually a disaster. Um, yeah. And , uh, we often like, especially agile cultures , we tend to like, be so focused on our environment and people around us. Um, we forget one, one person who is also included , um, but excluded from our area of awareness of self care is ourselves. Um, it same happens for my new leaders as well. Um, so I think we are not alone in this and, yeah.
Right , right. So how does that , uh, you mentioned the inner work briefly there. How does , uh , how does that contrast with uplifting inner work?
Yeah. And when I'm talking about uplifting in our work is actually working on yourself, growing inwardly , so you can be more for the others. Um, so a typical example example would be for us as a coaches, as being a better listener and to listen to others, you need to know yourself well. So you need to know your habits, you need to observe your thought patterns.
You need to know what triggers you , um, like emotionally , um , which kind of sets you off and you stop listening and start thinking about something else or , uh , waiting to respond. Um, so basically this kind of inner work helps you to work with Vizio inner self to grow inwardly. So you can also be a better human with others. Um, yeah.
I often often think that in our human interactions, in the team, in your relationship at home is your friends, your interactions are kind of a mirror of yourself. And for example, I tended to get irritated quickly by people when they didn't jump to conclusions right away. And like the slow thinkers in my mind and so on and so forth. Right. Yeah. And I observed sometimes people being irritated with me and couldn't get it. Uh , but then I realized that just say a mirror in my own behavior, right?
Like I'm irritated that they have not responded quite fast and say irritated because I'm demanding for them to respond and don't give them a space to think. So in this case, for me, the way out would be to work on myself. So to think about like what triggers me , uh, right now. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's that's you got me thinking there as far as when you're dealing with other people and if you're an agile teams of people and everyone has different perspectives there , like you said, you got irritated because they weren't responding quick enough. They got irritated with you because you weren't giving them the room to think it's all.
And you said at the top of the show about being from Belarus or Germany and how people put , uh , are not selfish, they put other people first and being in the United States, I would say , uh, I would say, you know, I think we have a reputation of being selfish over here and , uh , overall general, none there's, I wouldn't say people that I know are selfish because you tend to gravitate towards the people you want to be with, but that's, that's a big , um, that's a big thing when you're dealing
with , uh , other people and try and understand their perspective.
Yeah . Yeah. And for me, the thing is you cannot really understand other people unless you understand yourself. Right . Because what do you see around you? You see sort of the prison of your own values, your own beliefs, your paradigm of thinking and that it colors all, all your interactions. So unless you know yourself quite well, you don't know what's coming to you in a distorted way because of your ways of things, the world, and what comes to you in a meaningful, truthful way.
Right? How do you , uh, when you you're a coach, you have , you mentioned you coach people. How do you, how do you deal with when people may be, I'm a person who maybe, I don't know myself fully, I guess you need to, you need to know yourself first before you can. Uh , how do you , um, any techniques you have that you try to , uh , help people become aware of their self ?
Yes. Um , like a quick disclaimer, it's not a quick process. It takes years of inner work, but of course this is a feedback with a mentor with a coach it's happens faster. Uh, but basically what you do first, you're doing inventory, right? Why would I value in life? What I do, I find important , um, and how may change my beliefs and the next layer you also think about, okay, what do I believe about certain things?
For example , um, I don't know, in , in agile environment though , what do I believe about people around me? What do I believe about the team? Right? What do they believe about management? What they believe about , uh, how communication should work and you kind of take this inventory and try to see how's this beliefs then shape your actual behaviors. Right? So for instance, if I believe that , um, people cannot be trusted at work, right?
Uh, so what would the , uh, because to control things around me is important for me, my value is control , right? And I , um , because of that, I believe often that people needs, I cannot trust them. I need to control them. So what do I do automatically, or , um, consciously I would be controlling in my way of interacting with them. Right. Like I will, I will send them a very specific tasks. I will , uh , be following up with them every hour.
How is it doing if it's not up to my mental image of where should they be? Um, I will get , uh , also anxious and irritated because it's not, I'm not in control anymore. Right. So , um, this kind of a ladder , um, is kind of on the high level, I believe shapes , um , most of our interactions, most of our behaviors and things like that. So as a coalition work with Marie's , uh, um, is my coaching clients and also with my team to some extent, to kind of start from the opposite end, right?
Like you have an action and behavior, what happened and then you start to dig . Okay. What did you think when the attack happened? Right. When you were checking up with this person every hour, what , what caused you to do this? What were you thinking? Right. Right. And then like, okay, what do you believe about people in general? Which causes you thinking this and say like, okay, okay. Why is this belief is important for you? And of course, it's not in most cases, it's not as simple as that.
Uh, but it kind of reflects this review process of re-engineering back to your beliefs and wellness, which are basically mental problems , uh, which we acquired throughout our life.
Oh yeah. It's like, you're just like, you're tearing yourself down right. Completely. And try to, you're getting to the root of it, right?
Yes, yes. Yes. And at some point suddenly everything makes sense. Yeah. So you, you often start to realize why, why, why are not happy at the job, which you are good at gives you a good money, but for some reason you're still not happy. Right. Because probably a not living in one of your wellness , which is something which is important for you. Um, so yeah,
So it sounds like this, as you were talking there, it sounds like , um, I sent some , uh , some , uh, emotional about emotional intelligence, third , you coach to that , uh, when you're, when you work with some of your clients ,
Um , to some extent, yes. Um , um, you, you learn to recognize emotions, especially a lot of us , um, not all of us, people are very, very different. So it really depends. There are people who are very much in their head, very intellectual and rational . Seemingly of course we are all still human beings and we have emotions. It just the question, some people are more familiar with them. Some people are less , uh , but we all have them.
Uh , it doesn't mean that one person is so better than the other, but still like we are different levels and yes, you, you learn to recognize this emotions and , um, see where those emotions are coming from. And they might be , uh , kind of , um, you know , um, pointers where something needs to be looked at. So emotions are often the triggers , um, like to do this inner work, right.
I came to meetings and became upset that something, something going on in my head , um, or in my psyche, which is causing me , uh, like to things this way to feel this way. And then you start digging deeper from that, but it's not as linear as that. You start from emotion or from assault. It depends very much on the person.
So you kind of try to see the whole bean and from a few , which is a human , um, and , uh , from look, look, look at the situation from IRA's perspective and always dig, dig, dig deeper , uh, because we also tend to be very, you know , um, caught up in our cause and effect, simplistic thinking. So , uh, it happens because this, this way, and it should be this way and only this way, which has never,
Right. Yeah. That's like single yeah. Single minded . This is yes, exactly. Yeah. So , um, uplifting, inner work. So is that, does that, does that , um, kind of equate to, you said people , uh , you said something a bit back that caught my interest about , um, the uplift. If you're not happy, you said something about, maybe they're not happy with what they're doing. Maybe their emotions are coming out because maybe, maybe they're not in the right environment.
Is that , is that , that I hear you, right?
Yeah. It might've been my visit case because some sentences environment like is triggered, it triggers oldest patterns. Right . Um, um , like on the surface level we find the, normally we find some kind of excuse, right? Like I'm not happy because I have a bad manager or whatever. Um, and it's a shame that we often stop there , uh, because this buttons are normally not happening on the network .
So if something new is getting triggered, if there is a high chance that you have some kind of belief or value , um, in your upside, Cuba violated, so to speak, and you experienced the same emotions you did in [inaudible] , um , cases in your life, right? Like for example , uh, if somebody cuts you off in line in a supermarket, you get and you have exactly the same feeling when somebody cuts you off, when you try to speak in the meeting. Sure . Yeah .
And if you miss this opportunity to look deeper, okay, why am I getting irritated? You miss a chance to, to, to maybe to remove something which is not serving you. Right. Right. Getting irritated is a reaction. It's unpleasant, normally unpleasant emotion. Right. And we feel it's justified because of this , uh, um , sob in front of me
Or whatever. Right .
But the point is this emotion is not healthy. It's not pleasant for most of the people who are feeling this way. It's not pleasant. I would rather , uh, be Coleman's a situation that doesn't mean I need to approve of behavior. Or I would rather not react to this, like , um , in an angry manner because it eats me up from the inside. And then if I start looking deep and I'm digging deeper, what causes this reaction, I get the chance to work with this. Right. So here comes uplifting part.
So , uh, when I discovered what irritated me at this point, right? Like why I'm feeling angry , um, I have a chance to replace it, right. Like to replace it with another , um, way to react. Right. Um, I can, okay. I might not be wanting to be angry, but at least I want to be neutral. I don't want to feel like, you know , um, maybe a laugh was this guy or girl who cut me out. Um, but at least I don't want to be angry.
So what would, I need to believe about myself to react in this way and what kind of , uh , thinking and reaction do I need to kind of , um, train in myself to not to be angry anymore because I don't want to be angry. It doesn't serve me. Right. Yeah. Um, so, so this is where uplift , uh , part comes because when we, after took taking an inventory and probably inventory will be roughly in two baskets, right?
Like some beliefs in Wells, which Sarah and me, and believe some Wells, which may be not serving me anymore, or at least in this situation. Right . Um, it gives you a chance to revisit them.
Yeah. Do , do you, do you find that , um, Oh, I'm trying to ask here. Do you find that people do people really want to reflect how much, how many people do you think really reflect in where , like, in your example, there, I got mad at someone in there. And do you think people actually reflect upon their behavior and actually want to try to improve? Have you found that in your coaching experience?
Um, it's hard for me to say, to be honest, I think , uh, in coaching , like people self-select , so now normally you cannot coach people who don't want to be coached, who don't want to reflect and who don't want to take this inner sort of responsibility. You can coach them to some extent, but there are limits. Um, and that's like one of , uh, tenants of caution , um , caution requires a commitment from a person who been coached because they are doing the most of the work.
Well, that's true. Yeah. After I asked a question, I just thought of that yet , because you asked , you asked they come to you, they want to be coached. So obviously, yeah ,
Like that said, I'm also a gel coach and I'm surrounded by people in my life who are not my clients, coaching clients. And yeah, I think we are mentally are different levels of self reflection, self reflection , tennis . And I see my role in it is not to like, you know, to preach anything and to teach should be [inaudible] , but at least show them another option. Right.
Like , um, my job in this case, like, for example, if I see my friend get an angle , like we'll ask him, Hey, like, how do you feel? Do you feel good, feeling angry or not? And then it's their choice what to choose, but I will push further, but I can show them an option. Right. It's the reason I was a way of booking it . Um, whether the person will go , um , and dig deeper. It really depends. Of course. Um, I find that at least in agile teams, people tend to self reflect.
I think it's also because we like by nature, agile ease , reflective on a team level. And I think it kind of by osmosis, right. Uh, people pick up the same habits. They start to think in the same manner, what can I learn from it? Right. What can I improve that , uh , improve next time? And we are scrum masters, agile coaches also work with people individually often , uh, trying to give them an option to think differently.
And the good things is reflectiveness is a skill it's , um, it's out of tail-end. Uh , yes, naturally some people have more wit , um, but it's it's um, something you can train.
Yeah. Yeah. I like what you said there, you said , um, kind of , uh, my osmosis and I found , uh , actually one technique I'm trying to use now is I'm trying to, when I come into a new team, I try to figure it either. If I'm not told, sometimes I'm told by management, whoever formed the team coming in, Hey, this person might be a resistor. These people have experienced, and I will , uh , try to filter that out to see what's real.
And I will try to fi I will try to find the people that I feel that are , uh , on my side, as far as agile, scrum, non resistors, and not really use them, but kind of like , uh, have them help. Uh, cause, cause we know that , uh , conversations happen as scrum master the conversations happen behind her, back with the team, especially more now than ever, especially being remote and you hear things.
So I kind of have them reflect the behavior yet to , to their cause they, they know the people probably better than I do if I'm coming in. Like I have a team right now that they all they've been working together for a long years and years. So I'm new, I'm coming in. I'm asking them to act a different way. And uh , I found that if I can find it so to speak a buddy, a proponent who can on my behalf start, Hey, you know, this is what Greg is trying to do.
He's when he says stuff like this, I know it feels weird. And I can say that all day long, but sometimes it comes, it comes better from a different person.
Yes, yes. I can relate to this so much. Yeah . Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I think for us, it's really important. Like , um, to focus, like you said, to focus on proponents a lot and I can relate to this and it's not because a better worse, just because like, this is a bit like a catalyst of change and we want to have role models and we want to , and, and we, we, as a, as a first role model cans in our work, right? Like we want to be a walking example of what we are trying to bring to the team.
Um, and here, like for me, at least personally is in our work, helps to understand others and in both groups and proponents of agile, ways of thinking and also to resistors because they are also all humans . So I'm starting to think if there is somebody resistance. Okay. What, what, what does they might be resistant coming from? Right.
It's probably because , um, we go against what they believe in or , um, they have some fear and um, yeah, just like, sometimes I'm just surprised by the power of just listening. Right. Letting people to speak up and not like preach to them, but just like, okay. Like tell me a little bit like about how you see it and just, just dump on me all, all you really think about this. It's okay. Um , I will not die , uh , from just tell me what you honestly think and if you don't want it, it's fine.
Um, and sometimes like the magic happen because people are not used to be listened to.
Right, right.
So , um, yeah. I think like Zeus understanding for yourself helps you to some, to some extent, relate to other human beings because you realize, okay, is it, does it have a different paradigm probably , uh , compared to me, but in general , um, I can't, I could put myself in their shoes and understand them and , and understanding them. I can also bring my point better. Yeah. I found
That a fear, you mentioned fear. Fear is , uh , I've found that to be , uh , a big motivating factor to resisting. Um , and I guess I kind of can be selfish a little bit that they don't fear of change, fear of the unknown. Maybe they, like you said, maybe they know they've heard about it before they've been through it. And yeah. I always tell people on my team, I say, you're not going to hurt my feelings. Tell me, tell me that it sucks. Tell me that.
And then tell me why, you know, I'm going to ask back to you why I have a lot of people when I'm asking them, I'm asking them to do the events in scrum and they always want to know why, why are we doing this? And I explained the value to it. So I turn it around and say, why are you, why are you afraid of this? Because yeah. Some people, it usually that anger usually comes out in anger, sometimes explosive anger from some people.
And they just, they're just venting and resisting every single thing I try to put out there. It's, it's that, it's that fear it's that, that resistance to change. Some people are afraid their jobs are going to go away. Cause they don't, you know , they don't see certain , uh, I don't see a project manager in, in your scrum guide. Greg, does that mean my job goes away? Things like that.
Yes. Yes. So is this understanding of what people are going through in their head , uh, helps you to relate better and creates a safety for them to speak up and find a different perspective together, right? Yeah. Uh , yeah. And it's also interesting that you mentioned about the scrum guide and this , this is a beautiful , like to me, of course I might be completely wrong. It's the beauty of nature. It's kind of the same pattern of values, beliefs and behaviors you see on, on a team level. Right?
Like I was talking about as individual, we have our, what what's important for us, how well is which shapes our beliefs. Um , basically, and , and we see the world through , um, through the prism of our beliefs and this is shapes our behaviors and actions same happens for the team. Right then can scrum was designed with specific values to shape specific behaviors.
So you could bring this also like to managers who don't like while like in [inaudible] fluffy and practical, but magical , but in the end they shape how people behave at work. Right. So like, it's just so beautiful to see this kind of reflection of , um, microcosm of individual and team level and then on framework or framework level as well. So yeah .
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. This has been awesome. Yeah. So anything else around selflessness versus uplifting, inner work that, yeah, but we didn't talk
Much about selfishness, I guess go back to that. Let's go back to selfishness. Yeah. So like maybe my main Greg and Greg question to you, what do you consider selfish, for example, when working on yourself
Selfish. So first thing that comes to mind is putting myself first, meaning that , um, what an example would be. So like if I'm putting my, putting myself first above others in, it can be anything, just not thinking of others, thinking of my own, wants and needs , uh , ahead of like, if there's a, I don't know, something simple, like one piece of pizza left and maybe I'm still hungry and somebody else wants it too . And I say, no, I want it.
I take that now all I start eating, Oh, that's selfish. Right. I knew, I knew I knew somebody else wanted it, but I didn't care. So I took it anyway, that to me, that would seem selfish.
So it's like , um, it sounded like almost like consciously excluding others , you know, that I needed, but like , um , my interests come first. Correct. Yeah. And that grease has come , come selfish. But , um, and when we come from about like, self-development, it often happens that we think that about thinking about ourselves is already selfish and we , we kind of lose the sides that we don't exclude others. Right. And we, we kind of, nobody, nobody suffers from us being a better human.
Somehow I think part of our brain makes us like unconscious conclusion. Okay. I'm thinking about myself. So this is automatically , um , kind of selfish , uh , while you're thinking about yourself, not excluding others. Right ? Yeah. And sometimes I find that also excluding yourself can be also selfish because it brings suffering to people around you. Right. Your mother wouldn't be happy if you went hungry.
Uh, and didn't eat the piece of pizza because we wanted everybody else , um , for cure , she would give it to you. And if you declined, she, she would be
Sad .
So yeah. Yeah. It's the world is not like invite of course. Um, but I think it's very tricky. Our ego is very tricky and it uses this mental shortcuts to put the same level or two completely different things because it'll look kind of similar.
Oh, completely. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm , I, well, I, I would assume it's as I've gotten older, because I think back when I was a child, I don't, you know, I would say I've definitely was selfish. I can, I can. And I think that, you know, everybody says that, I don't know if you're a parent, but everyone says, and I have, I have children. So when you, when you become a parent for the first time you realize that most selfishness leaves you almost immediately.
And it , yeah, it did for me because now you have somebody else that needs you, that relies upon you. You can no longer be selfish because you're caring for somebody else. So in that I always come back to that. I was like, yeah, people are like, Oh, once you have kids, you know, you, you change and you do. But when, when you're, when you're a child, like I look at, I look at kids, even my own kids. And I'm like, well, that was selfish. You're out. Of course they're only out for themselves.
Cause that's all they have to take care of. They're they're going to, I think maybe by nature, maybe we are, we're selfish people, you know, different degrees, not, I can't, I can't blanket say everyone's selfish, but by certain degrees when we're young, we are by nature selfish. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, well I think there is a lot of , um , um, CRA around this, right? Like why we are, because of, based on our animalistic instincts as well, which are self-centered . And without them, we wouldn't be here probably,
Probably
Worth acknowledging and maybe not making them evil, but also being aware of them because yeah, they're all tendencies and we all, as human beings have them, but most of us , um, managed to , um, well , um, have capacity to outgrow them. Um, I believe at least in the environments we are talking about in our countries , um, where we are not basically in the need of physicals for awhile or all the time. Right .
Uh , and that sets, I think , um, we sometimes don't recognize our selfish BK behaviors because we think that we are selfless doing them. So like, I could bring you an example when I was , um, uh , chief technical officer , um, and , uh, I've focused a lot on problem solving for my teams because I thought I was helping them and this was the best way , um, for me to help them. And I kind of closed myself to hearing them out because then you better, you know, like, yeah, I knew everything better.
So I'm post , uh , my own solutions. I kind of inhibited learning. Uh, and didn't, didn't let the teams fail because, and I was thinking that I'm serving and I was doing this because I wanted them to see a hero on me and it wasn't conscious.
But in retrospect, I realized this was to some extent, selfish behavior, this like, you know, hero , uh, instead of , um, being the partner of my team, I was a hero who wanted to save them and maybe subconsciously also put them in into like this situation when they needed savings . So it's , it's a very tricky topics and Selfless and selfish as well.
Oh yeah. That the hero of the soup . Yeah. We've heard of those people and that the hero. Yeah. And that , um, you just brought that up for me. The, you said you were at an executive level, so yeah, that is , um , cause I mean, let's all face it. They didn't get there. They didn't just magically get there because, Oh , they were a nice guy and they just, you know, most of them, they, they were selfish. They climbed right. That corporate ladder, so to speak, they got up there.
It was all about them. And they got to that point because they knew all the answers. They were the ones out there helping. Right. They were driving it and they were a driver. Right. And now, now we're asking them, enter agile. Now we're asking them to flip it around and say, Oh wait, you don't have all the answers anymore. The team has the answers. You're , you're not the hero. We need you to support the team, be a servant leader.
So I was talking with a friend the other day and he actually told me he was talking with the C-level person and , and he said , um, I'm, nobody's servant leader. And you know, I , I didn't, I didn't reach this level to be anybody's servant leader. I , you know, I basically, he was out for himself. He climbed the ladder to get to that level. And he's not here to be anybody's servant leader.
So yeah, that is that right there I found is so that type of attitude is so very, very difficult when, when I encounter, when I deal with people at that level directors on up, it's really hard to overcome that because they've been so selfish throughout their careers, in my opinion.
Well, as a reason may be another way of looking at this. Uh , and it's, again, it's probably a case by case basis because I, for example, I didn't have to climb a ladder. Our , um , company was quite small, but yes, I got there because I was good at what I do. Um, and I just sincerely believes this is the best way. Right. Um, and I was fortunate to be surrounded by people, mentors who showed me to be, to be a bit more humble. Um, and those people that might not have such people, right.
It's also environment who surrounds us. And we often like also, like I find myself this tendency to antagonize specific people and lenses, part of inner work for me comes out. Right, right . It behaves this way. Yes. And it leads to this behaviors, but how can I see this in a way, which is serving me, I'm not making me angry and frustrated with them, but also maybe seeing an option out, maybe it's a reasonable option out. Um, I don't have in glasses, but also interacting with this people.
How can I see the world in there ? Um, from Xero standpoint and how can I maybe stand next to them and like, try to, Hey, look at it. You're right. A little bit, if you see it at this angle, what do you see? And not just automatically put this , um, you know , in the categories as well, you know, just people are so selfish, they will never be able to look at things differently. Maybe they won't maybe say we'll . Um,
Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't, that's another fine line too . I , I don't like to give up on people. I don't like to think they'll never change. I've come across. Maybe a few people at only a few times in my career have , has someone had to leave the team because they just, they were not changing. They've been given eventually at some point, the man, the management gives up and they pull the cord on this person and sometimes it has to happen, unfortunately.
But I prefer to take, the other approach we're saying is to try to work with the person and try to help them understand as long as they're not disruptive to the team. And , uh , and as long as they get enough of it, I'm willing to work with them. Yeah .
And I said, Greg, I agree. In some cases, it's, it's just not a battle to fight for you. Right. Especially if you start feeling bitter and then like, I don't know . Uh, we, we tend to often focus on problems and help seeing , um, the good around us.
So for example, we may focus so much on problematic team , problematic in quotes team member that we forget to work with people who are actually helping the team, like, you know , um, being, being a good team members , um , good performance and it just drains the energy. So I think it's like you said, there is a fine line. Um , but also having this benefit of the doubt. I really love society is yourself. I prefer to , uh , trust people first and prove me wrong.
Yeah, I do too. I've gotten burned. Sometimes I would have, if I'm honest, I would have to say, I'm trying to be in the middle where I still like to trust people in the beginning. Uh , because you know, there's people out there who I know plenty of people who I'm sure, sure. To you who they meet you, they don't trust you right away. You have to earn that trust. Right. And, and you're thinking what's wrong with this person. I keep trying to tie and they keep shutting me down.
And uh , and then once you get to know them, you realize, and they may even say to you, you know what, I don't, I don't trust people right away. I'm just naturally distrustful. But , um, I I've, as I've gotten older, I've gotten, I would probably say maybe a little, maybe not as naive, I guess might be the word a little less trusting, but I still prefer to give people the benefit of the towel and trust them and yeah. Uh , you can still get burned, but , um, that's just the way I am.
I realized , well, I think you got maybe this sermon because I also believe that it's not all, you know, pink roses and hypey go live. And I believe many people there are not trusting you and they will never trust you. And you cannot change that people around you. Um, I really like, I'm also learning it. I'm probably younger than you much younger than yours . Uh, but I, I believe like this. Yeah. We sometimes like tend to be naive because of he deals.
Um, but that said, I would prefer like, you know, even if, so I see the, okay, this person can trust me. I still want to see them as human. And maybe like, yeah, you know, let's let it go. Like, okay, I won't put much effort, you know , working , but I don't need to make an enemy of this person from it . So , um, and that makes , helps me maybe a bit selfish, but it really helps me because oldest the resentments, they , I think, I believe they drain us much more .
It's exhausting. It is exhausting being mad at someone or in you're . Right. Yeah. There , there , I heard someone, what did I heard someone say something about there's overheard someone saying there's really no, there's really no good reason to burn a bridge with somebody. And this person's been even though a person or a company, even though that they thought that, you know, maybe they felt that this person or company did them wrong. They still were not going to burn that bridge.
They were going to , uh, you know, not, not be the person that ended the relationship they were going to try. Um, so yeah. Um, great, great. This has been a great conversation. Anything to be , did we hit on selfishness enough Where we selfish enough to take the time? Well, this has been great. I really appreciate your time, Elena . Once again, our guest today has been Elena [inaudible] again, I probably butchered your name, software engineer, agile coach, and downright awesome human beings.
So , uh, Elena, how can we , um, if our guests want to get ahold of you, you said you can get ahold of you on LinkedIn. Any other ways they can get ahold of you?
Um, well the best way would probably be to connect to me and no worries about batching my name. Um, even in Belarus, people budget my names and it's so complicated. So you can just look me up on LinkedIn and it's the best way to find everything about end-user . Um, but otherwise , um, I'm always happy to connect with other humans because I'm really, really fascinated by , um, everything and everyone around me. Um,
Great. And , uh , uh, for the people out here, if you need to know how to spell her name, I will have , um, her name spelled in, look for the notes for the podcast or the transcripts, or I'll have her LinkedIn out there. So you guys can see how to, how to spell her name. Uh, so you don't butcher it. And she said, it's pretty easy to find. She's probably the only one on LinkedIn. That's yeah .
Exact first and last name.
Right? Exact , exact last name. Yes. So just put in Elena P and Mike pop right up. Right. So awesome. Thank you for your time. This has been the agile within , uh, Greg , uh, reach. You can reach out to us. Uh, anybody wants to get ahold of me. It's gregMiller@theagilewithin.com is my email. Please email me with show suggestions, comments, again, any of the podcasts you listen to give us feedback. Their comments always appreciate that.
I do have a Twitter handle the agile within Facebook, the agile within, and I do have a website, the agile within.com. Thank you for listening everybody. Uh , this has been Greg at the agile within where we help you to be more agile.
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