March 26, 2025 • 26 mins
Some work is easy to measure—deadlines met, projects delivered, goals achieved. But what about the work that holds everything together?
In this episode, Indra and Amanda discuss their journey of recognizing Glue Work—the often invisible tasks that keep teams functioning but rarely get acknowledged. They share how naming this work was a crucial first step and explore strategies to make it visible, valued, and a recognized part of career growth.
This is just the beginning of a much bigger conversation—because no one should have to choose between doing the work that keeps teams thriving and getting ahead in their career.
Helpful Links
- For more about the Glue Work Framework, including upcoming webinars: www.thegluework.com
- Indra's latest blog post about the Glue Work Framework: https://medium.com/@indrapendence/making-the-invisible-work-count-1f7dcb9f794c
- The Messy Middle Matters Glossary: www.themessymiddlematters.com/glossary
- Feedback for Indra & Amanda: www.themessymiddlematters.com/feedback
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Indra Klavins (00:06):
I'm Indra,
Amanda Jane Lee (00:08):
and I'm Amanda,
Indra Klavins (00:10):
and we'd like to welcome you to the messy middle
matters. Hi, Amanda. How are youtoday? I'm good. How are you
Indra? Good. Today we're goingto talk about one of our
favorite things, talking aboutthe invisible work, and how the
things that people take care ofthat you don't actually realize
(00:31):
in the workplace, and makingsure that people can get
rewarded for it. So I'm superexcited. I'm super excited me
too,
Amanda Jane Lee (00:38):
making the invisible work
Indra Klavins (00:40):
visible make oh, maybe, maybe I like that. Bring
it. Bring it to the forefront.Bring it to the forefront. So
Amanda, tell me about you know,I know that you've lived this
over and over again. Tell me anexample of like, invisible work
that you've done that may or maynot get rewarded within your
organization, that somethingthat's not necessarily part of
your job description.
Amanda Jane Lee (01:00):
Yeah. Yeah. What comes to mind is new hire
onboarding, but not just thehere's where you can find all
the documents and all theresources, and here's here's the
IT person, and here's how youcreate a ticket. But more like
just making new hires feelwelcome, setting up the informal
meet and greet, getting to knowyou as a person, letting them
(01:21):
know. You know, my virtual dooris always open for questions,
for anything, just for moralsupport as you drink from the
fire hose, of being a new personat work. And it's something that
I've done it, I think every joband it's it's invisible work,
(01:44):
especially when the company doesnot have a formal like
onboarding buddy program, right?It's if a company doesn't have
that sort of formalizedstructure and program, it's
somebody else's job to make surethat the new hire feels
onboarded and welcome and likebeing brought into the
(02:06):
community.
Indra Klavins (02:07):
Yeah, and I think that you know a lot of let's,
let's assume a company has an HRteam, because you're talking to
our listeners, maybe fromcompanies of all different
shapes and sizes, right? Butlet's assuming that there's an
HR team. The HR team is reallygood at taking care of some of
the practicalities of makingsure that you as an employee get
paid and have access to theabsolute fundamentals. But
(02:32):
there's so much more. There's somuch more. And then you know the
shame of it is, is that whenpeople take on this kind of
invisible work, sometimes calledGlue work. When somebody takes
that on that's counts, thatdoesn't count, as far as when
you're looking at quarterlyreviews or year end promotion
cycles or bonus cycles, orwhatever, any of those types of
(02:54):
things, when the person, thethings that a person might be
the most proud of, might wind upbeing this invisible glue work.
But it's not, they can't get thethey can't elevate themselves
because of this great glue workthat's really important to the
organization, because itactually gels a team, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (03:10):
And it not to mention it takes time and
energy, that kind of time andenergy, right? And that time and
energy can be spent doing otherthings, but it's this type of
thing, using new hire onboardingand making people feel welcome
as an example. To your point, isso crucial to team building
Indra Klavins (03:31):
100% and like, and when you're talking about
some teams that have morespecific skills, taking them
away from like, if I'm thinkingabout like an engineering team,
you and I have, over the courseof our careers, have had a
chance to work more deeply withengineers than some others,
maybe have. But like you'rethinking about people who are
creating code, what they'reobsessed about is, you know,
(03:52):
making sure the code is checkedin, that they've done their
story points is a bunch ofjargon that you don't need to
really worry about. Just likeit's a to do list, they make
sure that their engineering todo list is done right? But they
don't always think about all thelittle odds and ends of the
stuff that never made it on todo list, like, everyone's like,
Oh no, no, no, let's not clutterour to do list with all those
little things. We'll know to doit well, we know to do it, but
(04:14):
we didn't write it down on alist. And so and that the things
that aren't written down on thelist are often the ones that are
not in that career progressionchart that is used for
determining who's ready for apromotion, who's ready for who,
who's qualifies for a largerincentive, etc, etc. And that's
really, it's really frustrating,and it can cause like you can
(04:34):
have an attrition risk, andthat's really a big problem.
Attrition is when somebodyleaves a company, right? And so,
you know, and when you lose thatperson who's being that glue,
your team culture can fallapart, you know? It's because
the person who's taking out careof all the odds and ends is
gone, and nobody even knew halfof the things that they were
doing. So, yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (04:53):
and that's why I especially like the term glue
work, because it is glue. It'sthe glue holding the team
together. It's all of the it'sthe person who is picking up all
the odds and ends, who's takingthe meeting notes, who's, you
know, cleaning up outdateddocumentation. It's, it's all of
the things that don't make itonto the formal to do list,
(05:14):
right?
Indra Klavins (05:15):
And, and, you know, the the reality, like I
said, I don't know if I saidthis in this conversation or in
a previous conversation. If youdon't measure it, it doesn't
matter, right? That's a veryreal reality in the business
world. If it's not beingmeasured, it's it's
inconsequential. It cannot helpyou. It might satisfy something
(05:35):
within you intrinsically, butit's not going to help you move
yourself up that career ladderor move laterally, or wherever
you want to go in your in yourparticular career. So here's the
good news folks. Here's the goodnews folks. Amanda and I were
there at the Genesis last lastepisode. For those of you who
listened, heard a little bitabout this, but we're at the
(05:57):
genesis of what we're nowcalling the glue work framework.
What it is is a tool that youcan use as a addition. It's a it
can integrate into your careerladders. People managers don't
sweat. I will. I've got you, butwe're going to put that later.
We need to explain what it isbefore you start freaking about
how I'm going to do it. But wehave something that you can
(06:18):
really implement in yourorganization pretty easily. You
know, simple isn't always easy.Easy, but it's a pretty simple
tool. And what we can do, yeah,let's just walk through it.
Let's talk through some of thepillars that we have within
that, in that framework. Sofirst one is caring about the
collective. This is thefoundation. This is the
foundation. This is the Amanda.I acknowledge that you are a
(06:40):
human being who works with me,and you might have different
wants, needs, desires, thingsthat motivate you, things that
you're interested in gettingdone in different ways of
working because of so manydifferent things like and that's
that, that's step one. That'sthe point. And I think that
every that's understanding thatand acknowledging that we're not
all automatons that are or thateveryone is just like me, is the
(07:04):
foundation of this all, andeveryone from an intern all the
way to your most seniorexecutive, is completely capable
of doing this.
Amanda Jane Lee (07:10):
Yeah. And to add, not just being aware that
you're, you know, we're not allrobots, we're all people with
varying perspectives andexperiences, but also being
aware that we are part of anecosystem. It's not just 100%
Indra Klavins (07:26):
100% and like. And I think that this is, I
mean, I think this is adifferent topic for a different
episode, but sometimes evenlike, within organizations, this
is much bigger. I'm going tokeep myself from going off
topic, but I will explain whatI'm like different people in
different teams, even with anengineering team, like, since
we're using engineering as anexample, like, even within
(07:46):
different teams might havedifferent interests that they're
trying to advance, or differentdepartments in the organization
might have different interests.In this context, we're talking
about individuals, but this cango even a step higher than that,
yeah, 100%
Amanda Jane Lee (07:59):
100 Yes, just it making sure that you
understand there is a collectiveI do not imagine caring about
it,
Indra Klavins (08:08):
yeah, giving a hoot about it, and paying
attention to it, and seeing,seeing, like, oh, Amanda said
that differently than I did,huh? I wonder why? Taking a beat
and just being like, that'scurious, like, with curiosity,
not judgment, right? Yep, that'sthe key. That's the key, you
know. And you know, because Ithink with you can go from
curiosity to judgment, butfirst, be curious. First be
(08:29):
curious. I understand why. Okay,so that's our foundation.
Everyone in an organizationshould be capable of something
of that nature, right? Next stepis caring for the collective.
That's taking the steps to takecare of the people around you,
right? That's making sure thatthe team is stronger and more
(08:50):
cohesive. Yeah? Thoughts on thecaring for the collective. Yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (08:56):
I think it's the it's the glueiest of the
glue work. I think it's themessy middle of this one, right?
Yes, it's the messy middle ofthis Yeah, it's, you know, it's
doing the things like I, youknow, like I described at the
beginning of this episode of,you know, just checking in with
(09:16):
people and and ensuring thateveryone feels like they belong,
and making and making theeffort, taking the action,
caring for your community, yourteammates, your your collective.
Indra Klavins (09:33):
Yeah. And the one thing that I want to clarify for
anyone listening, Amanda and Iknow each other well, the one
thing that I want to make surethat we're and so I understand
this, and I want to make sure,and some of the words that I
said earlier may not make itclear to others, right? You know
that we're not, we're notsuggesting that work people are
your family. Like, that's,that's a whole, you know, the
(09:55):
fact that, like, this is yourwork. Like, okay, we're all
colleagues. Like, they. Caring.You can still care about people
and keep it completelyprofessional, like I imagine in
the military. You can actuallystill complete your mission.
And, you know, I mean, thosestakes are a little bit higher,
so they do have a little bitanyway for people,
Amanda Jane Lee (10:14):
caring for people and about people as
people,
Indra Klavins (10:17):
as people, as people, right? And, you know,
it's, it's, you know, it isgenerally this caring for the
collective, the the expectation,it's not isolated this, but the
expectation is that this is muchmore of a mid to more senior
roles that often take this on,right? I think that on the more,
on, on the everyone side need tobe thoughtful in your
(10:39):
communication, right? If acertain particular word will set
a particular person off, andthere are 50 other alternatives
that are purple, perfectly fine.Use a different word. Use a
different word, as long as it'snot, you know, something that's
causing just use a differentword. Like those things are so
simple. But then there's, youknow, when you're at the mid
(11:00):
career stage. You can be one ofthe people when there is one of
these pieces of orphan work thatwe talked about, things that,
you know, just no one, no no onehas been explicitly assigned,
you know, pick that thing up.Don't expect someone else to
take that on, right? I thinkthat it just, it needs to be a
shared it needs to be a sharedresponsibility, something like
the orphan work, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (11:19):
The orphaned work, the the digital paperwork,
Indra Klavins (11:24):
all the things like release notes, right? Like,
you know, or who's typing upwho's taking up meeting notes.
Like, what are our takeawaysfrom this meeting like, we could
have an entire episode onmeeting notes, yes, oh my
goodness. And I think thatthere's also, I'm just checking
my notes to make sure, becausethis is a complex topic here,
folks. So you know, some of theother stuff is, is making sure
(11:45):
that everyone's had a chance tospeak and be heard, right? You
know it's, it's Yeah, because,like, sometimes the quietest
people on a team are the mosthave some of the most profound
insights, because they'resitting back and they're
watching, yep,
Amanda Jane Lee (12:00):
the people who just observe what's going on,
and because they are payingattention, they're listening to
listen and not listening torespond. Yes, I've found that
the quietest people in themeeting are often the ones who
have the most profound insights.Yes, 100%
Indra Klavins (12:23):
and I say that the last thing, which is much
more for, like, the lastcategory of kind of stuff, is
more for, like, the senior teammembers, which is like, every
team will wind up in a scenario,because we're, again, we're
flawed human beings working withother flawed human beings. You
know, somebody will make amistake, and there'll be
tensions, and somebody will saysomething, and you know, you can
(12:44):
feel the tension in the room,the more senior folks who have
been who've been trained inthis, whose responsibility this
is, you know, they can interceptthat stuff. They can be like,
hey, hey, hey, hold on, deepbreath. Everyone. Time out, time
out, time out, or, like, call itinto a meeting when it's getting
off the rails, whatever it is,to make sure that whatever is
(13:04):
happening at this moment doesn'tcause an irreparable or a long,
lasting break within that teamand then in that instructor,
right? Or like allowing thingsto fester fester. We don't want
festering. Amanda and I are goodat making sure that we don't let
things fester between the two ofus. I'm proud of us. Yeah. Okay.
And then the last one is the,like, the last pillar. So we had
(13:27):
caring about the collective. Soacknowledge that there are
people around me caring for thecollective. I'm making sure that
I'm taking care of the peoplearound me, or the, you know, in
the in the way that'sappropriate to my role, right?
It's not, it's not everyone's tolift in the same way. And then
there's those are bothrelatively reactive, right? Then
there's the proactive one,creating the collective I think
(13:49):
this might be my favorite,because it's, it allows you to,
it's about setting, setting theintention, setting the culture,
setting things before things gosideways like this is where you
know Amanda you're talkingabout, like onboarding, like
making sure that everyone hasthe onboarding materials.
Goodness gracious. I mean, a lotof organizations don't have
(14:11):
onboarding materials. So in thein the absence of that, you have
someone like an Amanda sit downwith you and say, Hey, let me
give you all this stuff that Iknow about,
Amanda Jane Lee (14:20):
right? Let me give you all the stuff that I
know about, and let me share thetribal knowledge with you that
isn't documented anywhere,right?
Indra Klavins (14:29):
And you know, this is also like the creating
of the collective. Is also wherethe implementation of like a
tool like the one we're talkingabout is just one example where
you can create a truemeritocracy, like the word
meritocracy has been the meaningof the word meritocracy has been
misunderstood over the course oftime. It's eroded. But a true
(14:51):
meritocracy allows everyone'svalue to be counted and for
everyone to and to measurethings objectively. Right?
Right? And so I kind of, I kindof love that one. I kind of love
that one. Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (15:04):
I love what you said about creating the culture,
right? Culture is, is such aloaded term, but there's culture
everywhere. There's there'scompany culture, there's team
culture, there's the culture of,you know, communication between
teams. And this last category,this pillar of creating the
(15:25):
collective, is creating thatculture and establishing the
norms and the rules and creatingthat space and and just setting,
setting the stage for for whatthat culture is and what it can
become 100%
Indra Klavins (15:42):
I was trying to look up to see if I could
remember. It made me think of aquote, culture eats strategy for
breakfast. I don't remember herif we first said that, but, but
that is right, like, there's somany different facets, or
there's so many differentcontextual versions of culture.
Like, you know, we think ofculture as something that comes
from a, from a from a, maybe aparticular country, but there
(16:04):
are cultures and subcultures andsub sub cultures, that will,
that will, that will naturallydevelop when human beings get
together, when human beings gettogether. So, yeah, I think that
there, you know, and there's,there's a lot of pieces to this
puzzle, and we're trying to giveeverybody a really brief
overview of what this is, and solike over the course, I will
(16:26):
give you some resources on howto learn more about this tool,
because we are trying to keepour episodes of 30 minutes and
completely understandablewithout a 500 visuals and
walking you through stuff andwhatever. But the thing that
we've we really once, once thisgroup of individuals of which
Amanda and I were part of,figured out that the things that
(16:49):
were this invisible work, thisglue work that was being cared
for, fell into these threecategories that was step one for
us, and figuring out, like what,what behaviors and what types of
examples, like examples of workcould fall in each of these. The
next step for us was to reallytalk about how this could get
(17:09):
integrated into your careerladder, and the way that we
approached it was really prettystraightforward. It was pretty
straightforward. We were able tobreak things up into career
phases so you've got your,everyone's responsible from your
earliest intern career phase. Imean, that's, that's a career
phase, plus everyone, right? Andso these are additive, as I'm
(17:29):
speaking about them. So thefirst one is for everyone,
starting with your your freshestgraduate, or, you know, from
school intern. Next one is forthe people who are in the middle
of their career stage or themiddle of the career ladder,
right? So there's, there'sanother category for of types of
things that are expectationsthat we would have of them. Then
(17:52):
there's stuff for your seniorfolks, and then for your
executives. And so by breakingout, and you heard some of the
examples today by breaking outthese tasks and identifying what
the expectations are for aparticular type of task or item
or expectation across thesedifferent career stages, you can
(18:14):
actually then take theseexpectations and map them to
Every single role in yourorganization, right? And make
that work, like I said, notcompletely measurable, like you
can check up, yeah, did so? Didyou pick up a single piece of
glue work or something? Did youpick up a single piece of orphan
work this quarter? Yes, no,that's data, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (18:37):
It's data. And you know, back to what you said
earlier about measuring whatmatters, you know, adding it to,
having it be an add on to theexisting career ladder, makes it
a conversation piece duringreview time 100
Indra Klavins (18:54):
it's not a separate thing, right? It's
about, it's all about theintegration. Yeah, it's exactly
that. It's exactly that. It'sthe integration into existing
tools and processes that's justso critical for it because and
then, not only does the personwho's in who has historically
because of intrinsic rewardsystems that they have of
(19:16):
helping others, right? Not onlydo they get the value of being
measured, because you'vedistributed this responsibility
and made it visible across everysingle role, across the entire
organization, your risk as acompany is actually reduced as
well, because if you only haveone Amanda in your company, and
(19:37):
I keep on using your namebecause you're right in front of
me, right, but if you only haveone, Amanda your company, and
she's the keeper of the cultureand all the tribal knowledge and
the everything, and Amanda, youknow, hits the lottery and
decides to go surf in Hawaii forthe rest of her life, right?
What do you do? You know, it'syes, Amanda might be taking on
(19:58):
more of this invisible glue.Work just naturally because of
her role, because of hertemperament, because of who she
is. But if you distribute someof this across the rest of your
organization, you reduce thatrisk. So, like, that's like a
like, a nice little bonus, andit changes everyone's behavior.
I would love to
Amanda Jane Lee (20:17):
hit the lottery and move to Hawaii and surf
every day, just to be clear, butyeah, it is a risk mitigation
strategy.
Indra Klavins (20:27):
Yeah, and like, and you're so you're you're
increasing your retention, youare decreasing your risk, and
you're surfacing work that'sinvisible. And I'm thinking,
like, as a people leader, themore I can see the invisible
work, the more I understand myorganization, how it runs. And I
might, you know, like, let'slet's be very honest, some of
(20:47):
this invisible work might notgenuinely be that valuable. It
might be something that person Xvalues, because they really love
knitting, and they're runningthis knitting circle, you know,
every Thursday during lunch.That's great. I'm really happy
for you, but I can make itreally clear to them. I'm like,
I understand that you'rebuilding culture, and that's
really wonderful, but that'sreally not contributing to the
(21:09):
bottom line. I can help themredirect that energy if they
want to to something that doescontribute, or say, hey, they're
like, I love doing this. I don'tcare if I get rewarded for or
not. Like, I love mind knittinggreat. It just it brings a lot
of things out of the corners andto the surface. So you can have
a dialog, help shape someone'scareer and help them understand
(21:30):
why they are or are not thrivingand succeeding in the
organization the way that theymight want to.
Amanda Jane Lee (21:36):
Right by making this invisible work or this glue
work visible, you're creatingclarity. You're setting
expectations. And I think, youknow, it's, it's such a valuable
thing to somebody's career toknow, to know what the
expectations are for, what theircurrent role is, what it would
take to get to the next level.And you know, if part of that is
(21:59):
doing the glue work, theinvisible work, and, you know,
keeping keeping the culturealive and getting rewarded for
that?
Indra Klavins (22:09):
Yeah, great. Yeah. Because, I mean, I'm
thinking back to, like, some ofthe more frustrating
conversations I've had in mypast with some of my people
leaders. I'm like, like, Indra,why you're taking on all this
stuff, because I tend to be apicker upper of drop things that
have value, right? I Don't hoardmy thing. Well, I don't,
generally Don't hoard my things,but, like, I will. I also don't
(22:30):
like sharing burdens withpeople. But I'm like, I I would
pick them up, and they're like,why are you doing it? Because
you're not getting measured, andno one else is doing it. I'm
like, but it needs to be done.Like, I agree that it needs to
be done, but why are you the onedoing it? I'm like, because it
needs to
Amanda Jane Lee (22:43):
be, it needs to be done. If it's not me, then
who
Indra Klavins (22:47):
we're not going to launch without it. And, you
know, and so, but that's but thegood news is that, you know,
with my, some of my betterpeople managers have had,
they're like, Okay, I see whyyou're doing this. Like, let's
talk through the stuff thatyou're doing. Okay, you've got a
list of five things. You gottaelicit five things. Of those
five things, three of them aremission critical. Two of them
you can drop and see who picksthem up and let them because if
(23:08):
you keep on fixing everyoneelse's problems, they'll never
pick it up themselves, like, oh,okay, never learn
Amanda Jane Lee (23:15):
to pick it up, and they'll never learn how to
do the thing that they'repicking up,
Indra Klavins (23:19):
right? But like this. This framework that you
can add to integrate into yourexisting career ladder will help
to facilitate that discussion,like with all of your team
members make, make thateveryone's responsibility, or at
least surface the fact thatthey're not doing it. If you, if
you decide that person X, theynever have to worry about any of
this stuff. Know that, and knowit intentionally, and the data
(23:42):
will remind you of that, likeI'm letting that person not have
to have any of theseresponsibilities, and I am very
clear on the reasons why I do ordo not let that person do that,
right? You know, I'm making itsuper, super clear. So,
Amanda Jane Lee (23:56):
yeah, we said clear and clarity a lot, and I
think that's enoughtransparency.
Indra Klavins (24:02):
Yeah, hey. But you, like you said, we're
breaking the invisible work tobe invisible. So this is, this
is a deep, deep, deep, richconversation. You know, there's
a lot of different pieces ifyou're thinking about doing
something like this in yourorganization. So have a couple
of resources that we're going toput into the into the show
notes. So on, all the majorbroadcasters that have the
(24:25):
things. And if you can't findit, just go to our web page. And
I'm sure you'll be able to findit. But our website, by the way,
the messy middle matters.com,that's in general for this
specifically, the best place toget to learn a little bit more
is to go to the glue work.comit'll direct you to a single
page that I have on my website.And what it what you'll find
(24:47):
there is a link to a blog postthat goes into this a little bit
a little bit more structuredway. So if you want to share the
information with someone, somepeople are readers, some people
are listeners. I've got a Mediumpost out there for. Two and
there's an also an opportunityto sign up for to sign up for
webinars, or if you'reinterested in actually having a
(25:09):
consultative conversation, thatopportunity is there too. So
again, so about this particulartopic, the glue work.com will
direct you to a page with allsorts of all sorts of tidbits of
information, and if you'reinterested in the podcast, in
general, the messy middle.comthe messy middle matters.com.
Messy middle matters.com becauseit matters. Amanda and it
(25:31):
matters.
Amanda Jane Lee (25:32):
It does matter. But yes, Indra, to your just to
echo, if this is helpful to you,go check out the resources. If
this, if you think this will behelpful to someone you know,
share the resources. Share ourpodcast, share the gluework.com,
Indra Klavins (25:47):
100% and you know, and if you want to, yes,
use that form. Let me know.There's a place to add notes on
that form submission. So if youwant anything more on this
topic, you can add that there.But I don't know any other
closing thoughts, Amanda, beforewe we sign off for the day. No,
I think this is a good, a goodtime to wrap up the overview.
(26:10):
I'm sure we'll, we'll dive intosome of this in future episodes.
But yeah, I think we're, I thinkwe're good here, yay. Well,
thank you all for listening.Thank you, Amanda, for being my
partner in crime and all this.And we look forward to hearing
you hearing from us the nexttime when we talk about another
part of the messy middle. Bye,everyone. Thanks. Bye. You.
I'm Indra,
Amanda Jane Lee (00:08):
and I'm Amanda,
Indra Klavins (00:10):
and we'd like to welcome you to the messy middle
matters. Hi, Amanda. How are youtoday? I'm good. How are you
Indra? Good. Today we're goingto talk about one of our
favorite things, talking aboutthe invisible work, and how the
things that people take care ofthat you don't actually realize
(00:31):
in the workplace, and makingsure that people can get
rewarded for it. So I'm superexcited. I'm super excited me
too,
Amanda Jane Lee (00:38):
making the invisible work
Indra Klavins (00:40):
visible make oh, maybe, maybe I like that. Bring
it. Bring it to the forefront.Bring it to the forefront. So
Amanda, tell me about you know,I know that you've lived this
over and over again. Tell me anexample of like, invisible work
that you've done that may or maynot get rewarded within your
organization, that somethingthat's not necessarily part of
your job description.
Amanda Jane Lee (01:00):
Yeah. Yeah. What comes to mind is new hire
onboarding, but not just thehere's where you can find all
the documents and all theresources, and here's here's the
IT person, and here's how youcreate a ticket. But more like
just making new hires feelwelcome, setting up the informal
meet and greet, getting to knowyou as a person, letting them
(01:21):
know. You know, my virtual dooris always open for questions,
for anything, just for moralsupport as you drink from the
fire hose, of being a new personat work. And it's something that
I've done it, I think every joband it's it's invisible work,
(01:44):
especially when the company doesnot have a formal like
onboarding buddy program, right?It's if a company doesn't have
that sort of formalizedstructure and program, it's
somebody else's job to make surethat the new hire feels
onboarded and welcome and likebeing brought into the
(02:06):
community.
Indra Klavins (02:07):
Yeah, and I think that you know a lot of let's,
let's assume a company has an HRteam, because you're talking to
our listeners, maybe fromcompanies of all different
shapes and sizes, right? Butlet's assuming that there's an
HR team. The HR team is reallygood at taking care of some of
the practicalities of makingsure that you as an employee get
paid and have access to theabsolute fundamentals. But
(02:32):
there's so much more. There's somuch more. And then you know the
shame of it is, is that whenpeople take on this kind of
invisible work, sometimes calledGlue work. When somebody takes
that on that's counts, thatdoesn't count, as far as when
you're looking at quarterlyreviews or year end promotion
cycles or bonus cycles, orwhatever, any of those types of
(02:54):
things, when the person, thethings that a person might be
the most proud of, might wind upbeing this invisible glue work.
But it's not, they can't get thethey can't elevate themselves
because of this great glue workthat's really important to the
organization, because itactually gels a team, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (03:10):
And it not to mention it takes time and
energy, that kind of time andenergy, right? And that time and
energy can be spent doing otherthings, but it's this type of
thing, using new hire onboardingand making people feel welcome
as an example. To your point, isso crucial to team building
Indra Klavins (03:31):
100% and like, and when you're talking about
some teams that have morespecific skills, taking them
away from like, if I'm thinkingabout like an engineering team,
you and I have, over the courseof our careers, have had a
chance to work more deeply withengineers than some others,
maybe have. But like you'rethinking about people who are
creating code, what they'reobsessed about is, you know,
(03:52):
making sure the code is checkedin, that they've done their
story points is a bunch ofjargon that you don't need to
really worry about. Just likeit's a to do list, they make
sure that their engineering todo list is done right? But they
don't always think about all thelittle odds and ends of the
stuff that never made it on todo list, like, everyone's like,
Oh no, no, no, let's not clutterour to do list with all those
little things. We'll know to doit well, we know to do it, but
(04:14):
we didn't write it down on alist. And so and that the things
that aren't written down on thelist are often the ones that are
not in that career progressionchart that is used for
determining who's ready for apromotion, who's ready for who,
who's qualifies for a largerincentive, etc, etc. And that's
really, it's really frustrating,and it can cause like you can
(04:34):
have an attrition risk, andthat's really a big problem.
Attrition is when somebodyleaves a company, right? And so,
you know, and when you lose thatperson who's being that glue,
your team culture can fallapart, you know? It's because
the person who's taking out careof all the odds and ends is
gone, and nobody even knew halfof the things that they were
doing. So, yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (04:53):
and that's why I especially like the term glue
work, because it is glue. It'sthe glue holding the team
together. It's all of the it'sthe person who is picking up all
the odds and ends, who's takingthe meeting notes, who's, you
know, cleaning up outdateddocumentation. It's, it's all of
the things that don't make itonto the formal to do list,
(05:14):
right?
Indra Klavins (05:15):
And, and, you know, the the reality, like I
said, I don't know if I saidthis in this conversation or in
a previous conversation. If youdon't measure it, it doesn't
matter, right? That's a veryreal reality in the business
world. If it's not beingmeasured, it's it's
inconsequential. It cannot helpyou. It might satisfy something
(05:35):
within you intrinsically, butit's not going to help you move
yourself up that career ladderor move laterally, or wherever
you want to go in your in yourparticular career. So here's the
good news folks. Here's the goodnews folks. Amanda and I were
there at the Genesis last lastepisode. For those of you who
listened, heard a little bitabout this, but we're at the
(05:57):
genesis of what we're nowcalling the glue work framework.
What it is is a tool that youcan use as a addition. It's a it
can integrate into your careerladders. People managers don't
sweat. I will. I've got you, butwe're going to put that later.
We need to explain what it isbefore you start freaking about
how I'm going to do it. But wehave something that you can
(06:18):
really implement in yourorganization pretty easily. You
know, simple isn't always easy.Easy, but it's a pretty simple
tool. And what we can do, yeah,let's just walk through it.
Let's talk through some of thepillars that we have within
that, in that framework. Sofirst one is caring about the
collective. This is thefoundation. This is the
foundation. This is the Amanda.I acknowledge that you are a
(06:40):
human being who works with me,and you might have different
wants, needs, desires, thingsthat motivate you, things that
you're interested in gettingdone in different ways of
working because of so manydifferent things like and that's
that, that's step one. That'sthe point. And I think that
every that's understanding thatand acknowledging that we're not
all automatons that are or thateveryone is just like me, is the
(07:04):
foundation of this all, andeveryone from an intern all the
way to your most seniorexecutive, is completely capable
of doing this.
Amanda Jane Lee (07:10):
Yeah. And to add, not just being aware that
you're, you know, we're not allrobots, we're all people with
varying perspectives andexperiences, but also being
aware that we are part of anecosystem. It's not just 100%
Indra Klavins (07:26):
100% and like. And I think that this is, I
mean, I think this is adifferent topic for a different
episode, but sometimes evenlike, within organizations, this
is much bigger. I'm going tokeep myself from going off
topic, but I will explain whatI'm like different people in
different teams, even with anengineering team, like, since
we're using engineering as anexample, like, even within
(07:46):
different teams might havedifferent interests that they're
trying to advance, or differentdepartments in the organization
might have different interests.In this context, we're talking
about individuals, but this cango even a step higher than that,
yeah, 100%
Amanda Jane Lee (07:59):
100 Yes, just it making sure that you
understand there is a collectiveI do not imagine caring about
it,
Indra Klavins (08:08):
yeah, giving a hoot about it, and paying
attention to it, and seeing,seeing, like, oh, Amanda said
that differently than I did,huh? I wonder why? Taking a beat
and just being like, that'scurious, like, with curiosity,
not judgment, right? Yep, that'sthe key. That's the key, you
know. And you know, because Ithink with you can go from
curiosity to judgment, butfirst, be curious. First be
(08:29):
curious. I understand why. Okay,so that's our foundation.
Everyone in an organizationshould be capable of something
of that nature, right? Next stepis caring for the collective.
That's taking the steps to takecare of the people around you,
right? That's making sure thatthe team is stronger and more
(08:50):
cohesive. Yeah? Thoughts on thecaring for the collective. Yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (08:56):
I think it's the it's the glueiest of the
glue work. I think it's themessy middle of this one, right?
Yes, it's the messy middle ofthis Yeah, it's, you know, it's
doing the things like I, youknow, like I described at the
beginning of this episode of,you know, just checking in with
(09:16):
people and and ensuring thateveryone feels like they belong,
and making and making theeffort, taking the action,
caring for your community, yourteammates, your your collective.
Indra Klavins (09:33):
Yeah. And the one thing that I want to clarify for
anyone listening, Amanda and Iknow each other well, the one
thing that I want to make surethat we're and so I understand
this, and I want to make sure,and some of the words that I
said earlier may not make itclear to others, right? You know
that we're not, we're notsuggesting that work people are
your family. Like, that's,that's a whole, you know, the
(09:55):
fact that, like, this is yourwork. Like, okay, we're all
colleagues. Like, they. Caring.You can still care about people
and keep it completelyprofessional, like I imagine in
the military. You can actuallystill complete your mission.
And, you know, I mean, thosestakes are a little bit higher,
so they do have a little bitanyway for people,
Amanda Jane Lee (10:14):
caring for people and about people as
people,
Indra Klavins (10:17):
as people, as people, right? And, you know,
it's, it's, you know, it isgenerally this caring for the
collective, the the expectation,it's not isolated this, but the
expectation is that this is muchmore of a mid to more senior
roles that often take this on,right? I think that on the more,
on, on the everyone side need tobe thoughtful in your
(10:39):
communication, right? If acertain particular word will set
a particular person off, andthere are 50 other alternatives
that are purple, perfectly fine.Use a different word. Use a
different word, as long as it'snot, you know, something that's
causing just use a differentword. Like those things are so
simple. But then there's, youknow, when you're at the mid
(11:00):
career stage. You can be one ofthe people when there is one of
these pieces of orphan work thatwe talked about, things that,
you know, just no one, no no onehas been explicitly assigned,
you know, pick that thing up.Don't expect someone else to
take that on, right? I thinkthat it just, it needs to be a
shared it needs to be a sharedresponsibility, something like
the orphan work, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (11:19):
The orphaned work, the the digital paperwork,
Indra Klavins (11:24):
all the things like release notes, right? Like,
you know, or who's typing upwho's taking up meeting notes.
Like, what are our takeawaysfrom this meeting like, we could
have an entire episode onmeeting notes, yes, oh my
goodness. And I think thatthere's also, I'm just checking
my notes to make sure, becausethis is a complex topic here,
folks. So you know, some of theother stuff is, is making sure
(11:45):
that everyone's had a chance tospeak and be heard, right? You
know it's, it's Yeah, because,like, sometimes the quietest
people on a team are the mosthave some of the most profound
insights, because they'resitting back and they're
watching, yep,
Amanda Jane Lee (12:00):
the people who just observe what's going on,
and because they are payingattention, they're listening to
listen and not listening torespond. Yes, I've found that
the quietest people in themeeting are often the ones who
have the most profound insights.Yes, 100%
Indra Klavins (12:23):
and I say that the last thing, which is much
more for, like, the lastcategory of kind of stuff, is
more for, like, the senior teammembers, which is like, every
team will wind up in a scenario,because we're, again, we're
flawed human beings working withother flawed human beings. You
know, somebody will make amistake, and there'll be
tensions, and somebody will saysomething, and you know, you can
(12:44):
feel the tension in the room,the more senior folks who have
been who've been trained inthis, whose responsibility this
is, you know, they can interceptthat stuff. They can be like,
hey, hey, hey, hold on, deepbreath. Everyone. Time out, time
out, time out, or, like, call itinto a meeting when it's getting
off the rails, whatever it is,to make sure that whatever is
(13:04):
happening at this moment doesn'tcause an irreparable or a long,
lasting break within that teamand then in that instructor,
right? Or like allowing thingsto fester fester. We don't want
festering. Amanda and I are goodat making sure that we don't let
things fester between the two ofus. I'm proud of us. Yeah. Okay.
And then the last one is the,like, the last pillar. So we had
(13:27):
caring about the collective. Soacknowledge that there are
people around me caring for thecollective. I'm making sure that
I'm taking care of the peoplearound me, or the, you know, in
the in the way that'sappropriate to my role, right?
It's not, it's not everyone's tolift in the same way. And then
there's those are bothrelatively reactive, right? Then
there's the proactive one,creating the collective I think
(13:49):
this might be my favorite,because it's, it allows you to,
it's about setting, setting theintention, setting the culture,
setting things before things gosideways like this is where you
know Amanda you're talkingabout, like onboarding, like
making sure that everyone hasthe onboarding materials.
Goodness gracious. I mean, a lotof organizations don't have
(14:11):
onboarding materials. So in thein the absence of that, you have
someone like an Amanda sit downwith you and say, Hey, let me
give you all this stuff that Iknow about,
Amanda Jane Lee (14:20):
right? Let me give you all the stuff that I
know about, and let me share thetribal knowledge with you that
isn't documented anywhere,right?
Indra Klavins (14:29):
And you know, this is also like the creating
of the collective. Is also wherethe implementation of like a
tool like the one we're talkingabout is just one example where
you can create a truemeritocracy, like the word
meritocracy has been the meaningof the word meritocracy has been
misunderstood over the course oftime. It's eroded. But a true
(14:51):
meritocracy allows everyone'svalue to be counted and for
everyone to and to measurethings objectively. Right?
Right? And so I kind of, I kindof love that one. I kind of love
that one. Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (15:04):
I love what you said about creating the culture,
right? Culture is, is such aloaded term, but there's culture
everywhere. There's there'scompany culture, there's team
culture, there's the culture of,you know, communication between
teams. And this last category,this pillar of creating the
(15:25):
collective, is creating thatculture and establishing the
norms and the rules and creatingthat space and and just setting,
setting the stage for for whatthat culture is and what it can
become 100%
Indra Klavins (15:42):
I was trying to look up to see if I could
remember. It made me think of aquote, culture eats strategy for
breakfast. I don't remember herif we first said that, but, but
that is right, like, there's somany different facets, or
there's so many differentcontextual versions of culture.
Like, you know, we think ofculture as something that comes
from a, from a from a, maybe aparticular country, but there
(16:04):
are cultures and subcultures andsub sub cultures, that will,
that will, that will naturallydevelop when human beings get
together, when human beings gettogether. So, yeah, I think that
there, you know, and there's,there's a lot of pieces to this
puzzle, and we're trying to giveeverybody a really brief
overview of what this is, and solike over the course, I will
(16:26):
give you some resources on howto learn more about this tool,
because we are trying to keepour episodes of 30 minutes and
completely understandablewithout a 500 visuals and
walking you through stuff andwhatever. But the thing that
we've we really once, once thisgroup of individuals of which
Amanda and I were part of,figured out that the things that
(16:49):
were this invisible work, thisglue work that was being cared
for, fell into these threecategories that was step one for
us, and figuring out, like what,what behaviors and what types of
examples, like examples of workcould fall in each of these. The
next step for us was to reallytalk about how this could get
(17:09):
integrated into your careerladder, and the way that we
approached it was really prettystraightforward. It was pretty
straightforward. We were able tobreak things up into career
phases so you've got your,everyone's responsible from your
earliest intern career phase. Imean, that's, that's a career
phase, plus everyone, right? Andso these are additive, as I'm
(17:29):
speaking about them. So thefirst one is for everyone,
starting with your your freshestgraduate, or, you know, from
school intern. Next one is forthe people who are in the middle
of their career stage or themiddle of the career ladder,
right? So there's, there'sanother category for of types of
things that are expectationsthat we would have of them. Then
(17:52):
there's stuff for your seniorfolks, and then for your
executives. And so by breakingout, and you heard some of the
examples today by breaking outthese tasks and identifying what
the expectations are for aparticular type of task or item
or expectation across thesedifferent career stages, you can
(18:14):
actually then take theseexpectations and map them to
Every single role in yourorganization, right? And make
that work, like I said, notcompletely measurable, like you
can check up, yeah, did so? Didyou pick up a single piece of
glue work or something? Did youpick up a single piece of orphan
work this quarter? Yes, no,that's data, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (18:37):
It's data. And you know, back to what you said
earlier about measuring whatmatters, you know, adding it to,
having it be an add on to theexisting career ladder, makes it
a conversation piece duringreview time 100
Indra Klavins (18:54):
it's not a separate thing, right? It's
about, it's all about theintegration. Yeah, it's exactly
that. It's exactly that. It'sthe integration into existing
tools and processes that's justso critical for it because and
then, not only does the personwho's in who has historically
because of intrinsic rewardsystems that they have of
(19:16):
helping others, right? Not onlydo they get the value of being
measured, because you'vedistributed this responsibility
and made it visible across everysingle role, across the entire
organization, your risk as acompany is actually reduced as
well, because if you only haveone Amanda in your company, and
(19:37):
I keep on using your namebecause you're right in front of
me, right, but if you only haveone, Amanda your company, and
she's the keeper of the cultureand all the tribal knowledge and
the everything, and Amanda, youknow, hits the lottery and
decides to go surf in Hawaii forthe rest of her life, right?
What do you do? You know, it'syes, Amanda might be taking on
(19:58):
more of this invisible glue.Work just naturally because of
her role, because of hertemperament, because of who she
is. But if you distribute someof this across the rest of your
organization, you reduce thatrisk. So, like, that's like a
like, a nice little bonus, andit changes everyone's behavior.
I would love to
Amanda Jane Lee (20:17):
hit the lottery and move to Hawaii and surf
every day, just to be clear, butyeah, it is a risk mitigation
strategy.
Indra Klavins (20:27):
Yeah, and like, and you're so you're you're
increasing your retention, youare decreasing your risk, and
you're surfacing work that'sinvisible. And I'm thinking,
like, as a people leader, themore I can see the invisible
work, the more I understand myorganization, how it runs. And I
might, you know, like, let'slet's be very honest, some of
(20:47):
this invisible work might notgenuinely be that valuable. It
might be something that person Xvalues, because they really love
knitting, and they're runningthis knitting circle, you know,
every Thursday during lunch.That's great. I'm really happy
for you, but I can make itreally clear to them. I'm like,
I understand that you'rebuilding culture, and that's
really wonderful, but that'sreally not contributing to the
(21:09):
bottom line. I can help themredirect that energy if they
want to to something that doescontribute, or say, hey, they're
like, I love doing this. I don'tcare if I get rewarded for or
not. Like, I love mind knittinggreat. It just it brings a lot
of things out of the corners andto the surface. So you can have
a dialog, help shape someone'scareer and help them understand
(21:30):
why they are or are not thrivingand succeeding in the
organization the way that theymight want to.
Amanda Jane Lee (21:36):
Right by making this invisible work or this glue
work visible, you're creatingclarity. You're setting
expectations. And I think, youknow, it's, it's such a valuable
thing to somebody's career toknow, to know what the
expectations are for, what theircurrent role is, what it would
take to get to the next level.And you know, if part of that is
(21:59):
doing the glue work, theinvisible work, and, you know,
keeping keeping the culturealive and getting rewarded for
that?
Indra Klavins (22:09):
Yeah, great. Yeah. Because, I mean, I'm
thinking back to, like, some ofthe more frustrating
conversations I've had in mypast with some of my people
leaders. I'm like, like, Indra,why you're taking on all this
stuff, because I tend to be apicker upper of drop things that
have value, right? I Don't hoardmy thing. Well, I don't,
generally Don't hoard my things,but, like, I will. I also don't
(22:30):
like sharing burdens withpeople. But I'm like, I I would
pick them up, and they're like,why are you doing it? Because
you're not getting measured, andno one else is doing it. I'm
like, but it needs to be done.Like, I agree that it needs to
be done, but why are you the onedoing it? I'm like, because it
needs to
Amanda Jane Lee (22:43):
be, it needs to be done. If it's not me, then
who
Indra Klavins (22:47):
we're not going to launch without it. And, you
know, and so, but that's but thegood news is that, you know,
with my, some of my betterpeople managers have had,
they're like, Okay, I see whyyou're doing this. Like, let's
talk through the stuff thatyou're doing. Okay, you've got a
list of five things. You gottaelicit five things. Of those
five things, three of them aremission critical. Two of them
you can drop and see who picksthem up and let them because if
(23:08):
you keep on fixing everyoneelse's problems, they'll never
pick it up themselves, like, oh,okay, never learn
Amanda Jane Lee (23:15):
to pick it up, and they'll never learn how to
do the thing that they'repicking up,
Indra Klavins (23:19):
right? But like this. This framework that you
can add to integrate into yourexisting career ladder will help
to facilitate that discussion,like with all of your team
members make, make thateveryone's responsibility, or at
least surface the fact thatthey're not doing it. If you, if
you decide that person X, theynever have to worry about any of
this stuff. Know that, and knowit intentionally, and the data
(23:42):
will remind you of that, likeI'm letting that person not have
to have any of theseresponsibilities, and I am very
clear on the reasons why I do ordo not let that person do that,
right? You know, I'm making itsuper, super clear. So,
Amanda Jane Lee (23:56):
yeah, we said clear and clarity a lot, and I
think that's enoughtransparency.
Indra Klavins (24:02):
Yeah, hey. But you, like you said, we're
breaking the invisible work tobe invisible. So this is, this
is a deep, deep, deep, richconversation. You know, there's
a lot of different pieces ifyou're thinking about doing
something like this in yourorganization. So have a couple
of resources that we're going toput into the into the show
notes. So on, all the majorbroadcasters that have the
(24:25):
things. And if you can't findit, just go to our web page. And
I'm sure you'll be able to findit. But our website, by the way,
the messy middle matters.com,that's in general for this
specifically, the best place toget to learn a little bit more
is to go to the glue work.comit'll direct you to a single
page that I have on my website.And what it what you'll find
(24:47):
there is a link to a blog postthat goes into this a little bit
a little bit more structuredway. So if you want to share the
information with someone, somepeople are readers, some people
are listeners. I've got a Mediumpost out there for. Two and
there's an also an opportunityto sign up for to sign up for
webinars, or if you'reinterested in actually having a
(25:09):
consultative conversation, thatopportunity is there too. So
again, so about this particulartopic, the glue work.com will
direct you to a page with allsorts of all sorts of tidbits of
information, and if you'reinterested in the podcast, in
general, the messy middle.comthe messy middle matters.com.
Messy middle matters.com becauseit matters. Amanda and it
(25:31):
matters.
Amanda Jane Lee (25:32):
It does matter. But yes, Indra, to your just to
echo, if this is helpful to you,go check out the resources. If
this, if you think this will behelpful to someone you know,
share the resources. Share ourpodcast, share the gluework.com,
Indra Klavins (25:47):
100% and you know, and if you want to, yes,
use that form. Let me know.There's a place to add notes on
that form submission. So if youwant anything more on this
topic, you can add that there.But I don't know any other
closing thoughts, Amanda, beforewe we sign off for the day. No,
I think this is a good, a goodtime to wrap up the overview.
(26:10):
I'm sure we'll, we'll dive intosome of this in future episodes.
But yeah, I think we're, I thinkwe're good here, yay. Well,
thank you all for listening.Thank you, Amanda, for being my
partner in crime and all this.And we look forward to hearing
you hearing from us the nexttime when we talk about another
part of the messy middle. Bye,everyone. Thanks. Bye. You.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.