August 27, 2025 • 18 mins
Belonging to a team can be deeply fulfilling, but what happens when that sense of loyalty starts to conflict with your growth in your craft?
In this episode, Indra and Amanda unpack the tension between short-term team alignment and long-term career development. They explore what it means to be loyal to your project team, your department, or your craft, especially in roles like program management, design, and marketing, where craft-specific communities may be smaller or less visible.
From navigating conflicting priorities to finding time for your own professional development, they offer insights for both individual contributors and leaders. Expect practical strategies, relatable stories, and a reminder that the messy middle is where real growth happens.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Indra Klavins (00:06):
Indra. 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. Hey, Amanda. How areyou today?
I'm good. How are you? Indra?
Doing well. I'm doing well todaywe're talking about something
that's like such a classicthing. You know how the
challenge that a lot of folksface staying true to your
(00:34):
staying true to the team thatyou work with on a day to day
basis, and still finding timeand and attention to hone your
craft in your role. And that'sreally like, we're going to talk
about it from a couple ofdifferent angles, but I don't
think I've ever been part of anorganization where that hasn't
(00:54):
happened like me. And maybe it'snot the team, maybe it's the
objective of the project. Maybeit's like, is it my leadership
team that I'm a part of, or isit my craft team? Like, there's
just, there's all thesedifferent tensions and different
ways of different identitiesthat you hold in an
organization, and which one, forlack of a better term, wins in
(01:14):
which scenario is always reallyinteresting to me?
Amanda Jane Lee (01:17):
Yeah, what comes to mind for me is as as a
TPM by trade. I've, I've beenembedded in engineering teams,
right? Like, these are the like,this is the engineering team
that I support, sure, sure.However, I've always reported
into a PMO or a TPM team with,you know, a bunch of other TPMS
(01:42):
like me, and sometimes there's,there's, like you said, tension
there, right? Which team is myteam at what time and when
Indra Klavins (01:53):
exactly? And it's hard, it's really, really hard
trying to strike that balancebetween the two, right? Because
there's the there's the peoplethat you spend most of your day
with, you know, and then there'sthe people that can help you
with your craft or your or yourpractice, or whatever it might
be, your skills, or, then therecould be a third one, which is,
(02:15):
which we hadn't talked about inthe past. It doesn't come to
mind until we started justtalking, is the people who make
the decisions about your career.Yeah. There's so many different
ways that you can frame thisthing. Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (02:29):
for sure, yeah. And it's, it's tension. It's not
necessarily a bad tension. It'sjust inviting everyone to find
the right balance between all ofthe things,
Indra Klavins (02:42):
100% 100% so let's, let's start digging into
like, Team loyalty, right?Because I think that that's
where the bulk like, if I'mthinking about the 8020 rule,
generally speaking, you know,80% of my time is spent with the
my working team, whoever thatmight be, and then 20% of my
time is spent with my craft. Youknow, if I'm lucky, on some
weeks, sometimes it's a lot lessthan that. But like that, that
(03:05):
that that importance of ofbelonging and navigating that
while still creating the spacewithin in that space for that
other piece to be. So like Teamloyalty, like we've talked about
team culture before, I remember,I don't. I can't I remember the
Pokemon. I can't remember thename of the I can't remember the
names that you had. I knew itwas a Pokemon team that we had,
(03:27):
the
Unknown (03:27):
pikas or the pink us right? Like there, there's
Indra Klavins (03:31):
a Pikachu. So we can go either way if we wanted
to. But if I remember you guyshad that discussion anyway, I'm
stealing your thunder. But youknow that that that importance
of team culture and the benefitof inclusion, like you're
saying, from a programmanagement perspective, you are,
generally speaking, the onlyproject or program manager,
unless you're working onsomething that like requires, is
(03:52):
so big that it requires, like acoordinator or somebody else to
help out with things like, areusually the only person who
understands The craft that youcall your craft, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (04:01):
Yeah, yeah. And it's, you're, you're the only
person on the team for So, forillustration purposes, the
picas, right?
Unknown (04:11):
You are the, the project
Amanda Jane Lee (04:13):
manager, the program manager, the only person
who understands the craft. Andyou're so you're also embedded
in that team culture, right? Youspend most of your time with
that team. You have you said itlike a loyalty to that team.
But, you know, once a week, likeme, thinking back to when I
actually was a part of thisteam, I think I had one meeting
(04:39):
a week, like an hour a week withthe rest of the program
management team, and we talkedabout, you know, what our
struggles were, what our winswere like, what our challenges
were, and tried to help eachother with Hone, Hone, the craft
that we were hired to do.
Indra Klavins (04:58):
Yeah, and I think that. What's important about
that we can talk about likedifferent places, but where my
brain is going right now is thatone hour a week, or, you know
that one hour a week plus theSlack channel with the people
that you know are in your craft,or whatever it might be, like
that to me, in my experience, isjust such a grounding place to
(05:18):
be. It helps me feel like mything matters. It helps me feel
it, feel it feel like I'm doinga good job, versus like being
liked. Because being liked andbeing effective are two
different things. And like ifI'm too much in that team mode
of trying to be with everyoneelse and their intrinsic and
(05:40):
extrinsic reward systems are notthe same as mine. It can be
real. I can get lost in thesauce and lose myself and my
identity really, you know, ifI'm not careful about it,
Amanda Jane Lee (05:52):
yeah. What comes to mind is, and this is a
this is a scenario that most, ifnot all, program managers face
where they've got to tell ontheir team like their team's
not, their team is late. Theirteam is not, not going to make
that milestone on time, right?What do you do? Do you nark on
(06:16):
your team like there's, there'san art to it, but for the
greater good of theorganization, yeah, you gotta
tell someone.
Indra Klavins (06:24):
You have to, and that's, and that's, and I think
that that's the that's also inmy mind, in that 20% away, it's
like, how do you no matter whatyour craft is, whether you're a
designer, because designers havethe same type of problem.
Copywriters have the same typeof problem. Software engineers
tend to like you and I have cutour teeth largely in technology,
right? You know, they tend to bethe largest group by far, above
(06:48):
all the others, so any of theseother crafts and disciplines
also face this thing, but likethat, 20% away from the team.
And I'm putting that in airquotes, because it may or may
not be literally the case, butit allows you to think much more
strategically and not in like,what's the thing that's
literally right now? That's,that's, that's gonna, that's
(07:11):
gonna make me happy today, makethe team happy today. What's
going to make the team succeedin the long run? Like you were
saying, telling somebody trustedusually, right? Because you're
not going to be running. My teamdoesn't know what it's
Amanda Jane Lee (07:26):
doing. Guess what? My team doesn't know Jack,
Indra Klavins (07:30):
missing every deadline for the rest of the
quarter. Whoa, no, like youwould talk to somebody trusted
and say, Hey, these are thechallenges I'm facing and and
doing it with the intention ofyour team succeeding, right?
Like, that's, that's, that's thebeauty of having that, like 20%
it gives you the space to dothat kind of thinking and help
the team, not only yourself,succeed in the long run, by
(07:52):
honing your craft andeverything, not only helping the
business where the largerorganization succeed, because
there's consistency acrossteams, because you were able to
sync up with your craftpractitioners, but it also helps
that team actually succeed,because, you know, hope is not a
hope is a survival skill. Let'sbe very clear. I have, I've made
(08:13):
stickers that say that, youknow, hope is a survival skill,
but hope is not a strategy likeand it's not going to like
change you need to confess tothe way the world is going and
how things are going if you'regoing to fix it, you cannot. You
cannot delude yourself intosucceeding,
Amanda Jane Lee (08:31):
right? You can't just pretend that
everything is okay and then, youknow when it's time to show off
what you've delivered. Oh, andactually, like that didn't
happen. Like that is that, isyou doing a disservice to your
craft? I mean, if, and I'm stilltalking in TPM terms, right,
terms of just like this is goingdown, that path would make, not
(08:58):
only the team who didn't deliverlook bad. It would make me look
bad.
Indra Klavins (09:03):
And it like, and let's be honest, it wouldn't set
you up for success in your nextcompany. Like, because, you
know, I unless you are theperson who owns your own
business, odds are at some pointin time you're going to be
looking for a job in a differentcompany. And if you're not
staying true to your craft andtrue to the understanding of the
(09:24):
skills that are expected at yourcareer stage and everything
else, when you and the companypart ways for one reason or
another, you're gonna have ahard time finding a role that a
lot that meshes with how youoperate, right? So like helping
to align with the way that thegeneral world works is also,
really, it's a little selfserving. But you know, people
(09:47):
who are in roles like programmanagement tend to not do enough
self serving stuff, in myopinion, in my opinion, as also
my opinion. So, but any so likeso there is. Is the value to
having the teams, but, but, butfind that, find that you got to
find the time for the otherthing. You got to find the time
for the other thing. And likeyou're saying, like, when
(10:09):
there's, there might be reasonsfor you to have to quote narc on
your team and do something thatdoesn't make them happy, like,
so in in those scenarios, Imean, I think I gave some
perspectives on how I wouldhandle, like, when you've, you
know, do you have any scenariosthat come to mind on when you
had to say to, like, the personwho's overseeing the strategic
roadmap, like, Hey, we're notgoing to hit that one, and how
(10:32):
that worked out. And, like, thethe, not just the conversation
with that person, but the comingback to the team,
Amanda Jane Lee (10:39):
yeah, it's, well, I would give, I say I
would I have given the the teama heads up like, hey, during to,
during today's, you know,overall weekly status meeting
for all the stakeholders on thisproject, I'm gonna let them know
that We're not meeting thisdeadline, and here's why, right?
(11:02):
Here's why. We've talked aboutit's not a bad thing, right?
Like framing it as transparency,framing it as getting ahead of
the problem, because not sayingit out loud doesn't make the
problem go away. We're still notgoing to meet it.
Indra Klavins (11:21):
No, no, it doesn't. I think that that pre,
the pre telegraphing, becausethat bring, that invites them
into the scenario, and itprepares them for whatever will
come out of your conversation,
Amanda Jane Lee (11:36):
right? And if we've discussed it already, you
know, I'll, I'll be like, andhere, like, I'm gonna tell
leadership, this is why we'renot meeting this predefined
milestone date. Here's whatwe're doing to try to get back
on track, but like, noguarantees, and if we haven't
had that conversation, let'shave that conversation now.
(11:58):
Engineering team, is thereanything that we can do to get
this back on track and justbeing fair and honest and
objective, right? Like, theseare the facts. Yeah, and it's
not about, like, Teamdisloyalty. It's not about
making the team look bad. It'sjust the reality of the
(12:21):
situation. And something that Ijust thought of was that 20%
time that we talked about tohone the craft. This is part of
the craft.
Indra Klavins (12:35):
It is part of the craft. And I think that the
where I've struggled in mycareer is when I have not been
able to, have not had a cleartouch point to go back to craft
right, where I don't have thosecollaborators, right, don't have
those people. And I feel, youknow, you sometimes feel, you
(12:55):
just feel very, it's lonely,like it's, it can be very, very
lonely being, you know, the onlycraft practitioner in a larger
group. And it's so important tofind I did a talk on this years
ago. Actually sign up summit2019 I think it was based on my
experience at WeWork as part ofa TPM team, right? And there,
(13:19):
you know, it was, a large partof it was find your tribe. Find
the people that you have. Andlike we had our little group of
folks that every Fridayafternoon, we would call it the
rose all day, folks, for thoseof you like not familiar with
WeWork explore. There was anawful lot of alcohol that we
(13:41):
were surrounded by. So a lot ofthe metaphors and the whatever
were sometimes not a lot ofthem, but some of them were
that. But the rose all day clubdid not necessarily drink,
right, you know, but we werethere to hang out together and
work through their crafts on us.We didn't literally even talk to
each other, but we got together.We kept churning on our
projects, but shoulder toshoulder with all the rest of
(14:02):
our, all the rest of the TPMSthat were there, there was like,
five of us in that, like, when,like when it was at it's like,
you know, it's juiciest. Therewas others that joined us in,
like, you know, there'scascading set of literal circles
around us of different types ofpeople and obstruals and
whatever. But we would allcluster together every Friday,
the rose, all day folks, and wewould just like, keep churning,
(14:25):
keep turning, wrap up your work.And then you could ask them,
like, that was crazy, or thatwas this, that was that? Like,
that is also part of craft,because you need your craft
Amanda Jane Lee (14:36):
community. Yeah, that reminds me of, I had
the word and I just lost it,guilds.
Indra Klavins (14:46):
Guild, yeah, it's similar to guilds. It's similar
to guilds,
Amanda Jane Lee (14:49):
yeah, like, there's, you know, I've been in
organizations where there's beenan engineering guild, there's
been a design guild, there'sjust, you know, these, you.
These frameworks, these groupsthat are put together to to
allow people to find theircommunity, even if, even if
(15:11):
their team, or actually,especially if their team is just
so focused on delivering thething right. Where does your 20%
like honing the craft, time go.
Indra Klavins (15:23):
Yeah. So, yeah, I think you covered a lot of it.
You know? I think that it islike understanding, recognizing
the fact that you have your dayto day team, and there will be
something that it that you needto serve and be part of your
team, and that will feed you inone way that's usually, in my
experience, very like, shortterm rewards, right? Like it
(15:44):
gives me a sense of belonging.It gives me a lot of like, on a
on like, a literal day to daybasis, like I have a place to go
and people to work with, andthen you, there's your craft,
there's your craft, your subcraft, as you're talking about
the guilds, I was thinking allthe various, like, sub
engineering functions thatsometimes have used various
guilds or special interestgroups, or whatever they might
be. Make sure that you find thetime and carve out the time to
(16:05):
connect with those so that youcan actually feed those long
term incentives, those thingsthat are a little bit more
durable, those things that lastfrom job to job, and if you
don't, and if you don't and ifyou don't, we should touch on
this just a little bit too ifyou don't have that connection
in your work, because I bet youthat enough of our listeners
(16:26):
are, like, just a one personshow, the only of their kind in
their entire company. Like,that's hard find your community
outside and that might belistening to podcasts Not, not
necessarily, that could be ours,you know, like, Hey, I think of
this as a I think of this as acommunity. I don't know how
anyone listening thinks of it. Ithink of this as a community.
(16:47):
And so it might be listening topodcasts, it might be reading
books. It might be, it might be,you know, joining like forums
and enough slack communitiesthat design ops assembly is
fantastic. It might be going tomeet ups that are, you know,
crafts or craft adjacent, find,find the way to feed yourself.
Because, you know, it'll, it'll,without both of those, it's,
(17:13):
it's just, it's justinsufficient, or it's not as
sufficient as it could be, in myopinion.
Amanda Jane Lee (17:20):
Yeah, there's something to be said about you
are responsible for your career,right? Like your career is
something that you will takefrom job to job, like that is
what a career is. Yeah, the teamthat you are embedded in and
work with day to day may notalways be there, so ensure that
(17:42):
you have that you give yourselfthe time and space to hone your
craft and to improve and getbetter and learn more things and
progress in your career.
Indra Klavins (17:54):
It's nourishment. It's nourishment. Thank you,
Amanda, for another richconversation. And thank you to
everyone for listening and forjoining us. Hopefully you got
something out of theconversation that was valuable,
or at least you felt seen andagain, part of the community.
And I hope you'll join us nexttime when we cover another topic
(18:15):
for the messy middle. Bye,everyone bye. Thanks for taking
time with us in the messymiddle. Word of mouth remains
most powerful way for people tofind us. If this episode sparked
something for you, we'd love it.If you'd subscribe to the
podcast on your favorite app,download a few episodes and
(18:35):
share it with someone else who'snavigating the in between. Do
you have ideas for futureepisodes or topics you'd like us
to explore. You can find ourfeedback form at the messymiddle
matters.com, or in the shownotes. Thank you for joining us
on this journey. This work isbetter when we do it together,
until next time.
Indra. 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. Hey, Amanda. How areyou today?
I'm good. How are you? Indra?
Doing well. I'm doing well todaywe're talking about something
that's like such a classicthing. You know how the
challenge that a lot of folksface staying true to your
(00:34):
staying true to the team thatyou work with on a day to day
basis, and still finding timeand and attention to hone your
craft in your role. And that'sreally like, we're going to talk
about it from a couple ofdifferent angles, but I don't
think I've ever been part of anorganization where that hasn't
(00:54):
happened like me. And maybe it'snot the team, maybe it's the
objective of the project. Maybeit's like, is it my leadership
team that I'm a part of, or isit my craft team? Like, there's
just, there's all thesedifferent tensions and different
ways of different identitiesthat you hold in an
organization, and which one, forlack of a better term, wins in
(01:14):
which scenario is always reallyinteresting to me?
Amanda Jane Lee (01:17):
Yeah, what comes to mind for me is as as a
TPM by trade. I've, I've beenembedded in engineering teams,
right? Like, these are the like,this is the engineering team
that I support, sure, sure.However, I've always reported
into a PMO or a TPM team with,you know, a bunch of other TPMS
(01:42):
like me, and sometimes there's,there's, like you said, tension
there, right? Which team is myteam at what time and when
Indra Klavins (01:53):
exactly? And it's hard, it's really, really hard
trying to strike that balancebetween the two, right? Because
there's the there's the peoplethat you spend most of your day
with, you know, and then there'sthe people that can help you
with your craft or your or yourpractice, or whatever it might
be, your skills, or, then therecould be a third one, which is,
(02:15):
which we hadn't talked about inthe past. It doesn't come to
mind until we started justtalking, is the people who make
the decisions about your career.Yeah. There's so many different
ways that you can frame thisthing. Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (02:29):
for sure, yeah. And it's, it's tension. It's not
necessarily a bad tension. It'sjust inviting everyone to find
the right balance between all ofthe things,
Indra Klavins (02:42):
100% 100% so let's, let's start digging into
like, Team loyalty, right?Because I think that that's
where the bulk like, if I'mthinking about the 8020 rule,
generally speaking, you know,80% of my time is spent with the
my working team, whoever thatmight be, and then 20% of my
time is spent with my craft. Youknow, if I'm lucky, on some
weeks, sometimes it's a lot lessthan that. But like that, that
(03:05):
that that importance of ofbelonging and navigating that
while still creating the spacewithin in that space for that
other piece to be. So like Teamloyalty, like we've talked about
team culture before, I remember,I don't. I can't I remember the
Pokemon. I can't remember thename of the I can't remember the
names that you had. I knew itwas a Pokemon team that we had,
(03:27):
the
Unknown (03:27):
pikas or the pink us right? Like there, there's
Indra Klavins (03:31):
a Pikachu. So we can go either way if we wanted
to. But if I remember you guyshad that discussion anyway, I'm
stealing your thunder. But youknow that that that importance
of team culture and the benefitof inclusion, like you're
saying, from a programmanagement perspective, you are,
generally speaking, the onlyproject or program manager,
unless you're working onsomething that like requires, is
(03:52):
so big that it requires, like acoordinator or somebody else to
help out with things like, areusually the only person who
understands The craft that youcall your craft, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (04:01):
Yeah, yeah. And it's, you're, you're the only
person on the team for So, forillustration purposes, the
picas, right?
Unknown (04:11):
You are the, the project
Amanda Jane Lee (04:13):
manager, the program manager, the only person
who understands the craft. Andyou're so you're also embedded
in that team culture, right? Youspend most of your time with
that team. You have you said itlike a loyalty to that team.
But, you know, once a week, likeme, thinking back to when I
actually was a part of thisteam, I think I had one meeting
(04:39):
a week, like an hour a week withthe rest of the program
management team, and we talkedabout, you know, what our
struggles were, what our winswere like, what our challenges
were, and tried to help eachother with Hone, Hone, the craft
that we were hired to do.
Indra Klavins (04:58):
Yeah, and I think that. What's important about
that we can talk about likedifferent places, but where my
brain is going right now is thatone hour a week, or, you know
that one hour a week plus theSlack channel with the people
that you know are in your craft,or whatever it might be, like
that to me, in my experience, isjust such a grounding place to
(05:18):
be. It helps me feel like mything matters. It helps me feel
it, feel it feel like I'm doinga good job, versus like being
liked. Because being liked andbeing effective are two
different things. And like ifI'm too much in that team mode
of trying to be with everyoneelse and their intrinsic and
(05:40):
extrinsic reward systems are notthe same as mine. It can be
real. I can get lost in thesauce and lose myself and my
identity really, you know, ifI'm not careful about it,
Amanda Jane Lee (05:52):
yeah. What comes to mind is, and this is a
this is a scenario that most, ifnot all, program managers face
where they've got to tell ontheir team like their team's
not, their team is late. Theirteam is not, not going to make
that milestone on time, right?What do you do? Do you nark on
(06:16):
your team like there's, there'san art to it, but for the
greater good of theorganization, yeah, you gotta
tell someone.
Indra Klavins (06:24):
You have to, and that's, and that's, and I think
that that's the that's also inmy mind, in that 20% away, it's
like, how do you no matter whatyour craft is, whether you're a
designer, because designers havethe same type of problem.
Copywriters have the same typeof problem. Software engineers
tend to like you and I have cutour teeth largely in technology,
right? You know, they tend to bethe largest group by far, above
(06:48):
all the others, so any of theseother crafts and disciplines
also face this thing, but likethat, 20% away from the team.
And I'm putting that in airquotes, because it may or may
not be literally the case, butit allows you to think much more
strategically and not in like,what's the thing that's
literally right now? That's,that's, that's gonna, that's
(07:11):
gonna make me happy today, makethe team happy today. What's
going to make the team succeedin the long run? Like you were
saying, telling somebody trustedusually, right? Because you're
not going to be running. My teamdoesn't know what it's
Amanda Jane Lee (07:26):
doing. Guess what? My team doesn't know Jack,
Indra Klavins (07:30):
missing every deadline for the rest of the
quarter. Whoa, no, like youwould talk to somebody trusted
and say, Hey, these are thechallenges I'm facing and and
doing it with the intention ofyour team succeeding, right?
Like, that's, that's, that's thebeauty of having that, like 20%
it gives you the space to dothat kind of thinking and help
the team, not only yourself,succeed in the long run, by
(07:52):
honing your craft andeverything, not only helping the
business where the largerorganization succeed, because
there's consistency acrossteams, because you were able to
sync up with your craftpractitioners, but it also helps
that team actually succeed,because, you know, hope is not a
hope is a survival skill. Let'sbe very clear. I have, I've made
(08:13):
stickers that say that, youknow, hope is a survival skill,
but hope is not a strategy likeand it's not going to like
change you need to confess tothe way the world is going and
how things are going if you'regoing to fix it, you cannot. You
cannot delude yourself intosucceeding,
Amanda Jane Lee (08:31):
right? You can't just pretend that
everything is okay and then, youknow when it's time to show off
what you've delivered. Oh, andactually, like that didn't
happen. Like that is that, isyou doing a disservice to your
craft? I mean, if, and I'm stilltalking in TPM terms, right,
terms of just like this is goingdown, that path would make, not
(08:58):
only the team who didn't deliverlook bad. It would make me look
bad.
Indra Klavins (09:03):
And it like, and let's be honest, it wouldn't set
you up for success in your nextcompany. Like, because, you
know, I unless you are theperson who owns your own
business, odds are at some pointin time you're going to be
looking for a job in a differentcompany. And if you're not
staying true to your craft andtrue to the understanding of the
(09:24):
skills that are expected at yourcareer stage and everything
else, when you and the companypart ways for one reason or
another, you're gonna have ahard time finding a role that a
lot that meshes with how youoperate, right? So like helping
to align with the way that thegeneral world works is also,
really, it's a little selfserving. But you know, people
(09:47):
who are in roles like programmanagement tend to not do enough
self serving stuff, in myopinion, in my opinion, as also
my opinion. So, but any so likeso there is. Is the value to
having the teams, but, but, butfind that, find that you got to
find the time for the otherthing. You got to find the time
for the other thing. And likeyou're saying, like, when
(10:09):
there's, there might be reasonsfor you to have to quote narc on
your team and do something thatdoesn't make them happy, like,
so in in those scenarios, Imean, I think I gave some
perspectives on how I wouldhandle, like, when you've, you
know, do you have any scenariosthat come to mind on when you
had to say to, like, the personwho's overseeing the strategic
roadmap, like, Hey, we're notgoing to hit that one, and how
(10:32):
that worked out. And, like, thethe, not just the conversation
with that person, but the comingback to the team,
Amanda Jane Lee (10:39):
yeah, it's, well, I would give, I say I
would I have given the the teama heads up like, hey, during to,
during today's, you know,overall weekly status meeting
for all the stakeholders on thisproject, I'm gonna let them know
that We're not meeting thisdeadline, and here's why, right?
(11:02):
Here's why. We've talked aboutit's not a bad thing, right?
Like framing it as transparency,framing it as getting ahead of
the problem, because not sayingit out loud doesn't make the
problem go away. We're still notgoing to meet it.
Indra Klavins (11:21):
No, no, it doesn't. I think that that pre,
the pre telegraphing, becausethat bring, that invites them
into the scenario, and itprepares them for whatever will
come out of your conversation,
Amanda Jane Lee (11:36):
right? And if we've discussed it already, you
know, I'll, I'll be like, andhere, like, I'm gonna tell
leadership, this is why we'renot meeting this predefined
milestone date. Here's whatwe're doing to try to get back
on track, but like, noguarantees, and if we haven't
had that conversation, let'shave that conversation now.
(11:58):
Engineering team, is thereanything that we can do to get
this back on track and justbeing fair and honest and
objective, right? Like, theseare the facts. Yeah, and it's
not about, like, Teamdisloyalty. It's not about
making the team look bad. It'sjust the reality of the
(12:21):
situation. And something that Ijust thought of was that 20%
time that we talked about tohone the craft. This is part of
the craft.
Indra Klavins (12:35):
It is part of the craft. And I think that the
where I've struggled in mycareer is when I have not been
able to, have not had a cleartouch point to go back to craft
right, where I don't have thosecollaborators, right, don't have
those people. And I feel, youknow, you sometimes feel, you
(12:55):
just feel very, it's lonely,like it's, it can be very, very
lonely being, you know, the onlycraft practitioner in a larger
group. And it's so important tofind I did a talk on this years
ago. Actually sign up summit2019 I think it was based on my
experience at WeWork as part ofa TPM team, right? And there,
(13:19):
you know, it was, a large partof it was find your tribe. Find
the people that you have. Andlike we had our little group of
folks that every Fridayafternoon, we would call it the
rose all day, folks, for thoseof you like not familiar with
WeWork explore. There was anawful lot of alcohol that we
(13:41):
were surrounded by. So a lot ofthe metaphors and the whatever
were sometimes not a lot ofthem, but some of them were
that. But the rose all day clubdid not necessarily drink,
right, you know, but we werethere to hang out together and
work through their crafts on us.We didn't literally even talk to
each other, but we got together.We kept churning on our
projects, but shoulder toshoulder with all the rest of
(14:02):
our, all the rest of the TPMSthat were there, there was like,
five of us in that, like, when,like when it was at it's like,
you know, it's juiciest. Therewas others that joined us in,
like, you know, there'scascading set of literal circles
around us of different types ofpeople and obstruals and
whatever. But we would allcluster together every Friday,
the rose, all day folks, and wewould just like, keep churning,
(14:25):
keep turning, wrap up your work.And then you could ask them,
like, that was crazy, or thatwas this, that was that? Like,
that is also part of craft,because you need your craft
Amanda Jane Lee (14:36):
community. Yeah, that reminds me of, I had
the word and I just lost it,guilds.
Indra Klavins (14:46):
Guild, yeah, it's similar to guilds. It's similar
to guilds,
Amanda Jane Lee (14:49):
yeah, like, there's, you know, I've been in
organizations where there's beenan engineering guild, there's
been a design guild, there'sjust, you know, these, you.
These frameworks, these groupsthat are put together to to
allow people to find theircommunity, even if, even if
(15:11):
their team, or actually,especially if their team is just
so focused on delivering thething right. Where does your 20%
like honing the craft, time go.
Indra Klavins (15:23):
Yeah. So, yeah, I think you covered a lot of it.
You know? I think that it islike understanding, recognizing
the fact that you have your dayto day team, and there will be
something that it that you needto serve and be part of your
team, and that will feed you inone way that's usually, in my
experience, very like, shortterm rewards, right? Like it
(15:44):
gives me a sense of belonging.It gives me a lot of like, on a
on like, a literal day to daybasis, like I have a place to go
and people to work with, andthen you, there's your craft,
there's your craft, your subcraft, as you're talking about
the guilds, I was thinking allthe various, like, sub
engineering functions thatsometimes have used various
guilds or special interestgroups, or whatever they might
be. Make sure that you find thetime and carve out the time to
(16:05):
connect with those so that youcan actually feed those long
term incentives, those thingsthat are a little bit more
durable, those things that lastfrom job to job, and if you
don't, and if you don't and ifyou don't, we should touch on
this just a little bit too ifyou don't have that connection
in your work, because I bet youthat enough of our listeners
(16:26):
are, like, just a one personshow, the only of their kind in
their entire company. Like,that's hard find your community
outside and that might belistening to podcasts Not, not
necessarily, that could be ours,you know, like, Hey, I think of
this as a I think of this as acommunity. I don't know how
anyone listening thinks of it. Ithink of this as a community.
(16:47):
And so it might be listening topodcasts, it might be reading
books. It might be, it might be,you know, joining like forums
and enough slack communitiesthat design ops assembly is
fantastic. It might be going tomeet ups that are, you know,
crafts or craft adjacent, find,find the way to feed yourself.
Because, you know, it'll, it'll,without both of those, it's,
(17:13):
it's just, it's justinsufficient, or it's not as
sufficient as it could be, in myopinion.
Amanda Jane Lee (17:20):
Yeah, there's something to be said about you
are responsible for your career,right? Like your career is
something that you will takefrom job to job, like that is
what a career is. Yeah, the teamthat you are embedded in and
work with day to day may notalways be there, so ensure that
(17:42):
you have that you give yourselfthe time and space to hone your
craft and to improve and getbetter and learn more things and
progress in your career.
Indra Klavins (17:54):
It's nourishment. It's nourishment. Thank you,
Amanda, for another richconversation. And thank you to
everyone for listening and forjoining us. Hopefully you got
something out of theconversation that was valuable,
or at least you felt seen andagain, part of the community.
And I hope you'll join us nexttime when we cover another topic
(18:15):
for the messy middle. Bye,everyone bye. Thanks for taking
time with us in the messymiddle. Word of mouth remains
most powerful way for people tofind us. If this episode sparked
something for you, we'd love it.If you'd subscribe to the
podcast on your favorite app,download a few episodes and
(18:35):
share it with someone else who'snavigating the in between. Do
you have ideas for futureepisodes or topics you'd like us
to explore. You can find ourfeedback form at the messymiddle
matters.com, or in the shownotes. Thank you for joining us
on this journey. This work isbetter when we do it together,
until next time.
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