Ep 36: Aligning Human Behavior w/ Business Needs: Why People Push Back (w/Amanda Jane Lee)

Episode Transcript
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Indra Klavins (00:05):
Hi. I'm Indra, and I'd like to welcome you to
the messy middle matters, wheremy friends and I explore all the
twists, turns and challengesthat arise in the messy middle
of work. Hi everyone. Today,we're going to be talking about
one of the more challengingsituation that you find yourself
in at work, which is where thedemands of the business don't
always line up with humanbehaviors. You know what I'm

(00:28):
thinking about when I say thatis like the moment when a leader
asks a team to do something, andthe team is like, you want us to
do what like, not the thingthat's too hard. It's like, are
you gonna be kidding me? Like,that's crazy. So you know, it's
not in these scenarios. It's notthat the team doesn't care about
the business, it's not that theydon't care about the product.
It's just that the system thatis being created, or the system

(00:51):
that they live in, is notconsidering their human
behavior. So we'll dig into realexamples. But before we do that,
I want to introduce Amanda.Welcome back. Welcome back.
You're with me today, and I'msure you have plenty to talk
about on this one.

Amanda Jane Lee (01:05):
Yeah, I've definitely experienced this, you
know, it's that moment where thebusiness, or, you know, someone
on the leadership team is isasking, say, the whole company,
to follow this brand new multi,multi, multi step process. And
everyone's like, Wait, one, whatand two, do

I have to why? What? Yeah, um, you know, I
think that the easiest one forus to start with, it's, it's a
classic example that people bothon the agency side or in house,
or, you know, a lot of folks canrelate to, not everyone, but a
lot of folks can relate to isthe request for team members to

(01:53):
enter their time, not like hoursclocked at work, but hours
clocked against specificprojects at work?

Yeah, I I've actually dealt with this at a
few jobs where, you know, thesomeone on the leadership team
wants the teams to start loggingtheir time against certain
projects, and the reaction everytime has been I'm not doing

(02:23):
that. I'm not doing that. Likewhat you don't trust us, like
this feels like surveillance,right?

Really does like, even when you're on, like, the
agency side, and you know, youknow full well that you need to
enter in your hours worked, sothat all the billing, all the
revenue recognition, all thestuff that needs to happen,
figuring out, all the accountingthings they need to worry about,
whatever that you know in yourrole, you're like, that's fine.

(02:54):
You understand that that paysthe bills, but it still feels so
like, why like, do I have tolike, this feels so tedious I
don't remember what I did today,let alone yesterday. Come on,
man,

right, like, and that's the feeling, right.
Like, and honestly, that thatparticular process, the time
tracking process, the timelogging process, is such a drag.
Like, no matter, no matter whereyou are and how much a company
tries to streamline it. It'sstill a drag.

It's really hard. And, you know, it's, it's one of
those things that can be reallycomplicated. So let's, let's go
into so I did mention a littlebit about the agency side of
things, but not everyone canrelate to this. That one as much
the one that I think that enoughfolks, or more folks might be
able to relate to, because Ithink the agency side translates

(03:44):
into this one is when softwareengineering teams are being
asked to book their work rightthere's, there's a bunch of
different reasons that thishappens, and usually has
Everything to do with Accountingand Budgets. And guests that
company wants to understand.Part of it can be the company

(04:05):
wants to understand how muchtime their staff members are
working on project, platform a,Platform B, Platform C, to
understand where the labor isthat's that's actually good to
know. So like, are we overinvesting time into a product
that does not make us money orhelp us stay stable as an
organization. That's a good datapoint to know, right? But, but

(04:30):
the one that's much more much,much more challenging to
explain, because it requiresmore rigor, is capitalizable
labor. So this is where everyonewho knows anything about
accounting needs to sort ofstick their fingers in their
ears and go, la, la, la, la, la,because this is gonna be
accounting, according to Indra,and specifically on

(04:51):
capitalizable labor. So thiswill be actually useful for
everyone to understand so andlike I do, I do the first.
Dummies, because Indra, when inthis in this topic, I consider
myself. I rarely talk aboutmyself in third person, unless
it's something like this. Ipromise you all that. But in
this scenario, I always say likeit needs to make sense to me,
it'll make sense to everyoneelse. So it's gonna be really

(05:13):
simple. So capitalizablebudgets, if we think about
capitalizable budgets,capitalizable budgets are
usually hard assets. So it'slike, you know, let's pretend
this mouse that I'm holding upis like a piece of furniture,
right? The way that accountingcan choose to track this piece
of furniture, it is somethingthat's used by the company that

(05:35):
is in the main lounge of thecompany, where guests have to
sit while they're waiting forthe person to come to them. So
it's a hard asset. And whataccounting, what accountants can
do is track the car or orrecognize the cost of that.
Recognize, may it be the rightword, but, but the cost of that
can be spread over the lifetimeof that couch. So let's say this

(06:00):
couch lasts me 10 months. I'mjust choosing something simple.
The couch is $1,000 it only Ican do $100 a month. I don't
need to hit all of those costson my books and records the
first month. I might need to paythe bill for that couch on that
first month, but on theaccounting records it might
spread across. You can do thesame thing with labor, and

(06:21):
that's capitalizable labor. Whensomebody is creating a product,
I've got no idea. I'm holding upmy sticker for the messy middle
matters. Let's say this is apiece of software. Let's pretend
I can do the same thing on this.So if the labor cost is usually
when you're creating a product,the costs all get front loaded
in the creation of the thing,and then you make the money over

(06:44):
the course of time. When you'rethinking about that, I can hit
those labor spread, those laborcosts over the course of the
lifetime of that productfeature, whatever it might be.
So okay, counting by Indra, notthe most sophisticated, but
hopefully easy enough tounderstand, even without
visuals. And when you want to,when an accounting team wants to

(07:06):
capitalize labor, they need thesoftware engineers to track
their time against not just theplatform, but the feature inside
the platform. And everyone was,I've done this at multiple
companies, the softwareengineers, like, why are you
making me do this? This is sothis. This is so that. And yes,

(07:28):
it is annoying, but the upsideof having that expense spread
over the cost of time is thatyou might be able to hire more
software engineers, and they'relike, oh, they understand the
why, but then they're stillstuck in that thought process of
what you're saying Amanda, oflike, I feel like you're
surveilling me. Why do all of ushave to do this in this sort of

(07:51):
way? This is so hard, and thenI've got solutions around that,
but like, even if, even ifyou've done that, and if you
explain to them the why, ifyou're making them all fill out
15 minute increment timetracking reports as if they were
as if they were attorneys.

Unknown (08:07):
No, no, not good.

I so I think that example hit on two
important things right. Likeone, it really helps to
understand the why.

Unknown (08:21):
It really does. But, yeah, even, even when they
understand why,

right? And so and two, a little bit of empathy
goes a long

way, a long, long way, right? Because, you know,
it's a few different triggersthat go off the team as a whole
is always like, like, there'sjust this very like, they remind
me of a middle schooler beingasked to, like, do their chores,
like

your room.

But, and I don't blame them for that reaction,
just to be clear, I'm not, I'mnot this no shade, but it's what
the visual that comes to mindwhen ice and when they react to
something like that. But thenthere's also their leaders, like
the leaders, the engineeringmanagers, engineering directors,
engineering head of engineering,like, they're like, I want my
people focused on the work. Ifthey start like, if they get
distracted with this timetracking stuff, they may not

(09:14):
actually deliver. So how do wefind that middle ground, right?
And there are ways, there areways to find that middle ground.
And in a not so skilledorganization, they would just
say, Just do it, and do it inthis really convoluted system
that your team never goes into.And we need to have a track to
this level, right? We need tohave a track to this level with,

(09:34):
you know, a million little boxesthat you need to check and it
times out on you. You can't copyone row to another, yeah,
Nightmare, and you come up witha solution. TLDR, so we can go
off of this topic of accounting,but like the the the solution I
usually come up with is I as aperson who supports an

(09:56):
engineering team in this, inthese scenarios, or sometimes.
I've had it for design too. Youcan capitalize design labor too.
But I go to accounting and Isay, what are your requirements
like? What do you need? How doyou need it? What specificity?
What are the like? What are youraccounting principles that we
need to comply by? Great,fantastic. Can we meet your your

(10:17):
your things in this X, Y and Zway, which is usually, you know,
I love a good spreadsheet, butlet's so let's say you only have
a spreadsheet. But like I said,Can I have the manager of each
team fill things out for theirentire team, and they'll make
sure it's done by this date, sothat you can do your account
accounting close for everysingle month. And we can do it

(10:39):
in this sort of way, and we'llbe able to, we'll create a new
spreadsheet so you have theauditability and blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.And will this work for you?
Accounting team member, andthey're like, or a finance team
member, they're like, You knowwhat? That actually meets our
needs. It's not as this, that.And the other thing I need these
comments to make sure thatthere's this. And the other
thing I need to understand, youknow, is the product still in

(11:01):
market or not? You know? Like,okay, great. Let's add these
other fields on this other tab.Can we work with that? They're
like, yeah, I go to softwareengineering manager say, hey,
how does this sound? They'relike, Oh my gosh, this is so
much better than that firstsolution. I'm like, great. So
we're going to do this everymonth. You know the reasons why,

(11:22):
and this is so much better thanthe thing that you that we first
talked about. They're like, Yes,I'm like, great. And that's a
way, when you start dealing withhuman behavior that like, we've
all got a middle schooler insideof us that goes, Oh, you're
making me clean my room, right?You get past that, and you get
to a solution that meets theneeds of the business, because
the business wants their booksand records to work, and the

(11:43):
team is not sitting therepouting all day long every day,
and no one needs to nag them toomuch to complete the work. I'm
laughing

because this has been the solution I've seen
implemented multiple times.Because, you know, yes, you have
the, do we have to? And it'susually, you know, to find that
nice balance between what thefinance and accounting team need
and the the human needs of theteam, of the team. It's usually

(12:16):
the the messy middle it's theit's the middle manager who has
to, you know,

understand the needs of everybody and then come
up with the solution. And thatexact solution that you
described is usually it, it'susually some version of that,
right? It's not rocket science.It's but it's human science.
It's understanding both sides ofthe equation. It's a little bit
of mediation tactics, right?It's a whole lot of change

(12:47):
management. That's what it islike. That's when people, when
organizations say, like, we haveto do it this way. I see why
InfoSec wants to do that. I seewhy HR wants to do that. I see
why finance wants to but are youserious?

Unknown (13:03):
Have you met the people? But it

is that change management, and it is the
communication piece, like thereare those three major things
that don't always get done orthought through from both sides
of the equation. Get thoughtthrough from the business side,
but they don't always getthought through from the
receiver side of things, right?The employee side of

things, yeah? Something that I just thought of
is, you know, I'm gonna put onlike, a product engineering hat,
right? Yeah. It's aboutunderstanding the what and the
why and the how is negotiable.

In some cases, the how, no, but the how, I
think the how is alwaysnegotiable, like, I think,
unless it's some sort ofhardcore compliance process
where you need to meet somefederal standards to maintain
your certification. Yeah, thehow is usually has some wiggle
room in it, no matter what youknow. The person who said, so?
Said there's usually some sortof give that you can get. Maybe

(14:03):
it's not a ton, but something isbetter than nothing, right? And
there's no harm in askingeither. Sometimes the answer is,
No, this is a, this is like,truly a compliance thing. We
need to do these 50 steps inthis exact order, in this way,
or else we do not renew thiscertification. Suck it up

(14:24):
buttercup, right? Like, and thatcan be and then you tell the
team, hey, guess what? This isone of those scenarios we gotta
suck it up buttercup, like,don't love it. You can complain
to me all you want about it. Iwill give you a pizza party
every single time you do it,please get it done. Maybe not a
pizza party, maybe a gold starfor my stash, but like, please

(14:49):
get it done. Please get it done,because otherwise the headaches,
they're just not worth it.They're not worth it. And it's
not putting worth putting yourjob at risk for this thing. It's
not, it's not, it's, I don'trecommend the. Is not the one to
go down for no, no, no. But, youknow, like, let's go to some
other examples. Like, I thinkthere's other, there's other

(15:10):
scenarios that are much lesscomplex than accounting. We
started with a big, hairy one,right? You know, there's,
there's other examples thathappen on a day to day basis,
which fall into that changemanagement category, and one
that is, I think I've seen itprevalent even in good markets,
so but, like, I know that thisjob market is challenging, you
know, like, there's the changemanagement we'll use the example

(15:33):
of when there's team reduction,when there's staff reduction,
right? That is, that feels likeit's in the press every day. I
know it's not it feels that way,but how you handle how you
handle that for your team, andstill don't get into trouble
with HR, right? Because there'sa lot of we've talked about this

(15:54):
on other episodes. I don'tremember which ones, but like,
what you're allowed to say andwhat you're not allowed to say
about elimination of roles orpeople's exiting of
organizations, needs to walk avery fine line because of
employment law, and that'susually to protect the
employees, believe it or not,another episode to dig into

(16:14):
that. But like, how you handlethat is really important. So
like, the person sending thisout. You know, who's designing
the process might be like, Thisis how we comply to the law, and
this is how we tell people andeveryone just needs to move on.
Yeah. Just lost, you know, likethree members from their team,

yeah, and so on the other side of that, you
know, as as, as the team memberswho remain right. When you get a
very to the point ofcommunication from your your
leaders, due to employment law,due to this, that or the other

(16:53):
thing,

you're like, What the heck? What happened? What
what happened and like, why doesit seem like you don't care? Why
does it seem like you don'tcare? Because it feels so close.
Feels so clinical, right? Andthere's, there's ways to handle
that, I mean, and there can bethose same change management
things when you're growing too.So like, we're just choosing
this one, because that's the onethat's might be most is likely

(17:15):
to be top of mind for folks too.But like, 500 questions get
triggered in their heads. Youknow, my one of my favorite
tactics for you know, afterpeople figure out that there has
been a reduction of three rolesfor whatever reason there might
be, whether a writtenannouncement has come out or
not, is to host an AMA withleadership, ask me anything like

(17:38):
not that you not that you reallywill entertain every question,
because there's lots of reasonsyou may not want to, right? But
create a forum where people getto ask the questions. Create a
structure that allows you tofeel those questions in a
skillful way, that allows peopleto be addressed but move forward

(17:59):
and not get stuck in this, likewhat happened that day, because
if you don't address it, theywill get stuck, and your
effectiveness as an organizationis going to go

down, right? And it's, it's addressing that
human need for to be heard,right? And, you know, I, I've
seen this, you know, I've seenthis at multiple organizations
where it's either like a townhall type company, like all
company, ama, or, you know, justfor a department, or just for a

(18:33):
team, and depending on yourorganization and like Your
company culture and what what isappropriate there. The size of
that ama can vary, but the Theimportant part is hosting some
kind of of forum of like, hey,you know, I I understand that

(18:57):
you're all feeling any kind ofway about this. I want to let
you all know that we hear you.We you know, we're happy to
collect and address anyquestions or concerns you may
have and give people theopportunity, as opposed to

(19:18):
blanket statement, this thinghappened. All right, let's
continue, you know, working onall of our projects. Have a
great day, everyone.

Yeah, I think that's the ideal state. I mean,
not every organization willallow for that, not every
organization will afford that,right, yeah. But so there's,
there's other, there's othertactics. So let's say you're in
an organization that just like,is like, moving on, and you're
standing amongst yourcolleagues, like, let's say

(19:47):
you're not a people manager.Let's say you're just a member,
like a regular, regular memberof the team. And that's not a
disparaging comment. It's justjust to understand like
authority, right? You know, likelevels, right? Which you can do.
So, I mean, I've done this likethere was, I was an
organization. We had layoffs.They did. They didn't really

(20:07):
make sense, but whatever. And Iwent out and bought donuts for
the team, and I said, andthey're like, like, and I made
sure I'm like, we're notcelebrating that our friends are
no longer here. We're eating ourfeelings, which and so like that
I would do. Those are empathydonuts. I walked around with the
donut like, Would you like toeat your feelings today? Would
you like to eat your feelingstoday? And it just it made it

(20:32):
made my colleagues feel seen. Itrecognized this moment that
we're in. Even though I had no Icould give no knowledge. I could
give no like I had nothing toshare other than, other than
finding a way to be like, I seeyou. You're not crazy. You're
living through this. Would youlike a donut? I'm not saying

(20:55):
that eating your feelings is thehealthiest thing on earth. That
was the tactics that I went forin this particular scenario, but
it was it sort of, it took theedge off of just a little just
took the edge off the situationthat everyone was going through,
because it felt like whiplash toeveryone. They're like, what
happened, what happened, and whydid it happen? No answers, but
here's a donut, like

no answers. Here's a donut. Here's a lunch.
Let's go for a walk

totally and there. So there's ways of
navigating these things thatalso so when, when it does come
down where you know, like, let'ssay you do wind up in that first
example with you know, you needto log your time in 15 minute
increments, like, whatever forma support group. And like, all
you do is complain about timecards, but you all fill out the
time cards together in thesupport group as you're like,

(21:41):
complaining about it, fine.That's another way to do it,
right? There's ways, there'sways to make these, these
disconnects between the ask ofthe organization and the reality
of the people less severe.

Yeah, for sure. And I think, from from a team
member perspective, from fromthe the teenager who doesn't
want to clean his room, yeah,right. Instead of just being
like, Oh, this is stupid, thissucks, I think being more
specific is also helpful, right?Like, Oh, you know, This step

(22:16):
takes half an hour more than itreally should, and here's why,
it's because look every time Ido it, and if I take a little
too long, it times out, and Ineed to do it again. I think
it's helpful feedback, asopposed to just being seen as
complaining.

I love that idea. I love that explaining why,
explaining why you havediscontent, even if you don't
have the solution. Say, Hey,this is going to take an hour
every single day, and it's oneless hour that I'm coding, just
so that we're all clear. How doI log that time?

Right? How do I log the time spent on logging
the time?

It's a great question. It's a great question,
but that's a different I lovethat I love that I love that I
love that. So it's never reallyeasy, but I think it's just
really, you know, the and these,these solutions, there's, we've
I've given a few examples frommy life. Amanda's given some
from hers. The reality of it is,is that there is no one size

(23:20):
fits, all these scenarios aregoing to pop up on the regular
in really unexpected places. Sojust like on so many other
topics that we've talked about,test and learn see what works,
as far as navigating it, helpingto revise it, helping to improve
it. Like just run all theselittle micro experiments and see

(23:42):
what works this time, and trackwhat didn't didn't work for
yourself, because, you know someof these things, even if I gave
you the playbook for how I'vedone things, it won't
necessarily work in yourorganization, because there is
different humans on both sidesof that equation, right? And
that's where, that's what I callthe secret sauce. Like, with the

(24:02):
spidey instincts that we alldevelop over the course of our
careers, it just takes gettingknocked down a bunch of times to
learn those. Like, there's no,there's no book that you can
learn that from. But, you know,just try things out, try things
out and just like, celebratethose little wins. Like, if I
was in that scenario and I gotto if I could copy my time card
from last week to this week, andthen change it.

Unknown (24:23):
Great, huge. Thank you. I'm gonna put that in my pocket.
It's a win, right?

Or if, like, you know, changing this thing,
changing this process is really,really painful. Do it with your
do it with your, your workbesties, right? And just, you
know, crank on some user, got itthere, event session, while
doing your time.

Cards, 100% it's all good. It's all the business
has

needs. We need to, we need to meet those needs.

The business has needs. And so no matter where
you are in the organization, youknow, whether you're on the
business side or the employeeside, I think that the first
step. Is getting some empathyand compassion for the other
side, exercising some curiosity,which shows up topic ever again
and again, to understand theopposite side of that equation,

(25:12):
or the other side of theequation. And then, you know,
see, and see where you can movethis too, if at all, and if you
can't move it, find a copingmechanism, right?

Unknown (25:30):
Any other thoughts? No,

I think you covered it. I think we covered
it. I think you know, justunderstand, understanding the
the what and the why andfiguring out the How 100%

and when you can't figure out the how cope,
cope. Find a support group.Create a support group. All
right. Amanda, thank you forjoining me on this one. I
suspect that our listeners aregoing to get something out of it
if they made it through myaccount day example, which
hopefully was tolerable. And youknow, I hope that y'all join us

(26:04):
next time for another topic onthe messy middle. Bye, everyone
bye, thanks for taking time withus in the messy middle. Word of
mouth remains most powerful wayfor people to find us. If this
episode sparked something foryou, we'd love it. If you'd
subscribe to the podcast on yourfavorite app, download a few
episodes and share it withsomeone else who's navigating

(26:24):
the in between. Do you haveideas for future episodes or
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at the messymiddle matters.comor in the show notes. Thank you
for joining us on this journey.This work is better when we do
it together, until next timeyou.

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Ep 36: Aligning Human Behavior w/ Business Needs: Why People Push Back (w/Amanda Jane Lee)

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