December 3, 2025 • 34 mins
In this episode, Indra and Amanda discuss the complexities of co-creation in the workplace, particularly when it comes to leadership dynamics and the responsibilities that come with collaboration. They explore the importance of providing structure in collaborative efforts, the pitfalls of starting from a blank slate, and the need for clear expectations and communication. The conversation also touches on the challenges of goal setting, particularly with OKRs, and the significance of documenting contributions to avoid repeating past mistakes. Ultimately, the episode emphasizes the need for both leaders and team members to understand their roles and responsibilities in collaborative projects.
Takeaways
- Co-creation can often feel like a delegation of responsibilities.
- Leaders should come prepared to collaborate, not just delegate.
- Providing structure is essential for effective collaboration.
- Blank slates can lead to confusion and misalignment.
- People often don't know what they want until they see it.
- Documenting past experiences can help avoid future pitfalls.
- Understanding your bandwidth is crucial before taking on new tasks.
- Negotiating expectations can lead to better outcomes.
- The concept of 'what's in it for me' is important for all parties.
- OKRs should not be a bottom-up process without clear guidance.
Useful Links
- The Messy Middle Matters Merch:messymiddlemerch.com
- The Messy Middle Matters Glossary: messymiddlematters.com/glossary
- Feedback for The Messy Middle Matters: messymiddlematters.com/feedback
- Amanda Jane Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandajanelee/
- Indra Klavins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/indrak/
Chapters
00:00 Navigating Co-Creation in the Workplace
01:47 The Challenges of Role Definition
04:58 The Importance of Structure in Collaboration
07:47 The Value of Providing Context
10:59 Understanding Leadership Dynamics
13:44 Assessing Personal Boundaries and Responsibilities
16:56 Negotiating Expectations and Outcomes
19:51 The Slippery Slope of Helping
22:52 The Pitfalls of Bottom-Up Goal Setting
25:56 Documenting and Learning from Experiences
33:25 Outro
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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. Hey, everyone, today'sepisode came out of an ad hoc
conversation that Amanda and Iwere having just last week. And
so, you know, the scenario is,let me paint the picture for
(00:28):
you. You know, there's a seniorleader of your organization, and
they come up to you and theysay, You know what, let's co
create this thing together, ormaybe it's a hiring manager. Is
like, you know what, we're goingto shape your role together
after you're hired. Like, thereare so many versions of this
scenario that seem really wellintentioned, like you'd be like,
(00:51):
Oh, it feels empowering. Youknow that they're going to let
me shape it until you've done itonce or twice, when you're just
like, Oh, this feels a littlebit icky, and it feels a little
bit like you're making me doyour job and not in a good way,
without any of that, like it's awith, like, one of those quiet
promotions. So anyway, I'mexcited to talk to Amanda about
(01:12):
this. Hey, Amanda, how are you?
Amanda Jane Lee (01:14):
I'm good. How are you, Indra, oh, I'm doing
well.
Indra Klavins (01:17):
And I am spicy. I am spicy on this one, because,
you know it's gonna be it's onethat hits like, it hits really,
it hits really squarely.Because, you know, as a get
stuff done, or, I know youidentify as a get stuff done, or
as a glue worker. Both of us areglue workers, right? Like the
people who keep organizationstogether, and we're both
(01:39):
generalists, like people turn tous when they're not really sure
what to do or how to do it. Sothis, there's a fine line
between like, hey, pull me inbecause I want to be part of
that conversation. Because, youknow, often we get pulled in too
late too like, it's either toosoon or too late, and today's
conversation will be a littlebit more about that too soon
(02:01):
side, but without alienatingthat person, so that you can get
brought in at the right time. SoI'm excited. I'm excited. Yeah,
me too.
Amanda Jane Lee (02:10):
Your your intro about figuring out, let's shape
your role together. I've beenthe first TPM a few times at a
company, and the number of timesI've been told, Oh, well, you
are the expert. Like, we'rerelying on you to figure out
(02:32):
what needs to be done. And it'slike, okay, like, I get that,
but you hired me for a reason.Like you, you wrote this job
description, you put togetherthis job hosting, you did all
the interviewing. You hired mefor a reason. I'm assuming,
like, surely, you had somethingin mind. And I've been told,
(02:52):
yeah, like, we just know we needhelp.
Indra Klavins (02:55):
We just know we need help. And I don't think
this is unique to just ourcraft. I think I have one
scenario where I shaped the jobwith someone, and it turned out,
well, that was with, actually,Pascal, who we both know, right?
So, like, he and I, but we'dwork together, and we kind of
knew he knew how I worked, Iknew how he worked, and I knew
what we needed to do. But sooften it doesn't quite work out
that way, right? It's, it's, um,and I've seen it with crafts,
(03:18):
other crafts, so design. I'veseen it happen with designers.
Like, I know I need design Ijust don't know what to do with
it. Or, like, oh, there's atechnical element to it. Like, I
need a software engineer. Butwhat kind of software engineer
you brought in a databaseengineer? But we're talking
about an app like that has nodatabase component. What are we
doing? You know? Like, so a lotof this can and that leader is
(03:41):
has, you know, knows they have ablind spot, and they think
they're doing the right thing,and they think that they're
doing empowerment. I don't wantto, I don't want to shame that
leader, right? They don't knowwhat they don't know. But I
challenge that leader to comeinto conversation slightly more
prepared, so that it becomes atrue collaboration and not just
(04:03):
a delegation and outsourcing ofyour strategy and your
responsibilities, because that'swhat they're really doing when
they don't give you any sort ofstructure or guidance.
Amanda Jane Lee (04:11):
Yeah, totally. And I think part of the reason
why it worked out with Pascalwas because there was that
context already, right? Like heknew he knew you, knew him.
Like, there, there was somecontext given to start with, as
opposed to, like, here's a blankpage, right?
Indra Klavins (04:29):
We had done a similar project so it was back
at WeWork, and he was doing amigration over, I'm going to
speak over people's heads forjust a second excuse the jargon
we needed to get the entireengineering organization of 12,
1200 software engineers migratedover onto a Kubernetes
infrastructure, Kate'sinfrastructure and his Pascal's
(04:50):
team had was building, had builta lot of the thing that everyone
need to move to, but theycouldn't incentivize everyone to
move over to it. Right? So Ibecame his hype man. Done, I
became the person who got, youknow, enticed everyone to move
over. I also created a lot ofstructures that helped both
sides of engineering this s thesoft the core development team
right, the infrastructuredevelopers and the folks who
(05:14):
were building the client facingstuff. So like he and I had done
sort of a test run of thatalready, and I'd helped him with
a lot of the stuff, and he'dseen the stuff that I'd done at
Verizon, so, like, it was okay.It was okay, and it worked out
really well until it didn't. Butthat wasn't Pascal's fault, that
wasn't my fault. That was justthe way the market goes
sometimes. But you know when,when you say, like, Let's go to
(05:37):
another scenario where you knowit is, I want a designer. I want
to we always talk about design,because it's really easy for
people to wrap their headsaround, I want a designer. You
don't just pull someone in justto do stuff and draw pretty
pictures, you know, you need tohelp to give them structure.
Like, one of the things Ilearned working with designers
is you need a brief. Where isthe brief? They are obsessed
(06:00):
about getting the brief. Andothers are like, but like, What
do you mean? Like, no, who is itfor? Why are we doing it? What
outcomes are we trying to to, todrive, you know, what are the
goals of this? Do we have asense of how we want to get
there? You know? Like, I'mtalking about rough, rough,
(06:20):
sketch level straw man conceptsin your brain, of like, hey, you
know what I'm thinking that Iwant an iPhone application that
people can use to, you know,monitor what the traffic lights
are doing on their corner at anygiven time. Because I think that
they want to know when theyshould leave because there's a
(06:42):
traffic light that's reallyannoying on their corner. Okay,
ridiculous idea, but, like, butthat's the level of like, just
give us something. And then thenyou can bring in the people say,
Hey, can you validate and see,am I on track? Am I off track?
What do you think of that idea?What do you think of the
beginning of that? What do youthink of it, and then there's
something to react to, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (07:04):
And I think that's the key. There's
something to react to right,like, the even if it's a vague,
you know, pie in the sky goal oflike, what success looks like,
that's better than nothing atall.
Indra Klavins (07:18):
It's better than nothing. And the other example,
like, and I had a conversationwith someone recently, someone
recently about something, andthey're like, Oh, we want to co
create. CO create, co create.I'm like, with within the team,
with users. And I understandthat, because so much of the
literature makes it sound likeit's studied, so much of what's
been published and what's beenpopular in the business rags
(07:41):
that are out there, you know,is, you know, like, is this co
creation concept. But a lesson Ilearned early, when I was a baby
project manager, or maybe, maybea teenage project manager,
right? Was, you know, everyonewas saying, Oh, you need to go.
You can't create the projectplan without talking to me
first. So I had to go. I wasworking in an agency. I had to
(08:02):
go to the UX leaders. I do thetechnology leaders. I had to go
to strategy leaders. And youknow, I would say to them, you
know, what do you want on theproject plan? They're like,
well, it depends, like, is thesky blue on that day? And will
we be turning left or we'll beturning right? There were all
these, it depends that happens.And I could never get them to
write a single thing down. Iwent to my boss at the time. I'm
(08:24):
like, I am say I'm doing exactlywhat they asked me to do is
don't draw a project planwithout me. But they can't give
me anything. Todd said to me, itwas Indra. They give them
something to react, to draw aproject plan and let them tell
you why it's wrong. That advicehas served me so well throughout
my entire career. When peoplehave something to react to,
(08:47):
rather than a blank slate, it'smuch better. And that actually
invites the co creation. Youdon't go there and say, Here's
my project plan, and this is howI'm going to do it. You say,
Here's my project plan, here'smy concept, here's my idea,
here's my, you know, likethesis, here's my whatever. And
it's like, I've roughed it outto some degree. I need you as a
(09:08):
partner. You're the expert inthis world. Can you react to it?
Can you validate it? Can youchange it? Can you now take this
foundation that I've set and addon to it? Or, you know, take
away the parts that don't makesense, give people something to
react to. Because when you don'tall of that emotional and
intellectual and strategic andleadership layer
(09:30):
responsibilities lands on theperson that you're engaging.
Yeah, I'm laughing becausethey're it's a post or something
on the internet went viral atsome point, and it was basically
the advice that
Amanda Jane Lee (09:46):
if someone posts a question, and this was
in the context of softwareengineering, if someone posts a
problem on Reddit, no one willrespond. No but if you post the
problem and your wrong solution.Everyone will respond and tell
you why it's wrong, and what theright answer is.
Indra Klavins (10:04):
Human beings love telling you what's wrong. They
love it because it and there'sand there's lots of reasons to
and this kind of goes into ourepisode around perfectionism and
some other things out there,like, you know, and I've got,
I've got really strong feelingsabout people who tell me, you
should be doing this, and youshould be doing that too much,
right? But I invite that. Iinvite that in the right ways,
(10:27):
of like, Hey, here's the plan,here's something I drew. It gets
you much more stuff. The otherthing to consider, if you're
doing too much of this cocreation, I hadn't thought of
this earlier, but like, whenyou're working with your a lot
of the things is like, is like,Oh, I'm going to ask my
customers what they want. I'mgoing to build them what they
tell me. People never people,rarely will. Like, there's all
(10:50):
these. There's all these. Youknow, examples of case studies.
People don't know what they wantuntil they experience it, right?
They think they know what theywant, but until it's real, like,
I was working on a I was leadinga UX design team, and we were,
there was a platform that wasbeing built. We'd had that our
partners, our product people,had engaged in external agency.
(11:11):
The agency created somethingbeautiful. I'm like, that's not
going to work. My productpartners, like, but that's
exactly what everyone asked for.I'm like, I understand that, but
I've never seen that besuccessful. I've seen people try
this, but I've never seen it besuccessful. I don't think it's
going to work right, but this iswhat they told me. We launched
(11:32):
the thing. Clients didn't likeit because what they wanted and
looks beautiful in a sizzle reeldoesn't always look it doesn't
always work well for how you'redoing your job. So give them
something to react to,
Amanda Jane Lee (11:47):
right high level guidance something. Give
them something to react to givethem the picture on the page,
even if it's ugly, as opposed toa blank sheet of paper.
Indra Klavins (11:56):
So you know, a lot of people, so some people
who listen to this podcast arein leadership positions. So my
mandate to y'all, or my requestto all of you, is, you know,
think about it when you areentering into one of these co
creation moments, be honest withyourself. Be honest with the
person you're engaging with.Sometimes the answer might be,
hey, I really don't know whereto start. I know this is not
(12:19):
ideal. I know this is notnecessarily fair, but can you
come into this room andbrainstorm with me for a little
bit? Because I need somebody toreact to that's a different
framing than like, that's adifferent framing. So frame it
right. If you need to go and,and, and, you know, enlist
someone even before there'slike, enough of a straw man for
(12:40):
people to react to. That's myrequest of you. Think about it,
right? And for the people whoare on the receiving end, it can
be it can be hard. It can behard when you're in that
situation. And sometimes youdon't know you're in that
situation until, like, threedays later, and you're like, oh,
three days ago, they messed withme, and they pulled me into
(13:03):
something, and now suddenlyeverything is my responsibility.
How did that happen? Right? Idon't know if I've been in that
scenario. Amanda, I imagine youhave to,
Amanda Jane Lee (13:12):
uh, yeah, it's a slippery slope. I think that's
another episode.
Indra Klavins (13:17):
It is another episode. And I've got my I've
got my classic, don't make meregret trying to be helpful.
Mug, my old school one. I schoolone, because that's, that's how
it feels like you're arehelpful, then you're having
these regrets, right? This iswhere I my favorite tool for
this. I would love to hear howyou my latest, my latest, modern
tool for things like this ischat, GPT or your favorite, AI
(13:40):
of choice. I'm not saying thatthat, you know, I don't take
anything that my AI spits out asgospel. Let's be really clear.
But sometimes, you know, I justneed a Hey, am I crazy? Gut
check, and then it might spitcrazy back at me, right? But I'm
like, here's a scenario, here'sthe thing, here's the data. I
(14:03):
feel like I shouldn't be doingthis. What are your thoughts?
And it gives me responses that,really, you know, it helps me
figure out when I'mhallucinating, right? It might
hallucinate back, I mean, but ithelps me figure out if I'm
hallucinating. It just helps meground myself in like, am I? Am
I fooling myself? Becausehelpers are always inclined to
want to help, and when I have aninstinct to not want to help,
(14:25):
and I'm like, Is it me or is itthem? I don't know.
Unknown (14:29):
Yeah, it's um, I don't, I don't use chat GPT for that.
Indra Klavins (14:34):
Um, too much. Or maybe, I don't know, we'll see
time will tell.
Amanda Jane Lee (14:39):
Time will tell, um, I don't use it for that, but
for me, it's, it's been a lot oftraining myself, honestly, to
just, like, take a beat. Insteadof being like, yes, I want to
help like, yes, add that thingto my plate, like, yes, yes,
yes, yes, yes. And just beingand this has taken years of
realizing what the problem is.And what the trap is, and
(15:03):
changing my behavioraccordingly, right? So like,
I'll take a beat. I'll, youknow, I've, I've learned that
you don't have to say yes or no,you don't have to give an answer
right away, right? So, like,take a minute, assess what it
is, really. Think about it. Whatare the what are the
ramifications of this? Is thissomething that I even have
(15:25):
bandwidth? And bandwidth canmean so many things, but in
these types of things, it'susually like emotional bandwidth
to handle this, right? Becauseit, like you said, in a lot of
cases, it's the delegation oflike, the the messy stuff, the
anxiety, the figuring out
Unknown (15:45):
part, yeah, yeah.
Indra Klavins (15:48):
I love, I love that you went there, because
that's it's reminding me, that'ssome good advice that I also
received early in my career froma gentleman named Martin. He's
like, you know, there'ssomewhere in that time period I
learned, hey, I know that I'mnot good as except I'm I know
I'm not good at assessing mybandwidth and what's possible in
(16:09):
a particular moment. Give me afew hours, or give me till
tomorrow, and I'll let you know,because I don't I need time. I
need time to just really, like,look at things, it's I'm not I'm
not a computer. I'm not acomputer. I love that.
Amanda Jane Lee (16:26):
Yeah, and actually, if you're being rushed
to make a decision by someone,if someone is pressuring you to
make the decision, chances arethey're the ones benefiting from
this decision. Of you saying,Yes, I need
Indra Klavins (16:40):
to get my legs out. I need a red flag. I need a
red flag. You're right, you'reright. It's that pressure. It's
that it's Yeah, it is a it canbe a sign. It can be a sign of
that.
Amanda Jane Lee (16:53):
It can be, it's not always, but it can be, yeah,
yeah. It's like, it's thatdelegation of, like, I don't
want to deal with this rightnow. So I like, I need you to
deal with it. For me, yeah,
Indra Klavins (17:05):
another one that comes to mind. It's a reframe on
something that I usually usewhen I'm coaching others in
getting others, their partners,to buy in on something. You
know, usually when it I was aquestion you can ask yourself,
is, what's in it for me? And youcan literally say that question
out loud. Say, Hey, I see howimportant this is. I see how
(17:29):
this is going to drive thebottom line. What's in it for
me? I'm having a hard timeunderstanding how I fit into
this puzzle. I know I can do alot of things. I see how I can
benefit you.
Unknown (17:39):
But what's in it for me,
Amanda Jane Lee (17:41):
yeah, and, like many things, it's a game of
trade offs, right? Because,like, what comes to mind for me
is back to the oh, well, we needa designer, right? Like I've
seen, I've seen, because Iworked with a lot of engineers,
I've seen a situation where,like, an engineer is on their
(18:04):
way to being promoted, andthey're being empowered to lead
a new project, and leadership islike, Yeah, this is a great
opportunity for you, like you'vegot full ownership, but as the
pro the as The projectprogresses, it's like, oh, wait,
the key decisions still need tobe run up the chain. Engineer
(18:25):
can't block them, unblockthemselves. Like, when things
get stuck, like they're stuck,and like, every decision needs
to be approved by someone else.And like, that's not full
ownership, that's that's someonedelegating all the
responsibility and all thefigure it out, all the hard
stuff to you under the guise ofit's a great opportunity,
Indra Klavins (18:49):
and none of the authority and none of the
paycheck, I'm back to, whetherwe like it or not, we live in a
capitalist society, and I wantto get paid for my labor. I want
there to be benefit to me. Iwant there to be something in it
for me. And by the answer, whenI say what's in it for me is,
like, you get to keep your job,that might be a fair answer.
(19:10):
It's a game of trade offs,right? Trade offs. And I don't
mean that is Yeah, and I'msaying don't start threatening
people's jobs. That's not whatI'm trying to say. I'm thinking
more like, Hey, this issomething we need to do for the
business, and it needs to getdone, and you're literally the
only person who can do it. Okay,great, fine. I will do it for
(19:30):
the next two weeks, at whichpoint we will reevaluate, right?
Or if you're in the muck andyou've like, you're looking at
the rear view mirror, andyou're, how did I get here? Hey,
when we walked into this, Ididn't know what we were walking
into. You didn't know we werewalking into. Now that I'm
looking at it fresh with fresheyes, let's renegotiate, right?
(19:51):
You don't necessarily use thatword, but renegotiate the terms
of your engagement and say, Hey,this is half of the stuff that
I'm doing in the decision.Decisions I'm making are above
my pay grade. I am back seating.I'm backseat driving. Your
strategy,
Unknown (20:08):
this makes me feel uncomfortable. What do we do?
Yeah, and you know,
Amanda Jane Lee (20:17):
if what's in it for you is just that experience,
cool, that could be fine. Yeah,I've done that before. I've done
that before. I built a career ondoing that. Come on, right
again, slippery slope, right ofhelping
Indra Klavins (20:34):
to like when you slip down to slip back up again,
somehow, something right
Amanda Jane Lee (20:41):
when you said backseat driving, like, backseat
driving the strategy, what cameto mind was everyone's favorite
thing, OKRs, oh. Like, I tell memore.
Indra Klavins (20:54):
This is, this is a slippery slope, but I'm happy
to go on it.
Amanda Jane Lee (20:57):
Okay. No, this is a slippery slope too. But,
like, what came to mind withbackseat driving was like, the
multiple times in my careerwhere I've seen leaders be like,
Okay, it's time to okay, like,plan OKRs for the quarter and
go. And when you ask questionslike, What are the company's
goals for the quarter? What arethe department's goals for the
(21:19):
quarter, my favorite answer is,oh, well, you know, we want to,
we want to co create them withthe teams. We want you to have
input. We don't want to beprescriptive.
Indra Klavins (21:32):
I am, I am, strangely, I am delighted you
brought this up. You know, it'sa lesson I learned years ago,
like, and it's I had, I had awoman, Lori, wonderful human
being, still a friend to thisday, she was writing her annual
goals. So we weren't in OKRs. Wewere just like, literally, her
(21:53):
annual goals for the year. We'rein goal setting season right
now. Right for everyone, it'seither wrap up or planning or
whatever. Everybody's in thatcycle right now. And she's like,
I want to know, I want to makesure that my goals ladder up to
your goals at for what you'retrying to do with the team, etc,
etc. And I sat there and Ithought about it. I'm like, this
(22:14):
makes sense. This is, this isthe way that you can ensure that
you as a individual contributor,or somebody not you know, as
high in the food chain, so tospeak, or the pyramid, or
whatever metaphor we want to usefor the organization, can be an
align your work to the values,which then helps to fortify your
(22:35):
job, right? Which is important,and it is, it? The problem is,
is that I often we're in thesecatch 20 twos with this stuff,
whether it's OKRs or whatever itmight be, in this arena where no
one has published the goals forthe company yet, right? No one.
And so how do you figure outwhat you're laddering up to? And
(22:59):
it really feels icky. It reallyfeels icky when you're that
person at the bottom and youknow, I think it is a fair
pushback saying it's not. Orthey'll the other one, they'll
say, Oh, we're trying to do OKRsbottom up this year. That never
works. Oh yeah. Never, ever,ever ever works. I hear it all
the time, but it never, ever,ever works that people are
(23:22):
saying, I want yours first arereally fair. And the reality of
it is that, okay, so you're at acertain level of the
organization, the company hasnot published their goals.
You're not allowed to say, hey,just base it off of last year's
stuff. I'll, I'll write minebased on yours? No, no, no, no.
(23:43):
Things do not flow downhill. Ifyou're a good leader, you say to
yourself, hey, CEO person didnot publish their OKRs or their
goals for the year. But I'm inenough conversations where I
have a sense of where it is. Letme create a draft of mine, and
then my team can base it ontheirs. I will tell them it's a
draft. So if we need to changethings, when the official ones
(24:05):
come out, we can all change themtogether. But it's your job as a
leader to make stuff up so thatyour team has confidence that
the work that they're creatingcan ladder up. Otherwise you are
literally letting the CEOs orthe boards, or whoever's you
know, responsibilities cascadepast you, down onto your people,
(24:27):
and that is terrible leadership.Full stop.
Amanda Jane Lee (24:30):
Yep. Rant over. I cringed when you said bottom
up, because I I've heard that somany times, and it in my
experience, it doesn't work.
Indra Klavins (24:43):
It's cheating. It's cheating.
Amanda Jane Lee (24:45):
Just like, Oh, I'm just gonna copy your answers
and submit them, like, for mytest results, yeah. Just what
flashback, right of, okay, fine.Like, in lieu of not having.
Published top level goals. Yeah,okay, well, we'll do it bottom
up, because you're you're makingus right. And like, you control
(25:09):
my paycheck, right? So, like,I'm gonna do what I'm told. And
then we present our plan, andthen it gets questioned of the
lawsuit, where did you comefrom? Where? Where did this guy?
This doesn't align with thething that I never told you
about. Like, how you know, whatwere you thinking? Like, how did
Right, right? What were youthinking? Why did you choose
that one? What about, whatabout? What about and like,
(25:31):
everybody who actually has donethat work leaves deflated,
unmotivated, and like, WTF.Like, it's as if the leaders
knew exactly what the what theplan was, but didn't want to
tell us, because they didn'twant to be prescriptive and
(25:52):
right,
Indra Klavins (25:53):
I don't want to take the time to figure it out
right
Amanda Jane Lee (25:57):
exactly, and, you know, I like to compare that
those types of situations to theIRS knowing exactly how much in
taxes you owe each year. Butthey're gonna make you guess,
and if you guess wrong, jail,
Indra Klavins (26:18):
death and taxes, the two things we can count on
here in the US, but yes, yes.And what a terrible way to start
your year, right? You're you'retrying to set like you're in
your your kickoff, if you're orquarter kickoff, or whatever
kickoff, if you're talking OKRs,if you're talking personal
goals, if you're talking aboutany of that stuff, your job as a
(26:41):
leader is to like the whole thewhole hope is at the end of that
planning period, everyone'slike, hurrah, let's storm the
castle together. Yay. Buteveryone's like, Yay, storming.
I just got beat up before weeven started trying, yay.
Amanda Jane Lee (27:00):
And that that's really how it feels like it
feel. It feels like you just gotbeat up. You just got run over
by a truck. And, you know,earlier in this episode, we
talked about Give. Give peoplesomething to react to. Yes, but
if you are the leader, don'texpect the people who report to
(27:21):
you to give you something toreact to. This is what they're
trying to do when, when they putyou in the situation.
Indra Klavins (27:27):
Yeah. So when you do wind up in the situation, the
reality is, push back, ask forstuff. If the leader is strong,
they'll be like, You know what?You're right. I totally missed
that. I was just trying to do500 things. Let me do it. I'll
have it for you in the next dayor so. So you'll have something
at least, to base things off of.We might need to revise later,
(27:49):
but great. If you have a weakleader, you'll get not that
answer, and you'll have tofigure it out yourself. And
that's where I love the conceptof finding your tribe at work,
right? Find the find the doers.It's like Mr. Rogers advice.
Find the helpers. They're alwayshelping. Find the helpers.
(28:11):
Create a unifying, you know,like, create a little
subcommittee, unofficial,because, you know, you don't
have any of the authority. Butcreate that and figure out what
you guys can do together. Createa coalition. Create a coalition.
Maybe that's a better word.Create a coalition and do your
best. Because the reality of itis, you can't get people to do
things that they they areunwilling to do, especially if
(28:35):
they're more senior than youare. It's really hard. But keep
on trying. Don't give up fornext year or next cycle, you
know, always start at thebeginning and say, don't always
assume that they're going to Kthey're not going to give you
what you need. Ask every day,hey, this time did you have the
thing? Hey, this time did youhave the thing? And if it fails
again, if they fail again, togive you what you need. Hey, tap
(28:58):
into that coalition. Figure outwhat you can tap into your
network and do the best that youcan and give yourself a whole
lot of grace. Write the caveatto the bottom, saying, hey,
based on past experience withXYZ inputs, put all your caveats
on the final slide, or in theemail when you share it, or
whatever it is, to protectyourself and just do the best
(29:20):
you can, and don't try not tobeat yourself up when you get
called out and asked the whatabout, what about, what about
scenarios that you were talkingabout Amanda, like, didn't you
think about this? And didn't you
Unknown (29:32):
think, like, dude, not my job. Right?
Indra Klavins (29:36):
Inside voice, inside voice, not out loud. But
you know, just, just giveyourself grace when they have
that moment, you know, shake itoff. Dance it out, whatever you
got to do to try to get shakeoff that, that that critique
which is not yours to have.
Unknown (29:51):
Yeah, I
Amanda Jane Lee (29:54):
a strategy I like to use is I like to
document things right, and so ifi. Myself in this situation, I
will document like, what inputsI had at what time and when what
I asked for, when I got it, didI ever get it, and what the
outcomes were. And I don't wanthistory to repeat itself next
(30:17):
quarter. So like, I'll pull upmy receipts and and if I asked
for the same things again, I'llbe like, hello, I asked for
this. You know, this time lastquarter, this is when I got it.
Like, could we get it a littlesooner? If we don't get it
sooner than this, then, like,this is what's going to happen.
We're just going to go throughthe same cycle. And remember how
(30:38):
painful that was. Remember howeverybody was deflated and felt
like they just got beat up.Yeah, let's not do that.
Unknown (30:45):
That's such a great tactic.
Indra Klavins (30:47):
That's such a great tactic because people
until they live it and see it inwriting, because the brain can
trick itself, right, likeputting things in writing and,
hey, this is how things wentlast time. Are we doing it the
same way? Like, this is the mostpassive version. Are we doing it
the same way? If we are then,like, expect this, this, this
(31:09):
and this challenges again,right? Like, which, which gaps
are willing to fill in thistime, right? It's but repeat it
to them. They will forget.Brains are tricky. Brains are
tricky, tricky, tricky, littlethings. I don't care what anyone
says.
Unknown (31:25):
I love it. Any other thoughts?
Indra Klavins (31:27):
We covered a lot of good ground today. We did
cover a lot of good ground.
Amanda Jane Lee (31:33):
I don't think I have any other thoughts, like,
I'm trying to, like, replay thelast, I don't know, 20 minutes
or so, yeah. I mean, yeah, it'sa lot. And I don't think we
missed anything that we wantedto cover.
Indra Klavins (31:45):
No, I think we covered more ground than we
thought we would like. I thinkso, just to recap a few things,
collaboration, partnership,different, right? If you're the
one who is more senior in theconversation, ask yourself, Am I
truly partnering with thisperson? Am I setting them up for
success? Am I coming to thetable with the things that I
(32:07):
need to like is that is, is thatthere, if I'm on the other side,
am I being set up for success?Ask yourself, see what you can
figure out, and see what you canchallenge, what you can't
challenge. You know. What arethe pros and the cons? You know.
And just constantly, I like thatlast piece that you said about,
like, keeping notes of what wasgoing on, because it's a great
(32:28):
way of also checking yourself,like, what worked, what didn't.
So you can try the next timethis scenario shows up again.
How can you engage a littledifferently so it's more
favorable to everyone, not justthe person who's getting all the
benefits, who's in that powerposition?
Unknown (32:43):
Yeah, totally. What? What's in it for
Indra Klavins (32:47):
me, what's in it for me, what's in it for me,
it's a great question, and it'snot a it's not a self, it's not
the selfish question that it cansometimes seem to be, for those
of us who give too much, it's agreat question to ask. It's a
great question as what's in itfor me, totally. Amanda, thank
you again for joining me forthis conversation, a rich one
(33:08):
that came out of, like, aspontaneous little chat that you
and I were having. We were like,oh my god, I think this is an
episode. How did that happen?And I trust that everyone who's
listening got something out ofthis one. And I hope that you
all join us next time foranother topic from the messy
middle bye everyone.
(33:31):
If you've got some get stuffdone is on your team, or are one
who takes pride in your work. Wejust dropped a brand new I get
stuff done collection in themessy middle merch shop, you'll
also find the classics Don'tmake me regret trying to be
helpful, and words matter. Theymake fantastic year end gifts.
And yes, we even have giftcards. And if something's
(33:52):
running late, there's a free Iordered it, but it's not here
yet. Download. You can hand themin the meantime. Check
everything out at messy middlemerch.com and if you like this
episode, a like, share orsubscribe goes a really long way
in helping us spread the wordtill next time you.
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. Hey, everyone, today'sepisode came out of an ad hoc
conversation that Amanda and Iwere having just last week. And
so, you know, the scenario is,let me paint the picture for
(00:28):
you. You know, there's a seniorleader of your organization, and
they come up to you and theysay, You know what, let's co
create this thing together, ormaybe it's a hiring manager. Is
like, you know what, we're goingto shape your role together
after you're hired. Like, thereare so many versions of this
scenario that seem really wellintentioned, like you'd be like,
(00:51):
Oh, it feels empowering. Youknow that they're going to let
me shape it until you've done itonce or twice, when you're just
like, Oh, this feels a littlebit icky, and it feels a little
bit like you're making me doyour job and not in a good way,
without any of that, like it's awith, like, one of those quiet
promotions. So anyway, I'mexcited to talk to Amanda about
(01:12):
this. Hey, Amanda, how are you?
Amanda Jane Lee (01:14):
I'm good. How are you, Indra, oh, I'm doing
well.
Indra Klavins (01:17):
And I am spicy. I am spicy on this one, because,
you know it's gonna be it's onethat hits like, it hits really,
it hits really squarely.Because, you know, as a get
stuff done, or, I know youidentify as a get stuff done, or
as a glue worker. Both of us areglue workers, right? Like the
people who keep organizationstogether, and we're both
(01:39):
generalists, like people turn tous when they're not really sure
what to do or how to do it. Sothis, there's a fine line
between like, hey, pull me inbecause I want to be part of
that conversation. Because, youknow, often we get pulled in too
late too like, it's either toosoon or too late, and today's
conversation will be a littlebit more about that too soon
(02:01):
side, but without alienatingthat person, so that you can get
brought in at the right time. SoI'm excited. I'm excited. Yeah,
me too.
Amanda Jane Lee (02:10):
Your your intro about figuring out, let's shape
your role together. I've beenthe first TPM a few times at a
company, and the number of timesI've been told, Oh, well, you
are the expert. Like, we'rerelying on you to figure out
(02:32):
what needs to be done. And it'slike, okay, like, I get that,
but you hired me for a reason.Like you, you wrote this job
description, you put togetherthis job hosting, you did all
the interviewing. You hired mefor a reason. I'm assuming,
like, surely, you had somethingin mind. And I've been told,
(02:52):
yeah, like, we just know we needhelp.
Indra Klavins (02:55):
We just know we need help. And I don't think
this is unique to just ourcraft. I think I have one
scenario where I shaped the jobwith someone, and it turned out,
well, that was with, actually,Pascal, who we both know, right?
So, like, he and I, but we'dwork together, and we kind of
knew he knew how I worked, Iknew how he worked, and I knew
what we needed to do. But sooften it doesn't quite work out
that way, right? It's, it's, um,and I've seen it with crafts,
(03:18):
other crafts, so design. I'veseen it happen with designers.
Like, I know I need design Ijust don't know what to do with
it. Or, like, oh, there's atechnical element to it. Like, I
need a software engineer. Butwhat kind of software engineer
you brought in a databaseengineer? But we're talking
about an app like that has nodatabase component. What are we
doing? You know? Like, so a lotof this can and that leader is
(03:41):
has, you know, knows they have ablind spot, and they think
they're doing the right thing,and they think that they're
doing empowerment. I don't wantto, I don't want to shame that
leader, right? They don't knowwhat they don't know. But I
challenge that leader to comeinto conversation slightly more
prepared, so that it becomes atrue collaboration and not just
(04:03):
a delegation and outsourcing ofyour strategy and your
responsibilities, because that'swhat they're really doing when
they don't give you any sort ofstructure or guidance.
Amanda Jane Lee (04:11):
Yeah, totally. And I think part of the reason
why it worked out with Pascalwas because there was that
context already, right? Like heknew he knew you, knew him.
Like, there, there was somecontext given to start with, as
opposed to, like, here's a blankpage, right?
Indra Klavins (04:29):
We had done a similar project so it was back
at WeWork, and he was doing amigration over, I'm going to
speak over people's heads forjust a second excuse the jargon
we needed to get the entireengineering organization of 12,
1200 software engineers migratedover onto a Kubernetes
infrastructure, Kate'sinfrastructure and his Pascal's
(04:50):
team had was building, had builta lot of the thing that everyone
need to move to, but theycouldn't incentivize everyone to
move over to it. Right? So Ibecame his hype man. Done, I
became the person who got, youknow, enticed everyone to move
over. I also created a lot ofstructures that helped both
sides of engineering this s thesoft the core development team
right, the infrastructuredevelopers and the folks who
(05:14):
were building the client facingstuff. So like he and I had done
sort of a test run of thatalready, and I'd helped him with
a lot of the stuff, and he'dseen the stuff that I'd done at
Verizon, so, like, it was okay.It was okay, and it worked out
really well until it didn't. Butthat wasn't Pascal's fault, that
wasn't my fault. That was justthe way the market goes
sometimes. But you know when,when you say, like, Let's go to
(05:37):
another scenario where you knowit is, I want a designer. I want
to we always talk about design,because it's really easy for
people to wrap their headsaround, I want a designer. You
don't just pull someone in justto do stuff and draw pretty
pictures, you know, you need tohelp to give them structure.
Like, one of the things Ilearned working with designers
is you need a brief. Where isthe brief? They are obsessed
(06:00):
about getting the brief. Andothers are like, but like, What
do you mean? Like, no, who is itfor? Why are we doing it? What
outcomes are we trying to to, todrive, you know, what are the
goals of this? Do we have asense of how we want to get
there? You know? Like, I'mtalking about rough, rough,
(06:20):
sketch level straw man conceptsin your brain, of like, hey, you
know what I'm thinking that Iwant an iPhone application that
people can use to, you know,monitor what the traffic lights
are doing on their corner at anygiven time. Because I think that
they want to know when theyshould leave because there's a
(06:42):
traffic light that's reallyannoying on their corner. Okay,
ridiculous idea, but, like, butthat's the level of like, just
give us something. And then thenyou can bring in the people say,
Hey, can you validate and see,am I on track? Am I off track?
What do you think of that idea?What do you think of the
beginning of that? What do youthink of it, and then there's
something to react to, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (07:04):
And I think that's the key. There's
something to react to right,like, the even if it's a vague,
you know, pie in the sky goal oflike, what success looks like,
that's better than nothing atall.
Indra Klavins (07:18):
It's better than nothing. And the other example,
like, and I had a conversationwith someone recently, someone
recently about something, andthey're like, Oh, we want to co
create. CO create, co create.I'm like, with within the team,
with users. And I understandthat, because so much of the
literature makes it sound likeit's studied, so much of what's
been published and what's beenpopular in the business rags
(07:41):
that are out there, you know,is, you know, like, is this co
creation concept. But a lesson Ilearned early, when I was a baby
project manager, or maybe, maybea teenage project manager,
right? Was, you know, everyonewas saying, Oh, you need to go.
You can't create the projectplan without talking to me
first. So I had to go. I wasworking in an agency. I had to
(08:02):
go to the UX leaders. I do thetechnology leaders. I had to go
to strategy leaders. And youknow, I would say to them, you
know, what do you want on theproject plan? They're like,
well, it depends, like, is thesky blue on that day? And will
we be turning left or we'll beturning right? There were all
these, it depends that happens.And I could never get them to
write a single thing down. Iwent to my boss at the time. I'm
(08:24):
like, I am say I'm doing exactlywhat they asked me to do is
don't draw a project planwithout me. But they can't give
me anything. Todd said to me, itwas Indra. They give them
something to react, to draw aproject plan and let them tell
you why it's wrong. That advicehas served me so well throughout
my entire career. When peoplehave something to react to,
(08:47):
rather than a blank slate, it'smuch better. And that actually
invites the co creation. Youdon't go there and say, Here's
my project plan, and this is howI'm going to do it. You say,
Here's my project plan, here'smy concept, here's my idea,
here's my, you know, likethesis, here's my whatever. And
it's like, I've roughed it outto some degree. I need you as a
(09:08):
partner. You're the expert inthis world. Can you react to it?
Can you validate it? Can youchange it? Can you now take this
foundation that I've set and addon to it? Or, you know, take
away the parts that don't makesense, give people something to
react to. Because when you don'tall of that emotional and
intellectual and strategic andleadership layer
(09:30):
responsibilities lands on theperson that you're engaging.
Yeah, I'm laughing becausethey're it's a post or something
on the internet went viral atsome point, and it was basically
the advice that
Amanda Jane Lee (09:46):
if someone posts a question, and this was
in the context of softwareengineering, if someone posts a
problem on Reddit, no one willrespond. No but if you post the
problem and your wrong solution.Everyone will respond and tell
you why it's wrong, and what theright answer is.
Indra Klavins (10:04):
Human beings love telling you what's wrong. They
love it because it and there'sand there's lots of reasons to
and this kind of goes into ourepisode around perfectionism and
some other things out there,like, you know, and I've got,
I've got really strong feelingsabout people who tell me, you
should be doing this, and youshould be doing that too much,
right? But I invite that. Iinvite that in the right ways,
(10:27):
of like, Hey, here's the plan,here's something I drew. It gets
you much more stuff. The otherthing to consider, if you're
doing too much of this cocreation, I hadn't thought of
this earlier, but like, whenyou're working with your a lot
of the things is like, is like,Oh, I'm going to ask my
customers what they want. I'mgoing to build them what they
tell me. People never people,rarely will. Like, there's all
(10:50):
these. There's all these. Youknow, examples of case studies.
People don't know what they wantuntil they experience it, right?
They think they know what theywant, but until it's real, like,
I was working on a I was leadinga UX design team, and we were,
there was a platform that wasbeing built. We'd had that our
partners, our product people,had engaged in external agency.
(11:11):
The agency created somethingbeautiful. I'm like, that's not
going to work. My productpartners, like, but that's
exactly what everyone asked for.I'm like, I understand that, but
I've never seen that besuccessful. I've seen people try
this, but I've never seen it besuccessful. I don't think it's
going to work right, but this iswhat they told me. We launched
(11:32):
the thing. Clients didn't likeit because what they wanted and
looks beautiful in a sizzle reeldoesn't always look it doesn't
always work well for how you'redoing your job. So give them
something to react to,
Amanda Jane Lee (11:47):
right high level guidance something. Give
them something to react to givethem the picture on the page,
even if it's ugly, as opposed toa blank sheet of paper.
Indra Klavins (11:56):
So you know, a lot of people, so some people
who listen to this podcast arein leadership positions. So my
mandate to y'all, or my requestto all of you, is, you know,
think about it when you areentering into one of these co
creation moments, be honest withyourself. Be honest with the
person you're engaging with.Sometimes the answer might be,
hey, I really don't know whereto start. I know this is not
(12:19):
ideal. I know this is notnecessarily fair, but can you
come into this room andbrainstorm with me for a little
bit? Because I need somebody toreact to that's a different
framing than like, that's adifferent framing. So frame it
right. If you need to go and,and, and, you know, enlist
someone even before there'slike, enough of a straw man for
(12:40):
people to react to. That's myrequest of you. Think about it,
right? And for the people whoare on the receiving end, it can
be it can be hard. It can behard when you're in that
situation. And sometimes youdon't know you're in that
situation until, like, threedays later, and you're like, oh,
three days ago, they messed withme, and they pulled me into
(13:03):
something, and now suddenlyeverything is my responsibility.
How did that happen? Right? Idon't know if I've been in that
scenario. Amanda, I imagine youhave to,
Amanda Jane Lee (13:12):
uh, yeah, it's a slippery slope. I think that's
another episode.
Indra Klavins (13:17):
It is another episode. And I've got my I've
got my classic, don't make meregret trying to be helpful.
Mug, my old school one. I schoolone, because that's, that's how
it feels like you're arehelpful, then you're having
these regrets, right? This iswhere I my favorite tool for
this. I would love to hear howyou my latest, my latest, modern
tool for things like this ischat, GPT or your favorite, AI
(13:40):
of choice. I'm not saying thatthat, you know, I don't take
anything that my AI spits out asgospel. Let's be really clear.
But sometimes, you know, I justneed a Hey, am I crazy? Gut
check, and then it might spitcrazy back at me, right? But I'm
like, here's a scenario, here'sthe thing, here's the data. I
(14:03):
feel like I shouldn't be doingthis. What are your thoughts?
And it gives me responses that,really, you know, it helps me
figure out when I'mhallucinating, right? It might
hallucinate back, I mean, but ithelps me figure out if I'm
hallucinating. It just helps meground myself in like, am I? Am
I fooling myself? Becausehelpers are always inclined to
want to help, and when I have aninstinct to not want to help,
(14:25):
and I'm like, Is it me or is itthem? I don't know.
Unknown (14:29):
Yeah, it's um, I don't, I don't use chat GPT for that.
Indra Klavins (14:34):
Um, too much. Or maybe, I don't know, we'll see
time will tell.
Amanda Jane Lee (14:39):
Time will tell, um, I don't use it for that, but
for me, it's, it's been a lot oftraining myself, honestly, to
just, like, take a beat. Insteadof being like, yes, I want to
help like, yes, add that thingto my plate, like, yes, yes,
yes, yes, yes. And just beingand this has taken years of
realizing what the problem is.And what the trap is, and
(15:03):
changing my behavioraccordingly, right? So like,
I'll take a beat. I'll, youknow, I've, I've learned that
you don't have to say yes or no,you don't have to give an answer
right away, right? So, like,take a minute, assess what it
is, really. Think about it. Whatare the what are the
ramifications of this? Is thissomething that I even have
(15:25):
bandwidth? And bandwidth canmean so many things, but in
these types of things, it'susually like emotional bandwidth
to handle this, right? Becauseit, like you said, in a lot of
cases, it's the delegation oflike, the the messy stuff, the
anxiety, the figuring out
Unknown (15:45):
part, yeah, yeah.
Indra Klavins (15:48):
I love, I love that you went there, because
that's it's reminding me, that'ssome good advice that I also
received early in my career froma gentleman named Martin. He's
like, you know, there'ssomewhere in that time period I
learned, hey, I know that I'mnot good as except I'm I know
I'm not good at assessing mybandwidth and what's possible in
(16:09):
a particular moment. Give me afew hours, or give me till
tomorrow, and I'll let you know,because I don't I need time. I
need time to just really, like,look at things, it's I'm not I'm
not a computer. I'm not acomputer. I love that.
Amanda Jane Lee (16:26):
Yeah, and actually, if you're being rushed
to make a decision by someone,if someone is pressuring you to
make the decision, chances arethey're the ones benefiting from
this decision. Of you saying,Yes, I need
Indra Klavins (16:40):
to get my legs out. I need a red flag. I need a
red flag. You're right, you'reright. It's that pressure. It's
that it's Yeah, it is a it canbe a sign. It can be a sign of
that.
Amanda Jane Lee (16:53):
It can be, it's not always, but it can be, yeah,
yeah. It's like, it's thatdelegation of, like, I don't
want to deal with this rightnow. So I like, I need you to
deal with it. For me, yeah,
Indra Klavins (17:05):
another one that comes to mind. It's a reframe on
something that I usually usewhen I'm coaching others in
getting others, their partners,to buy in on something. You
know, usually when it I was aquestion you can ask yourself,
is, what's in it for me? And youcan literally say that question
out loud. Say, Hey, I see howimportant this is. I see how
(17:29):
this is going to drive thebottom line. What's in it for
me? I'm having a hard timeunderstanding how I fit into
this puzzle. I know I can do alot of things. I see how I can
benefit you.
Unknown (17:39):
But what's in it for me,
Amanda Jane Lee (17:41):
yeah, and, like many things, it's a game of
trade offs, right? Because,like, what comes to mind for me
is back to the oh, well, we needa designer, right? Like I've
seen, I've seen, because Iworked with a lot of engineers,
I've seen a situation where,like, an engineer is on their
(18:04):
way to being promoted, andthey're being empowered to lead
a new project, and leadership islike, Yeah, this is a great
opportunity for you, like you'vegot full ownership, but as the
pro the as The projectprogresses, it's like, oh, wait,
the key decisions still need tobe run up the chain. Engineer
(18:25):
can't block them, unblockthemselves. Like, when things
get stuck, like they're stuck,and like, every decision needs
to be approved by someone else.And like, that's not full
ownership, that's that's someonedelegating all the
responsibility and all thefigure it out, all the hard
stuff to you under the guise ofit's a great opportunity,
Indra Klavins (18:49):
and none of the authority and none of the
paycheck, I'm back to, whetherwe like it or not, we live in a
capitalist society, and I wantto get paid for my labor. I want
there to be benefit to me. Iwant there to be something in it
for me. And by the answer, whenI say what's in it for me is,
like, you get to keep your job,that might be a fair answer.
(19:10):
It's a game of trade offs,right? Trade offs. And I don't
mean that is Yeah, and I'msaying don't start threatening
people's jobs. That's not whatI'm trying to say. I'm thinking
more like, Hey, this issomething we need to do for the
business, and it needs to getdone, and you're literally the
only person who can do it. Okay,great, fine. I will do it for
(19:30):
the next two weeks, at whichpoint we will reevaluate, right?
Or if you're in the muck andyou've like, you're looking at
the rear view mirror, andyou're, how did I get here? Hey,
when we walked into this, Ididn't know what we were walking
into. You didn't know we werewalking into. Now that I'm
looking at it fresh with fresheyes, let's renegotiate, right?
(19:51):
You don't necessarily use thatword, but renegotiate the terms
of your engagement and say, Hey,this is half of the stuff that
I'm doing in the decision.Decisions I'm making are above
my pay grade. I am back seating.I'm backseat driving. Your
strategy,
Unknown (20:08):
this makes me feel uncomfortable. What do we do?
Yeah, and you know,
Amanda Jane Lee (20:17):
if what's in it for you is just that experience,
cool, that could be fine. Yeah,I've done that before. I've done
that before. I built a career ondoing that. Come on, right
again, slippery slope, right ofhelping
Indra Klavins (20:34):
to like when you slip down to slip back up again,
somehow, something right
Amanda Jane Lee (20:41):
when you said backseat driving, like, backseat
driving the strategy, what cameto mind was everyone's favorite
thing, OKRs, oh. Like, I tell memore.
Indra Klavins (20:54):
This is, this is a slippery slope, but I'm happy
to go on it.
Amanda Jane Lee (20:57):
Okay. No, this is a slippery slope too. But,
like, what came to mind withbackseat driving was like, the
multiple times in my careerwhere I've seen leaders be like,
Okay, it's time to okay, like,plan OKRs for the quarter and
go. And when you ask questionslike, What are the company's
goals for the quarter? What arethe department's goals for the
(21:19):
quarter, my favorite answer is,oh, well, you know, we want to,
we want to co create them withthe teams. We want you to have
input. We don't want to beprescriptive.
Indra Klavins (21:32):
I am, I am, strangely, I am delighted you
brought this up. You know, it'sa lesson I learned years ago,
like, and it's I had, I had awoman, Lori, wonderful human
being, still a friend to thisday, she was writing her annual
goals. So we weren't in OKRs. Wewere just like, literally, her
(21:53):
annual goals for the year. We'rein goal setting season right
now. Right for everyone, it'seither wrap up or planning or
whatever. Everybody's in thatcycle right now. And she's like,
I want to know, I want to makesure that my goals ladder up to
your goals at for what you'retrying to do with the team, etc,
etc. And I sat there and Ithought about it. I'm like, this
(22:14):
makes sense. This is, this isthe way that you can ensure that
you as a individual contributor,or somebody not you know, as
high in the food chain, so tospeak, or the pyramid, or
whatever metaphor we want to usefor the organization, can be an
align your work to the values,which then helps to fortify your
(22:35):
job, right? Which is important,and it is, it? The problem is,
is that I often we're in thesecatch 20 twos with this stuff,
whether it's OKRs or whatever itmight be, in this arena where no
one has published the goals forthe company yet, right? No one.
And so how do you figure outwhat you're laddering up to? And
(22:59):
it really feels icky. It reallyfeels icky when you're that
person at the bottom and youknow, I think it is a fair
pushback saying it's not. Orthey'll the other one, they'll
say, Oh, we're trying to do OKRsbottom up this year. That never
works. Oh yeah. Never, ever,ever ever works. I hear it all
the time, but it never, ever,ever works that people are
(23:22):
saying, I want yours first arereally fair. And the reality of
it is that, okay, so you're at acertain level of the
organization, the company hasnot published their goals.
You're not allowed to say, hey,just base it off of last year's
stuff. I'll, I'll write minebased on yours? No, no, no, no.
(23:43):
Things do not flow downhill. Ifyou're a good leader, you say to
yourself, hey, CEO person didnot publish their OKRs or their
goals for the year. But I'm inenough conversations where I
have a sense of where it is. Letme create a draft of mine, and
then my team can base it ontheirs. I will tell them it's a
draft. So if we need to changethings, when the official ones
(24:05):
come out, we can all change themtogether. But it's your job as a
leader to make stuff up so thatyour team has confidence that
the work that they're creatingcan ladder up. Otherwise you are
literally letting the CEOs orthe boards, or whoever's you
know, responsibilities cascadepast you, down onto your people,
(24:27):
and that is terrible leadership.Full stop.
Amanda Jane Lee (24:30):
Yep. Rant over. I cringed when you said bottom
up, because I I've heard that somany times, and it in my
experience, it doesn't work.
Indra Klavins (24:43):
It's cheating. It's cheating.
Amanda Jane Lee (24:45):
Just like, Oh, I'm just gonna copy your answers
and submit them, like, for mytest results, yeah. Just what
flashback, right of, okay, fine.Like, in lieu of not having.
Published top level goals. Yeah,okay, well, we'll do it bottom
up, because you're you're makingus right. And like, you control
(25:09):
my paycheck, right? So, like,I'm gonna do what I'm told. And
then we present our plan, andthen it gets questioned of the
lawsuit, where did you comefrom? Where? Where did this guy?
This doesn't align with thething that I never told you
about. Like, how you know, whatwere you thinking? Like, how did
Right, right? What were youthinking? Why did you choose
that one? What about, whatabout? What about and like,
(25:31):
everybody who actually has donethat work leaves deflated,
unmotivated, and like, WTF.Like, it's as if the leaders
knew exactly what the what theplan was, but didn't want to
tell us, because they didn'twant to be prescriptive and
(25:52):
right,
Indra Klavins (25:53):
I don't want to take the time to figure it out
right
Amanda Jane Lee (25:57):
exactly, and, you know, I like to compare that
those types of situations to theIRS knowing exactly how much in
taxes you owe each year. Butthey're gonna make you guess,
and if you guess wrong, jail,
Indra Klavins (26:18):
death and taxes, the two things we can count on
here in the US, but yes, yes.And what a terrible way to start
your year, right? You're you'retrying to set like you're in
your your kickoff, if you're orquarter kickoff, or whatever
kickoff, if you're talking OKRs,if you're talking personal
goals, if you're talking aboutany of that stuff, your job as a
(26:41):
leader is to like the whole thewhole hope is at the end of that
planning period, everyone'slike, hurrah, let's storm the
castle together. Yay. Buteveryone's like, Yay, storming.
I just got beat up before weeven started trying, yay.
Amanda Jane Lee (27:00):
And that that's really how it feels like it
feel. It feels like you just gotbeat up. You just got run over
by a truck. And, you know,earlier in this episode, we
talked about Give. Give peoplesomething to react to. Yes, but
if you are the leader, don'texpect the people who report to
(27:21):
you to give you something toreact to. This is what they're
trying to do when, when they putyou in the situation.
Indra Klavins (27:27):
Yeah. So when you do wind up in the situation, the
reality is, push back, ask forstuff. If the leader is strong,
they'll be like, You know what?You're right. I totally missed
that. I was just trying to do500 things. Let me do it. I'll
have it for you in the next dayor so. So you'll have something
at least, to base things off of.We might need to revise later,
(27:49):
but great. If you have a weakleader, you'll get not that
answer, and you'll have tofigure it out yourself. And
that's where I love the conceptof finding your tribe at work,
right? Find the find the doers.It's like Mr. Rogers advice.
Find the helpers. They're alwayshelping. Find the helpers.
(28:11):
Create a unifying, you know,like, create a little
subcommittee, unofficial,because, you know, you don't
have any of the authority. Butcreate that and figure out what
you guys can do together. Createa coalition. Create a coalition.
Maybe that's a better word.Create a coalition and do your
best. Because the reality of itis, you can't get people to do
things that they they areunwilling to do, especially if
(28:35):
they're more senior than youare. It's really hard. But keep
on trying. Don't give up fornext year or next cycle, you
know, always start at thebeginning and say, don't always
assume that they're going to Kthey're not going to give you
what you need. Ask every day,hey, this time did you have the
thing? Hey, this time did youhave the thing? And if it fails
again, if they fail again, togive you what you need. Hey, tap
(28:58):
into that coalition. Figure outwhat you can tap into your
network and do the best that youcan and give yourself a whole
lot of grace. Write the caveatto the bottom, saying, hey,
based on past experience withXYZ inputs, put all your caveats
on the final slide, or in theemail when you share it, or
whatever it is, to protectyourself and just do the best
(29:20):
you can, and don't try not tobeat yourself up when you get
called out and asked the whatabout, what about, what about
scenarios that you were talkingabout Amanda, like, didn't you
think about this? And didn't you
Unknown (29:32):
think, like, dude, not my job. Right?
Indra Klavins (29:36):
Inside voice, inside voice, not out loud. But
you know, just, just giveyourself grace when they have
that moment, you know, shake itoff. Dance it out, whatever you
got to do to try to get shakeoff that, that that critique
which is not yours to have.
Unknown (29:51):
Yeah, I
Amanda Jane Lee (29:54):
a strategy I like to use is I like to
document things right, and so ifi. Myself in this situation, I
will document like, what inputsI had at what time and when what
I asked for, when I got it, didI ever get it, and what the
outcomes were. And I don't wanthistory to repeat itself next
(30:17):
quarter. So like, I'll pull upmy receipts and and if I asked
for the same things again, I'llbe like, hello, I asked for
this. You know, this time lastquarter, this is when I got it.
Like, could we get it a littlesooner? If we don't get it
sooner than this, then, like,this is what's going to happen.
We're just going to go throughthe same cycle. And remember how
(30:38):
painful that was. Remember howeverybody was deflated and felt
like they just got beat up.Yeah, let's not do that.
Unknown (30:45):
That's such a great tactic.
Indra Klavins (30:47):
That's such a great tactic because people
until they live it and see it inwriting, because the brain can
trick itself, right, likeputting things in writing and,
hey, this is how things wentlast time. Are we doing it the
same way? Like, this is the mostpassive version. Are we doing it
the same way? If we are then,like, expect this, this, this
(31:09):
and this challenges again,right? Like, which, which gaps
are willing to fill in thistime, right? It's but repeat it
to them. They will forget.Brains are tricky. Brains are
tricky, tricky, tricky, littlethings. I don't care what anyone
says.
Unknown (31:25):
I love it. Any other thoughts?
Indra Klavins (31:27):
We covered a lot of good ground today. We did
cover a lot of good ground.
Amanda Jane Lee (31:33):
I don't think I have any other thoughts, like,
I'm trying to, like, replay thelast, I don't know, 20 minutes
or so, yeah. I mean, yeah, it'sa lot. And I don't think we
missed anything that we wantedto cover.
Indra Klavins (31:45):
No, I think we covered more ground than we
thought we would like. I thinkso, just to recap a few things,
collaboration, partnership,different, right? If you're the
one who is more senior in theconversation, ask yourself, Am I
truly partnering with thisperson? Am I setting them up for
success? Am I coming to thetable with the things that I
(32:07):
need to like is that is, is thatthere, if I'm on the other side,
am I being set up for success?Ask yourself, see what you can
figure out, and see what you canchallenge, what you can't
challenge. You know. What arethe pros and the cons? You know.
And just constantly, I like thatlast piece that you said about,
like, keeping notes of what wasgoing on, because it's a great
(32:28):
way of also checking yourself,like, what worked, what didn't.
So you can try the next timethis scenario shows up again.
How can you engage a littledifferently so it's more
favorable to everyone, not justthe person who's getting all the
benefits, who's in that powerposition?
Unknown (32:43):
Yeah, totally. What? What's in it for
Indra Klavins (32:47):
me, what's in it for me, what's in it for me,
it's a great question, and it'snot a it's not a self, it's not
the selfish question that it cansometimes seem to be, for those
of us who give too much, it's agreat question to ask. It's a
great question as what's in itfor me, totally. Amanda, thank
you again for joining me forthis conversation, a rich one
(33:08):
that came out of, like, aspontaneous little chat that you
and I were having. We were like,oh my god, I think this is an
episode. How did that happen?And I trust that everyone who's
listening got something out ofthis one. And I hope that you
all join us next time foranother topic from the messy
middle bye everyone.
(33:31):
If you've got some get stuffdone is on your team, or are one
who takes pride in your work. Wejust dropped a brand new I get
stuff done collection in themessy middle merch shop, you'll
also find the classics Don'tmake me regret trying to be
helpful, and words matter. Theymake fantastic year end gifts.
And yes, we even have giftcards. And if something's
(33:52):
running late, there's a free Iordered it, but it's not here
yet. Download. You can hand themin the meantime. Check
everything out at messy middlemerch.com and if you like this
episode, a like, share orsubscribe goes a really long way
in helping us spread the wordtill next time you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!