January 23, 2025 • 35 mins
What happens when you blend the marvel of natural wonders with the intricate science of the human mind? Join us as Harkiran Brar, IT project manager and host of "Project Perks with Harkiran," takes us on a journey through the picturesque beauty of Niagara Falls and into the realm of neuroleadership. Discover how the awe-inspiring vistas of our world can ignite creativity and enhance decision-making processes. Harkiran guides us through the fusion of neuroscience and leadership, highlighting how understanding the brain's functionalities can reshape our approach to behavior management and decision-making in agile environments.
Ever wondered how to balance empathy and authority in leadership? We navigate the layers of the human brain, from emotional impulses to rational thinking, shedding light on the art of maintaining composure amidst emotional outbursts. Harkiran shares valuable insights on using emotional intelligence and self-regulation to create a psychologically safe environment where team members feel encouraged to express themselves. With strong communication as the backbone, we discuss strategies for leaders to manage emotions and inspire trust within their teams, ensuring a harmonious and productive workplace.
Connect with Harkiran on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/harkiran-brar-pmp-psm-14b21321a/
Watch or listen to the "Project Perks with Harkiran" podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuHlJdOZTzTye11thLwsEQg
https://open.spotify.com/show/55xrSSe9HNwvJ9uXJ3bwPt?si=364f7c6ec2944153
Check out Harkiran's offerings:
https://topmate.io/harkiran_brar_pmppsm
Follow us on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-within
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Agile Within.
I am your host, mark Metz.
My mission for this podcast isto provide Agile insights into
human values and behaviorsthrough genuine connections.
My guests and I will sharereal-life stories from our Agile
journeys triumphs, blunders andeverything in between, as well
(00:29):
as the lessons that we havelearned.
So get pumped, get rocking.
The Agile Within starts now.
Before we dive into today'sepisode, I'd like to take a
moment to thank our sponsor,impact Agility.
Impact Agility specializes intraining and coaching through
(00:49):
scrumorg and proconbonorg,empowering teams with
cutting-edge tools andtechniques.
Their classes are designed todeliver actionable insights,
whether you're a scrum master,agile coach, delivery manager or
organizational leader.
Whether you're a scrum master,agile coach, delivery manager or
organizational leader, at thehelm is president and founder
(01:13):
Matt Domenici, who has guidedover 50 organizations toward
professional agility.
With his hands-on experience,matt helps teams and
organizations take ownership oftheir processes and outcomes,
unlocking their full potentialTo explore free learning
resources, check out theirtraining schedule or book a free
consultation.
Visit impactagilityco Onceagain.
(01:35):
That's impactagilityco.
Well, hey there, welcome back.
This is the Agile WithinPodcast with your host, mark
Metz.
My guest for today is ITproject manager and podcast host
of the show Project Perks, withHarkiran.
Harkiran Brar Harkiran, welcometo the show.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Hey Mark, how are you doing?
I'm so happy to be at AgileWithin today.
I have seen people appearing asguests there, and today I am
guest on your show.
So, yeah, I'm more than happy.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Great, so now we turn the table around.
You're used to being a podcasthost.
Now you get to be on the otherside of the table, right?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, yeah, and to be honest, I am getting those
initial jitters now how it feelsto be as a guest.
You know I'm afraid to bebombarded with questions and all
that stuff, right?
So yeah, I'm all excited andit's great to be at the other
side of the screen today.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Cool.
Well, harkeron, you come fromOntario Canada, and I want to
ask you our icebreaker questionIf I were coming to Ontario
Canada for a day and had neverbeen there before, what's one
thing that you would say that Ican't miss doing?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I think one thing that fascinated me was the
Niagara Falls.
People like to see it from theUS point of view, how it looks
like and how huge it is, howbeautiful it is like that.
We try to admire beauty in muchmore ways when we see that and
I would love you to take toniagara falls and would like to
show you the canada side of thefalls I would love that and do
(03:12):
some other things around there,like shopping, eating on those
streets and all that stuff.
So, yeah, I would love to takeyou there.
So I feel blessed to haveexperienced that thing.
Uh, you know such a beauty, Iwould say.
And like one thing I would loveto add like visiting such
places, right, such marvels bynature or beauty by nature, like
we are into the podcastcommunity or we are creating
(03:33):
some content, so there, you doneed creativity, because if
creativity is not there, youreally can't come out with new
ideas or, you know, look forwardto events and when you visit
such places, they kind ofunblock your creativity.
Your creativity outlet is justamazing.
You get a, you know, rush ofcreativity within as well.
(03:57):
So, be it watching anywaterfall or be it watching any
nature space or visiting anywildlife place, I would say it
really unblocks creativity.
So that's the one more reason Iwould love apart from making
you visit any other monument, Iwould love to take you to some
you know nature place like that.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, Well, the title for our episode today is
Neuroleadership the Power ofTeam Psychology.
So, Harkiran, talk to us aboutneuroleadership.
What's that all about?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay.
So it's a very heavy-weightedword, I would say.
You know, when somebody hearsneuroleadership, leadership
itself is a very heavy-weightedword, right being used around.
It has been overly used, Iwould say, everywhere in the
world right now.
When we use the word neuro withthat it kind of sounds very
(04:48):
technical or, you know, very Iwould say medicinal term as well
.
You know, when we hear the wordneuro and very scientific touch
to it, I would love to break itdown in two simple ways I can
say In order to understandneuroleadership, we simply just
want to know what isneuroscience.
As the word neuroscience itselfit is telling me that it has
(05:09):
something to do with my brain,obviously.
So this means how you canunderstand your brain, how your
brain works.
And why I want to understandhow my brain works is because
then I can take some much moreinformed decisions.
I can react more appropriately.
If something comes my way orsome challenge comes my way, how
(05:30):
can I react?
How can I respond to thosesituations and basically manage
my behaviors?
That way, neuroscience is allabout understanding, we can say,
how my brain is working.
Put it simply I won't go intothe technical terms about the
three parts of your brain andall those stuff over here.
It's just as simple as that.
Now let's come to the part ofneural leadership.
(05:53):
Once you have decoded what'sneuroscience, that means Okay,
if I want to say like, if I wantto ask you, mark, what do you
understand by leadership?
You might be hearing this termmany times in a day or in a week
, perhaps in your meetings,weekly meetings, right?
So what do you understand byleadership, mark?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Well, it means different things in different
contexts.
So for me I think about reallyis central of thinking about in
agility and scrum.
I think about being a servantleader, because leadership to
some equates to power andtelling people what to do and
being at the top of the foodchain, so to speak.
(06:35):
But I have a differentviewpoint of leadership where I
feel like you can lead throughserving people, but you have to
make sure that there's two partsof the equation.
Many times when we hear theterm servant leader, we focus
more on the servant side, moreso than the leadership side.
And when we talk aboutleadership from generations past
(06:59):
, they tend to just totallyignore the servant side
sometimes right and just focusjust on hammering down leaders
and telling people what to do.
So I would say you know, as aleader, you're being an example
for others.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And you're also being supportive so that your team
can grow the people that arereporting to you.
That really is leadership, thatyou're empowering others.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Leadership itself.
It's a heavy-weighted word,like I mentioned in the
beginning, right, it has manylayers to decode which we can't
put it simply in one word.
And now today we are discussingneuroleadership, right, so it's
obviously going to be morebigger than we imagined that way
.
So neuroleadership is nothingbut like.
(07:43):
As I said, we will be applyingthe concepts of neuroscience
that is how our brain is workingto leadership, right, to
leadership, to managementconsulting, to change management
processes, to organizationmanagement, to create some
portfolios within of a company,to work with my teams all
together and by even doing allof this, you might ask, right,
(08:07):
so all of this is why this termeven emerged new leadership.
We are doing all of this to makeyou know leadership effective
and to increase our organizationperformance.
Right, because these are thetwo targets I think every
industry and every business have, at the end of the day, is to
bring productivity andeffectiveness in whatever they
are doing.
I would say that's the entire.
I think every industry andevery business have, at the end
of the day, is to bringproductivity and effectiveness
in whatever they are doing.
(08:27):
I would say that's the entireconcept behind that.
In fact, back in 2000s, we haveNeuro Leadership Institute
which came into place all acrossthe world.
It's a very renownedorganization out there.
They provide courses to peopleon neuroscience and neuro
leadership as well, so it wasco-founded by Dr David Rock, so
(08:51):
we have neuroscience leadershipinstitute also out there.
If you want to learn more onthat part, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So it's interesting because it's very personal and
different people have differentpersonalities.
When you talk about leadership,people have different leadership
styles and I'm always one ofthe ones that's a more
supportive leader.
Own now, but when I taught themin sports, when I was their
(09:21):
coach and coaching otherchildren and young adults as
they started growing, I wasalways more of a supportive
coach to the kids and to theadults, supporting them in that,
making sure that they couldunderstand that I was there to
help them, not to bark orders atthem or to motivate them
(09:44):
through threats or through somenegative behavior Like if you
don't do this right, then you'renot going to play in the next
game.
I've said this several times inthe podcast.
That has never been veryeffective to me as I was growing
up, so I don't choose to leadthat way.
(10:05):
So I've always been thatsupportive person and I just
kind of feel like it has to beauthentic.
Yeah, true, don't you think?
Definitely you can't go throughall this.
You can use this neuroscience,but if it's not something that
you truly want to see, the bestin somebody and help them
improve it comes across as phonyor it comes across as
(10:29):
inauthentic.
Have you had any experienceslike that?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, I mean, I resonate with what you just
mentioned here, mark, around theleadership part.
Basically, as you mentioned,you were more of a facilitator
than being into a more authorityrole.
You know, directing people todo this, do that, you know.
And let's just understand, weare working in such
organizations or in complexprojects where things do get
(10:57):
uncertain, when uncertainsituations happen.
For a second, we really don'tknow how we gonna react to that.
Let's say covid.
So the entire world was shutdown and various people,
everybody around the globe, haddifferent kind of triggers at
that time and they had variouskind of responses as well.
It wasn't the same foreverybody.
(11:19):
Some people took it, acceptedit as it was, and some people
really didn't know what to do.
And then we had the governmentsout there telling us some list
of instructions to do this, dothat, do that.
And we were resistant.
You know we were resistant towear masks as well, initially,
but we saw the world evolving,you know, like that.
(11:40):
So I would love to bring onepoint over here.
Uh, yeah, why all of thisdoesn't seem how we can in fact
make it more genuine orauthentic, you know, coming back
to your point, that is justdoing it from your just doing it
within the click of your handor within the clap of your hand.
You know, without even thinkingthat you're actually doing it.
(12:01):
You know subconsciously, likethat, if you want to be more
genuine on that part,implementing it within your
teams, or interpersonal orintrapersonal, you know like
there is something which we needto understand about our brain.
You know it is very magical,it's a very magical tool we all
have been gifted with.
I would say, uh, what happensis we simply have I won't go to
(12:22):
the technical terms becausethose jargons they kind of, you
know, confuse people, but Ileave that to scientists for
today I'll just talk aboutlayman's words, you know.
So number one is my number onelayer is my emotional layer of
my brain.
Emotional layer of my brain isbasically when I act out of
impulse.
(12:42):
For example, I had a fight withsomebody and impulsively I will
just react and say something.
Or if I'm in a conflict, I'lljust say whatever comes into my
mind, if I'm being accused ofsomething.
You know, like that it's a verycommon situation that happens.
That is basically my emotionallayer of my brain, making me to
react to things.
For example, if you have to,you're committing to all.
(13:05):
You're commuting to your officeand you have to face a lot of
traffic jam today and in betweenthat jam you you get a call
from your friend or you get animportant call.
You really won't be able togive you 100% over there because
you have some emotionalreaction or coming out of there
you're in that situation.
So this is the emotional layerwhich we have, you know, with
(13:27):
our brain.
Then the second layer yeah, yes, mark yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So I just want to add because when we, when we say
emotional, there's lots oflayers that are built into
emotional right?
So, yeah, when you say someoneis emotional, that can mean
different things.
Like you say, that could meansomeone that is very highly
charged and you may saysomething wrong to them and they
get very angry at it and theyjust burst out.
(13:52):
That could mean emotional.
Another side of emotional thatyou could see is you say
something to somebody and youstart seeing tears well up in
their eyes, and they'reextremely sensitive, I relate
more to that side.
I definitely have a moresensitive side to me, not to say
that I don't get angry, but ifI did have to pick one.
(14:15):
And then there's all theselittle layers in between, and so
the emotional layer is justreally fascinating to me about
how humans really all differenttypes of humans with different
personalities, the types ofemotional responses they can
have yeah, true, no, you're veryamazing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
You've brought amazing point there, mark,
because when you say asensitivity side of yours, you
know it also goes with theempathetic side of yours.
That how much empathy you have.
Right, and as a leader, this isone must skill you should be
having within yourself, becauseyou need to be empathetic with
people, you need to understandwhat kind of situation they're
(14:55):
going in, you need to feel whatthey are feeling, right that way
.
So I think you have touchedthere's a very amazing point of
empathy as well over here, mark.
That's amazing.
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
And real quick.
Empathy can be a it can be agood thing.
I actually this was ashortcoming on my part.
I feel like this is apersonality flaw.
So when I was an engineeringmanager, I was a software
engineer for 19 years beforethat, so I really understood the
challenges that softwareengineers came across.
So I was very, very sensitiveto the types of issues and I
(15:29):
could identify with those.
And if I look back and I replay, you know there were probably
times that I was more empatheticthan I should have been because
there's a time to.
There's a time to to beempathetic and to, but then
there's also a time to inspirepeople.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And that's a tough balance.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I know I get it, I get it.
And I would say that's whereboundaries come into picture,
right Good?
point Like we are being taughtevery now and then.
In fact, this concept camelater to me.
But these days, children whoare growing up, the new age
parents, they are teaching themboundaries right now.
Even if somebody is in the ageof 10 to 15, they are learning
(16:12):
about boundaries right now.
So if those set of kids today,that generation, is learning
what boundaries, then just seehow amazing leaders they will be
if they, you know, reach theirby the age they actually enter
the management chain.
So I think, uh, it's okay toaccept at first that we are, you
(16:33):
know, facing that side of theissue as well and, uh, having
after that, we have amazingtools right to just tackle with
them that way.
So, if you don't mind, mark,I'd love to go back to the
layers of the brain we weretalking about.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So we just covered our touch base, the emotion part
of the brain which actuallyteaches us how to or, even
without teaching us, we just actupon things.
Then the second layer I wouldlove to decode of her, of her
brain, is the thinking layer.
So this is one of the mostamazing layer and something
which we should be alwaysbringing back our attention to,
(17:11):
that, apart from all the layers,I should be majorly focused
towards my thinking layer,because the thinking layer saves
you from the world.
It is responsible for taking upall the doing, all the logical
reasoning, doing all theanalytical reasoning out there,
making quick decisions, you know, making some logical reasons
and decisions, well-informeddecisions, in fact, right after
(17:33):
doing all the data analysis partas well, keeping your heart and
keeping your other emotionsaside, you are really thinking
about the reality.
So your thinking layer is whathelps you bring, you know, great
decisions into place.
I think this is something weshould be focusing more upon
touching base, more upon thislayer of a brain and in fact, I
(17:53):
would love to coin a term herewhich is in our daily,
day-to-day life activities.
We should be working onbringing our thinking layer
online.
These days, you see, we we justkeep on checking who is online,
who is offline.
You send a message to somebodyand you know we say two minutes
ago this person was online andnot responding and stuff like
that.
But this kind of awareness, ifwe bring with it ourselves, that
(18:18):
is when I know when is mythinking layer online?
If I'm off track by any kind ofdistraction happening around me
, if something happened, I will.
If somebody said something tome in my team or some conflict
arise, I will not rely to myemotional layer, which is, you
know, just going and reacting.
I'll say, okay, I'm self-aware,I'll just do a quick check that
(18:40):
.
Okay, harkaran, you need tostop.
All right, let me bring back mythinking layer online, which
has been away for a few hoursnow.
Right, and then I will justtake a good decision and do some
problem solving, the realproblem solving that ways.
So this is my thinking layer.
In short, you know which weshould be focusing on the
(19:01):
understandable brain.
And the third layer mark I wouldlove to cover is our, you know,
survival layer.
Survival layer is somethingwhich is our defense mechanism
if, even if a, if a conflictarises in our team, in front of
our stakeholders, our number onepriority is always to defend
our teams, right, right, justthe way.
(19:22):
If something happens in yourfamily, even if without knowing
what our family member did,we'll be quite defensive about
them.
You know that way.
So my survival layer of mybrain is turned on whenever a
situation comes up which isdeep-rooted with some memories,
in fact, or it has something todo with my, something involved
(19:43):
decisions with my heart, or somefamily matters or some closed
members, like that, or simplysurvival.
It's a matter of your life anddeath.
That way, that brain, part of mybrain, is activated there and
we take some actions which aredefault actions within our brain
, such as defense.
So that gets turned on likethat.
(20:04):
So, to sum it up, I would say,on a daily basis, whichever
situation we face in our team.
So, according to a neurosciencewhich is understanding how my
brain is working right, which isbasically these three layers
the emotional layer, thethinking layer and the survival
layer, if I know which one getsactivated.
Well, my only goal should be tobring back my thinking layer
(20:27):
online, to be much more awareabout that, and then take
decisions moving forward.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
That's really good.
So I'm thinking about thesedifferent layers, I'm thinking
about my own self.
I think about like with thesurvival layer.
Usually what that triggers withme is if my values are being
challenged.
That's when my survival layer Ican see it coming out that's
true.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
That's true, and that's where my default
mechanism comes into picture,right, the default action or
reaction.
You can say that you know thisis what I will do, no matter
what.
Like, as I said, your valuesare in question, no matter what
if this happens.
Said your values are inquestion, no matter what if this
happens, without even doing theanalysis, background analysis,
we are just there to you know,support it with facts and
figures which are deep rooted,and facts and figures they
(21:13):
remain with us, like if 10 yearsand 15 years from now as well,
they will be deep rooted withinour brain.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Do you have any tips and tricks, techniques, anything
to help our listeners and to me?
I'm curious too to remind you,like you said, to be reflective,
to take a pause, to look andthink about these different
layers and not just stay, notjust dwell in the moment.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
We only learn something by doing.
I mean, I can never learn.
I can read a book, but unless Iimplement it, I will really not
get to know what it was for.
Just to say, let's say, I canlearn about football, but unless
I'm in the field playing a realgame, I really not get to know
how it is.
Yes, definitely, I haveactually implemented those
(22:01):
techniques in my teams as well.
As I mentioned, as a leader, weneed to behave differently,
right, we need to learn how weare behaving, how I'm behaving
with my team first of all, andhow I'm behaving with myself,
because the relationship which Ihave with myself is of utmost
importance here.
Because if I don't know that,if I don't evaluate that
(22:23):
relationship, I will be of nogood to my team and I won't be
adding value at all.
You know being a leader.
So, as they say, charity beginsat home.
Right, it all starts with you.
So now let's just say how do Ieven do that?
When I was saying that aboutthe three layers of our brain, I
did mention the thinking layerof my brain, which is my only
(22:47):
attempt should be to bring thatpart of my brain online.
I have a call with some greatstakeholders out there and we
are probably meeting to resolveany issue, okay, and I get some
escalation emails out there andall of that is happening.
Now the first step, the firstthing which I will be doing, is
I'll be keeping in check.
(23:08):
I will be keeping my emotionsaside.
That mail is not in a veryfriendly tone.
Perhaps it's very aggressive.
It sounds very frustrating, afrustrated email.
You know I can sense that aswell.
How can he or she accuse methat?
You know I didn't do that andall of that stuff.
I will keep all of that asidefirst of all, and I'll bring
(23:29):
back my online brain.
I'll bring back my thinkinglayer of my brain online.
Now, this is something whichwill not happen automatically.
We have to build that muscle up.
So how do we do that in ourteams?
Basically, by practicingmeditation.
I can say like that, becausethat's how you can remain more
calm, how much calmness you havein a day, how much, how much
(23:52):
calm and composed you can remainin a situation of chaos around
you.
Right, like that.
Being patient as a leader,these attributes, which are
basically the soft skills of aleader that comes into picture
and how you're actuallyimplementing it.
It comes back here.
But all of this can only happenwhen you know how much aligned
you are within yourself, howmuch aware you are, because I
(24:14):
can easily go and accuse mystakeholder that how can you say
this?
Right, but I need to be awareof my myself at that place.
That, okay, you will not dothat, but instead of that, you
will just work on the problemsolving techniques over there.
You will work on the problemsolving techniques over there.
You will work on the emotionalintelligence part over there.
That is, basicallyunderstanding their part of the
(24:34):
story first, and then, you know,going back to the logical
reasoning over there.
And another thing is when wetalk about emotional
intelligence, it all boils downto how good communicator you are
.
A communicator is, since we wehave been doing podcast smart
you also to how goodcommunicator you are.
A communicator is, since wehave been doing podcast smart.
You also know a goodcommunicator is not somebody who
just keeps on speaking andblabbering.
(24:55):
Another skill is to be anactive listener, right, and this
is one skill you can vouch for,I think as a host, you know you
need to be an active listener,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
So we talked about leadership and we talked about
these different layers insituations where the team is
observing something being thrustupon the team and how the
leader responds.
Well, I'm curious to know,harkeron, what about if you, as
a leader, let's say, have anemotional outburst and then you
(25:25):
come back to your thinking layerand you're like I can't believe
.
I just said that.
What do you do next?
Because you're in the heat ofthe moment, you're in the middle
, everybody's looking to you tosee.
Okay, they had this emotionalresponse to how are they going
to?
What's their next step?
How are they going to respondto that?
What do you do then?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I think that's a very beautiful point that you
mentioned, mark, and it again,you know, goes back to that
point of bringing my thinkinglayer online.
What I'll do is okay.
At that particular moment Iwould have seen that my eyes
were swollen, perhaps right, orI was so angry that my cheeks
(26:04):
got red at that moment, and myheart was racing, perhaps even
when saying such mean things toother people.
You know, sometimes we try to bekind, but things happen, right?
So if all of these things arehappening, we should be keeping
in check, with our responses,right, the kind of triggers we
get up from our brain.
(26:24):
Is it a fight trigger, is it aflight trigger?
Or what kind of trigger it is?
Is it particularly kind of aflop response from my end?
What kind of response andgiving at that very moment that
really matters to me, and I knowthis happens.
This is something, is a brain,it's a muscle.
(26:45):
It cannot bring back of a brainonline each and every moment,
and that's why we, as leaders,we need to focus more on, you
know, having building increasedemotional intelligence and also
doing some simple breathingexercises.
They bring back to us, you know, in tune with our bodies,
because, let's say, everythingstarts with us.
That way, like I'm not sayingany scientific things over here
(27:08):
or how science works or howphysical bodies work, but all of
this is related in a way,because, let's admit, projects
we talk about projects andthey're done by whom.
They're done by people, right?
And if we're not understandingpeople, how they behave, how
they respond to things.
If we are not emotionallyintelligent on that part, we
(27:29):
really cannot be great leadersand we really cannot lead our
teams.
Over here, collaborating with myteam comes into picture, mark.
I should be having strongcollaboration with my team.
Strong communication channelsshould be there with my team and
something on the channels Iwould say let's go back to the
psychological safety of my teams.
If my team has that kind of asafety, that kind of environment
(27:51):
within them where they canrespond or they feel safe to
give feedbacks, I will not haveany problem at all.
Then I will simply rely back onmy thinking layer and I will
not go back to my emotionallayer then, because my team is
psychologically safe.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
So, as you're talking through that, I'm thinking
because I'm thinking back to acouple of situations where I
became a bit unruffled andsomeone said something and I had
an emotional reaction to thatin front of a group and then,
like you say, say, I felt mycheeks getting hot and I was
(28:28):
like, oh my goodness, okay,shake myself out of it for just
a minute.
You know you almost can see redright, because you're just like
so, so consumed by it.
But then you, you kind of shakeyourself out and you're like
okay now, what do I do?
and what I've had to do beforeis simply apologize because
we're all human Nobody isperfect and just to say I am so
(28:52):
sorry.
I really unloaded on you andyou do not deserve.
You deserve better than thatand I probably was carrying some
problems that I had in ameeting that I just got out of.
I was carrying those into thismeeting and I was letting them
out on you and that's not fairto you and I'm sorry.
Can we start again so you canbe a leader?
(29:13):
Hopefully they can model youractions.
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, no, that's a very beautiful point that you
mentioned, mark.
Apologizing is basicallyacknowledging first of all your
behavior.
It's like, okay, maybe I I toocould have reacted that way.
First step would beacknowledging that, okay, I have
to and you behaved wrong overthere in a way, right, whatever
the situation may be, but you'renot the one to speak like that
(29:40):
or to behave like that.
Acknowledging first of all,accepting, as you mentioned,
apologizing and self-regulating,which is basically checking
with up with myself, becausewhen my if these physical
gestures right, my teeth gettinghot, my heart is racing and all
these stuff, my body, it'sstill giving me signals that
(30:00):
calm down and slow down.
Right, this is not the best foryou or best for anybody else
out there, and I think salesregulation over there plays a
very important role and we cando that like.
You can take pause from thatmeeting for a minute.
You can probably have water,you can walk around your
corridor wherever you are,probably get some pressure.
(30:21):
Okay, you can't just goanywhere out, but just take some
pressure from the room whereyou are sitting.
Or, and instead of takewatching your phone or checking
your phone with any notification, just go and talk to somebody
in the room right.
Just talk to somebody if you'reworking from home.
Talk to some family memberthere.
Talk to your team member inyour office about some other
event.
So these kind of things, theyjust self-regulate our body.
(30:44):
They bring us us back withinourselves.
We are in the present moment,we are in the now, and then we
are in the now.
We are in the present moment weagain get back and bring our
thinking layer online.
And that's how you bring yourthinking layer online, mark,
which is basically being presentand being self-regulated within
ourselves, and perhaps thentake all the decisions you know,
(31:08):
going forward from that pointof view.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I love the idea of self-regulating and being
self-aware.
I have to make this point Forsure, because I want to make
sure that if there's anylisteners out there, maybe this
is something that they can learnas well.
So when we do have an emotionaloutburst and so I have had a
situation that I'm thinkingabout right now from my past
(31:33):
where somebody violated myvalues and I had an emotionally
charged response to that infront of a large group I even
brought this person to thecompany and sent some very
direct loud comments.
But they did violate my values.
(31:55):
And so while I apologized for myresponse, I didn't apologize to
the message that I was sending.
What I'm trying to communicateto you and to our listeners
there is be careful that you'renot just too apologetic, because
if you truly believe insomething, don't sacrifice your
values.
I think you can apologize forthe way you reacted to something
(32:18):
, but still stand firm that no,these are my values and I stick
by them.
Let's have a more adultconversation.
So I apologize for acting likea child.
That's why you got the reactionthat you did so.
Anyway, I just it's alwaysfascinating.
You know, life is never aboutwaiting to scale all the way on
(32:38):
one side or waiting it all theway on the other.
It's finding this magic balancethat I always feel like I'm
continually putting smallweights on either side to try to
get them out just right.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, yeah I think you have summarized it pretty
well, mark, over here becauseotherwise you'd be compromising
with the values, right?
And which again goes back tothe point which you said
genuineness, right, how genuineyou are as a person, because
otherwise you are not standingby one single value.
You can apologize for the wayyou behave, but you need to
stand for your values as well,and I think that's how you
become a great project manageras well, who is, you know,
(33:15):
strong, who has strong valuesindeed.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Well, Hakuran, this has been fascinating.
Our listeners out there wouldlike to get in touch with you.
What's the best way for them todo that?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Okay, so it's a little promotion time for me, or
you know, promoting myself overhere.
So if anybody wants to reachout to me, uh, you can directly
send a connection request to meon linkedin.
And uh, that's my name.
My name is herkaren brad and Ithink mark can leave a
description linkedin uh link aswell, below this episode.
(33:46):
And, apart from this, I alsohave a podcast show that is
Project Perks with Harkiran,where I'm talking everything
about people and the processes,projects and products, and it's
a weekly podcast.
You can check it out on YouTubeand you can check it out on
Spotify as well.
Please give it subscribe buttonand, you know, give it a like,
(34:08):
follow and everything.
And, yeah, I look forward tochat with amazing people out
there because we all are workingwith each other and let's just
make this bond stronger to buildamazing products out there.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
That's great.
Love your podcast.
Follow you there and onLinkedIn.
Always look forward to seeingwhat good information you've got
there.
So, harkeron, thank you so muchfor coming on the show.
I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, thanks, Mark.
Thank you for calling me hereand I totally enjoyed our
conversations and I will reflectback again today, you know, on
the thinking part of my brainand it's a nice way to do some
thought-provoking conversations.
Yeah, thank you so much, Mark,for having me here today.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
That's great.
All right, everybody that'sgoing to bring you in to another
episode of the Agile Within.
It's been Mark Metz and HarkerAmbrar.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the Agile
Within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the AgileWithin.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
(35:09):
in touch.
Just search for the AgileWithin and please spread the
word with your friends andcolleagues Until next time.
This has been your host, markMetz.
Welcome to the Agile Within.
I am your host, mark Metz.
My mission for this podcast isto provide Agile insights into
human values and behaviorsthrough genuine connections.
My guests and I will sharereal-life stories from our Agile
journeys triumphs, blunders andeverything in between, as well
(00:29):
as the lessons that we havelearned.
So get pumped, get rocking.
The Agile Within starts now.
Before we dive into today'sepisode, I'd like to take a
moment to thank our sponsor,impact Agility.
Impact Agility specializes intraining and coaching through
(00:49):
scrumorg and proconbonorg,empowering teams with
cutting-edge tools andtechniques.
Their classes are designed todeliver actionable insights,
whether you're a scrum master,agile coach, delivery manager or
organizational leader.
Whether you're a scrum master,agile coach, delivery manager or
organizational leader, at thehelm is president and founder
(01:13):
Matt Domenici, who has guidedover 50 organizations toward
professional agility.
With his hands-on experience,matt helps teams and
organizations take ownership oftheir processes and outcomes,
unlocking their full potentialTo explore free learning
resources, check out theirtraining schedule or book a free
consultation.
Visit impactagilityco Onceagain.
(01:35):
That's impactagilityco.
Well, hey there, welcome back.
This is the Agile WithinPodcast with your host, mark
Metz.
My guest for today is ITproject manager and podcast host
of the show Project Perks, withHarkiran.
Harkiran Brar Harkiran, welcometo the show.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Hey Mark, how are you doing?
I'm so happy to be at AgileWithin today.
I have seen people appearing asguests there, and today I am
guest on your show.
So, yeah, I'm more than happy.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Great, so now we turn the table around.
You're used to being a podcasthost.
Now you get to be on the otherside of the table, right?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, yeah, and to be honest, I am getting those
initial jitters now how it feelsto be as a guest.
You know I'm afraid to bebombarded with questions and all
that stuff, right?
So yeah, I'm all excited andit's great to be at the other
side of the screen today.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Cool.
Well, harkeron, you come fromOntario Canada, and I want to
ask you our icebreaker questionIf I were coming to Ontario
Canada for a day and had neverbeen there before, what's one
thing that you would say that Ican't miss doing?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I think one thing that fascinated me was the
Niagara Falls.
People like to see it from theUS point of view, how it looks
like and how huge it is, howbeautiful it is like that.
We try to admire beauty in muchmore ways when we see that and
I would love you to take toniagara falls and would like to
show you the canada side of thefalls I would love that and do
(03:12):
some other things around there,like shopping, eating on those
streets and all that stuff.
So, yeah, I would love to takeyou there.
So I feel blessed to haveexperienced that thing.
Uh, you know such a beauty, Iwould say.
And like one thing I would loveto add like visiting such
places, right, such marvels bynature or beauty by nature, like
we are into the podcastcommunity or we are creating
(03:33):
some content, so there, you doneed creativity, because if
creativity is not there, youreally can't come out with new
ideas or, you know, look forwardto events and when you visit
such places, they kind ofunblock your creativity.
Your creativity outlet is justamazing.
You get a, you know, rush ofcreativity within as well.
(03:57):
So, be it watching anywaterfall or be it watching any
nature space or visiting anywildlife place, I would say it
really unblocks creativity.
So that's the one more reason Iwould love apart from making
you visit any other monument, Iwould love to take you to some
you know nature place like that.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, Well, the title for our episode today is
Neuroleadership the Power ofTeam Psychology.
So, Harkiran, talk to us aboutneuroleadership.
What's that all about?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay.
So it's a very heavy-weightedword, I would say.
You know, when somebody hearsneuroleadership, leadership
itself is a very heavy-weightedword, right being used around.
It has been overly used, Iwould say, everywhere in the
world right now.
When we use the word neuro withthat it kind of sounds very
(04:48):
technical or, you know, very Iwould say medicinal term as well
.
You know, when we hear the wordneuro and very scientific touch
to it, I would love to break itdown in two simple ways I can
say In order to understandneuroleadership, we simply just
want to know what isneuroscience.
As the word neuroscience itselfit is telling me that it has
(05:09):
something to do with my brain,obviously.
So this means how you canunderstand your brain, how your
brain works.
And why I want to understandhow my brain works is because
then I can take some much moreinformed decisions.
I can react more appropriately.
If something comes my way orsome challenge comes my way, how
(05:30):
can I react?
How can I respond to thosesituations and basically manage
my behaviors?
That way, neuroscience is allabout understanding, we can say,
how my brain is working.
Put it simply I won't go intothe technical terms about the
three parts of your brain andall those stuff over here.
It's just as simple as that.
Now let's come to the part ofneural leadership.
(05:53):
Once you have decoded what'sneuroscience, that means Okay,
if I want to say like, if I wantto ask you, mark, what do you
understand by leadership?
You might be hearing this termmany times in a day or in a week
, perhaps in your meetings,weekly meetings, right?
So what do you understand byleadership, mark?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Well, it means different things in different
contexts.
So for me I think about reallyis central of thinking about in
agility and scrum.
I think about being a servantleader, because leadership to
some equates to power andtelling people what to do and
being at the top of the foodchain, so to speak.
(06:35):
But I have a differentviewpoint of leadership where I
feel like you can lead throughserving people, but you have to
make sure that there's two partsof the equation.
Many times when we hear theterm servant leader, we focus
more on the servant side, moreso than the leadership side.
And when we talk aboutleadership from generations past
(06:59):
, they tend to just totallyignore the servant side
sometimes right and just focusjust on hammering down leaders
and telling people what to do.
So I would say you know, as aleader, you're being an example
for others.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And you're also being supportive so that your team
can grow the people that arereporting to you.
That really is leadership, thatyou're empowering others.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Leadership itself.
It's a heavy-weighted word,like I mentioned in the
beginning, right, it has manylayers to decode which we can't
put it simply in one word.
And now today we are discussingneuroleadership, right, so it's
obviously going to be morebigger than we imagined that way
.
So neuroleadership is nothingbut like.
(07:43):
As I said, we will be applyingthe concepts of neuroscience
that is how our brain is workingto leadership, right, to
leadership, to managementconsulting, to change management
processes, to organizationmanagement, to create some
portfolios within of a company,to work with my teams all
together and by even doing allof this, you might ask, right,
(08:07):
so all of this is why this termeven emerged new leadership.
We are doing all of this to makeyou know leadership effective
and to increase our organizationperformance.
Right, because these are thetwo targets I think every
industry and every business have, at the end of the day, is to
bring productivity andeffectiveness in whatever they
are doing.
I would say that's the entire.
I think every industry andevery business have, at the end
of the day, is to bringproductivity and effectiveness
in whatever they are doing.
(08:27):
I would say that's the entireconcept behind that.
In fact, back in 2000s, we haveNeuro Leadership Institute
which came into place all acrossthe world.
It's a very renownedorganization out there.
They provide courses to peopleon neuroscience and neuro
leadership as well, so it wasco-founded by Dr David Rock, so
(08:51):
we have neuroscience leadershipinstitute also out there.
If you want to learn more onthat part, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So it's interesting because it's very personal and
different people have differentpersonalities.
When you talk about leadership,people have different leadership
styles and I'm always one ofthe ones that's a more
supportive leader.
Own now, but when I taught themin sports, when I was their
(09:21):
coach and coaching otherchildren and young adults as
they started growing, I wasalways more of a supportive
coach to the kids and to theadults, supporting them in that,
making sure that they couldunderstand that I was there to
help them, not to bark orders atthem or to motivate them
(09:44):
through threats or through somenegative behavior Like if you
don't do this right, then you'renot going to play in the next
game.
I've said this several times inthe podcast.
That has never been veryeffective to me as I was growing
up, so I don't choose to leadthat way.
(10:05):
So I've always been thatsupportive person and I just
kind of feel like it has to beauthentic.
Yeah, true, don't you think?
Definitely you can't go throughall this.
You can use this neuroscience,but if it's not something that
you truly want to see, the bestin somebody and help them
improve it comes across as phonyor it comes across as
(10:29):
inauthentic.
Have you had any experienceslike that?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, I mean, I resonate with what you just
mentioned here, mark, around theleadership part.
Basically, as you mentioned,you were more of a facilitator
than being into a more authorityrole.
You know, directing people todo this, do that, you know.
And let's just understand, weare working in such
organizations or in complexprojects where things do get
(10:57):
uncertain, when uncertainsituations happen.
For a second, we really don'tknow how we gonna react to that.
Let's say covid.
So the entire world was shutdown and various people,
everybody around the globe, haddifferent kind of triggers at
that time and they had variouskind of responses as well.
It wasn't the same foreverybody.
(11:19):
Some people took it, acceptedit as it was, and some people
really didn't know what to do.
And then we had the governmentsout there telling us some list
of instructions to do this, dothat, do that.
And we were resistant.
You know we were resistant towear masks as well, initially,
but we saw the world evolving,you know, like that.
(11:40):
So I would love to bring onepoint over here.
Uh, yeah, why all of thisdoesn't seem how we can in fact
make it more genuine orauthentic, you know, coming back
to your point, that is justdoing it from your just doing it
within the click of your handor within the clap of your hand.
You know, without even thinkingthat you're actually doing it.
(12:01):
You know subconsciously, likethat, if you want to be more
genuine on that part,implementing it within your
teams, or interpersonal orintrapersonal, you know like
there is something which we needto understand about our brain.
You know it is very magical,it's a very magical tool we all
have been gifted with.
I would say, uh, what happensis we simply have I won't go to
(12:22):
the technical terms becausethose jargons they kind of, you
know, confuse people, but Ileave that to scientists for
today I'll just talk aboutlayman's words, you know.
So number one is my number onelayer is my emotional layer of
my brain.
Emotional layer of my brain isbasically when I act out of
impulse.
(12:42):
For example, I had a fight withsomebody and impulsively I will
just react and say something.
Or if I'm in a conflict, I'lljust say whatever comes into my
mind, if I'm being accused ofsomething.
You know, like that it's a verycommon situation that happens.
That is basically my emotionallayer of my brain, making me to
react to things.
For example, if you have to,you're committing to all.
(13:05):
You're commuting to your officeand you have to face a lot of
traffic jam today and in betweenthat jam you you get a call
from your friend or you get animportant call.
You really won't be able togive you 100% over there because
you have some emotionalreaction or coming out of there
you're in that situation.
So this is the emotional layerwhich we have, you know, with
(13:27):
our brain.
Then the second layer yeah, yes, mark yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So I just want to add because when we, when we say
emotional, there's lots oflayers that are built into
emotional right?
So, yeah, when you say someoneis emotional, that can mean
different things.
Like you say, that could meansomeone that is very highly
charged and you may saysomething wrong to them and they
get very angry at it and theyjust burst out.
(13:52):
That could mean emotional.
Another side of emotional thatyou could see is you say
something to somebody and youstart seeing tears well up in
their eyes, and they'reextremely sensitive, I relate
more to that side.
I definitely have a moresensitive side to me, not to say
that I don't get angry, but ifI did have to pick one.
(14:15):
And then there's all theselittle layers in between, and so
the emotional layer is justreally fascinating to me about
how humans really all differenttypes of humans with different
personalities, the types ofemotional responses they can
have yeah, true, no, you're veryamazing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
You've brought amazing point there, mark,
because when you say asensitivity side of yours, you
know it also goes with theempathetic side of yours.
That how much empathy you have.
Right, and as a leader, this isone must skill you should be
having within yourself, becauseyou need to be empathetic with
people, you need to understandwhat kind of situation they're
(14:55):
going in, you need to feel whatthey are feeling, right that way
.
So I think you have touchedthere's a very amazing point of
empathy as well over here, mark.
That's amazing.
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
And real quick.
Empathy can be a it can be agood thing.
I actually this was ashortcoming on my part.
I feel like this is apersonality flaw.
So when I was an engineeringmanager, I was a software
engineer for 19 years beforethat, so I really understood the
challenges that softwareengineers came across.
So I was very, very sensitiveto the types of issues and I
(15:29):
could identify with those.
And if I look back and I replay, you know there were probably
times that I was more empatheticthan I should have been because
there's a time to.
There's a time to to beempathetic and to, but then
there's also a time to inspirepeople.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And that's a tough balance.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I know I get it, I get it.
And I would say that's whereboundaries come into picture,
right Good?
point Like we are being taughtevery now and then.
In fact, this concept camelater to me.
But these days, children whoare growing up, the new age
parents, they are teaching themboundaries right now.
Even if somebody is in the ageof 10 to 15, they are learning
(16:12):
about boundaries right now.
So if those set of kids today,that generation, is learning
what boundaries, then just seehow amazing leaders they will be
if they, you know, reach theirby the age they actually enter
the management chain.
So I think, uh, it's okay toaccept at first that we are, you
(16:33):
know, facing that side of theissue as well and, uh, having
after that, we have amazingtools right to just tackle with
them that way.
So, if you don't mind, mark,I'd love to go back to the
layers of the brain we weretalking about.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So we just covered our touch base, the emotion part
of the brain which actuallyteaches us how to or, even
without teaching us, we just actupon things.
Then the second layer I wouldlove to decode of her, of her
brain, is the thinking layer.
So this is one of the mostamazing layer and something
which we should be alwaysbringing back our attention to,
(17:11):
that, apart from all the layers,I should be majorly focused
towards my thinking layer,because the thinking layer saves
you from the world.
It is responsible for taking upall the doing, all the logical
reasoning, doing all theanalytical reasoning out there,
making quick decisions, you know, making some logical reasons
and decisions, well-informeddecisions, in fact, right after
(17:33):
doing all the data analysis partas well, keeping your heart and
keeping your other emotionsaside, you are really thinking
about the reality.
So your thinking layer is whathelps you bring, you know, great
decisions into place.
I think this is something weshould be focusing more upon
touching base, more upon thislayer of a brain and in fact, I
(17:53):
would love to coin a term herewhich is in our daily,
day-to-day life activities.
We should be working onbringing our thinking layer
online.
These days, you see, we we justkeep on checking who is online,
who is offline.
You send a message to somebodyand you know we say two minutes
ago this person was online andnot responding and stuff like
that.
But this kind of awareness, ifwe bring with it ourselves, that
(18:18):
is when I know when is mythinking layer online?
If I'm off track by any kind ofdistraction happening around me
, if something happened, I will.
If somebody said something tome in my team or some conflict
arise, I will not rely to myemotional layer, which is, you
know, just going and reacting.
I'll say, okay, I'm self-aware,I'll just do a quick check that
(18:40):
.
Okay, harkaran, you need tostop.
All right, let me bring back mythinking layer online, which
has been away for a few hoursnow.
Right, and then I will justtake a good decision and do some
problem solving, the realproblem solving that ways.
So this is my thinking layer.
In short, you know which weshould be focusing on the
(19:01):
understandable brain.
And the third layer mark I wouldlove to cover is our, you know,
survival layer.
Survival layer is somethingwhich is our defense mechanism
if, even if a, if a conflictarises in our team, in front of
our stakeholders, our number onepriority is always to defend
our teams, right, right, justthe way.
(19:22):
If something happens in yourfamily, even if without knowing
what our family member did,we'll be quite defensive about
them.
You know that way.
So my survival layer of mybrain is turned on whenever a
situation comes up which isdeep-rooted with some memories,
in fact, or it has something todo with my, something involved
(19:43):
decisions with my heart, or somefamily matters or some closed
members, like that, or simplysurvival.
It's a matter of your life anddeath.
That way, that brain, part of mybrain, is activated there and
we take some actions which aredefault actions within our brain
, such as defense.
So that gets turned on likethat.
(20:04):
So, to sum it up, I would say,on a daily basis, whichever
situation we face in our team.
So, according to a neurosciencewhich is understanding how my
brain is working right, which isbasically these three layers
the emotional layer, thethinking layer and the survival
layer, if I know which one getsactivated.
Well, my only goal should be tobring back my thinking layer
(20:27):
online, to be much more awareabout that, and then take
decisions moving forward.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
That's really good.
So I'm thinking about thesedifferent layers, I'm thinking
about my own self.
I think about like with thesurvival layer.
Usually what that triggers withme is if my values are being
challenged.
That's when my survival layer Ican see it coming out that's
true.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
That's true, and that's where my default
mechanism comes into picture,right, the default action or
reaction.
You can say that you know thisis what I will do, no matter
what.
Like, as I said, your valuesare in question, no matter what
if this happens.
Said your values are inquestion, no matter what if this
happens, without even doing theanalysis, background analysis,
we are just there to you know,support it with facts and
figures which are deep rooted,and facts and figures they
(21:13):
remain with us, like if 10 yearsand 15 years from now as well,
they will be deep rooted withinour brain.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Do you have any tips and tricks, techniques, anything
to help our listeners and to me?
I'm curious too to remind you,like you said, to be reflective,
to take a pause, to look andthink about these different
layers and not just stay, notjust dwell in the moment.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
We only learn something by doing.
I mean, I can never learn.
I can read a book, but unless Iimplement it, I will really not
get to know what it was for.
Just to say, let's say, I canlearn about football, but unless
I'm in the field playing a realgame, I really not get to know
how it is.
Yes, definitely, I haveactually implemented those
(22:01):
techniques in my teams as well.
As I mentioned, as a leader, weneed to behave differently,
right, we need to learn how weare behaving, how I'm behaving
with my team first of all, andhow I'm behaving with myself,
because the relationship which Ihave with myself is of utmost
importance here.
Because if I don't know that,if I don't evaluate that
(22:23):
relationship, I will be of nogood to my team and I won't be
adding value at all.
You know being a leader.
So, as they say, charity beginsat home.
Right, it all starts with you.
So now let's just say how do Ieven do that?
When I was saying that aboutthe three layers of our brain, I
did mention the thinking layerof my brain, which is my only
(22:47):
attempt should be to bring thatpart of my brain online.
I have a call with some greatstakeholders out there and we
are probably meeting to resolveany issue, okay, and I get some
escalation emails out there andall of that is happening.
Now the first step, the firstthing which I will be doing, is
I'll be keeping in check.
(23:08):
I will be keeping my emotionsaside.
That mail is not in a veryfriendly tone.
Perhaps it's very aggressive.
It sounds very frustrating, afrustrated email.
You know I can sense that aswell.
How can he or she accuse methat?
You know I didn't do that andall of that stuff.
I will keep all of that asidefirst of all, and I'll bring
(23:29):
back my online brain.
I'll bring back my thinkinglayer of my brain online.
Now, this is something whichwill not happen automatically.
We have to build that muscle up.
So how do we do that in ourteams?
Basically, by practicingmeditation.
I can say like that, becausethat's how you can remain more
calm, how much calmness you havein a day, how much, how much
(23:52):
calm and composed you can remainin a situation of chaos around
you.
Right, like that.
Being patient as a leader,these attributes, which are
basically the soft skills of aleader that comes into picture
and how you're actuallyimplementing it.
It comes back here.
But all of this can only happenwhen you know how much aligned
you are within yourself, howmuch aware you are, because I
(24:14):
can easily go and accuse mystakeholder that how can you say
this?
Right, but I need to be awareof my myself at that place.
That, okay, you will not dothat, but instead of that, you
will just work on the problemsolving techniques over there.
You will work on the problemsolving techniques over there.
You will work on the emotionalintelligence part over there.
That is, basicallyunderstanding their part of the
(24:34):
story first, and then, you know,going back to the logical
reasoning over there.
And another thing is when wetalk about emotional
intelligence, it all boils downto how good communicator you are
.
A communicator is, since we wehave been doing podcast smart
you also to how goodcommunicator you are.
A communicator is, since wehave been doing podcast smart.
You also know a goodcommunicator is not somebody who
just keeps on speaking andblabbering.
(24:55):
Another skill is to be anactive listener, right, and this
is one skill you can vouch for,I think as a host, you know you
need to be an active listener,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
So we talked about leadership and we talked about
these different layers insituations where the team is
observing something being thrustupon the team and how the
leader responds.
Well, I'm curious to know,harkeron, what about if you, as
a leader, let's say, have anemotional outburst and then you
(25:25):
come back to your thinking layerand you're like I can't believe
.
I just said that.
What do you do next?
Because you're in the heat ofthe moment, you're in the middle
, everybody's looking to you tosee.
Okay, they had this emotionalresponse to how are they going
to?
What's their next step?
How are they going to respondto that?
What do you do then?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I think that's a very beautiful point that you
mentioned, mark, and it again,you know, goes back to that
point of bringing my thinkinglayer online.
What I'll do is okay.
At that particular moment Iwould have seen that my eyes
were swollen, perhaps right, orI was so angry that my cheeks
(26:04):
got red at that moment, and myheart was racing, perhaps even
when saying such mean things toother people.
You know, sometimes we try to bekind, but things happen, right?
So if all of these things arehappening, we should be keeping
in check, with our responses,right, the kind of triggers we
get up from our brain.
(26:24):
Is it a fight trigger, is it aflight trigger?
Or what kind of trigger it is?
Is it particularly kind of aflop response from my end?
What kind of response andgiving at that very moment that
really matters to me, and I knowthis happens.
This is something, is a brain,it's a muscle.
(26:45):
It cannot bring back of a brainonline each and every moment,
and that's why we, as leaders,we need to focus more on, you
know, having building increasedemotional intelligence and also
doing some simple breathingexercises.
They bring back to us, you know, in tune with our bodies,
because, let's say, everythingstarts with us.
That way, like I'm not sayingany scientific things over here
(27:08):
or how science works or howphysical bodies work, but all of
this is related in a way,because, let's admit, projects
we talk about projects andthey're done by whom.
They're done by people, right?
And if we're not understandingpeople, how they behave, how
they respond to things.
If we are not emotionallyintelligent on that part, we
(27:29):
really cannot be great leadersand we really cannot lead our
teams.
Over here, collaborating with myteam comes into picture, mark.
I should be having strongcollaboration with my team.
Strong communication channelsshould be there with my team and
something on the channels Iwould say let's go back to the
psychological safety of my teams.
If my team has that kind of asafety, that kind of environment
(27:51):
within them where they canrespond or they feel safe to
give feedbacks, I will not haveany problem at all.
Then I will simply rely back onmy thinking layer and I will
not go back to my emotionallayer then, because my team is
psychologically safe.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
So, as you're talking through that, I'm thinking
because I'm thinking back to acouple of situations where I
became a bit unruffled andsomeone said something and I had
an emotional reaction to thatin front of a group and then,
like you say, say, I felt mycheeks getting hot and I was
(28:28):
like, oh my goodness, okay,shake myself out of it for just
a minute.
You know you almost can see redright, because you're just like
so, so consumed by it.
But then you, you kind of shakeyourself out and you're like
okay now, what do I do?
and what I've had to do beforeis simply apologize because
we're all human Nobody isperfect and just to say I am so
(28:52):
sorry.
I really unloaded on you andyou do not deserve.
You deserve better than thatand I probably was carrying some
problems that I had in ameeting that I just got out of.
I was carrying those into thismeeting and I was letting them
out on you and that's not fairto you and I'm sorry.
Can we start again so you canbe a leader?
(29:13):
Hopefully they can model youractions.
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, no, that's a very beautiful point that you
mentioned, mark.
Apologizing is basicallyacknowledging first of all your
behavior.
It's like, okay, maybe I I toocould have reacted that way.
First step would beacknowledging that, okay, I have
to and you behaved wrong overthere in a way, right, whatever
the situation may be, but you'renot the one to speak like that
(29:40):
or to behave like that.
Acknowledging first of all,accepting, as you mentioned,
apologizing and self-regulating,which is basically checking
with up with myself, becausewhen my if these physical
gestures right, my teeth gettinghot, my heart is racing and all
these stuff, my body, it'sstill giving me signals that
(30:00):
calm down and slow down.
Right, this is not the best foryou or best for anybody else
out there, and I think salesregulation over there plays a
very important role and we cando that like.
You can take pause from thatmeeting for a minute.
You can probably have water,you can walk around your
corridor wherever you are,probably get some pressure.
(30:21):
Okay, you can't just goanywhere out, but just take some
pressure from the room whereyou are sitting.
Or, and instead of takewatching your phone or checking
your phone with any notification, just go and talk to somebody
in the room right.
Just talk to somebody if you'reworking from home.
Talk to some family memberthere.
Talk to your team member inyour office about some other
event.
So these kind of things, theyjust self-regulate our body.
(30:44):
They bring us us back withinourselves.
We are in the present moment,we are in the now, and then we
are in the now.
We are in the present moment weagain get back and bring our
thinking layer online.
And that's how you bring yourthinking layer online, mark,
which is basically being presentand being self-regulated within
ourselves, and perhaps thentake all the decisions you know,
(31:08):
going forward from that pointof view.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I love the idea of self-regulating and being
self-aware.
I have to make this point Forsure, because I want to make
sure that if there's anylisteners out there, maybe this
is something that they can learnas well.
So when we do have an emotionaloutburst and so I have had a
situation that I'm thinkingabout right now from my past
(31:33):
where somebody violated myvalues and I had an emotionally
charged response to that infront of a large group I even
brought this person to thecompany and sent some very
direct loud comments.
But they did violate my values.
(31:55):
And so while I apologized for myresponse, I didn't apologize to
the message that I was sending.
What I'm trying to communicateto you and to our listeners
there is be careful that you'renot just too apologetic, because
if you truly believe insomething, don't sacrifice your
values.
I think you can apologize forthe way you reacted to something
(32:18):
, but still stand firm that no,these are my values and I stick
by them.
Let's have a more adultconversation.
So I apologize for acting likea child.
That's why you got the reactionthat you did so.
Anyway, I just it's alwaysfascinating.
You know, life is never aboutwaiting to scale all the way on
(32:38):
one side or waiting it all theway on the other.
It's finding this magic balancethat I always feel like I'm
continually putting smallweights on either side to try to
get them out just right.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, yeah I think you have summarized it pretty
well, mark, over here becauseotherwise you'd be compromising
with the values, right?
And which again goes back tothe point which you said
genuineness, right, how genuineyou are as a person, because
otherwise you are not standingby one single value.
You can apologize for the wayyou behave, but you need to
stand for your values as well,and I think that's how you
become a great project manageras well, who is, you know,
(33:15):
strong, who has strong valuesindeed.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Well, Hakuran, this has been fascinating.
Our listeners out there wouldlike to get in touch with you.
What's the best way for them todo that?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Okay, so it's a little promotion time for me, or
you know, promoting myself overhere.
So if anybody wants to reachout to me, uh, you can directly
send a connection request to meon linkedin.
And uh, that's my name.
My name is herkaren brad and Ithink mark can leave a
description linkedin uh link aswell, below this episode.
(33:46):
And, apart from this, I alsohave a podcast show that is
Project Perks with Harkiran,where I'm talking everything
about people and the processes,projects and products, and it's
a weekly podcast.
You can check it out on YouTubeand you can check it out on
Spotify as well.
Please give it subscribe buttonand, you know, give it a like,
(34:08):
follow and everything.
And, yeah, I look forward tochat with amazing people out
there because we all are workingwith each other and let's just
make this bond stronger to buildamazing products out there.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
That's great.
Love your podcast.
Follow you there and onLinkedIn.
Always look forward to seeingwhat good information you've got
there.
So, harkeron, thank you so muchfor coming on the show.
I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, thanks, Mark.
Thank you for calling me hereand I totally enjoyed our
conversations and I will reflectback again today, you know, on
the thinking part of my brainand it's a nice way to do some
thought-provoking conversations.
Yeah, thank you so much, Mark,for having me here today.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
That's great.
All right, everybody that'sgoing to bring you in to another
episode of the Agile Within.
It's been Mark Metz and HarkerAmbrar.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the Agile
Within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the AgileWithin.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
(35:09):
in touch.
Just search for the AgileWithin and please spread the
word with your friends andcolleagues Until next time.
This has been your host, markMetz.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.