Changing the world of work

I’m deep in conversation with an executive who is ready to leave their company.  He knows he is going (he’s actually already accepted another position).  Past events have destroyed trust, damaged relationships and left him “suffocating”. He is clear that it’s not good for him to be with the organization anymore.  He’s ready to break up.

Despite the reasons for moving on, he is in agony over how to tell others.  He vacillates back and forth about what to say, who to say it to, when to say it.  He doesn’t want to “hurt” anyone, he want to make it “okay” that he is leaving.   He is clear and committed on his decision to depart, but all over the place on how to actually make the break. He has a desire to sprint towards the door, yet wonders if he should pace the transition out over several months to make it easier for others.

“Tell me how you break-up in a romantic relationship,” I ask.  “I actually suck at it,” he replies.  And that’s how it is.  And I don’t know why it has to be that way.

I believe most of us have a relationship with our place of employment. And there are qualities to that relationship that are similar to rhythms present in interpersonal relationships.

They start out filled with wonder and excitement. We are enamored with the idea that Somebody likes me! It’s all new and fresh, there’s so much to learn about one another.

Over time, the magic of the love bubble fades. Novelty is replaced with day-to-day routine. We start to notice little things, that then become big things. What was once “cute” now, not so much.

As individuals we are constantly growing and changing. Rarely does growth happen in sync with another and at some point we notice shared interests have become deepened divides.

What we once trusted, we now question.  Grace gives way to annoyance. Unspoken acceptance, becomes voiced intolerance.

And our lens shift to differences. We make one another wrong. We reject and hurt.  We break up.

Does letting go require rejection?

I’m curious what would happen if we approached a break up as a transitions in our life’s journey. To look back on a relationship, work or interpersonal, through the lens of what was gained, rather than what went wrong. If we chose to focus intentions on what the relationship gave you, where it allowed you to grow, what you learned about yourself and others as a result.

It doesn’t mean there wasn’t hurt, or pain. But you get to choose where to place your focus. What’s possible when you step forward from a place of gratitude, honoring the gifts of the relationship, rather than focus on negativity, fault and blame?  You get to choose. I vote, let it go and grow.

I am a consumer of the shared economy.  On this morning I needed to get from our home to the crowded downtown of San Francisco; a 15-minute ride. Challenges of traffic congestion and expensive parking made hitting the app on my phone and requesting a ride an easier, simpler option than driving.

Within minutes the car appears. As is my custom, I entered by thanking the driver for picking me up and giving me a ride. That’s generally pretty much it from me until I reach my destination. My user profile would not include “she likes to chat”. But for some reason on this day I did.

It starts with the safe stuff – the weather, the crazy Super Bowl traffic, how long he’s been driving for the company, what he likes about it.  But it quickly moves to a deeper topic. He is struggling. He and his wife live in a rental unit outside the city. Their dream is to one day buy a home. But they just can’t get ahead enough financially to believe it will happen. Driving is a second job for him, he does it in hopes that it will allow them to save some money. But the dream seems elusive.  The gap between where they are and where they envision themselves seems too great.

I acknowledge the passion of his dream. The struggle to achieve our dreams is real and, for most of us, the road is long, often steep, full of twist and turns and, most assuredly, a bump or two.

I shared with him that my first house was a mobile home. We bought it for $9,000 and my grandparents co-signed the loan because we had no credit. The house that followed was an 800 square foot duplex we bought in partnership with my brother-in-law and his wife; our side was 3 bedrooms and 1 bath so you can only imagine what that was like. Both of my children were born while living there. There were years of scarcity and doing without (sometimes that meant no heat), and of making the most of what we had and being grateful for it. There were periods we had to take a step back, and a time we started all over. The house he picked me up from represents a journey of more than 30 years. It has been a long, well traveled road.

Pulling into my destination he commented that the idea of taking a “first step” made a lot of sense to him. It didn’t need to be a huge step, just a small one forward. He spoke excitedly about what that might look like. He could not wait to get home and talk with his wife.

Sometimes we let our dreams die because they feel too unobtainable. But I believe each journey starts with a first step. And perhaps a step I can take is to share a bit more of my story with others and encourage others to do the same.  Maybe we can recast the shared economy to include distancing from the Facebook facade and offering more of ourselves to others.

It was sunny, upbeat kind of Saturday. International Women’s Day had brought 150 smart, talented people together to celebrate and give recognition to the power of women in Silicon Valley. This was a group of awesome women with amazing stories of strength and courage. I was honored to be invited and in awe of the company around me. I had come this day to listen more than contribute. I wanted to soak up the stories and be totally anonymous in the crowd.

At lunchtime I joined a table of three other women where the conversation was in motion. There was an easy cadence to the exchange, a gentle ebb and flow of polite conversation among smart, successful women. As one woman completed her story I gently touched her arm, looked into her eyes and acknowledged the strength and courage her personal story had demonstrated. She paused, and started to cry. This is not what I had intended, nor expected. But what unfolded next was a release of pent up emotions, stories and grief. She had been seen, for the first time in a long time. I listened and I stayed with her until she was ready to move on.

This kind of thing happens to me pretty regularly. A random encounter at the ballet leads to a woman disclosing she is a victim of abuse, complementing a person’s haircut while on an elevator ride somehow opens the door to hearing about their abusive childhood and teen pregnancy. Most of us long to be seen, really, truly, deeply seen by another human being for the person we are and the person we aspire to be. When we are seen it touches and opens our heart. And when we misunderstood the pain stabs deep into our soul. These are parts of the human experience.

As the Chief of People for Mozilla my job is to help our organization be its best by enabling the best in our people. Helping others to realize their fullest potential and expression has been the work of my life. This work is not for the faint of heart. Especially when dealing with tough issues. And we’ve been dealing with some tough issues.

Working with people requires boundless patience, acceptance and respect for differences.

I have two grandchildren, one not quite two and the other not quite four. They bring true joy to my life. And they are a lesson in patience. They walk slower and run faster than me. They experience each new day less than 30” from the ground, and much of it is experienced for the very first time. Each moment is a new opportunity. Flower petals become beds for plastic insects, kitchen pot lids are filled with magic power, and clapping three times while calling softly can make skeet appear in the dark. They see the magic and potential and beauty in life that after five decades can be mistaken as simple, mundane and harsh. I feel more alive and excited about life when I am with them. Truly being with people, young or old, requires patience.

For me, patience is a practice. It is not a muscle that comes easy for me. When I am practicing patience I pause, I breathe, I suspend judgment. Being patient helps me explore and understand “what’s happening here” from different perspectives, even when I don’t like what has happened. Pausing helps me see things from different angles, consider new options to an issue, and most importantly, it provides time and space to get into relationship with others.

When we are challenged, afraid, or don’t like what is happening, our natural tendency is to react. It’s the place we go to protect our self-worth and our identity. It takes patience to stay in relationship with another human being through the tough reactive moments. And it’s hard to stay when it feels too much, too close, too personal, But when we stay, stay in relationship with the other person there is an opportunity to find deeper meaning, connection and understanding.

Staying can provide perspective and perspective enables acceptance. There are things I deal with everyday that hit my buttons and trigger my reactive tendencies. Once the breathing kicks in, my lens is focused on really seeing the other person. What’s happening for them? What do I need to understand? What’s my role here? How can I help them feel seen? It’s not about me, it’s about them. Acceptance lends depth to human interaction, breadth to my own understanding, and richness to relationships.

We are each well into our journey of accumulating life experiences that have shaped the person we have become. We are each filled with gifts, and goodness, frailty and fears. We want to be seen for what we have to offer, accepted for who we are and supported on our journey to be the person we have yet to be. I have profound respect for each person’s life experiences. They have shaped us into the person we are today, and the person we can become.

In your own journey this week I encourage you to have patience with others, spend time in a perspective other than your own, and appreciate the richness, and complexity, that is part of our humanity.

I met with my lead team several months ago. In coaching terms, it was a “designing alliance” meeting. The essence of the meeting was for the team to be really open about what they needed from me, and for me to be open about who I am, how I work, what I needed from them. Designing alliances allow you to settle into a broader awareness of one another and what is needed to work constructively together.  Terms and conditions are open to readdressing by any party, at any time.  For what it’s worth, this foundational skill is something I introduced into Mozilla a little over 18 months ago. Functional and product teams now use this technique, managers and employees use it, and individuals use it with one another.  It’s a great way to set the stage for a relationship of any kind.  But designed alliance is not the point of this blog.  I introduce it as the setting for unfolding an awareness point that I have been chewing on since.

When are you an individual and what is the effect to your individuality when you are in-service to a group?

During this session a member of the team pointed out that I interact differently with them during 1:1’s than I do when I work with the team. In particular, the feedback was that the “intimacy” and individual connection they felt during 1:1’s was missing when I was leading the full team. And this dichotomy wasn’t working for some of the team. It created a sense of imbalance, uncertainty and fear. Ouch.

So first, great feedback. We all know (probably first-hand) what happens to team effectiveness, loyalty and productivity when tensions like that sit under the level of the surface.  Now I needed to understand their feedback and do something to change. Part of the solution was mine, part of it was theirs and part of it was ours.

I spent several restless nights in self-examination of how I was showing up and what I needed to adjust to be both an authentic and effective leader for the team. I have a deep responsibility for the impact I have on others. And I take this responsibility seriously. I followed up with each member of the team to better understand their needs, to share mine and to revisit our individual “designed alliances”.

I also wanted to better understand the root of this tension for the team. And I honed in on the larger group dynamic. I realized the team was a combination of strong individual contributors as well as those with deep experiences leading and working on teams. Part of the tension were a set of unspoken assumptions between when you are an individual and when you are working in service to a group.  There were those who saw themselves only as individuals, loosely coupled to the team. Others (me included) were working from the assumptions that the team was tightly coupled.

For us, it raised a core issue about when you move and act as an independent individual and when interdependency requires you to consider the needs of the broader group. The outcome was a follow-up meeting where we spent two days together creating explicit norms for how we will work together. We have a deep responsibility for the impact we have on others. And we take this responsibility seriously.

As part of the Tribe committed to changing the world of work, I’m curious if others have noticed or experienced this type of tension. I’m curious about how it shows up. I’m curious if it shows-up more in cultures that have high value on independence.  I’m curious about the implications of this type of tension on geo-distributed teams. I’m curious what others have done to mitigate it. I’m curious what others have tried that didn’t work out so well.

I’m curious what this posting brings up for you.

It’s been awhile since my last post. Somewhere late last year I ran out of room. Room for myself because I was too full holding space for others. And its taken me awhile to let go enough to find space for myself again.

There is a reason in airplanes they tell you to “first put the oxygen mask on yourself” and then take care of others. But when you are not flying at 30,000′ with it’s associated risks, it is easier said than done. And in the spirit of changing the world of work, I think it’s worth exploring the implications of reaching “past full” and looking at some options to help when it happens.

And it happens. To all of us from time to time. You know the feeling. Like you are full up past your eyeballs (sometimes mine actually leak when I reach this point..no kidding!). You have no additional capacity to take on one more thing and the next thing to come along just might cause you to loose it. And you are not even sure what “it” is, but your pretty sure if you lost “it” it would not be a pretty sight.

When we reach this point, our tendencies are to react. To protect. To defend. To control. To hunker down and slog our way through. Why? Because we have to. Because no one else can do it. Because (fill in the blank with your favorite reason).

And what I’ve come to learn is our reasons limit space for the thing we need most. Help. The thing we need the most, we are hesitant to seek. And the odd thing is, the hands and hearts are always there. Waiting. Sometimes pleading, to help.

Our reasons and rationales actually create distance. Often from those who care the most for us. Which is ironic, because the way out of the particular pit of doom and dread we are living in is to rely on others, to ask for help. To allow other to help. To know we are worthy of help.

I know for most of us this level of vulnerability can be uncomfortable. Especially in a work setting where we have this script running in our head that tell us we must be strong, we must not crack, we must (fill in with your favorite reason). In one of my most favorite TED talks of all time, Brene Brown talks about the power of vulnerability. And that at it’s core is a belief that we are worthy of love, of being cared for. And that surrounding each of us are friends, allies and mentors to help. When we need it.

I needed them. And once I was able to let them in, my load lightened. And now my voice is back. Let begin again. Together.

This day has been a long time in coming. For years, many of you have championed and cajoled me to find a platform where I can share my thoughts and ideas more broadly. So, here I am. Stepping out. It’s exciting, intimidating and a little overwhelming.

Soon after I left Time Warner my brother asked me what I planned to do next. Without hesitation I blurted out “I don’t know, but I have a profound need to change the world of work”. As only loving brothers can do, he laughed hysterically and muttered “how the hell do you think you’re going to do that”. I boldly replied, ” I have no idea, but I know I need to do it”. And there it was. I committed to my journey.

It’s been over 5 years since that day. A lot has happened. I’m ready to expand the dialogue; changing the world is not a solo effort! It’s time to galvanize and ignite an army of people who are passionate about, and committed to, changing the world of work.

That’s what this blog is for. A place for us to imagine “What if” and “Why not”. A place for us to share innovative and mold-breaking thoughts and ideas. A place to question, everything about the way work happens, where it happens, how it happens. This is a place to tell our stories of success, share risks taken and celebrate lessons learned. A place to challenge each other to act.

Join me on this journey. Bring a few friends. It’s time to step out and step up. The world of work needs changing and we are the ones to get it done.