text stringlengths 0 2.02k |
|---|
**Lara Hogan:** It's a bummer. It teaches your brain that maybe we don't need to do this... \[laughs\] |
**Jerod Santo:** Yeah. Maybe this person's a failure. So is that article called "Your brain on progress"? Is that what it's called? |
**Lara Hogan:** It is, indeed. |
**Jerod Santo:** Alright, we'll put that one in the show notes, along with all the other things. |
**Lara Hogan:** Thank you. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I wanna read that too, because I haven't read that one yet, and I'm all about progress. What about stories? I'm sure someone like you has tons of stories... We didn't well-define, I think, some of your past history; you mentioned somewhat where you've been before - engineering director at Etsy, VP o... |
**Lara Hogan:** No, I was at a DNS company before Etsy. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay. |
**Lara Hogan:** So at Etsy, actually -- when I think about stories, a lot of them are from Etsy, because it was such a formative time in my career, just being at that kind of organization, under the leadership that I was under... You just learn so much about being a human around other humans that care about humans. A l... |
I ended up basically hanging out with a bunch of other managers in this program called \[unintelligible 00:58:07.15\] that Paloma had created, where - it was a confidential, kind of like support group for managers across the company. It was a cross-functional group, really small groups. I think there were maybe eight p... |
So one person offered to roleplay the difficult conversations with me, so I could get practice and really hone what I needed to say. One person helped me really get a good gut-check on how to make this decision, make sure it was good for everybody involved. One person had experience \[unintelligible 00:58:52.12\] so sh... |
And by their powers combined, they got me through. Each of their different experiences, different skillsets were so, so, so incredibly helpful and powerful to help me survive. They took me out for drinks afterwards, so I could just kind of cry a little bit, you know...? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[laughs\] Yeah. |
**Lara Hogan:** And I realized this power in this group was so important, because your manager can't be your everything. Your manager has one particular set of skills; one particular set of places that they can sponsor you for, or types of feedback they can give. Maybe they're even bad at feedback, maybe they're bad at... |
I don't know if listeners are familiar with the concept of a Voltron. I don't know if you wanna give a definition... \[laughs\] |
**Jerod Santo:** Go for it, Adam. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** What's the definition, Jerod? Are you a Voltron fan? |
**Jerod Santo:** I'm just checking out Voltron for the first time. I'm trying to grok this... |
**Lara Hogan:** \[laughs\] Amazing. |
**Jerod Santo:** Full disclosure... |
**Lara Hogan:** What does Wikipedia say? |
**Jerod Santo:** Voltron - of course, everybody knows - is an animated television series franchise that features a team of five space explorers who pilot a giant super-robot known as Voltron. |
**Lara Hogan:** Voltron! Yeah, bingo. If you were familiar with Captain Planet growing up - very similar vibes. |
**Jerod Santo:** Oh, yeah. |
**Lara Hogan:** \[01:00:14.11\] By our powers combined, Earth, Wind, Fire, Air, Heart, or whatever... |
**Jerod Santo:** Exactly. Captain Planet. |
**Lara Hogan:** Yeah, exactly. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[unintelligible 01:00:19.03\] |
**Lara Hogan:** Yeah, absolutely. Same vibe. And you need all of them. You need all of them, a supportive, powerful being to support you going forward. So I like this idea, as we go forward, who are the people in your network that can provide the different kinds of support that you need? Who can provide good mentorship... |
Actually, I made a little worksheet, a little bingo card for everybody to kind of brainstorm who is already in their Voltron for this variety of different skills, and where are the gaps, where might you want to find someone to fill that void for you as you grow and learn, that way you can collect a supportive group of ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. You know, listening to all this, it seems like there's really just such a wild framework to be a manager. I never really understood that it was like -- maybe I thought you were born with it; you were born with the ability to manage, the ability to lead... But it seems like it's such a learned ... |
You mentioned the spectrum before, if you have anything like that. I'm curious, but -- you know, that's something that for me is, you know, this is something you can learn; you can go to a course like you might have, or read a book like you've written, or Camille's book, or other books that you can suggest... But this ... |
**Lara Hogan:** Yeah, I would argue that anybody can be a manager. It's actually important that we have a diverse set of approaches to management and to leadership. It's important that there's not just one archetype. We of course all have an archetype of what a manager looks like, or what a leader looks like, but that'... |
I've always approached this from "Here's a set of skills, here's a set of tools that you can have in your toolbox that you can learn how to apply based on who you are, based on the organization you operate in, based on what your team needs." And that context is gonna keep on evolving. So you as a manager, you as a lead... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I mentioned before, I thought I would throw this at you - you weren't much of a fan, or you haven't read much of Seth Godin, is that right? |
**Lara Hogan:** I have not read much of Seth Godin, no. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Are you familiar with the book Linchpin, at least? |
**Lara Hogan:** No. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Not at all. Okay, good. I'll give you the paraphrase of the book, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this... Linchpin is essentially that you are indispensable; that you have to be so good that they can't ignore you, essentially. So I sort of bucked at that. I really thought that's what I had... |
\[01:04:08.27\] And I thought -- you know, this question I wanna share with you or ask you is "Cog versus linchpin." Should someone aspire to be a linchpin, or should someone in the leadership aspire to be a cog? Because a cog sort of fits in and helps everybody else move; they're very helper, very servant potentially ... |
**Lara Hogan:** Based on your description, I think I could not be further diametrically opposed to the idea of linchpin, just because, you know, our job supporting other people as they grow - it needs to continue to evolve and change and we cannot be the only one. Personally, again, based on the short description. I ca... |
And when I think cog, too - certainly, servant leadership has its pros and cons. There's definitely times when we need to be a servant leader, and other times we need to be more directive, maybe, than that... Again, pitfalls to every approach, which is why there's definitely not one one-size-fits-all approach to leader... |
But I'm all about understanding what the needs are, figuring out how you might be able to support them or understanding when you can't, and finding out "Where else can we get the support that I or my teammates or my organization needs to move forward?" |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I personally land on this idea that I need to be a cog. I really studied hard and I was like "You know what--" I read the book and I thought -- the book was actually very influential to me, and helped me gain confidence. But over time, I learned that that's not really what I need to be. And I'm gonn... |
So as a leader, I felt like that's what I needed to be. I needed to serve that mission, and less of myself. Not so much completely not myself, but I need to think about my team's motives, my mission, the unit etc. rather than just simply saying "Adam, it's all about you." |
**Lara Hogan:** I love that. And many organizations need exactly that. They need someone who's gonna come in and understand the dynamics, understand what's needed, and support it in that way. Other organizations need some version of a linchpin at some moment in time, and I think that's the important part about understa... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Well, Lara, it was awesome talking to you. It's years in the making; like I'd mentioned at the top of the show, I'd found your post in 2019. Don't ask us why it took us so long to invite you... \[laughter\] Maybe we were -- I don't know. I don't know what it was. |
**Lara Hogan:** Now is the time. |
**Jerod Santo:** Now is the time. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So we reached out via email, you said yes, here you are... It was awesome. Is there anything we didn't ask you? Anything we didn't bring up that you'd love to share on shows like this, when you do podcasts and you speak to audiences? Is there anything left unsaid, essentially? |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.