Tag Archives: teamwork

Kristeen Barth: Creating a Healthy Relationship with Work

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Joanie has a conversation with an IT-manager-turned-coach, Kristeen Barth. Kristeen works with people and teams to challenge their current thinking, and she is committed to their growth experience. Kristeen also has a nerdy background. She has worked in IT project and product management as well as cultural integration. Her current work focuses on team culture and individual growth. Kristeen Barth believes that a healthy relationship with your work is key to a healthy life. That’s what we talk about in this episode.

Highlights:

Q: How did you become interested in technology management and what roles did you have in IT?

Kristeen holds a BS in Technology Management and MBA from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She worked in the telecom and toy industries as a business analyst, then moved into IT program management in the finance industry. It was in this role that she discovered the field of learning and development.

Q: What inspired you to transition from IT to learning & development?

Kristeen said that, working in IT, she had focused on improving systems and using Agile methodologies to improve productivity, but she found it even more rewarding to be able to focus on the people. She was interested in how people work together, why they work the way they work, and so on.

Q: How do you define a person’s relationship with work? What kinds of unhealthy work relationships have you seen, particularly in the tech fields and what does a healthy relationship with work look like?

Kristeen describes three components of a relationship with work: meaning, growth, and shared goals. The extent to which these factors are positive and balanced indicates the health of the relationship. Listen to the podcast to learn more about these factors, how they appear in tech jobs, and tips to develop healthier relationships with work.

Words of Wisdom:

If you are depleted, you won’t be fresh and ready for an urgent situation, like an outage.

Customer service can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on what is driving it.

Fear of making a mistake can lead to an unhealthy relationship with work.

A healthy work relationship is when you are standing up tall and strong and are ready to take on a challenge.

Contact Kristeen Barth for a free 30-minute coaching session:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristeenbarth/

Saboteur Assessment & Coaching Offer: https://www.kristeenbarth.com/saboteur-assessment

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Michael Puldy: Managing Critical Life Circumstances

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Joanie has a deeply personal conversation with Michael Puldy, CEO and Founder of Puldy Resiliency Partners, LLC.  Michael has over three decades of technology, information risk management, and operations experience in the aerospace, banking and computer technology sectors, including at IBM. He is passionately focused on ways companies can improve their offensive and defensive posture towards internal and external threats.  But, in this episode, Michael shares a personal story about how an unexpected suicide impacted his life, both personally and professionally.

Highlights:

Michael answered these questions and more.

  1. Your career was pretty accelerated for the first 25 years. You worked in governments, aerospace, banking, a security services start up and at IBM….and then you personally came to a full stop.   You lost your first wife to suicide.  Walk us through your professional mindset and focus around that time (2009).
  2. Professionally, you have built a career around disaster recovery, continuity and incident planning, and crisis management, talk about how your professional vocation helped you through this experience…or did it?
  3. Let’s fast forward 12 years later, looking back how did you navigate your way through your crisis both personal and professionally, what worked and how did you reinvent or rebuild yourself?

Listen to the episode to hear his story, how he took care of himself, how others supported him, and what he learned.

Shout Out:

Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, where Michael volunteers.

Contact Michael Puldy:

Email: michael@puldypartners.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpuldy/

 

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Manish Bhardia: Habits for Healthy Teams

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Joanie has a conversation with Manish Bhardia.  Manish is a principal at Think AI, a software development and consulting firm, author of the book Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team, and co-host of True Stories in Tech podcast. Manish specializes in AI and cloud consulting and has more than 17 years of experience leading complex technical projects.

Highlights:

Q: How did you move from being an engineer to a project manager?

Manish was told he was good at communicating with the clients and business users and that got him thinking about becoming a business analyst or project manager.  Also learning about the bad things that project managers do, such as working their teams too hard, made him want to do better with his team.

Q: How did you come to start your company, Think AI?

Because he worked well with clients, Manish decided he wanted to work with multiple clients as a cloud consultant and business owner.  He tells us how he learned how to build his sales skills too.

Q: How did you come to write your book, Teamwork and Collaboration?

A lot of Manish’s work at Think AI has been focused on teamwork.  They conducted a user-group survey to find out what their challenges were, and he wrote the book on the top ten items that centered on teamwork and collaboration.

Q: What are some of the unhealthy habits that remote workers have adopted and how can they get back to or start new healthier ones?

Manish said there are easy answers, but they are hard to implement.  He gives many tips both in his book and on the episode.  He also talks about how to add fun to a remote work environment, how to add clarity as a leader.  He also talks about how people adapting to interacting with AI.

Words of Wisdom, especially for Remote Work:

Keep your body active.

Keep calendar slots open for fun.

Create your ideal calendar and try to fit your schedule to that.

Be clear to your team on what to ignore.

Shout Out:

IAMCP, the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners.

Contact Manish Bhardia:

Website: Think AI

Book: Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team

Podcast: True Stories in Tech

 

 

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Burt De Mill: When Technical People Do Business

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Burt De Mill is the President of BDM Consulting, a San Diego based consulting firm that works with small and medium sized companies who are in the biotechnology tools and clinical diagnostics spaces.  Burt helps companies define their products and markets, conduct new market research, and launch products.  Burt talks about the challenges scientists encounter when they interface with the business world.

Highlights:

Q: Burt, you are a scientist by training.  How did you move into business?

“I wanted to be a doctor.  I was the kid who wanted the chemistry set and microscope for Christmas.  I was a chemistry and biology major at the University of Maryland.  Then I applied to medical school and didn’t get in.”

“While I kept trying, I worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital doing cancer research.  I was working with a very prestigious physician, Dr. Philip Burke, who said to me after I gave a presentation, ‘Burt, good job, but I noticed you had more fun doing the presentation than doing the work.’  I realized that I do like talking about the work.  I was also taking business classes there for free while I worked.  I felt that business was like a duck swimming on the lake to me.  It was simple.  It was easy.  That’s kind of how I ended up the failed scientist turned into a business guy.”

“I made that split over 25 years ago and never looked back.  I still do have a soft spot for the science, but I like it in a business context.”

Q: As the Sr. Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Genoptix Medical Labs back in 2005, how did you scale revenues from $4M to $184M in 5 years?

“It was kind of like running a marathon with your hair on fire, but it was kind of fun!  It was fun because we were building something.  There were some key points.  One was timing.  That’s something you can’t plan for, but it’s important for a business.  Is it the right business concept at the right time?  Is society ready for it?  Are customers ready for it?  A lot of good businesses are the benefactor of that.”

“There were three key things that we did.  We knew who our customers were and who they were not.  That is incredibly important for a startup….  We surrounded ourselves with a fabulous team…  The last one is we measured things.  This is really important when you scale…”  To hear the details, listen to the episode.

Q: As a leader, how does it feel it to not be the one doing it all but getting others in to do it?

“In the consulting business I’m in now, I work with some incredibly smart people—PhDs, MDs.  The talent is enormous in what I call their vertical.  They know that enzyme or they know that diagnostic test like the back of their hand.  But it’s very hard to be an expert in all areas.  One of the things I’d advise founders not to do is to get caught up in what I call ‘founder’s syndrome.’  Founder’s syndrome is: it’s my baby, I’m going to hang on to it all the way through, and I’m afraid to let anybody touch it because it’s my child.  Most of the time, it does not go to a good place.”

To hear what Burt recommends to prevent founder’s syndrome and what other leadership challenges he sees when he consults to small businesses, listen to the episode.  Burt has some great advice for technical leaders.

Words of Wisdom:

“Failure’s not a bad thing.  Sometimes you learn a lot about yourself.”

“You can’t be good at everything, so you have to rely on your team.”

“If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.”

“Scientists also have to sell to bankers and lawyers and business people.”

Shout Out:

To the Rady School of Management at UCSD for helping science majors get exposure to business at the undergraduate level.

Contact Burt De Mill for a free one-hour consultation:

Email: burt@bdmconsulting.org

Phone: 760-707-9519 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.

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Joe Molina: People Strategies for Techies and Vets

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Joanie interviews Joseph Molina, the Executive Director and CEO of the Veterans Chamber of Commerce.  Joe draws from his experiences in the military, teaching at Cal Poly, being an entrepreneur, writing books, and working with veterans to bring us his lessons learned about the people skills needed to be an effective leader.  He talks specifically to veterans and techies.

Highlights:

Q: How did your varied experiences lead you to be the CEO of the Veterans Chamber of Commerce?

“I’ve been teaching since I was a teenager.  I always wanted to teach.  My first class was teaching adults how to get their GED, and I loved it.  Then life comes around and you start going in different directions and I started doing business and teaching business.  I always enjoyed doing business. It gave me the opportunity to try things out.  One thing I’m not afraid of is failing.  Learning has always been part of my life and I’m always moving forward.”

Q: Certainly, people in the military have had experience conquering their fear. How does that help them when they transition to the workplace?

“When we get out of the military, when the vast openness comes in and we go from having one, two, or three options to having a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand options, that becomes the challenge.  Regrouping becomes the issue and the mission.  We all feel that way. One hundred percent of people I talk to feel that way, of feeling lost, and wondering what to do now.”

“When we are in the military, we have a purpose.  We have an identity.  When we get out of the military, that identity has shifted and maybe even disappeared. Coming out you are somebody different.  It brings up so many questions.  That’s what motivates me to really, really want to work with veterans.”

“When we are in the military, we have a good support system.  We have a lot of friends.  The moment we cross the gate, we can’t go back.  For someone who has been in the military for ten years, when they go home, nothing is the same. Things have changed.  Friends may not be there anymore.  Lives have changed.  When we come out of the military, we become a ghost. The new community doesn’t know us. We’re not connected to the old community anymore. What do we do now?  One of the programs we’ve created at the Veterans Chamber of Commerce is to connect veterans to organizations.”

Q: How do you help techie veterans connect with organizations?

“If I’m the person who has the techie skills, I need to understand the person doing the hiring is probably an HR person who is not techie.  The first step in applying a job is the resume.  The resume should have what it is that I know how to do so that anyone can understand it.  Transmitting that message in the way that a nontechnical person can understanding it will give you a leg up.  Communication skills for the techie person, the nerd, are so important.”

Q: What can organizations do to support veterans, such as hire them?

“One thing that organizations should be aware of is that you get the best employees when you hire veterans.  You have individuals who are committed to reach the goal, together, with other people.  They know the team approach.  They always complete their tasks; nothing is left half-way done.  They always follow you; loyalty is huge.”

“When we’re talking about techie people, we know that this individual is going to perform 110%.  They’re going to follow the instructions given.  They’re going to complete the task or the mission the way it’s been presented.  This presents a challenge to the manager, because the manager needs to know how to communicate their message with their vision clearly so that others can understand it.”

Joe talks about much more than just veterans.  To hear Joe’s advice for leaders, like how to motivate techie people and how to delegate, listen to the episode.

Words of Wisdom:

“There’s one thing that stops people from moving forward and that’s the “f” word—fear.”

“Anyone can be trained in a computer language but you cannot train someone in motivation.”

“You get the best employees when you hire veterans.”

Contact Joe Molina or the Veterans Chamber of Commerce:

www.vccsd.org

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Jamie Leben: The Joy of Connecting with People

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Joanie has a conversation with Jamie Leben, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the Loveland Makerspace.  A self-proclaimed nerd, Jamie has developed from a socially awkward kid to a community builder.  He has a strong sales background as well.  As a community leader, he exhibits humility, gratitude, teamwork, and giving.

Highlights:

Q: What is a Makerspace?
“It’s simply a community workshop.  Makerspaces have been around for roughly twenty years, worldwide, starting back in Berlin and MIT, for example.  You’ll also hear the term ‘hackerspace’.  It’s a place where we do our best to make access to prohibitive tools, a workspace, and a community of people working on projects and hopefully motiving each other.  We make that accessible physically and economically as well.  The Makerspace is a volunteer project of mine.  It’s my volunteer passion project.”

Q: Why is the Makerspace such a growing phenomenon globally?

“There’s been such a development in technology and tools.  Computer controlled machines have come down in price such that most people can pool together to afford them, but they are often too large to fit in a person’s house.  We pool resources to share tools.  The resources are also available to the community.”

Q: What people challenges come up at your Makerspace?

“We have people of all ages, some very smart people, people who are very good with mechanical tools, some people on the spectrum.  There’s interaction between people with different perspectives.  In return of all that ferment and the different personalities, you get some wonderful things that come out of it.”

“For instance, our Makerspace has birthed several companies.  It’s like a ‘try before you buy.’  You might think, ‘I’ve worked with this person on volunteer projects and I know I can spend hours a day grinding away on something that makes us success and I might like working with this person.’”

Q: How do you create an environment where people want to interact with each other across traditional boundaries, like age and culture?

“They look for hierarchy.  I say, ‘no this is our place.’  We have a do-ocracy.  We do things.  This is our community, if you see something you want to engage in, please do it.”

Q: What kinds of conflicts have come up and how did you move through them?

“This is an interesting challenge.  Sometimes it’s a case-by-case basis.  If I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with it, my colleague being able to take it on and deal with it is important.  It is a team effort.”

“The first rule of the Makerspace is The Golden Rule, or ‘don’t be a jerk.’ Having the diverse experience and backgrounds of people who can say ‘I’ve got this, I’ve seen this before, let me give this a try’ helps in dealing with conflicts that arise.”

To hear more about Makerspaces, the benefits from being a member of one, and the joys and challenges of leading one, listen to the episode.

Words of Wisdom:

“You have things to share with me, I have things to share with you.”

“Surround yourself with smarter people and listen to them.”

“Be a mentor, not a hero.”

“Being able to laugh at yourself really helps.”

Contact Jamie Leben:

https://jamieleben.home.blog/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-leben-5253a061/
https://www.facebook.com/jamie.leben
https://twitter.com/jamieleben

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