Episode 39 | Your Scorecard Is Lying to You: Pat Wadors on Leadership, Agility & Holding the Mirror

[00:00:00] They were like really pissed. I'm like, look, either walk it or you don't. Choose your poison, but choose it and then you're smart. If you say there's a PRD, a product requirement document for your business, for your service, you would treat it with care. It's the same PRD mindset for your employees. What do you believe in them? Walk that frickin' talk.

[00:00:16] A CHRO, Pat Watters has spent 20 years building cultures at some of tech's biggest names. LinkedIn, ServiceNow, UKG, Procore. At LinkedIn, she helped triple the company's headcount in two years, attracting top talent from Apple and Google. Recently, she made an unusual career move, moving from the software industry to Intuitive Surgical, the company behind the da Vinci Surgical Robot System that has served over 20 million patients. Today, Pat talks with us in the industry.

[00:00:46] about the personal scorecard that led her to Surgical Robots, why she rejects the word transformation in favor of agility and experiments, and how to hold the mirror up when leaders aren't walking their talk. Welcome, Pat. Pat Worsley- Hi. Pat Worsley- So great to have you here. Pat Worsley- Thank you for having me.

[00:01:16] Pat Worsley- Well, before we dive into your amazing career and all of your wonderful insights, I wanted to ask you a couple things that I've heard about. Pat Worsley- Recently. One is that you're expecting something? Pat Worsley- My son and daughter-in-law are expecting baby number three, and he is due June 18th. So I'm super excited. Pat Worsley- And tell me about the other two. How old are the older siblings?

[00:01:44] Pat Worsley- Turning four, just turned two, and then a newborn. So two years apart. Pat Worsley- Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. So nice. Pat Worsley- My two-year-old was born, he was born April 1st. 10 pounds, one ounce. Pat Worsley- Ooh. Pat Worsley- I know, natural birth for all of you know, that's like a big, and my daughter-in-law is like five foot four. Pat Worsley- Like, she's a beast. Pat Worsley- Yeah. Pat Worsley- And so this baby boy is tracking similar to Emmett, and I'm like, you're a beast. You go. Pat Worsley- Yeah. Pat Worsley- Like, I didn't accomplish that feat. Pat Worsley- No.

[00:02:14] Pat Worsley- So good luck. Pat Worsley- I had a record baby, and I didn't enjoy that. Pat Worsley- My biggest was about nine pounds and a few ounces. That was enough. Pat Worsley- I was like, okay, I'm good. Pat Worsley- Absolutely. Pat Worsley- Good. Pat Worsley- All right. And then I also hear that you are revolutionizing the world of gaming, too. Pat Worsley- Yeah.

[00:02:39] Pat Worsley- My husband makes fun of me a little bit, just a tad, but I'm a gamer. Pat Worsley- So I love all games. Pat Worsley- I'm a little competitive, and I haven't been gaming. Pat Worsley- Work and raising my own kids and travel. Pat Worsley- It's really hard to commit to even a book club. Pat Worsley- How do you carve out time if you have a few days? Pat Worsley- And so I decided, since we spend our weekends, I spend long weekends in Santa Barbara,

[00:03:05] and I commute up to the Bay Area, that to meet neighbors and to make friends, I would start gaming again. And I chose Mahjong as my first gaming entourage, so I've never played. And we have an instructor, and I invited a bunch of folks over the home that want to learn. And we're learning together, and it's really fun and goofy and competitive. And then once I do Mahjong and we figure that out, I'm going to do a different game and card games. Like, we're just going to conquer

[00:03:33] gaming. When I grew up, it was all about the neighborhood kids doing Monopoly for days on end in the wintertime in a basement somewhere. And so I'm going to see how gaming evolves in my next chapter. Pat Worsley- That's awesome. Well, we all need some IRL stuff these days, and I think that's beautiful. Pat Worsley- Oh, thank you. Pat Worsley- Same. I'm a little jealous. Mahjong is on my list, and Amy will attest that I am

[00:04:01] not wildly competitive or interested in winning, but I do like learning new things. I make a bit of a disaster as far as a gaming partner, but I like to make up for it by being funny. Pat Worsley- See, that's good. Pat Worsley- It's time to play against. Pat Worsley- Yes. You want the community, like the goofiness of it. Like I'm terrible. Like I didn't get my first Mahjong. Like I was like so bummed my first lesson. Other people got their Mahjong. I'm like, I'm not sure I'm going to get this. But then I'm like practicing and reading the rules.

[00:04:31] And I'm like, this is actually fun. It gets my brain going. And we text as a group text now, like, are you practicing? Are you on the online prep, you know, application? And it's fun. So Pat, you've recently had quite the career change. You've spent your career at LinkedIn, ServiceNow, UKG, Procore, all these tech, SaaS companies. And just last October,

[00:04:58] you joined Intuitive Surgical as CHRO. What made you say yes to surgical robots? Yes. So I've been in healthcare, parts of healthcare for my, call it extracurricular focus. So like Second Harvest Food Bank and on boards on, you know, accolade for mental health

[00:05:25] and finding care. And then I advise RULA, which is mental health. And I was on the board of El Camino Hospital. And so things about care and nurturing of a daughter with special needs and figuring out and navigating and being an advocate is a big deal. And I was at Merck Pharmaceutical in my younger years when I was doing HR and learning the ropes. Love the mission. And then my first head of HR job was at Align Technology, a med device company. They do Invisalign. So I got a little bit of a taste.

[00:05:56] And what happened is two years ago when I was at UKG, Emmett got born and I made sure I wasn't traveling because I could travel quite a bit. And so I'm in the hospital, I'm into my arms and I'm crying like every good grandma would do. And I'm like, oh, it's so cute. And my son, the smarty pants walks up to me and says, mom, according to your personal scorecard, we can get into my scorecard a

[00:06:21] minute. But according to my scorecard, because I share it, he was like, you put down that you would see your granddaughter once a quarter. And if you continue with that score, you will have met Everly and Emmett like 76 times by the time they're 18. And I just started bawling because that is not the score I really wanted. Right. You all know that. It's not the score. You want them to run. You go Nana, Nana, Nana. You want them to know when you walk in the room, you're going to spoil them rotten.

[00:06:49] You want them to know that you love them more than life itself. And seeing them once a quarter, I had framed it in a way like a business goal. And that's not really my life goal, my score. And so I'm like, something has to shift. And so I pulled back on my scorecard and thought about what really I wanted in life, you know, health, you know, my relation, my husband, you know, riding bikes with

[00:07:19] him. Gaming was a part of that, like the social making friends, carving out intentional time with family, my grandkids. And so like if I'm going to make a move, it's got to be my perfect target. And so I looked about, you know, my purpose, my purpose. I want to leave the world better than I found it to give more than I get. And so I want to be in an industry that really gives back to humanity. And then I want to leverage my experience in tech and high growth. I want to be near my kids,

[00:07:47] my grandkids in the Bay Area. So it's a quick commute up from Santa Barbara up here back, 40 minute flight, super easy. And I got an apartment up here and spend time with them. So I'm Nana, Nana, Nana, right? And figure this out. And I wanted to be with a company that had humility, mission, and truly focused on the patient, right? There's med device out there that

[00:08:13] doesn't say they focus on the patient problems, but their ecosystem is different and how they pursue their decision making is different and intuitive. But it's almost like I manifested the scorecard. And so I am so glassed. I'm not going to say it was a grand design, but it ended up reaching out to me and the timing worked for me. And I walked in and I met with the CEO, Gary at the time, Guthart. And then I met with the president, Dave Rosa, and I fell in love,

[00:08:42] right? I been a patient of the Da Vinci robot in 2019. I had a hysterectomy that I needed. It was a medical need. And I was so anxious to get the surgery. My doctor said, it's robotic. And I'm like, whatever, just get me better. Like it wasn't focused. And then when I got wheeled into the OR and there's like this machine, like the board, but the four arms like wrapped. And then the console,

[00:09:08] the gaming console in my mind is against the wall somewhere else. And this robot is going to operate on me. I'm like, I should have asked more questions. I'm like, oh, and then I go out, right? And then I'm like, out for the couch. I'm like, oh, I wake up and like, I hope I'm not part machine. I don't know what happened. And it was such a fabulous experience, y'all. I literally could walk out of that hospital. I could have worked the next day. Made a little longer. I didn't return to

[00:09:38] LinkedIn for a couple of weeks just because I should rest. I could get up and walk. Like I could, I could function. And the minimally invasive surgery is really about getting people back to life faster, better with minimal interruption. And it was a miracle to me. Like I expected a multi-month issue and it wasn't. And so when DaVinci robot was there when I was interviewing, I'm like,

[00:10:07] that's the machine. And then they're talking like, do you want to get on it? I'm like, yeah. And then I'm talking to the employees about what's your vision for the machine. And I'm like, oh, this, I feel my heart. And then I asked how you make decisions. And it's about the patient. What makes their lives better? Everything they said was about the patient. And I'm like, this is, this is my scorecard. And I called up my, my son. I go, Ben and Eddie. I'm like, they live up in Burlingame.

[00:10:33] And I'm like, there's this company I'm in love with. It's, it's got X, Y, and Z on what I want in life. And it's in Sunnyvale. So it's a, you know, 30 mile distance from you. And I go, where do you want me to live in my apartment? Like I could live in Sunnyvale. I can come up to a Burlingame area. And then my wise son goes, mom, if you're coming up here for a job and do business dinners, you should just stay in Sunnyvale. We'll see you occasionally. But if you want that scorecard to

[00:11:01] change, it'd be Nana, Nana, Nana. Eddie and I picked out an apartment for you one mile away. It's in a bargain. And you could buy us dinner every week. I'm like, score, done. And so I just had dinner with them last night. I just love it when our kids show their wisdom, show us that they're smarter than us. Right. I like, that's my absolute favorite thing. What a wonderful kid that is. Yeah. I held up the mirror. I'm like, dang, okay, you're right. You're so right.

[00:11:31] Who taught you that? Yes. Yeah. You're so right. Now I'm in my like zone. I'm in my zone. Yeah. Everything's lined up. So tell me a little bit about the onboarding process of joining. It's clear this is a wonderful company, that it's very values aligned, that you had a lot that you could contribute. But I can imagine that getting up to speed on the technology and the business model

[00:11:59] and all of that was a bit of a lift. And maybe there was some, you know, hesitation or imposter syndrome. Like how did you get yourself oriented and how did you mobilize your strengths towards being additive to this mission? Tell me a little about that. Gosh, it takes me nine months to a year to get my feet planted and feel pretty flexible and navigating,

[00:12:26] connecting dots. And usually nine months. And SAS, it took me a good 12 months or so here to really start seeing the puzzle pieces coming together. It is complex, multiple products, different applications, different surgeries, different way in which you go to market. Uniqueness in China and Japan versus Europe and reimbursements and, you know, the capital

[00:12:51] expenditure plus the instruments that you use on the arms. And like, there's just so much. My brain was like, wow. And I get the software, I get the engineering, I've been in manufacturing. So I had some baseline. So I knew kind of what questions to ask. But then after I assessed the team, the maturity of HR, the tools we're using, we're just implementing Workday, I had to really dive into the business. Because if you don't connect to the problem, the strategy, then you miss a lot. You're not really

[00:13:21] driving the care that you need to be doing. And so I've been doing ride-alongs with the sales teams. I have spent eight, nine hours in the OR standing on my feet watching surgeries. Just did it in Mountain View. I've done it in Atlanta. I'm going to do it in Texas. Like, I've been observing surgeries remotely through telepresence. I want to know what does it mean? Because we've allowed and encouraged hospitals to

[00:13:46] use the equipment, the machine after hours for emergency care. Usually in robotics, historically, you'd be scheduled. So if you were scheduling it and it was planned, you had higher care. If it was an emergency, the doctors on call were not robotic surgeons. And so they didn't have the time on the machine and on the robot. And so you may not, you might get open or lap surgery, which means your recovery is longer. And so they made it available at night and trained these folks and trained the OR

[00:14:15] teams. And you have robotic coordinators now in these hospitals. And you could do more surgeries with better care 24-7, right? And really optimize it. But it shifted the impact on the sales team and the service team and the support teams and the engineers. And like, we didn't expect this or this is what we do. And this is how you support the team. And so now you're getting calls at 11 o'clock at night. And it takes like eight months to train the clinical sales reps to sit there in the OR with the doctors.

[00:14:44] They're actually instructing doctors on the application of the surgery. I mean, it blows my mind how talented these folks are. Just, I am humbled. I am completely humbled. And now I can take my knowledge on, and I've been manufacturing Mexicali and I'm looking at how they do things and we're growing like crazy. And so I need to think through our variable workforce, our fixed workforce, which is the, you know, the regular full-time employees. I need to think through the skills that we have AI

[00:15:13] now in our products. Like it's just, it's touching the elephant and I'm not done learning. Meg and Amy, I am still learning. I am still asking a ton of questions. I am still, still trying to grasp the magic and ensure I'm a good steward. I love that. I especially love the go see the work. I've been reading Dan Heath's book. And,

[00:15:39] you know, when you're looking for transformative change, it is so important that you're really grounded about how the work happens and also what are the needs. And one of the things you said was really aligned with what we're seeing in other businesses as well, which is because you

[00:16:01] have this technology, in your case, the robot, not only do you have different training and different execution, but you actually have almost an entirely different motion into how the job is done. And this is a very common pattern that we're starting to see that businesses are trying to figure out how to

[00:16:27] leverage AI. So tell us a little bit about the human piece of that within your customer base of how do they navigate from the enthusiasm of, okay, we understand we want to be able to do surgeries that have less impact, et cetera. And we basically get the idea that we need different training and the way that this will happen will be different. But to your other point,

[00:16:57] how do you turn that into, you know, what does it mean for after hours care? What does it mean for extended care? What does it mean for scheduling? What does it mean for post-op? All of those things, right? Like every piece, we start to pull the thread and everything underneath it starts to change. How have you seen the customers navigate that? And like, what are some of the learnings there about

[00:17:21] what's gone well and what hasn't? You have in any industry, and most products or service, key opinion leaders, right? Why does your service differentiate? Why does your product differentiate? How do you go to market? What's your total available market? What's your SAM? Who do you serve? And then if you have a leadership opportunity and position in the marketplace, a little paranoia on how you protect that, you have to have some hubris. Like someone is going to fix that widget better,

[00:17:51] faster, do something different. And so how do you stay humble? How do you stay principles first? Like we're here to solve the patient's problem. And you have to navigate the change around the surgeon. And then not only the surgeon, but the surgical care team. And then think about sustainability in the OR. If you're open surgery, if you're an end or a lap, you're using a lot of tools. Like you,

[00:18:16] you sterilize a lot of things that you may or may not use. In a robot, it's much less waste. And you can turn around an operator, operation room within 10 minutes. Like I saw someone, a group of hospitals in Maryland, I think it did 10 to 12 minutes turnaround. Like incredible. So if you think about waiting for surgery, right? If you need colon or hysterectomy or a hernia repair or gallbladder surgery, you don't have to wait weeks. You're going to be able to do

[00:18:45] more. And it also helps ergonomically on these surgeons. So as you get older, if you're doing open, it's muscular. It's hard. You're standing, you're wrestling, you're doing a lot. But through the robot and how you sit in the way we do, it's intuitive. We make the robot feel like your arm, you know, articulates through your fingers. They can do surgery longer. So think about wisdom in life. The three of us, we have a lot more wisdom. If I had my wisdom today, back when I was in my 20s,

[00:19:13] OMG. And so you have these surgeons able to operate longer and help the next generation apply their wisdom, right? Through techniques. And so I think for AI and how it gets embedded, it's embedded in so many different ways. Let's imagine a world that if you have these best practices surgeons around the world doing a unique cancer surgery, brain, heart, lung, whatever,

[00:19:43] and they figure out this process, this methodology, and then AI is applied and they can map these up and coming residents. Here's your, how you're applying it. This is the best practice. This is the outcomes. If you tweak this, this is the better outcomes. They can give you patient outcomes, predictability, grade you. Like, I want to know how I can improve. Like, I was in the body too long. I gave too much force. We have force feedback. So now AI can tell me what is optimal, the just right fit.

[00:20:12] And so you can figure out the best outcomes, but the best healing for patients. You can get better demographics on type of patient. So when you go in and prep for a surgery, you're so much more wiser for that patient. It's personalized. To me, that's amazing. So are you finding that people are excited about the things that you're saying or that they need to be convinced? What's the distance between Pat's view of the world and what the regular person is feeling?

[00:20:43] Yeah, definitely not the regular person. I'm a little odd, but I think about any change curve. You have influencers that are experts in their space, have done lapiscopic surgery for 20, 30 years, like to make them a robotic surgeon. They will be less efficient in the beginning. It'll be awkward. Right? They won't know how to sell it to their patients. They might have a surgical team they

[00:21:11] worked with for a decade. Now you're going to tell Sarah or you're going to tell John to do something different. You're going to be frustrated because you got into a pattern, a groove that had great outcomes. And we're saying, trust us, you can be even better. That's hard. So then you have peer-to-peer advising, right? And so you do have your resistors. But you find now the generations that are coming out of university, one more time on a robot, they will miss a lecture to find time in a lab to get

[00:21:39] on a robot. They want the time. They see the difference. And then if you get on the robot and you're out of residency, maybe you're in a practice that doesn't have the robots and then you atrophy and then you have to convince them go back to the robot. So that change curve is real no matter what change you put in front of them, where you find the benefits when hospitals see the ROI. There's cost benefit. There's sustainability benefit. There's health metrics, less time in

[00:22:09] the hospital. You go home faster. We know if you leave the hospital sooner, your health is better. And so you have to have hospitals willing to dance with you and give you all those data sets and teach you how to do that. And then you have the, what I call the tipping point, enough of a gravitational pull others want to follow. They feel FOMO. So we're doing that. And then getting the capital equipment out there in other countries, right? Making it affordable. Like, how do you do that?

[00:22:35] You mentioned that intuitive is growing like crazy and incorporating AI. So kind of looking internally that flashes the word transformation to me. But I believe you've said, I'd rather be known as an agile, relevant, and authentic leader than a transformational one. What does that mean? And

[00:22:59] how does that show up? Transformation implies to me that I have an end date and then thing in mind. And I learned how to do change management back in the day with applied materials. And it was like, we're going to deploy X, Y, Z. These are the outcomes we're looking for. And you do a change plan and stakeholders and comps and training. Life now is not about an end destination. It's the journey

[00:23:29] and the agility. And it's the thinking like HR and any support function is a product leader. And you do a PRD. And then you do agile scrum development. And then you have continuous improvement. And you get the product out there that's good enough. And then you get feedback. You can tweak it for ergonomics or cost or local language, like you make it up. But

[00:23:52] I want my team, I want my leaders to be agile, humble leaders that our first principle faced, looking at the problems we're trying to solve and the people we're in service of. And if you do that, the journey gets you up every day. You're not frustrated that a goalpost got delayed. Yes, you have many milestones. I'm not saying I wouldn't have deployed Workday on time or I'm not going to

[00:24:17] deploy the comp cycle on time. But my joy is the journey and the purpose. And I think you create better sustainability of your workforce, higher engaged workforce. Mental health is better. You're calmer in the room. Like, I'm calm. I make mistakes. My team makes mistakes. What do we learn? Do a little bit of a postmortem on like, did we not see something so we can anticipate some of the

[00:24:44] risks? How do we build our muscles? But we have a hypothesis. Let's explore this experiment, blah, blah, blah. And framing things as experiments even relaxes the human. We've been exploring kind of the concept of transformation maturity or specifically AI transformation maturity and looking at it as a never ending journey, as you said. So we've been

[00:25:10] thinking about it as transformation doesn't end. It's a journey. But I love this idea that you're just rejecting the word transformation because it's got so much existing baggage and looking at it completely differently. But regardless, the need to not just be agile and take in change and move

[00:25:34] proactively with change is accelerating. Not only is that true, but you also need to be bringing these humans along. And so with your extreme experience and insight in terms of belonging and, you know,

[00:25:56] bringing people along, I just was wondering, like, how are you bringing your past experience into intuitive? Any stories that you can share in terms of what you're seeing working and maybe not too as well? Changing words make us pause and go, what do you mean by that? So disrupting the language is a key

[00:26:23] one. You just picked up on it, Amy. Just the fact that I don't believe in transformation. What? What do you mean by that? And they're like, okay, let's talk about that. And a commitment. No, it's an experiment. Why isn't it like you're not committing? You have no accountability. I'm like, no, I believe in the ultimate goal, but I may not get it right. The mountain is right. Where we're trying to get to is dead on right. But I'm not sure the path we're initially going to go on is the path we stay on

[00:26:48] and repeat. So come with me, co-create with me. And so what I've done is taken my lessons learned on belonging and how the brain works and how humans want to feel valued and have an impact, their voices heard. What voices are in the room? What voices are missing? Like, are we touching the elephant? I think in fables, you know, so like, are we touching the elephant? Are we just using our bias in that

[00:27:12] room? Because I've only seen a trunk. I've never seen the tail. What could I be missing? Questions are our best tool. So I bring query into every room, even if it's not just a nature topic, it's about the business. I will lean in to demonstrate what I'm asking. And then I seek the business to co-create with me because everything that we do in HR is a business solution. Unfortunately, it's been tagged as HR. HR said, you know, whatever. And I'm like, no, what we goal setting

[00:27:40] is a business tool. Managing performance and setting alignment is a business priority. Inspiring your employees and hiring the right talent is a business need and a challenge. So I'm an enabler, my guide to navigate all this. It's the most effective way, human way, caring way possible. But I bring my science thinking, my belonging into the story so people have higher level of ownership, comfort to speak truth and have fun.

[00:28:10] So I was curious, you know, one of the areas that we've been exploring is organizational change in this AI world. And very recently, you may have seen the manifesto that Jack Dorsey came out with in terms of moving from hierarchies to basically everyone reporting to him. But everyone reports to me.

[00:28:38] Yeah. Like, you know, I need everyone to have more agency. So therefore, I will control everything. Anyway, I just was wondering what your thoughts are on, you know, organizational design in the current day. What do we need to do to make our organizations more effective in order to seize the moment?

[00:29:09] I'm in the process of noodling that now and experimenting. Truth be told. No commitments. Just experiments. Yeah. Just experiments. Why do I say that? Because it takes a village to roll anything out, right? And then you've heard of matrix management and different functions. You got to understand the ecosystem, how to be a supplier and a customer in the same enterprise system. And when you grow to a certain size,

[00:29:35] you end up being your function, not the enterprise thinker, right? The systems thinker. Like, what supply do you give me so I can do something with it to hand it off to somebody else? And being clear on how to be an excellent supplier is just as important as being a very clear customer. And so as a supplier of goods and services, I will make sure that before I commit my team,

[00:29:59] my customers are clear on what's the priority, what's the impact they're trying to drive, what's their level of accountability, what work are they going to do in service of me? How many reviews will they be with me in the room to collaborate and fix along the way and experiment before I even commit?

[00:30:13] And so I'm looking at like the how. And so we bifurcated our review process or performance management thinking to be the what and the how. So getting really clear on the what and how it feathers up and down, but how we navigate the company to collaborate, to seek to understand. We're teaching the supplier customer language, skills, and enterprise thinking from the top down, because I think that'll help the company be more fluid in agile.

[00:30:40] As you look at teams and as you look at job families and what you do, I don't, and I want to be careful how I say this. I know someone's going to be listening in on this one. Job families for compensation architecture makes sense for comp, right? Like how am I going to map you to a market? But they don't make sense in the real world of how you do your job and what I need. So you got to be really fluid in a job family. This is the kind of like the thrust of the role. And then it'll evolve over time. Like, like, A,

[00:31:09] AI will continue to evolve your job. So if I wrote your job description, chances are it's going to change in three months because of capability. And so I hate rewriting the same book over and over again. I'd like to have the fluidity in the system.

[00:31:22] So my roadmap is this reimagined job family, job architecture, job code to the, you know, career pathing mindset that we'd have to look at the skills in a different way and the evolution of role in a different way. So you have more agility and you focus on the what and the how.

[00:31:41] Yeah. And really, I'm looking at it as the job architecture is really for compensation and legal contracts and that sort of thing. And it needs to be sort of static.

[00:31:54] And then there's the work architecture that needs to be completely dynamic. And there's maybe a relationship between the two. But you really need this side to be constantly moving without feeling like you have to, you know, change comp structures and legal things and get complete consensus every time that you want to, you know, adjust.

[00:32:19] So I think there's big things happening or that need to happen in HR tech in order to do that. But I really love your approach, which is both more curious and more tailored to the needs of the business and more realistic about what is what you know and what you don't know.

[00:32:42] I think one of the things that's really troubling me with the narrative of spans and layers, get rid of middle management and all of that. Those feel like very blunt force instruments and they don't feel at all like they understand or are truly internalizing what is the work and who are the workers.

[00:33:05] Amy and I are obviously in sort of team. This is this is not something to do a ready, fire, aim approach. This is something to recognize as an ongoing journey. And so I'm really grateful to hear how you're thinking about it because it's I feel like the narrative is getting scary right now.

[00:33:26] It's really, really complex. And if you just do skills based and someone's got to update the skills or you infer a skill, you don't you can't infer mastery of that skill. Right. Just because I'm in the room and you're talking about, you know, P&L doesn't mean I understand the P&L. And so there's got to be a way to have small teams that win that are agile. You have to figure out a way through the ecosystem to communicate and to understand context.

[00:33:52] Communication is key for every human. I make better decisions about context. Everyone, even AI needs the override of a human. Humans need a lead to get the context because in absence of that, you'll chase the wrong metric. And so it is I don't know my destination. I know the evolution of building blocks that that will create efficiency, higher buy in from my leaders and my employees.

[00:34:21] But it will create pain and suffering on the traditional structures we have. Think works councils, think contracts, think you change my job. Twenty five percent is a job elimination of X, Y, Z. Like, no, your job should be evolving over and over and over again. To protect against elimination, actually. Like that's the part that's missing from that conversation. And development and joy and impact. And and and that's why I get the joy of all this.

[00:34:49] I need to think through it. But it's got to be more than me. Right. It's not just one company figuring this out. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned one thing that I really want to come back to the fact that because of the way that you work, you can show up calm. I think this is a really important leadership trait right now. And I want to spend a little bit of time there. The role of leaders in bringing the right energy so that people can do their best work is is really big deal.

[00:35:19] And it's really hard. It it takes a lot out of a leader to show up with that calm, to show up with that. We can do this. And it is a big deal. But, you know, but we're not going to all panic. We're going to figure out a path forward.

[00:35:36] Help me understand some of the tools you lean on to bring that calm forward and how that changes the way that your team feels empowered to also bring that calm to the rest of the organization. Belief that together. There'll be enough intelligence around the table, enough care and compassion on the table to solve a problem. Right. I believe in that.

[00:36:02] First and foremost, if you have values based decision, we can figure things out. I believe that in modeling my humanity, my mistakes, my joys, my fobbles, my human, my mahjong playing, whatever. Right. Like we're humans coming together for a purpose. And I think that helps.

[00:36:27] I think when you the tricky part is when someone else makes a mistake and it has big impact on somebody. Because everything we do is personal. Let's just be clear. Everything, every mistake HR makes has a personal nugget to it. You got to own that. Be accountable to that. But then you got to lean into what do we get to learn? And then share the joy of what you got to learn.

[00:36:52] You get a problem when people repeat the mistakes, when they strive not to get the feedback, when they're like, that feedback is not good for me. And they choose not to grow with you. Then you have to make tough decisions and move on. But the kindness comes with I can learn and make mistakes and I can be taught and I can grab it. I can model it again. And I have people around me to support me. We can have fun at work, enjoy the journey. I will be recognized for my contribution.

[00:37:22] And how you navigate it matters. And so there's simple tricks I do. I strive to say thank you all the time. I strive to be really clear on why I value them and their uniqueness, both in how they show up and their smiles and how they read the room. I strive not to write emails late at night. I strive not to write emails on weekends. I schedule my time. If I happen to be working on a Sunday morning, I'll send it to you Monday. I want people to breathe and relax.

[00:37:50] I give a social contract with them. Look, if I call you on weekends because I really need you, help me out. Help a friend out kind of thing. And so no one begrudges the call, right, or the answer. And I will work with them. There's not a problem that I won't own. They're not alone. The success is theirs, but the problem is mine. And I want them to feel that because no one can anticipate every problem.

[00:38:16] I've been in with theaters that did not make me feel that way. And that's really hard. You walk in with negative energy and anxiety in a room. And I remember being a new mom, worried about that. And then worried about work. And I'm like, oh, crap. This is not where I want to be. And then when someone came in with grace and compassion and teaching, and I'm like, I want that. I want to be that.

[00:38:40] So, Pat, in your book, Unlock Your Leadership Story, you shared some real key insights on this topic. One was that everyone should be treated beautifully. And that to lead means you need to give more of yourself. And there's this beautiful story that you tell in it about an aha moment where you reach these

[00:39:09] insights and you developed this concept of understanding your leadership shadow. And I was wondering if you could share a bit about that story here. Yeah, it was a hard lesson. So I throw back. I'm a new mom. I'm nursing, right? I'm struggling nursing, working full time. I had to come back to work pretty quickly after Katie was born. I mean, within weeks, not months. So it was really quick.

[00:39:39] And because she came in early and things were not ready at work and I have this high level of commitment. She was my third. I thought, I got this. I got this. But you really don't. You really don't. And so I took on this new role at the time and I was leading change management for the company. And then I was assigned later to do this legal integration of an Israeli company. And so I had to travel around the world. Katie was months old at the time.

[00:40:09] And I would have to go and navigate what's changing. Here's the process, how we're going to do forecasts, finance, revenue, you name it. And I would deal with a bunch of folks around the company from legal tax, benefits, comp, you name it. And so where I'm used to having a smaller team, this now became a larger, broader, 70% influence kind of team. And I was in Asia. I was in Malaysia.

[00:40:37] And I'd been on the road probably a week and a half physically hurting to be with Katie and my kids. And I recognized that for the last couple of trips, these 10 folks were not submitting their work as quickly, giving me one word answers, only telling me exactly what I asked, not going a step further. Tone was more negative. I'm getting pissy. I'm getting negative back. I want to go home. And I had deliverables.

[00:41:08] And so I'm pissed and I'm sad and I'm anxious all at once. And it's in the middle of the night. And I realized that the only common elements, see this is where I get a little emotional, was me. Not them. It was me. And I'm like, shoot, I am screwing this up and I don't even know how. So I fly back home. I get a coach and I'm like, help me figure this crap out. I am screwing this up. Can you do a 360 for me?

[00:41:35] I need you to interview these 10 people and tell me how I'm effing it up. Excuse my language. And I said, like, they're not my command control. Like, this is, I got to fix this. And it's in here somewhere. She's okay. She's very nice. And she goes off and does her interviews, comes back and we go to this Mexican restaurant in Hayward, California. I remember the moment exactly. And she gives me this horrific feedback. And I'm pretending I'm crying because of the salsa.

[00:42:03] So no one would know I'm bawling at the restaurant. It's the salsa. Blow my nose. It's like terrible. And she's like, it's okay. It's okay. And I'm like, no, it's not. They think I am career hungry. Like, I don't care about the contribution, how hard they're working. I'm not saying thank you. Like, I'm out for myself. Or they feel like a cog in the wheel. I'm not giving them contacts. Like, negative.

[00:42:30] Like, it just, it was a pile of crap right on that table. I lost my appetite. And she's like, you need to learn how to navigate this. You say you're going to go to social hours and you don't. Like, you basically lie to them. And then at lunch, you ignore them. And so, like, they sit at a table and they're like, what? I'm like, you don't like them. You say, good morning. How are you? And you keep walking and don't listen for the answer. And I'm like, but I'm an introvert. Like, I'm processing in my head.

[00:42:59] I need, like, 20 minutes by myself at lunch to recharge. And I'm nursing. I'm going to go home to my family and nurse my daughter so I can have some time. And I have to pump that night. And they go, do they know you have babies? I'm like, no, it's not their business. Do they know you're an introvert? No, it's not their business. And she goes, I think it is. And I'm like, damn. I don't want anyone to think that. That is not my leadership shell. It's not who I want to be seen as. Right now I'm naked.

[00:43:29] And I, you know, in a way that hurts them. So they're running around naked too, maybe. I don't know, but it's not good. And so I took two a day, one in the morning, one afternoon. And some made me, they came after me harder to really, like, me taking a pound of flesh. Others were, like, so shocked I came back. And I said, look, here, let me introduce myself. I showed who I was and thanked them for feedback and apologized if I gave bad signals. And I will still do an Irish goodbye.

[00:43:59] I don't know how to say goodbyes really well. And, you know, this is who I am. And I turned the relationships around. But it was a hard reminder. They need to know the leader. They need to know your values. They need to know what you're going through so they don't interpret your behaviors negative on them. So we do this thing called the leadership corner where we take a dilemma from one of our wonderful audience members.

[00:44:26] And this particular one, the individual was a man who was carrying all of the emotional load for his boss and his peers. And specifically, he said that there was a lot of, like, neurodivergence in his peers and his boss. And they just weren't interested in connecting with the employees.

[00:44:52] And so this person felt like he had to do all of that. He was looking for advice. And, you know, we were sharing, like, okay, well, you know, you do need to give this feedback, even if it's hard and all that kind of stuff. And so I'm just wondering, like, since we have you here and I read this part in your book and I'm like, I bet Pat would have really good advice on this topic. So what would you say?

[00:45:19] Because in this particular case, these folks probably weren't as curious as you were in that moment, right, to get a coach and to get the feedback and to action the feedback. What is a good way to kind of put a mirror up in front of people and have them understand this concept of a leadership shadow and what sort of impact they're having on the business? How funny.

[00:45:47] I just had this conversation with another peer of mine. You know, their CHRO, like, how do I get them to walk the talk and really show they care about the employee and culture and, like, they don't care and they're remote or whatever. And I'm like, oh, I've been there. Yeah. So there's so many different ways. It depends on the archetype of your team, right? And so at LinkedIn, you know, I had Kevin Scott, who became the CTO at Microsoft. He's an engineer's engineer and a little bit, you know, thinks differently.

[00:46:17] And so I've had a lot of different types. And so what I do is like, look, if here's the value statements or attendance you say you want as a company, you as the C-suite, you as the leadership team want. For the team, whatever level you're at. Do you believe these to be true? That this is what you want? And they go, yes. Why do you want them? They have to articulate why. Don't fill the space. Don't speak for them. You let the ugly and the pretty show up on the way they talk.

[00:46:46] And you write it down on a whiteboard. And they say, how do you think it's being manifested by the employees? What do you think they see? And then you've got to hold up the mirror. And so at LinkedIn, we had this tenant called Open, Honest, and Constructive. And it was something that they were really proud of as a cultural tenant. And within weeks, I knew we weren't walking the talk. And I didn't know how to tell that to my CEO and my peers. Like, here's this newbie, and she's going to tell us we're ugly. And how do I do that? And so I said, look, I want to make sure we're authentic in our pursuit.

[00:47:16] You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be pursuing it and believe in it. And if not, let's just not do it. Because people, if they see we're not aligned and walking this talk, they will not trust you, not only on the personal side, but on the professional side. You will erode your ability to hire, motivate, retain, engage. They said they'd talk about the business. They're very clear about the business, you know, the finances, whatever. And I'm like, that's great. That's business. What about the employee? And I said, how many of you do a performance review?

[00:47:43] And at the time, 10 flavors of reviews probably were going on. But we had a review and all 10 hands were raised. And I said, how many of you have a rating system of some sort? 10 hands were raised. We had five different systems for that, too. And I said, how many of you communicate the rating to your employees? Assuming, if I'm right, that their ratings impact your awards, your promos, et cetera. And they go, yeah, they do. And I go, OK, how many of you communicate the rating? Only one hand stayed up. So I crossed it out. And I'm like, let's not say we do this now because we actually don't. We do it when it's convenient, when it's safe.

[00:48:13] So let's go to the next goal. And they were like all pissed off. Like, what do you mean? And I'm like, well, just then have a caveat sometimes. Like in a sense, maybe. Values on a good day. That's it. On a good day. When I'm happy for you. I don't know. And so they were like really pissed. I'm like, look, either walk it or you don't. Choose your poison, but choose it and then you're smart. If you say there's a PRD, a product requirement document for your business, for your service, you would treat it with care.

[00:48:42] It's the same PRD mindset for your employees. What do you believe in them? Walk that freaking talk. And so then Kevin Scott was like, I get it now. But what if we don't do it really well today? I said, we can walk to it, run to it over a period of time, depending on how fast you all want to go. But then I'll hold the mirror up so we're all accountable, including myself, to do it. And so that's one way to really like shock a system. The other way is to say, get back to their purpose of why they want to lead.

[00:49:11] Some people are technical, but they really don't want to lead people. You got to unearth the two of them. If someone wants to be technical and not lead people, then de-emphasize the leadership as much as you can so they can do the technical side and get the right people leader in place. But it depends. But hold the mirror up, base it on the purpose and say, look, the cost of no, no leading well is the following and sum it up for them. Find data in your employee base.

[00:49:41] Engagement, hard to hire. Cost of hire is too high. Attrition's high. Something is wrong if you cannot do this. There's got to be a reason why to change. Use that data to help drive your awareness. So good. So good. Hey, Pat, thank you so much. We know this has been really hard for you to squeeze us in. And we are so grateful to have you join us on the podcast today. Yeah, we know you're so busy. We really appreciate this time. This has been amazing.

[00:50:11] Thank you so much. And I hope you like the book. I had fun writing it and I was not an author. So, you know, fables and folk tales. I was just kind of bummed that it wasn't you reading it because I listened to it. Did you? Yeah. So I'm hoping there will be a version in the future where you're the narrator. Yeah. They asked me if I wanted to be the narrator. I mean, I didn't know that not every book gets an audio opportunity. So I'm like, I learned a lot. So like, yeah, we'd like to do an audio.

[00:50:41] I'm like, great. I'd love to read it. And they're like, well, that means you're in the studio X number days, hours, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, I have a day job. That doesn't work with your scorecard, does it? Yeah. So they said, look, we'll get a really nice actor to do it for you. And then I said, is there an opportunity for me to read it later? Oh, yeah. And they said, well, if you ever speak about the book, people will want to hear your voice because I write the way I talk. Yeah, exactly.

[00:51:10] The anniversary edition will be your voice. How's that? All right. Thank you. I'll make that a goal on my scorecard. Okay, Meg, you ready to leadership corner? You know it. You know it. All right. Here we go. I was just promoted, but I'm still expected to do individual contributor work and manage a team. Everyone calls it a player-coach role, but nobody told me how to split my time.

[00:51:39] I'm doing both jobs badly. How do I figure out when to play and when to coach? I thought this one would be quite appropriate, Meg, based on our hot take on Jack Dorsey's new org structure, where there theoretically are going to be a whole bunch more player coaches coming up. Yeah.

[00:52:02] And what was interesting when I listened to one of his conversations on this topic, he basically said, oh, yes, and of course the executive team all needs to be player coaches. And back to our sort of question of who decides who is coaching, et cetera. So, yeah, I think we're going to see a lot more of this confusion. So thank you to the listener for asking this question and giving us a moment to ponder that.

[00:52:28] I think my first instinct is we have had a bit of a conversation about what does it mean to be a manager and how to think about and approach that role. And if you've just recently been promoted into management, I would absolutely invest significant time in clarifying for yourself what the job is

[00:52:56] and what your responsibility is in terms of the team, both in helping them grow and succeed against the mission, in supporting their development, et cetera, et cetera. Making sure that you take the time to understand the role really matters.

[00:53:21] The emphasis on coaching suggests that the development side of the team is where the organization is valuing leadership. And so this is, again, where I feel that if I'm going to allocate my time, especially as a new leader,

[00:53:44] I think that you're going to be wanting to spend the majority of your time getting really clear on who is the team, what are they good at, what do they need from you, what are their goals and aspirations, and what is the sort of quantity, quality, and context of their work. That part is non-negotiable because without grounding on that, you're not going to be able to be successful or effective for them.

[00:54:14] So at the beginning, you're going to tilt your energy towards that, getting to know the team, getting to understand the role, figuring out how you can be that enabler, be that force multiplier for a group of people versus yourself. And I think where it makes sense to step in as a player and an individual contributor yourself

[00:54:39] is helping to unravel or wrestle through some of the more gnarly problems and maybe some of the concepts that people need a little bit more guidance. And so that's where you would want to be getting hands-on so that you can create a path that is at the right level of the people that you're trying to support. But you can't even do that until you understand what the team is like, both as a collective and as each individual on the team.

[00:55:09] So if I were to give you a number because I suspect people are wanting something really quantitative, I'd say in the first six months of the job, you're 80% coach, 20% player. And as you progress in that job, that's when you tip over to potentially having more hands-on keyboard yourself. That's the way I would look at it.

[00:55:31] And if I reflect back when I was early in the team leadership slash early managing days, most of the time, and for me it worked this way, I got promoted because I was the most capable within the team. I was the fastest and had the most skill on the team.

[00:55:52] And so me doing the work was something I could do faster than everyone else on the team. So I spent my early days in that player coach role in helping to think about what is the gap between the things that I can get done and the things they can get done and how do I help bring them up to that level? I was going to bring up an example from my past. It's a while ago now.

[00:56:21] So it's when I moved from being a development manager to a manager of product strategists. So I had been leading a pretty large development team, multiple products and developers and so on. And for me, I was a pretty weak developer, but a very good leader of vision and people.

[00:56:48] And so, you know, it was kind of like your more standard management scenario. But then when I moved from being a development manager to being a product strategy manager, I found that I was leading people that were doing the same thing as me, right, for the first time maybe ever. And so it wasn't called a player coach, but that's essentially what I was.

[00:57:16] I was doing strategy work and I was leading people doing strategy work. And similar to you, Meg, I, you know, I was really good at it. So it was often difficult to like figure out, okay, well, where should I stop and where should others begin and that sort of thing.

[00:57:37] And so certainly I absolutely agree with you that really focusing on building the team skills and developing the team and understanding the team's strengths and how to work together and to, you know, create things together was the main piece.

[00:58:06] And for my own sort of player side, you know, I think the most important bit was just sort of keeping my skills warm of, you know, continuing to find new ways to do strategy, to, you know, new processes, new ways to present, new ways to think about things and to share that back with the team and vice versa.

[00:58:33] It is a difficult transition. I would say that like, I didn't realize going into that career change that that was going to be the case. And that was one of the biggest difficulties that I had. And it does take a very different frame of reference and more humility, I think, right?

[00:58:59] So you really need to check your ego because, again, you think that you're really good at this stuff and you probably are, but that's not, you know, that in itself isn't going to help your people, your people need. That's not motivating. I'm better than you is not motivating. You know, if we go in, even thinking it, it's not motivating. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[00:59:24] Finding what the team is great at and learning to value that while also helping them expand what they're capable of is the trick. And that's probably more key to being good at it than figuring out the time allocation. Yeah. Very good point. Very good point. Yeah. I think it's the intentionality of it that makes the difference. Yeah.

[00:59:50] But I would say at the other side, the failure construct, if you're still just killing it as an individual contributor, but your team is not getting better for having you in that leadership position, that's a failure condition. That's another way to look at deciding your scorecard, I think. Speaking of scorecards, that matters. Holy crap. That was amazing. Wasn't that so great? I started blogging a little bit more lately. I've just had a lot of my mind.

[01:00:20] And one of the things that's been really going through my mind as I've been reflecting on these amazing guests that we've had is this common thread of what is so impressive to me on leadership skill today that I'm seeing in real life is this showing up with curiosity and intellectual humility.

[01:00:43] I just feel like when you can tell the difference with a guest that is both curious and deeply, deeply willing to be wrong in service of learning and in service of serving their function and their team. And I really feel like we're just going to be wrong in service of learning and their team.

[01:01:13] We're just going to start seeing this bifurcate more and more.

[01:01:31] And I think it's also creating a lot of anxiety in people because if they see the one of the paths of their own experience being working for people who do not have this kind of skill, it's very diminishing for individuals to show up and to get good work done. And I don't think you can employ enough agents in a world where you diminish the workers to come out ahead. I really don't.

[01:01:59] So I'm super, super interested right now to see this happen. And I was just delighted to see Pat Waters showing that across so many of her stories. So what a great, what a great guest. And she's a great storyteller. I mean, I think that's another theme that we're seeing, too, in terms of leadership, the ability to create the narrative and to bring people along. Absolutely.

[01:02:27] So let's invent the future together, everyone. I believe in us. Let's make every day count.