Ways We Work
Ways We Work
Slowing down to speed up with Mic Berman, executive & leadership development coach
This episode I'm talking to Mic Berman, Mic is an executive coach, and is currently spending a lot of her time building up great leaders in some of Canada's best tech companies. She's held executive roles in companies like Yahoo, Mozilla and FreshBooks, so she knows what she's talking about when it comes to high performing teams and fostering innovation. She also lives on a farm with her partner, and their animals, producing food for local chefs here in Southwestern Ontario. Mic is a great friend and mentor to me and in this episode we get into so many good topics. She's living proof that you can have a fulfilling career and a huge impact on the tech industry without constantly needing to live in the hustle of it all of the time. I wanted to hear how she balances working in such a fast paced industry, while still living a lifestyle that's truly authentic and sustainable for her. We get into leadership development, how to lead effectively and human-ly, what it means to go slow to go fast and so much more.
Somewhere along our journey of being a farm, I happened to be sitting around a table of these really high powered executives it was a dinner and we were talking about entrepreneurship and Canada and the economy and all these things, and one of these super, super high powered executive turns to me and says, you know, what is your intention with a farm? Are you growing it? All those kinds of stuff and you know, how much money do you want it to make? Like all of the normal questions. One would ask a business person and I, I turned to her and I was like, oh my God, no, that would completely corrupt everything. And I felt like the entire silence of the table, like what the hell is, she saying,
Amandah Wood:Welcome to Ways We Work, the podcast where every episode I interview a different guest about what they're currently putting work into. An evolution on the Ways We Work, publication. It's a podcast about how we work in every sense of the word I'm Amandah Wood. And in each episode I talk with someone I admire about their career, where they're growing or stretching or maybe how they're working to embrace a new habit or a new perspective. I talk to people about how they keep balance in their lives, how they stay curious and all the ways that putting in work it can be uncomfortable and challenging. Yeah, but also really rewarding. This episode I'm talking to Mic Berman. Mic is an executive coach and it's currently spending a lot of her time building up great leaders in some of Canada's best tech companies. She's held executive roles at companies like Yahoo, Mozilla and freshbooks, so she knows what she's talking about when it comes to high performing teams and fostering innovation. She also lives on a farm with her partner and their animals. Producing food for local chefs here in southwestern Ontario. Make is a great friend and mentor to me and in this episode we get into so many good topics. She's living proof that you can have a fulfilling career and a huge impact on the tech industry without constantly needing to live in the hustle of it all. All the time. Okay. I wanted to hear how she balances working in such a fast paced industry while still living a lifestyle that's truly authentic and sustainable for her. We get into leadership development, how to lead effectively and humanly and what it means to go slow to go fast and so much more. I really loved this conversation with Mic and I think you will too. So with that we're going to get into it. Welcome and thank you so much for taking time out of your Saturday to join me on the podcast.
Mic Berman:You're welcome. I'm really excited to be here.
Amandah Wood:We'll maybe do a couple of warmup questions to get started. First I would love to know how did you spend the first part of your day today? Well, first thing in the morning,
Mic Berman:I took care of, my dog Max. We went for a good hike on the property and then he comes with me to yoga class, not into the class. So he really likes sleeping in the car. So he came with me to yoga class and I did that. And then I picked up a few things on the way home because we were interviewing a farmhand today, which is very exciting. Oh, it's great. So
Amandah Wood:I know you live on a farm, which we'll definitely get into. Yeah. So the farmhand, this is someone who's going to be helping you sort of full time or part time on the farm?
Mic Berman:Some combination of part full time depending on the weather.
Amandah Wood:Yes. Awesome. Very cool. Uh, and then my second question is what's something that you're really curious about at the moment or currently trying to learn more about?
Mic Berman:Well, I, I'm really curious about vulnerability and how it shows up. I finished Renee Brown's dare to lead her recent publication, which is really great. It's so fascinating to me how vulnerability shows up for leaders so that I can role model that for my team and really create enough space and safety to like innovate, to create, to make things better. Because when I don't do that, then people won't say like, I think this thing could be better or this is wrong or whatever. So I'm, I'm really playing around with that from a bunch of different, yeah. Levels psychologically as well as physically. So that's another theme that I'm pursuing. Yeah. Is how does our physical body's wisdom influence our ability to show up? I've been playing around with that in a big way, and that for me was linked to vulnerability because my team was giving me feedback that I wasn't demonstrating enough vulnerability or that they weren't feeling safe enough. Two dive into some conflict potential situations, which anybody who would know me be like, no way.
Amandah Wood:Right, right. I'm surprised to hear that I was too. So it sort of blew me away and I was like, oh my gosh, what am I doing?
Mic Berman:Okay. My thought process was it must be in the subconscious because consciously I'm always like, please give me feedback. Let's make it better. And so that's how I got to the, the body to see maybe there is something that I'm experiencing and I found out through practice called somatic, which is the second big theme. I'm curious about that. I actually do react defensively first without thought. Hmm. And so I was like, wow. So I'm playing around with that. The other big areas that I'm playing with is boundaries and balance. So you're podcasts is incredibly timely because it's very much friend of mine is how do we do that? And it's such a big theme of the work that I do an individual coaching, you know, besides being an effective, amazing leader or dealing with it was very specific issues. Like I have an employee that's not doing something or I need alignment or any of those kinds of ideas. It's how do I create a good life for myself? What does that look like? What does that mean? So that's a, and then the last is always in my mind, which is what is great leadership? What is great team building and what are the best methods to teach that or to experience that so that people learn new skills and, and actually create lasting transformative experiences and learning for themselves. Cause that's what I spend most of my time out in the world doing now other than farming during the summer is um, is that right?
Amandah Wood:Yeah. Wow. Just a few big things. When you talked about with physical vulnerability, do you kind of mean how you feel sort of internally or maybe how you are also showing up to other people or both?
Mic Berman:I think it's both and what we have to start with is how do we, how do we feel internally in the moment?
Amandah Wood:Yeah, definitely. No, that's great. So for anyone who doesn't know, when it comes to work, what does that look like for you at the moment?
Mic Berman:So my main focus workwise right now is twofold. Primary is a leadership development course that I've created because I've spent my career in tech and what I've experienced time and time again is that we don't have a strong discipline around people, management management, operating systems, or high performing teams. I see that manifest in basically suffering when you don't know how to do that. It's not that your intention isn't there, everybody's intention is there, but the way that they express it causes confusion, causes an angst. Just simple things, right? If you're, if I'm big tech organizations that I, that I know that I've made some massive reorganizations and so they've shifted like product lines or people or the way that they organize things. Now we're going to go and product lines are now we're going to go and functional, but they don't. At the same time explain the context as it relates back to there. Their mission and their vision and their goals. They don't, yeah, they don't arm the leaders like before they roll it out with enough tools and clarity and time to kind of talk to each other. How are we gonna work together, et cetera. They just, they'll just push it out. It's like, oh, this'll be super simple goals or sat. Everybody will be fine. But pauses like, because we're as humans, when we naturally go to the fear place first, what's the threat? Am I going to die that your mammalian brain kind of kicks in? And so I just want it. That's what I mean by suffering is it'll cause anxiety for people or confusion. And that's I think, unnecessary because if you thought about it through had the skills, like one of the courses I teach is communicating for influence. How do you embed your vision and values and mission into the day to day into your goals? Like how do you build effective cultures? So if you had these tools I have learned over the years and that I really got a great opportunity to experience excellence where I started my career at Mckinsey, they really know how to do high performing teams exceptionally well, and they've built a really strong culture. You kind of create a mess and I want to remove that mass. So that's one of the main things I do out in the world right now for work. And the second thing is one-on-one leadership coaching. Okay. Which Aye love. Also, I can never imagine now that I've become a coach and had been working as a coach for almost a decade.
Amandah Wood:Wow.
Mic Berman:Yeah. I can't imagine giving it up because it's so absolutely fulfilling for me. Two in this humble, supportive place I've sitting across from someone who is struggling with something or wants to or has this higher vision for themselves or wants to, you know, chief something. It doesn't know how to get there and too support them in that process. What do they need, how will they get there and how, how, how can we enable them to really get there a faster, better and that, um, that's just such a beautiful experience.
Amandah Wood:So are you, when it comes to one on one coaching, are you specifically leaders and leaders in tech? Um, or are you sort of open? What do your clients look like?
Mic Berman:Most of them are in tech because that's my background, so it makes sense. A few, like one or two, maybe two or three. Every once in a while a few leaders will show up from a completely different industry that Ma, like I had a, a GM of a Toyota manufacturing plant. Cool. Yeah, it was the coolest thing because it is like, it's definitely, okay. Tech is big part of cars now, manufacturing and huge manufacturing. So that was just fascinating and it really neat experience. And then I also happen to have in my practice the Cao of of a city. Yeah. So like every once in a while those kinds, you know, just sort of like randomness that will show up. And it's really fun because it stretches me and in other ways and people are people management, operating systems, like management teams or management teams. High performance is high performance and so everybody's got those struggles wherever they are.
Amandah Wood:Does that, when someone comes to you not in tech, does that ever, I guess intimidate you or you know, overwhelm you a little bit? I know, I mean, I'm obviously very new in my coaching journey, but, and when I had a engineering manager come to me as a, as a client, I thought, well, I've never managed engineers before. How am I going to help this person? Right.
Mic Berman:Yeah. Well that's the beautiful thing about coaching is it's not mentorship. Okay. US having the answer, it's about using powerful questions and all of the skills and tools we've learned as coaches to evoke that transformation, that clarity out of that person. So it's really just enabling them to get to the answer that is likely they're just under the surface or it, but it doesn't change. Like I agree with you, it is still intimidating like both of those people where I'm just like, I have no idea. Like why aren't I don't know. But sure, no problem. Let's try it. And I mean that's the beauty of coaching is you start a relationship and I always say like this is an empowered relationship. Both of us are bringing energy and relationship and we both want the same thing, which is your, your goals, your transformation. So if it, if it's not working, let's acknowledge it's not working. And then chef, even though it's a highly personal decision, I don't take it personally. If it's not working, I'd much rather just acknowledged, okay, this is, doesn't feel like a right fit because it's not good for either person to sort of force it. So I'm always surprised that they, you know, basically getting a lot of value in that it works. So, yeah, absolutely. That's a great answer. So there's the leadership development and then your one on one coaching with leaders and then the farm. Do you consider that also part of your work and a business? I would say yes because it is work, but it also, it means for me that work for me is maybe a different definition because when you, when you asked me that question just then I was like, work, you mean like it's gotta be hard and I haven't. So it's part of the fabric of what I work at, if that makes sense. Yup. And, and yeah, I mean we want it to be profitable. We want it to be like a reasonable business and it's a bit different for me. Then the leadership development work, which is we employ like I have a team, we have salaries, we have to pay. I got to make sure that thing is growing and sustainable and all that stuff. The farm is Chris and I and this year a couple of farm hands and a relationship with some great chefs. It does have obligation and it, it similar to the joy I get in a coaching relationship. And the joy I get when I'm front of the classroom or with my team in a classroom. It's a very joyful experience. Yeah, no, that's great. I got stuck on their definition though of work hard and make money. So I'm curious is that, you know, is that how you sort of define work? No, that's what I mean. That's why I got stuck too. Is that what it's supposed to mean? Work is work hard, make money. I have really lucky. I feel in my life that for me work has always had meaning and dean fulfilling from the perspective of it's connected to something really meaningful to me and it enables me to, you know, to have a good life to like pay for it, a house, a farm, go on vacation, know ecan food, et cetera. That's what work is to me is the pursuit of something that is fulfilling, that enables you to live your life, whatever that is. It doesn't have to have a monetary or or a title.
Amandah Wood:[inaudible]
Mic Berman:and that has shifted over the years. Like when I was even 15 or 20 years ago, I thought work was that, that I needed to get to a certain level of income. I needed to get to a certain title. And I did that. And, and it was, it wasn't that I wasn't enjoying that. It just, that's, that was the pursuit. And at this stage in my life, the joy and the fulfillment part and fulfillment is feeling like I'm positively contributing to my community two, a body of knowledge or, or learning for myself or for my community and enabling my life, like having a joyful time with my husband, with, with our animals so that there's enough space and time to enjoy and take care of thing. That's how I would define work now.
Amandah Wood:Yeah. That's great. I, it's something I'm playing with and trying to unpack a bit my self because I think earlier in my career I had this idea that um, work had to be both meaningful and provide for me financially
Mic Berman:and then I had to get all of that
Amandah Wood:out of one thing. And that's what I ran into. Obviously when the first sort of iteration of Ways We Work and I went from it being this thing that I loved and got so much joy from to putting all this pressure on it too make money. And so I was kind of curious, you know, if maybe the farm is that for you, right? It's sort of Nice on the side that it, but it makes money
Mic Berman:but it's not the main goal. And then you have other things in your life that sort of enabled that for you. I would say that exactly. And thank you for, for sharing that because I, I totally resonate with that.
Amandah Wood:Yeah. Yeah. I mean I've been on the farm obviously, so I love how I, it's always peaceful for me, but then I don't, I don't have to work on them. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Mic Berman:I'd say overall it's pretty good. Peaceful. I mean there's definitely moments of stress, you know, like the rain comes or something happens and you lose, you know, part of your crop or whatever like, but that to me is just life. What I really resonated about your definition, especially as you were talking about ways work is what you had put out when you were doing that as a blog. It was so impactful and clear and there was so much kind of equanimity in it. I could just see so much of who you were, what you were doing for the community, and really thoughtful, meaningful answers and Aye completely resonate with the point about when you, when we put so much pressure on ourselves to make it earn money, that it almost corrupts the experience. And I got a question. Uh, like with somewhere along our journey of being a farm, I happen to be sitting around a table of these really high powered executives. It was like a dinner and we're talking about entrepreneurship and Canada and the economy and all these things and one of these super, super high powered executive turns to me and says, you know, what is your intention with a farm? You know, you growing it, all this kind of stuff and you know, how much money do you want it to make? Like all of the normal questions. One would ask a business person than I am. I turned to her and I was like, oh my God, no, that would completely corrupt everything. And I felt like the entire silence of the table, like what the hell is she said what bloody would corrupt. It's like, oh my God, these people, I have no idea what they think of me now.
Amandah Wood:I love that story. That's great. Yeah. I had the similar experienced pretty recently. I was meeting with this girl and in Toronto and she is just, it's just like firecracker of a personality. And I was immediately kind of drawn and excited and, and she was so excited that I was, you know, revisiting ways. We work as a podcast and she comes from a strategic like consulting background and, and growth and scale and scaling startups. And she was like, well, here's all of these things that you could do and, and here's what you have to do in the next year to like get it to this level or you know, here's all these ideas of how it could become a business and grow to this size and make this much money. And I was sitting there and I was kind of simultaneously excited and anxious and then, and then I went home and I started getting more anxious and I was like, what is going on for me right now? Like what is happening? And somatically actually, because that's an area that my, myself, I'm trying to unpack a little bit more and understand more and like, why am I so tight and anxious and not feeling good about something? I was so excited about it yesterday and hence because I realized like I have finally gotten clear on this side project to this podcast, whatever, you know, I do end up making it into, again, I don't want that. I don't want to have to come home from my fulltime job every day and work another full time job basically. Which if I wanted to get it to this scale where I'm taking your salary and maybe hiring on other people, that's what I would have to do for the next year, you know? And I know that it, that it takes that kind of effort and a want that. And I just sat there and I was like, oh, I'm like, no, I want to have time to come home and maybe do a couple of interviews like this a month and then go and do yoga or go and work out or go and eat a great meal or cook a great meal. And I don't want to build, uh, business, uh, on, on top of my full time job. And, and that was like the biggest sigh of relief that I haven't experienced before because I, before in the past, I thought that that's what I should aspire to, right? It was, well, if you have this highly built, how are you growing it? How are you scaling it? How are you making it bigger and bigger? And finally getting to this point where I'm like, oh, is one way, but it doesn't have to be B, B way. So.
Mic Berman:So I totally get resonate with what you're saying. That's also what I really appreciate about like a growth journey.
Amandah Wood:Hmm.
Mic Berman:Because I think we've got to do little experiments and yes, haven't and the aspiration and more importantly a mission about it.
Amandah Wood:[inaudible]
Mic Berman:but not put so much pressure. If you're truly building a business, like doing a startup and you're hiring people and you're pursuing something and you're taking money and all of that stuff, that's a very different flavor. But in, but in these parts of our life that make up our, our work fabric, if you will, we don't have to, we don't have to do that. And we can explore what is meaningful to us about this, like on the farm that really miMiced our life in a way. Because when we started, we just started with like one row.
Amandah Wood:No.
Mic Berman:And then what did that feel like? What did we learn? What did we notice? And we, similarly, for a few years we fell into that trap of growth because both, you know, Chris and I are builders. I'm a builder. I've helped many companies build, grow. It's almost like I couldn't, we can help ourselves and we just fell into this like, okay, we're going to double the footprint, we're going to get more hesitant. And then I, and then one season we were just like, whatever we done.
Amandah Wood:Yeah.
Mic Berman:Right. And then so I think it's, I think it's great. So I totally agree with you. This notion that you're exploring in your life, which is how can I bring this back in in a way that is meaningful and playful and without all that pressure and then who knows like two years from now, a year from now, who knows whatever amount of time you may, I realize. No, no, no, I actually I do want to do this all the time and then you've still got a great platform and room to explore it.
Amandah Wood:Yeah, you nailed it. I want to go back to something you said about it was leadership development and the word that came to mind as you were talking more speed, right? It's all about speed. How do we get the thing done as fast as possible. That's sort of a bit of a trait that I personally attribute to the the tech industry and sort of this having high standards innovation and performance and speed, which you know obviously is one part of of what you do and your career. And then sort of balancing that with with the farm, which I, you know, I'm sure many also would sort of see as a bit of a slower pace. And I guess I'm holding those two worlds as total opposites in this question. But I guess my question is, is that how you see it, but then, you know, how do you hold space for both of those worlds in your life and, and is there something to be said about bringing it, you know, slowness into the tech industry?
Mic Berman:Thank you for asking me that. When we first started the farm, we didn't really intend to farm it to the scale that we, Ardell because what I said earlier, right? Falling into it and then going, oh my God. And then you know, now finding the right kind of pace. But one of the really amazing things that I learned, it really surprised me because it's a, it's an adage that people have heard many, many times and we've learned it even as kids, the hare and the tortoise. Mm. But the adage is go slow to go fast. Yeah. And it wasn't until the farm experience that I realized what that really meant because you're absolutely right. Like I've spent my career in tech and it is about speed and, and I have, you know, I think about all of the investors and the, the boards that I've participated on it, like it's all about, yeah, 10 x go fast. And yet if you, if we as leaders don't slow down enough to kind of lay that groundwork, understand the people that, that are on the team, the impact it's gonna have an, and you don't have to, I think the fallacy that's in our mind is, but if I slow down, somebody going to eat my lunch, I'm going to miss the opportunity. Like something bad's going to happen.[inaudible] and what do you mean by slow down? You're telling me to stop and slow down. Can simply mean take three breaths before you go into the meeting. Is that your set a clarity of intention. Slow down can mean you know before the massive Reorg, take a couple of weeks, a couple of days where you're spending a full two days with your executive team or your management team and really getting clear in why are we doing this, how will we measure success? What do we need from each other? How will we work together? What will we design as our norms when things go sideways or things way faster than we thought or like just so it doesn't have to mean that you stop or that you don't still achieve that ultimate success and Paisan dominate your marketplace. It can just mean that you're better prepared. Hmm.
Amandah Wood:How do you, I guess almost for yourself on an individual level, what does, it was like slowing down and speeding up look like and is that, is that some of the somatic stuff that you're talking about? Like do you look sort of somatically and how you're feeling to sort of be able to discern whether it's time to go or slow down? What does that look like?
Mic Berman:Yeah, so the way that I hold that paradox of speed and, and slowing down or preparing every day, my daily practice has become meditation in the morning. That's the somatic, right? Slow breath down. Really check in, see what's here, see how I'm feeling. Then what I've been experimenting with lately is Brendan Bouchard's high-performance planner, which I'm really enjoying because I like, I like structure, I like having some structure but with like flexibility or kind of mercy in it. Like don't beat yourself up, don't do the thing. He asks these beautiful, great questions to set up your day. Like what are you excited about? What we'll be at bold move. If you were your own coach, what would you say to yourself? The energy, you know, like it's just great stuff like that. And then I wrote a reflection at the end of the day. So I love that. So I do these practices that allow me to slow down. Okay. And I am a natural, as I said to you before, like I'm achievement oriented, I'm driven. So speed for me and intensity is kind of not my problem. I have coaching friends who I'd the opposite problem like there they love the slow to get into the drive. So for me it's kind of like having these practices that counterbalance my natural drive and intensity is what I need and that works for me and I had an individual level as as well as have these metta. What's the theme for the farm this year? What's the theme in my Leadership Development Practice and for coaching it's, it's that beautiful balance of both because you're going at the pace of how the client is and you have to re I have to really self manage as a coach too. Slow down, be with and make sure we don't run over something that's really important. You're doing right now in this interview, right? You're playing with, I've got all these questions I still want to ask, right? You got all that stuff in your head and I think that for all of us as leaders when we're in front of a team are leading it something big. Yeah. We're always playing with this, okay, I've got an agenda, I've got to go, I've got to get this thing. But these are human beings. The, everybody's coming with their own shit. Yeah. Like somebody might be super anxious, tend towards anxiety or somebody who might've had a crappy day or somebody might be amazing and enthusiastic and like falling in, you know, and you're playing with all of that energy and to create alignment in a team and you know, it's, it's hard. It's hard work. Yeah. I have a question on that that just came up, which was in some of your writing and then in some talks you've done to like in leadership, why is it so important to know yourself and then also know the people that you lead on a kind of human level. But I'm, I'm curious how, how you're able to illustrate why those things are so important. Um, and if there's ever kind of any difficult in getting that difficulty in getting that point across. Because I know, particularly in tech, I've run into this where it's like, well, you know, that stuff is nice, but it's not, it's not central to, you know, this is what we need to get done and everyone just needs to show up. And do the thing. Um, and so taking pause, just sort of look at the human side of things and consider what people might be showing up with and consider what you might be showing up with. How do you sort of illustrate the importance of that to some of these leaders in so many different ways? Because it depends on the person in front of you, which is in part part of the answer, right? The consequence of running over it and not paying attention is the exact opposite of what you're aiming for. We're all aiming for this speed and 10 x and, and yet if we read over these things, it has the effect of slowing down because it creates conflict. We're all busy, got a lot going on. And if you're in a tech company or a startup, you're doing way more like you're doing four or five jobs, two or three jobs, right? Cause you have a lot on your plate, multiple competing priorities, a lot of pressure. And so in that battle field of pressure and too much, if the person doesn't understand why and what's really important, like why is this goal important? Why is developing in an agile way a core methodology or the lean way, a core way that we work, why is that so important? Then they're not going to do some of the, you know, the core pieces of that process. They may not update something or tell somebody something or whatever because they're like, screw it. I got to get this is more important. Somebody in my face yelling at me to do this thing. Yeah, and then you'll miss something on the quality side or something that's ultimately going to come back and bite the team in the butt for you know, for that thing. Because you thought that the more important decision in the moment was the goal or the or whatever the thing was, but you didn't have this other context. Understanding really the why, what's important, what are the goals, why are those goals really important? Why is it important that we achieve this market or we achieve this growth? You may make a decision that is counter that counter to that without the intention of doing it. Like I'm not saying people are in your Machiavellian, you know, sort of causing shit all over it. We all have the right intentions, but we don't, when we don't have that right context and understanding why that's important, why it's important now, then we'll end up making a decision that is counter to it without even knowing that. And then on the human side, if I want to motivate you, one of my most memorable experiences of feedback, I had somebody on my team and I was just like given her, I mean I was charged with building 13 applications in six months and I had a small team. Yeah. And so my thought was, you know, got to get it. Like I just like, I gotta get this done. And this woman on my team who, she was a mother and a wife, so she had a kid, she had a family and she pulled me aside one day and we literally had a fireside chat. I tell she's like coming in, I want to talk to you. And she met me by the fireplace and she said, we're not all like you Mac and basically I'm hating you right now. I would do anything. She's still a really good friend of mine to this day, but it's like if I had a little bit more empathy, not you know, for her and understanding her perspective, then I, I we probably, we probably would have done exactly the same amount of work, but I would have set the pace differently for her and how it related to the team and maximized her strengths and her like she was great at working from home whenever I had her work from home. The amount of work that she was able to do as far exceeded anybody else's. So knowing that like, oh, this person is amazing at working from home and they still need the team environment and so on. This person really needs context and clarity of the goals. This person needs a little bit of a pacing because she's got to be home at a certain time to make dinner, et Cetera, et cetera. Understanding all of that and designing that with the team. This is how this person works. This is what they need, this is what I need. That instead of being like pissed off because your teammate isn't available, why isn't she working as much as I am or why isn't she in the office or all that stuff that comes. And then you build that like animosity between each other and then they end up in the leaders, you know, office going, I really hit this person or they're dragging me crazier. All that stuff like and said you've, you've made that explicit among the team. And so this is what I mean by, I try to tell these stories to the leaders that I work with so that they understand this go slow to go fast. And why having clarity of emission, understanding that the goals of the team and the norms of the team, like this is what this person is trying to learn. We're a morning team or a 19 or a, you know, we're all over the place. How do we deal with conflict than it enables to actually go faster. But it just takes that little bit of crap. And then sometimes people don't get it at all. What are you going to do?
Amandah Wood:Yeah, for sure. I'm curious because I know, so leadership development and coaching and, and the farm, you know, all sort of the three main areas of your work and, and so I know people might hear that and picture, you know, working one on one with clients are being standing in front of these leaders and teaching. Um, but I would love to know what's maybe a major aspect of this work you don't think most people know about or maybe they don't see,
Mic Berman:I think I have an answer to that, but I want, I would love for you to say more. Yeah. So I asked
Amandah Wood:question because I think sometimes it's easy to glamorize certain careers. The time that you're spending in front of um, leaders or maybe one on one with clients is of course a big part. But I'm curious, you know, what are the other elements of the work that you know, even maybe your clients don't see or, or the leaders that you're, you're teaching don't see.
Mic Berman:Thank you. Practice and learning. What a client doesn't see is how much time I spend consuming material and you know, listening to podcasts or reading academic papers or even just randomly like talking to friends, talking to other colleagues, what's their experience, what's going on, knitting together. All of the practical with the theoretical to come up with the salient, like here's the five steps on how you give feedback or here's how you goal set, or when you're doing a Reorg, here's the layout of what you've got to do, here's how you prepare, et cetera. It's really the knitting together of all of that. And then the practice and what I mean by practice is doing a dry run. Before we get in front of a client, as a team, how would this look? What would we do? How do we incorporate these elements, different elements, defining for ourselves as a team and redefining again and again. To me it's like a product. You know, what's the feature set? What did we learn now that we were out in the market for a bit about what features we need to incorporate? When do we do that? Yeah. It's all of those different elements and then a lot of self work, right? Like, um, what, what does vulnerability mean in my life? How does that show up?
Amandah Wood:Okay.
Mic Berman:Aye. Like everyone hate the stage of conscious incompetence is piano. I am really, I don't enjoy it and but noticing for myself when I'm there because when I, you know, when I'm knitting together all of these materials or I'm coming across particular resistance in a client or a situation that's more difficult, I get pretty hard on myself pretty quickly. So being more merciful in the process of both me and then, okay. I have had in my practice coaching practice and leadership development practices, but often coaching practice, a lot of female leaders, like I get sent these female leaders by there, male CEO who you know, are perceived as particularly aggressive or prickly or you know, bitchy or whatever the word is. And that's such a trigger for me because, you know, it's a label that I've had myself really being able to be with them in that place of that drive and aggression. It's a perceived thing. You know, that people think that you don't care and that some of these, some of these leaders are actually sitting in judgment. Uh, you know, that hard. If I, if I'm driving myself this hard, why aren't these people working at least as hard?
Amandah Wood:Right.
Mic Berman:And that concept of empathy and meeting the person where they are, well, what's going on that may be making them either not understand what hard work is in a common definition or not understand the same level of excellence that you might strive for. Maybe they have, they just don't know that that is how you define excellence. So really being able to unpack it so that that percept that great drive is perceived positive.
Amandah Wood:Yeah. That's, so this is not a question I hadn't prepared them, so I'm going off script, but um, hi. I really want to ask about that because I think that's really interesting. As a coach, you might be sort of presented with this person who's been referred. And you know, really your first instinct might be why I'd love to coach the person who referred them actually. So I'm going to you, how do you, you know, hold that right, where you can't influence the people around this person necessarily. You can only work with, with the person you're working with, right.
Mic Berman:Here's what I do to influence them. And I've now designed into my coaching practice, particularly in these situations I check in with, with the leader or the boss that referred.
Amandah Wood:Hmm.
Mic Berman:And so I design with the client's awareness as well. Let's do a check in in two ways. One is the three of us do a check in. So would I designed with the leader to create that influence is like their boss is let's do a check in on progress. Because as a coach, all you get to see is through the lens of that person. So you don't, you don't know if it's actually being perceived to have the impact that you know they want, you want, we don't know. Right. That, that feedback. So I check in with their leader, me one on one with them and I did. Obviously I have permission of the client to do that.
Amandah Wood:[inaudible]
Mic Berman:which is a great way to create that kind of influence because invariably what happens is their boss goes, oh shit, I had no idea what I was doing. This thing that caused this. Right. So it's a kind of a roundabout way to influence them to open their mind to other ways of seeing. It's sort of back to a question you'd asked me earlier around a lot of us don't. We think like why do I have to care about how this person, what this person needs are, how they are or whatever they need to just be able to do this work it get to this level. They got to figure it out and that's fair. And did you know that if you approached this individual just in this slight shift, like instead of showing up guns ablazing you just sent her an email in advance saying these are the three things I want to talk about, that that would make all the difference in the way that she showed up because she just wants that processing time to prepare. Or he just wants that processing time to prepare and it, so they still get what they want, but it's just a slight shift. Amazing.
Amandah Wood:Yeah. And it's a great answer because it's not, you know, I maybe phrase the question, it's not like there's a good or bad or right or wrong, it's just that there's two perspectives. Right? And, and, and maybe two different perspectives. So, so you talked about conscious and competence and so maybe the first part of this question is yes, explaining what that is. But then also my question for you is what are some of those areas for you right now, Mary, is that you feel like you're stretching a bit into
Mic Berman:sure. Conscious incompetence. Uh, there is an, an academic framework for how we learn as humans. We start with, well, if the framework through, remember the four, let's do it. Hold on a second. Do want to get it wrong and it's important and valuable. So hold on a sec. All right. Okay. Yeah, thank you.
Amandah Wood:Okay.
Mic Berman:Thank you for Google search for finding it so fast. So it's a psychological framework of the four stages of learning and the first place is unconscious incompetence. So you're not aware that you're not good at the thing or whatever. And that's typically where we get the feedback. Sometimes that feedback is a blind side, like oh my God. And sometimes it's like we kind of had an inkling and then it's verified. Oh right. Which moves you into the stage of conscious incompetence. Okay. I know I'm not good at this thing. I know I'm not good at communicating and I need to be better, particularly in these types of communications, like when I'm standing in front of a room or whatever, or I would written whatever it is. So you go through, I find the consciously confidence stage a little long.
Amandah Wood:Okay.
Mic Berman:Well that to be like, let me just it before, but that's where the practice part comes in. So we got to stay in this place of being aware that we're not yet great at and I want to offer because some of us like are hard on ourselves as I can relate to that is that whenever you're learning anything new, you know, you can't expect. I remember spending six months at one year trying to learn how to bake amazing bread. And first off, six months is not long enough. You know, 10,000 hours, at least whenever you're learning anything new, a sport, a game, uh, you know, you've just been made lead of a team of eight people. That's a new thing. And so just accept that there are some things you're going to be let naturally amazing at. And there are some that you're not and the places that you're not, you want to pick those places. Don't take all of them. Just pick one baby at a time. Probably say just one. And really focus on how do I get better at this thing? And you work at it, work on it until you become consciously competent of it. Like, okay, I got it now I'm actually my, my bread is rising. It comes out, it's edible. You know those things. And so then you get to that stage where you know you're good at it and you can just keep working and working at it, but more in your subconscious. You don't have to pay so much attention to it. It's just part of your awareness. It's part of something that you're going to keep working at, but not actively so that you get to the stage of unconscious competence. And that's really think of um, a top athlete. You know, a skier going down the hill. There's a point when they're so amazing at their craft that it's like lighting. There's no effort. You just do. That's what we all aspire to. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, my pleasure. The place that I am consciously incompetent right now. Painful boundaries like I am. Boundaries for me are important because it affects prioritization. If I'm not effective at my boundaries. My coaching practice is really great and very much in demand. And so if I am not good with boundaries, if I don't say no sometimes or I'm sorry but I can't take some, I can't take you on right now. My tendency because that person shows up as a referral or as a referral and with some suffering, my tendency is to want to be helpful cause I'm, you know, I, I like to be helpful. I want to be there for them but if I have a clear boundary
Amandah Wood:and I end up not serving them or me and you know, ending up like messing up my life or not being great for them or, and so having very healthy boundaries is something that I'm realizing I am consciously incompetent at in so many ways. Even like being on time. Even like, I mean I showed up, I love you. Oh sorry. At like two minutes after one, can I just be an hour late? That's a place I'm playing with when the other one is vulnerability. I am consciously incompetent at that. And really that one's even harder because it is so subconscious explore. Like you said, the Bitchy, serious, I'm just reading, I'm not meaning to like tell you not to approach. Um, but you know, what, what are the different tricks that I can use to really notice it. Now those are two really, really powerful, powerful ones. Thank you for sharing those. And it's okay. I had, you know, it's Saturday, so I've got lots of time. Uh, another question is coming to mind for me. Um, and then, and then we can kind of end end it off with another. But I hear, you know, and you spoke on this as well, you know, a lot of young women or women in tech in general are in leadership positions coming against people telling them they're too aggressive or too direct. So really wanting the space to step outside what might be, you know, their gender stereotype of being soft and feminine and gentle and being allowed to show up in, in a direct way if they so choose. And so that's something I hear a lot about. On the flip side of that, you know, we're talking about vulnerability and creating psychological safety and, and getting to, you know, what's important to human beings as human beings, which again, not to stereotype of gender, but I feel like typically that is what women are very good at. And so I, I've almost been wondering how do we, you know, one allow women to be direct and assertive when they want to be, but how do we also create space to value the opposite of those traits in, in companies and in teams? And I'm just curious, you know, what experience you've had with that or if you have any opinions on that. You know, the context of our times right now is a bit worrisome for me because we're moving to what feels like these polarizations. I love the men that I work with. I want white men to be successful and every other color under the sun.
Mic Berman:And you know, all of the diversity of that because I think that makes all of us as humans, so much more powerful, creative, uh, everything so much more as possible when we incorporate all of that to me, the way, like what comes up for me is crucial conversations, which I'm, I'm quoting the book of the title and there's lots of different ways to come at this, but for me this is all it's dialogue, slowing down to have meaningful dialogue so that you can say, Hey, I noticed in that meeting you showed up in this way, you did extra her why you said this or that your body language was this, you know, this was the impact on me. I felt like you were being really, and I wouldn't use the word aggressive cause it's a judgment word. Yeah. The impact on me was I felt like I had no room to sit to say anything. I felt like I was being shut down. You know, you get to, as individuals we get to own the impact. Like I get to say, you know, that made me feel terrible and this is how it made me feel terrible. Nobody can take that away from you. And then it's a conversation. How do we work together so that you can still be who you need to be and how can we both have the same impact we both want to have and do it in a way that honors our authentic selves. Okay. But that, that's a conversation cause I don't know yet. That's how I think we can, we can get to this place is conversation. Understanding the dialectic and not the rhetoric of, or the surface of the thing, but the real root of the matter. I want to be aggressive to use that word. I want to be bold and direct and fast and all that energy and you know, hand weighting and Yada Yada. That's me. I want to be that one. Yeah. How can we honor that part of me and in the context of what's your, or what's needed or how this team works or this group works or the opposite of that. Hi Am not at all that. And I take time to process and I need to think, and I, I'm not going to blurt out the thing because I want to be respectful to the people that are here. And so you won't hear me say anything and I might look timid or meek or so how can we as a team green out of you the, the great ideas that you have in ways that will work for you.
Amandah Wood:Yeah, no, that's great. And I thought of that question particularly for you because I know a couple of times you shared with me a certain point in your career, you felt comfortable wearing dresses to work again.
Mic Berman:Yeah.
Amandah Wood:And you know, so you have these two sides of being very direct and assertive and you know, wind to be bold and yeah, but then also embracing some of the, maybe the softer and more feminine side of you. How are you kind of playing with that now?
Mic Berman:I was talking to a CEO recently, so this is a CEO and his head of HR who are considering hiring us for their leadership development and for coaching. He asked me this question about what have I failed in coaching, when have I been successful, et cetera. Whole bunch of different questions. His Energy and style of questioning, I could feel myself doing what Bernay Brown, the first two as the hustle, like for belonging, for acceptance, for credibility and I was really feeling this and I'm sure it wasn't his intention to draw, but it's the classic sort of scenario of like the way that you're asking will dry out of the person. This way of being, being self aware, like catch, realizing this was happening to me. Even you and I did this in the design of how we approached this interview right now and I said, yeah, can I have permission to slow down? And if I could have done that interview over again, I would have said to him at the beginning before we started the interview of I would like permission to slow down every once in awhile and to take a breath and too feel like you're not going to judge me harshly for not being like fast, fast, fast speed. Answer the questions, be confident, be bold. You know, say the thing, give an answer.
Amandah Wood:Right.
Mic Berman:Yeah. I would have loved to have been able to say that and if I could do it over again, I would have like I, that I think is a perfectly reasonable request because everybody is different and it would have demonstrated confidence and clarity and all of the beautiful things that I was trying to demonstrate by doing the hustle of answering all those questions quickly, succinctly with confidence, um, and all of those things. So I am playing with that all of the time. Okay. Especially right now, given what's going on in whole bunch of places and, and you know, especially sort of North American European society, I can't speak cause I'm not in Asia and South America. I don't know what's going on on the ground down there, but it just feels like we're in this polarization place of the feminine or masculine or the point of view. And yeah, we all have feminine and masculine and I want to, I want to accept and play with those concepts so that it's part of me both and that I, that I can and we'll, I love wearing dresses to work now in skirt and I love, you know, looking like a total dirty and in Arabic like wrecked and all that on the farm.
Speaker 4:Like I loved the pace of a, of my life and both those places, I have no idea what people would think of of me covering,
Mic Berman:but these are all parts of us and you know, so just being with it, being aware of it and also noticing when we trample over them, how can, how can I not do that the next time? Hmm. Yeah. Has Great, great answer. MMM. So is there anything else that you would like to share that we didn't get a chance to touch on? I love that you're doing this again. I love that you're asking these questions. If people, I cannot wait to find out all of the things that you discover in all of the characters you meet. I think the thing that I would ask and or offer to people is ask yourself that question. What is it that is fulfilling for me and how does that manifest? Does it have to be in the nine to five or whatever the hours are, workplace where I'm earning money? Can it be expressed some somewhere else? What is joy and fulfilling and how do I incorporate that in my life so that I have the balance, the and Naf Room too? Give myself time to figure out what is authentic to me. I think asking ourselves those questions would make us happier, better and better. Like actually better at the job of, or the expression of and in all facets of our life in the quote unquote workplace and when we get home and we're with our partner, our families being present for them. Okay. I think that would be a great question for all of us to explore. Well, that seems like a really beautiful place to stop. Thank you so much again for taking the time to do this today. It was a really, really amazing conversation for me, so I'm very excited to share it. You are so welcome and it was equally joyful for me today. The theme of my day was joy and this was that. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please take just a few minutes to rate and review on iTunes as a new podcast. This helps a lot and it would mean so much to me. As always, you can find Ways We Work on Twitter and Instagram at Ways We Work and you can find me at Amandah Bud. If you liked this interview, you'll probably love the a hundred plus written interviews that you can find on Ways We Work.io and while you're there you can subscribe to the newsletter to make sure you know whenever we release a new podcast or feature. In addition to these interviews, I'd love to do episodes where we take your questions about the things you're putting work into at the moment and myself
Speaker 5:and a guest will do the best we can to answer them. You can send those to Amandah at[inaudible] Dot. Io. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next episode.