Authority Issues

Authority Issues

By Rachel Perkins and Kendall MillerBusinessCareersManagement
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Authority Issues episodes

  • Episode 70: Dee Mirai (Vanna.com)

    In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Dee talk about:

    • Coming from dropping out of school in at 16 years old
    • The struggles of being a manager in a bar in Singapore as a teenager
    • Developing "scripts" for the various interactions that kept recurring
    • Internships as cheap labor rackets
    • Immediate promotion from intern to being in charge of customer comms
    • Premonitions about layoffs
    • The camaraderie of joint suffering
    • Kendall admits that Marketing runs the universe
    • Gatekeeping as an indicator of a real discipline
    • The difficulties of managing people who are significantly older than you, especially in Singaporean culture
    • Predicting her own future, again
    • Iterating toward a less blunt approach to management
    • Preferences for feedback via chat vs in person
    • Experiencing joy when reports succeed
    • Self-reflection when reports are failing
    • Cooking experiments

      • You can find Dee on twitter or instagram as @tomyumsushi :)

      Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

      51 min
    • Episode 69: Aye Thu (Slack)

      In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Aye talk about:

      • Being an Old (Java 1.0 certified!)
      • Realizing he used to be "hard to work with"
      • Transitioning away from electrical engineering and into enterprise software
      • The idea that management is where people who can't build software anymore "go to die"
      • Starting to understand that there is more to life than writing Java code
      • Moving to Las Vegas and having his life changed by the Zappos culture
      • Parades!
      • Learning how to be a better manager from a good team
      • How knowing the wrong things to do is not the same as knowing the right things to do
      • Starting a company...to help managers do a better job (at 1:1s)!
      • Discovering that marketing and sales is hard and that most places don't invest in management tools :(
      • Finding a desirable culture and good work-life balance at Slack
      • Wishing he had a good leadership mentor earlier in his work life
      • The fact that the immature asshole developer is a pretty common archetype
      • Enjoyment of kettlebell exercises and a whole new world for Kendall

        • You can find Aye on LinkedIn and on Twitter as @damnitjim ;)

        Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

        48 min
      • Episode 68: Brett Nekolny (Brandfolder)

        In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Brett talk about:

        • Realizing you're the facilitator person in your friend group..and in college, and grad school...
        • The reality of mechanical engineering not living up to the idea of it
        • Getting that first software engineering job with no software engineering background
        • The power of networking
        • The consequences of having no real management experience
        • How being less outgoing/energetic than Kendall affects one's management style
        • Leadership based in assembling the Avengers and stepping aside
        • Modeling team interactions and desired behaviors
        • Hiring a leadership coach and how it was lifechanging
        • How authoritarian leadership slows things down
        • Surprise beekeeping hobby!
        • Biking as a mental health practice

          • You can find Brett on LinkedIn, on Twitter as @bnekolny, and on the Rands Leadership Slack.

          Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

          46 min
        • Episode 67: Miki Habryn (Splunk)

          In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Miki talk about:

          • The three eras of Miki so far: technology, self-identity, and relationships
          • Early failures to thrive -- early admission to college, and the professional world
          • Navel-contemplation and some key realizations
          • Getting a job with room to evolve and let off steam
          • The differences among marketing-driven, engineering-driven, and sales-driven companies
          • A change of pace: the finance industry :)
          • The Google-related diaspora of an early household
          • Flying ever-nearer to the flame of leadership, getting burned, and taking another orbit
          • Delaying the investment in building relationships until she could fully be herself at work
          • The requirement for executive support when driving change
          • Making an incremental transition and beginning to invest in relationships
          • Engineers and the skewed power dynamic involved in managing them
          • Scalability in the decisionmaking process
          • Decoupling personal life from professional life, intent and authenticity
          • 3D printing as aspirational pandemic hobby

            • You can find Miki on Twitter as @dichro and on Instagram as @hbmiki

            Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

            49 min
          • Episode 66: Irina Kukuyeva (Kukuyeva Consulting)

            In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Irina talk about:

            • Moving to LA from Moscow during elementary school
            • Enjoyment of donuts and data
            • Getting alignment before doing things (shocking, right? :))
            • Shaving yaks in order to work at JPL
            • Learning how to learn, learning in the trenches
            • Accommodating the needs of team members
            • How leadership as a consultant is different
            • The perils of messy data
            • How it's never too soon to begin collecting the data you need
            • Deepening her social network
            • Dealing with ageism as a university instructor
            • Dealing with Kendall's assumptions about interest in data :)

              • You can find Irina at https://www.ikukuyeva.com/

              Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

              48 min
            • Episode 65: Kari Bancroft (Webflow)

              In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Kari talk about:

              • Getting management experience in the nonprofit world
              • From a young age, wanting to be...a math teacher? :)
              • Finally getting some management training
              • Working with a personal leadership coach
              • Strategic vs tactical planning
              • Learning and re-learning the value of self-care
              • The practice of self-promotion
              • Doing away with a bad hiring practice
              • Allowing for awkward silences
              • An unexpected enjoyment of gardening
              • Leading too much in one's personal life

                • You can find Kari on Twitter at @karianneban

                Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                43 min
              • Episode 64: Matt Rogish (Kimball)

                In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Matt talk about:

                • The impact of coming from an entrepreneurial family
                • The siren call of "freedom"
                • Needing a team to make a dent in the universe
                • What's valuable about an MBA program, and how it's like an endless Group Project
                • Kendall's Epic Disclaimer and differing recollections of their mutual origin story ;)
                • What having kids teaches you about leadership
                • The N Dysfunctions of a Serial Startup Exec
                • How everybody's got a boss
                • Deep Thoughts courtesy of Star Trek
                • The concept of anti-hobbies

                  • You can find Matt on the internet on Twitter @mattrogish and on mattrogish.com

                  Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                  50 min
                • Episode 63: Dominique Simoneau-Ritchie (Wealthsimple)

                  In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Dominique talk about:

                  • Getting into computers so she could communicate with her friends
                  • How crappy Dreamweaver was
                  • Benefiting from IBM programs
                  • Stepping into project management
                  • Leaving IBM for a much smaller company...
                  • Making assumptions about working patterns...with mixed results :)
                  • How hiring quickly is in tension against achieving diversity
                  • Practicing giving feedback via "speedback sessions"
                  • Needing to know the "why" before following the rules
                  • Asking for her promotions
                  • Getting ready to garden and an obsession with whole grains
                  • Painting for 3 weeks
                  • What's hard about children :)

                    • You can find Dominique on Twitter @dominiquesr and on Medium under her full name.

                    Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                    46 min
                  • Episode 62: Yaz Erkan (Pex)

                    In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Yaz talk about:

                    • A love of languages, molecular biology, art
                    • The less-than-romantic reality of becoming an architect
                    • How creation is creation--programming is a creative act
                    • A painful introduction to the responsibilities of management
                    • Finally becoming an architect (of software ;) )
                    • Guilting himself into becoming a people leader
                    • Moving to the US, going back to smaller companies/startups
                    • Kendall's insecurity about title inflation :)
                    • That the relationship you have with your team/manager is often more important than the work
                    • Cultural variances in leadership styles and expectations
                    • The downsides of being pre-emptively trusting
                    • Balancing the responsibilities of leadership with the responsibilities of family
                    • A secret management coaching weapon at home :)
                    • Kendall's atrocious parenting ;), Yaz's difficulties teaching his kid how to play guitar
                    • Being a beekeeper?! So cool! Additional fascinating hobbies
                    • Yet another recommendation for the Crucial Conversations books

                      • Yaz recommends The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier, Crucial Conversations by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan, Multipliers by Liz Wiseman, and reading The Daily Stoic.

                      You can find Yaz on the internet on LinkedIn and at https://yagiz.medium.com/

                      Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                      49 min
                    • Episode 61: Lena Reinhard (CircleCI)

                      In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Lena talk about:

                      • Starting out in finance, the arts, classic cars journalism, and more...
                      • Uses (appropriate or not) for creativity in leadership
                      • Realizing that a potential lifelong career in banking would be...boring
                      • First startup experience as a web copywriter
                      • First formal leadership experience as a bootstrapped startup CEO
                      • Ebola outbreak response...no biggie, right?!
                      • Becoming more intentional as a leader, learning about leadership frameworks
                      • Growing out of the 'relationship' as a cofounder, wanting different things
                      • Big, International, Complicated :)
                      • Becoming a regular old Engineering Manager, and...immediately becoming a VP of Engineering
                      • Twitter as a source of leadership learning, despite the trashfire
                      • Managing in all directions, 360 degree leadership
                      • Acknowledging that leadership successes depend on the quality of the team
                      • Hiring tenets, "value add" vs "culture fit"
                      • Finding the right role at CircleCI
                      • Authority and how to swing it, understanding power distance
                      • Maintaining a list of hobbies to take up as a hobby
                      • A strong desire for "really good fries"
                      • A recommendation for poetry books by Omar Sakr, more books recommended below
                      • Working on dialing back the tendency to take charge in non-work life (such a familiar struggle :))

                        • More books Lena recommends:

                        • https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50887097-why-fish-don-t-exist
                        • https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43131602-into-the-planet
                        • https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39731655-in-extremis

                          • You can find Lena on the internet at:

                          • http://twitter.com/lrnrd
                          • https://lenareinhard.com
                          • https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenareinhard/

                            • Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                            50 min

                          About Authority Issues

                          From the publisher's feed

                          Welcome to Authority Issues, a podcast about leadership, management, and competitive prescription writing.