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Authority Issues
Authority Issues episodes
- Episode 60: Yazhi Smith (Vista Equity Partners)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Yazhi talk about:
- How Yazhi doesn't know what "old" means ;)
- A life story framed as Lord of the Rings
- Growing up with stereotypical Asian parental expectations, coloring within the lines
- >>recordscratch>> growing up in FIJI?! (Kendall spends 5 minutes squee-ing)
- rachel's turn to squee, someone who sees the value of useful error logging :heart-eyes:
- A first taste of travel in the US
- Personal development smorgasbord at IBM
- Personal life upheaval driving big changes, no more coloring inside the lines
- Moving to the US and starting an IT consulting company
- When people usually rebel, how much of a rule-follower Kendall is
- Discovering America with gusto, FREE SODA REFILLS :D
- Trying out the stay-at-home mom thing and not being able to keep still
- Pivoting to building businesses from home
- Remembering you're working with actual people, not just resources
- Managing resistance to new process implementation through curiosity and humility
- How yet again, the problem is people
- Getting over yourself to get the job done
- The Rules and how to ignore them, for the sake of the children
- Why you should own goats
You can find Yazhi on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/yazhi/
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
45 min - Episode 59: 2020 in Issues with Authority
Better late than never, rachel and Kendall Have Opinions About 2020:
- Introverts and extroverts, living together in perfect harmony (on this podcast, at least)
- How to meet new podcast guests, the Kendall Miller Way
- Pie and the art of house maintenance
- Cheater's yeast, and the ubiquitous breadmaking theme of 2020
- Guilt and all its many facets
- Coping mechanisms (some people buy bikes, some people go for uphill walks)
- 2020 episode highlights, sponsored by rachel's terrible internet connection
- The substance you're using to get by during the pandemic is (probably) OK
- 50-something episodes, and over 25,000 downloads!
- Find us on Twitter to tell us what you think! @djpiebob and @blatanterror
- Discussion of the 2020 episode highlights above :)
- Hiring for additive benefits vs sameness
- GIving up control to get better results
- (Kendall probably does not like beets, stay tuned)
- Recommendation for Turn The Ship Around by David L. Marquet
- rachel is excited about working on a to-be-named leadership book project
- The power of hope as a third way to move forward into 2021
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
56 min - Episode 58: Jibran Kutik (Disney)
In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Jibran talk about:
- Is art school a weird starting point for a designer?
- Vowing to never work on web sites (lol)
- Having an unusually good experience in the gaming industry
- Getting the full "I moved to SF for a startup and it shut down as soon as I got there" experience
- Accusations of being responsible for LinkedIn "Stories" ;)
- When companies don't grow their own leaders
- A good manager tells you when you need to leave to move forward
- Bombshell: leaving the SFBA for a startup in the Midwest!
- Bringing design practices into the insurance industry -- with humility
- Growing up as a leader alongside the company
- Partnering with a new-to-tech HR org to build a hiring pipeline
- Enjoying interviewing candidates
- What an awesome resource the Rands Leadership Slack is
- Constant disagreement with everybody ;)
- Kendall's argument-winning fantasies
- An amazing lesson learned at the right time
- Asking for clear direction, transparency works both ways
- [We are not sponsored by The Morning Show on AppleTV+]
- Understanding motivation as a way to communicate leadership decisions you don't agree with
- Being into old cars and how that is a bit of an outlier for a progressive/socialist-leaning person :)
You can find Jibran on Twitter as @jkutik :)
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
48 min - Episode 57: Tessa Ann Taylor (The New Yorker)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Tessa talk about:
- Studying computer science because she "ran out of math classes" at her high school
- ACTUALLY using trigonometry in real life
- How all-women educational environments are awesome
- Unlearning the Seattle culture in favor of the New York culture
- Translating academic experiences into tech industry programming interviews
- Getting a foot in the door via content production
- Freelancing to live, not living to freelance
- The joys?! of maintaining legacy code and CMSes
- Management training at NYTimes
- Understanding the responsibilities of the middle manager
- Going into management to create the environments she wants others to experience
- Telling a bad job that you're not a "culture fit" for them
- Being intrinsically motivated vs deferring to authority
- Remembering that current authority structures are not designed for marginalized people
- How leadership experience can be good and bad for non-work interactions
Books Tessa recommended:
https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth/dp/1491973897https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745 + https://www.amazon.com/Doesnt-Have-Be-Crazy-Work/dp/0062874780/Tessa's favorite leadership book:
https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-Out-Box/dp/1576759776You can find Tessa on twitter and on Medium as @c0d3rgirl
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
45 min - Episode 56: Rishi Malik (Container Heroes, Backstop)
In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Rishi talk about:
- Having a nerdy family to kick things off
- First exposures to leadership issues while trying to code a game with friends
- Our inability to not interrupt people just when they're trying to make a point
- Discovering an appreciation for working at smaller companies, starting at larger companies
- Needing to see the result of his efforts
- Discovering a desire to play multiple roles via competitive ultimate frisbee
- Solving the parking problem
- Challenges in building a hardware solution
- The value of hiring the right person for the environment vs the technical skill
- "Are we the right fit for /them/"
- Tailoring the technical interview to the context of the interviewee
- Leadership variances as a consultant, the authority of the outsider
- Guessing (correctly) that most entrepreneurial folk have a complex relationship with authority :)
- Developing the skill of motivating people who do not report to you
- The value of understanding your audience and their history before trying to influence them
- Book recommendation: Never Split The Difference
- Progressive Metal band recommendation: Protest The Hero
You can find Rishi on Twitter as @whoisthisogre :)
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
48 min - Episode 55: Val Trullinger (UCLA)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Val talk about:
- Coming up to technical leadership via graphic design and creative writing
- Becoming the person who fixes the printer
- "If you can get through Finnegan's Wake, you can get through the technical manual"
- Discipline, leadership, making herself heard in the Air Force Civil Air Patrol program and military family connections
- Adjusting her military-learned leadership style for training interns
- What "IT Communications" means
- Learning the important difference between being effective and being right
- Resiliency vs perfection
- Prioritizing reinforcing the skills you can improve, some weaknesses won't be improved by grinding
- Deciding to push through skill deficit for the love of sports
- How academia means managing relationships for the long term with a soupçon of Game Of Thrones
- Using one's physical assets to project confidence and be heard
- Recognizing when you don't have to be the one who is in charge, freeing yourself
- The joys of Strongman training and exploring the limits of human strength
You can find Val on the internet at http://pantagruel.net :)
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
51 min - Episode 54: Church! What's it good for? (The Religion Issue)
In this Very Special Episode, rachel, Kendall, and Luke talk about:
- Coming from different evangelical backgrounds
- The shaping of our respective authority issues as related to religious upbringing
- Luke's birth /literally/ in a baptismal font :)
- What we mean when we say "religion"
- Tech salary as a way to fund a church planting career
- Leaving the church behind but bringing the leadership lessons along
- Good and bad authority structures represented by the church
- Detoxing from evangelicisim, finding a new purpose
- Choosing between being right or being good
Switching to rachel's background:
- Moving to the US at 11, with no real religious upbringing before that
- Trying hard to buy into the fundamentalist Baptist faith
- Leaving for college and never returning
- Atheism vs agnosticism
- Whether your beliefs are a choice
- The value of faith in one's own community and whether humanity deserves the asteroid treatment
And on to Kendall's Christian upbringing:
- Dad fasting and actually praying on his knees for guidance
- The weird incentives and blame structures of fundamentalism
- Noticing the tendency to open the Bible more often to curse than to bless
- Working for a religious organization in China for 10 years
- Realizing that much of evangelical Christianity as it is practiced in the US is very much culturally a White American thing
- Not needing to understand how praying works
- Does it matter if you're wrong about faith? Nah. What matters is being willing to be wrong.
- Servant leadership and how it works for both sacred and commercial applications if done well
Back to Luke:
- Was the "walk to remember" a kind of psychic break, or prayer?
- Realizing all you really need is validation
- Only needing a loose grip on the framework to get the benefit
- Not wanting to tell people what to do, and all the insecurities that represents
- Not being able to follow instructions if the goal isn't clear
- How an aversion to certainty can get in the way of leading
- What is justice, if not love at scale?
You can accost Luke with ideas for scaling love on Twitter at @saintlukas :)
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
52 min - Episode 53: Aaron Lerch (InVision)
In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Aaron talk about:
- Learning about managing interpersonal issues from his dad, an "interim CEO of ministers"
- Putting that learning into practice building and fixing teams at startups
- Helping teams identify their own weaknesses as a form of counseling
- How this podcast is not sponsored by Knives Out (ps: Kendall has seen the movie since we recorded this podcast and didn't find it as good as Aaron did.)
- Following the energy on the management > IC > management cycle
- Finally choosing the simplicity of leadership ;)
- Long-term career planning
- The entire category of software that exists because leaders don't trust their people
- Authority trauma from Kendall's past
- The realization that leadership sometimes requires making decisions about things without getting concensus from your team first
- The relationship between unease at doing the above and lack of comfort with authority in general
- Determining how much detail to provide when giving direction
- When your positive ability to build concensus turns into a need and a negative
- The enjoyment when your authority issues align with your role
- How leadership is a lot more about collaboration and cooperation than it is telling people what to do
- Rubik's cube, hiking, being underprepared for overnight conditions
You can find Aaron on Twitter at @aaronlerch
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
51 min - Episode 52: Anthony Grimes (Fairwinds)
In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Anthony talk about:
- Feeling late to the Black Lives Matter movement and going to Ferguson
- Learning to lead national campaigns for peace
- Realizing communication is about storytelling
- Being seen, being heard, what it means to win
- The need to inspire vision as a leader
- Optimism vs hope
- Finding affirmation in current events while still taking the long view
- Managing frustrations and engaging in self-care
- The idea of being "well-adjusted to injustice"
- Meeting Cornel West (!) and mentorship from Dr. Vincent Harding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Harding)
- The need to question authority, who benefits from it
- Redefining profit to include greater context
- Hope in future generations voting with their career choices
- Leading "with" vs "over"
- The joy of asking a ton of questions :)
- What white people can do to join the movement and show support:
- Get off the fence
- Don't jump in unschooled, but don't wait until you think you know everything either
- Don't assume your help will fix everything
- Get used to being uncomfortable, exercise those muscles, grow
- Don't let this moment pass you by
- That Anthony's movie (https://www.anthonygrimes.com/mr-somebody-watts-la) was chosen for the Tribeca Film Festival!
- Missing going out and dancing, traveling
You can find Anthony at his website (https://www.anthonygrimes.com), and on most social media as @antbuilder
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
52 min - Episode 51: Checking in with our hosts during this pandemic already in progress
In this episode, Kendall and rachel talk about:
- Whether Kendall is either hot or a mess or both
- How hard it is to set expectations...for anything
- Working on developing new patterns because it's not going to go "back to normal" anytime soon
- Coping with the death of a parent, most likely of the coronavirus
- The unreality of the danger unless it has touched you personally
- Weighing one's mental health vs physical health
- Putting all plans for travel on hold through the end of the year
- How contact tracing works
- Dark thoughts about the need for a revolution
- Leveraging planning for the future as an emotional coping tactic
- More about making new habits...that aren't unhealthy over the long term
- Letting yourself feel it
- This episode's self-soothing recommendations:
- rachel: Socializing via simulwatching movies on chat. Bailing on books you're not enjoying. Animal Crossing.
- Kendall: Letterkenny on Hulu. Meeting friends for socially-distanced takeout. Popeye's Chicken.
- Obligatory sourdough discussion
- Kicking one's own ass in gear when there isn't a reason to go on a drive (yet)
- Zoom calls and takeout aren't a substitute for being in the room, for networking, for the hallway track, for the ambiance
- Feeling unsafe talking about how bad things might actually be
- How good leaders take care of themselves so they don't take things out on their team
- Being kind is good for everyone involved
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
47 min
About Authority Issues
From the publisher's feed
Welcome to Authority Issues, a podcast about leadership, management, and competitive prescription writing.
Hosted by Rachel Perkins (aka piebob), and Kendall Miller