Reinventing Nerds

Joanie interviews Mike Nowland, whose purpose in life is to help managers be better, do better, and live better. Joanie met Mike when he was working as the Corporate Training Manager for the Americas at ResMed. Now he’s the president of Enriched Learning and Development, LLC. Mike shares tips for technical people who move into leadership roles.

Highlights:

Q: What kind of nerd are you?

“I’m probably the least technically proficient person you’re going to meet, at least on this podcast.  Numbers and I have been enemies since middle school.”

Q: What did you do at ResMed?

“ResMed was smart enough to keep me away from the medical devices and let me focus on the leadership aspects of leadership and development.  There, we improved the health of people through better sleep.”

Q: What are you doing now?

“If you think about any business.  I don’t care if you’re a heart surgeon or designing a CPAP device or if you’re in the military, you’re dealing with human nature…  It’s a human being business.  If you’ve got people, we’ll work well together.”

Q: What is the difference between managing and leading?

“We have to do both.  In the normal execution of our duties every day, there are things that we manage.  We manage people’s arrival times and departure times, deliverables, performance reviews, and all these processes we manage that execute the performance of the organization.  At the same time, we lead people to understand what stellar performance looks like in this organization, how they contribute to the outcomes in the execution of their duties and how they fit with the outcomes of the organization.”

“Both are important, and both can be taught.”

Q: What kinds of challenges do people who are technically savvy and leadership challenged typically face?

“One is, because they don’t know how to effectively communicate expectations or how to train others in the skills that got them promoted, they almost double down on their workload.  They think: ‘I’m not comfortable training someone on how to do it.  I’m going to do it twice as fast.  I’m going to lead by example.’  Frequently, it’s not developmental for someone on the team.  And, in 3-6 months, they’re burned out.”

To hear all three typical challenges as well as solutions, listen to the episode.

Words of Wisdom:

“Most managers are managers today because they were strong individual contributors. It can be very frustrating to make that transition.”

“Other people were probably performing pretty well when you got promoted. You don’t have to do their work for them.”

“When you get promoted, you get a grace period to ease in.”

Contact Mike:

Email: [email protected]

Website: Enriched Learning and Development

 

Joanie interviews Calie Hendrickson, who is a systems engineer at Engility Corporation.  Calie acquired her people skills along a roundabout path to the aerospace industry.  She capitalizes on these skills to communicate with her multidisciplinary teams of engineers.  Calie also talks about how she mentors across disciplines and the surprising benefits of cross-disciplinary mentoring.

Highlights:

Q: How did you get to where you are now?

“My path to get there was puddle jumping.  I started out with an arts and science degree and moved into biotechnology…  Then I moved across the country and did interior design.  That’s where I got my people skills.”

“I came to be known as a specialist in data management engineering, which is managing the accessibility to data.  Rather than having something in a giant database, you can categorize it and have it at your fingertips.”

Q: How do you organize data logically?

“We rely heavily on use case.  It’s very user feedback driven.  When I personally build a database, I’m likely not the person who will be using it day to day.  Even though I think it’s perfect, the user may look at me like a deer in the headlights.”

Q: How do you learn what users do?

“I will go and sit with the person and observe them.”

Q: How do you engage in multidisciplinary communication?

“Especially in dealing with aerospace engineers—that can mean very different specialties ranging from thermal to avionics and software to structural to propulsion.  We’re all engineers.  We all have similar thought processes, but we have different things we focus on. It’s important to find a similar language so you can communicate with someone in a meaningful manner.”

Q: What does it mean to use a similar language?

“Anyone in any background has their own vocabulary.  You need to be cognizant when you do that yourself, so you can clarify.”

Words of Wisdom:

“When someone uses an acronym you don’t know, ask what it is.”

“Seek feedback from trusted coworkers.”

“Study faces.”

Contact Calie:

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/calie-hendrickson-93468010a

Joanie has a conversation with Rich Yumul, a web designer and CEO of Sage Tree Solutions.  Rich calls himself a “website therapist” because he helps clients have better relationships with their websites.

Highlights:

Q: How did you come to start your own company?

“I started out being a freelancing contractor.  I got so much work, I started adding people.  That’s when it started to become a full-fledged company.”

Q: How do you find a customer like Comicon?

“They actually found us.  They were looking for somebody who could help them with a Drupal website.  That’s our specialty.”

Q: What’s a website therapist and how can people have a better relationship with their website?

“Often when we deal with clients, they’re in a state of distress.  Their budget has gone way over budget or time.  There are three things to have a good relationship with your website.”  Listen to the episode to learn more.

Q: How do you help clients decide what they want?

“I had to learn to translate…  Don’t assume because you’re using the same terms, you’re right.  The client’s paying the bills.”

Q: How do you bring empathy in to dealing with clients’ distress?

“I invested some time in learning about business.  Usually the people we deal with are business directors or marketing people.  Understanding business helped me understand how business problems create distress for them.  I help them get to a better place.”

Q: What kinds of problems come up in working with the engineers at work?

“One thing that served me very well was to learn to not take things personally.  When people are stressed out, they may be heated.  Have the awareness if you’re starting to feel triggered, to take a step back and really try to listen to the message.”

Words of Wisdom:

“Be open to being educated.”

“Be a vocabulary detective.”

“Email is the worst way to communicate because so much can be read into the words of the message.”

Shout Outs:

San Diego STEM Ecosystem: sdstemecosystem.org

Toys for Joy: toys-for-joy.org

Contact Rich:

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.sagetree.com/

Joanie interviews Kevin Ehlinger-Wilde, a nationally award-winning creative entrepreneur, speaker, and innovation trainer who has worked with over 500 executives and companies across the country.  He’s an expert on the TIPS personality profiling tool and he has offered our nerd community a special offer.

Get a free overview of all of the TIPS profiles: www.wildespark.com/reinventing-nerds.

The first 20 people who visit will get a free TIPS assessment!

Highlights:

Q: Kevin, you’ve worked with numerous executives.  What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in working with them?

“People in the Sales Department tend to be more on the creative side. The IT people tend to be more systems oriented.  You’re dealing with a lot of different people who want information in different ways.”

Q: How do you know what your audience is?

“Sometimes it’s based on the skills they already have.  Sometimes it’s based on key indicators, like if their eyes are glazing over.”

Q: Tell us about TIPS.

“It’s a profile system, like Myers-Briggs on steroids…  As we go through TIPS, we learn how people like to be presented with things.”

“For example, with the Thinking Style, some people are very figure oriented.  They like facts and numbers.  Others are very fantasy oriented.  A lot of systems people are figure oriented.  A lot of entrepreneurs and people in Marketing are in the fantasy world.”

Q: How do you make it so people aren’t at each other’s throats?

“That’s management–how do you put together teams that can function at a high level?  The idea of using tools like TIPS is so people can understand where everybody can help, where everybody can work, and then what’s the best way to put together teams.”

Q: How do you put together innovative teams?

“Let’s talk about innovation styles.  Some people are very innovative or they are adaptive.  The adaptive people look at small, incremental changes, like adding wheels to a chair.  The innovative people will ask whether we need a chair at all.”

Q: How do you avoid feeling pigeon holed?

“We all have strengths and weaknesses.  It’s not a matter of being pigeon holed.  We all have value in everything we do.  Theorists develop ideas.  Entrepreneurs build businesses.  Systems people organize.  Innovation is messy and chaotic.  The most successful companies have figured out how to systematize, keep doing what we do really well, then branch out.  We all have a role.  We all play a critical role in the company in every stage.”

Words of Wisdom:

“Change can be really tough for a lot of people.  The more you’re open to change, the more you’re open to new ideas of how things can be done.”

“We’re all born 100% creative but we’re taught to conform.”

Contact Kevin:

Website: www.wildespark.com

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