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210 - What We Wish We Knew
Episode 210 • 22nd November 2021 • Meta-Cast • Bob Galen & Josh Anderson
00:00:00 00:41:27

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We're old. That means you should totally take advantage of all of our mistakes! Bob and Josh share a few things they sure wish they knew at earlier points in their career. Hopefully, one of these topics touches something you are struggling with and helps you get through a bit easier than we did!

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Transcripts

Josh:

And I carried it last time,

Bob:

you know, you know what I don't know about carrying it,

Bob:

but I felt like the last episode you probably had the most space.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

And it felt good to be did it, but then you just burst it right

Bob:

then just that it felt good.

Bob:

It felt right until you just opened your mouth and just blew it

Bob:

Bob.

Bob:

Josh, do you know what I wish I knew what

Josh:

I wish I knew how to pick a podcast partner 12 years ago.

Josh:

Oh

Bob:

yeah.

Bob:

Is that, is this the, is this the reflection episode,

Bob:

Josh, where we reflect back?

Bob:

Yeah, I guess, so maybe, maybe sort of get a little bit misty-eyed

Bob:

about mistakes that we've made.

Bob:

What do you think?

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

All right.

Bob:

So tell me, tell me more about that.

Josh:

Oh, you more about that?

Josh:

Well, number one, we should have done a couple of trial

Josh:

episodes and understood the word.

Josh:

Count the word.

Josh:

That was there.

Josh:

Um, I probably would have practiced more in learning how to interject myself

Josh:

into a soliloquy that was happening.

Josh:

Yeah, big word.

Josh:

And I think if I knew those, if I was able to tackle that, I think we wouldn't

Josh:

have landed where we are, where it's a surprise when people hear Josh's name,

Josh:

they're like, oh, it's a metal cast with

Bob:

Bob.

Bob:

And Josh.

Bob:

Exactly.

Bob:

And Josh, you know, I'm just kidding.

Bob:

I just want, I've always reflected on though.

Bob:

What gets the value of the discourse?

Bob:

I think it's sort of the value of the IVs without a doubt.

Bob:

You know what I

Josh:

mean?

Josh:

I know, but we have this running joke we have

Bob:

to make, it's just jabbing at you.

Bob:

Don't accept.

Bob:

That was a jab.

Bob:

Fine, fine.

Bob:

Get feisty.

Bob:

Alright, great.

Bob:

You're laying back in your, in your banana shirt.

Bob:

That

Josh:

was way louder.

Josh:

Sorry, everybody.

Josh:

I just slapped the arm of my chair was wait,

Bob:

sorry.

Bob:

You know, I don't regret.

Bob:

No, I don't either.

Bob:

I, I don't re what do I get?

Bob:

Here's things that I wanted.

Bob:

Let's bounce the ball back and forth.

Bob:

So what do you have so many casters?

Bob:

This, the theme of this episode is I wish we knew.

Bob:

I wish I, I wish I knew this back then, whatever this is.

Bob:

So

Josh:

go ahead.

Josh:

When I first started hiring, I was a computer science only person.

Josh:

I had zero.

Josh:

Creativity or outside of the box thinking and who would be a good

Josh:

developer if your resume didn't have computer science on it discard.

Josh:

And over the years, some of the more higher performing successful just teams I

Josh:

liked or made up of a majority of people.

Josh:

That either didn't go to school or had a degree in something wildly

Josh:

different than computer science.

Josh:

So over the years I've learned that through just like stepping

Josh:

in things and moving roles.

Josh:

And now there's a team of people that I didn't hire and

Josh:

I didn't look at their resumes.

Josh:

I just like, wow, you're really good.

Josh:

And then it comes up later like, oh, holy crap.

Josh:

So you've wow.

Josh:

That's amazing.

Josh:

So there were so many people that I.

Josh:

Could have added to the products we built to improving my career throughout the

Josh:

way that I just shut out like a dumb,

Bob:

well in diversity.

Bob:

Right?

Bob:

And I'm not, there's, there's academic diversity, but there's

Bob:

all kinds of aspects to diversity.

Bob:

And I was doing the same.

Bob:

I mean, it wasn't intentional.

Bob:

It was sort of naive or it was, you know, sometimes you, you just, that's all, you

Bob:

know, but, I used to be like, not just university, but specific universities.

Bob:

I remember when I moved down here, we identified a shortlist for our recruiters.

Bob:

Like Clemson was an engineering university, Georgia tech, Virginia tech.

Bob:

So we were, we, it wasn't just.

Bob:

It was computer science from these universities.

Bob:

And I did some of that up north too when I was in Connecticut.

Bob:

when did I change?

Bob:

Probably at Bellin.

Bob:

How after a few years down here now in my defense, we were doing hard and bad.

Bob:

So embedded systems development.

Bob:

So, so having an engineering background probably harder to pick up, it's hard.

Bob:

You don't pick that up, you know, in a bootcamp at a community college

Bob:

or something, but still I just left.

Bob:

I left all kinds of great people.

Bob:

Oh on the, just, I, I let the, I pass them by and, and I got it.

Bob:

It's not even just that it's the results that I got.

Bob:

We were very predictable in our results in those teams.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

I mean, they weren't bad teams, but just not a lot of variation,

Bob:

not, not a lot of ideation, not a lot of creativity outside of the.

Bob:

In those teams.

Bob:

So yeah, I reflect that as well.

Bob:

I'm trying to think of, I wish I'd known how hard agile is to get.

Bob:

Right, right.

Bob:

I don't think it had changed anything.

Bob:

Well, no, I don't, I don't know what it would have changed something, but

Bob:

I just wish I had known early on.

Bob:

I think in the early days of my agile career, I looked at it as like a

Bob:

method and it was the history, like a unified process and things like

Bob:

that, like wrap the rational unified process and other SDLC came along

Bob:

and they were processed definitions.

Bob:

And I wish I would have known how culturally.

Bob:

Key and how organizationally key agile success was like,

Bob:

like right from the get-go.

Bob:

I did not get it.

Bob:

I probably wasted.

Bob:

I'm not wasted, but I probably spent, you know, the first four or five,

Bob:

maybe even up to eight years thinking agile was a process thing mostly.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

I do.

Bob:

I disrupted some roles, for example, like project management roles or testers in,

Bob:

in development teams and things like that.

Bob:

But I didn't, I didn't get it.

Bob:

I wish I would've gotten it sooner.

Bob:

I think it was.

Bob:

I think it would have increased the success of some of those early adoptions.

Bob:

And I was a part of, yeah, I, I,

Josh:

I've been down a similar path where I spun my wheels a lot

Josh:

and I was very stubborn about, and it's like, this is going to work.

Josh:

And I just tried to make it work by the process, not the culture.

Josh:

And I learned through mistakes.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

I needed to get better at addressing the culture from the top down and

Josh:

get all of the leaders on board and helping lead it before it was actually

Josh:

going to work because it was just like, oh yeah, Josh and the devs are

Josh:

doing this agile thing, but the rest of the company, it was very waterfall.

Josh:

And so that put a really low ceiling on the success that we can have.

Josh:

And I, you know, and I.

Josh:

Terra data is perfect example, like you saw how that was going to end.

Josh:

You had more experience, you were like, yes, this is not going to work I'm out.

Josh:

And I hung around for a couple of years, at least just banging my head

Josh:

against that wall, trying to turn into something that it just wasn't going to be.

Bob:

That's the other thing I wish I wish I would have been more courageous.

Bob:

I mean, again, I had kids growing up, so, so there was real world.

Bob:

Reasons, but like with the great resignation now

Bob:

people are boldly going out.

Bob:

You hear about more courage now, right.

Bob:

I'm not doing what I want to do.

Bob:

I'm going to pivot.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

You talk about that sometimes like startups and things like that.

Bob:

I've got limited time.

Bob:

I wish I would have had more courage early on to take, to take more risks.

Bob:

Maybe it's confidence or courage or something to do that.

Bob:

I

Josh:

agree completely.

Josh:

And I think part of that is the culture that we were brought up.

Josh:

And like, I, I realized the drivers that led to me choosing my career path

Josh:

and it was very tied to the area that I grew up in the norms around that.

Josh:

And so as I've learned that, and as I moved into Raleigh, like I started

Josh:

working with the city and you know, here in Raleigh, success is usually

Josh:

defined as you go to one of the big three schools, you get a job and, you know,

Josh:

you know, you bounce around a little bit and that's fine, but like you do that.

Josh:

There's not enough support for failure.

Josh:

We're encouraging people to try different things.

Josh:

You know, that's not the norm here, whereas in some other parts

Josh:

of the country that's encouraged.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

So that's a thing that I've always tried to work on here is encouraging that more

Josh:

often because there were societal norms that I allowed to hold me back, but I

Josh:

wish I would have like shed those sooner.

Bob:

You mentioned something earlier, you didn't say it this

Bob:

way, but like sudden costs thinking.

Bob:

So I've been watching this, rich Chariton has a video.

Bob:

He's the Menlo innovations CEO.

Bob:

And he talks about one of the major factors in slowing you down or

Bob:

fear or whatever is you get stuck on what, you know, like trying new

Bob:

things, because you're stuck with what you, what you've sunk into it.

Bob:

And I I'm very some costs.

Bob:

influenced, right.

Bob:

I've always been, it goes back to my background.

Bob:

I'm very conservative, you know, farm conservative, you know, you're

Bob:

going to, you're going to beat it.

Bob:

You're going to beat it into submission rather than right.

Bob:

Rather than just move and not get stuck in things.

Bob:

So I wish I would have let go.

Bob:

There's not a specific sunk cost example.

Bob:

I could mind for them, but it's being.

Bob:

Being less sensitive to that.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

Being, yeah, it's a factor, but being very lightweight with some costs,

Bob:

I think that would have changed the trajectory of my trajectory of some of

Bob:

the, the companies that I was a part of, if not getting stuck in that thing.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Okay.

Bob:

So I won't hit the

Josh:

pause button for all the listeners out there.

Josh:

If you haven't been thinking about the things we've been

Josh:

talking about and evaluating.

Josh:

How you're doing with those rewind and start over, make sure you're,

Josh:

you're listening to these are, these are stories of mistakes that we made,

Josh:

but we are going to do with them.

Josh:

Can you look at, oh, I do that same thing.

Josh:

I like Bob.

Josh:

I do the exact same thing.

Josh:

And then how do you start to drive change?

Josh:

So don't passively listen, actively, listen here.

Josh:

The next thing for me is I wish I had.

Josh:

More training with firing people than I did with hiring people.

Josh:

The amount of effort that I put in personally and other people put into

Josh:

helping me hire the right people, just absolutely dwarfed the training.

Josh:

I basically got no training for how to let someone go.

Josh:

And the first few I fumbled.

Josh:

A complete doofus and I look back and I feel terrible because I

Josh:

just mishandled it with someone's life and all of those things.

Josh:

And I did it poorly.

Josh:

So I've really invested in myself in trying to get better at that because

Josh:

you're not going to get everything right.

Josh:

You're not going to get every hire.

Josh:

Perfect.

Bob:

I agree.

Bob:

I mean, I remember going, what was the name?

Bob:

Wavetec Wando and Goldman was a telecommunications instrument

Bob:

company here in the triangle.

Bob:

There was a big tea.

Bob:

There's a lot of peripheral telecom companies and they were

Bob:

one of them like test instruments.

Bob:

And I worked there for awhile and the HR, I w I went to HR to try to put someone

Bob:

on a performance improvement plan.

Bob:

And, and the director of HR, didn't have a thing like that.

Bob:

So literally like the HR team didn't know how to fire somebody.

Bob:

And, and so I had to help.

Bob:

So I had some experience, but it's like indicative.

Bob:

It's not just you it's, it's like, that's not, I would call a skill or a competency

Bob:

that that's lacking in most organizations.

Bob:

And.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

Like doing it with humanity, doing it with equity, doing it with patience, doing

Bob:

it with clear clarity of communication.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

You know, just doggedly doing it, putting in the effort to do that.

Bob:

Just like you would in recruiting.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

That's another missing a missing thing.

Bob:

What for me.

Bob:

do you have I'm thinking, do you have another one?

Bob:

Could you throw another one out?

Josh:

I've clearly made a lot more mistakes than Bob.

Josh:

It's not mistakes.

Bob:

I wish I would

Josh:

know in the yard time.

Josh:

One of the things where I have stubbed my toe the most in my career has

Josh:

been, I would interview for a roles.

Josh:

I would get accepted.

Josh:

About the leaders, they were selling exactly what I was buying

Josh:

and I was fired up and no one knows this better than my wife.

Josh:

Right.

Josh:

Cause she's been along all those rides and the number of times that I was

Josh:

disappointed as time progressed and that person wasn't really what I thought they

Josh:

were coming out of the hiring process.

Josh:

And that led me to leave.

Josh:

So I've worked really hard and the past five or six years.

Josh:

To learn how to interview the leaders at accompany, to understand who they

Josh:

really are and be more confident about the choices that I make.

Josh:

Okay.

Bob:

I hear that I do a lot of coaching now.

Bob:

You know that I do the leadership workshops and things, but I

Bob:

try to help the community.

Bob:

It's probably not probably it's the number one thing I hear is people making

Bob:

mistakes and they're making repeated mistakes going into the wrong company.

Bob:

And it's, it's a pervasive problem because it's really hard.

Bob:

It's actually, I think, quite challenging for anyone to interview for the culture,

Bob:

to cut through the bullshit, to cut through the facade and get to the real

Bob:

essence of a company like the glass store of a company or something like that.

Bob:

Then I think the one regret I have, and I still have it.

Bob:

I'm still working on it.

Bob:

I'm working on a blog post about.

Bob:

Is my humility and I think I'm too, and don't don't please don't

Bob:

harass me about it, but I I'm too.

Bob:

I'm too humble.

Bob:

And part of it is, imposter syndrome and it's been, it's been a problem for me from

Bob:

my youth, like growing up, I've never.

Bob:

I've never been ultra confident or ultra cocky or anything like that.

Bob:

And I wish I would have, I wish I would've seen my value even to this day.

Bob:

You know, when I, you know, you've talked to me about you

Bob:

don't, you don't charge enough.

Bob:

A guy was talking to me the other day, you know, I have this pattern

Bob:

sometimes of excusing my experience right on webinars and things like that.

Bob:

And, and he was like, he shook me and is like, you know, you don't

Bob:

undermine what you have to offer.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

It devalues your experience.

Bob:

You have a lot of experience.

Bob:

And so I wish I would have stopped that shit earlier.

Bob:

I really, and I'm still.

Bob:

Going into that.

Bob:

But I, I think that's that undermine the trajectory of my career.

Bob:

I think you broke professionally as an employee, but also, outside as

Bob:

a consultant and things like that.

Bob:

And I'm not saying I should be cocky, but I think a lot of people are too humble.

Bob:

They're too.

Bob:

They're letting their imposter syndrome.

Bob:

affect them.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

And, and seeing yourself, giving yourself a fair break, really sort of seeing

Bob:

yourself the way you are looking in the mirror effectively in a balanced way.

Bob:

You're

Josh:

Bob

Bob:

effin, Galen.

Bob:

And I don't feel like that.

Bob:

I know.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

I

Josh:

honestly, everyone else does.

Bob:

And everyone else does, and I don't feel that way.

Bob:

And, and, actually being vulnerable now, that's, I've, that's hurting me.

Bob:

It's hurting me in many ways.

Bob:

And, and I just, and I'll never, I'll never be cocky.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

Who's a cocky guy in, Craig Lara.

Bob:

The less guy is relatively cocky.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

So I will never be a Craig alarm and or someone like that,

Bob:

but I, you need to step it up.

Bob:

You, you really need to like, look yourself in the mirror and

Bob:

accept yourself for like your strengths and things like that.

Bob:

The other weird thing about it, Josh is I'm good at I'm good at, I think

Bob:

I'm good at, giving, giving you.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

See, I, I just can't, but I, I do that with you, right?

Bob:

Like I give you a mirror and I'll, if I'm talking to you, I will coach up your

Bob:

strengths, but I won't do it to myself.

Bob:

So I'll get, I'll show a mirror to other people, but I won't.

Bob:

So that's something I wish I not only knew it was self aware of it and I think I've

Bob:

been self-aware, but it's it's is really working hard to, to rebalance myself.

Josh:

You know, given last episode, I, as a friend would

Josh:

say, give therapy a try, right?

Josh:

Like if you think it was shaped by upbringing, like most things like

Josh:

this are, it might be helpful for you to work through that with an expert.

Josh:

And that might uncover the thing that then helps you.

Josh:

Push forward, you know?

Josh:

Cause I, you know, I can tell you I've I've been investing a lot there.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

And it helps.

Josh:

So

Bob:

that's actually coaching has helped me in that I've I've because I'm in

Bob:

these coaching programs, I've connected to one-on-one coaches and the coaching

Bob:

has helped actually the coaching has, but therapy would equally probably.

Bob:

It's the same thing.

Bob:

It's that reflection.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

And the other thing is doing something about it, right?

Bob:

Most people, you know, it's not just reflecting on it.

Bob:

Surfacing at board is your action plan.

Bob:

Like what are the small little things you can do to start

Bob:

shifting your frame for that?

Bob:

What else do I wish?

Bob:

I wish I would've known that management.

Bob:

I wish I had known that I was good at management.

Bob:

So it's going to be like a twofer, but I wish I would've known how hard it was.

Bob:

Like how challenged it's, it's almost, I wish I would've known

Bob:

the dichotomy of leadership, which is it's freaking hard to walk.

Bob:

We talk in the medic cast all about walking your talk.

Bob:

I don't think people under.

Bob:

Walking, your talk is fricking challenging right under, under, and

Bob:

you're not perfect, but you're, you're doing it under all circumstances.

Bob:

You walk your talk.

Bob:

I walk my talk.

Bob:

That's fricking hard.

Bob:

It's just challenging.

Bob:

It requires courage.

Bob:

It's it's whatever.

Bob:

But then it's worthwhile.

Bob:

I wish I had known how worthwhile it was, but how tough it was.

Bob:

I don't know.

Bob:

I might've changed the trajectory of my leadership career if I didn't know.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

It's, it's almost like the humility thing.

Bob:

I don't know what I would have become, but, I may have gone into consulting

Bob:

earlier or something and skipped I, so, you know, we talk, you think.

Bob:

You know, like a Teradata, I cut out early, but there, there was a

Bob:

company where I was like, shrugging my forehead against the wall for 10 years.

Bob:

Do you know what I'm saying?

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

I could have cut that coulda got had until like three or four and saved

Bob:

myself a lot of like, you know, brain damage or something along the way.

Bob:

What do you got?

Bob:

Similar

Josh:

along the way and like almost the opposite of.

Josh:

Of where you're coming from in that I was overly confident that

Josh:

management was going to be easy and I jumped way too early into it.

Josh:

I jumped away too early into it for a couple of reasons.

Josh:

One, I was just not ready to give up coding.

Josh:

I still loved it.

Josh:

And I didn't realize that to do leadership.

Josh:

Well, you had to stop the other thing and I didn't want to, so that already was.

Josh:

Not only was I not like experienced at it yet.

Josh:

I didn't want to do that.

Josh:

Part of the job was I wanted to keep writing code.

Josh:

So there were a ton of mistakes I made early in the game where I,

Josh:

you know, I just fumbled things.

Josh:

I

Bob:

think when I, if I remember you talking about your story, you had a good

Bob:

mentor, but I think you went early, right?

Bob:

You went into leadership management early.

Bob:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bob:

And like my third job.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Yeah, there's no magic time, but it's, it's, it's not for the, so

Bob:

it's not for the faint of heart.

Bob:

It's one of the reasons why I'm getting pissed off lately

Bob:

about people slamming managers.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

And I know there's tons and tons of bad leaders, bad managers in the

Bob:

planet earth, but dammit, you got to tip your hat to these people who are

Bob:

on the field of battle trying, right.

Bob:

Trying to make a difference.

Bob:

And folks, folks marginalized them in slam in the agile community.

Bob:

A lot of people just, just always are anti manager, right.

Bob:

It's just get rid of them and fire them.

Bob:

And I, they, it annoys me.

Bob:

I wish I would have known earlier how important.

Bob:

Like your, your languages your words matter how you show up matters.

Bob:

It's sort of like I thought, like in management it was, you know,

Bob:

the technical stuff or something.

Bob:

Like, I, I grew up as a developer or detecting to leading teams that way, but

Bob:

in soft skills, does it a disservice, but.

Bob:

I wish I had known, you know, to be careful in how you articulate

Bob:

things to be careful You know, in how people interpret it and D diverse

Bob:

communities and things like that.

Bob:

Our language is becoming now, nowadays it's incredibly important to be caught,

Bob:

not overly cautious, but careful, thoughtful intentional with your language.

Bob:

And I, I wasn't, I mean, it's not that I was bad, but I, I

Bob:

wasn't, I wasn't considerate of the crowd the way I should have.

Bob:

I became much more considerate of it, but there were probably probably 15

Bob:

years of leadership where I, I was, I was not really, I was hurting people.

Bob:

I was insulting people and not intending to do.

Bob:

But, but language, language matters.

Bob:

How you show up matters your body language, you know, like

Bob:

the nuance of leadership, the nuance of how you communicate.

Bob:

I think, I don't think I got that so much.

Bob:

She was like, here's a PowerPoint slide.

Bob:

Here's a goals.

Bob:

And you know, who's, here's an OKR, blah, blah, blah.

Bob:

Get it done.

Bob:

Go right.

Bob:

Like Newt Rockne kind of thing or something.

Bob:

That was my vision.

Bob:

That probably went back to the army.

Bob:

Oh yeah.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

There's, I'm sure there was some military sort of influence there of

Bob:

how leaders like showed up there.

Bob:

but what are you guys?

Josh:

Yeah, I, I, I think it was spoiled in that aspect with

Josh:

the coaches I had in college.

Josh:

That was a key to who they were and who we were, and it was really

Josh:

kind of drilled into us, but.

Josh:

Along the way where I've struggled, where I did struggle.

Josh:

I don't do any more.

Josh:

Cause I've, I've learned my lesson was as we acquired or worked

Josh:

with, teams that were global.

Josh:

I, I didn't understand early enough that their culture is their culture

Josh:

and you cannot ask them to operate.

Josh:

Like we do on our culture.

Josh:

And so there were teams I had in Malaysia and China that I was trying

Josh:

to force them into working in the way we worked here in the U S and

Josh:

that's not, that's not fair to them.

Josh:

And then teams in Eastern Europe, same thing.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

I tried to ask to work them the way that we do, and that's just not respectful.

Josh:

It's not realistic.

Josh:

So I, I fumbled a few things and had to learn and just.

Josh:

I accept and respect the cultures that were in place and understand that I

Josh:

needed to do a better job of tweaking, how we work with them and how we

Josh:

support them and what we ask of them, because that really was the problem.

Josh:

And everybody I worked with was doing their darndest, but it was asking them to

Josh:

jump over a mountain and it just wasn't.

Bob:

I think as you were talking, I was thinking the

Bob:

same thing in a different way.

Bob:

The same thing for me was, was change.

Bob:

I wish I would've known earlier that you can't change people.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

You just can't right.

Bob:

And I thought I could write and I, and I worked hard to change it.

Bob:

I'm trying to think of when did I, when did that get through my hard head?

Bob:

Within the last five years, So I have, you know, 40 years of working

Bob:

or over 40 years twenty-five years of leadership 20 years of agile and

Bob:

only in the last five years probably have I, I mean, I S I might've said.

Bob:

But, but in my heart, like as a coach, I would go in and like, I'm Bob Galen.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

I can change you.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

so in my head, I was like, I can change it.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

I just need to push the right buttons and figure out the

Bob:

right magic words or whatever.

Bob:

And I can, I can, I can make you do scrum or I can make you, right.

Bob:

If you're in Eastern Europe, I can make you love collaboration and kumbaya

Bob:

meetings with other developers and stuff.

Bob:

And, and it, it doesn't, it doesn't work.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Not directly, not in a direct way.

Bob:

And that's boy, I'll tell you the amount of like fire and brimstone and chaos.

Bob:

I created in my wake right along the way.

Bob:

And I mean, I did get, and I did affect people change.

Bob:

The problem is it wasn't sticky change?

Bob:

They, it was, they were changing.

Bob:

They were mirroring what was expected.

Bob:

I wasn't changing people.

Bob:

And you know, I think a lot of people still have that.

Bob:

I just did a calc class last week and it's one of those things that

Bob:

I talked to people about and from a leadership point of view, and

Bob:

almost everyone to a person is.

Bob:

Is asking questions, like, how do I, how do I get people to adopt scrum?

Bob:

Or how do I get people to do this?

Bob:

Or how do I get people to they're looking for this magical change elixir

Bob:

and I burst her bubble and I'm like, you can't, and you can see this like

Bob:

overarching sadness and all the, you know, and all the faces in zoom.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

It's like, but what do I do?

Bob:

I'm like you don't.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

And so I think, I think that's an epiphany or a transition.

Bob:

But a lot of people should have not enough.

Bob:

People have

Josh:

it.

Josh:

This can sound very flippant.

Josh:

So know that I don't intend it this way, but I was talking with a group, you

Josh:

know, a couple of weeks ago and they were working through a team that was struggling

Josh:

and trying to figure out what to do.

Josh:

And just as we talk through.

Josh:

I kind of blurted out.

Josh:

So what we really need to do is figure out who we need to fire, right?

Josh:

Because like, there's, there's something that's not working.

Josh:

Right.

Josh:

And which, which piece of the puzzle is it.

Josh:

And let's identify that and that's clearly the issue.

Josh:

And then we need to replace that piece cause something's wrong with it.

Josh:

And so, you know, throwing around words like that, that's.

Josh:

Kind of heavyweight and to just say like, who do we need to fire?

Josh:

You know, like that sounds pretty jerky, but in reality, you have a

Josh:

bunch of unchangeable pieces and maybe the final piece for your puzzle

Josh:

belongs with a different puzzle.

Josh:

It doesn't mean it's a bad puzzle piece.

Josh:

It's just the wrong puzzle piece.

Josh:

And so then you have to switch it for both

Bob:

parties to be happy.

Bob:

Absolutely.

Bob:

Well, the realization that you can't change people.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

They can change themselves.

Bob:

You can inspire them to change themselves, but I can't make someone do something.

Bob:

and I'm still working.

Bob:

I still have to remind myself of that.

Bob:

I've gotten so much better about that, but I wish I, I wish I would have

Bob:

maybe just, just, even for myself, the other thing with me is, you know,

Bob:

you get frustrated with yourself.

Bob:

It's like, I should have changed that either the other side or.

Bob:

Realizing you're not, you can't change.

Bob:

People is giving you the freedom to not being accountable for

Bob:

everything around you, right?

Bob:

Oh, I, I didn't change the culture the way it is.

Bob:

Well, no one could have changed.

Bob:

So culture, so it's a little freeing a little bit, right?

Bob:

It's a, it's a little, it's a little sort of treating yourself with some care.

Bob:

You have something else.

Josh:

Welcome to our diversity and inclusion minute where Josh is embarrassed

Josh:

because Bob is lapping him here.

Josh:

So I'm just going to zip my lip and allow

Bob:

Bob to have.

Bob:

So not really lapping, but a couple things, just did a calc class last week.

Bob:

And I was really, I do, like I studied the people I asked them to do pre-work

Bob:

and of 13 attendees and a captain at 12.

Bob:

So I keep it small.

Bob:

so it was 13 attendees and eight of them were women and I was.

Bob:

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm looking for.

Bob:

Um, and that's not totally intentional.

Bob:

I was lucky, but it's, I'm working at it and we also market absolutely

Bob:

why I provide discounts and stuff.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

But, you know, sometimes I look up and it's a very sort of diverse from a racial

Bob:

point of view and I get very pleased.

Bob:

This one was, I was really any of that.

Bob:

You said it was a freaking awesome class.

Bob:

So this, you can see the diversity of leaders and, and these

Bob:

are what eight women leaders.

Bob:

So that was cool.

Bob:

what else?

Bob:

I picked up another mentee.

Bob:

So agile Alliance, I've been really pushing on the agile

Bob:

Alliance for people to join it.

Bob:

And, have you joined her?

Bob:

I have, I don't have a mentor.

Bob:

So, and then they have a program called Agilent color

Bob:

where you can go and volunteer.

Bob:

I have one minute.

Bob:

And he's, he's wonderful.

Bob:

He's in Peru.

Bob:

So just, I just like working with him, I like working with serious people.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

Who you could just tell in the dialogue there, they're just yearning.

Bob:

I love to help people like that.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

And then I have, I have another one signed up, that we're going to work together.

Bob:

So I've added a mentee.

Bob:

And then the third thing is one of the, attendees of the calc class

Bob:

is active in the Seattle women in.

Bob:

Group and she invited and I was talking about my daughter teaching the class.

Bob:

So she avoided, she invited Rhiannon and I to do like a father daughter,

Bob:

ask us anything about leadership.

Bob:

And I think that's kinda cool, but different perspectives.

Bob:

and we're going to do that.

Bob:

I think in January or something like that.

Bob:

So I, I keep trying to keep trying to do things.

Bob:

Just keep the ball, moving down.

Bob:

The what's the, give me the metaphor, Josh.

Bob:

I mean the court, the field, the field, the field, keep moving, keep

Bob:

matriculating the ball, the field.

Bob:

Okay.

Bob:

So

Josh:

remember right now in your diversity inclusion, thoughts, be more like.

Josh:

Josh was playing a little catch

Bob:

up, move, move the ball down the field.

Josh:

If you listen to last episode, you might understand

Josh:

why I've slowed down a bit, but that's going to get back on track.

Bob:

It's it's all good.

Bob:

But you know what, though?

Bob:

We have this diversity actually.

Bob:

Another person, the other woman I'm coaching.

Bob:

She, and she was apologizing.

Bob:

I don't listen to the Medicare as much, but I listened to one and you guys

Bob:

talk about diversity and it inspired me from a woman perspective cause I have

Bob:

imposter syndrome and it was really thankfully you guys talked about that.

Bob:

And so.

Bob:

Yeah, that's wonderful.

Bob:

The fact that we're doing this right.

Bob:

I agree.

Bob:

So you get credit for that too, right?

Bob:

Where we don't know, like we're throwing a rock, everyone, medic casters, just

Bob:

throw a rock in the pond and see what the ripples do back to the episode with that.

Bob:

It's what I do.

Josh:

You know, the, the funny thing that keeps bouncing around in my head

Josh:

is I feel like I should have learned.

Josh:

In high school with all my girlfriends that I tried to change.

Josh:

And like, it just didn't work.

Josh:

Like how did I walk out of high school with the relationships that I had

Josh:

thinking that I could change anybody

Bob:

that's true.

Bob:

Even marriages and stuff.

Bob:

Right?

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

People get.

Bob:

I mean, my w you know, if we have tongue-in-cheek Diane still, I'm

Bob:

like, honey, you ain't going to jail.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

I'm pretty, I'm pretty solid where I'm at right now.

Bob:

but we, we try, I was gonna S I was gonna say something about, like, I wish

Bob:

I would've known how the frameworks, how bad the frameworks can be.

Bob:

I mean, I've discovered that over time, but it would have

Bob:

changed how I did things.

Bob:

If I, if I would've went scrum, when I first got exposed it, I

Bob:

mean, I've been doing scrum for a long time, you know, 20 plus years.

Bob:

So I've influenced people.

Bob:

It's not just I've been doing it.

Bob:

I've done it in companies.

Bob:

I've done it with my teams.

Bob:

I've done it as a co you know, I've done it to lots of organizations.

Bob:

I wish I would've known how unimportant.

Bob:

Some aspects of it are.

Bob:

And, and, and, you know, don't get caught up on it.

Bob:

And it's the same thing with Kanban.

Bob:

And it's the same thing with all of the scaling frameworks, just every

Bob:

framework, dev ops, all of the fricking frameworks and, and mindset things.

Bob:

I wish I would've known how little they mattered, how much

Bob:

mindset mattered, still matters.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

Principal.

Bob:

Mindset getting to the essence of something.

Bob:

And, and I w I wish that could have changed how I was operating externally.

Bob:

I don't know if it would have changed how my writing is or something.

Bob:

I mean, the people were still there's brick walls out there, and I still

Bob:

throw stuff in brick walls all the time.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

So I don't know if it would have changed the world or change.

Bob:

My writing or anything like that.

Bob:

But certainly for me personally, I think it would've, it would've

Bob:

gotten me on, on essence.

Bob:

You know what I hope I'm making sense.

Bob:

Like, like it's walk, getting to the essence of something is important.

Bob:

And I, you know, I F and I fought, I fought for things too much fought, but

Bob:

argued things that just don't matter.

Bob:

Right?

Bob:

Yep.

Bob:

It's just, don't, I've done the same.

Bob:

I've done.

Bob:

Does it matter?

Bob:

I'm trying to think of what else.

Bob:

I want to squeeze.

Bob:

I want to squeeze as much juice for.

Bob:

Okay.

Bob:

Well, I will

Josh:

reiterate while you work

Bob:

on that juice.

Bob:

Yes.

Bob:

Jeez.

Bob:

What's wrong with us?

Bob:

Medic casters, weird to such a team.

Bob:

Aren't we, we just play off of each other.

Bob:

So, so

Josh:

elegantly, yeah.

Josh:

Elegantly that's us elegantly for a member.

Josh:

Don't just passively.

Josh:

Listen to what we're talking about.

Josh:

Find the one thing in here that you.

Josh:

I didn't know, you wish you knew and evaluate where you're at and maybe, maybe

Josh:

there's still time, you know, and you can, you can save it and you can make

Josh:

a difference sooner rather than later.

Josh:

And that will set you off in whatever direction you want to go.

Josh:

So please take the time

Bob:

to do that.

Bob:

My final wish I think is I wish I would've known Josh Anderson earlier.

Bob:

I agree.

Josh:

I should've moved here sooner.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Or, or in general, it's it's, you know, I was joking a little bit.

Bob:

That was pretty apparent.

Bob:

Was it?

Bob:

Yeah, I know it's shocking.

Bob:

but in general, the community, I wish, I wish I would have, like, there's, there's

Bob:

wonderful people in this community.

Bob:

And so if I had a wish and we've talked about this, ask for help more frequently,

Bob:

or I say, you don't know, reach out to us, reach out to other people.

Bob:

I wish I would have reached out sooner because I would have accelerated

Bob:

in some areas I think quicker.

Bob:

Because generally, I mean, someone might say no every once in a while, but in

Bob:

general, kind of, I can't I mean, I had a guy in Atlanta send me, out of the blue.

Bob:

I know.

Bob:

He sent me something today.

Bob:

And, he had like a question he's running a workshop or something.

Bob:

I sent him back a reply and I think it like helped him a lot.

Bob:

That's that's I do that because it's important to me to give back.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

He'll do that.

Bob:

You'll you do that?

Bob:

There was a girl.

Bob:

I, there was, there was a lady, a girl lady in, in Eastern Europe.

Bob:

That I comment on, I forget her name, but think, I think what's Lina.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

I just love her posts.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

And I try to, I try to give her some encouragement in my

Bob:

comments to her post sometimes.

Bob:

And I, I think you have talked to her or something, she

Bob:

reached out to you for coaching.

Bob:

And I just, I just think doing more of that earlier.

Bob:

would have made me better.

Bob:

It would've made the universe better.

Bob:

Yup.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

I've I, I mean, I've started that in the early days of the Medicus.

Bob:

We didn't do a lot.

Bob:

We didn't do a lot of that.

Bob:

I mean, w what we asked for was feedback, give you, give

Bob:

us topics and things like that.

Bob:

When, when have we done the pivot, like we've done a community

Bob:

diversity give back pivot.

Bob:

It's only been in the last five or less years or something like that.

Bob:

Probably less than three years or something.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

I don't know what's happened.

Bob:

We've we've changed.

Bob:

We've gotten older.

Bob:

We've seen exactly it.

Bob:

We've reflected what we're saying and we've gotten feedback.

Bob:

The other thing is, I think we've gotten some encouragement

Bob:

by people like there's folks.

Bob:

What is that darn tool that people discord, discord.

Bob:

Yes.

Bob:

That people have.

Bob:

Well, you were doing the discourse, things, getting feedback and

Bob:

stuff from people for awhile.

Bob:

There's some,

Josh:

there's some good dialogues in there.

Josh:

The exciting thing that's happening in there right now.

Josh:

Linked below is that there are like role specific channels

Josh:

that people are talking about.

Josh:

It's like a scrum master discussion and product owner discussion.

Bob:

I have to get on there sometimes I have just been, so I just not, it's

Bob:

just another technology kicks my butt.

Bob:

It just does.

Bob:

It just absolutely does.

Bob:

And the name, you know what, by probably

Josh:

I've heard that if I sent it to you before.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

If it was called, like Charlie brown, I'd probably, you know, or cotton candy.

Bob:

Oh, if it was cotton candy, I'd be all over it.

Bob:

I would pay, I w you know, all right.

Bob:

I did.

Bob:

I did.

Bob:

We, I think we squeezed enough juice and the casters it's reflection go

Bob:

back and reflect, listen to what we've said, reflect on your own journeys

Bob:

and start making some earlier pivots.

Bob:

Like I don't, don't get into that sunk cost crap.

Bob:

Oh, I can't make a change.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

Or I'll call or I'll put it off till next year or next speaking as me,

Bob:

that turns into the next decade.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

And then you're, you know, it's a little, it's not late, but it's,

Bob:

it's much later than the harder.

Bob:

It makes it much harder.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

So, really reflect and I wish I would have known.

Bob:

The other thing is in your team.

Bob:

And your teams, you know, run your retro.

Bob:

How about I wish I would've known what retrospective or I

Bob:

wish I would have discovered.

Bob:

And what would we give a ton?

Bob:

So it's, that's, that's start having a tsunami.

Bob:

Whoa of reflection that is, out there.

Bob:

Sounds powerful.

Bob:

All right.

Bob:

So from beautiful downtown, we're in few, quite a few quake.

Bob:

Hyphen Rena I'm Bob Galen, Bob F and Galen,

Josh:

Bob effin gala.

Josh:

And I'm

Bob:

Josh Anderson and Josh F and Anderson.

Bob:

Yeah, baby shake.

Josh:

Oh, we gotta reach.

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