In this episode of the Make Work Not Suck podcast, we sit down with Iky Chan, a former leader in a $12 billion multinational tech company, who shares her invaluable insights on navigating corporate challenges and unlocking your potential by identifying and addressing the "invisible systems" that hold many businesses back.

From overcoming adversity as a woman in tech to turning around underperforming teams, Iky reveals how aligning work with purpose and adding value at every step can transform both individual careers and entire organizations. She discusses her journey in mastering Agile methodologies and systems thinking, and how these tools helped her make work not suck.

Key Takeaways:

• How invisible systems can hinder performance and demoralize employees.
• Why focusing on adding value is the key to career growth and satisfaction.
• The power of adaptability, systems thinking, and understanding variability in creating high-functioning teams.
• How to reframe adversity and turn it into your competitive advantage in business.

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Special Guest Introduction: Iky Chan, Former Leader in a $12 Billion Multinational Tech Company
• [01:17] Iky’s Journey: From Engineering to Leadership and Making Work Not Suck
• [03:32] When Systems Fail: Real-life Examples of Corporate Dysfunction
• [05:57] Turning Around Dysfunctional Teams: Iky’s Strategy for Success
• [08:03] Invisible Systems: How to Identify and Fix Them in Your Organization
• [10:32] The Importance of Understanding Variability in Systems
• [13:06] The Concept of "Value-Driven" Work: How to Add Value in Any Role
• [19:07] The Relationship Between Pay, Value, and Career Growth
• [22:07] Overcoming Adversity: Iky’s Approach to Turning Challenges into Success
• [24:06] Iky’s Coaching and Training Business: How She Helps Others Thrive in Invisible Systems

About Our Guest:

Iky Chan is a certified brain-based coach, specializing in mindset coaching and systems thinking. Combining neuroscience with her vast experience in the tech industry, she helps individuals and businesses unlock their potential by thriving in invisible systems. Learn more about Iky and her work at ikychan.com.

If you’ve ever felt trapped by invisible systems or unsure how to add value in your role, this episode is for you! Tune in for actionable insights and strategies to make your work not suck—whether you're at the bottom of the ladder or leading a multinational team.

[00:18] Announcer:Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast.

Work just sucks, but you climb the ladder anyway. So, I mean, I would say, like, you know, coming in with these engineering degrees, you're female in tech, big multinational company, like, what work sucked, and how did you make it not suck? Go with that in a large organization.

If the work is meaningless, that's part of work. If I don't like it, I find myself a different job, give myself a different position. So I never had that mentality. Work never suck is like how we leverage work because when you're like at the bottom of of the organization, a giant company, it's hard for people know their work and connect to the bigger outcome. No one explained to you this, like, you cannot in the dark.

[02:07] Daniel Steere:What what are some of the problems that you see consistently as you go around working with other companies?

[03:08] Ryan Hodges:We've all worked in large organizations. And, I mean, Daniel, I mean, you've worked in multibillion organization, multinational. Mhmm. What what what's a what's a time where you couldn't help an employee because of the machine? Mhmm.

The same question for Iky as well. What was a time when you were in a position that you could not control and work sucked?

It's like, okay. And so for a season, I helped with recruiting, and we prided ourselves as a large company on our ability to beat down the vendors and get them to pay us as little as possible for the work that they or services they provided. And I remember the day it dawned on me that we needed more people, and we were negotiating, like, I don't know, a couple $1,000 here and there for these young people. You know, we're bringing them in there, maybe making $50 a year back then, And and we're haggling with our vendor over $3,000, but not hiring that person is costing us 1,000,000. And so would you rather pay an extra $5,000 to get the right person that can save you 1,000,000?

Or do you want to squeeze the vendor as hard as you can and get every last penny out and then still have 1,000,000 of dollars of inefficiency around the organization? And it was I think that was the first time for me the light bulb went on because I was pretty early in my career, and I was just like, wait a minute. That's really dumb. Like, it sounds like a good idea to save money. But when you zoom out and you're like, okay, this kid makes $50,000 if I pay him 53, like, do I care?

No. Because he's gonna make a 100 times that in the next 60 days. Like, it's just not it makes zero sense once you zoom out.

[05:57] Iky Chan:I'll give you one example. A extremely dysfunctional team I led back in 2011 when I was still, you know, learning how to apply what I learned, the agile ways of working on lean and all that. And I was brought in by my management and position it as a career assessment. So probably into this group, they didn't tell me it was the worst team out of 33 teams. I think I've learned they have never deliver on for about a year just, you know.

So I'm like, this is interesting. I always deliver my entire life. How can 5 people never deliver for a year? This is extremely interesting. What is going on?

So I just, you know, watch what they do, look at how they do, And, because I saw everything, like, I see everything that is invisible. Now here's one thing I work with engineers for many years, many of them. When engineers do not deliver, leaders, please do not assume they are slacking off. Actually, when they don't deliver, here's the kicker. They work even harder.

K.

[07:15] Iky Chan:then they get demoralized because they want to complete something, but the system won't allow them. So once I know that these 5 people are highly capable, they are very smart, the system failed them. I fixed the system. Once I fixed the system, they started to deliver what they promised every 2 weeks. It took me 6 weeks to turn around this team.

[07:49] Iky Chan:Yeah.

[07:51] Ryan Hodges:are giving to your self advice today, you know, to yourself in that position, like, what would you tell yourself? Because there's somebody listening that's in that exact same problem today. So what would you tell them to do that you

[08:05] Iky Chan:I I would say when something doesn't go well at work with a team of people, I challenge people to step back and zoom out and look at the system. The system is invisible. That's why most people cannot see it. It is invisible. What is invisible?

Makes sense.

[08:27] Iky Chan:And make sure you have the right people on the on the bus, the right capability. I'm not saying people. Everybody is brilliant. They need to have the right capability. And, I believe I I see a lot of patterns that, oh, oh, must be the people.

Fire them. Move them on. Or what's like, well, then why do you hire them? Is the hiring process Brooklyn then? Like I I have all these questions.

Right? It's a situation and also, when you have people working together, we are human, especially in engineering or logistics, we have we are challenged engineers are challenged to do something they have never done before. Even if they're coding using the same coding language, the database may change, right, or the way they call may change. So it's never the unsaved. This is not manufacturing.

Once you understand the beauty of variability in a less rigid, that's where you can materialize an idea into awesome product.

[09:46] Iky Chan:Yes.

[09:57] Speaker 5:make a whole new siloed section beside it just for this variable and a whole new section for this one.

It's it's fluid. Yes. But too often, I

[10:03] Ryan Hodges:They don't see the variables. That's a super good

[10:04] Ryan Hodges:because, I mean Yes. Yeah. I would I mean, literally, I was in a workshop over the past, 2 days, and that's I wish I would've I wish I'd've had this recording before then because that was the exact explanation that was needed is we weren't understanding the variables that could enter the equation. It was the same equation every single time. It was just understanding how the variables influence the equation or the outcome.

Oh, that's very well said.

My brain think about variability. My heart is with people.

[10:48] Iky Chan:I want people to have this concept. When I show up at work, people just they don't understand I am the whole of my village in Hong Kong. I'm a living hope just like everyone else at work. They are someone's daughter, son, husband, wife, friends, like you name it. We are treasure, we are not just employee ID, we have our own story, we have our reason to earn a living.

So I want all the leaders and managers and look at your people differently. I so expected my manager or people around me did not even want to want to know me, how much I could bring to the table, and just make a bunch of assumption about me because of my packaging. The packaging, how I look?

[11:45] Iky Chan:Yeah. My packaging on the shelf at worst. Right?

**[11:54] Daniel Steere:]Don't judge the gift by the wrapper.

[11:57] Ryan Hodges:you go. Well, there's and there's so many things that you said in there. I think it's it's, like, let's let's a lot of managers are are executives that are struggling with this. And going back to the invisible system, What's our inclination? Our inclination is to point our finger at a person because that is the visible thing as opposed to the invisible of the system.

And then to the other point that you said in there, you know, you've gotta think about like, you just said, you were the hope of your village. As an employer, I'm thinking about hitting the numbers. Right? Like, I got shareholders, I got customers, and I just need bodies to do work. But you have to remember that companies are made up of people.

People are what make a company run and everybody and every every employee, even if you are the executive. You may not be the owner, but you're the executive leader. You're still the employee of that company that probably has a family you're trying to support.

[12:46] Ryan Hodges:think that I think that often gets overlooked, and so there's some good things you said in there. When you're running into a problem, look for the invisible, look at the system, and then remember that there are people on the other side using that system. And what's your favorite quote, Daniel? Every system's perfectly designed to get the result it gets. Mhmm.

Yeah, what's interesting, Iky, as I'm listening to you is I had a conversation earlier today with a client of mine and just started working with them in the last week or 2. And I'm doing some basically customer interviews, just asking them how it's going, what's going well, what's not going well. And I love your idea of the invisible system. And I'll share from my experience, and I wanna hear your reaction to this. I think every organization on the planet has their own unique invisible system.

Yep. And that system sometimes evolves, sometimes it doesn't evolve, and rarely does it evolve at the right speed. And so with this, client that I was working with, she was expressing some frustrations, and I said, okay, well well, who, you know, who gets to define whether that was done? Like, what does done mean? And who gets to define whether or not done is really done or if it's if it's still needs another level of approval?

And she just kinda looked at me. She's like, I don't know. And I was like, oh, see, that's the invisible system, or just maybe a glimpse of the invisible system within that organization of, okay, who really has decision authority, Who's accountable? Who's responsible? If Daniel says, Go do this, should I go do that?

Or do we have to wait until Ryan says, Go do it before I'm going to get in trouble? Because if I listen to Daniel, but Ryan disagrees like that kind of and I love the way you phrased it invisible system, I think creates so much frustration for so many people because we can't see it. So that's my experience. What's your experience with working with the invisible systems in different organization?

It's kinda like in manufacturing, you have QC. Right? But the definition of thumb kind of help you to define where where all the check boxes for your QC at different level, your hand off. Right? It is the beauty of knowing the concept and knowing how to work the system.

And if it's invisible, just create 1. Call it agile system, whatever system. Like, human way of working is more human friendly and set people up for success. That's why I'm that's why I'm so passionate. It is helping people to success, not failure.

[16:07] Iky Chan:first point I want to make is remember, every system is typically created by a small group of people to have an intended outcome, and sometimes the intended outcome is not supposed to benefit all living in that system. Every company, they have some system created for intended outcome as an employee. If you are being paid to create that intended outcome. Whether or not the system is friendly to you or not, it is another story.

[16:50] Speaker 5:So I

[17:22] Daniel Steere:I think that's really important is is that so many people, I think, and I know I'm guilty of this as well, were so self focused, like why didn't my boss promote me? I'm awesome. And it's very easy, I think, to become very focused on ourselves and our career and our advancement and our paycheck, And yet, I think the answer is not inside of us. The answer is outside of us. How did you begin to think about the value that you add?

Otherwise, no one will buy Right. Whatever you create. And then I have a good mentor already on in my career. He always tell me why are you on the payroll? If you're not clear, don't come to work.

Always add value. What can I bring to the table when I show up at work? So I started to volunteer my time to do all kind of work, like my boss's work, my boss's boss, my colleagues, and always be off surface because people are overwhelmed, overworked, they never have enough time. When you sincerely donate your talents and time to help everybody else to be successful, and then on top of that, do a good job on your job, who wouldn't like you? Then over time Yeah.

Your name travel to the people who have promotion authority.

They're just like, but I want to make $25 an hour. He's like, I don't, I kind of don't care if you can't create enough value. I can't afford to pay you that. And, and I love the way you're thinking about how do I create as much value as possible for this organization? I think that if more people thought that way, work would suck a lot less.

Like, you you grew up in a level of adversity and and that, you know, expectation from the village and family. Right? And I I think I'm assuming today there's, you know, there's more women in tech. It's more accepted women in tech. And so you probably you were a pioneer on that front.

But what I took from that adversity is two things, is understanding your unique abilities and your taught skills. You love art. You brought up art several times. You've got that artistic foresight, that creative mindset, but you paired it with 2 of the most difficult engineering degrees on the planet. And so it's where your unique abilities and your your taught skill sets can become a superpower.

That was one. So overcoming adversity with, with that. The second one I had for overcoming adversity, and I think this doesn't matter where you are in your role. And, you know, we go back. Adversity is it is not you know, adversity, yes, is age and sex and gender and all those things, but adversity comes in many shapes and forms.

Right? And so I think if you can if you can look at it from, like, a global perspective and use that one, the other one I had in here was, that you were just say, always add value. What can I bring to the table that adds value? If you're in an adverse situation and you're looking at your unique skills or your unique abilities and your top skills and you go, how can I add value? Then you will look past the problems and start solving or the the roadblocks and start solving them.

And then I take it a step further and you've got the invisible system. Well, adversity comes from the invisible system too. All systems are made by people, as you said. Right? Mhmm.

So even in governmental systems, societal system, caste systems, all of those are systems made by people. They're the invisible system. So if you're taking on the invisible system, you have to remember they were made by people too.

[22:08] Ryan Hodges:But this actually pairs with our last podcast, Daniel, where the past fights to be relevant. Right. The future fight to be the future. And so those people that created those invisible systems or those systems of those time, they're still fighting to keep their systems relevant. Whereas the future is trying to progress those systems.

But I think that's where you can again, the other one comes as be a team player, help others grow while still growing yourself. And so if I take all these little nuggets together, it doesn't matter where you sit in an organization. Every bit of this is valuable and committed.

[22:40] Daniel Steere:It's how do you how

No. Yeah. Every system is not perfect. But if you can find the variables in the system and apply those, then you can improve the system. And I think too often, we negate the variables for the system, and then we attack the person that created the system.

Whereas their system may still be good, but this is comes in the evolution as you said earlier, Daniel. It's the variables of the system that make it more power. So I think if you take all of those nuggets and add it together, there's a lot of, lot of good you can do regardless of where you are in an organization. Whether if you're an employee, you know, working in the the bottom of the organization, find your unique abilities and your top skills, look to be, what you can bring to the table, find the variables in the invisible system, look for the invisible system before you look at the people. And, if you figure out what you can bring to the table with your boss and you are a team player and help others while you're growing your own career, you might actually, make work not suck, which sounds like that's a summation of your life story, Iky.

[24:06] Iky Chan:Thank you.

[24:16] Iky Chan:Yeah. I'm yep. Find me on my website, ikychan.com, ikchen.com. I'm semi active on link here. You can find me there.

Right now, my business focus on, I created a training company because I really believe by enabling people how to, look at and equip to thrive in the invisible system. That's my best gift for them. I focus on mindset coaching. I'm a certified, brain based coach. So I use combined quantum physics with neuroscience and my magic to help people to materialize their invisible goal, dreams, and to a beautiful life.

[25:21] Iky Chan:Thank you.