Dec 15, 2023
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You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people
together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight
employees, partners, organized actions, and those who are
continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maiden podcast. I'm
your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our
co-host David Cross, senior vice president and SAS Chief
Information Security Officer within Oracle.
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In this episode, we discuss impact. The impact is about results.
Impact is delivered by having clear and measurable goals that are
regularly tracked with milestones. Understanding how to achieve
impact or what the desired results should be is sometimes not easy.
This is where we want to tie back and leverage some of our previous
episodes on connections, communication and visibility to help
others in driving impact short and long term success.
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Personally and professionally is all about driving the best and
highest impact We have all we need to become the person we want to
be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and
genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for
listening. We hope you enjoy this episode. And please remember to
check in on your buddies and family.
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And don't forget to send us feedback, suggestions and topics on
what you would like us to cover in future episodes. It helps spread
the word to the broader community David's contact details are in
the podcast description, and you can always find me on LinkedIn
Morning, David.
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Good morning. I'm excited. Seems like it's been a couple of weeks
here, almost taking too long. And this for get to there because we
want to have impact, right? You know with our community.
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Impact sounds like we're talking about impact.
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Well, in the end, you know, Chris, it's kind of everything we're
talking about is why are we doing this, right? Why do we, you know,
talking about, you know, connecting in relationships and
communicating? You know, it's because so we can have more impact
impact our lives, impact on our jobs, impacting our careers. And so
I kind of start thinking about how can we help people to, you know,
have some best practices understanding how to have the largest
amount of impact.
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That's right. To discover what your purpose is probably has a lot
to influence whether or not you feel like you're being
impactful.
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Well, you know, I think as many companies are certainly high tech
companies now is you know, I don't get into the performance reviews
and things like that. Maybe that's a whole nother podcast in
itself. But it's really people want to say, you know, measure how
much impact did you have? You know, what were your results you
know, did you have big results?
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Do you have major results? Do you have minor results? And I think
then we should really talk about how do you measure these things?
How do you drive for impact? Right? How do you know when you may
not be measuring or looking at the right things?
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Yeah, that's right. You touched on a couple of things inside that
already as we're just kicking this off. So I think when when you
know what you're supposed to be doing, the questions that come in
are somewhat of what you introduced as well. How do I do that when
you find what's important? And then you say, well, how do I know
it's going to actually yield the results that everybody's
considering or expecting?
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You know? And so you have the OKRs, the KPIs, you know, even in
response to a question, could give an indicator as to whether or
not you're aligned What I guess the you or the group had discussed
is what is needing to be done. But I think there's also some room
here to talk about some of those other things that maybe aren't
measurable or at least maybe hard to explain.
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Maybe there are measurable if you if you're skilled at being able
to interpret what's happening so maybe maybe we'll kind of focus on
some two key areas, you know, the obvious things and then the ones
that probably aren't as commonly referred to or understood, but is
a part of the equation.
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Well, I think that's a great point in that because sometimes it is
when we're part of organizations and goals priorities and things
are top down, right? And saying, these are things you hit us like,
okay, the impact I'm having is based on those goals with their top
down, that's very easy. But also sometimes we work in organizations
where it's not so crystal clear.
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Right. Or your goals aren't so well defined. Boy, I wish we we're
in the military again, right? Everything here's the mission here.
The tack is this which had to clean this all written down. It's a
checklist. You either did it or you didn't did not do it. It's a
lot simpler sometimes. Sometimes that you also say it's hard
to.
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But I think one of the things is that, well, how do you measure or
identify the impact you need to have if it's not written down? It's
not well stated. Out, you know, in obvious ways. Right. And I think
that's maybe part of our discussion today.
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Yep. So start with the basics. So you in your personal life, in
your professional life, you have them, they may be named
differently or phrased differently or even set up differently, but
you have a mission statement, you have a vision, you have goals,
you know, and then from there you could develop all the actionable
items that will be your strategy.
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And then the team definition where you can break down tasks by role
and things like that, and you can start to put the resources in
motion to to begin the path towards those objectives. So maybe to
bring value and understand the type of impact is do I think we'll
start with clarity? First, we need to understand it.
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Well, I think that's where we talked before. Communication and
listening, asking questions comes into play right and I think kind
of tying those together is, you know, one of the things I think is
when you don't know what the impact should be or needs to be.
Right. It's often it is how you ask questions of, you know, a
person or organization or a manager is what are they looking
for?
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What do they need? You know, what results do they want? What is
bothering them? I was love to say that, you know, the best
employees often go to their manager and say, let's keep you awake
at night. What is worrying you? Right. What are the biggest
problems, you know, in your mind? Because, you know, if you solve
those problems, the things that are keeping your manager and your
organization away awake at night, those are the things that will
have the greatest impact.
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You said that and thought of I think it was General Mattis I'm the
one that keeps the others awake at night or something to that
effect is is this quote. So, you know, and I think we look at it as
clearly we can talk about it in all kinds of ways. But when you
look at it where you have external goals and internal goals, so if
you're a customer facing the customer, facing any any entity
outside of what you or your organization is, and then you have
internal because while we're doing this, everything that we've
spoken about in previous episodes and what all of us have rooted
into our being is I want to get something
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out of it also. So value is twofold, right? I want to be able to
provide value to the external entities. Our customer focus our
organizational goals and things like that. But if I don't feel
fulfilled, then it's not reciprocating value. And I want to make
sure that we're also including the impact. It's got to be impactful
not only for the purpose of why we're driving towards common goals
with others, but we want to also have an impact for ourselves so we
feel fulfilled and we can continue the motivation and the desire in
that purpose.
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So, you know, when we talk about impact that this leads to and it
just so happens, it's men's Health Awareness Month, right? And so
it can be anybody's it doesn't matter, you know, to have your
mental mindset preserved you know, impactful, being impactful also
has to include that that internal component. And so when we think
about where we're going and it's got to be measurable, what are
some of the key elements that can serve both purposes?
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You know, I think I'll be bad. I say, you know, let's bring a book
into the conversation like we do for every podcast. Right. And so,
you know, Chris and I say, please be useful right? And what am I
talking about here? It's like, well, I'm going back. You know, I'm
going to you know, are Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest book, you
know, B would be useful, right?
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And I've actually been reading it recently and I think one of the
things is that of kind of tying this together and I thought was
just great for, you know, our podcast this morning is that you it's
not just about building a vision. It's not just, you know,
understanding things. It's that really of how you're investing in
yourself.
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Right. To realize a vision, to realize a goal. And having the
impact. And it's not just something that you spend 5 minutes on.
Right. Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about his book. He said, hey,
when he was trying to be a weightlifter or, you know, Olympian.
Right. He spent 5 hours a day. Right. You know, working out. Then
he should only do two and a half in the morning and two and a half
in the afternoon.
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Right. And he said this is the same as actually if you have a
vision for your life or you have a vision for what you want to
achieve. And he said you may have to spend 5 hours a day to do it,
but that's because that's an example of doing something above and
beyond to have the ultimate goal, the ultimate dream.
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And I think that's a great book to really kind of emphasize and
kind of use as a catalyst for this conversation.
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That's a good example because I think what I heard from that was a
description of lessons learned. And so in the process of pursuing
objectives or goals, right. So in this case, by building, right?
For that example or scalability, you know, increasing the
organizational scalability potential or effectively delivering X
within a certain amount of time frame you could, you could, you
could say that we did that.
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But what the other components are that consist of what happens
while you're doing that can also be perceived as impactful. You
know, hey, we did this. But when while we were doing that, we also
learned this. And so in this case, you know, there's a a time frame
in which things were allocated to perform a particular task. And
then as time went on, it was learned that, you know, addressing how
that timeline was split up to optimize the ability to be more
effective, more efficient, more scalable, more sustainable, you
know, there's an outcome there that you wouldn't really understand
until you had actually gone through it.
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What kind of building upon that example is he said what? He went to
make a movie like a Terminator. He said, yeah, he spent 5 hours a
day. Right. You know, there's I it being blindfolded and shooting a
gun. So he never blinked again. Right. Or he's trying to become you
know, the governor of California said he spent 5 hours a day, you
know, studying all the issues and things like that because he said
the impact he had was enormous or he wanted to have is
enormous.
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So he had, you know, invest enormously to achieve that.
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Yeah. And most of us can relate to that. The more you're ever
you're putting into something, you're in control of that. And so I
can't help but think about a word that can help describe this,
because there's an element here that we're all understanding. It's
necessary is leadership where we have informal and formal leaders.
But these are the ones that are in a hierarchal or oppositional
position of influence that guide or take us from one place to the
other and then be able to manage it effectively the results.
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And so we can stay on track. But I think a lot of those things, as
you learn, is to be impactful is the perception that you know, hey,
David, the way that you're doing that is impactful. Keep going. Or,
Hey, David, in order to achieve a greater impact for what we're
trying to do, you know, would you would you be able to do this,
that or the other thing?
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In those two examples of the many, we can start to talk about the
management or leadership style to where some of us as we learn and
we grow, we need less oversight. Right. And that's now I'm going to
introduce to micromanage micro and macro managers. Right. So some
of us perform at a high level when we have a lot of autonomy that
that's gained through experience.
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And that, again, you've earned that by being impactful. What are
your thoughts on how the dynamics between it within an
organization? Let's say when you have multiple people in an
organization trying to do the same thing differently? What do you
think some of the elements are that we have to continuously watch
to make sure that we're reciprocating the impact?
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So I think one of the things that we talked about in like I think
in our previous podcast about communication is one element is being
clear on what the results will be. Right. So you can think about
stuff like, hey, this is the impact people want you to have. It is
the result they want you to achieve. But you're going to be clear,
is it is the results they're going to achieve?
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Right, because you could be off on that. You you know, you could
you could perceive incorrectly. You could think incorrectly. And
really when you what sometimes writing things down and asking maybe
this is what we want to achieve. Is that correct? And then people
validating it. That is very, very important because otherwise the
impact you think you're going to have may not be the the actual
results that are achieved.
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What happens when there's a breakdown during that process of
pursuing clarity?
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Well, I think a bigger question is then there could be breakdowns
at the beginning and are be breakdowns along the way. Right. And so
I think it's it's kind of upfront is saying just like, okay, are
and B are just saying like, hey, this is what we're going to
achieve and these are the results. And sometimes I think it's very
important to call out who is the customer of that result.
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Right. And say an internal customer. External customer, maybe a
person, maybe a group. Who is the customer? Right. And what are
they going to achieve? And people agree with that. That's a good
point. And then also, I think is always having milestones along the
way saying how are the results are achieving the results? We
expected right. You know, are we continuing measuring that?
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If we don't, you can get off track very quickly.
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Yeah. And I can't help think of the word mastery at that point.
Like you know, a word that would help define how skilled you are to
be able to recognize what does it take? So again, previous episodes
have included elements of what we can put in our toolbox. So we
have these levers to pull when we need to and how to become
effective communicator.
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How do you make sure that your understanding how to make, how to
make yourself presence or be known the visibility component right
where others see you and what you're doing? Because of course,
that's you know, that's one of those milestone Check-In points
where people can see what's occurring and then know how the
different leadership or how the different roles will
contribute.
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The value of those roles they gives at a time or a period of time
will go by and something will change. And we know this all the
time. Organizational change, right? So something happened last
week. We made we had a discussion. We made some some goals and some
tasks. We distributed the tasks and we said, let's check in next
week.
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Well, within that timeframe, things changed. Something happened. So
in the journey we've discovered and we made some accomplishments
that changed the dynamics or the trajectory or the plan. So we have
to check in every now and again to make sure that whatever's
occurred since the last time we talked, what you just said is are
we aligned or are we still in line for the things that we had
discussed before?
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Or what has changed? And this comes to back to I think is the
mastery or the skill of the one, you know, really good program
managers or project manager. We're going to stay on exactly what
we're talking about. And effective leaders will also understand
you're going to be able to understand now what everybody else is
saying at the right level, the detail.
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Because what you and I had talked about before, I can't remember
when you as as a senior vice president or exposed to a lot of high
level discussions, that is a culmination of everybody else's tasks
passed up into context. So there's some relatable messaging that
gives you the sense of what's going on.
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I think one of the points, let's call it the real world example,
right? We work on a result, right? It's very easy to find. The trap
is like, I'm going to enhance something, I'm going to improve
something, I'm going to extend something. Right. In an element of
seeing that. Well, what does that really mean? Right. Those are
ways where so many people fall into the trap of like you have
ambiguous or ambiguous know impact goals or have ambiguous results
and really want you to say, is that okay, we are going to improve
the performance of the system and we can get 10% more power
savings.
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You know, things like that is like, oh, okay, you can measure it
any time you try to have a goal or deliver impact that you can't
actually measure in a physically or logically, it's always going to
be a trap of mis, you know, missed results. Rate is I think it's
easy to create things that are saying that you're going to improve
something, but like, oh, how do you measure that?
00;17;38;01 - 00;17;54;11
Chris So let's say, okay, we're going to make this a podcast. We're
going make this podcast, you know better. Okay, how do we measure
that right now? We said we're going to have 10% more listeners next
month. Like, Oh, okay, we can measure that. Did we achieve that or
not?
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Yeah. I think what you in between that you had said something about
kind of equated to the e autonomy. Somebody is going to discover
something and then realize real time maybe that something else is
needing to be done. And I think that comes back down to the skill
sets that have developed over time where communicating in this case
is going to be necessary because if it hasn't been discussed in the
plan, now we're getting down to the next level of a plan or goals
that says, hey, if if we're doing this, we're going to expect this
is our contingent planning piece planning right?
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We're going to say, if we achieve this and this occurs, then this,
then we're going to define what that is. That way we know that if
it doesn't happen the way we expected, we're going to have to stop,
reassess, and then recalibrate what we're going to do and then get
agreement to continue on. What do you think would be the inhibitors
or the ability, the things that would prevent us from having that
occur without being too disruptive?
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You know, actually, I think this is raising a really good point
here. I think one thing is, is that jumps to mind immediately is
people don't want to plan up front. It's easy to kind of jump in
and get it running down, you know, running down the road and
realizing like, okay, what's the time I really wanted to achieve
here?
00;19;29;26 - 00;19;50;06
Right. Well, no, you need a planet just like a marathon or half
marathon or five days. Like, you know, you're going to go in in a
race. It's like, okay, what's your goal? You define that upfront,
don't you? Or, you know, Chris, I know you run lots of marathons,
right? So would you actually kick off or running 26.2 miles and you
say, oh, I don't know what I'm going to how fast I'm going to go
I'm, you know, whatever it is I'm going to finish.
00;19;50;06 - 00;19;57;20
So so then why do people start trying to have impact without
measuring planning what the results are going to be from the very
start?
00;19;57;27 - 00;20;36;03
They're defining what it is now. You're right. And I think we're
stumbling across it now that, you know, to be impactful is
relative. It's a perception based opinion, and it has to be
something that everybody understands whose opinion it is right. To
be impactful. Is it my managers for me, if I am trying to achieve
goals successfully and make sure that I'm doing my job properly,
then my whoever's in charge of me, whether directly or indirectly,
whoever has influence on me, right?
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Because I'll be I may be working with other other teams and people
where that collective feedback is going to come back to some
gatekeeper, whoever that may be, that will have an influence on my
my career, my future, or me being able to continue on this
particular project or task or effort. You know, it's just one of
those things that it has to be agreed upon, you know, who's whose
opinion matters.
00;20;59;09 - 00;21;24;19
So to bring impact, we have to understand who the stakeholders are,
who the decision makers are, who the ones that matter most, and
then who are the other key components are personnel that matter,
but play a particular role in how it can be a collective input that
provides that perspective into that key decision maker, that key
leader. That's a good point.
00;21;24;20 - 00;21;27;12
Is defining the team, you know, who who's involved?
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Well, I think that's a I don't want to get into there at this
point, but it's almost like the race, right? Is kind of like who's
who's a participant, right? Who's the approver? Right. Who's a
reviewer? Right. Who's an informant? Right. And just like that,
planning those should be defined upfront is part of it because you
never want to say okay, here's the results and here's the plan.
00;21;47;13 - 00;21;53;18
Well, I don't know who's the approval of this. Right. Wow. What a
horrible spot to end up in.
00;21;54;23 - 00;22;31;21
Yeah. You don't you don't want to learn after the fact. And then
you get surprised because then we're talking about morale. You
know, the the impact that has occurred has an effect on not only
the organization. And we keep saying organization. I'm going to box
this in. This is this is everyday life. This is everything that
occurs in what we do, even from waking up and doing whatever you
doing to get ready to go, whatever it is that you do here in the
day or the night or whatever, it's just an understanding of I'm
supposed to be doing this and here's why and here's where I know I
don't need to do it anymore, right?
00;22;31;22 - 00;23;21;14
So we've achieved something the the people, the, the ripple effect,
the people that are impacted by different context, the people that
are affected. When we drive towards being impactful, we have to
have that to be a consideration. Because if we're too focused or
narrowly focused on that one thing and we don't do what you just
talked about, plan accordingly, to where we can know the risk
factors, we aren't capable now of truly capturing what that
ultimate outcome, which we can consider to be the impact, what that
ultimate outcome can cause, because then we may end up doing what's
common when we don't plan effectively.
00;23;21;14 - 00;23;22;16
As we cause more issues.
00;23;23;14 - 00;23;42;16
Absolutely. You know, another thing, Chris, I was thinking about
here is that I think you touched on a bit earlier is that as you
get down into the implementation or the execution of a plan, the
plans can change, right? Because there can be variables that aren't
known, right? You could run into blockers, you to run in obstacles.
You could run into you know, difficulties.
00;23;42;16 - 00;24;07;28
And so the plan can change. And that's not that's not bad, right?
It's was that you're always understanding and watching for it. And
that's where the milestones come in saying, okay, the assumptions
that we had, the variables that we knew in various we didn't know.
Right. Is there some change? So then let's update our plan. Let's
update the results let's check in with all the reviewers and the
participants with check in with the approver is like, is this the
right new plan?
00;24;07;29 - 00;24;11;29
Is this the right new results? Right. And that's very, very
important. To always keep in mind.
00;24;12;28 - 00;24;35;07
Yeah. So maybe, maybe let's toy with this idea. Let's, let's apply
it to something specific because I I don't know about you, but I
feel like we're so ambiguous at this moment that I know, no, we're
being impactful in this conversation. But I do think that we've set
a good framework by introducing a bunch of different things. So,
one, you have to know what you're wanting to do.
00;24;35;25 - 00;25;05;24
So let's apply it to transition. Let's let's spread it across any
type of transition. You're moving from one place to another. In
this case, we'll keep it with our veteran affiliated community and
we'll say we have service members getting ready to make a choice
when there's too much information out there and there is a lot of
information, it's probably too much, but some of it may be
considered to be valuable based off of how you're seeing it,
right?
00;25;05;24 - 00;25;23;02
Whatever lens you're wearing and how you feel and all those types
of things. And your scenario could be unique in a sense of where
it's applicable. Got it. However, the bigger picture is, generally
speaking, there's a ton of information out there, and it's hard to
choose which one. It's like a thought, right? If you don't know
where to start, stand in front of your garage.
00;25;23;02 - 00;25;42;26
You see, you want to clean your garage and there's a bunch of stuff
that you have to do. Where do you start? Have to know what you're
trying to achieve. These are your objectives. Your goals doesn't
have doesn't matter if it's short term, near-term, long term, it
has to be something. And then from there, it's to say, Well, how do
I think I need to get there?
00;25;43;07 - 00;26;17;04
And this is key because this now comes back down to what we've
always been talking about is the mindset, open mindset, growth
mindset, close mindset, fixed mindset. You know, Carol Dweck has
that book mindset where it's fixed growth. You know, all of those
things factor into to understand some other things that we've
talked about. Your mindset could shift based off of little acts of
or events that have occurred to where now you've learned something
and now you need to make the adjustment, which is what we've just
been talking about.
00;26;17;18 - 00;26;46;04
So you have to know what you want to do. You have to think about
how you're going to get there. You have to have an open mindset to
know that as you pursue this, you're going to learn some things and
you have to be willing to take what you learn and apply it. If you
think about all of the other folks that have also transitioned, one
question that I always want to ask somebody is What made you stop
listening to what people have shared with you about how to do
this?
00;26;47;18 - 00;27;07;17
You know, I think, you know, one thing comes to mind is there to
issue you read out the there's great examples and steps, Chris, is
that you got to write it down, right? How many people are
successful in just things that are in their memory or they're in
their head? Right. Or they talked about once. Right. I can't think
of too many examples of that.
00;27;07;21 - 00;27;31;05
Or how do you have check points with your team, your organization,
if it's not written down, you say, yeah, let's go off the top of
her head every once a month. Like, how are we doing against our
results and what was our results? Did I remember correctly you
know, so it's one things on that because when they're written down,
right, you can reference them, you can use them, and they will
reinforce all of your structure and behaviors.
00;27;33;02 - 00;27;57;18
Right? Yes. It's an infinite loop. And if you don't have it in
front of you, you don't have a focus right now. You could I could
be wrong. I'm absolutely not skilled and experienced in the depth
of what that could be. As far as a specialization you know, having
your thoughts versus writing it down, you could be focused on your
thoughts if you're very skilled at it.
00;27;57;18 - 00;28;17;20
But is that a way to do it? Maybe there's a technique that you're
introducing now is to say, well, instead of that and relying on
that because that can be so elusive, then write it down. And when
you write it down now, you have a point of reference. How often do
we like because you've labeled me some running fanatic to where my
knees would argue the point.
00;28;18;06 - 00;28;46;26
But when we're out doing something, walking by ourselves in our in
our own mind and we think about things, how often do we have this
epiphany? So things change. If you have recall, great if you have
the ability to recall through being able to see it, you can go back
to say, well, that was my thought before. Now I have this new
thought and this is journaling, and you're creating a trail of how
your thought began and where your thought is growing.
00;28;47;23 - 00;29;10;12
And maybe the thought will end if you no longer have it be a
priority, but you have you have the ability to trace it and then go
back to these things that can help develop these dynamics that
allow you to maneuver through the conditions where ambiguity might
be coming. Right. It's determining now there's too much space for
me to know where to focus on and I don't know where to start.
00;29;10;25 - 00;29;29;23
And then you potentially have a higher probability of no longer
pursuing it, because now it becomes overwhelming. These types of
things, you know, to be impactful, you have to be able to
understand where you started and where you want to go. So you can
lessons learned, you can do lessons learned, but also you can bring
people with you and then you can understand what was what was
valuable what was impactful.
00;29;30;17 - 00;29;31;28
That got you to that next step.
00;29;33;10 - 00;29;56;11
In kind of building upon that is I think there's one thing as well.
It's just your goal and is just you and no one else, right? Yep,
absolutely. You can think about it as a point of mind, but anything
is like how you bring others, right? From engagement, from a from a
collaboration perspective. Like what I even think about recently
for us at Oracle, we have our Maven 11 kind of initiative,
right?
00;29;56;11 - 00;30;23;17
Is like the 11 days, you know, going up to the Veterans Day, right?
We, we use our slack, we use email that 11. We, we called out and
said, hey everybody every day, you know, kind of send a slack
message, you know, what did you achieve that day. It had impact. It
had impact on me is like, oh what I've forgotten about it great is
I was a motivated seeing others had big impact is amazing how the
impact of one small thing of just using some tools in setting the
goals and results and then being public about it.
00;30;23;17 - 00;30;27;10
It was motivating and drove me did it do the same for you.
00;30;29;03 - 00;30;58;16
Did and that's a good call out and while we're there you know huge
shout out to the military affiliated veteran employee network board
where they allow this idea sharing to come up because that that
came from an idea means basically what we're talking about we have
a large organization filled with veteran affiliated people. Right
so we have spouses, we have family members, we have parents we have
veterans, we have reservists.
00;30;59;00 - 00;31;20;14
We have all of those components inside this organization. And we're
all looking for something. And when we bring people together, and
we discover that commonality, what can we do to be impactful? What
do we want to do to encourage to retain that camaraderie, retain
that feeling of that purpose? That we can have in that common bond
that we've we've shared through generations?
00;31;21;21 - 00;31;50;20
We we came up and we landed on through a conversation. We landed on
well, for Veterans Day, let's do maybe 11 for 11 days leading up to
Veterans Day. We'll do an activity. And this goes back to the
health benefits of being active from the mental state, the
emotional state, the physical state, the nutritional value, all of
these elements to where we're putting in front of us a target, a
goal, an objective and the objective was to try to replicate
something in a new environment.
00;31;51;12 - 00;32;08;08
And how we did that was brought people together, talked about what
we could do and it's a living, breathing thing. It was occurring
over time and it kept evolving. And it will continue to evolve
because we've introduced so many different things in alternatives
that allows us to do those types of things. So how do we measure
the impact?
00;32;08;24 - 00;32;28;22
Well, actually, Chris, let me try that. We measure impact because
we used the Slack channel, right? We we had registration, made a
Slack channel and we measured, right? We watched who was
participating, who was actually reporting the results like that,
that we measured it. Right? That was what mattered in the
environment. There's a reward saying, well, you don't get swag if
you actually don't report it.
00;32;28;22 - 00;32;32;19
So we measured what mattered, right? And we're rewarding people
that achieve the goals.
00;32;33;12 - 00;32;53;17
Yeah. Good point. Yep. And we did it in a sense to where we left.
We left the, the autonomy there, right? Because it didn't matter
what people were doing. We weren't monitoring to make sure that
people were actually doing something other than just to, to give an
incentive, you know, that they could have a purpose for the next
day.
00;32;53;18 - 00;33;10;09
You know, for some of us that maybe pushed a little too hard on
this thing that were our physical limitations or our desire and all
that stuff was having us in a certain way one day and we did
something, we pushed ourselves hard that day and the next day maybe
we're a little sore, but we woke up and somebody else was doing
something and we were like, you know what?
00;33;10;23 - 00;33;44;08
That person's doing it. I'm doing it. Got us up out and doing it.
And, you know, the level of engagement is based off of perception
that we talked about. It's relative to those that, you know, in
this case were the the creators of it to make sure that it wasn't
terrible, meaning, you know, it was safely done. We put you know,
resources in to make sure that they have a way to to reference
what's needed for them to to to maintain and sustain the things
that are necessary to be safe and and capable.
00;33;44;21 - 00;34;07;08
You know, but I think at the end of the day, we defined early on,
here's what we're trying to do. Here's how we're going to we're
going to measure it. And here's how we're not going to measure it.
Measure it. How do you make sure you don't over measure or over
state? How are you going to let's not even overstate how do you
measure your oversight to make sure that it's not too
restrictive?
00;34;08;28 - 00;34;45;17
Well, that's a good question. I think one of the first, you know,
gaps or challenged I think people run into is you measuring too
much, right? You over measure, right. And sometimes pressure, you
know, the analysis paralysis. Right. Is like we have a goal and you
say let's have 15 different measurements like now is that really
what matters because ultimately and this is sometimes the ah the
science behind it is identify is what is the one or two things that
you can measure that really will be indicators of the entire impact
you don't want every performance angle is it's not like hey in an
airplane like we're going to look at 15,000 different sensors and
say
00;34;45;17 - 00;35;02;29
we're going to track each one of I know we want to know do we get
up in the air and do we land with everyone alive. Right. That's
what matters in the end. That's what matters isn't it. So I'm being
overly simplistic but I think there is an element is that you
really of coming back to who is the customer, right?
00;35;02;29 - 00;35;19;15
And what does success look like for that customer? And then what's
at what's one metric, what's one litmus test that we can use for
that? Right. And I think coming back to our mission is kind of
ultimately is we had engagement rate. You know, it was about how
many people engaged, right? You know, it was for the greater the
who was the customer.
00;35;19;15 - 00;35;30;01
It was the community itself. Right. And really, I think this was
slack and I think it came into play. We could actually see how many
people are engaging. And that was a way we measured. And because
there was a lot I think it was a big success.
00;35;31;24 - 00;36;07;17
And I would agree. I mean, it's yeah, there's different ways to do
that. I mean, we keep talking about it humble, humble, brag about
it because, you know, it is it's something we hold dear for for for
us for our reasons and we'll leave it there. But so we have we have
this this idea we've created a place for those ideas to be shared
and heard and regulated I mean, because there's some there's some
real far out ideas that that are possible, but probably not in the
current state maybe.
00;36;07;17 - 00;36;28;16
And we start to think about futuristic. So in any case, the dialog
was created for everybody to come together to think about things in
you and yourself. And we have this we'll go back to the transition
mindset. We know where we want to go. We're thinking about how
we're going to get there. We're having an open mind to consider
what happens when I'm going to hear from people.
00;36;28;19 - 00;36;48;00
I'm going to go out, I'm going to talk to people, I'm going to I'm
going to figure out how to do this. This kind of the duality of
this issue now that's been created as I have internal a perspective
where over over a period of years where we always get jammed up is,
well, this is the way I've done it.
00;36;48;12 - 00;37;09;21
I'm going to continue to do it this way. And if we're that's why
that open mind is critical, because if you're hearing something
that you don't like, we all know that sometimes that's what you
need to hear when you're not hearing what you want to hear. There's
a reason for that. And so when we start to classify what we need to
hear as something that I don't want to hear, what do you do with
that?
00;37;09;21 - 00;37;27;18
And that's the benefit of now opening yourself up to hear things
that you haven't heard previously, because that's where your growth
potential could occur. When you have that and operate as an
opportunity in front of you and then you act on it. I think that's
kind of the fore fourth element here is to be impactful. You have
to get to the next step and do something with it.
00;37;29;27 - 00;37;49;28
Well, something like coming back to a point which I think maybe
lateral that is, sometimes you can you can define the doors that
that you want to achieve and are measuring, but it's also okay to
define the things that you don't want to achieve, right? Is I'll
say this is not a priority. This is not you know, it's not about
this.
00;37;49;28 - 00;38;04;22
It's not about A, B and C, right. Sometimes that gives a lot of
clarity on the results you do want to achieve. And there's less
confusion because you've got all of of the the negatives, let's say
the negative is defined or the non goal is defined as well.
00;38;06;02 - 00;38;25;08
So right. David, so that the non goals I mean these are these are
factors are things that we all know, you know, a plant, a plan is
defined based off of what's known and even what's not known will be
known like, hey, we know this. So we're going to try to do that and
be aware of these things.
00;38;25;08 - 00;38;43;29
And that's the unknown, right? So we factor in some of the things
that are unknown with the open mind. We're able to kind of make a
clear delineation between where our left and right and a backstop
would be like if we occur if we encounter too many things that we
didn't plan for, we need to stop. So now we have a measure, a time,
a timeline to be able to let's reassess.
00;38;44;15 - 00;39;09;11
But then we factor in the things that we weren't aware of, which
now comes with other people if other people come into the equation
and have input. My question to anybody really is what are you
willing because we can't talk about these external occurrences. Do
we ever how often do we account for the internal occurrence to say,
somebody is going to tell me something?
00;39;10;17 - 00;39;31;24
How am I going to see that as one of those factors that we
accounted for? And take ourselves out of what that person saying?
This is feedback. I mean, basically you can equate it to feedback.
Are we going to hear it for what it is and then do something with
it or are we going to dismiss it? And this is listening to your
leaders write all of these elements that we talk about.
00;39;32;04 - 00;39;37;18
When you listen to others, who are you considering the ones that
are valuable enough to be heard.
00;39;39;20 - 00;40;02;04
Well, I think that's a great point. You know, coming back and
communication, listening, right. You know, the connections on, I
think a part of the goal is going back to the element of the RACI,
the approver, right. You know, who who who is the approver? Who is
going to track the results? Is their perception or their acceptance
of the results, you know, is that the right person for that?
00;40;02;04 - 00;40;03;29
Right. I think it's very, very important to call out.
00;40;05;18 - 00;40;32;13
Yeah, it's it's it is it's a tough one because when you're when
you're intensely focused on a path that has been defined under
different circumstance, ounces in the warmth, the safety comfort of
wherever you are, you're developing a plan on your whiteboard while
you have coffee in your hand. You know, you're you're comfortable
and then you get out.
00;40;32;13 - 00;40;59;23
And now it's uncomfortable because the inclement weather, it's
cold. It's it's not where you want to be. How does information
occur to you in different environments and circumstances where
you're going to continue on with the point as as you act, you
should understand completely that that's your learning environment.
And that's probably the only I mean, this is debatable, but this is
me talking.
00;41;01;20 - 00;41;20;08
That's the only thing that you should ever carry into your mindset
is everything that's going to happen after I take this next step is
something that I need. I need to learn, I need to pay attention to.
I need to factor in what I'm going to do next. Now, you can
compartmentalize it. You can say well, that's that's important,
that's urgent.
00;41;20;18 - 00;41;37;06
That's not as important. That's relevant. Maybe not relevant now.
But I'm going to make note. This goes back to what you're saying,
writing it down. So you have a, you know, some nuggets and
breadcrumbs to go back to you to say so-and-so said something a
couple of weeks ago that I didn't know that it meant something
then, but it means something now.
00;41;37;15 - 00;41;51;25
And you have record of it and you can incorporate it because you
never know when these things will come together to build something.
The pieces to the puzzle. You're going to get pieces over time that
you never know if it's going to actually surface itself to be
relevant in the future. You don't know, but you have to think about
it.
00;41;52;20 - 00;41;59;28
Well, I think I spot on, Chris. I that's why we had all the bulls
written down for maybe 11 because like everyone on Veterans Day was
doing a marathon, wasn't that correct?
00;42;02;15 - 00;42;12;11
I think you need to wear your bow tie and your sweater vest, get
out there and do that marathon. If you do that, I'll run with you
all right.
00;42;12;11 - 00;42;16;19
As long as I your game for under three 30 Boston qualifier Chris
Stapleton.
00;42;17;29 - 00;42;19;05
Not saying it's impossible.
00;42;20;06 - 00;42;28;04
That's right. If it was the end of the world and if we got invaded
like in the red movie Red Dawn right. Yep yep. We'll run some
marathons yeah.
00;42;28;09 - 00;42;53;29
Chase me and we'll see what happens. I don't know yeah. So you know
thinking about where you want to go thinking about how you can get
there and your current mindset knowing that your current mindset is
not the future mindset think about what you're going to incorporate
as part as far as the, the contributors to your growth to know if,
if what you're doing is aligned to what you set out to do.
00;42;55;07 - 00;43;18;06
Anticipate that you're going to learn things along the way and have
that as your primary objective so you can receive information or
clarity without interference of your self-talk or your conditioned
mindset that has you thinking, Well, this is the way I've done it
before. This is how I'm going to do it again. I mean, there's
there's limitations on that.
00;43;18;06 - 00;43;40;01
And I think we all get that context and then what how are you going
to incorporate as you learn, what are you going to need to do to be
impactful? It takes a little bit of work I think the thing that you
landed on early, David, was key the plan. What is the plan? Because
some of us just have an idea and then we execute on that idea.
00;43;40;11 - 00;43;58;02
I use your analogy, so sitting on my butt for several months, I
used to run sitting on my butt for several months. I go out and try
to run that tank. Not good. It's not a great idea. Your hips will
tell you things, right? Your knees will tell you things. All right.
So I use those as an indicator.
00;43;58;02 - 00;44;07;18
And the analogy of like you can't just get up and do stuff if
you've never done it before and think that you're going to get to
where you want to be. And if you do well, congrats. You're
lucky.
00;44;08;14 - 00;44;26;10
I think a spot on, you know, kind of on closing, Chris, is that
ultimately you set your goal, build your plan. Who is the customer?
Sometimes the customer is yourself. Sometimes the customer is your
boss. Sometimes your customer is an external customer. Then define
how you're going to measure that result in a way that you can
actually measure.
00;44;26;12 - 00;44;44;21
Right. And the last but not least, right you have regular check
points and milestones until they actually look, are we on plan? Do
we need change the plan? Are we going to achieve the results or not
is sometimes there can be things are coming up but you adjust. You
now have a new plan, you have update the customer, update your
approval, and then you get ready to go.
00;44;45;15 - 00;44;51;22
Well stated. Last thing, listen to your people all right. David Z
it.
00;44;53;17 - 00;45;11;06
Is that it, Chris? Well, we're never ending. You know, our goal is
that every month we're going to get 10% more listeners to the
podcast and we're not going to we're going to take the variables,
we're going to get the feedback on that and we, we're going to
continue to strive to that. And because we can keep doing that
forever, it can't we?
00;45;12;01 - 00;45;25;10
We could. I'm going to, I'm going to throw something out here. It's
just we're talking about that. If you got this far into this
podcast, and this episode and you hear this send send David and I
have a LinkedIn message and say, I heard it.
00;45;27;15 - 00;45;45;23
We loved it. We'd love to hear from you. And I would say that
people that have reached out to us, I respond to every single one.
We welcome the feedback and because we want to make this better for
the community. And so we're excited to get all your messages. And
even though I get a gazillion messages from LinkedIn scammers or
what else, I respond to everyone.
00;45;45;24 - 00;45;46;14
Believe it or not.
00;45;47;07 - 00;45;50;12
I believe it already. One Keep moving forward.
00;45;50;24 - 00;45;51;11
Let's roll.