Unleashing Your Best Work Through Healthy Conflict and Feedback - with Billie Mandel
Do you want to unlock your creative potential and foster innovation? We know that collaboration and communication are vital to producing outstanding work, but what you might not know is that the foundation of that is healthy conflict. Without it, we can't achieve our creative best.
In this episode, we welcome Billie Mandel, a seasoned expert in design, coaching, and education with a focus on critique, conflict, and creativity. We'll delve into the importance of expressing divergent ideas, how to ask difficult questions, and creating a safe space for diverse thoughts, mistakes, and asking "what am I missing." Additionally, we'll highlight the critical role of feedback in this journey and offer tips on how to solicit, offer, and receive feedback with care and effectiveness. So tune in as we uncover the impact of productive conflict in the quest for creativity and innovation.
Billie Mandel is a multidisciplinary social scientist, educator, collaboration and leadership coach for creative and technical teams and professionals. As a “first wave UX designer,” design leader, and coach, she has been in corporate boardrooms for decades, watching teams make the same mistakes over and over. She and her wife now run Mandel Creative, their very own feminist, anti-racist creativity and learning consultancy, so she can spill all the tea on what she’s observed and learned. With incisive, sometimes provocative, structured techniques and methods honed over years working with distributed teams, Billie coaches people to communicate, collaborate and create in a way that builds sustained value both for the business and for the humans employed there.
Discussed in this episode
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
Radical Candor: Fully Revised and Updated Edition: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean by Kim Scott
Connect with Billie Mandel
CEO and Chief Instigator, Mandel Creative
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Strategic UX Leader Coaching and Workshops
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Leigh Arredondo 00:02
UX Cake is all about developing the layers you need to be more effective in your work and to be happy and fulfilled in your career. I'm your host, Leigh Allen-Arredondo. And I'm a UX leader and leadership coach. Hello, and welcome to UX Cake. Today we are diving into the topic of using healthy conflict and feedback to help us produce our best creative and innovative work. I think we all know that innovation and creativity and producing our best work really requires a certain level of collaboration and communication, at least in the work that we do in UX. We work with so many other people in order to get our work out there. But what many of us may not realize is that at the core of this is productive conflict. And without that conflict, that productive conflict, we're really not going to be able to produce our best work. My guest today is Billie Mandel. And she is a design leader and a coach and educator and facilitator and she gives workshops and trainings in the subjects of critique and conflict and creativity. And in this episode, we're going to be discussing the importance of speaking up and offering divergent ideas, learning how to ask uncomfortable questions and creating a safe environment to do that, to get divergent ideas for making mistakes. And for asking, What am I missing. We also are discussing the crucial role that feedback plays in this process. And Billy's gonna be sharing some tips on how to solicit as well as give and receive feedback in a way that is caring, and effective. And speaking of feedback, I really appreciate getting feedback from you all about UX cake, it can be a real challenge sometimes to get this podcast made, and get it out there for you. And I only keep doing it because of the positive feedback that I get from listeners who find it helpful. And I have also gotten constructive feedback. And that's equally helpful. Because it helps me iterate and and improve right, like putting the name of the guests in the title instead of in the subtitle, or example. And that made so much sense. Once it was pointed out to me, I want to thank you if you have taken the time to read and review UX cake. And if you haven't yet and would like to help us reach more listeners, please do leave us a five star rating wherever it is you listen or a thumbs up on YouTube. And a quick review or comment really helps us out and it helps me understand what it is you like. And if you have any constructive critique or suggestions. Of course, I am all ears. Drop us a line through our website at UX kake.co, or one of our UX cake pages on social media. We're on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. I think we are also on Facebook. But I don't actually have to admit I don't actually check. Facebook. Okay, well, let's jump into this great discussion with Billy Mandel. Hello, Billy, welcome to steak. It's Thank you. So nice to have you on the podcast.
Billie Mandel 03:47
Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Leigh Arredondo 03:49
Today we're gonna talk about the role of conflict in creativity. And I'm excited about it. I think you and I have a lot of similarities in, in in as much as we're both very non conformist. We don't put up with bullshit. We both are very intuitive, and also very compassionate. I think that drives a lot of the work that you and I do. We and yet we're also very different in our style of communication. And so I think that's going to make this a really fun conversation.
Billie Mandel 04:26
I am excited. Thank you so much for having me.
Leigh Arredondo 04:31
Also, I have to say I respect the hell out of you. And that is really I think that is a key element of what we're talking about today, which is productive. Conflict, the need for productive conflict in doing anything that is creative, anything that's big, anything that is new. And I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about this talking to people about this. So tell me a little bit about your thoughts on why is conflict so important for creativity?
Billie Mandel 05:14
That is a great question. Lee, thank you so much. There are a few questions that have been driving me for many, many years as I've been observing the behaviors on the teams that I worked on the teams that I lead the teams that I worked with, and now the teams that that come to me and my coaching practice. And one of them is, why is it that there are so many teams of kind, smart people who really get along well, and continually produce? Work? So there's one of them right there. And then I also really have to keep wondering, why is it that certainly in the in the software industry, on technical teams, creative teams, within within the software industry as well. And even in in teams, I'm starting to see in other types of industries and finance and healthcare, they see a very similar disjunction, if you will. We all seem to know our supposed to fail fast. Oh, we're supposed to put the user at the center, we're supposed to have empathy. Everybody can tell you what we're supposed to do. But in the moment, when you've got humans sitting in a room making decisions, they don't do it. Hmm. So looking at those two phenomena together, people like each other, they feel like they should be producing great work, because they care a lot. And they've got great relationships. But somehow, they're falling short. And I think the biggest observation that I've seen is that the change that you can make with teams starts between people's ears. It's always gonna start between people's ears. And what is happening between people's ears very often is fear of conflict. Very often it Yeah, it's it's fear of conflict. It's fear of judgment. It's fear of speaking out and getting fired. It's fear of the power over happening in most of our organizations, most of which are very hierarchical, that makes it structurally really hard for people who have less power in an organization to challenge that organization. Yeah, the other the other thing that I really see happening is, this has been a little bit controversial with some of my clients make it people don't like when you talk about patriarchy, they do not like it. I think one of one of the biggest observations that I've had in my practice, is that individual awareness of what matters to me what matters to my team, what are the ways in which I can speak up and contribute to the overall collective output of my team? What are the ways in which disrupting my own comfort is required for me to do something that is unexpected. So there's definitely a thing there, too, I like to teach sometimes using the Johari Window. But I don't use it the way a lot of people use it. So Johari Window, you've got known to self not known to self known to others, not known to others. And the main principle is that you have to get other people's perspectives in order to find out what you don't know about yourself. And you have to share more about yourself in order to get better perspectives. And both of those things together will create possibility of defining the unknown unknown. So the only way what what that means in in terms of how teams teams interact is if you and I are working together. And we're sticking with what we are already comfortable with. We're not going to innovate, we're not going to be creative, because we're going to pick one of the ideas that either you or I has and can persuade the other is good. So if I have an idea, and you have an idea, and we pick one of them and just go with it, and one plus one is one. But if we engage with each other such that we're filling in each other's blind spots, we create the possibility of making something together that neither one of us expected. So that that's where the conflict is choir you have to, some people don't like when I say conflict, like what me? What do you mean conflict conflict is is adversity, we don't want conflict, we need safety, everyone has to feel comfortable not everybody has to feel a little bit uncomfortable.
Leigh Arredondo 10:14
You brought up something really important about revealing something that is unknown about ourselves. And that can feel vulnerable. In fact, putting something out there that you're uncomfortable with, or that, you know, putting yourself out there for many, many people feels very uncomfortable and vulnerable. And your word safety kind of was basically what I was thinking about, like how but safety is required a feeling of safety, that which is very different from discomfort, you can, you can in fact, I believe that you can push your limits of comfort and discomfort if you feel safe. And so I would love to get your your thoughts on that.
Billie Mandel 11:10
Well, certainly, vulnerability is required. My very favorite favorite leadership book ends up still being Daring Greatly by Brene. Brown. It's my favorite because the idea of choosing what you share about yourself with whom, intentionally is really important, particularly if you're in a leadership position. I'd like to say to to my group clients in particular, and my leaders, your teams are going to do what you do, not what you say. Right? So being intentional about showing that you to make mistakes, showing that you to understand that everyone's first idea is not the best idea to have. And what I see is that folks who are more experienced and more skilled, ask for less feedback, because they assume they shouldn't have to. And they're a little bit indignant about the idea that they should need it. But if you think about how bias works, and how our brains work, we become as we get more experienced, more sure about the things that we know, and we're confident about our own contributions. But that means that we're missing our blind spots even more. So combining our D, our ideas with other people's ideas is that much more important as we gain experience, in order to make not only make sure ideas are still relevant, but in order to maximize the creative output of a collectivity, if you know, you got to see in 50, or 50, people just do what the boss says, then the bosses capacity for accepting different perspectives becomes a creativity ceiling on the whole team. And so leading with vulnerability is really, really, really, really important. And that's what often indexes the entire team on how safe is it to screw up? How safe is it to admit, I don't know. If they see the boss same? Well, here's my best thinking on this problem, what am I missing? That's my favorite question. What am I missing? The shared understanding of what am I missing means everyone is missing something and indicates to us as we digest it, that collaboration is how we lift our output. But you're right, it does require putting ourselves out there. And that can be really, really challenging, particularly for folks who are not used to being accepted in the workplace exactly as they are.
Leigh Arredondo 13:58
And there can huge like may actually not be accepted as who they are, you know what I mean? Like in a situation where that safety isn't there. It can be challenging to, to recommend to someone to do this to take that leap or to to put themselves at risk of being shot down. I think it's important for for that sense of safety to come top down and I think that's what you were talking about. Like if it's not coming top down. It's very difficult to create safety bottom up that just Oh yeah, yeah, it happens.
Billie Mandel 14:55
It's on the leaders. It is 100% on the lead. Have a team to protect the team from being sanctioned for sharing unpopular or divergent opinions, the way that I think about it is that, again, every design school in the world is going to tell you diverge, converge, diverge, converge. But how many teams do you actually see diverging, and letting themselves sit in the discomfort of here's all the different ways that we can do it. Usually, teams don't diverge that far, how much tolerance is there for people to say, I don't agree, or I'm afraid we're missing something. Or I know, Miss Boss, you're really, really fired up about this idea. But I'm really worried that we're missing this important point that might cause this important consequence, this whole idea of unleashing the potential of a team too often, what is capping the team's potential is what the leadership is willing to accept not only as a solution, but even within the process of creative ideation. Your question about comfort and discomfort I want to come back to because it's really, really important. It's something I've been thinking a lot about, especially recently, I have a few new big teams that I'm working with, and I'm seeing this come up a lot. The best analogy for why you need to increase your tolerance for discomfort is going to the gym. The people who get up and go to the gym regularly know that it's going to be painful. They know that they're actually if they're lifting those weights, breaking down the fibers of their muscles, so that they can regrow more strongly. And they are motivated to incur that pain because they accept that that pain is going to lead them to to an outcome that they want. I think it's exactly the same thing. And in fact, overcoat Brene Brown, but there's one, there's one point that she makes it that really underlines this. She did say that the idea if you really want to have that feedback, culture, the creation of have more tolerance for dissenting perspectives. Too many people talk about getting comfortable having hard conversations. But what she says is normalizing discomfort. If you normalize discomfort within your organization, that's what you need. In order to get those those better outcomes. Those more creative outcomes. Those outcomes were people who are different from the leadership, people who have new perspectives can actually contribute. But the thing that I've noticed recently, in addition is that you can't just say normalizing discomfort, and Mike drop it right out there that in the same way that you can't just say, go lift weights and break your muscles, you're gonna get stronger. People who go to the gym to lift weights, know that if they are lifting in the wrong position, or they do too many reps or too many sets, or I did arms yesterday, what the heck, it looks good. When I do arms, that person over there look, and I'm gonna do some arms. And they do themselves damage. Yeah. So at the gym, they have to discern between healthy discomfort and unhealthy discomfort. And that's the trick with creative and technical teams as well is increasing the overall group tolerance for discomfort and dissenting perspectives. In fact, training them to want it the way a weightlifter freely wants that burn even though it hurts, what they want what comes on the other side, that's really the trick is training ourselves to want the discomfort that comes from knowing where we're not there yet.
Leigh Arredondo 19:27
Yeah. And similar to what you're talking about, like, let's continue using the analogy of going to the gym. You're talking about structures that they have and, you know, they've learned some rules. They've learned some guidelines of what is what makes healthy and versus unhealthy. It is really important for individuals to learn how to communicate in healthy ways. How How to You challenge directly with route. The radical candor book puts it, you know, challenge directly while carrying personally, which is the very you know, kind of this difference between healthy conflict in unhealthy conflict. You've got naysayers, that doesn't usually, you know just adding a bunch more naysayers is not going to give you a better product. I think that's what you're talking about here with healthy versus unhealthy conflict. Yes,
Billie Mandel 20:35
yes, yes, yes, yes. And if everyone has had the experience, I think it is certainly if you work in design, you've had the experience of going to a quote unquote, design critique, where somebody shows some work, and you're supposed to, quote unquote, give them feedback. Here's the analogy I'd like to give there is that it, it's like my son, when he was smaller, who's in middle school, he knows how to ask for feedback now. But you know, when your kid is seven, and make some art, and they just show it to you, all they want is your approval not to like, they just want, I'm good. I tried. I surprised myself, I just want approval for that. And that's cool. That is great. If you're a kid, it's great. But for crying out loud, that's not what we're designed critique for. One of the biggest mistakes I see is, and it's not just with with designers, it happens in other fields as well. But since critique is is one of those things we know we should do, right? So everybody does it, somehow, most of us are doing it backwards. Most of us are thinking I'm gonna go off on our on my own, I'm gonna give my best shot at solving this problem. And there are going to be some parts of this problem that I am not sure I'm standing on solid ground, but I'm going to give it my best shot. And I'm going to bring it to design critique, and I'm going to shut my trip. And if nobody spots it, if everybody says, Yeah, you're good, and I'm good. But then who finds the problem, whatever it was, I'm not really sure that I solved well enough. That's the customer, the customer finds it every time. And if you multiply that by, by the number of designers who have each been given some tiny little feature to design out of context, it's not a surprise that so much of our software sucks. Well, I find that I mean, you teach people this and they all laugh, and they all recognize themselves and the little kid going to like it. But in the moment when we get to the design critique, what are we going to do differently? We can differently. And there are always two sides of it. There's the what do I do as an individual person? How do I demonstrate courage and vulnerability? How do I get myself to the gym? How do I get myself into the into the arena and get some information that I need to know? So that I can improve?
Leigh Arredondo 23:22
Yeah, yeah, the getting feedback, knowing how to get good feedback is just as much of a skill as giving. Oh,
Billie Mandel 23:39
absolutely. And it's so funny, too, because I have a program critical collaboration for creative teams. I bring it into big companies, big teams, you know, and they all want to know, how do I give critique? How do I give critique, they always want to start with providing, they always want to surprise, everybody wants to know, how do I tell somebody else what they
Leigh Arredondo 24:03
do, right? Wrong? That's right. In fact, I was thinking about how how we listen. Often is we are listening for how can I find out? What's wrong with either what that person is saying? Or how can I find out what's wrong with somebody else? And when we miss how is this reflective of me?
Billie Mandel 24:37
I like to remind people having most folks have heard this, I'm pointing a finger at you, boy that is to be pointed right back at me. And maybe four depending on the position of my son. Most folks who are dissatisfied at their jobs, have somebody else to blame. They blame no loss. They blame the company culture, they blame their co worker Who takes credit for their work? Now, I'm not saying all of those things might not be deeply broken.
Leigh Arredondo 25:06
Sure, yeah. So there are things that are broken,
Billie Mandel 25:09
there are a lot of things that are broken. And if you're sitting there hating your job waiting for your organization to change, you're gonna be waiting for a long time. One of the most surprising paradoxes I see in coaching people and teams on critical collaboration is that the individuals have a lot more power than they think they do, to change the outcomes of everyday decisions on their team, to change their own experience and other people's experience on the teams. And to change their experience of interacting with that power structure. Right? If you've got a boss who's always disappointed, it can really get you down after a while. But if you take a step back, okay? Why is she always disappointed? I'm working my tushy bones off over here. Once you take a deep breath, you can see your expectations and understanding of how you create value are very different from your bosses. Yeah. So there's a difficult conversation that if you have it, you will be better positioned to be successful tomorrow than you are today. But so many folks are so twisted up and afraid of hearing. I think that's the other thing that's interesting about I teach my program in three distinct sections. I teach soliciting critique. So structure and techniques that I have created to help people ask for the information they need so that they can get an accurate baseline of what are my superpowers? How am I delivering value now? How do the people who rely on me to contribute, see my contributions? And what would it look like for me to contribute more effectively today than I did yesterday, the best part of all of that is that it is 100% in your control. Everybody who's listening to this, they've been leaving money on the table, because there's a tool that is in their control to be able to be better today than they were yesterday. And too many folks are afraid to use it. Explain. So I like to, I like to start with soliciting critique, because, for example, if I show up the story, we just hold that shit, I show up to critique I've made something I've got hurts I'm more confident about I've got parts I'm less confident about. And there may be 1015 other people in the room, that's an opportunity for me to get their brain power in to fill in my blind spots, such that I can iterate the work and improve it. Does this meet your expectations? What am I missing? How do you see it? Maybe it means I have to go back and do it again. Maybe it means I thought I was done. But I'm not done. Maybe it's going to mean that I thought I was really strong in this area. And actually there's stuff for me to learn. If you don't find that stuff out, then you are wildly guessing if you want to if you want to improve. If you're somebody who considers yourself I get asked all the time, okay, well, I've read mindset, I know I'm supposed to have a growth mindset, but how do I actually change my mind?
Billie Mandel 29:02
And one, one of those things is training yourself to need that pay in training, you're training yourself that the delta between what I think of myself in my own work, and what you think of it is that's all growth material. For me.
Leigh Arredondo 29:20
There's another Mindset structure that I think is more in line with what you're talking about, which is a learner mindset versus a judger mindset. And so with the learner mindset, which is, I would say, also a growth mindset is you're asking questions, so that's how you change your mind you ask questions, what am I missing? And what could be true? You know, what assumptions Am I making? Things like that?
Billie Mandel 29:49
So that is absolutely true. No matter how much experience you have. Your best thinking is going to be limited by your own experience. The into your own biases. Whether you were brought to your mother or put in an incubator when you were born like social psychology, your parents drama, all of that, oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. For real, for real. The thing about solicit is no is training yourself to need and want the pain of understanding where you're falling short. And that does mean getting out of your egos way. It also means really thinking about where you get your ideas about, about what can and can't change. That's why the idea of growth mindset is so important. So on the on the one hand, training the individuals to crave those perspectives and to really want to get right sized, a mentor of mine taught me that word, right size that I love it, because to many of us, I'm like, I'm a rock star, I'm a legend, except for the areas where I suck, and I'm terrible. And I'm the worst. Neither one of those things is usually true, right? Most of us have have a balance of strengths and weaknesses and ways that we contribute. One of the techniques that I like to share with folks who are who are starting their journey to solicit critique, well, is shine a light on the ugly part, shed light on the ugly part, it feels really counterintuitive. This is it's the the punch line of the tea like it story. When I come into a critique, I know that what I most need is other people's brainpower on the part of, of the work that I'm least confident about. So I help the others help me by shining a light on whatever the part is that I'm least confident about. So what's the what's the ugly part because that's the valuable part. So shedding light on the ugly part, if that also helps people help help you. And it builds the psychological safety within the organization. If somebody you really respect on your team comes to you and says, Can I get your eyes on this? This is far as my best thinking has gotten me and I know conceptually, even if I feel really good about all this, I know conceptually that if I don't get somebody else's viewpoint, somebody else's perspective to fill in my blind spots, I am leaving money on the table. So what am I missing and shine a light on the ugly part? great places to start. To your point though, most organizations don't learn to start. They want to start by how to like provide how to like tell you and then make that do the solicit part first. The provide part I'm glad you brought up radical candor. I love Kim Scott's work. And I think the the core, the core premise of radical candor is important. It's the challenge. People over index on the challenge, like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be radical. I'm gonna tell you what, I think I'm a native New Yorker. Our entire culture is based on that. But the question is, especially for UX designers, why am I telling you? Why do we care so much? Why is it important? What it'll come? am I hoping for? Why do I want to provide so badly? What problem am I trying to solve? And that's where the caring personally comes in. So maybe it's, I want to tell my boss that. She has some habit of how she talks to me, that makes it really hard for me to hear her. What do I want from that? I just want to tell her how terrible she is. Okay, having yourself a feeling there. But really, what do you hope to get out of it? I wish she would stop doing that it would be a lot easier for me to hear her if she didn't do that. Not be Where's her benefit gonna come from there, okay, if I want our working relationship to go better than it has been, and I've taken a breath and done some self reflection, and I can see that there's this thing getting in the way. So I'd like to bring it out in the open because I care.
Leigh Arredondo 34:35
I want to make sure that we have time to get to everything that you wanted to get to you did mention three steps. So I think we covered soliciting feedback. We've covered a bit of giving feedback, which is after soliciting feedback.
Billie Mandel 34:59
The third, the third pieces receive. But then there's also the next level of the whole thing is how does all this stuff work across power dynamics, which is a whole
Billie Mandel 35:15
nother conversation. We have so many conversations we can have. We're just
Billie Mandel 35:19
like that. I think. All right, so here's the deal. The thing about receive, you know, again, it comes back to the everybody knows that for growth and for creativity. You need to iterate. Most of us don't do it. It's one of those shameful secrets. So
Leigh Arredondo 35:40
it surprises me. So every time I don't know why it surprises me. So often, when someone is coming to me and and telling me they have an issue with someone on their team, who's just not iterating How can I get them to iterate? How can I? Oh, goodness, like, oh, we have so many people in design and research who, who aren't iterating. Understand. But I mean, I understand, but I still get surprised. But I want to hear what you have to say about it.
Billie Mandel 36:15
iteration is important because growth and learning happens. cyclically, you tried something and you see what the delta is between what you expected and what you saw anybody who has ever set you on a blind usability test. It surprises you every time what I thought they were gonna do Vader something totally
Leigh Arredondo 36:33
different. Yeah. Sure.
Billie Mandel 36:37
I think the problem is that, as a culture we have over indexed on the hero's journey, we've over index, especially design culture, and all this storytelling. Even some of our greatest feminist thinkers are the hero's journey, the story arc, make sure that it's escalating up and escalating up and you've got your, your, the place where the action will dip, but then they end on a triumphant high, all of our our stories. So you'll notice, I'm wearing a spiral, I'm always I've got them in my ears, I've got them around my neck, here's something that I have noticed that's kind of hard to, it's hard to lead with. But it's great to end with learning, growth, innovation, which are essentially the same thing. Innovation is is a factor of learning and growth at collectivity level, it doesn't happen in a hero's journey, it doesn't happen. In just that linear segment, that linear segment is a piece of a greater spiral. Our seasons change each year, we get a little bit older, and some of us are going to feel like we're doing the same things over and over. It's only by embracing that our our learning and our knowledge is not this triumphant, patriarchal hero's slex. But it's this more nuanced, cyclical spiral journey. When I am in that place of oh, here I am back here again, back in the same spot, if I'm honest spiral, right. The delta between where I was what I knew the last time I was in this place, and what I know now, the delta between those two things, that's where the growth comes from. That's where the key is. Yeah. But I think the more we embrace, that learning is a spiral. And that that there's a part of it, that's really hard when you're on the upswing into the fun, exciting new part, it's really exciting. But then there's always going to be that part where you're in the downturn, you're in the dark time that we're going into the dark time of year now. And it feels like it's gonna take so much time and effort to to get that Upswing back. But if we trust that, if we keep going and keep learning this thing and keep getting that right size baseline of where am I at and keep thinking, I want to be better today than I was yesterday. I want to participate more effectively. That's where that iteration comes from.
Leigh Arredondo 39:32
Yeah, and the I want to point out something that you mentioned in passing, but the importance of the reflection as you're going around that is what is fueling the growth is the reflection of oh, what is different, how is it different? Acknowledging you know what, what We have grown and acknowledging where we have yet to develop. But there's that reflection that's required to actually drive the growth. And the movement. Yeah.
Billie Mandel 40:17
You are absolutely right. And I think too many of us, okay, this is this is a great place to, to land this plane
Billie Mandel 40:30
that one of the reasons that self reflection is so important, and often so difficult for people, I think it's especially difficult in a professional capacity for those from historically underrepresented groups. Because we have learned to index on extrinsic motivation. But for anybody who who has had to code switch into a patriarchal, hierarchical environment there's there's that challenge, right, of having to I want the promotion, I want the title, I want the status because he's got it, and people are listening to him. I want more money and more a bigger piece of the pie. So I have to keep growing but growing doesn't mean taking higher steps on somebody else's ladder. And growing means looking at yourself and going, how am I holding myself back?
Leigh Arredondo 41:47
What do I want to learn is another thing we often forget to ask well,
Billie Mandel 41:51
what do I want to learn? What do I need to learn? What what is what am I being willfully ignorant of debt is is holding me back? Why do I want to learn it? Why am I willing to look at some things and not look at other things, it's usually the things that we are unwilling to look at that mean the most and have the greatest amount of potential. And I think that the the last thing that I will say there is in terms of of receipt, being somebody who comes at you really hard, even someone who's giving you critical feedback in a way that is unkind. It'll tell you something about them the way they deliver, it absolutely tells you something about them. But if they're coming at you with heat, that's a gift for you. You know, which we're software designers, we should be so lucky that somebody cares and gets passionate about the decisions we're making. So very often when somebody comes at us with heat instead of caving and being like, Oh, my man the rookie, man, I've got her opinions him very often it's an opportunity most often it's an opportunity. Wow options you're really heated about this helped me understand, weren't you afraid is gonna sharpen? I really need to know I've obviously missed something here. Let me Why is this so concerning to you? Then sometimes it's just oh, it was a surprise, it was totally different from how I would do it. And in that conversation. That's where you find those unknown unknowns, that's where you fill in the blind spots. So all this by way of saying that even across power dynamics, where there's conflict and dissent in perspective, there's stuff to be learned. And if we as individuals become hungry, for getting right size for understanding, what's that, what's the delta between what I assumed and what other people heard what other people perceived, then we can combine our star perspectives effectively, and then we're really doing collaboration. Otherwise, we're throwing spaghetti against the wall and whoever throws it hardest is going to stick and we shouldn't be wondering why it's not a gourmet meal,
Leigh Arredondo 44:31
right. Oh, I love that. Thank you so much for for sharing with us. All your wisdom. Before we go. You have mentioned your programs and I know that you work inside companies, but you also work with individuals. You work with teams. Where can people find out more more about how to work with you.
Billie Mandel 45:04
Thank you so much for asking, my website is Billiemandel.com, only one L, you can follow me on LinkedIn as well, please sign up for my mailing list. I know email is a thing, I won't send you that many. But anybody who is a solopreneur, please sign up for their mailing list so that that becomes part of their, their business that they're building. For me, I'm going to be offering some some classes to the public in 2023. And the people who are on my mailing list, we'll be the first folks to to hear about it. I also do have a small one on one coaching practice and I have a few openings starting in January. So find me at Billy mandel.com support your women solopreneurs. And folks who have have blazed out on their own during the pandemic, and go out and get right sized and learn something unexpected about yourself. That's what I have to say. Thank you, Billy. Thank you, Lee.
Leigh Arredondo 46:14
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