Alexis: 0:05

Hey, I'm Alexis Booth and welcome to the Breakout Booth. I was a senior manager at Google. I'm a wife and a mother, and I learned the hard way If you're not fired up, you're on hold. I believe success is closer than you think. There's a set of skills and habits you can grow to unlock unbelievable outcomes. In this podcast, we'll explore them through real talk and bold conversation, because I want to help you break out.

Alexis: 0:42

Hey there, and welcome to the Breakout Booth. I'm Alexis Booth, and today we are diving into the expansive topic of curiosity. It's something I doubt most people would even think about in the context of skills and habits, but when I really dug into the subject, I realized there are all sorts of times and places where I've used curiosity as a tool to propel me forward.

Alexis: 1:10

Perhaps the most obvious place curiosity shows up is in education. William Arthur Ward put it beautifully Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning. He suggested that curiosity is, in fact, a driving force behind the learning process itself. This type of curiosity is actually known as epistemic curiosity, and it's what drives you to know more and fill knowledge gaps. Daniel Berline introduced the concept in the 1950s, and this is the form of curiosity that inspires you to go deep into a particular subject, pursuing every single last detail you can about it. It can also lead you through broader exploration and help you notice linkages between seemingly unrelated topics. At least for me, this is the form of curiosity that first comes to mind when I think about what it means to be curious. It's what we employ in school in continuing education, and it's what philosophers, scientists and really anyone who's looking to answer age-old questions about life, the universe and everything used to propel them in their journey. By the way, the answer to all these questions is 42. Thank you, Douglas douglas Adams.

Alexis: 2:34

And moving on, the second way I have found myself using curiosity is in the context of my relationships with other people. This is a different type of curiosity known as empathic curiosity. It's the yearning to understand other people's thoughts and feelings. Martin Buber came up with the idea in the early 1900s, although nowadays, research in this area isn't looking to answer whether or not we have empathic curiosity, but rather when and how we develop it, and there's a particular focus on young children. In fact, doctors today monitor several milestones related to this as part of typical childhood development.

Alexis: 3:21

The last place I've found myself using curiosity is in the context of my own personal growth. It's a place where I've used it in a very intentional way, essentially using curiosity as a tool. I've used it to explore tricky situations as if I'm my own private investigator. I find it gives me room to offer myself the same kind of compassion and grace that I typically reserve for other people. Some of the most common types of moments where I use this curiosity is when someone gives me hard feedback or says something that's really tough for me to hear. I also use it when I'm feeling down or dissatisfied in some way. It's something I use to get to the heart of what's really going on in a much more pragmatic and productive manner, so I can figure out how to move forward.

Alexis: 4:17

Now, while curiosity itself is so intriguing and there are so many ways it can help you in your life, what I've ultimately come to realize is that being in a state of curiosity is actually the easy part. The tricky thing about curiosity is getting there. Scientists have actually found that feeding your curiosity stimulates the production of dopamine in your body. This is a hormone linked to pleasure and motivation, and I can personally attest that once my curiosity has been piqued, following it is usually a delightful and satisfying experience, but the thing that can be so hard is letting yourself get into a truly open and inquisitive state where you're also vulnerable to new ideas and information that could challenge the very foundations of what you know and believe.

Alexis: 5:16

What exactly is so hard about getting curious, and what does it take to make the leap? Well, I believe that fear is the biggest barrier that holds us all back. You can feel threatened by your own fears. Fears of failure, embarrassment or realizing maybe you don't actually know all the answers. And in order to move forward with curiosity, you first have to accept a willingness to change and adapt, and maybe even mess up a little bit along the way. And in order to embrace true curiosity, you also have to be willing to challenge things that you've come to know and believe. You might encounter extraordinary resistance from others who themselves are not ready to make the jump with you.

Alexis: 6:14

Ultimately, my exploration into curiosity has helped me appreciate just how beautiful and useful it is. I've also learned it's something we're hard wired to pursue. Yet the pursuit of curiosity isn't always easy, and if you haven't been pushing yourself to actively practice being curious on the regular, you might find that picking up curiosity after a long pause or pursuing it in a different area of your life can be scary or difficult, and if that's you, I'll tell you what. You're not alone, but I believe you can do it.

Alexis: 6:58

And with that I would love to bring someone very special to the mic, Linda Moss. Welcome to the show, Moss Boss!

Linda: 7:09

Hello, how are you?

Alexis: 7:09

I'm doing great. How are you? Any fun plans coming up for the weekend?

Linda: 7:14

Well, looking forward to the holiday that's about to hit us. So time away from the desk and the computer is in my very close horizon.

Alexis: 7:23

Very, very nice. Well, for our listeners. I had the very distinct pleasure of not only working with Linda for nearly three years, she was, in fact, my boss, my Moss Boss, which I never even knew that was your nickname until like a week ago. I'm now going to call you that forever. She is also an expert in the field of adult learning, with over 20 years - probably even more than that - in corporate enablement and education, and she knows all about how adults can learn and acquire new skills. Linda, can you give us a little bit more of a background on, you know, who you are and what you've done in this space?

Linda: 8:06

Got it. It's, yeah, very much my whole career based in the learning field, and I've had the privilege to lead learning organizations in a lot of tech companies really for the last 20 plus years, as you said. So it's a field I've worked in. It's also a field that I say I'm passionate about personally One of those first in my family to go to university, for example, right and I consider myself a lifelong learner and I've kept going that through graduate school, postgraduate, phd, and so it's something that I say, that I practice and I preach when it comes to the life that I lead

Alexis: 8:51

Very cool. Well, this podcast is all about hidden and misunderstood skills and habits and really raising awareness around them and talking more about what people can do to grow them. Curiosity is actually not even something that most people really think about in the context of skills or habits, but if you were to characterize it, what do you think it is?

Linda: 9:12

It's that I would say it's a fundamental trait that we have, isn't it? It's like that desire within us to find out about things, to explore and to understand the world around us, to kind of seek out new information. So I see it more of that delving into the unknown, finding out, you know, about things that we hadn't known before.

Alexis: 9:36

I like that description. Have you noticed in your life periods of time where you are more or less curious?

Linda: 9:43

I would say it's transition. It's interesting, I would say there's two times. Very often when I have space right, so time there to kind of I think the mind wonders what about? How does that? What you know, all those questions. I think we need time for those kinds of things. So I think you know, curiosity happens naturally. But I think sometimes, you know, in times of transition very often, or when we see a transition in front of us that kind of how should I, what should I? Why don't I kind of explore this? Those moments I think are more evident. At those transitional points, or even if they're not transitional points, we sense there's a major transition coming up for us.

Alexis: 10:30

Yeah, I like that when I've thought about it in some ways, I almost think about it as more of a mindset than a particular, although it kind of has within it skills and habits, because are you maintaining the mindset, you know? Are you having habitual moments of kind of dialing into it and whatnot? But yeah, I think, when I think about curiosity, I also see it very linked to learning and growth, which was actually what made me think about you in context of this episode. How do you see curiosity as being connected to learning?

Linda: 11:05

To me it's that one is the impetus behind the other. Yeah, it's true, you use the term that you use the term that you know curiosity being a mindset. It's like that desire and emotion and, oooh, I need to, right? And I think that's the spark, and then, very often, I see the pursuit of that, or allowing oneself to follow along with that, is what leads to learning and growth after it. Right, so, learning the time to maybe go a bit deeper, spend some time in acquiring right, taking time in understanding, but I see one is almost like phase one. You need that kind of spark to then, you know, lead to that learning and hopefully the result of the learning is growth into that next step.

Alexis: 11:53

Or someone needs to assign you learning, which is kind of what we were doing when we were working together, but actually the fun thing was always when people showed up to a mandatory class and they left it being very curious and inspired with what happened, and oftentimes you'd see people actually say, oh, I want to do more with this.

Alexis: 12:13

And they were finding books or finding other classes and whatnot I love. But I love what you just described there and if - I suppose the next follow on question would be what are some traps that would hold someone back either from curiosity itself or making progress in the learning and growth space?

Linda: 12:32

First of all, I think, some of - the traps behind curiosity or traps behind learning?

Alexis: 12:38

Why don't we stick with curiosity for starters? Right, that's really actually what the episode's about

Linda: 12:45

Yeah, got it! So traps behind - I think sometimes we have, first of all, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves, right. It's, you know, this whole thing behind curiosity or learning, right, there's almost like an impetus that I have to do something there, I have to spend time doing it, or there has to be an outcome, and sometimes I think we should just let the process take care of itself. Right, like you say, I love this word of the spark, because very often I think sparks can lead to the next spark and the spark after that, and there's a tremendous amount of learning one does, of ooh, I like that, I was good at that, I should pursue that. So I think sometimes we look for a result, almost like a tangible result.

Linda: 13:30

You know, we're very outcomes driven, aren't we? You know, what was the outcome of me spending that time? And, like I said, sometimes this exploration should be embraced, not looked at as a deadline, and I think we can fall into that far too quickly and maybe not give each other or give ourselves enough time that we give up very easily. Or no, that's not for me Before we've had the opportunity to say is that something I should be delving into? Right with that. I also think another trap is more of I think we hold ourselves back. Very often people are their worst critics I can't do that, or, oh, that's a little bit outside my where, the comfort zone, or what I think I'm able to do from a talent perspective. So I think that's the other piece too is we're our own worst enemies and very often put those brakes on ourselves at times rather than again dig in, delve in, give it a go right. Those type of things I always encourage people to think about.

Alexis: 14:36

Yeah, the way I'm thinking about it is literally fear. It can be scary to dig into things that you don't know, and I actually would say one of the things that was really challenging for me especially so I was fairly senior at the point that I had joined your team, and one of the thoughts that I had that kept on coming back to me at different moments, or maybe it was even unconscious was this thing of like I'm senior enough, now I'm supposed to know how to do all the things I can't mess up. If someone sees me mess up, then like I can't mess up. If someone sees me mess up, then like I shouldn't be in this job and it was. It was just this bad loop that I was in. So I do think that one of the things that does happen is you keep on going up the career ladder is it can feel like you have less and less latitude to mess up, but the reality is like you can't win every time.

Linda: 15:32

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you never know, you know why somebody is bringing you in for that role. You may, you know, be oh God, I can't, this is outside my comfort zone, I can't fail at this Whereas somebody bringing you, know you, into this role, I mean thinking back to you know when you joined the team, into this role. I mean thinking back to you, know, when you joined the team. Yeah, you were from outside the space, right, not a typical profile, but that was what I was looking for, right, and I think sometimes we want to, we kind of superimpose our feelings on feelings of others or hiring managers, you know, and aspects like that, holding ourselves back. You know what I was looking at. There was, I very much wanted a diverse team of thinking, diversity of thought. Right, I had a lot of learning professionals who knew what they were doing. But, you know, I was looking for someone that you know was going to look at things a little bit differently, but that came with us with some great skills like problem solving that had, you know, put together new programs before, and it was that aspect. You know, the other piece you had walked in the shoes of the people we wanted to teach. Right, you had done that role previously, and so what a joy and a benefit for us to have in our midst and part of the team the profile of the people that we wanted to build the program for.

Linda: 17:01

So, again, I think you know whether it's fear, whether it's holding ourselves back, whether it's putting our limitations on to people making the decisions. I think we do put a lot of these roadblocks in the way to say, nah, and I think, at the end of the day, it's a protective measure, right, yeah, it's trying to stay safe. Or if I don't get the job, yeah, if I don't get the job, that's why I wasn't the right fit or profile. Or if I'm not going to succeed here, you know, it's because I didn't have the right tools or I wasn't the right person or whatever you know. And I think we've got to get out of our own heads sometime. Right, and it is. There is a lot about risk taking Right With this, because a lot of this is around curiosity leading to change or change leading to curiosity and, as you say, that's scary at times.

Alexis: 17:50

If we actually go into that a little further. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people listening to this the idea of curiosity and sort of you know, potentially starting to go down some new path. If someone is interested in changing jobs, changing careers or whatnot, maybe you could talk a little bit more. What are some of the things you mentioned? You know other relevant understanding I had of the space that we were teaching to. But what are the some of the things that you would look at in a candidate that, even if they don't have the specific knowledge that's needed or expected out of the role, that there are other things that almost like it's like oh, but you have all of these other things and they make up for it or they make you a different kind of a candidate. What are the types of things that you would look for with that Got it?

Linda: 18:40

And I think it brings us back. You know, you and I both you know involved together at Google and if we think about what people, what we look at for hiring there, right? So, as we talk about role-related knowledge, it's a core component and that's something to look at, but that's not the only thing that we're asking and looking for. It is those things such as cognitive and critical thinking. Right, it's the ability to problem solve, to think big. Do you have a process mindset? Can you follow a plan? Do you have good interpersonal skills? You know all of these things. You know we talk about bringing our whole self. I think, whatever role that you're looking at, the role related knowledge is, yes, it's important, but it's what else you bring, and a lot of that could be as much as you know, the ability to connect with people, right, we talk about don't be googly-ness what on earth is that? But you know, the ability to connect with people, right, we talk about don't be Googleyness, what on Earth is that?

Linda: 19:36

But it is just that ability to relate, connect, respect each other, and I think it's all these things that make you who you are and that contribute to you. You know who you are towards that role I think you know you had mentioned even in you know, previous discussions we've had about women in particular, right applying for roles. If they don't see every bullet ticked, they will not apply for it, right, whereas I think our male counterparts are very different with that. And I think we've got to not look at things so specifically that, oh, if I haven't, you know, had 18 years experience of that, then I shouldn't apply. Because what about the other experiences I do bring that still give me that critical thinking, problem solving ability to design something, drive initiatives forward. So, you know, it's to look at it a little bit more broadly in that way that I think we should be willing to capitalize on and to, as you're applying for these things, what do look at your whole self and what you bring, not how much experience do I have in this particular bullet.

Alexis: 20:45

There's one other characteristic that I remember when I was at Google, we used to hire for well, I think you still do! Which is leadership, which is an interesting one, too, because typically, when you think about leadership, it's like oh, you manage a team, you have leadership. I actually remember there was a class that I took I think they stopped offering this almost 10 years ago, but I took it early in my career at Google. It was called Leadership Without Authority. And I think it's one of those really cool concepts that I actually, when I think about what makes a great manager, it's not the fact that they have formal authority. It's actually the things that, even if they weren't a manager, you would still want to follow them, because they're actually inspiring confidence, they're interesting, you like their ideas and you trust in their ability to lead, and it has nothing to do whether they actually have people who report into them that they could assign tasks or not. I think that's the last one, at least at Google.

Linda: 21:47

That's a really yeah, and I think you've made a really good point there as far as leadership and people management are two very different things. Yeah, for those reasons, and followership or even influence are two traits that actually, whatever our age, our experience in the workspace, that we can be exhibiting at any stage and should be, and, like you say, I think that's a great example of people assuming or reading too much into words rather than stepping back in. What does this kind of, what does this criteria mean and how do I exhibit it?

Alexis: 22:24

Yeah, If we're digging into curiosity a little bit further, how would you foster curiosity? Let's say I want to actually be more curious. I like the ideas of the things that can open up. What are some things that you might do? Got it.

Linda: 22:37

Got it and I think I would look at it. You know, both for yourself and for others. I would say, as you were talking about this, you know, curiosity, isn't it? There's something that very much is encouraged out of us, I think of little kids, you know, with the, you know, don't touch that. Why? Because you'll get hurt. Why, right? And then you go shh, shh, well, just don't.

Linda: 23:01

You know, it's almost something that we're encouraged not to do, and I think we've got to revisit for us, that childlike, you know, beginner's mindset, you know those types type of things which is important. So I think we've got to give ourselves permission, right to build the space for that right and to seek out those opportunities, um, uh, to do that. It can be incredibly informal, but we, I think we've lost it because we're so busy on sometimes. And don't we just work? I mean sometimes. I mean sometimes, life, the hamster wheel, right, I got to go to the shops, got to pick up the kids, got to go to work, got to visit this, got to do. You know, there's always stuff to do in the hamster wheel of life and the same old, same old, right, and the building, just in the space, to just explore what that's interesting.

Linda: 23:52

Why don't I find it some more? And I think it's a little bit of discipline at times, even though it's it's almost the oxymoron build space to let yourself do it, but you've got to build the discipline to give yourself the space and permission to do that and not feel guilty about it. Yeah, because I think it's without that we just, you know, we are on that treadmill without kind of stepping back. What is my passion? What do I want to do more of? What's interesting for me, what could be a good adjacent space and giving oneself time and permission to do that, yeah.

Alexis: 24:28

I think it's really important, really loved about having you as my manager and, you know, the leader of our team. You have a really, really great ability to push back and say no. I think a lot of people really have a hard time with it's scary sometimes to say no because it might be. I actually was quite accustomed earlier in my career of like I'd say no and I was like and I was told, no, you have to do it. So I was like what's the point of even pushing back if it's just going to get you know how did you build that muscle? That's an interesting one too.

Linda: 25:06

It's yeah. I think there's lots of different ways of saying no. A few folks come to mind and you can edit this out or bleep it out if you want. I mean, I always had one of my first bosses here in the States was a senior leader that had the you know piss. Poor planning on your part shouldn't be an emergency on mine, right? And so many of the things that we're asked to do that suck up our cycles are because somebody else has not done that and I. You know, I think that's something whilst I don't use those words, right.

Linda: 25:40

Very often we are put into a situation whereby the lack of foresight by others is an emergency that gets dumped on us, right? So I think speaking up on those behalves is important. I think we have to advocate for ourselves in those ways, and there also is ways of saying no. There's ways of saying no. There's ways of saying not. Now. There's different priorities. Rarely will I come out and just do a straightforward no, but I will do a hey, this is last minute I get. It's important to you. We're working on X, y, z. That's fine, but we're going to need till X to do it. So it's a we'll do it, but we need to kind of. You know we're bear in mind a lot of other things as well as we go through, you know, through those pieces.

Alexis: 26:31

Yeah, I think another one that I also have used in the past is well, I can't do this, I don't have the time. But if YOU want to do it, I'm happy to give you some coaching, you know. Try to turn it into a learning opportunity for them.

Linda: 26:44

Exactly. Yes, yeah, but I think you know we, we should, we, we, we do need to protect ourselves, and I, I do think people work hard and, like you say, there are quite a few win-wins that one can get to and can finally get to that result the other times, you know it is sometimes when you do say to folks look, you know I get it, but I've got this that I'm working on at the moment. You know we could potentially get this together by you know, next Tuesday or whatever. Suddenly it isn't a priority anymore, right, because you're not dropping everything to serve that and I think you learn a little bit on. You know what are the true areas where people do need help and you do need to lean in, and some of those ones that they can wait right, there's always tomorrow. You'd also said something earlier in your answer of you wait right, there's always tomorrow.

Alexis: 27:34

You'd also said something earlier in your answer of you know well what's my passion. What is it that I want to do? You've stayed in the learning and education space pretty much throughout your career, but you have also been at a number of pretty amazing companies. You've been at Google for several years, but you were at Palo Alto Networks and NetApp and Juniper. I mean there's a number of really cool places that you've been at. There's an interesting thing to even think about there of maybe it's not a matter of changing your job, but it's actually changing the situation that you're in or the specifics of the goals that you're going after. Of the goals that you're going after, can you talk a little bit about what led you to make some of those different changes, or maybe a little bit more about how different are any of these workplaces?

Linda: 28:20

You look at what you enjoy about a role right and where you learn. I always want to be learning, not doing something different, but I always want to be moving things forward and you know when I look at what I enjoy the most and I think understanding what you love is leads to some of this. So I love to build right. That's been I really enjoy. I like taking. I know what I'm good at. For example, I'm not good at the startup I've never worked for a startup so I'm not good at the three person company, where you've got the as well as drive it. You know delivering the training company, where you've got the as well as drive it. You know delivering the training programs. You've got somebody networking the computers right. I'm not that much of a startup person, but I do love to start, you know. So I need the basic infrastructure there. But then I love to take you know what is the nub of something small and build that into a repeatable, scalable. In my case it's a learning organization right.

Linda: 29:16

So that's always been my passion and I find my time of change has been where I've taken it so far that I think it's working well and maybe now we're into the norm. And whilst that's lovely to achieve, after a while it gets a bit boring, right, I find. And then I've been fortunate that another you know there's been people always say, isn't it? You can be asked to do things many times, but there'll be a right time where an opportunity arrives and where you are, you know, in your current status quo, and that's been for me, for the impetus, and I've always, I've always jumped for jobs where I'm building because that's what I love, and I would say that for anyone find out that and again, it's not I need to be the person leading an organization in a tech company. I'm never as restrictive as that, but I do know what my passion is and it's building right, and I would advocate for everybody to be clear what are you passionate about? Right, and for that, even though you know it's not the same, okay. So I'm going to build each time.

Linda: 30:29

Every time you do it differently, you take the lessons learned right that you've gone through, but every situation is unique, which I think is where the curiosity why didn't we try this? Well, that worked at the last company, but it's not going to work here. But maybe I can amend a couple of things to do it differently. So it's that for me, it's it's that build and it's also using some of the Lego blocks that I have in my toy kit, but also finding new ones right and putting those together. That really makes things fun. So those have been. You know that's been some of the reasons for movement, but I think you know there's a little bit of the growth there. But also, you know, taking some of the things I've learned along with me as well.

Alexis: 31:17

I love the call out about being bored, because that's actually literally part of what I was talking about the beginning of the episode. What led me to really do that deep thinking that led me to move into learning so totally different type of role than I'd been in before but that act of really getting curious and thinking, well, what do I like to do, what brings me joy? What are the things that bring me satisfaction that maybe aren't part of my core job now, and that was what led me there.

Linda: 31:45

And it's also challenging, if I can add one part, it's also challenging again some of the stereotypes that we see as we make change and then what's next for each other and ourselves?

Linda: 31:57

Yeah, I think so often we're kind of we put into this role, the next job has got to be a step higher or bigger, and again there's a pressure there that says it always has to be like this. And I think, like you say, it shows, I think, increasingly. First of all, life and the world of work is not, as you know, we talk about the corporate ladder. It's more like the corporate snakes and ladders, isn't it very often in that it's adjacent spaces and maybe it's the ladder slides, maybe it's the snake that slides down a little bit. But I think it's kind of embracing that and saying but every move is going to bring new learning, new skills, open new opportunities and those type of things. So you know, with your example it's not just the, you know I was the consultant and then I was running PS and then you know financial services there were some adjacent spaces as well and opened up great new opportunities, great new skills.

Alexis: 32:58

Yeah, Well, actually, the other place I wanted to even take this is when you moved to Google. You had been at a VP level for many years quite a few years, in fact, in fact and your move over to Google, you actually moved into a director role, which, for anyone who's not in corporate America, a VP is generally a higher position than a director. So you know, I think that's a different form of taking a different move. What led you to make that shift in your career?

Linda: 33:28

I would say it's maturity, right, and again, it's where I am on a trajectory. There's different things that are important at different stages of our life. I don't think any of them are right or any of them are wrong. I think it's important to be clear and name what's important to you right During your. So earlier on my career, title was the thing that motivated me and drove me, drove me so much I did move jobs, I moved states. I lived in a different state to my family for three years to chase a title and it was. It was the right, right thing to do. And I look back now I'm a no regret person and um, and so it not saying that, you know, career moves I've made were wrong. I think every one of them I've learned so much from and were done for a reason. But so title was important early on in my career. Where I am now right, it's more of that old adage again, been there, done that it becomes far less important to me now where I am, you know, moving towards the end of my career. So it is, you know, for Google it would be wow, this is one of the coolest companies on the planet, right, If they're going, if I have the opportunity to again. I'm going to I may not get the title here, but it's pretty big responsibility I'm going to be doing something different. I'm going to be building. So my magic word that has been with me all along is going to still be there.

Linda: 35:06

I get to work at this place so many people talk about, right, Particularly in tech and in Silicon Valley. You know that was one of the places like wow, and so you know you want to make sure there are certain things. So what's important to me now, at my age? Money certainly is right. So is that taken care of in what I want, what I need, what I expect? Yes, and am I going to get these other things then?

Linda: 35:32

That to me then was a no-brainer, but I think it wouldn't have been the decision I've made as a 20 year old. Right, it was on a 30 year old which was very much wanting to be on the corporate ladder, which was so important at that time. So again, I would say to folks you know, be clear. What's important, Right, and that's going to change, and that's good, Right, that's good that those kind of things do change. It's back to, you know, this whole concept of learning and growth and those and growth doesn't just mean in one direction. You can. I've grown so much and I've gone what I feel you know the last four years, really gone deep in understanding what it is to work at scale right in a company like Google. So, yeah, I guess that was some of the reasons behind that change.

Alexis: 36:29

Yeah, I love that answer and it also I can hear so much of myself in it too. I mean, I left Google just a few months ago, and that was really inspired because things changed in my life. Things changed around me, and so I really was at a point where I wanted to be around my family while we're navigating a bunch of things together. You know, sort of as an added bonus, like I had this idea of this podcast, which was this creative idea, and I'd been able to be creative at work for many, many years, but it was kind of bounded creativity, as in someone else, gave me the structure and, or you know, the domain of what I needed to be creative and it's you know. So I'm really enjoying the fact that I sort of have this blank canvas that I'm like, Ooh, what am I going to do next? And I keep on having these.

Alexis: 37:19

I was describing this in another episode of these idea fountains, Like it's literally like my brain is just like shooting out all these crazy ideas, Um, and, and it's fun and it's satisfying in a way that I haven't had access to in a while. I think there's many people who might look at me and be like what the hell did you do? Like, why did you leave?

Alexis: 37:41

And I'd been at Google for over 14 years. There's many wonderful things about the company and I also wanted to do something a little bit different and you know, the conditions of my own life really just sort of sparked the idea of actually doing something pretty significantly different and quitting.

Linda: 38:00

Yeah, very true.

Alexis: 38:13

So you are a manager and a leader, Linda. We've talked about what you can do for yourself in terms of fostering curiosity, but, as a manager, what are things that you could do to foster curiosity for your team or for people who report into you?

Linda: 38:19

I think the first thing, I think modeling right some of this and to show that what are you doing as well to explore different adjacent avenues and those type of things. I think encouraging others right to take time, to carve out time for themselves in this area, right. One of the things that I do love that I think you know not want to harp about Google all the time, but one of the things that I have loved is the concept of the 20% project, right, or even Bungees, that google is known for as well, which is all the 20% project, first of all. I think is a lovely thing because it says why not take a percentage of our time to work on something that you're interested in, right? So it's carve out that it's not and what I love about it, it's almost an expected part that this is a great way to be curious about other adjacent spaces and take the time. You know some of these things we said are often hard to find time to do, but find out what they are and take the time to pursue those. So you know, some of the things I always try and encourage is, where possible, to take advantage of those kind of opportunities to, because I think these are the kind of things can lead to people understanding.

Linda: 39:42

I had time to think about that and I realized that's what I was passionate about, or that's what I wanted to build some new muscle in. But until one has the chance to do that and give permission to do it at work, I think is a great way and I would encourage. It doesn't have to be a 20% project, it could be. Well, go off and explore that, right. You know those type of things which, again, I think is incredibly empowering.

Linda: 40:07

If somebody says to me well, go out and find out a little bit more about that, I must give him permission. I think that's the right way to go out and think, to tinker, to learn, to try out. That's what it's all about. So I think, as a leader, using one-on-one times and those meetings which I am a huge passionate believer about on a regular basis, I think as managers, we should be spending 60% of our time with our people, right, as well as obviously focusing on our jobs getting to know our people, what motivates them, what they're passionate about, where their interests lie, what they, what's keeping them awake at night or on a personal basis. You know this aspect. Where do they see themselves, you know, in a few years? And looking at the opportunities to foster that, I think that that's really critical.

Alexis: 40:58

I know one of the things that we did a good job, certainly you did a great job with me, was something that I tried to make sure I was doing with the people who were on my team as well was having regular career discussions, that's definitely a top of mind thing that I remember from being a manager at Google. Although it is also interesting of, there's many people I've talked to in more of a coaching setting, or they're work friends that you know they're not necessarily direct reports or whatnot, who have something in mind and they're scared to actually share it with a manager. Any thoughts around that and how you might coach someone to approach that?

Linda: 41:42

Yeah, I cringe when I hear that. I think the relationship between managers and employees, you know, should be one where there's transparency, openness, safety, right and so, but I do know that that is the case. I would encourage folks to broach these pieces because if you don't voice them, you will never get, you know, any acknowledgement or the ability to. You never know what the answer is going to be right. So I think there's different ways. If I had a manager, for example, that I wasn't sure how would react, it would be, you know, maybe being a little bit more explorative with my language, right? So, hey, I wonder what you thought. I'm really interested in developing these kind of skills areas. I think it will benefit my current role in this way.

Linda: 42:41

So you're kind of, you know, giving indications that the managers that you know you're not going to go off with something that the manager is going to say well, I'm losing these people's work on X. So you're kind of highlighting the win-win and then you're also tying in, you know, by going off and doing this, I think this will bring these kinds of wins back to the team. It's kind of explore. I think my first discussion on this would definitely be to talk about it because if you don't, you never know if it will be encouraged or poo-pooed a little right, but I think without speaking about it you'll never know. So to go down that road, if you think a little bit scared is is I would again explore, have an exploratory conversation. But again my ways would be you making sure I'm tying in what's in it for them, the team, to make it land right so that everybody wins.

Alexis: 43:41

Speaking about having supportive managers, I think I will always sort of have you in this special place in my mind, in my heart, because one of the things that we went through together, basically the latter portion of when I had reported into Linda this is for the sake of listeners I actually I hit, and I've been pretty open about going through burnout. I hit the second of my acute burnout periods that I had gone through when I was at Google and I actually wound up taking leave of absence from work during that time. So I worked with Linda through this whole process and I mean you were so tremendously, amazingly supportive, but I wound up being open with you and actually the team that had reported into me at that time about what was going on, and being open about it. Perhaps this is more of. This is largely a just an acknowledgement and a thank you for what you did. As an aside, I so I've I've been spending a lot of time on Reddit lately because, you know I love.

Alexis: 44:44

I love anonymous forums where you can say anything that you want to. But there was this post in one of the forums that I I'm a subscriber on. That was you know, someone was saying I'm going to go take a leave of absence. Should I tell my manager? And with maybe one exception that was highly caveated unanimously across the board, everyone said do not tell anyone, why Don't even tell them that this is a mental health leave. Just say you're going on FMLA, that your doctor has approved it. Here's the form, that's it. So I mean, I guess, thank you for the support that you've provided, I suppose, perhaps to other managers. If they were to be faced with this similar type of a situation, what would you coach them? What's in it for them? I guess maybe, or why did you do it?

Linda: 45:41

First of all, thank you for the feedback and the comments there. You know I'll also one of the takeaways I had from that experience with you in the, you know, in going down the transparent route and, as you've mentioned, with your team, you know you never know how people will react. I was just blown away with the reaction with your team that applauded you to say when you said you wanted, you know, needed to spend more time with the family family first, at that particular time as well, not this balancing two crazy you know things going on and it was just and I think that transparency that you showed there also, it was just wonderful just to see the response of the people through being vulnerable, right To be invulnerable, through being open, and just the outpouring of support that you got there right and solicited. That, I think, is where you can be, is I'm always. There's a couple of things, so I do believe in being as open as you can.

Linda: 46:46

Now, I do understand the workplace is not the same for everyone, right, unfortunately. But I think as managers, you know we can control, right, the workplace and workplace policies are one thing, but as managers, we can play a huge piece on the relationship we have with our team members and our teams and so, as part as being a manager, it has always been important for me I'm not a manager of, you know a tool that does work right. This is a relationship and it's two ways right. So my success has been because I've always had the opportunity to work with great people and a great team and I think understanding that is really critical. So building in those times, just for openness, I mean, you know, you know that we would always and I do it to this day any team meeting that I have, it's or any individual meeting that I have is not straight into the work, right. So what's happening? You know, let's look at the project and it's not.

Linda: 47:49

If I got a 30 minute meeting, I don't usually, you know, allow it to go past five minutes, right. But it is just a natural thing to say we're human beings, right, that work together and just have five minutes just to build up that. And 25 minutes, right, the majority of the time, 90% on work. I'm not not doing my work job by spending that little bit of time to get to know you, your passions, how things are going, and so then I don't think you know, because of that and I think it's two way too, we both share right type of thing.

Linda: 48:27

When something like this happens, it is less of a scary thing to have to talk about from your side and less of a surprise for the manager, because you've had this openness too. So I would, you know, encourage all managers to be thinking in those terms. We're human beings first and foremost, right, and I think sometimes we go into this role of I'm a people manager. So you know it's all about results and yes it is, but we can do that in a humane relationship built way that I think sometimes is lost. So I'd absolutely encourage managers for that.

Alexis: 49:09

Well, and I'd also actually say, if you're not treating people like human beings, you may get productivity out of them in the short term, but in the long term it is not the, it's not an environment people want to be in and it goes in wrong directions.

Linda: 49:25

They say that, don't they? They say people, what is it? People don't leave jobs, they leave managers. Right Is what's often said, and I think that's very often truer than we think.

Alexis: 49:36

Yeah, true enough, although I will actually acknowledge I was still scared beep!-less, I won't swear here, when I had a couple different conversations with you navigating that whole process. So, just again, thank you, thank you for your compassion and your support. It really, it really meant a lot to me and I hope that there are more managers out there than I fear there are because of things like that Reddit thread and everything. So thank you.

Linda: 50:11

Yeah, that's awful yeah.

Alexis: 50:12

We're probably getting close to the end of time here, but let's try and see if we can sneak in one or two more questions. You know, I think one of the things that is kind of interesting in the learning space is there are two different like groupings of skills. There's hard skills and there's soft skills. Hard skills being like measurable, typically like can you learn how to drive a car and literally can you operate the thing? Learning how to code in Python, there is a degree of mastery that by the end you can or cannot achieve, and it's measurable. Soft skills being more like leadership or public speaking or things that are not. You can't really test for them. They're much more qualitative. If you think about curiosity in the context of hard and soft skills, is there any difference about? I don't know? Is there any difference in how you might think about these?

Linda: 51:10

That's a good question.

Alexis: 51:11

I'm not even sure what I think yeah.

Linda: 51:13

Yeah, yeah, I kind of think yeah, if I'm thinking of examples, maybe the actions I pursue, the actions I pursue, might be different, right? In that, I guess with hard skills I go into a lot more... I'm just thinking, yeah, and I'm just like riffing here. It is a good question. I think with hard skills one employs a lot more learning strategies. Let's say, if I had to learn coding or something right and kind of think through that, I think it would be right. What is my learning strategy? You know, what do I have to read? I have to subsume a body of knowledge.

Alexis: 51:56

There's clear steps in that.

Linda: 51:57

You know, yes, yeah, and I think maybe you know a little bit more discipline. One would think there. In soft skills, it's more - and there is that part as well that I think one has to, there's a knowledge acquisition, right? Whereas sometimes I think soft skills is, one understands what good looks like, probably faster, and then it's about trying it out as much as possible. Yeah, and things like, you know, feedback, right, and those those type of things. I think, having said that, I think in both practice become, you know, once we've got over that first step, that might be a little different, hard or soft skills. Then it does come down to some standard things about how one turns that curiosity into a learned skill is you've obviously got to practice it. You've got to get feedback. I think that's standard for both. But, and I think some of the things that are still there is, you know, fear of failing is going to be there on both, right? You know. So there's, I see, some similarity, some differences, I think as I look through those, what, do you think?

Alexis: 53:15

It's a weird question and after I asked it I'm kind of like what am I even trying to get at? I guess, in general, when I think about hard and soft skills, hard skills typically can literally break them down into the components that make that up and you can measure if you've achieved them as you go. Soft skills are much more nebulous. It's like I said, you can't test and validate that someone has or hasn't like achieved it without moving into some sort of a qualitative evaluation, which inherently is very subjective.

Alexis: 53:50

I was asking you this question because I mean, generally speaking, the podcast itself is really exploring soft skills. I'm not talking about like there's classes to learn all the hard skills. I think the challenge around soft skills is I have yet to see a very good example of something that I would consider to be like the de facto set of. Here are all the soft skills and here are the things that you would go and do about it. I mean, there's even concepts that are newly coming up that people have in mind. But again, it's like if you go and do a search on Google and I've actually done this many times exploring different things that I might want to talk about Everyone has a different list of them and the dimensions and the domains that if I were to like group things into some sort of an organized structure.

Alexis: 54:44

They're all over the place.

Linda: 54:46

Yeah, and it's so situational, isn't it Right? That's the other piece is, with soft skills, one can give a you know, a prescribed list of things you should be doing, but in the wrong situation some of them might not work, you know type of thing. And there's that situational aspect that I think is key to that as well.

Alexis: 55:11

Cool. Well then, I think we really should wrap this up here, but, linda, thank you so much for being here for this curious discussion.

Linda: 55:22

I know what a great topic you don't often get a chance to stop and talk about. You know, just something that I think all of us can lean into.

Alexis: 55:32

Yeah, I thought it was really fun when I asked you to do this and we regrouped to sort of prep for this. And you're like, I'm so weird to think about curiosity, like I've never really thought about it before and I have a feeling that this is something that a lot of people don't think about. But I really actually think it's an important thing and you can do so much with it. So I love all of the things that you have had to say here today. Thank you so much for your time of being here.

Alexis: 56:01

Wrapping it up, I started off with a broad exploration on the topic of curiosity We've talked about not a lot of people really look at this or think about this. I offered up a couple of what I actually, in retrospect, would think of as almost hacks, of how you can use curiosity to actually get yourself out of challenging situations or out of a rut, and I think curiosity can be a way that we can build bridges with other people. If you are curious and interested in different people, it actually opens up so much more. With Linda, we've talked about all sorts of different dimensions of curiosity. Learning and growth have inherently been part of the conversation, because curiosity is kind of a spark of it, and we also delved into a bunch of topics around being a manager, navigating different career changes. We talked about burnout, so lots of stuff in here, but with that, it is now time to sign off for this episode.

Alexis: 57:02

Thank you everyone for joining us today. I'm Alexis Booth. This is the Breakout Booth. If you like what you've heard here, please subscribe to the podcast, and you can also head on over to breakoutboothcom where you can sign up to get notifications of new episodes. Thank you again to Linda, or as I will now call you, moss Boss.

Linda: 57:24

I'll never live that down,

Alexis: 57:27

You won't! You may find yourself being called that by other people now. Sorry, not sorry Anyway, but thank you. Thank you for being here and with that I hope, listeners, that you have a great day. Sweet, thank you.