IT Leaders

00;00;00;24 - 00;00;22;28
Erin Petty
I am definitely the type of presenter that likes to call on people and get more engagement. So I've given a few of you a heads up that I know that I may be calling on you, but just a heads up to pay attention and be on your toes because it's going to be a fun ride. So what I'd like to present to you today is, about building confidence in our IT teams.

00;00;23;00 - 00;00;52;08
Erin Petty
I think a lot of times we focus on the hard skills that our IT teams work on and develop as they go throughout their career, but we sometimes lose sight of the importance of those soft skills and confidence is one that I have really focused on with our team at Sweetwater. A little bit about me. My leadership journey as Doug was kind of, prompting us to think about, I was thinking about as I was putting this presentation together.

00;00;52;10 - 00;01;19;18
Erin Petty
My IT journey started about 14 years ago. Prior to that, I was in human services and sales. And then they used to have this website called Career Builder. I don't know, I'm sure some people in here have heard of that and are familiar, but they have this fantastic feature where you could just select Apply All and it would just send your resume out into the world, and you would have little or no control over where it went.

00;01;19;20 - 00;01;42;12
Erin Petty
So Roto-Rooter was one of those places that reached out to me, and I've shared this story with several people before, but I was like, I was in sales at the time, and the idea of being a plumber instead of sales was kind of appealing. But actually was a BA position and business analyst position and support and training coordinator.

00;01;42;15 - 00;02;11;08
Erin Petty
So that kind of started me on my IT career, traveled a lot, installed hardware, worked on proprietary software and helped train our, contractors all over the United States. My next move, after I was burned out on traveling was with a company called I rely. Brian Kay is here, and he was actually the guy that hired me at Ivy League, so it was a fantastic move in a very complex ERP system to learn.

00;02;11;11 - 00;02;42;03
Erin Petty
But while I was there, I was on the helped US team and then was promoted to manager of that team and director of that team as well for the local and offshore folks. After that, I was, I was, hired in at Brotherhood and Chris Harvey, was part of the hiring team there. So for that role, I was a solutions engineer and worked primarily on the dynamics CRM, which was the first time in my IT career that I had something I could Google.

00;02;42;06 - 00;03;10;29
Erin Petty
So super happy about that opportunity made my life a lot easier. And then Sweetwater reached out to me and had just the role of a lifetime as a business analyst for them. And then I've just grown from there. So we've restructured a few times, which led to some promotions for me. So while at Sweetwater, I've held the titles of business analyst, delivery manager, director of delivery.

00;03;11;01 - 00;03;30;21
Erin Petty
And just last fall I was promoted to the VP of I.T Shared Services, which quadrupled my team. So I had to learn quickly about my own confidence in that role and then how to bring that to my team. So those are a few of the titles that I've had professionally. Personally, I am a wish granter with Make-A-Wish.

00;03;30;23 - 00;03;52;12
Erin Petty
I've been doing that since 2016. Fantastic organization. And then Allen County Casa. I'm an advocate for them, and I have been for the last year. Other personal titles are daughter, sister, wife, mom, and my favorite as of five years ago, Leona.

00;03;52;14 - 00;04;19;09
Erin Petty
So a few the things that I want to focus on, when it comes to building confidence in our teams. A lot of it revolves around how we recognize the strengths within the people that we're working with, overcoming challenges, and how we navigate those for our teams. How are we responding in a time of crisis, and how are we setting the example and the tone for our teams, and how to manage those situations when we're empowering each team member, what do we know about them?

00;04;19;09 - 00;04;30;02
Erin Petty
How are we focusing on their strengths? And then the final thing is practical steps for building confidence in our teammates.

00;04;30;05 - 00;04;48;23
Erin Petty
So why does confidence matter. And IT3 anybody that would like to give some answers there. John do you want to start. Why do you think confidence matters in 90?

00;04;48;25 - 00;04;53;20

You got there? Well, it matters. It will feel beautiful.

00;04;53;23 - 00;05;24;11
Erin Petty
I love that. Fearful to make a mistake is what John said, and I totally agree with that. That is one thing that I've enjoyed about my time with Brian, with Chris, with Jason. Is they've all promoted, failure, friendly culture. I think that's a huge part of what we're doing in it. If you're developers and your teammates are afraid to fail, they're really going to hold back and be hesitant to share information.

00;05;24;12 - 00;05;40;00
Erin Petty
And, like Doug was talking about or I think somebody had mentioned somebody that goes back and kind of really thinks through something. If you don't have a failure friendly culture, they may never share those ideas with you. So it's a big loss. Maureen, did you have an idea?

00;05;40;03 - 00;06;09;00

Yeah. I think it's slow that you're never going to know for sure. It is too complex. There's too many variables. And while there's benefit in taking some time, like, you don't want someone who's so confident that they never think about anything. Yeah, but without some confidence to say, this is the direction I think we should go. And a willingness, as you said, to put that out there, even if they're not sure yet that everyone else agrees with them.

00;06;09;02 - 00;06;27;28

You're not going to get the best thinking on the table, or you're going to spend a lot of time trying to solve every problem, when really you like. We've now solved ten problems, only one of which we were ever going to have. Yeah. So being willing to be like, yeah, let's do this. And I have a confidence that we can be in the loop if it doesn't go.

00;06;28;02 - 00;06;36;22
Erin Petty
Yeah. Bingo. The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, right? Anybody else have anything to contribute? Yes.

00;06;36;25 - 00;06;43;20

If it is confidence and not hubris, you're more likely to recognize and say.

00;06;43;26 - 00;07;09;19
Erin Petty
May I like that? Yeah, definitely. So I broke it down into a few different sections here. Confident drives innovation and creativity, which is what I think Maureen was kind of focused on. Fosters collaboration and team cohesion. It leads to higher performance. And I'm sorry. Confidence leads to higher performance and productivity and enables us to tackle challenges and adapt to change.

00;07;09;19 - 00;07;31;04
Erin Petty
Which again, was kind of along the lines of what Maureen was talking about. If we have an opportunity for our teams to present ideas to us and talk through those things and just be an environment where they can feel focused and free to share, that's what's going to lead to all of these great things, to developing the confidence in their team.

00;07;31;06 - 00;07;44;09
Erin Petty
So what makes all Right teams great? From an expertise standpoint, Jason, how many tech stacks and platforms do we have currently technologies wise at Sweetwater?

00;07;44;12 - 00;07;46;07

Tons. Yeah.

00;07;46;09 - 00;07;48;10
Erin Petty
What do we start with? What did you know?

00;07;48;12 - 00;07;57;04

We started with, probably two major tech stacks, PHP, in a language called 40. And I think since then it wouldn't surprise me as well. Over 100.

00;07;57;10 - 00;08;04;07
Erin Petty
Okay. Yeah. So 100, different technologies that we worked with since 1979.

00;08;04;12 - 00;08;06;05

Easily higher than that, but yeah.

00;08;06;06 - 00;08;30;18
Erin Petty
Yeah. So one of the things I always say is, when I started my career in I.T. 14 years ago, if I had gone to school for it specifically, everything that I would have learned in school would have been outdated. So it really is important that we rely on each other to expand our expertise, learn from each other, and give our teammates and our, people that are reporting to us an opportunity to teach us.

00;08;30;18 - 00;08;43;12
Erin Petty
I think some of the best things and opportunities that go along with that are when you allow somebody to teach you something. I think Doug also said something about not being the smartest person in the room. Jason says that all the time.

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That's a guy.

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That's totally true.

00;08;46;00 - 00;09;13;16
Erin Petty
But it does. I mean, this is our CIO that's, able to say and be vulnerable in that way and recognize that he has an opportunity to learn from people still even at the position that he's in. The problem solving that goes along with that. We've developed our, project management so much in the last three years and how we approach that and the problems that we're trying to tackle that these are becoming more comfortable areas for our team to focus on.

00;09;13;17 - 00;09;38;09
Erin Petty
They know that if deliveries got this, they're going to follow these steps. So adding some clarity to the problem solving process is another key piece. The collaboration we kind of touched on a little bit already. Ashley, you guys are phenomenal on your team with collaboration and really figuring out how to tackle these, problems that come your way and develop really good solutions.

00;09;38;15 - 00;09;45;19
Erin Petty
Can you tell us a little bit about how your team goes about just brainstorming?

00;09;45;22 - 00;10;07;05

I think a lot of it is that they don't shoot off the message and wait for a reply. They will either get on the phone or they will get out of their seat. Go find the people that need to be found. And just work it out and live conversation. I think that's been, a big part of what makes biking successful.

00;10;07;05 - 00;10;30;17

And then they also all of them are confident in putting their ideas on the table. Everybody from my tech lead to my, used to be internal part time. Actually, all of their ideas are equally considered by everybody on the team. So I think that's a testament to all of them, to be willing to listen to all ideas and then incidentally, legally and go for the best idea.

00;10;30;19 - 00;10;49;04
Erin Petty
Yeah, I actually think that's testament to you as well. Because you've created that culture on your team where you have a senior developer, you have one of our most senior developers on your team and one of our most junior developers on our team, and you give them all equal voices, which is a huge part of that collaboration opportunity.

00;10;49;07 - 00;11;12;15
Erin Petty
Adaptability. This has become a big one, as I mentioned in the problem solving process, how we're putting together our projects and organizing them. How are we adapting to the scope creep? How are we as leaders, navigating and presenting ourselves in a fashion that is not combative? Is more accepting of those changes that come our way and how we're going to incorporate that.

00;11;12;17 - 00;11;36;05
Erin Petty
And then finally, what's our commitment to the success of our teams? Are we committed to helping them develop personally and professionally? Are we aware of what their strengths are? How are we helping them and getting to know what some of these things are, that they're that are important to our teammates? What's our commitment to them? Because when we're committed to our teams, they're going to be committed to us as well.

00;11;36;08 - 00;11;41;06
Erin Petty
Any questions or feelings about that before we move on? Did you ever.

00;11;41;08 - 00;11;45;16

Okay. Okay.

00;11;45;18 - 00;12;11;22
Erin Petty
So turning challenges into opportunities. Some of the challenges that I've seen over the course of the last 14 years are the tight deadlines. Brian, I know we had some pretty tight deadlines as far as when we were migrating our platform to the cloud. We had people that had deadlines to meet as far as their, harvest times and when they were setting up their stores.

00;12;11;24 - 00;12;32;10
Erin Petty
So I've definitely dealt with some of that constantly evolving technology. We talked about that, with Sweetwater, how much technology has evolved since the beginning of the company and how we combat that. Are we staying up today? Are we getting together in meetings like this and understanding what's out in the world and how we can do better and learn from each other?

00;12;32;13 - 00;13;01;15
Erin Petty
And then the complex problem solving is another one that is involves a lot of collaboration and that, freedom to fail and that focus in our teams and how we're approaching the problem solving. So what are some ideas that we can do to overcome them? I mentioned earlier that providing clarity and kind of, alleviates the uncertainty and creates more confident environment for our teams.

00;13;01;18 - 00;13;22;12
Erin Petty
So strong communication and support within the team. How are we learning from setbacks? Do we take that failure and kind of dissect it? Do we take it and decide where we can learn more, do better? Brian also saw me fail pretty hard on some things with deleting data, and that's where I learned to begin. Tran statement.

00;13;22;14 - 00;13;45;01
Erin Petty
It was one of my first lessons, in a commit. And then leveraging each team member strengths. Excuse me, I kind of talked about this before, but with my team, what I've learned to do at the beginning of each year is do a Swot analysis with them, and not just a Swot analysis overall, but just focused on what their goals are.

00;13;45;02 - 00;14;11;19
Erin Petty
So if they're interested in becoming a leader in the team, in the company or down the road, what can we do to focus and prompt that thinking along the same lines? If they're interested in becoming a better teammate, if they want to become a better project manager, what prompts can I give them in their Swot analysis so that we can really develop a goal that will help them achieve that in that year, and then staying resilient and focused on solutions?

00;14;11;22 - 00;14;32;25
Erin Petty
A lot of times, like Maureen was saying, you can get kind of tied down in the details of the problems without being focused on the solution. So once we understand and promote and champion what the solution is, our teammates will follow that and have confidence in that leadership. Anything to add there, Maureen?

00;14;32;28 - 00;15;00;10

This kind of go with the last one. But what I noticed is that in those challenging situations, sometimes just for human reasons, people can turn on each other, that they can feel like if you did your thing, we wouldn't be where we are. And if you can get that in the bud, if you can help everybody sit even like literally on the same side of the table.

00;15;00;12 - 00;15;33;21

So everyone is looking together at the problem that a lot of stuff melts away, that it's not because everybody if you've got a great team, everybody cares a lot about getting things where they need to be, and that care can get best directed without malice. And so a great leader can notice that before it's a problem and just suddenly switch people to putting the care based.

00;15;33;24 - 00;15;44;20
Erin Petty
Yeah, that's a great point. I think it is important for us to be able to kind of have a view from the outside of what's currently happening on the team and think quickly so we can help.

00;15;44;24 - 00;16;01;18

I knew yourselves has to have done the internal work to not also be triggered. Yeah, because if you as a leader come in in this area of, well, why do you do this and why do you do this and why, if you are modeling the exact behavior you see.

00;16;01;20 - 00;16;22;08
Erin Petty
Yes. For sure. I know when I was working at Brotherhood, under Chris's team, my supervisor there, Johnson, used to say I had every look and feel of a duck because on the surface I was calm and collected, but paddling like hell under the water. And it was pretty accurate. I used to say that often, and at first I didn't quite get it.

00;16;22;08 - 00;16;36;16
Erin Petty
And I totally get it now. That's a great point. Thank you for sharing that. Anybody else have something to share? Brian, did you want to comment on any of the tight deadlines that we face and how we overcame that?

00;16;36;19 - 00;16;37;02

Sales?

00;16;37;04 - 00;16;41;27

No real points. We did that sometimes for sure.

00;16;41;29 - 00;16;57;15

And we say yes. I think it's, you where you see team members applying for their buying stream, figure out how we get an impossible. That's where you're reversing the success. Or even, like, if you miss it by a little, you see it. People's really going through that. Yeah.

00;16;57;18 - 00;17;01;28
Erin Petty
Yeah. Great point.

00;17;02;00 - 00;17;33;26
Erin Petty
So building confidence from within, as I mentioned earlier, it is important for us to be aware of what our teammates are focused on, what they're interested in pursuing. How are we encouraging growth on the team? Are we having those conversations to understand what our teammates are looking for? As we've talked about it, Sweetwater, our teammates can't depend on their directors and their managers to create their growth path.

00;17;33;27 - 00;17;57;16
Erin Petty
They have to come prepared and willing to put in the work to achieve that. So how do we help them start those conversations and focus on what they're interested in? One thing as I mentioned, I uses the Swot analysis to understand. Sometimes I'll focus on what the needs are of the company. Like, one person on my team currently is pursuing a her PMP certification.

00;17;57;16 - 00;18;23;20
Erin Petty
The project management, though Sweetwater hasn't adopted one methodology specifically, it's beneficial to her to understand what's greater out there, and we've been supportive of her in achieving that. Foster open communication. This is a big one. One thing that I have, a benefit in my role currently is since I've started as a business analyst, I've been able to cultivate relationships.

00;18;23;25 - 00;18;47;27
Erin Petty
At an early stage there, and they've just continued to grow. So people have felt a level of comfort in coming to me and talking and really being open about what's happening with them. At Sweetwater, we've had a lot of change, so I've been able to listen and then take some of those ideas and that feedback to our leadership team so we can talk through and come up with some solutions or some ideas, or at least just get it out in the open.

00;18;48;00 - 00;19;10;24
Erin Petty
Celebrating the wins. This is one that we've really been focused on as well. How are we recognizing the people that are doing the great things? We have individual acknowledgment. We have team acknowledgment. But what are some other ways that your companies are focused on celebrating the wins for your groups? Chris, do you have anything?

00;19;10;27 - 00;19;36;01

Celebrating wins is tough. I said I wasn't. Yes, we probably like you for any organizations. You know we Perry's sublinear. We do a party or whatever. I think it it's really infrastructure projects are easier, but it's hard to know when you've done especially some where it's like, well, it's never it's not done. We we finish. We didn't we never finish.

00;19;36;04 - 00;20;00;24

And still it's still not finished. Ten years ago we put this. So I think it's important just to focus on that and make sure that whether it's a little things, big things like or celebrating, even when it's not that it's mostly done. It's almost done. At least it's in production. Something and and tribute. Oh I think it's like, you know what was the goal though, right.

00;20;00;24 - 00;20;22;07

So, you know, we, we operate, operate every 90 days, right. We might have a strategic vision for a 2 or 3 year roadmap, but I think it's breaking it down into like 90 day limits. You know, so we can stay on track. So every week, my team and my leadership team will meet. And, first thing we do is we talk around like, hey, what's going on with you guys?

00;20;22;08 - 00;20;39;06

What's the what's the best thing to happen to you this week and then kind of go into some recognition? So we we do that even with small. Right. And if I hear something good, I'll just email that person and their manager. It can be in the, in the department or outside department. Right. But it's just a good collaborative kind of spirit builder.

00;20;39;08 - 00;20;59;07

And then the 90 days, right, says, hey, we might have never our bigger projects would be 1218 wants to finish it from or whatever we define as finished. It's never finished. But if we break it down into these 90 day increments, we feel like we can at least, cheer on the milestones, right? So it's it's around that.

00;20;59;10 - 00;21;14;25

And against that, it's the pizza party all the time. It might manifest itself different ways. Yeah. So I think we just. Yeah. Being open to it. Again, celebrating wins in different ways and figuring out a way to kind of foster that culture.

00;21;14;27 - 00;21;17;03
Erin Petty
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. Jason.

00;21;17;06 - 00;21;33;23

I think one of the things we did quite some time ago was, and we I did it up to the executive team was we did this, I called it redundancy at work. And so it's really interesting, like, you have network operations team. We have four internet connections for BGP. Like we haven't had internet outage and like ten years.

00;21;34;00 - 00;21;50;27

And yet we have internet outages every month. Right. And so it's like how do you actually communicate upwards and give the team those wins of saying like here's things that you guys never experienced because we have a great team, because we have people that are ahead of the game, because we had good monitoring, because somebody thought ahead on an 18 month infrastructure project.

00;21;50;29 - 00;22;08;06

It not only builds a great story of what the team is doing and the value they're providing, but it also allows a little bit bigger cone of grace when you actually do have an outage on something because they see ten good things and they go, oh, here's one we missed that just happens versus kind of the opposite, which is if you never talk about that, it's like, oh, we had an outage again.

00;22;08;09 - 00;22;10;11

You know, what have you done for me lately?

00;22;10;13 - 00;22;30;21

Yeah. Ashley you had something. Well, I started on my team a year ago. They were working in a conference title, and they worked really well for that. They were like the, And I was challenged to shift my team to a sprint style. And so we were discussing that. And, one of the things that surprised me was my teeth.

00;22;30;23 - 00;22;53;16

What am I right? Tech lead said, you know, in the Kanban style, cards come and they just keep coming and there's no way to the cards. Whereas with the sprint style, you have that every week, every two weeks you have a sense of completion. We actually got something done. Because right software's ever done, somebody said to be software is done like process mode, right?

00;22;53;18 - 00;23;07;28

It's just always needs some maintenance. But you and just Billy in those regular milestones to celebrate what you've done, whether that's every couple of weeks, whether that's quarterly, I'm. You show that you're celebrating the wins along the way. Yeah.

00;23;08;00 - 00;23;12;06
Erin Petty
I love that. Thank you. And thank you, Jason. One thing that oh sorry. Go ahead.

00;23;12;13 - 00;23;23;06

Just, had one more level to that. I think also, it's important to recognize how each individual contributor likes to receive praise.

00;23;23;06 - 00;23;23;25

That's a great.

00;23;23;25 - 00;23;38;27

Point. People like public praise. Some people like private praise. Some people like the pizza party. So people don't like. So yeah, I think as a leader it's also investing the time to know your team members apps. They're really nice. And the new ways that they.

00;23;38;29 - 00;23;40;29
Erin Petty
That's a great point. Definitely. Did you have.

00;23;40;29 - 00;24;07;04

Something that was one of the things I was and say to that, and you can do that early in your one on ones like I have a set of questions and I ask for away. And I wonder, sir, how do you like to receive recognition? And some of you have to read the like. Whoever picks up people have been either because of their personality or because of the culture had learned to say, oh, I don't need it.

00;24;07;07 - 00;24;13;06

In a way, there's nuance of it, but asking people is really lovely. Yeah.

00;24;13;09 - 00;24;15;09
Erin Petty
I agree with that. Great point, Ashley. And there are.

00;24;15;09 - 00;24;25;06

People who are very uncomfortable with receiving it, but are still you to say yes. Are you thinking of someone in particular?

00;24;25;08 - 00;24;34;22
Erin Petty
We have a guy on Ashley's team. That's one like every personal recognition in the last three weeks, and he is one of those people that does not really love the spotlight. So it's been kind of fun.

00;24;34;22 - 00;24;42;02

Let's walk him through the hallway the other day and I said, congratulations, John. And he goes, it wasn't me. It was the whole team. But this is true leader.

00;24;42;07 - 00;25;03;27
Erin Petty
That's been pretty fun. Yeah, those are all great points. One thing that I've really focused on, because it is a team effort sometimes, sometimes it's an individual contributor, writing personal notes for the people that work on my team. Just recognizing. Hey, I noticed that you did this in this meeting, and that really made all the difference.

00;25;03;27 - 00;25;34;24
Erin Petty
That was a huge impact to this project. And how we're talking about or how we're thinking about it. When's the last time raise of hands somebody wrote a note to somebody at work of physical note. Love it. That I was surprised at the impact of that. I kind of just got a whole bunch of note cards. I am one of those people that thinks thank you notes are kind of ridiculous when I say thank you myself, but I've since learned the importance of seeing that physical, intention behind writing the note.

00;25;34;24 - 00;25;51;15
Erin Petty
So I would encourage, if you haven't thought about it, consider doing that. Foster open communication again to what Maureen was saying. I love what you were talking about. As far as asking for how they want to receive feedback. I'm sorry, recognition. I've asked how they wanted to see.

00;25;51;21 - 00;25;53;06

The best, too. One. Yeah.

00;25;53;08 - 00;26;12;04
Erin Petty
Yeah. So if I recognize something where I feel like you can do some improving, how do you want me to communicate that? Do you want to email first that hey, I want to talk to you about this or should I just stop you afterwards? Or if it's something that I have a question on and something that's positive, how can I get your feedback in a healthy way?

00;26;12;07 - 00;26;26;03
Erin Petty
One thing that goes along with that, too, is kind of, a code of excellence for your team and how you're approaching that so that everybody has the same understanding. Does anybody have that in place right now? Doug.

00;26;26;06 - 00;26;31;08

We have an, one at Firewatch. Gorgeous. Bad news early is good news.

00;26;31;10 - 00;26;34;25
Erin Petty
I like that bad news early is good news.

00;26;34;27 - 00;26;45;26

Let him. Lou Russell told me that many years ago. And it's meaningful, right? Yeah. We can we have more time to act on a problem. We could often turn it into something great.

00;26;46;03 - 00;27;12;15
Erin Petty
Yeah. When it doesn't become the fire either. You have some time to actually think about it and not be so reactionary. Support risk taking. We kind of discussed that a little bit already with that failure friendly environment and how we're approaching the lessons learned after that. And then finally the mentorship. I think Doug actually, mentioned that in his opening, too, of how important it is to have mentors, even as leaders.

00;27;12;15 - 00;27;32;24
Erin Petty
How are we leaning on each other to get some feedback on best practices? What's working for you? How are you approaching this? That's been really helpful for me as I've grown in my role at Sweetwater is seeking out not only IT mentors, but leaders around the company that I can find out more of what their focus is and how I can help them.

00;27;32;26 - 00;27;42;00
Erin Petty
Any other questions with that? Does anybody have mentorship programs in their companies currently? Sweetwater.

00;27;42;02 - 00;27;43;13

Yeah.

00;27;43;16 - 00;27;45;03

See what I need to make sure.

00;27;45;05 - 00;27;49;26
Erin Petty
Steel Dynamics is that solely within it, or is that across the company.

00;27;49;28 - 00;27;51;15

There is parts coming?

00;27;51;21 - 00;27;54;15

Okay.

00;27;54;17 - 00;28;23;12
Erin Petty
Gotcha. Ours is just in it right now. I've heard rumblings that they're considering using our model throughout Sweetwater, but it's been, while the successful program Eric's ran it for the last year, I was going to say 2 or 3 years. Yeah. And it really pairs up just people that we have the list of things that is our bio, and people can kind of see who they want to get matched up with and what they're looking to focus on during that time.

00;28;23;12 - 00;28;42;10
Erin Petty
And currently, I think, is it a three month commitment? Yeah, yeah. So it's been it's been great because you get to meet people from all over the department to that you don't encounter all the time. So how are we building confidence daily? Am I doing okay on time?

00;28;42;12 - 00;28;47;26

Yeah okay. Okay.

00;28;47;28 - 00;28;49;06
Erin Petty
Setting clear goals.

00;28;49;06 - 00;28;49;29

00;28;50;11 - 00;29;13;26
Erin Petty
Do we have a focus each day on what our teams are working on? Somebody mentioned, I think you did about having that weekly meeting or at the beginning of the week and asking your team, hey, what are we focused on this week? What were some wins from last week so that everybody's on the same page as far as what your tackling for the week ahead and beyond provide and can see and seek out constructive feedback.

00;29;13;29 - 00;29;36;18
Erin Petty
I think as leaders, this is something that doesn't always come as naturally to us. We're very good at dishing out the feedback, but for asking for it, I think sometimes can be a struggle. Does anybody have a best practice and how they ask for feedback from their team and your one on ones or as a group? Joanne, did you have anything?

00;29;36;20 - 00;29;53;02

I mean, I see in my world. Was this in Sydney? Welcome to it. Did you always do? You can always ask my team bearer of like, hey, what can I do better to help you grow? Sure. What can I help you be better? I mean, give me the raw. Uncut says I'm getting. You're on. Tell me this is.

00;29;53;04 - 00;29;59;23

I'm not in the life. Good job. Let me up so I could at least give him something. I can help him start to build my. So they'll be me.

00;29;59;25 - 00;30;01;05

Yeah.

00;30;01;07 - 00;30;07;12
Erin Petty
Yeah, I like that. Ashley, I think you had your hand up. Did you are. Morning. Okay.

00;30;07;14 - 00;30;33;14

One thing is that I always ask after we sort of had an idea or whatever. What am I missed? What have we talked about that needs to be touched? But the other piece is that you have to be excellent at receiving even poorly delivered feedback. Is someone give you feedback one time and you are defensive and you have power.

00;30;33;14 - 00;30;50;08

You will never hear from the person again. And so you personally have to be in a position where you can take feedback as a gift, even when it comes sort of wrapped in spiky packages. Yeah.

00;30;50;10 - 00;31;16;14
Erin Petty
Great point. Yeah, that's been a challenge that I've had to include as part of my agendas on one on ones, because it's just that something I really think about. Of course I want feedback, but I'm looking to my leaders for that feedback where I should be working with my teams and the people that I interact with on the daily to get some constructive information on how I can improve as a leader for them, or how I can improve their life working for me.

00;31;16;16 - 00;31;41;27
Erin Petty
I kind of talked about the celebrate, progress and encourage collaboration investing in developing it. That's one thing that we've been focused on at Sweetwater as well, is how do we give people the tools to continue leveling up as technology improves? Changes? What are you guys doing now? We've focused on Pluralsight, Sweetwater. Different people on our teams have access to that.

00;31;41;27 - 00;31;54;19
Erin Petty
We have licenses that we distribute and give them kind of free rein on that. But I'm curious. We've looked at some other platforms of what other people are using currently in their IT departments.

00;31;54;22 - 00;32;01;16

Yeah. User so we got it. Pro TV it's got ECI learning now okay. That's a it's a really solid platform.

00;32;01;21 - 00;32;21;07
Erin Petty
Okay. Matt I might have to get with you after this to learn more about that because that's when I haven't explored yet. I think I was talking to Chris earlier. We just had workday implemented, so we're developing a LMS there as well. But something that our developers can use and kind of have a growth path to it would be fantastic.

00;32;21;15 - 00;32;23;02
Erin Petty
What are some other ideas? Yes.

00;32;23;05 - 00;32;52;26

And the one the challenges that we have is that in the 80s and 90s, we we had a environment that really encouraged, exploration and innovation, growth and all those things, and it kind of contracted. And I think we have to be really intentional about helping, our teams that are start to take the time to expand and stretch and grow.

00;32;52;29 - 00;33;03;16

And I don't think that that's enough now, today, because we are pressure to produce in such a tight win. Yes. Some weird meters.

00;33;03;18 - 00;33;28;16
Erin Petty
Yes, I agree with that. Thank you for sharing that. Also, how are we investing in ourselves? Chris mentioned he was pursuing a coaching certification as leaders. How are we leveling up our game? When I was promoted last fall, one of my first things that I did was enroll in a program that was called Iron Sharpens Iron Through Proverbs University, and it was about women in leadership.

00;33;28;18 - 00;33;51;24
Erin Petty
And it was a phenomenal experience for me because it really opened my eyes on some of the blind spots that I had. And then the mentorship program that I've worked with Sweetwater on as well, has been really effective. So how are you as leaders leveling up your game? Are you pursuing any kind of education or continuing learning that the rest of the group should know about?

00;33;51;27 - 00;33;55;18
Erin Petty
Is anybody pursuing anything? I'm here. No. Yeah.

00;33;55;18 - 00;33;56;09

Good.

00;33;56;11 - 00;33;57;13
Erin Petty
So, yeah.

00;33;57;16 - 00;34;26;14

This past summer, I finished my bachelor's. I cashed out for an associates during Covid. I've been in a role not directly in leadership, but I've been in a leadership about Jason, role for so two years, 14 years. So, school was kind of, afterthought for a he had this arena position that was being, office manager and in management.

00;34;26;16 - 00;34;40;21

It. Jason. And it took me eight years off and on to finish my bachelor's, but I'm really dropped by a, a side and even more certifications and stuff like that. Part of my knowledge. Yeah.

00;34;40;21 - 00;34;49;01
Erin Petty
Great. Good for you. Congratulations. That's awesome. Yeah. I would love to hear more on how this group is developing. Yes, Doug.

00;34;49;08 - 00;35;10;25

Area. We used to run a bootcamp of 20 hour, a four session leadership 101 course out of the market. Covid threw a grenade in that program. And the lady, the bad news early is good news. Lady is the one you taught it, and she's now retired. What we have found, we've explored a couple of options on that.

00;35;10;25 - 00;35;34;20

And what we've we're exploring right now is a virtual program that's more modular and it's style so that you could consume bite, bite sized chunks of leadership. I'm working with a team of two ladies in Hindi right now to explore that. So, that may be a consumable form of leadership training beyond coming to a community like this.

00;35;34;23 - 00;35;35;26

More to come on that.

00;35;35;29 - 00;35;51;16
Erin Petty
Yeah. That's great. Thank you for that update. And like Jason said, you're here. So that is a good step in the right direction that you do want to develop your skills through networking or learning best practices. So I think that's another important piece of that.

00;35;51;19 - 00;35;53;03

00;35;53;06 - 00;36;21;24
Erin Petty
So our confidence is what's driving our team's success. Our team is capable and resilient. They're all filled with potential. Obviously, they have great leaders. Confidence in our abilities is the key to unlocking even greater success. Confidence is not perfection. Confidence is recognizing strength and how that affects the team overall. Together, we will continue to innovate, solve problems, and achieve our goals.

00;36;21;26 - 00;36;46;27
Erin Petty
And finally, the call to action is let's continue to build on those strengths. Let's continue to recognize and support one another and really be the example that we want for our teams to live up to. Are there any questions? I know we kind of wrapped it up quickly there. But Jason needs to have his full half hour.

00;36;47;00 - 00;37;04;14
Erin Petty
Another call to action. I'll just call out is, Brian Kelly actually was the one that turned me on to this group. And I reached out to Doug and I said, hey, Doug, I love this group, but we're all the ladies. And he said, why don't you present? So be careful what you ask Doug. He will put it to action.

00;37;04;14 - 00;37;16;13
Erin Petty
But thank you all for your time, I appreciate it. I appreciate the engagement especially, it's been really helpful for me to understand where you're at and things that I can pay attention to as I'm continuing to grow in my leadership role. So thank you.