Family Time!

Next week I head off to my favorite place on the planet, Cannon Beach Oregon.

Cannon Beach is about two hours out of Portland and is the home of the West Coast’s largest sea stack called Haystack Rock and the Needles.   Haystack Rock is a basalt sea stack and it rises 235 feet from the edge of the shoreline.  It is the place where Goonies and Kindergarten Cop were filmed. 

As a child, I crawled all over Haystack Rock and would spend hours finding crabs, starfish, sea anemones, jellyfish, and all kinds of fish and other mollusks.  It was here that I first learned to dig for razor clams, fish from the beach, and “wave dive”.   Do you see the cave in the attached picture, my brother, sister, and I explored it only to get trapped by the incoming tide.  Too embarrassed to call for help, we made it out but not without some serious mollusk burns on our legs and hands.  I was six years old. 

Haystack Rock is now a bird sanctuary and is off-limits to humans.  The tide pools that are uncovered in front of it at low tide are not as populated as they were in my youth, but you can still find the occasional hermit crab or starfish. 

The town of Cannon Beach is a quaint ocean town although it has grown to have far too many tourists for my liking these past 10 years.  However,  it has a huge artist population and some of the most eclectic shops I have ever seen.

Since birth, my family would vacation at Cannon Beach and we would stay two weeks over the summer vacations.  We did this when we moved from Oregon to Idaho to Utah and to California.  Maybe not every year in our teen years but consistently every one or two years. 

As adults, we continued the tradition and for a long period of time, we went back with our spouses and our growing families.  Each family would rent a house and each morning we would meet in front of the rock to determine what we were going to do for the day.   After my father passed, we paused for two years until my sister and I decided to visit Cannon Beach with our families on the week of the fourth of July as they always put on a great fireworks show out of Seaside which you can see from Cannon Beach.

I am looking forward to early morning walks and searching for sand dollars with my momma on the beach (a tradition since childhood, see picture), preventing Jonathon Livingston Seagull from absconding with our hotdogs, having an apple fritter at Cannon Beach Bakery, playing Exploding Kittens with my boys, building a sandcastle with Emmett and Wyatt (grandnephews), playing Fascination and Skeeball at Seaside, maybe even doing some crabbing in Nestucca Bay, but mostly just to hang out with my family, my momma and my sister’s family. 

Everyone needs a favorite place.  I shared mine… what is yours?   😊 

Happy Thursday all and Happy 4th of July next week.  

See you when I return on the tenth,

-srt

What is Radical Candor?

Happy Thursday! 

Hard to believe we are entering the last week of June.  Soon it will be July with summer fully upon us.  Glad to see all using their PTO and vacationing with family and friends.  I can’t tell you enough about the importance of disconnecting, refreshing, and returning! 

Radical Candor by Kim Scott

What is Radical Candor? The whole point of Radical Candor is that it really is possible to Care Personally and Challenge Directly at the same time.  Author Kim Scott, explains it in this YouTube video:  What is Radical Candor? | Kim Scott - YouTube

Below are pieces of information that I picked out of several articles to give you a sense of what Radical Candor is.   Most are modified from an article found online by Kim Scott, the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss without Losing your Humanity and the co-founder of Radical Candor LLC, appeared on the Radical Candor blog.  Anywhere you find the blue underline, you should find the hyperlink. 

What I like about Radical Candor is that it is not brutal honesty, it’s being kind, clear, specific, and sincere. We can break free of a false dichotomy that leaves too many people feeling they have to choose between being a jerk and being incompetent. That’s a terrible choice, and nobody has to make it. In fact, if you really care personally about somebody, you will tell them if you think they are making a mistake — and when they are doing something great.

What is Radical Candor?

There is a world of difference between Radical Candor and brutal honesty, or as we call it, Obnoxious Aggression. It’s bad, but "Ruinous Empathy" can be even worse, and Manipulative Insincerity is the worst of all.

Radical Candor is kind and helpful.

Obnoxious Aggression is praise that doesn’t feel sincere or criticism and feedback that isn’t delivered kindly. Obnoxious Aggression is also called “brutal honesty” or “front stabbing.”

Ruinous Empathy is “nice” but ultimately unhelpful or even damaging. It’s seeing somebody with their fly down, but not wanting to embarrass them, saying nothing, with the result that 15 more people see them with their fly down — more embarrassing for them.

Manipulative Insincerity is a stab in the back.

Learn More about these four quadrants?  Take a look at this YouTube video ( Kim Scott - Care personally. Challenge directly. - Insights for Entrepreneurs - Amazon - YouTube) to learn more straight from the author’s mouth!

Radical Candor happens at the intersection of Care Personally and Challenge Directly:

Care Personally means that you care about the other person, not about whether you are winning a popularity contest.

What Caring Personally IS

Caring Personally is at its core common human decency. You don’t have to have a deep personal relationship to have this as your point of departure. But if you work closely with somebody — if for example you are somebody’s boss — you need to begin to develop a positive human relationship with that person.

Caring Personally is inherently about thinking of others, putting their success and needs ahead of your own. At its best, it is not about being loved; it is about loving.

To Care Personally, one must move at a pace that doesn’t make the other person uncomfortable.

What Caring Personally is NOT

Caring Personally does NOT mean getting all personal with somebody who wants privacy. I once worked with a man who had a terminal illness. Work was the only place where nobody had to know about that or ask about that. The best way I could Care Personally about this man was to protect his secret, and never once ask him about his health. We focused on the work.

Caring Personally also does NOT mean over-sharing personal details of your life with those around you who may not want to hear them, and who may be made uncomfortable by them.

Challenge Directly means that you share your perspective and invite the other person to do the same.

What Challenging Directly IS

Challenging Directly is giving people the kind of heads-up that underlies basic human decency. Imagine that you were working on a construction site, and you looked up and saw a man cutting an iron beam — but sitting on the wrong end. When he finishes cutting, he will plummet eight stories to his death. Challenging Directly is sort of like saying, perhaps yelling even, “Hey, you’re on the wrong end of that beam, you’ll plunge to your death if you keep cutting!” Of course, you’d do that, and right away, right??

But there is no reason that moving quickly must mean moving disrespectfully. It’s not going to help the guy to preface your warning with a “Hey, dummy!” And it could be that you don’t understand what he’s doing, and he’s actually not about to plummet to his death…. Challenging Directly is first and foremost humble. It’s tempting to say that “Caring Personally” is about love and Challenging Directly is about truth. But there is a problem with the word “truth….” This gets me to why we call it Radical Candor, not “brutal honesty.”

What Challenging Directly is NOT

Challenging Directly does NOT mean you can assume that whatever you think is “the truth” and therefore should be shoved down people’s throats.

Challenging Directly does NOT mean you are right. You may be wrong. In fact, you should expect and welcome a reciprocal challenge.

The “direct” in “Challenge Directly” does NOT mean to be brutal. Radical Candor is not brutal honesty. It means to share your (humble) opinions directly, rather than talking badly about people behind their backs.

Challenge Directly does NOT mean just saying whatever pops into your head…

Why It’s Called “Radical”

Why did we choose the word “radical?” Here’s a definition of radical: “(especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.”

The reason we use the word Radical is that the kind of candor we’re talking about is rare. It feels unnatural to practice it. It flies in the face of the “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all” maxim that most of us have heard since we learned to talk. Changing training that’s been instilled in us since we were eighteen months old is hard. But, with playful practice and a commitment to being kind and clear, Radical Candor can change your relationships at work, home, and everywhere in between.

Why It’s Called “Candor”

We chose the word candor over truth or honesty very consciously.

We chose the word candor because, to us, the word has more of a “here’s what I think, what do you think” connotation than the words “truth” or “honesty” do.

I encourage you to pick up the book, Radical Candor, watch the YouTube videos, and think about how you might model radical candor in the future.  Let me know what you think about the content as I value your opinion.  Personally, I think the balance between being direct and honest but also caring is one of the fundamental necessities of a high-performing team.

Happy Thursday!

-srt

REFERENCE:

Scott, Kim.  Radical Candor

Celebrating Authentic Living

Wells Fargo is proud to serve as a presenting sponsor for one of my favorite events of the year: Lesbians Who Tech & Allies :: Queer. Inclusive. Badass.  Annual Pride Summit 🏳️‍🌈  

I am extra excited about the career sessions where we can connect as we talk about technology and opportunities to have a career at Wells Fargo. 

On Tuesday, several of us sat on a panel and shared our personal Wells Fargo journeys and answered questions from the participants about personal growth and development, how to prepare for an interview, the importance of inclusion, some open job postings and so much more. Sharing what we are doing at Wells Fargo in Tech is something I personally love doing.  Being able to share it with motivated, brilliant, badass engineers makes it even better.  Most important is for each of us to be able to be appreciated for who we are as we show up authentically each and every day.   

As we enter into a lovely three-day weekend, I want to encourage everyone to take a moment and read up on Juneteenth.  An important day in America’s history when the enslaved population found out the Civil War was over and they were free.  They rush to go find the family they had been separated from.  The moments of empowerment, hope for the future, and celebration.  

On Monday, join me in celebrating this important time in US history through reflection with the hope that we learn from the past so as to not repeat.  Wishing you time with your families celebrating togetherness. 

Happy Thursday!

-srt

Meeting Overload

In October of last year, we committed to getting more efficient and we were all challenged to cut down on meetings.  We’ve been somewhat successful, but I have noticed the last two weeks we are creeping back up in the number of meetings and even more so in the meetings scheduled over meetings over meetings.

I thought it might be a good time to take a PAUSE and get your feedback on how we are doing with the following:

• Meeting agendas – creating agendas and sending them out before the meetings or, better yet, in the calendar invite.  This helps all know what to expect and enables them to prepare.
• Setting time limits – Time limits help ensure the meetings stay on track and don’t run over. 
• Thinking before scheduling the meeting – Instead of automatically scheduling a meeting, ask yourself can I get this done in an alternative way?
• Sending out post-meeting summaries – It is essential to capture the time investment and to summarize what was discussed and decided on.
• Arriving on time / Starting on time – It is critical that we begin to respect the time of others by arriving on time and starting meetings on time.
• Recording meetings and saving to a common location so that when the meeting notes are published, all who missed or were late can go to that commonplace.

Please let me know how you think we are doing with the above and how I can support you and the team in adopting the best practices above.

Happy Thursday all,

-srt

Happy June 1

Happy June 1!

I love that I shared with you last week that I consider myself a superfan for Matchbox Twenty / Rob Thomas and that some of you shared that you too are superfans!  Not surprising that we have a team with diverse musical interests!  I heard from one of you that you love BTS (listen to Dynamite or Butter - so catchy!), another Brooklyn Funk Essentials (listen to the Creator Has a Master Plan), someone mentioned Armaan Malik, another The Doors / Jim Morrison (listen to People Are Strange) and we even have at least one Taylor Swift fan on the team.   Come on others, what is your favorite band or favorite singer?  Let me know, heck we may even create a PSST Summer Playlist! 

I shared with a few folks this week stories of my vegetable garden and the butterfly garden.  So, sharing a picture collage of The Farm in bloom.  The butterfly bushes, lilacs, bottlebrush, yarrow, oleander, irises, and maples are doing amazing.   As for my garden, the late freezes didn’t do me any favors, but the vegetables are doing well and we were able to harvest artichokes, asparagus, potatoes, kale, swiss chard, leeks, chives, garlic and a few strawberries this weekend.  The squash will be ready this weekend (crooked, spaghetti, acorn and butternut).  My corn, eggplant and cucumbers are just starting to grow and I don’t expect to see anything from them for a month (argh the freeze).  

With summer upon us, please remember to be safe when you travel.

Happy Thursday!

-srt