Do Your Thing before your Workday Ends
*Spoiler alert: No need to kill your coffee, break or lunchtime. No need for a 7-page technical documentation to show your ownership either. This short article talks about how to keep cross-functional teams mindful.
Not easy, but necessary daily: Legacy and Vulnerability.
1. Your Legacy
What do you want to be known for?
This is the question I often do when I interview my peers and mentees. I have heard so many different points of view — which made me think we’re unique professionals and should strive for what we believe in ourselves. It can be having the sexiest front-end code of your tribe. It can be living on a mango farm in Guatemala. It can be having the best and warm smile in the worst circumstances. It can be knowing the best design tricks on Figma. It can be none of these, guys. One question can help you define what you’re looking to achieve at a company — and especially before your (every) workday ends.
- Personality
Personality is a big piece of any equation and environment we know! Knowing how you react, think, feel, judge, perceive or sense can save you tons of minutes a day. Here’s a free test for the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, which is a self-report inventory designed to identify a person’s type.
I learned that as a Consul (ESFJ): we tend to encourage and strengthen one another. For the positive energy spread to one will be felt by us all.
- Influence
We can influence people well — we can huddle, call, ping, and follow up on requests before playing the please-prioritize-this-message card, for example. It does not mean we all should be quiet and not react when something bad is happening. Speak up and use your influence.
When a topic needs to be escalated to validate people’s voices and have them heard is not a good sign for anyone involved at all. Set this as a reflection for you today! Hard situations may require hard outputs, and these do not mean you agree with them all—that was what I once posted.
Again, before the workday ends.
2. Your Vulnerability
What have you regretted doing when you joined the company?
This is the second question I ask when I interview my peers and mentees. I heard fascinating stories and scary confessions lately!
Also interesting to mention how I felt after two interviews in my career! Here’s a recap of the two lessons learned:
- Honesty
We know it can sound obvious to say: yes, be honest today! Being transparent during your day is key to keeping a 15+ size people team functional, calm and happy. Is this ethical? Yes or No. Is the stakeholder aware? Yes or No. Are we making any impact on the business? Yes or No. Is this accessible for disabled users? Yes or No. Is this making users get lost in the app? Yes or No.
Once I was asked why I wanted to work at a company and replied:
- cool industry, sexy product, good money, corporate card— slightly different than these, of course. And then I heard from a mentor, honesty can be too much when you’re not ready to listen to it or don’t look for it.
- Relevance
Last but not least, relevance is what makes us seen or unseen. In every situation.
Once I was asked how to deal with ambiguity and had no idea what to say. After taking a nanosecond breath, I focused on walking through scenarios with executive escalation and visibility and how to work with Engineers. That was well-received and can help your speech now. Also, I took the opportunity to share my learnings with A/B Testing and how that helped change the team’s bias.
And yes — all this before the workday ends.
Ray
Text by Rhaissa V.
Keeps hacking bias every day. Been reading about mental health, mentorship, strategy, and communities. Works as a Senior Product Manager at Huge Inc, on behalf of Google.
