Finding and being a mentor - working on the Shadow Board at eBay

Mentorship is a learned skill that can benefit many people, especially in their early careers. However this support is not always accessible to everyone. Podcast host Naomi sits down with some of the team at eBay UK and talks to them about their answer to this very problem - the Shadow Board.

Listen as they explore how to be an effective mentor and how to get the most out of mentoring. Laugh along as they explain some of the challenges with two-way mentoring and the imposter syndrome that they've faced. Understand how multilevel mentorship strategies allow companies to create ideas that no one has ever thought of before. We can't wait for you to hear this episode!
 
About our guests:

Eve Williams (she/her)

Chief Marketing Officer, eBay UK 

Eve is responsible for all of eBay UK’s marketing. She creates impactful brand campaigns to show the breadth of eBay’s marketplace and champion the 300,000 businesses on the platform. Outside of her core role, Eve is also the executive sponsor of the D&I group ‘Women at eBay’ and, prior to joining eBay, spent seven years at ASOS as Global Brand Director. 

Sanjukta Sen (she/her)

C2C Analyst, eBay UK 

Sanjukta works as an Analytics Manager at eBay UK, working in the preloved team to make eBay the number one choice for everyday customers to buy and sell their second hand, preloved items on the marketplace. She started her career on the graduate scheme at Dyson, moving through roles in digital marketing, account management, and retail operations. Outside her job, she loves to read, paint, and spin.

Tom Jurkschat (he/him)

Marketing Manager, eBay UK 

Tom started as an Intern at a Digital Marketing Agency before moving to eBay where he has been for over 7 years. He spent the first 4.5 years in the Australian team before moving to the UK to take on new opportunities and is currently the Operations & Planning Marketing Manager, focusing on critical activity for eBay customers. Outside of work, Tom enjoys spending time with his kids, exploring the UK and playing rugby.

Learn more about Diversifying Group

Transcript

Naomi: 0:28

Diversifying.io presents, You Can't Say Anything Anymore. The podcast where we bring you the latest diversity news, and in depth meaningful conversations about how we can make a future better for all. Hi everyone, welcome to this month's podcast. And today is a very special episode, because this is the very first partnership between Diversifying and eBay, and we're really excited to have three very special guests, especially from eBay with us today. And we're gonna be talking about the Shadow Boards. So, as usual, I'm your host, I'm Naomi, my pronouns are she, they. And let's hear about our three guests. So if you'd like to introduce yourselves, please.

Tom: 1:12

Yeah, I can jump in. So my name is Tom. My pronouns are he him. I've been with eBay for seven and a half years. I spent the first four and a half of those in the eBay Australia team, and then moved to the UK. I spent the last three years there my my experience is always across marketing, and currently sitting in a sting.

Sanjukta: 1:32

My name is Sanjukta. My pronouns are she/her. I've been at eBay just over a year, so I joined in the middle of lockdown. I work in the data and analytics function, and I serve on the shadow board with Tom.

Eve: 1:46

And hi, I'm Eve. I'm the CMO, which is Chief Marketing Officer for UK, eBay which means I responsible for all of our marketing and communications from the UK. I've been here for just over a year. So like Sanjukta, I joined in lockdown. I was previously at ASOS before that.

Naomi: 2:06

Well, we're very lucky to have all of you here and thank you again for taking your time. So let's just jump straight into it. Can anybody explain to me and for many of our listeners that don't know about what is a Shadow Board?

Eve: 2:17

I'm happy to kick off on a perspective on what the shadow board is and then I'll pass it over to some of the team. So Tom and Sanjukta who are a part of it to give their perspective too. So shadow board at eBay is something that I'd say is an evolution in what it is and what we hope it will become in the future as well. It's a programme that we set up in the middle of 2021, and is a concept designed to give our employees, at an earlier stage of their career, a greater insight into leadership roles and decision making. It's essentially a group of people from within the organisation who have put themselves forward to be part of a team who can help us make sure that as a leadership team and as an organisation, we're getting perspectives and views from across the different teams across different levels to make sure that we ever avoid things like groupthink, but then also to provide new lenses on questions or challenges we're having as a business. So that's a kind of a broad view of it on the kind of reality of the day to day. But I think we've also, as we said, it's evolved, and we've had an opportunity to find out how things like the shadow board can lead some really important initiatives across the business. And also, there's been a great opportunity for us to get to know some of the members on a one to one basis through bilateral mentoring. So that is a view from my lens. But, I'll hand over to Tom for a perspective on how he describes what a shadow board is at eBay.

Tom: 3:40

Yeah, I think build on the shadow board in particular is kind of two ways. So first and foremost, we've had a great opportunity to kind of work closely with senior leadership and take some of their guidance, and be part of those conversations that are at the top of our business and learn from it on that side. And Eve touched on it on that as well. But the opportunity for us to provide fresh perspectives to leadership and hopefully bring in a different way of thinking. It means that we're kind of benefiting, not just us, but also our leadership team as well.

Naomi: 4:10

It does, yeah. I think that definitely helps to illustrate and I think that obviously I imagine that 2021 was obviously a very important year for many people, probably a Sanjukta, did you want to share your perspective? lot of reflection on individual as well as business senses as well. So it's definitely very interesting to hear about how this came about. Yeah, I guess if you just tell us a bit more about what you do. And you're obviously you mentioned, Eve, that Tom and Sanjukta are part of it as well. So yeah, if you could just give us a bit more information about that.

Sanjukta: 4:42

Yeah, sure. So yeah, as Tom and Eve have said, leadership, all that stuff. But I think for me, what was really exciting about the shadow board. And one of the core purposes for me is to just walk across the business as well. Like, I think day to day, we can get quite siloed in our own thinking in our own areas and so the shadow board was a good way to get a diverse group of voices across the business from different backgrounds, different experiences, and go 'alright, here's a problem we're trying to solve like', or we're getting into room and trying to solve a set of business problems and everyone has such a different take on it. I think that was really exciting for me and a really important part of my experience. Eve touched on the bilateral mentoring. So for me, that's been a really, really sort of a highlight of my time on the shadow board as well and I just wanted to spend some times on calling that out. The idea being that every person on the shadow board was paired up with someone on the UK leadership team, which Eve sits on as well. And everyone has sort of a one on one mentorship, and you sort of take that through the whole sort of tenure of your shadow board, so the full one year. You can structure that how you want, but the focus was on the bilateral part, ie both of you bring something to the table, whereas a lot of mentoring is just one way. That has been really, really interesting for me as well, because I think when I first came to the table, it was a bit intimidating. I was like, 'Oh my god, Eve's amazing'. So Eve was my mentor, or other Eve and I were in a bilateral mentor partnership. 'Eve was amazing. I'm going to learn so much from her.' But for me, what was really confusing was like what I can bring to the tables by think, and I speak for the rest of the shadow board as well, as we've seen over the years, there is stuff we can bring to the table, there are things I think we can learn from each other. That's been a key part of the shadow board, process and journey. That's what I'm really excited about.

Eve: 6:38

I think I would just reiterate that, as part of that bilateral mentoring, it is just given us the opportunity for us to each step back from our day to day and hear the perspectives and the kind of views of people that have kind of got a different lens than ours and kind of understanding both the eBay business but also our customers from a different angle. Sanjukta has always come and brought kind of interesting inspiration from podcasts that she's listened to, or books that she's read or kind of business challenges that she's seen identified. And I've been able to have conversations with Sanjukta and with that we have collectively as a leadership team, the shadow board and just thinking through, like, how do we engage our teams? How do we make them feel connected? I think like one of the important things always to remember about eBay is that we've got over 20 million people who shop with us every month. And that's really important because it means that we have to be connected to our employees and our ways of thinking have to be equipped to represent like this huge and diverse group of buyers and sellers. This is just one of the ways that we try and make sure that we stay connected and stay grounded and making sure that we never just use our thinking based on assumptions. We have lots of different tools to access customer insight, but shadow board and the mentoring has provided another route into making sure that we hopefully have got that diversity of thought and especially in decision making as well.

Tom: 8:04

I think for me, if I take it back to the beginning, I think initially as a concept, we knew what we wanted out of it. But in in practice, it took us a long time to figure out how it was going to work, and what was most important and how we can provide value to the leadership team and how we can get the best the experience as well. I think it's probably taken us I'd say the best part of six to seven months Sanjukta would you say? Yeah. Yeah. Trying to get that lay of the land. Obviously, we were the first shadow board that the UK business has had as well. So we've we've been the the pilot part of the programme, that's for sure. But I think along the way, we've taken on a lot of learning. I mean, initially to start with, where we've been supporting from, I guess, an employee engagement perspective. So, we run every six months a kind of employee engagement survey to understand where our strengths and weaknesses are, and customer centricity was a big part of that. So we took it away as a group as a challenge to go and work through and a programme called eBay Arcade, which was developed around getting employees closer to our customers in terms of the day to day actions and ways that we communicate with them. Then from there, I think we we slowly built into building those relationships through the bilateral mentoring, through becoming closer in the types of meetings that I guess Eve and her other L team members are a part of, and really started to open up that two way conversation. So I think it definitely took us a while to get to a point where we were both providing value, but I think we've gotten there in the end,

Sanjukta: 9:41

I think the structure is uncomfortable by design, right? Like you. I don't I have not seen this any in any other company where we set up a structure that are younger, sort of more junior members of the business, like have channels to challenge senior leadership teams, on their decisions on their thinking on their sort of on what they're bringing to the table. So I think it's not meant to be comfortable. I was surprised by how uncomfortable it was when I stepped into it. So like Tom said, it took us a while to get used to it both what was expected of us and then vice versa, what the UK leadership team expected of us because I think both ends were a little bit unclear, but I think we grew into it and got comfortable with the uncomfortable, and when actually, we do have stuff to say and we're gonna challenge it, we're gonna push back. I think both sides really benefited from that.

Eve: 10:37

I think that's completely right. One of the reasons for setting it up was that it was a concept designed to challenge the company's dynamics, and tackle that hierarchy and diversity. It's not a natural thing for people in the businesses, and I've been involved in kind of similar things before, but more like employee councils were kind of they go, and I've consulted or have the opportunity to do question and answers with leadership teams at certain points. But as both Tom and Sanjukta have shared this is hopefully more transparent. We've had members of the shadow board coming and shadowing senior team meetings in different forums, offering a chance for them to provide feedback to us ask questions, give us perspective on how we're operating. And there's also been a kind of learning journey of when the right time time is to bring the team in and to get feedback, to the shadow board. And as you said, it's been an evolution. And we've had to kind of find the right setting. And I think we've progressed on some of that and improve some of the ways of working and thinking about that visibility, but there's more work to be done. But, it's also been positive that I think we've all kept an open mind about how it works, we've got the ambition to make it work.

Naomi: 11:49

I really hear that about the difficulty with being uncomfortable. It's, I can imagine a very unnatural thing to be challenging, and to bring that into a different structure. And you've all mentioned about the times of when that happens, I can really, I think that will sort of run into my next question actually, about why it's important to eBay. And I guess I wanted to hear as well, for all of you why it's important to all of you as individuals to participate and to be a part of it.

Eve: 12:14

Tom, do you want to start?

Tom: 12:14

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, eBay. Over the seven years I've been eBay. There are so many programmes and so many opportunities to develop and grow, whether that's with some of our other diversity inclusion groups. But this one kind of stood out as something that I hadn't seen in the period of time that I had been here. And naturally with this business, the next evolution for me from a personal perspective, was being able to get closer to our leadership team, being able to understand the way that they work and interact, how they make decisions, how they work with our European leadership team as well, and how kind of the focus of how information is decided that filter through the business was really important. So this was just one of those chances that you kind of looked at and said, if I want to progress next, this is a really good opportunity for that, to give me an opportunity to kind of elevate out of the day to day a little bit and figure out how all the pieces come together. Particularly for what we've seen in COVID and working from home and hybrid working etc, it's been really hard to break those silos and to build those relationships across various teams and, and even at a leadership level as well. So it was just one of those things that was really clear and an obvious opportunity to jump on.

Sanjukta: 13:27

Yeah, I think exactly like that, but just from a different angle, because obviously Tom's been here for ages. When the shadow parts of concept came out, I think I was two months into the job, maybe three months into the job. And I just went, I've never seen this before. This sounds really cool. And so there was an element of this is new, I want to be part of it, I want to try it out, I want to test it out. But there's also an element of I joined remotely, I on boarded remotely. It was really hard. Um, you can get so stuck into just logging on at 9am doing your job logging off, and only really talking to like the five people in your team. And I really wanted to break out of that because I'm very social person. I love people like the company I was coming from, I just knew everyone and I didn't want to go down. I didn't know how long I was going to be remote for and I just went, I just need to sort of dive headfirst into this. And so I was trying out loads of things. And eBay has loads of different avenues to get involved in different things. So they have this thing called Communities of Inclusion, which is basically our employee representative groups, but they're run entirely by volunteers. And it's an amazing sort of avenue to get to know other people and and get involved in a lot of other diversity inclusion initiatives by so I was doing that by just when I want more, I want to see more. And then the other thing, as Tom mentioned was, I was really keen to get to just know the leadership team because obviously three months in, on boarded remotely, I'd never really spoken to any of them. And I thought this was the easiest, quickest way to just throw my hat into the ring and get to know them a bit better. And so, for me, it was it was quite it was quite driven by just wanting to get to know the business and the people as quickly as possible. I didn't think I'd make it onto the shadow board. So that was like step one. This was going to be one of many things I was going to try out but it worked out. So for me that was why I wanted to do it. Just a way to make the onboarding, remotely onboarding easier and to accelerate my journey as much as I could early on.

Tom: 15:26

It was a chance to make a difference as well. And in a different way, to what we would do in our day to day. So taking on all those learning experiences, and I guess pushing ourselves to a different limit as well and making ourselves uncomfortable before we then challenge and we're able to make our leadership team uncomfortable as well, which isn't an opportunity that comes by very consistently,

Eve: 15:49

Sanjuktaompletely. And I guess similar to Sanjukta, when it launched, and when the communications went out to the team about the launch of the shadow board, I'd also only been here for a couple of months. So I was really curious about it, and what the opportunity was for people and what we'd get out of it as a team, but felt like getting an amazing opportunity for us to be learning through kind of being closer to a number of the employees in our teams and the people connected to our customers or getting insight from them on a daily basis and really kind of helping to power the engine that is eBay. And as we said, speaking to those 27 or so million customers a year. And so it was a seeing also the applications that came in from a lot of the team members, hearing from them directly, because everybody had to submit an application of why they wanted to be on the shadow board and what they thought they could bring. And the creativity that went into those that kind of passion for the business was super impressive. And again, that was for those people who were then given the opportunity to step onto it, and then all the other people that didn't for this round, but then hopefully will for future cohorts, it was an amazing opportunity to see that energy coming through. And I hope that I hope that this cohort, the shadow board have gained a lot from it. But also they've helped to set the foundations for the next cohort that we'll have in the future. And I think they'll all have different challenges. And I'm sure that from a leadership point of view, they'll also be thing, different things that we learn as well. But there will always be great value that will come from it. And it will evolve hopefully, as the business evolves, and what kind of market evolves and how our customers need to evolve as well. But yeah, I've loved it as a member of the leadership team, but also personally for the insights and interactions as well.

Naomi: 17:36

Thank you for sharing that. I think that all of you touched on points about the individual learning as well as the the business going. And I really liked what you said, Sanjukta about the fact that you joined remotely, and that this helped you to get to know the business and get to know people and how all of you, all three of you have gotten to know the leadership team and got to know different people outside of, as you mentioned, sometimes the five people that you talk to every day. So I think that's really, really interesting about how it kind of speaks to eBay as a whole as sort of helping individuals connections. And that's how it's working as a team. So I really like that. And on that note, I think now's a good time to take a break. So listeners we'll be back after the break.

Bame Recruitment: 18:17

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Naomi: 18:33

We are back after the break. I think that you already answered a bit about mine, which was gonna be my next question about what's your experience been like? So we'll just move on to my next question, which was about what have been some of the challenge is, and I think you obviously all of you touched on some of the positives as well. But if you could just reflect a

Tom: 18:50

It's been hard. It's been really hard. I kind of alluded little bit? to it before, but being that first group and essentially trying to pave the way that it looks like and build that structure out, it's been really tricky. And again, in a hybrid way of working and working from home, that's also throwing in extra complications. I think it took us six months really to find our feet. And as I mentioned before, I think the big thing for us as a shadow board was making sure that we were providing value to our leadership team and essentially not just a drag on that time. So making sure that we found ways of working and projects and, and ways of communicating that helped enable us to bring that fresh perspective and make sure that we were providing that value was really important to us. And I think a lot of the projects that we started kicking off, probably halfway through really helped us get there. I say some of the key challenges that I saw. Sanjukta, do you have anything else? Top of Mind?

Sanjukta: 19:49

So I think some of the challenges is I think as, as we as we sort of move through the we had sort of personal learning as well as just for the for the structures. I think from a personal perspective, obviously, we got used to giving uncomfortable feedback or giving feedback more in the moment. Because it's very easy to sort of just take stuff away and then personally talk about it and go, Oh, we didn't like that. We don't think that was the right thing to do. But actually, to stand up and put your name on that opinion to send it out to leadership. I think that was hard. And that was really good learning for all of us to actually we have those opinions and If we stand by them, I think they're worth listening to, or they're worth being heard. So I think that's from a personal perspective, it was like uncomfortable growth. But I think from a structural perspective as well, there was a lot more we as a collective leadership team and shadow board could have done more. So I think there were times when we looked at pieces of work that gone out or meetings that had happened, when actually the shadow board should have been part of that conversation, or at least just listened in just from a learning perspective, because I think the way it's structured is, it's not a natural thing to bring a different group of people into that conversation for the leadership team anyway, all the time. And sometimes it was led to the side, I think, if we're being like, honest, I think we go we sort of wouldn't sit in the shadow board meeting years ago, actually, we should be invited to that. I'm not sure why we weren't there. But I think it's got better over the months. Because I think as the as the meetings went on, as the months went on, the leadership team got much more comfortable or used to going actually the shadow board should be in here for this conversation. And so we've been involved a lot more recently. And I think that's something that will only improve over time. With future cohorts, they'll, I think it'll just become second nature to get them into that conversation, even just from a learning perspective. Whereas I think for us, we had to we struggled a little bit. And then we also felt like we didn't want to impose because we were a group of some junior employees, and we're going should we be in the room? Should we be imposing, but I think we got comfortable with pushing back a little bit. And I think both of those parts sort of evolved over time. I think that that was sort of definitely one of my biggest challenges.

Tom: 21:59

Yeah, as the relationship grew, we kind of we had to break down the formality in the way that we spoke to one another as well. Right? And a lot of the leadership team continued to challenge us on how we were providing feedback. Yeah, a formal email, you know, be comfortable to, to speak up in room when you don't understand something, when you have a question, or you want to challenge it, like make more informal. Ensure it's part of a conversation. And I think that also helps become a real big turning point for how we were able to provide value, and not just gonna last half is about

Eve: 22:55

I think that's, like, everything you've called out, I cohort. agree with, and there's a like, it's been a muscle that we've had to develop as a leadership team to. Often, we are a company that I think operates at pace, trying to, I hope that pace is accelerating, like for good reason for like customers lives are changing rapidly. And we want to make sure that we are doing things and showing up in a way that matters to them. And so sometimes when you're moving at pace, it takes a while to kind of add in those steps to say, actually, like, we're already saying, what's the perspective of the customer, we thought about them enough. And as Sanjukta and Tom have both called out, they've been times have said, Wait, pause, we need to make sure that we have the perspective of the shadow board on this as well, because they might have insights and how we can make sure that this really lands with impact for our teams and with our customers as well. So I think it has been a case for all of us in our leadership team to have that kind of buzzer on the table almost to say this is a moment that we need their involvement and their feedback, because they're going to give us a different perspective, that's going to get us to a better outcome. So I think we're, we're learning that muscle, but it's something that you build over time.

Naomi: 24:03

Absolutely. And I'm sure that all of our listeners who are listening can really relate to a lot of what you have said about, you know, growing the muscle and sort of breaking down that cultural politeness that we all have, in any work environment, whether we're in offices, or we go to work, offices go to work, you know, in an office at home, obviously, you have to go physically to work. It's it's something that is kind of inherent in corporate culture, especially. And it's, I can imagine, it's something that everyone else at every single level has to develop individually. And to know when to say those things. It sounds very difficult to as a human to sort of get past your sort of cultural politeness, and then as a worker to sort of say that in a sort of way that is conducive for provoking discussion. Yeah, I just wanted to touch on a bit on sort of, some of you mentioned it as well about the sort of future direction until the future cohorts. Yeah, I just wanted a little bit more about that.

Eve: 24:58

So I think we've been fairly open in the conversation. So far this year has been about a huge amount of learning. And we've got to turn those recommendations into where we go next. And hopefully, what Tom and Sanjukta have shared and also the other members of the shadow board can contribute will give us a sense of where we can give if it's a bit more structured, if it's given more focus or some guidance for that next cohort to contribute to their experiences and improve it to I think, we've learned as we said, we've learned a lot it's it's benefited us a lot. I think we've started to really see the the positive impact it can have. So it will continue to be an evolution but hopefully in the right direction. But also there'll be new people coming onto it who might have different points of view and what it can contribute and also the lives of our customers might change as well in a way that we need that shadow board to help us in different directions. So I'm excited about how it keeps evolving, but also the kind of degree of flexibility. And there's always a sense of, it's good to kind of be comfortable with the uncomfortable. And actually, I think if we ever get to the point where it's completely easy and simple, then it's probably not right, because as you said, it's designed to tackle that kind of create that tension that keeps challenging that hierarchy, getting that point of view. So hopefully, it'll keep evolving in a way that keeps us on our toes as well.

Tom: 26:21

I think what you've touched on there that's really important is, we've obviously got a lot of learning that we've taken away from this year and we have a general idea of what can help and assist the next group moving forwards, but they're going to be a different group of individuals with different ideas, different perspectives, and we don't want to kind of carve out the path for that group more just give guidance and what we thought worked well and didn't work well and allow them to kind of provide their own spin on things as well moving forwards, which is really key.

Sanjukta: 26:53

And I think, for me, there's some things that work really well. So one thing I didn't touch on was every member of the shadow board sort of gets like an education pot of like a budget, and you can go off and do any course you want with it. Or you can go off and have like learning experience or professional development experience. And for me, that's been one of the coolest things to do, because I've never actually gone away and done that. So that was really good. I think the bilateral mentorship again, there's some things that I actually don't think we should change that obviously, there's something that we should evolve, and we will evolve. But there's some things that like a really strong at its core. I think ultimately for me, what the shadow board was about was an expression of how much you care, I think a business stops growing if people stop caring. And I think the shadow board was like a really good channel to go, right, here are a group of six or seven, really committed individuals who really care about the business. So for the future direction of the shadow board, I think just we need to start we need to keep building on that I just I would love to see future shadow boards just be even stronger, even more challenging, even more ambitious. And it will take time. And it'll be really uncomfortable. I think uncomfortable is like the buzzword of this, of this podcast. But I think I would just love to see it grow and evolve into this really strong group of individuals who keep caring and keep driving the business forward. Because for me, that was what was at the core of this sort of initiative,

Unknown: 28:16

I think the final piece for me will be the relationships. So you know, us as a group of seven, the relationships that we've built, we wouldn't have had those opportunities, had we not being brought together. And we've already discussed about what do we do next onnce our kind of shadow board tenure ends? We want to stay together as a group, you kind of build like a mini alumni and, and keep bringing those groups together and to share concepts. And we won't be working the same frequency that we have been as a dedicated shadow board. But that knowledge share is really important in a business as evolute to the moves of the pace that we do. And if we can continue to provide a different way of thinking, we now know that we've got those relationships in place to talk to senior leadership that doesn't just go away once our tenure finishes, though, we can still provide some additional feedback moving forwards as

Naomi: 29:01

It almost sounds a bit like a coming of age movie at well. the end, and then the romantic scene and you're all reflecting on all the things that you've learned. It sounds wonderful. I'm just curious as well as you just as anybody, what did you choose for your learning? And I think that's fantastic that eBay is, I guess, kind of, you know, the buzzword that we've talked about is uncomfortable but the other one is, you know, never stop learning. So I just I'm just curious what your chose.

Sanjukta: 29:26

Yeah, so I, I did a section for sprint. So there's a business thinker, Professor Scott Galloway and he set up a company that basically about democratising Elite Business Education for all so you can enrol in like two or three week mini sprints on a on a focus area. So I did mine on business strategy at the end of last year, which was incredible. And then in March, I'm enrolling into the mini MBA in marketing, which is a 12 week programme taught by Professor Margaret's and again, both these things business strategy and marketing I've never touched I've no idea what I'm getting myself into. But I think that was what was exciting for me is I just want to use this opportunity to deep dive and learn topics that I'd never had exposure to so hopefully just broaden my skill set.

Tom: 30:15

Yeah, personally for me, next step that I see in my career, although there's a passion of mine is to be a people leader and eBay offers some brilliant programmes internally that are built around people leadership. So again, as part of this programme, we've been given access to those sorts of things that we haven't had in the past. So taking an opportunity to kind of get those development skills that are a big part of progressing in business but also people skills. Personally for me, some of the key learning areas in terms of how you can develop as a person and managing your relationships with other people in the business. So that was a key focus for me.

Eve: 30:53

I've also benefited from some of the stuff that Sanjukta has learnt through the course that she's done through her debriefs to me in our bilateral mentoring, and now I'm quite excited to see what she learns in her 12 week sprint, and I'm slightly nervous that she might be a year or so if enough. So yeah, we'll be interested to see what we learn. But then also, there's like a brilliant opportunity to figure out, I've got people here who are testing amazing different insight and development opportunities, from other forums, and actually, what can we take from those and share with other members of our teams and give access to those as well. So I think there's been a great opportunity also for us to, for this team to get down to to learn this and then think about are the things that we could roll out more broadly as well,

Naomi: 31:38

It sounds it sounds so fantastic. And I'm sure that all of our listeners who are listening are definitely very interested and very curious about this.

Tom: 31:46

But, thank you for the opportunity to kind of speak to you as well and have a chance to kind of share our side and what we've seen, I think you kind of said it, it was it was nice to be able to reflect back on it and have that kind of conversation as well. So appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

Eve: 32:00

Yeah. And if there's anyone that's listening, that has got similar forum set up in their organisations, it's always fascinating to hear about how that's worked and what they've learnt as well. As we said, this is an evolution, there's some stuff we should keep in this some stuff we should change, but always good to look outside in as well.

Naomi: 32:16

Fantastic. Where can people learn more about eBay and learn more about the shadow boards?

Eve: 32:22

So if people did want to learn more about eBay, or cultural elements of the shadow board, then there's a lot on our eBay website and our careers site, but then also could reach out to the people team in the UK that could open up some those conversations about what we've learned from shadow board and what we could learn from others as well.

Naomi: 32:39

I'm sure many people will be inspired after this conversation. And as you said, the other people reflecting on their own experiences at their own organisations and what they can do in terms of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yeah, I wanted to thank you again, for taking your time to speak with me today and share your experiences. It honestly sounds like a fantastic initiative. I'm quite jealous. Honestly, sounds very interesting. And I just love the fact that it is all about, I guess the synergy of all of you learning individually. But bringing that together, and everybody learning together and how that's kind of come about and it's how it's evolved over time. And through all the different challenges, but also, it helps you learning different courses as well. So I love all of that and things but yeah, thank you again for taking your time.

Eve: 33:28

Thank you.

Sanjukta: 33:29

Thank you.

Naomi: 33:31

Okay, great. So listeners will speak to you in the next podcast.

Bame Recruitment: 33:40

Thanks for listening to you can't say anything anymore, a podcast by Diversifying.io. If you like our show and want to know more, check out our website and sign up for our newsletter@diversifying.io Or please leave us a review on iTunes. Join us next time as we explore more diversity news.