Arguing Agile

AA235 - Changing Your Message: Adaptive vs. Manipulative Communication

• Season 1 • Episode 235

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When does adapting your communication style cross the line into manipulation? 

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as we examine the differences between translation and transformation of messages.

Together, we provide a framework for communicating effectively across audiences without becoming a "slimy shapeshifter."

Discover the three-point integrity test, learn to spot narrative inconsistency, and understand why your reputation depends on what people say when you're NOT in the room!

Watch this episode to hear/see us explore:
• Difference between changing language vs. changing the message
• Spot political operators who weaponize adaptive communication
• 3 patterns of manipulative communicators
• What bosses say when you're not in the room
• How to maintain integrity across different audiences
• The consistency of storytelling

We're exposing the difference between changing language vs. changing the message and discussing how to maintain integrity!

REFERENCES

  • Adam Grant (Think Again), 
  • Kim Scott (Radical Candor), 
  • Amy Cudd (Harvard Research)

#ProductManagement #Leadership #Communication #Integrity #AgileCoaching #ProfessionalDevelopment

stakeholder communication, political operators, credit claiming, blame shifting, managerial integrity, trust building, adaptive communication

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Brian:

So you're telling me when a manager tells the exec team one story about why the project failed, and then they tell the dev team a completely different story they're just adapting communication style.

Om:

Yeah. They're adapting. Tailoring. How many times have we seen that in our past?

Brian:

This is a chameleon that's shapeshifting directly in front of me. When you're in the room, they speak highly of you. And when you're out of the room, they're throwing you under the bus. Oh

Om:

boy. Oh boy. This is one of the reasons why this podcast is very critical for people that are in this situation. So we need to talk about this. So hang on. Fasten your seat belts. Strap in!

Brian:

If this is your first time I'm your host product manager brian Orlando is my co-host Enterprise Business Agility consultant, Mr. O Patel and the Saltless Swing. I think that's definitely one of his credentials. That's both of us though. Yeah, we are the consultants. Consultants. The swing ev like, and subscribe. Because every like, helps the podcast. And today we're tackling a sticky subject. Changing your language to suit your audience. And I'm gonna be honest I hate the advice that people usually give and receive when we're talking about this category. I hate it. Because every time that what I see is someone who's really good at this, what we're about to talk about, changing your language to suit the different audience when you speak to management, you've gotta speak the language of management. Because every time I've seen someone that's really advanced at this quote, skill. They end up being the person who takes credit for your team's, work by themselves and say, it's it's all me. And then when things fail, they blame other people and they never they deflect all the blame from themselves, that kind of stuff. But this is, this is what you're gonna walk away with today from, from this discussion. There's a couple things you're gonna learn to tell the difference between someone that's just adapting their communication style versus someone who's being a manipulative shapeshifter, ah,

Om:

shapeshifter. So you're gonna be able to tell the difference between wizards and what, what's the other one? Lizards. Think. Lizards.

Brian:

We're back playing the game. It's a fun game. That's it. That's it. That's the one We're rolling all the dice today. Let's see. The other thing is we will give you a framework for testing whether someone's being strategic or slimy. Slimy is strategic. There, they're very close together. I don't know if you knew that. Yeah, exactly. And then how to deal with different audiences without losing your integrity, and then becoming the person that I've been hating on for the whole introduction, the 19 minute introduction to this podcast. Oh, there we go.

Om:

So whether you are just freshly into the into the professional space, or you've been here for a while, you know you're gonna come across this at some point. If you haven't already, you will. That's an absolute ironclad guarantee. Yes. The results of this podcast will hopefully stand you in good stead to kind of navigate those choppy orders. So stay tuned.

Brian:

Or your money back.

Om:

Or your money back. Exactly. It's, this is worth every penny you didn't pay for.

Brian:

All right. Let me ask you something. Have you ever worked with someone who tells the CTO the project is failing because of technical debt and then tells the CEO that it's failing because of unclear requirements and then tells the team it's failing because leadership keeps changing priorities?

Om:

Or, and or So I'm gonna go the and first. Homage to people that pointed me out to this. And it's because the teams aren't very good at defining requirements and delivering to those, right? Mm-hmm.

Brian:

I thought you were gonna say, because that person's a liar. That's why.

Om:

No, they, they're lying or they're being economically with the truth. Either way. Either way. So here, right? If you're a CTO who is in this situation, you're doing the best you can. We understand that if you're a team member, though, your CTO is doing the best they can, are you right? Are people changing the way they're speaking or their communication. To basically satisfy a means to an end that's that's self-serving for them, right? Or are they being political and changing it in a way where blame is deflected somewhere else, except them, of course, but also hopefully if they're protective of your team, that they're gonna try and shield you in some way, so the rest of this podcast is important. If you are gonna be successful in navigating this

Brian:

one would hope.

Om:

One would hope. And I think we can deliver on that promise.

Brian:

Okay. So there is a small section in the I don't reference Adam Grant that much'cause I don't really like his books that much and a shocker. But in think again he names this thing about people who frequently change their message. not the delivery, the message what's called Narrative inconsistency. which as you know, destroys trust as you would expect. And if we're gonna step back for a second and kind of define this problem, this part one of this problem. Why we distrust, quote, adaptive communicators I'm gonna say effective leaders, like you said, they, they're emphasizing different aspects of the truth depending on what the audience cares about. This is the typical advice that people will give, especially in the agile space. They'll say, oh, you gotta meet that person where they are. Executive or C level executive or whatever, and speak, oh, you gotta speak about ebitda. You gotta speak about earnings. You gotta speak their language. Speak ROI, you gotta speak their language. That's, the main thing you'll hear. That's a one, one point. The other one is using identical language as executives or developers or customers or whatever that demonstrates a lack of emotional intelligence. The other point here, the other point in the against for what I'm saying is that if you never change your language, use the same language with executives or developers or customers and whatnot, that demonstrates that you have a lack of emotional intelligence. That you have a lack of the ability to tailor your message to the audience where, how they need to hear it to make impact. So those, those are the two, if I'm gonna take a minute and kind of steelman, sorry, I never used the word steelman, working in DC like, those guys love Steelman and straw man. Sure. So I'm gonna start working that in now because I, I know a bunch of them have been listening to the last couple podcasts. So that one's for you guys. That's my best steel man argument here is like the, the effect of people here. Like they're, they're being economical with the truth maybe, they're emphasizing aspects of it. More with different audiences. And then the other side of it is like, well, if you don't learn to do that, you're never gonna get to the top right. And they're always gonna be like, well, this person doesn't, he can't speak the language, he can't be my eyes and ears. So I don't know why they're not, I didn't mean to throw that one in there. Yeah.

Om:

Not effective communicators. Yeah. Tailoring your message, tailoring your communication language to the audience that you are targeting. That's one thing. Most people, I would say, pretty much anyone who's listening to this did not go to a class in school that teaches you this stuff. You learn this by flapping your arms and trying to stay afloat yeah. That's the word that springs to mind. You know, as you go through your career. We don't have these skills that are taught to us. So how do you get to that point? Where you can A, survive and hopefully b thrive at some point

Brian:

well, let's talk about that's the storybook against case here. So what do we really believe here? What are what are we trying to emphasize here? There's a couple points, the main one, which was my gripe that I started with in this podcast was, if the message changes, like you lose integrity with me immediately

Om:

if you find out that the message has changed. That's true. You know, the audiences are often insulated from one another, but often you do find out, right? Yeah. Because somebody says something to someone. It's really about how far they drop in your esteem, right?'Cause they are just basically being a chameleon at that point. And if you're feeling that way, you can bet other people are too, right? Yeah. So you have this compounding effect and that person, the messenger I mean, they stand to lose some credibility right there.

Brian:

Well, I mean, here look, why are they doing that? You know, why would they do that? I mean, there's really, I only have one answer and I'll throw it out right away. They're protecting their own reputation at. At the cost of everything else.

Om:

That's it. That's your card. And that's the only card in this deck, really. I mean that, that's the reason why they do that, right? The opposite side of it is, oh yeah, they're gonna put themselves out there and sacrifice their net worth, so to speak, to protect the team can count on one hand with fingers to spare. How many people have actually done that? In my experience? Oh, very few.

Brian:

Oh. Do you have a, do you have a story? A a time, I have a story. A time when you,

Om:

one time when a person did that, and they were the first people when the team was at, well teams in this case when they were basically off ramped you know, they were the first people that one of the first persons to say, this is actually not right. The team is very good at what they do, and it's for other reasons than they pointed out the reasons. And this was in a town hall meeting? Yeah. And I remember the leadership saying, well, if that's your position the organization doesn't value that kind of a, an approach or an attitude. And they walked and along with them six other people walked. Wow. Right away. And they knew, these six knew, but those people that were now left wondering, what's gonna happen to us? They found out within a week. Yeah. They were all gone. So, I mean, look, I think it takes a lot for someone to say, I'm gonna wear my heart on a sleeve and I'm gonna just say what I feel and to heck with the consequences.'cause it's the right thing to do. Most people don't do that.

Brian:

I got a zinger for you.

Om:

Let's have a zinger.

Brian:

My zinger is if you, if you don't want your conversation played on the, on the speaker and felt like when you call somebody and you're on the speaker on the phone and you're like, am I on speaker? That's, that's this person. If you wouldn't say whatever, you're gonna say, Hey, take me off speaker.

Om:

Usually a good red, red signal right there. Take me off speaker.

Brian:

If you won't say on speaker to everybody what you would only say to one person, there is a good chance that you're not just adapting your communication style. You're changing the message and also covering your backside. Yeah.

Om:

Yeah. I actually look, there's no arguing there. I mean, that's, that's a telltale sign. The other telltale sign is when you're in a larger group setting and somebody presses you for you know, for an answer or an opinion or whatever. Yeah. And you know, there's a mixed audience there, right? So. You get outta jail card. There is, let's take that offline. I mean why are they doing that? Because honestly, if you have a message, just say it yeah. But you're reluctant to say it because you have various messages. So you can pick up on that as a recipient of the message.

Brian:

I have a takeaway here that I wrote down. before you have your stakeholder conversation, you write down the facts of what you wanna communicate, because that stakeholder communication could be at any level. It could be if you look at our, the podcast we did on stakeholder communication, it's arguing Agile 2 0 1, mastering Stakeholder Communication and Management, where we talked about the power interest grid and and all that. But write down, write down some facts that you need to communicate, and then no matter what audience you're talking to, you should be able to communicate the facts of the situation. Maybe you communicate the facts a little differently or the different, different audiences want to dig in and ask you about different facts. Sure. But the facts of the situation don't change.

Om:

Yeah, that's true. If it helps any right, you could use a loose framework, like , write down the interest groups, write down the facts as you would like to relay them. In each of the columns for each interest group, and then sort those, right? So that the like facts are on the same road, so to speak. And then decide, given a certain amount of time that you have to speak, which ones are you willing to go with? Yeah. At least that way you're prepared with your communication message. So that might be helpful. It might not be, but it's just something I thought about you could do because you don't have the floor for long. Yeah. But what you say matters.

Brian:

So now it's up to the audience. What do you think about this category? Did we get this right? Have you worked with people who tells different stories, the different people, and has that blown up for you? Or Yeah, what's been

Om:

your experience exactly. What's been your experience?

Brian:

I wanna move us on to a trickier conversation.'Cause there is a legitimate benefit slash purpose to adapting your communication style. We have to talk about what that actually looks like when you're earnestly doing it. Yeah. As opposed to dis earnestly doing it.

Speaker 6:

No, I don't think that's a word.

Brian:

The line between adaptation and deception is the next category. When I tell the CFO that it's gonna take us like another month to do this thing that he thought was only gonna take a week because when we actually got into the code, we realized it was relying on a whole bunch of other stuff. And now that we're in the guts of the change, we have to do the right thing that's not lying like that. Well, that's evidence based. That's like I'm translating by not taking him through every single technical detail that honestly you wouldn't wanna hear anyway.

Om:

Yeah. And, and also you're not, you're not crafting the message. To serve your purpose necessarily you found out that the code has all these issues, right. Et cetera. So it's evidence-based. To me, it's just that does he wanna see the evidence? If, if he does, you can present that, right? Yeah, you can present that. So that's not really the problem necessarily. It's, it's those people that are trying to hide things under the blanket, so to speak, and just say, well, we know our code is terrible, right? So we have to come up with a reason why. That's right. It's complicated. That's right. That's right it's complex. It's like, well, you have no evidence behind that. You're just saying it's complex you don't understand there are way too many moving parts. If your CFO is technical, or CCIO, for example, if they're technical, they, or CTO, they can understand this. But other people in the company, they're gonna take your word for it because you are the trusted party here as an expert in your domain so, oh yeah. It's complicated. So, yeah. You said it was gonna take us or you thought it would take us, I don't know, a month. It's gonna take us three months. It's just the way it is.

Brian:

Effective persuasion requires speaking to each audience speaking to their different concerns and their different mental models, but the underlying data and the recommendations, those stay the same. So with that being said, let me throw out the steelman side of the steelman.

Om:

Think we need a steelman icon.

Speaker 5:

Steel Man,

Om:

man or something. I

Speaker 5:

did the he man

Brian:

thanks for coming to the live podcast. So the steel man, here we go. Any change in language inevitably changes emphasis and changing emphasis means that some audiences will have different impressions of priority and urgency, which is functionally the same as changing the message. Oh boy. Well, we're

Om:

transitioning now into changing the message.

Brian:

So in practice, the line between translation and spin. It's very blurry and it's safer to use consistent languages across all audiences to avoid even the appearance of manipulation, especially if you're one of these pathological organizations where Brian always spins, they caught you once slipping, and now Brian always spins the truth. So the better way is to never get caught playing that game and , you just speak one way. You speak with the facts and there you go.

Om:

This is a great topic. I, this particular point I think is very, very good. That's my steel man. The thing about this point, is it, it's who you're perceived as as a communicator. Yes. Are you perceived as somebody who's always shifting from one foot to another? Or are you somebody who simply says. Listen, here are the facts. Well, here's what I believe the facts are. There's a difference between those two as well. Mm-hmm. You know, and then just objectively as as possible, relay the message without looking to deflect blame in any direction really.

Brian:

You know, the other one that's been the other one I've heard people use that is great. Is what I heard you say was, and then repeat something that was not what you said. Never said.

Om:

Now we're straight into politics. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. So, so I wanna go back, right? Sorry, I jumped ahead to my experience. No, no, you, this is actually part of it. I got a story coming up. Yeah. So, so here, here's what I would recommend people to do, do not use those corporate sadism, right? Like, well, we're going after the low hanging fruit. Mm-hmm. Well, how low does it have to be? Mm.

Speaker 3:

Fruit

Om:

for a garden? Nome, reach it. I saw this meme today, but it's a very valid. Yeah low hanging fruits. Like how low? How low is it? Do you need a ladder? Just say it like it is and say we're going after something we can deliver in Days instead of months and then field for questions. So in your messaging, do not mix multiple topics and at the end just, does anybody have any questions? People are still absorbing what you said.'cause you had like multiple points you made at every point you make just pause and field. Yeah. If you really care to get that feedback. Of course yeah. So that, genuineness that you need to bring to the table. So don't use those corporate, sayings that people often. Just throw in there I've got everyday language.

Brian:

I've got two things that I thought of from what you just said. Two things to point out from what you just said is translation of the message versus transformation of the message, which is also like co-opting the message, right? Yeah, exactly. So the translation changes the vocabulary. Sure. But the message is the same. It preserves the core facts. Again, we come back to this, just lay out the facts, right? Just the facts, ma'am and then transformation changes. The actual story. Who's responsible, what the problems are, what the perception of it. This is where like the OKRs bugs me in corporate America.'cause when the stress is on, like people will manipulate numbers and metrics to tell whatever story they want to tell. And I've seen people tell, twist themselves into knots. To manipulate the, I'm jumping forward to experience. So the, the test here is if you take all of the statements that someone's made, again, this is the same test in this category as it was in the first category. If you take all the statements they made and you write them all down, you play 'em all back against the facts. Are they gonna be parallel narratives? Or are they gonna be like, are they all gonna lead back to the truth? This is sort of like the single source of truth, single document of truth kind of approach.

Om:

This is why cops single out people separately and ask them the same questions. What version of the story are you hearing?

Brian:

Alright, it's, time for us to bend the truth. No, just kidding. You're an enterprise coach, you have to talk to development teams, you have to talk to leadership, you have to talk to sponsors with people that just manage money, they don't actually work on the software or use the software and meet customers. how do you keep the messages straight when you're talking all different audiences?

Om:

Yeah, that's a really good question. I come from the position of it is what it is and if I twist it, it's going to satisfy some people. But at the expense of taking off others that basically just say why we here. Right. So I come from a position of telling people. Exactly what's going on. And then fielding for concerns and questions but one thing I try to avoid. Almost always is casting blame. Because it doesn't change things. You can cast blame all you like, but it doesn't change where you are. You're still gonna be where you are. This is sort of like that old thing that I always talk about on the podcast and say, yeah, you hold up a mirror and say like what you see. Sure. Break the mirror. Bring another one. You still gonna like what you see. I've seen people though in other walks of life, including the field that I'm in to come in and basically twist things a little bit here and there to the point where you think you're looking in the mirror where it's like one of those circus mirrors, the images are not what they should be. Those kinds of trickery let's say Chicanery. Yeah, chicanery. They don't last long. You get caught out at some point, and when you do, you fall a long way down. You lose credibility that takes so long to build and it's so quick to destroy. So don't do it, folks. It's not worth it.

Brian:

So if you can't draw a straight line from what you told the CEO to what you told the intern and everybody in between, you're not translating you're lying to multiple people. You're transforming Brian, you're, you're lying to multiple people in multiple languages. That's what you learn. You're a transformation agent. That's what you are. So, rather than speaking different languages, you're lying in different languages. And I will say, you've done well, grasshopper, you've learned

Om:

well, yes. There you go. Distorting the truth.

Brian:

You're ready for a life of crime. That's what I'm saying. To sell drugs, do crime. I don't know, what can we recommend here? The put the core facts in the center and then you branch out to different audiences with different audience specific language. Obviously, executives they only wanna hear about impact. The user, your software, they don't care about impact. They want to know about what have you done for them. Yeah. What have you done for them, what their specific flow and stuff like that. So again, we return to arguing Agile 2 0 1 because again, at the heart of a lot of this is, you have to know how does that quadrant want to be communicated with and what is important for them. If the executive quadrant they only want to hear about hard financial numbers and they want hear about impact, but they want it to be in terms of financials and nothing else, which usually. Especially in larger companies where they're so divorced from any one product, if you have multiple products, they don't even care about talking about one product. They just want the numbers and everything else stripped out.

Om:

Yeah. Again, we may have different people in the audience that are at different parts in the journey. So the advice I have for those people is, if you're not sure, don't be afraid to reach out to a peer go to meetups, go talk to people that are in the same field, or adjacent fields. Reach out to them and say, what would you do in this situation? Because you don't learn this stuff in school. So I would say reach out, learn from people. And you know, live long and prosper.

Brian:

I've got advice as a product manager for people that, but I'm telling you now, I don't think people are gonna want to hear it is first of all, go do your homework and watch arguing Agile 2 0 1 and then a mastering stakeholder communication. And then when you've watched 2 0 1, actually do the grid actually do write the grid down, start putting people's names in it, and then go and interview 20 people that's five people per grid gonna interview 20 people.

Om:

It's not a lot really, it,

Brian:

it is easily doable, but I'm telling like right now, like 95% of people just dropped off. I know. And then ask them like, how do you want when I come up with new features or when I, I'm gonna release new things or when I'm testing things or whatever how do you want to know about it? You know, oh, I wanna know about it before, oh, I want a video demo. Oh, I want, whatever. They'll all want different things. Sure. So, but talk to 20 people and then come back and, and then get a handle on what your communication strategy is going to be. Because if your strategy is telling everyone when they want to hear and just taking all the promotions, and now , suddenly you're running the business and all the product managers are under you.'cause you're like, this is the episode we just put out. Yeah a lot of people have landed themselves in this career or that, but they just like sign all the checks whether they could be cashed or not.. And suddenly they're like, success is their worst enemy. And this is a wild problem.

Om:

People have just become yeah. They, you've just been promoted to your highest level of incompetence.

Brian:

So the takeaway again, in the, in the center, in the center of that two by two is a circle, which is the core facts, right? Because those facts have to be communicated. You start with the facts. You, no matter what the communication plan is, you build for each stakeholder. You start with the facts, and then you branch out from there. So the, the takeaway here is very straightforward and quick. And honestly, if you've talked to those 20 people, it's gonna be pretty easy. Believe it or not. See, it doesn't sound easy 'cause like talking to those people and then wrangling all those cats. Is that, is it Cat Wrangler or are you Cat Wrangler now? Cat

Om:

heard, yeah. One thing you could possibly do if you are diligent about speaking to each individual for their own concerns is map those on the two by two and then draw a concentric circle around the zero zero and figure out how many you can group together. For a given communication method, that might be your kind of practical how to, and that groups, the 2025 people into groups that you can use for using specific distribution channels.

Brian:

Again, we pass to the audience. What do you think about this category? Like is there a clear line between translation and deception? I think, or am I off my rocker again? Like, am I, am I on the sauce again? Is that what I'm asking Right now? You not

Om:

off your rocker. I mean, those of you that are excelling in one side of it or the other, you might be ready to go run for office..

Brian:

But also if you use the f, if you go listen to 2 0 1 and you look at the framework and you adopt that, I'm interested if you actually can use it and and how it worked out. So if you. Just think about it. And let us know. Take it, take it offline.

Om:

Let us know in the comments below. We would really appreciate that. And also let us know while you're there, what are the topics you'd like us to delve into? That's right.

Brian:

Now let's talk about the most dangerous place that this shows up. what managers say about you when you are not in the room. So the, here we go. We're gonna be in the room where it happens. That one's, for my coworker Lauren. She I would like occasionally when I'm working, she will like, fire off a Hamilton related reference. And it's the funniest thing in the world. We're in a meeting and somebody says something. Anyway, that was a, that, that's, that's for one person in the entire world right there. That's for Lauren.

Om:

The next we go to on this part. That's one person. The room where it

Brian:

happens. What, what they say about you when you're not in the room. I can control what I say in the room. I can be responsible like the, the old extreme ownership of like, be responsible for what you can control, right? But you have no idea if your manager's defending you behind closed doors with the rest of the management team or whatever. Or if they're throwing you right under the bus, be like, I could have succeeded if it wasn't for that darn kid Brian, I backed myself into a corner. The managers that I've worked with anyway, that are the best at quote, adapting their language those are the ones I trust the least.

Om:

Yeah, I mean these are the people that are practicing ruinous empathy. Right. As per Kim Scott's book, The Radical Candor. Go read that folks. If you haven't, I mean, these are people that'll tell you one thing to your face and of course you don't know what they're saying to someone else'cause you're not in the room. Yeah. But you have that niggling doubt. Are they really sticking out for you or are they, like you said, throwing you under the bus but you're not aware, you don't see the bus over here coming.

Brian:

Let me step in 'cause it's time off for the steel man. Oh, the steel man coming back. You didn't know. You didn't know. There's so many steel men and this is like, it's, it's raining steel man. This starting to be a village. People reunion up in this . Oh yeah. It's really steel man. Oh my Managers have to balance advocacy for their team members with organizational reality. And sometimes that means acknowledging the limitations or failures that would be demotivating to share directly with people. I know what you're about to say, but, ah, yeah. I got, wait, wait, wait. I, I got another one. I got another one. This, it gets better. Trust me.

Speaker 7:

But the story might be negative

Brian:

anyway. It's like we're children, transparency will hurt our feeling. And I know, I know, I know. Step back. I got another one. All right. Okay, let's go. Expecting your manager to say identical things about you is naive in the corporate world because context determines the appropriate amount of disclosure, especially with HR involved and the legal action. I'm trying to throw out all the excuses in the world. I'm getting'em all out. And I'm, so we can just collectively push him off a cliff here in a second. Okay. So that's the end of my steel man. I'm sorry. That was the worst steel man I gonna do on the podcast. No, that's pretty

Speaker 5:

good.

Brian:

Did you like that one about like, oh, we gotta balance the advocacy because I mean, what if it hurts? You know, what if it's scary for people?

Om:

There are some organizations where they take this to the extreme, right?

Brian:

They take it to the limit,

Om:

oh God. Yeah. So one, one

Brian:

more time.

Om:

Yeah. One more time.

Brian:

So didn't know we'd be quoting Eagles this podcast.

Om:

Exactly.

Brian:

There'll be more of that, where it came from. There's a lot more Came Life in a fast Lane.

Om:

Came from Uhhuh. Oh, I know. I can tell you what, there's no pretty maids all in a row here. Ooh. Alright, so where were we? Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. We were about to, we were,

Brian:

we were trying to check out, but we can never leave.

Om:

That's I. Yeah. Well, I think we've all stayed that hotel California. Oh, man. Listen, if you, if you've ever been in a situation where the one-on-one you come out of and you're feeling really really good, right? Because you, you manage your fluff, your feathers and then you have this this other meeting, let's just say maybe that was about I don't know, getting a pay raise, because you know, that's not the crux of the one-on-one. It's other meetings where that happened and suddenly you get a different different vibe there. Something's kind of offkey here and so you can get an idea pretty quickly where things have gone awry. You heard what your manager thought you should hear as opposed to what you really needed to hear. Mm-hmm. Now, two things here. I'm not gonna blame the managers. Only for this, although they're not getting off scot free either. But as the recipient of the message, one of the things you need to do is don't just feel good about what you're hearing and walk out of the meeting just write down that stuff right after the meeting. Hit back in an email to that manager and say, thank you for your time. Here's what we discussed. Here's what I thought I heard you say. Put all of those things down because all you're doing is you're gathering at that point some evidence that you could use. Probably futile, but it's better than nothing, right? When you're passed up for that promotion or that pay raise.

Brian:

I think I'm gonna stay with the steel man. I'm, yeah. Yeah. This is the plastic man. I, I'm gonna, he's not a steel man. I think, I think I'm gonna go put on my cop outfit and hang out with the steel man while they're raining men over here or whatever. I might, I might have to throw in my Cher outfit and turn back time for for, for Halloween over here because I've worked for a manager before who says, oh, you're doing great. When they turn around and say, this person's struggling. Yeah. You know, they're not protecting my delicate like frame or whatever when they're doing that. All they're doing is undermining me.

Om:

They're undermining you, but also they're not really even good managers at that point these are people that are just pivoting at the direction of the breeze.

Brian:

And also there's a, there's another saying that I've heard before that, oh, as a manager, it's my job to put up the umbrella and shelter you from all the organizational things that may rain down on you. But I remember. Thinking differently when I became a manager for the first time in my career where I had to hire people and that kind of stuff of like this, this is absolutely not, like you can't, whatcha are you gonna do shelter your people from everything and become the organization's Boogeyman, Batman, you know what I mean? Not organizational Batman. That's not like you, you're not gonna be able to shelter people. Like the better thing to do would be to be transparent about everything. And now you don't need to shelter anyone from anything they're not children , what are you sheltering them from?

Om:

Thi this is where a lot of people, when when I hear again one of those corporate seasons that I say we should stop using, right? You're not a family. The work is not your family. Family doesn't fire one another so when you hear these things, feel free to politely just say. That's great. But Uncle John, right? You're not my uncle. Really. I don't even have an Uncle John or Bob or whatever. No. Seriously though, I, you need to think about this, you know? And recognize the symptoms when people are just simply blowing smoke. It's a, but it's prerequisite. Like if you're gonna stay in the corporate world for any length of time, you're gonna come across this all the time. People will say all of those things and you feel, I'm doing great. Yeah. I've been told that by my boss. And then before it's something else happens. Not so pleasant so and, and I'm not saying you'll get fired or anything like that. I mean, it could just be simple like, oh, you thought you would get that promotion? Or you thought you would get that pay raise? Or nothing like that even. So learn to recognize those kinds of things, and after a while you'll see there's a pattern here where, where the same people will do these things to you. So when they do next time around you say, well, this is fine. Would you mind if I recap our meeting in an email? Or don't even ask for permission. Just do it. What's the worst that can happen? Right? You're just recapping an email, summarizing it, I don't know. It'll make you feel good. Don't be that manager when you become a manager. Okay?

Brian:

I don't, I think I'm depressed in this category. I don't think, I think all you're doing is documenting like negotiating for better severance. I think that's the only thing that's happening in this category. I would say your manager's integrity is not measured by what they say to your face. It's measured by what they say when you're not in the room. And boy, I don't even know how you get to measure whether that compass is off or not. But that's my issue with symptoms, I guess that's why this category is depressing for me. Like Yeah, I agree. If I have a takeaway, and this is not gonna be a great takeaway, now is next time you have a one-on-one with your manager. So I guess if you work for Mark Zuckerberg or Justin Wang, forget about it. But when you talk to them, when you ask them when you're in your next one-on-one, Hey, when you talk about my performance in leadership meetings, what are the main points you emphasize? You know, and then a good manager will tell you directly and a bad manager is gonna deflect or get defensive. And then again, you have to follow up and say, Hey, is there anything else that you say in those meetings that would surprise me? If you work for a bad manager right now, even bringing this kind of thing up, they're gonna be like, why? What have you heard? What have you heard? Right. What have you heard? Right. Who said it?

Om:

That's their insecurity in that case. Hey, listen.

Brian:

Yeah.

Om:

That resume updated.

Brian:

I don't like, again, this is, I'm angry with this with this category because I have too many bad experiences here. Like this is a I agree. I do too. So back to the audience. Have you ever asked your manager what they say about you when you're not there? Drop a comment I'd be interested to know if anybody actually admits what they say about you in the dark. What? So that brings us to the political operators the people who've turned adaptive communication into a dark art. Ooh, So the people who weaponize adaptive communication,

Speaker 6:

the saucers

Brian:

Yes. the saucers. They have a pan with sauce. Anyway I keep using the word political. Like it's a four letter word, right? the trade off in this category, which I'll get to in a second with my steel man. Okay. the political operators, you quote political operators maybe they're just better at navigating organizational politics and complexity than the rest of us maybe that's a truth and maybe we should be learning from them.

Om:

Well, it depends on what your MO is, right? If you wanna get up ahead in the organization, there is no other way. Mm-hmm so the most effective communicators are those ones that can change very quickly based on who they're speaking with.

Brian:

Oh, you mean manipulating the narrative? Exactly.

Om:

Yeah.

Brian:

Yeah, that's, you bring us back to the core issue of the podcast, which is I'm saying that manipulating the narrative that's changing the message, that's not just language.

Om:

You might think that's a nefarious thing to do. However, this can only be contrasted with the level of success these people achieve. And there's a reason for that. Right? So if you are ethically bound to not do this and just stand for what's right, et cetera, great. Stay with that. But also don't expect to be, drifting along the halls of whatever floor power, your sea level is, right. The hall of power. That's right. Don't expect that because that's not gonna happen.

Brian:

Well, you don't even know, but you're in the steelman point right now, you might as well continue because what you were just saying in the steelman position was the organizations are inherently political systems. They just are. People who refuse to adapt their communication style to deal with organizational politics, they're just choosing to be ineffective at organizational politics and therefore they're basically knee capping the rest of their career that's what you're saying.

Om:

It's true. However, I think we've kind of just pointed out the binary situation, right? There are those people that can judiciously operate in the space where they just sprinkle up enough. On the whole, they also care about people to not throw them under the bus. Yeah , i've worked with a couple of people like that. Over the whole, my career I've only come across very few. I count on one hand with fingers to spare, but these people are genuine in that you don't see them necessarily sacrificing others for their own wellbeing or for their own interest even, to progress their own purposes. So, so these people will be the first to say the teams are experiencing this, but when it's the right time, they will also twist the message the way they feel it, the message should be twisted. Yeah. So it's not a binary, I don't know. Maybe it's possible for you to do that and walk on a tight rope. Well, and it takes time to develop that.

Brian:

Well then let me, let me then step into my office and let me tell you a story. Let's see if I can't change your mind though. All right. Let's go, let's go like this. I'm gonna take the steel man off the screen for a second and you can step into my office.'Cause I'm, I'm gonna tell you that these quote political operators, these these, these the refugees from the truth right now, they, they they have three patterns, okay? They have three patterns. Number one, they take credit for collaborative work. You get on a call with two, three other developers. You work through this you know, real sticky bug, a real impactful feature or whatever. And then that one person comes out and claims credit for all of it. Number two, they shift blame whenever the outcome is poor. They are still on that call or whatever, they still do the thing with the bug, but then if it's badly perceived, they find a way to exit stage left. They were never even involved. You didn't even see them. They, they were never here. Yeah. And then number three their story about events changes based on who holds power. So I gave, I just gave you the three. So for all y'all listeners out there for, I dunno why I went into my Morgan Freeman voice went for all y'all listeners out there looking to exploit the side of evil for love and profit, I just gave you the three step plan. It's different than Carmen's four step plan, but very slightly different.

Om:

Yeah, very slightly. But also I think this is something that even Morgan Freeman would necessarily disagree with if your interest is self-interest. Primarily, and for the most part that's what it is. This is what you show up to work for. Yeah. Then those three underscored by, it takes what it takes for me to succeed I mean, you will succeed, there's no doubt. Hope you can sleep at night some of us can't, but that's more on us than anything else. So those three points are solid. Again, if you can do this, but also not sacrifice those that are in due credit, but also you don't have to necessarily take credit. You also don't necessarily have to take cast blame either. Right. You can look at the facts and go with that. Mm-hmm. So especially on the blame side, on the credit side, give credit where it's due. End of story. And a leader should recognize that. But in terms of casting blame, I fundamentally believe everybody comes to work, do a good solid day's work. It's not like people come in to say, well let's just fail this sprint or this whatever, this month. Nobody does that. But when things go badly, look at the factors and tackle the issue, the problem, not the people. Mm-hmm. So casting blame on the people, eh, it's not gonna go well for long anyway. Yeah.

Brian:

Well I have the, the other side of this is political operators are never wrong. I got the career story of this one. I got you on this one. As far as like an actual evidence for my career.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Brian:

Because political operators are never like the story. When I said number three, the story about events changes based on who's in power so they end up on the right side of the story. For example, I was at a company one time where the CEO changed and all these political operators, saw which way the wind was blowing so the way they say, well I had never agreed with the thing that you disagreed with Mr. New CEO person or whatever, like the kind, they're recrafting all their stories to be like, oh, I always agreed with you. It sounds funny, it was never this like overly dramatic melodramatic kind of performance they put on. It was just a subtle adjustment. Yeah. That was just creepy enough to be perceived by all the workers as like. Exactly what it was. I mean, and, the best story I have for this, and I, I've told this on a podcast, but I'm pretty sure I've not told this story on a podcast in like 150 episodes of there was a I worked in one place that there was this Premadonna developer. He was an exceptional developer, first of all , out of all the developers, he had been at the company the longest. So like as like in at, when you're a developer, time and service is like, tribal knowledge right there, so you happen to know certain pieces of code, what they do, and you're more familiar with them and stuff like that.'cause you've just spent more time. So he was sort of like management's go-to guy, the hey buddy development, middle of the night kind of knocking stuff out, making everyone else look bad.'cause like, oh, I punched this stuff out overnight. What are y'all lazy people doing? Right. And, these three patterns that I pointed out. That was him to a t when stuff was going on, he would be the first guy to be like, I resolved the bug. I, worked late and did this new feature, whatever. And he completely pulled the bull over management in everyone else's eyes. while the rest of the development team and the QA and everybody else was like quiet folks heads down getting their work done day to day, you know what I mean? But he is the

Om:

teacher spec,

Brian:

not really kind of ggl seeking glory or whatever. And at one point we were peer in the organization. I was just a QA engineer and he was just a development engineer, whatever they call it, software engineer. Right. And I, boy, I just watched him rise and rise and rise to a high level supervisory type of role. And it was just bananas.'cause he, it was just, it was just this kind of stuff, just changing his story to always be on the right side of whatever argument or always be seen as a hero. Shifting blame off to the team whenever a failure would happen. And I remember. Exactly When I knew that my time at that company was done, this is untenable. I can't live with this person anymore. I can't sit by anymore and have my credit claim by this person anymore because we had just pulled like a very in depth sprint where we committed to way too much stuff and we ended up knocking things out, making the sale, getting the big customer we ended up knocking out the real impactful features. We ended up selling the customer making the sale we ended up basically cashing the check that the sales folks and everyone in the company wrote. We did it. On time, under budget, that kind of thing and it was in front of the whole company and the CEO and the C-suite. It was big, like hurrah. Yay. We did an event the whole company is standing there. And I remember I was standing sort of like in the back and I could see my team, I was a manager at this point. I could see my team on the other side of the room. And the CEO was calling up the different department heads and every single department head was like, ah, this was a major opportunity and I couldn't have done it without this person, and I couldn't have done it without this person. And they, some people handed off to their subordinates to make little mini speeches or whatever. Yeah. Or thanks to this person. They, they stayed on the phones line thanks to this person they went to the customer site and they slept under a table and whatever, and then they handed it over to this guy. And he was like, yeah, it took a lot of late nights and I was deep in the code, but eventually I got it over the finish line and I'm happy that you all are. And I was like, wow. I was like, this guy just took credit for the entire development department, he handed off to nobody. He gave credit to nobody but himself in front of the whole company. Got no pushback from anybody. And I knew that. I was like, I'm done. I'm done here. That was my moment of zen, my moment of clarity that a whole world came together.

Om:

These people that are like the person you're describing also have another characteristic that often goes hand in glove with, you know who they are. And that is, they hoard knowledge. So they, they're not gonna mentor other people because their equity is their knowledge so they're gonna hoard that knowledge and when you see those kinds of things happening in your organization, you can kind of bracket people. Yeah. You know, oh yeah. That person, chances are they're gonna claim all the credit and it cost all the blame. If you're in an organization where there are people like that and no one is speaking up, you could be the person who speaks up kind of a risque move too because management is, these people are already management pet. So yeah, keep that resume updated, but then speak up. People, people like this when they move up in the organization, they don't change as a person. They're gonna have the same mo going up and up so again just be aware that these people aren't gonna change. If you're in that organization, you've gotta either make a decision to put up with it or leave.

Brian:

So I've got a zinger for you. It's political operators. They collect allies and political navigators build relationships. One is transactional and the other is transformational. And everybody can tell the difference.

Om:

Everybody should be able to tell the difference. I mean, even the newcomers, you don't have to be on the job for very long to be able to see this. Right. You hear people talk. And you'll pick up on the, on the situation. So I agree. I think it's pretty clear there are very few people that can kind of straddle those two. People are either on the left or the right, so to speak. On this scale. Depending on where you aspire to be, you can align yourself with these people, right? Yeah. I don't advise anybody to be on that other side, but hey, again, don't take advice from me because you can align,

Brian:

like you can align yourself to these people,, that's just like the Game of Thrones oh yeah. Yeah. At what season are you gonna get sure. Wiped out. Basically like it's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time! I have a takeaway here. I don't know if it's good. So I'll let you figure out. So there's this credit to blame asymmetry for my story about when I needed to get away from this person, right? And when you go through that experience. It kind of opens your mind to always be looking out for people like that, that are using this eye language. And in fact I wonder if, if you've heard this about like, oh, when you're interviewing you need to use eye language, not we language.'cause people want to hear that you did the thing and you're like, yeah, but I didn't directly do the thing. You know, I was part of a team and the whole team did the thing. And maybe like I was maybe I'm like, as a product manager, my job is kind of to navigate the team and that kind of stuff., I'm not doing every single thing myself. Sure. And modern business, anybody who's actually doing successful business knows that things are done as a team. Very little things are done as a solo operator, as the hero or whatever. And then they ask you to change your language to make yourself into the hero. Yeah. And I just don't like that. I don't think it's good advice. I'm looking out for people doing that.'cause I'm really, I am labeling those people as like, Ooh, there's an ego right there. I dunno if I can navigate that ego or coach or manage up or whatever the other things are.

Om:

Yeah. First of all it's terrible advice in interviews to always focus on the eye because anybody should know that one person doesn't do all this stuff, right. I'd rather focus on having improved the conditions for my team to succeed. Because isn't that what I'm really being interviewed for, not to be the solo hero here. That would be my focus. If you're seeing people who interview like that and you happen to be on the other side of the table where you are the interviewer. Ego is one thing. I mean, these people have got bad advice, right. To your point. You know, focus on you. They're the ones that are always saying, I. And my actions led to an improvement of 12%. Okay, fine. But really what did you do to make that happen? I mean, you can interview around that, but yeah, it is terrible advice to always focus on the I language. I, whoever came up with that.

Brian:

I think it's just the pathological nature of the organization showing through mm-hmm. To be like,

Speaker 7:

oh, we're looking for heroes,

Brian:

you know, oh, we are looking for 10 X developers and we're all out of H1Bs to exploit, or whatever.

Om:

The same people that put in their jds that were looking for a team player

Brian:

but this, this thing looking out for people that are claiming credit while those three things I listed before, looking out for that. Yeah. That, I mean, that shows a pattern that's a political operator and you need to distance yourself. we haven't, it's amazing. We haven't even brought ourselves to our advice.

Om:

Yeah, distance yourself or keep that resume updated.

Brian:

That's right , so have you worked with a political operator? I wanna hear all about it.

Om:

Yeah. Let's know your anecdotes. In the comments. I wanna hear

Brian:

I want to hear your horror stories. So, if we don't want to be shapeshifters, so we, but we do need to communicate differently with different audiences. Like. What does that look like in practice? I'm, I'm sure there's people already screaming at their, their TVs, at their phones, at their cars. So how to adapt your communication without losing your soul, without giving up your integrity.

Om:

Boy, what a great question. I think first of all be led with the truth instead of trying to figure out how you can manipulate the message because honestly, at the end of the day, true leadership should value the message that comes across as a true message, this is really what's going on. And now look at why, which could be the positives and the negatives, as opposed to going in with those kind of nuanced the themes that often people do. So the best advice I can give you is be data driven. And be transparent and say the team either succeeded or didn't succeed and here are possibly some of the reasons why. So at that point you feel free to call out on team members and say, well, what do you have to add to that? Right. Well, how would you characterize the nature of how we fared? Not necessarily failed what have we learned? Also if we succeeded, what, what factors contributed to our success so that we may repeat some of those same things in the future. Feel free to call on your team. So the message isn't just you delivering something, whether it's upstream or sideways, or whatever it might be. And that way you are hoping that you can be more authentic in your messaging instead of, again, being kind of slimy and, come across as. Something that is serving you over and above everybody else.

Brian:

For this category we have a, a little bit of a framework maybe some guidelines to help. Mm-hmm. We have, a three point test. Again, we very borderline about the current four point plan. We like three. Yeah, we like three. We like three dry. That's right. And the three point test is gonna go something like this. It's gonna say test number one. Consistently state the facts so you have facts that you can write down. That was at the center of our circle before. Yeah the you have a transparency test. We're not trying to hide the truth to protect people's feelings. I don't know a better way to say that, but basically, would you be comfortable if all the stakeholders heard all of your different versions of messages, or would that make you nervous? That's really the transparency test here, right? And also like if you wrote, if meeting notes were automatically constructed by AI of every meeting and you're in, and then somebody had the wherewithal to put them all together would you see different stories emerging? Would your sliminess be revealed? Would the light come on and all the cockroaches scatter at that point? These are the questions that keep me up at night. And then recommendation number three is the consistency test is your proposed action or decision should be the same across all your audiences, which is basically the same as 0.2 transparency. So those are three things that give you an a in. Integrity in my book. Anyway, that's it.

Om:

I fully agree. I also don't expect to just be there, right? You know, quickly, because this takes time, especially if you've been used to manipulating the messaging, right? It takes time to get from there to the other side. So give yourself the time celebrate the quick wins, et cetera. as a product manager again, if you've got that two by two. You have executive stakeholders and you have like users of your software, they both want to know like, did this thing, scratch the itch, did this feature, did this or maybe it's a test. Maybe we're testing a market or something like that. Did this, did this thing resonate with the audience? I mean, you're relieving their pain point. That's one way to talk about it. You talk about it in terms of the pain point and how easy it is to relieve the pain point with the feature you just came out with, with the executives, it's a matter of adoption numbers or revenue numbers or whatever they care about. In the product management world, it's not difficult to separate these things. They are the same message. It's just the users don't care about adoption. Unless you're doing a bit of marketing to them and doing some social proof style marketing. 75% of users love that, that kind of stuff., That kind of stuff is gimmicky to individual users, but to executives, they love that kind of stuff. I think there's, there are techniques you can use. So like for example, if you had both audiences in the same room, Yeah.

Speaker 4:

The room where it happens. That's right.

Om:

Exactly. One of the things you could do is just spin up a simple whiteboard with a dot board with only like three bands, there's the bullseye, the concentric circle around it, and another circle around that. And that's it. Really simple, right? Easy to do in pretty much any tool, and ask the users to put a mark at x or whatever, in the circle that represents how best their needs were met. By whatever you delivered. And just have them do that, not the executives. When they do that, ask them to say, okay, what would it take for us to move that X closer towards the middle to the bullseye? Right now, the executives are listening to all this. No, you are hearing it straight from the users. Mm-hmm and there's no sugarcoating because you are not the, you're not the translator, relayer of the message. It's the same message that they're hearing. Try something like that and then afterwards you could talk to them, talk to your stakeholders or your executives and say, you heard the, you heard the users, right? Yeah. Yeah. Now, here are ways that we can potentially get them closer to the bullseye. You've cut off so much crap by just doing it. In a simple way like that, right? And you are just the facilitator, right? You have no ax to grind here in saying, well, shouldn't it be closer? You're not anchoring them in any way, right? It's just a suggestion, but I think you could do a lot worse.

Brian:

Integrity, it, it isn't about using the same words with everyone. It's about ensuring that if everyone compared notes your story wouldn't fall apart right. The detectives over here. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, comparing notes yeah. and like, if you're gonna try that, that three part framework. Again, look, we're just throwing out ideas like I, I mean, the real, the real idea here is like, not to work with people that are e ethically limited. So let us know if, if, if this was useful to you. Yeah. I wanna bring us to the last category. So what I, what I've been dancing around the whole episode. We, where is it?

Om:

It's down at the bottom.

Brian:

What I've been dancing around the whole episode is I am, i'm not worried about techniques, I am worried about trust. That's because once you lose your reputation with whichever audience that we're talking about on the two by two you don't get it back.

Om:

Yeah. And it takes a long time to build up that trust to a deeper level, and then it takes very little time to lose it. So, yeah, absolutely. Just as fragile.

Brian:

Amy Cudd, a Harvard business school professor. That's right. She did a study that found that competence does matter, but trust is built through. Behavioral consistency over time, not through any one particular event which I feel like that's the most common sense study ever done in the history of studies right there. Yeah. I mean, trust takes time to build,

Om:

trust takes time to build. And, it's something that trumps pretty much most other things like technical competency, et cetera I don't see how you argue against that, honestly.

Brian:

Well, step in my office'cause get ready for the steel man. Here we go. Let's go with the steel man here, man. Let's say re reputation is primarily built through results incompetence as long as you deliver the outcomes. People will trust you regardless of minor inconsistencies of how you communicate. So your reputation is built through being consistent with your small wins over time. And as long as you keep delivering people will trust you. The great part about product management is if you can deliver small wins consistently like this, this is the best thing about Agile, which most people miss, if you are delivering working software on a regular cadence, that cadence might be every two days. Cadence might be once a week. The cadence might be once every two weeks. And people can set their watch to working software delivered every, everything else every other, challenge, fades away because people are gonna know their next window to get working software is this, and they're gonna set their watch to it. And, over time, that's how you build trust. You just small wins delivered consistently on a rolling cadence. And enough of them, , , you stack enough of them and you'll get there.

Om:

Yeah. I think trust is at different levels in that scenario. One is with the customers to consistently expect on a regular basis some value,

Brian:

The reason I brought that up was the minor inconsistencies about how you communicate. Oh, Brian didn't quite, he didn't tell me the impact of widget A or B or whatever oh, that's just the way Brian communicates. He likes to get into the weeds or, oh, that's the way Brian communicates. He can't really get in the weeds when you press him because I've seen both of those, right. People will forgive that kind of stuff as long as they keep getting their widgets, whatever it is, you know what I mean? Keep giving me this on a regular basis and I'll forgive a lot of that kind of stuff. You're saying that building a reputation for integrity, it requires like a long game of consistent communication and changing your language for these audiences consistently. And, and building that up over time. And what I'm, when the steelman here is as long as you're punching out wins, people will forgive your inability to dial the message in exactly perfectly for the audience.

Om:

A couple of things I wanna say with that one. Okay. Consistently churning out wins. It doesn't happen without establishing trust at a different level with your teams you give them the freedom to do things the way you know, they feel it should, they should be done. You're building trust with the customer by delivering on a regular basis some sliver values. That that's, that's one thing. However, that consistent cadence isn't guaranteed.

Speaker 8:

Yeah.

Om:

Things will happen. You will come across some headwinds where you fail a little bit not necessarily fail completely in delivering something, but the quality of the value deliver might be subpar at some point. For whatever reason, we don't even have to worry about the reasons. But when that happens, that is a direct. Challenge almost to what happened. you're always delivering good stuff and what happened right at that point, how you behave matters at that point. Do you just say, well it's the team or whatever, or do you just take it on the chin and say, yeah, we messed up. How do you stand upright there? That that's what establishes your integrity and either further builds and strengthens the trust with your customers, or it erodes that trust?

Brian:

Reputation is like nebulous. I almost didn't even want to include it here because it's, it's the sum of, if I have to define it, I'm gonna say it's the sum of what people say about you when you're not in the room like that.

Om:

Legacy also, right?

Brian:

Right? Yeah. That, that's the reputation I'm talking about here is but if you're one of these people that they, their, their narrative is quote inconsistent, that stuff is gonna stick out. And I will say even one of those times that sticks with people far longer than any one-off wins or whatever. Once, and now I am, I'm on edge twice and now, like your integrity is in the toilet. You know, probably where it belongs! Once and now I'm in this mode where I'm looking to catch you. Sure. And now our relationship is on the rocks. Yeah. You know, so it's like, what can you do? Just don't get in the best way to avoid it. Don't get in that situation in the first place, is what I'm saying.

Om:

Oh, so you, you're glad when the customers praise you. Right. For the success is Yes. Well own up to failure. You are human own up.

Brian:

Sorry. I mean, these people just can't the, the, I know the individuals we're talking about on this side, like they just can't like this and honestly it would be easier for this podcast if these were not the most successful people that I've worked with.

Om:

Agree. I listen. That's true these people often fall over their own egos before they can own up to anything, but yeah, I agree. They tend to be more on the successful side. Again, not everyone can do that and still get a good night's rest. So yeah, it depends on you as an individual as to what you aspire to be.

Brian:

I would say it's easier to do it when you're not in a pathological organization where everyone's trying, like once the organization, once the system becomes corrupted. It like you get more of this and more of the more of this, the more corrupt the system becomes and then it feeds itself. Yeah, exactly. The keep your resume updated advice here is not it's not off point. I mean, if you see this stuff happening and you start catching people changing the message, not the communication style, you see it once, you see it twice. You see these people get promoted. Like in my story that I told earlier where. There was a particular person I worked with at a company that they just kept getting promoted and promoted and promoted, and every time they would stand up in front of a crowd, it would be all about, I did this and I did that and it was the whole team achieving the thing. At that point, he was a manager or a director or somebody who was far removed from the day-to-day work. Yeah. So it's not even like him claiming credit was close to the truth. He wasn't actively writing code at that point, so it was a far exaggeration that he had resolved any bugs. Everybody knew. It was a flat lie that everybody could transparently see through, but it's like management just didn't care to see through it.

Om:

Yeah. Sad.

Brian:

This is why it brings you back to your reputation isn't what you say about yourself. And, and it never was. It's about what people, the stories people tell about you when you are not in the room or when you're gone.

Om:

Or when you're gone. Exactly. So often you'll see people contact you long after you've left the company to say, Hey, listen, in case you're looking Yeah. That's your reputation. Yeah. That's the reason why they're calling you.

Brian:

Right? Yeah. For anyone listening to this category what is your take here? Is reputation really built on the consistency of your communication? Doesn't matter at all. Are, am I overthinking it like that? This is what I want to know in the comments among other things. But that moves us to what did we talk about today? what did we learn today? I think

Om:

well, we learned that you could either be a sleeve bag or a good person didn't sleep well at night.

Brian:

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, we didn't learn. Sorry. Be a lea back and get promoted. Or be a good person. And not get promoted.

Om:

And not get promoted. Oh, boy. You sleep under a bridge. I, I don't

Brian:

know if we're coming to the right takeaways from this podcast. Well, as long as we're not at the right takeaways like can subscribe. That's least do that.

Om:

Don't weaponize adaptive communication. Be on the straight and level. That's basically it.

Brian:

Two things that kinda came outta this podcast that, that ring out for me. Number one is to not be a manipulative shapeshifter, you need consistency of facts and you need transparency. So if those two things don't exist, then off to the races and weaponizing this adaptive communication to put you ahead. At the expense of yeah. Right. Everyone else, those are the two things that ring out to me of the big takeaways in this podcast. Yeah, I

Om:

agree with that. The only, yeah, the only I really in your messaging is integrity and that's so not something you can buy by the pound at the farmer's market. You've gotta a build to it, you've gotta invest in it, and it will, it will pay dividends long time in the long run. Yeah. Well, cool. Well that's a wrap. So like, and subscribe, let us know in the comments below and we'll see you next time.