Agile Mindset Framework: a 4-Step Process w/ Angel Henry Ep 79

Learn how setbacks can become stepping stones in this conversation with Angel Henry, who has seamlessly transitioned from tech guru to a master of leadership and inclusion.

In this episode, Angel shares her insights, where mishaps are not merely brushed off but embraced as the valuable life lessons they truly are.

Listen and learn about a four-step Agile Mindset framework, a versatile tool that transcends beyond the boardroom into the realm of personal aspirations.

Angel reveals how listing tasks, weighing their values, and the art of reflection can revolutionize not only how you approach project management but also personal endeavors like fitness goals.

Discover the profound difference between a fixed and a growth mindset, and equip yourself with practical strategies for effective problem-solving whether you're an author facing writer's block or a consultant juggling myriad client needs.

As we wrap up, Angel and I delve into the underestimated power of feedback in honing our craft, with QR codes emerging as the unsung heroes of interactive presentations. We ponder over the creation of robust professional networks and the solidarity found in cohorts, especially through trying times such as during a pandemic. If you're looking to not just survive but thrive in both your professional and personal life, by adapting, reflecting, and growing, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Originally aired live on LinkedIn on Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Connect with Angel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theagileenthusiast/

Watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BF6oOw6OUE 

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Transcript

Brenda Meller: 1:00

Good morning and welcome, or good afternoon and good evening, wherever you're watching from. My name is Brenda Muller and I just had a learning experience. I do not make mistakes, my friends. I have learning experiences and what I always try to do is tell my audience what just happened. So if you're watching my video in the beginning, it's normally about 30 seconds long and it counts you down from 30 to zero. I apologize, angel, I'm going to take this off script for just a second here. So when I click on the video, I'm going to do it again for my audience right now.

Brenda Meller: 1:31

Today, for whatever reason, I accidentally set it up as a three second video. So let me click and you'll watch it. Count down from three and then stop. That's a bit too short. The challenge with these intro videos and a lot of the reason a lot of people use the intro videos is that there's a delay from the time that we go live on LinkedIn, or when I click on the go live button, to when the live stream actually picks up on LinkedIn. So for that reason we use these intro videos and helps to smooth the process out, so we're not looking in the second screen, going to the video start up yet, or what's going on. This has nothing to do with our topic today, the Agile Mindset Framework, or maybe it's not, as I'm not sure. At any rate, angel, how are you doing today?

Angel Henry: 2:15

I'm doing great. I'm doing great Brenda.

Brenda Meller: 2:18

We're just living through. Tech hiccups is what we do and, by the way, if anyone is watching this on LinkedIn right now, could you please do me a favor? Please do me a favor? Let me know by dropping a comment below. Just say hi, hello.

Brenda Meller: 2:30

You can tag someone in who might be interested in the topic, but just give me a hi or a hey if you could, and that way I know the live stream is actually picking up and working, because I'm a little bit hesitant. Thanks, because my tech already hiccups once this morning User error. But I do want to make sure that the live stream is picking up loud and clear and while we're waiting for those comments to come in, angel, I know that you and I was looking in our LinkedIn messaging exchanges and I noticed that we originally connected I think it was back in 2019. We were both part of the booked and paid to speak program that's offered through Grant Baldwin, and I don't think we'd ever actually had a conversation up until this year, and I know just a little bit about you and you're a speaker, but why don't you take a few minutes and tell us a bit about you and your business?

Angel Henry: 3:15

Absolutely so. I'm a tech, my background is tech. So 20 years in tech, hi David, thanks for letting us know we're live. Yeah, 20 years in tech and in that time you can imagine I've done a lot of teaching and training when it comes to software and products and that just lent itself really nicely into training others on process improvements and how they can be more effective, and that led me to really own my position in terms of where I was at in tech, being the only female, the only African-American female, oftentimes at the table as I started sharing my experience. That led to a lot more think about it women's training groups, women's ERGs, what they call employee resource groups, so talking a lot to women's groups that are in predominantly male dominated industries, and that's how I ended up joining Book and Paid to Speak.

Brenda Meller: 4:10

Awesome, so great to hear about the industry background leading you, and are you self-employed today or do you work for a company and doing some speaking on the side?

Angel Henry: 4:17

I am wearing all the hats, literally all the hats, so consulting with, partnered with another organization as well as my own, as well as speaking. And how that came to be is Brenda, I had a pandemic baby, but it was a book. It was a book and it was called Dense in the Ceiling Tools. Women and Allies Need to Breakthrough.

Brenda Meller: 4:44

I need a coin, there we go. Yeah, there it is.

Angel Henry: 4:46

Awesome, yeah, so Dense in the Ceiling, launched in June of 2021. And the community just they took it right Really supported. So that's really launched the speaking and training and consulting group. Because obviously, 21 through the last couple of years, lots of talk around how do we build inclusion, how do we foster an inclusive workplace? So that kind of transitioned me into there and I then built, through partnerships, a consortium of coaches, consultants and professional speakers and we all band together and we're trying to, we're trying to Brenda, leave the workplace better in which we entered it.

Brenda Meller: 5:34

That's great. It's like you're what's that expression be? The change you wish to see in the world. You're doing it. You're doing the thing right now. That's awesome to hear. And tell us the name of that organization and I might be jumping ahead a little bit too. We're going to talk about this again at the end, but tell us the name of the organization, in case there's someone that's watching this that's interested in learning more or joining.

Angel Henry: 5:53

Yes. So in the event that you are a consultant or a professional speaker, particularly around workplace inclusion or leadership development, if you're discertified or Colby certified any agile certified it's angels speaking Inc and it's a consortium of coaches and consultants. So please reach out on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you.

Brenda Meller: 6:17

I think we just froze up for us. I love technology. We're hiccuping a bit here. Hold on a second. It seems like either StreamYard is hiccuping or LinkedIn hiccups. Because you froze for a second, then I froze for a second. Yeah, hey, we just roll with it, angel, we just go with it and we wait for the hiccups to stop hiccuping and we'll move on. Yep, all right, and it just happens. When you are a coach, consultant, speaker, sometimes you experience these technical hiccups and sometimes they even happen when you're live on on stage. The lighting goes off or the microphone stops. The microphone goes out.

Angel Henry: 6:48

Yes, that happened to me. I was speaking and the microphone completely went out and it was a room full of people, so I had to like project my voice out, and it was, oh, by the end of that night my voice was sore. I didn't have a voice.

Brenda Meller: 7:04

The next day, we just roll with it. So today we're talking about and I think this might be a perfect topic for all the things that are happening an intention. We're going to talk about the Agile Mindset Framework, a four-step process, and in the pre-show I said to you, angel, I said that this is a great topic. I said I know nothing about this. We start with we'll try to get this a bit about. What is the Agile Mindset Framework? What does that mean?

Angel Henry: 7:33

Yes, so, for those of my techies out there or those that are in project management, you are very much familiar with the Agile project management process and what we've done is just distill that down to its brace principles, right, think of it in terms of collaboration, high communication, really thinking about the highest value that you can bring to your organization. So we've taken that process and really applied it to just about anything. So the four steps are one make a list. Just do a brain dump. Make a list of everything that you need to do that you think is pertinent right to the problem that you're trying to solve. At that point, just make a list. Now step two. That's the hardest step, brenda. Step two is prioritize the list. And when I tell you everything is number one, for most people everything is number one it is so hard, but once you have that prioritize list based on value, right, the highest value. Step three is simply time box the work. Now, this is important. You don't want the time to be too long On average, two weeks, a two weeks time box to get something done, okay. And then step four, and this is the one that people like to skip over because it sounds a little easy and a little soft, but this is where the magic is, brenda.

Angel Henry: 9:11

Step four is retrospective, or reflect. Just say reflect right. That just means literally look back at the last two weeks. How did it go, ask yourself what worked. Well, it didn't. Do we need to throw the baby out with the bath water, or are there pieces and parts that worked? But we just need to course correct, we just need to change a little bit. And then you do it all over again. You just repeat, you look at that list again, you reprioritize it because some stuff is off the list now, and then you do another two weeks and then you reflect back, and my reflections usually take place on like a Friday afternoon. I usually try to set aside Fridays from 1 to 130 Doesn't have to be long. We're talking 15 minutes, right? This isn't a time-consuming four-step process by any stretch.

Brenda Meller: 10:04

Is this something that can be used for any project problem? Tell us about like where could we apply this?

Angel Henry: 10:11

I, brenda, have applied this to just about everything you can think of. Back in 2018, I was on my health kick, right, because I had just had two kids and I was really trying to get back my muscle strength and get back into shape. I had a C-section, so everything was like all Soft and mushy and I was like I gotta get my strength back. I gotta lose weight. How am I gonna do this? And it was so overwhelming, right. I'm like how am I gonna lose 20 25 pounds Over the next couple of months? And because, of course, we all, by the summertime, want to get back into a swimsuit and look good on the beach, right? So I've got like a three month window here and I'm freaking out like how am I gonna lose this weight? And then I had the aha moment to say I'm just gonna edge all this thing. So I created a list of all the different little things I could do to help with weight loss. How am I gonna change my shopping habits? I'm gonna change my eating habits, exercise. And then I time blocked everything of when I was gonna do, when I was gonna go grocery shopping. I'm gonna do meal prep on Sunday. I'm gonna exercise three days a week for 45 minutes, do weightlifting on Tuesdays.

Angel Henry: 11:21

Thursday, I had it all blocked out and I was like I don't know if I can do this. This is a complete change, right? I've got two kids working full-time. How am I gonna completely change all this? I really did not know if I was gonna be able to do it in that too, but I was like you know what, I'm just gonna give myself two weeks, I'm just gonna try it. And we tried it.

Angel Henry: 11:40

And then on Friday, that second Friday, I was like, okay, I was a little too ambitious about how many days I was gonna get to the Y or you know what, I'm going to meal prep on Sunday, and then I'm gonna have to do it again, maybe Wednesday, because I I just had to course correct, change some things and it worked. It worked. I was able to lose the weight, hit my goals. And then I was like, well, I can do this for weight loss, I can do this for other stuff too. And, brenda, I applied it to write in my book. I Applied it to getting those two kids through COVID and being a home school mom and working full-time. They had a board of all their homework and they would prioritize their work, what's important? What was do? And they would check it off.

Brenda Meller: 12:24

I had my little kindergartner check it off the list.

Brenda Meller: 12:28

That's good. So I went out at the topic today we're talking about. Let me pull this up on screen so folks can see the topic. It's the agile framework. Let me see if I can pull this up. Oh, I think I'm gonna pull us back to the wider view so we can see it up on screen here. The agile mindset framework, a four-step process. You've given us the four-step process, agile mindset break. Break that down for this. What does that mean? Agile, I think about Agilities, that flexibility is that kind of what we're talking about here or is it mean something different when we're talking about this process?

Angel Henry: 12:58

That is exactly what we're talking about being opened in terms of being open to. I think you've probably heard most people have heard of Carol Dweck's book, the growth mindset and the concept of fixed mindset versus growth mindset. Two minutes in case you hadn't heard it. Essentially, fixed mindset Individuals and again, this is not right or wrong, it's just your proclivity, which way you lean approach, right, yeah, fixed mindset folks just believe that things are innate. They athletic ability, intelligence, right, they just think it.

Angel Henry: 13:34

Natural born leader is a fixed mindset concept. It just means either you have it or you don't. Okay, I tell everybody, think of American Idol. There's a lot of great singers up there that that are phenomenal, but there's some that are just stand out because they just have that natural umph. So those folks kind of fixed mindset, agile or growth mindset, it just means that, no, I can practice. No, I can learn something new. I can Practice a new skill learning the violin, taking calculus, learning a new process and if I have the right teacher, enough time and some dedication, yes, I may not master it, but I can definitely improve and that's all we're taught. All we really want is incremental improvement and, yes, that when we think agile, yes, we are thinking flexibility, we're thinking growth, we're thinking, hey, what's possible? And let's just try it. Very experimental approach to how problems get solved.

Brenda Meller: 14:41

I love it and when we were originally talking about having you come out on the show, I said my audience I'm calling this show enthusiastically self-employed it's sitting on LinkedIn, it's going on my YouTube and later it'll be on the podcast. But the people that we're really talking to are people who are self-employed self-employed, I should say coaches, consultants, speakers and authors and I said does this type of an approach Work for that audience? And you said absolutely, and I would have to agree, but you want to expand upon that. How does that work with somebody who's self-employed?

Angel Henry: 15:09

Absolutely okay. So let's take, we'll just grab two, two folks here. Let's take.

Angel Henry: 15:13

If an you're an author, right, many of us get stuck or have writer's block, right, or we have an idea, but it's such a massive undertaking because life is happening, you've got meetings, you've got family Responsibilities you may have for babies to take care of, life is happening and you have this great idea for a book and all you have is the title. And you're like where do I start? And I just say, literally grab a blank piece of paper. Or what I did was one of those whiteboards in the back. Right, I got a big whiteboard off Amazon for 20, 30 bucks, right, get you some markers and just start doing a brain dump. Just think, okay, I need to research, I need to organize in chapters, I need to whatever it is that you need to do in order to get that Manuscript to an editor if you're gonna self publish on Amazon. So now that you've got this brain dump, now you prioritize. Okay, what's the first thing? The first thing is I probably need to research my topic, right, especially if it's nonfiction, right. So you're like, okay, I need to get my references, that sort of thing. So let me research what other people have done.

Angel Henry: 16:17

So you prioritize that and then you give yourself that two week time block and if two weeks is too much, give yourself a week. If you're like two weeks is not enough, give yourself three weeks. There's no hard and fast rule, but you don't want to give yourself too long. I really caution and recommend don't go past four weeks because again life happens and you'll get distracted. So really just try out the gate, the two week time block, and see how it feels, and then you can adjust later and then again do a retrospect. This now. You're now building momentum, right. Yeah, now you've started. You've gotten past the hurdle. I've started. Now that you've got the hardest part right, exactly, exactly. That's the hardest part, yeah, so that's for authors, for those of us that are in consulting We'll. If you have multiple projects going on at one time and you're a solo preneur, that can be overwhelming for sure, right.

Angel Henry: 17:10

Yes, yeah so you're like I've got clients and I've got staggered deadlines and that middle period where you need to be working on two or three clients at the same time or preparing for two or three talks at the same time, which is what I'm doing right now this week.

Brenda Meller: 17:26

Right.

Angel Henry: 17:26

I'm like, yes, I think I'm going to go three I'm working on right now, but yes, so right now behind my screen, I've got two laptop, like two screens up, and I've got one PowerPoint one talk and another PowerPoint for another talk on the same day. So you're in that crunch mode. So what I've been doing the last week is literally just time boxing myself.

Angel Henry: 17:51

So I'm just like, I'm just going to give 45 minutes to this presentation. I'm going to go take a break, grab me some tea and do a little brain dump here and then I'll write down the tweaks that I want to make to that presentation. And then I'll move to the next presentation and do 45 minutes on that one, write down the tweaks that I want to make and then come back the next day and make those tweaks and changes.

Brenda Meller: 18:15

I want to ask you a question. So you're doing multiple speaking presentations right now. Are they all the same topic and you're just tweaking and modifying, or are they three entirely different topics?

Brenda Meller: 18:23

Three entirely different topics, that's awesome, yeah, but it's also a lot of fun because you're pressing your brain and you're trying. Sometimes it gets I don't want to say it gets boring, but it can be repetitive if you're doing the same topic to this group, the same topic and as speakers. I think it's one of the talents that you develop over time. You get to the point where you're like I can really talk about anything, I just need a framework to do it. But in this case it's how do you actually build the presentation? And you're talking about using time boxes. That technique, right? Yes?

Angel Henry: 18:56

correct, yeah, and we always say have you done like the ceiling, the ceiling breaker topic, that my signature, one that I've morphed and changed three times, four times over in the last probably four years? It's just, it's different. It's the same framework, but now it's updated stats. I'll do a little bit more research to see what's the most current thing. I don't want to use 2019 stats if I don't have to, and now I can do like a compare too, which is pretty cool. I can say hey, when I used to give this talk back in 2018, I was saying this. Now I'm saying this because the needles changed, has moved a little bit, or it's gotten worse, and then the different scenarios and examples have changed over the last few years too, even if it's the same topic. That's again where you can write down and input areas where you can refresh and then prioritize. Right, you're like, no, I definitely want to keep this example, but maybe I can refresh here and prioritize what the impact to the audience will be.

Brenda Meller: 19:59

Yeah, that's a true talent and a true skill being able to grow and evolve your talks. And then I love the technique that you just said is, which is back when I was first talking about this in 2018, the data was saying X, Y and Z. Now here we are in 2023, you're coming into 2024. There's been some shifts in it. I think it also helps to highlight your expertise, right, Because you're keeping a pulse on the market and what the trends are doing. Would you agree with that?

Angel Henry: 20:24

Yes, absolutely 1,000% yeah. And the retrospective part is the easiest for us as speakers and consultants because we're constantly getting feedback from our customers. Right, those surveys come in from the conference, or those surveys come in at the end of your talk, or we all now know to put up the QR code and leave me a review. And those reviews, that feedback, even the immediate feedback that comes right verbally after you walk off stage or after you put the mic down and people come up to you and share how it's impacted them, or a great delivery, or wow, you're so enthusiastic about this topic, it made me really want to lean into it. That right, there is feedback that you then go and think and during your retrospective and think, okay, how do I get more of that? And then, if you get something constructive where somebody's wow, you know what that point you really said was really important, but you rushed through it and I didn't catch it, yeah, boom, that's feedback that I now I can go back and course correct for the next time I present.

Brenda Meller: 21:26

Expand on it. There's so many jobs you just dropped in there. Let me try to ask a few of them. I'm sure all the people are listening and they're like what was that? So you said you used a QR code for surveys at the end of your presentation. I'm familiar with QR codes. I think they're getting a lot more easy to use. You don't have to have a QR code reader. Now you can hold your camera up, but when you do that, are you using a specific site to collect the feedback? Is that QR code directing people to your website, or is there a tool that you're using Angel for that?

Angel Henry: 21:54

Great question. I've played around, honestly, with a few different ones. Flow code is one and what I found for me personally the best for me is I have a CRM and I've created a lead capture within that CRM. Now there's a QR code that goes to that lead capture. When anybody fills out their information, it literally goes directly into my CRM.

Brenda Meller: 22:21

Okay, got you, so is it? In that case, were you directing people from the QR code to Flow code and then the Flow code information got imported to your CRM, or were you directing people to your website to do this?

Angel Henry: 22:33

Yeah, it was going to Flow code and there was data that was there that I would have to suck out. I was like, okay, do I use that, peer, or am I manually collecting this and trying to do something with it? It got a little hairy there when you have quite a few people inputting information.

Brenda Meller: 22:51

So I was like okay let me not do this.

Angel Henry: 22:53

Let me try something that's a little bit easier and a little bit, I'm sure, for all our tech folks out there. There are smoother ways to get the data into your CRM, but the one that I've heard lately that everybody's talking about is Talk-a-Dot. Have you heard of?

Brenda Meller: 23:10

this one I have. Are you a member of Innovation Women as well? No, bobby Carlton started a group and I think there's some similarities to the group that you've created. She started a group because she saw there was a lack of women speakers. A lot of conferences the men would say we don't know any women who work in finance. She's oh yeah, you want to bet. She created this and it's not like a speakers bureau, but it's like a membership community. Oh, lately we do a Friday Speaker Friends call every week and people have been talking about Talk-a-Dot.

Angel Henry: 23:39

Yeah.

Brenda Meller: 23:39

I have not looked into it, but have you used it yourself?

Angel Henry: 23:42

I have not One of my business partners has. She swears by it. I had used Vouch for about a year. The only reason why I personally love Vouch like I would be a proponent. The only issue with Vouch is that there are a ton of folks that are camera shy. So Vouch is you, send them to a link. Your face pops up and says, hey, thank you for leaving your survey. Let me know how my talk or my presentation went. Blah, blah, blah. Then it literally prompts them through it. It pops up with questions, it asks them the questions and all they have to do is respond to the question, but it's recording them on video.

Brenda Meller: 24:21

Video. I've heard this one.

Angel Henry: 24:23

Yeah, so many people are reluctant. I cannot tell you how many. I would say about half of the folks that I send about will come back to me and say hey, is there a way that I can just? Is there a survey I can just fill out, or I'll just send you an email with what I want to say, and then you do what you want with it.

Brenda Meller: 24:41

I want to be on video. And then they're like what do you think we want to do with the video? Am I going to go on YouTube or I want to be on the internet? I don't want that right.

Angel Henry: 24:48

Yes, Like I said, I personally love it. I thought it was super user friendly and easy. I actually and might I say, the best customer service for a product that I have ever had Absolute top notch customer service. I had a gentleman from Australia call me. It was like eight, nine o'clock at night, it was probably who knows what time it was his time Three in the morning and he spent a full like hour and a half setting me up, walking me through step by step how to set it up, taught me how to use it, gave me like code to use to embed in my website. All super friendly. Again, I cannot say enough great things about the product or the customer service. The only unfortunate part is folks just don't like to be on video.

Brenda Meller: 25:33

Yeah, user, but I love you're even giving me ideas. Maybe we give them a couple of ways. And here's if you want to do a video, and here's if you just want to do a text response. Sometimes, if you give people too many choices, that was my concern.

Angel Henry: 25:45

Anything, they won't do anything.

Brenda Meller: 25:47

But I love the fact that you're asking for that feedback afterwards. And we started off today talking about the agile mindset framework, the force, that process, and you gave us so many great examples. But as speakers, we can't not talk shop, because we're both speakers and we're saying brainstorming. That's part of the thing I love about my show is I can take us into some different directions and we can brainstorm, and when I hear things I will always angel, I'm like, oh, that was a good point, let's go into that a bit deeper. Yeah, but what I'd like to do, if you're OK with it now, is let's bring our audience into the conversation. Let's do it.

Brenda Meller: 26:18

I did put the ticker up on screen to comment below.

Brenda Meller: 26:21

If you'd like to ask Angel a question or if you want to add your thoughts to the conversation, maybe you have some thoughts about this force, that process that she was speaking about.

Brenda Meller: 26:32

Maybe you are also a speaker and you have some thoughts about the feedback collection process that we were going into some detail about or some other thoughts on there as well, but we want to invite you to come into the conversation. And, angel, I'm not sure if you knew this, but there's about a 30 second delay from the time I say to the audience hey, drop your question below, yes, to the time that they hear it, and then it's another 15, 30 seconds before they think of what question do I want to ask, until it appears on screen. So right now I'm just buying some time. Ok, we're doing that, though we did have some folks coming into comments and I wanted to share a few of those comments up on screen. David, do you know David? By the way, I'm not sure if he's a mutual connection or if he's falling one or the other rest, but we will be out.

Brenda Meller: 27:19

Yeah, there you go, david. Thank you so much for watching. David says the QR code tip is great. It's very satisfying at the end of the presentation to see the audience lift up their phones, and I love this point, angel, I don't know if you do this too, but when I have something on screen that I want people to do, in addition to it saying it up on screen, I also announce it to the audience. So, even though I'm giving you permission to say, hey, scan the QR code to leave me feedback.

Brenda Meller: 27:44

Did you love the presentation? Give me feedback now. I will also tell them hey, behind me we're going to do Q&A right now, but behind me, up on screen, is a QR code, or if they've got a handout in front of them with the QR code, I let them know While we're doing Q&A. If you like the presentation, I'd really appreciate if you could go to my survey page and provide me some feedback. Go ahead and hold your phones up to do or scan it in front of you. Do you do that too, or do you kind of just let people read and take it in? What's your thought on that?

Angel Henry: 28:09

Oh, no, I was taught you have to give the audience instruction. If you want them to raise your hand, you have to raise your hand too. Like give them a visual cue of what to do. Like demonstrate it like raise your hand and do you have to do it? Demonstrate it. You take out your phone and hold up your phone to it. Hey, this is how it works.

Brenda Meller: 28:28

Hold up your phone.

Angel Henry: 28:29

Here goes逆 Hold on, go to your camera, but you have to think too like some folks aren't tech savvy. You have all types of generations, and at least I do in my audience, right? So some folks live, eat and breathe and sleep and they're on this thing all the time and they're taking their notes on it. Others are still pen and paper and they're like what do I do with a QR code again? So giving them instruction and visualizing show, demonstrating what it is that you need them to do when you're up on stage, is a must.

Brenda Meller: 29:00

Yeah, yeah, and I find like we as speakers were probably a bit more comfortable and apt to take pictures and to scan QR codes when we see them, even without being prompted, because it's what we do.

Brenda Meller: 29:12

But it reminds me, and the analogy I like to use is when I was little, I was like painfully shy, and we would be playing outside with our friends in the middle of the summer and we go to their house and their mom would be like do you, girls, want lemonade or popsicles? And I would always no, thank you, even though I wanted one. I was like thank you. And then they would ask two or three times and then my friend would eventually say, yes, I'll have a lemonade. Do you want one too? And then I'd be like, okay, if you're having one, it's okay. So I feel like sometimes our audience, if you're not as comfortable to your point holding up your phone and using your phone, you need to be told and even demonstrated, you showing them what it looks like and even what I was doing with the QR codes. Do you remember when they first came out, angel? It was like back in 2009.

Angel Henry: 29:51

It was clunky.

Brenda Meller: 29:52

Yeah, it was clunky. You had to download the QR code software.

Angel Henry: 29:56

You did. That was the bad part.

Brenda Meller: 29:59

And it was like and people are like, I'm not downloading it and I'm like this is a. I remember thinking to myself this is not going to work because as a marketer I know you got to make things easy for people and it was not easy, and too many people weren't willing to download the additional queue. It was like a hurdle, like the cool people were doing it, but the masses they were like nope, too much work. But nowadays?

Brenda Meller: 30:17

I don't know how they did this technology. But you hold your phone up and it just pops up a little link on it. I wish we had a I can't put it up on screen right now. We could demo. You don't have one on your. The board behind you, do you by chance?

Angel Henry: 30:29

Oh no, I don't, I don't. I think I kept one on my LinkedIn in the background of my LinkedIn. I think I still have. I'm all about QR codes. Now I have them printed and they're embedded in my presentations. They're everywhere.

Brenda Meller: 30:40

Let me that's actually a perfect segue and let me just pull that up on screen. I need to change out my banners here when you're hosting your multitasking and your brain is looking. I got to do this and do that and then I got to show the screen. So I what I'm doing right now is I'm going to share the screen and then pull up Angel's profile so we can look at the QR code and you can also for those of you that are in the audience can practice what we just talked about.

Brenda Meller: 31:07

So, angel, do you want to tell them what they do If they're watching this on their, their laptop, and they have their phone with them?

Angel Henry: 31:14

Yes, let's do this. Okay, let me do it All, right. So you get your phone here and you just go to camera, right? Just go to camera and you just point it at the screen and it'll say flowcodecom. And flowcodecom will come up. Give it a couple of seconds to churn, cause it's doing a couple of hops in the backend and up will load a picture right Into my lead capture page and it'll say Angel speaking. At the top. There You'll see a picture of me actually speaking. That's actually a photo of me at the MPI event back in April. And then, if you just scroll down, you'll see a little section there where you can fill out information type in your name info, what you might be interested in.

Angel Henry: 31:57

My major service offerings are, of course, speaking and then consulting, coming inside to organizations and training their middle managers on this very process through an inclusive and empathetic lens, right? So we actually, when we're time boxing, work with middle managers. We're actually helping them create their agenda. They're actually changing the way that they work in terms of how they do performance management, who they're mentoring, how to sponsor step by step. Here's how you identify somebody to sponsor and how you sponsor them. So we come alongside and that can be a bridge program, so maybe about three months, or it can be a longer engagement where, at six to nine months, where we're working with multiple departments and multiple managers and creating cohorts of managers to do this, anything that we train them on, any education we give, we're following the four step process right, because, brenda, I tell you what leadership training.

Angel Henry: 32:57

Number one, it comes way too late for folks, especially in corporate. And two, our HR departments and our chief diversity officer, our chief diversity offices. Both of those departments are completely overloaded with process and policy and just trying to stay up on all the different changing strategies that the organization has. So for them to actually practice and do, and instead of sending out, hey, managers, you need to make changes, hey, people, you need to make changes you really do need somebody to come alongside them and help them execute. And that's what we do, yeah, yeah. And then the third piece that I do is what we call the strategic advisory mastermind, and so that's where we'll, twice a year, we'll bring in women who are African-American, latina, women of color that are at that mid-level in their career to think manager and they're trying to get to director, or maybe their director trying to get to VP, that space in there, bringing them and creating a cohort and training them on executive presence, how to get feedback, how to find a sponsor and not be over-mentored, because women are typically over-mentored.

Brenda Meller: 34:10

So yeah, mentoring is good, but you need a sponsor, somebody from inside the organization who can help to pull you through and lead you through right A man.

Angel Henry: 34:17

Brenda, yes, yes, and we don't have enough of those. Yeah, yeah, so those are the three major service offerings that we have, so that's what that little code will send you to if you're interested in any of those. And then, or you just connect with me via LinkedIn and we help on a call and have a conversation about how we can help.

Brenda Meller: 34:36

That's great, and I was trying to zoom in on the screen as you were talking because I wanted to show, like, in the middle of your QR code I don't know if you all noticed this in the audience, but if you're watching this on video right now, she has the QR code and her logo, angel speaking, is in the middle of it, which is really great, and there's a couple different websites that you can use to do that process. Do you know the name of the one that you're using that you used to create that one? I believe it was Flowcode Flowcode Okay, it was Flowcode. You said because it went to Flowcode.

Brenda Meller: 35:02

Now that I'm asking the question, how silly it was that looks okay, sorry, right, if you're creating a QR code, I use another one called QR code monkey, which is just creating a QR code, uploading a logo into the middle of it. It's not affiliated with the Flowcode or something like that, and it's free. There are some limitations, I've heard, and I don't know how long the QR code lasts. So it's better to use a paid service if you don't want to make sure that the QR code never breaks in the future. So some considerations there, right, but I meant no, it was a perfect segue, because usually what we do as we start to wrap up our conversation.

Brenda Meller: 35:34

I asked the question and I mentioned this in our pre-show like where could go people learn more about you? And I love this because they can go right to your LinkedIn profile, scan that code, fill out the survey and set up the call. Or you also said they can go to your LinkedIn profile and connect with you. Now I noticed, angel, I've got a trained eye. If I look at your profile, I noticed you have the talks about and you have those hashtags at the top of your profile, which tells me that you've turned on creator mode and for that reason, if there's someone who's watching the show right now. Who's interested in connecting with you? If they go to your profile, they're going to see follow instead of connect, so I'll just let them know if they want to connect with you. It sounds like you're open to connecting.

Angel Henry: 36:14

Absolutely.

Brenda Meller: 36:15

Yes, for sure, but what they'll need to do? From their view, I'm already connected with you, so it's not going to show up on screen. But if they click on the more button from their view, from our audience, and you're not connected with Angel, you'll see an option underneath more, one of which will be either personalized invite or connect, and then what you'll want to do is just mention that you saw Angel on the interview, just say, hey, I saw you talking to Brenda Meller. She'll know, because we haven't done a lot of these videos, I think this is the only one we've done. I don't know who you are. Anything else you want to add to that in terms of people reaching out to you?

Angel Henry: 36:48

That's it. I quite literally, which is shameful, brenda, but I actually know I think you have me beat. I always tell folks that I live on LinkedIn. I literally check it like four, five, six times a day. I literally roll over and I'm checking, but I think you've got me beat. There you go.

Brenda Meller: 37:08

That's awesome, and I see some other folks Sandra, I'm going to be actually interviewing next week. So, sandra, thank you so much for watching. She says she loves the idea of building cohorts of managers who feel supported. On that note, when you were describing that program, I was thinking is the cohort something that you do for a company, or is it something that you offer and they multiple companies will send their employees to it, or do you do both?

Angel Henry: 37:31

It's for a company.

Brenda Meller: 37:33

It's for a company.

Angel Henry: 37:33

Yes, yes, a company. They'll usually do it for a department. For example, they'll take the IT department and grab 10 middle managers from there, create a cohort and give them these micro-learnings and have them practice. But the cohort is so critically important because I know myself when I was an executive leader and I would bunk up against some of the HR policies and procedures or say something like you know what? No, this is the right thing to do, especially right, I was leading during COVID. So if someone's sick or has an extenuating circumstance or something was going on with their family, that was unusual.

Angel Henry: 38:10

Very often it was an ethical dilemma of how do we do the right thing and honor this person in this situation but not unintentionally cause chaos or making people feel like, oh, we're being special to one group and not another.

Angel Henry: 38:25

Right, all of those things had to come into consideration that we're chewing through, and I was doing it by myself, and so how phenomenal would it have been for me to organically, a couple of us would meet and talk through it every now and then, maybe once a month, but that wasn't often enough.

Angel Henry: 38:42

We, as managers, needed to be meeting literally on a weekly basis to say here's the tough thing that I had to deal with. I had to give somebody some hard feedback, or I have to put somebody on a disciplinary plan, or I have to, whatever the case may be, and hearing from a peer about how they got through it, or they're in the same boat and talking through that and then saying, oh, I tried that, don't do that, that's what we need. We're asking supervisors to do all of these things from a technical perspective and hit all these deadlines. We're giving them project work that they need to do too and oh, by the way, be empathetic and inclusive on top of that. And I don't know how You're not giving any training on it right and in this support system.

Brenda Meller: 39:31

I think what I'm hearing you say is so incredible.

Angel Henry: 39:34

It's critical because we're going to make mistakes right. Which now comes full circle to where we were at right the blitz and blots that we had in the beginning, the learning experiences it's learning experiences. So how do we get folks again from that fixed mindset to, oh, I made a mistake, I'll never try that again. That's why I truly believe my heart of hearts. That's why all these inclusive and diversity training and policies are falling flat, because managers will try it. If it doesn't work, they'll stop doing it. They're actually going to revert back to the way things were. And now we've got this horrible death spiral that's going on. We have to switch folks from fixed mindset to growth mindset to say you're going to try it and you're going to make a mistake and that's okay, and this is how you recover, this is how you learn.

Brenda Meller: 40:24

Growing that that's how you grow by going through those mistakes, those learning experiences. Right, not?

Angel Henry: 40:29

a born kind of ride a bike without falling off and skinning our knee, at least once.

Brenda Meller: 40:33

Oh my gosh, everyone I because you have to learn the balance. That's how you learn. You're learned by falling. How to not fall again.

Angel Henry: 40:40

Exactly.

Brenda Meller: 40:41

Yeah, angel, this has been such a delightful conversation. I feel more empowered. I coming in. I was like looking at this interview I was prepping last night and I'm like I'm not sure what I'm going to ask. I'm like that's a question I'm going to ask you, what is it? Because I I think I know, but I don't really know and I think we walked all walked away with some really great takeaways on there. Do you want to offer any final comments for us on the agile mindset mindset framework as we start to wrap up today?

Angel Henry: 41:05

Oh, the final comment that I just want to say to everyone is find the most valuable thing that you can do for yourself and others, today and every day.

Brenda Meller: 41:19

That's great, Great feedback. Thank you so much, Angel. Great conversation here today. And as we start to wrap up, I'll remind our viewers whether you're watching this in live or in playback. As soon as you're done watching the video, you're going to see a share icon at the bottom and if you have not yet posted on LinkedIn this week, this month, heck, maybe yet this year what you can do is click to share the video and when you do tell, tell the audience something that you gained or why they should watch the video, something that you learned perhaps in there.

Brenda Meller: 41:50

If you do share it along, we want to ask you for a favor, and that's please do tag us in the video, and to tag you use that little at sign. So the at sign is the way that you do a tag. The pound sign is a hashtag. It's something a little bit different, but if you tag us using the at sign and then type in our names, we will both get notified and we will both comment back on there and hopefully we'll get some good share alongs. Oh, watching this. So thank you again, Angel. I'm delighted we have the conversation. I hope we get the chance to meet in in person at some point. Maybe we'll be on the stage someplace together. Who?

Angel Henry: 42:22

knows right.

Brenda Meller: 42:23

I'll put that out there for the universe. Let's do it. That's great. Thank you again, angel, for watching. It's been a delight and we appreciate your time today. Thank you for having me All right and for everyone else, thank you for making the time to watch this day, whether you're watching in live or in playback. If you do have any comments or questions for Angel, please drop them into the comment section. I'll make sure that I share this. Along with that said, stay safe and stay healthy. We look forward to seeing everyone. I'm LinkedIn. Have a wonderful day, take care.