UXA2022 Day 2; Tim Yeo - Design Leadership for Introverts

Do you squirm in your seat when asked to introduce yourself? Do you find networking awkward and embarrassing? In meetings, do you find yourself keeping quiet even though you have something to say? Does a quiet evening at home with a book sound more attractive to you than an evening socialising with people you’ve never met?

If your answer to most of these questions is yes, congratulations: you are (probably) an introvert. As an introvert, you lose energy when engaging with people rather than gain. People engagement is not optional if you want to lead. So how do you lead as an introvert?

In this talk, Tim Yeo will share techniques he's used to manage his own introversion in order to lead as a designer. He'll also share power tips he's learned leading a fully remote global team during coronavirus isolation that play to an introvert's strengths.

Transcript

1. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. www.captionslive.com.au | captionslive@outlook.com | 0447 904 255 UX Australia UX Australia 2022 Friday, 26 September 2022 Captioned by: Carmel Downes & Kasey Allen
2. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 1 STEVE BATY: Good morning, everyone. Come on in and take a seat. Welcome back. Welcome to day 2 of UX Australia for 2022. I hope you all had a good night last night. I hope you were able to ponder what you've heard through the day and get out and maybe enjoy a little bit of Melbourne. I took myself off to the footy last night. I went and watched one of the AFLW games out at Princes Park, which is a nice way to spend an evening. Had a beer and a pie, got rained on and watched some footy. It was a classic night out in Melbourne. I really enjoyed it. It was also a good opportunity to decompress a little bit, which is always important. There are those amongst us who get their energy from other people and then there are those of us who being around other people is tiring. Our next speaker, and our first keynote for the day well and truly finds himself in that latter group of people for whom people are tiring and finds himself constantly in environments surrounded by the former. As a design director at IBM Tim has developed a range of practices that help him be an effective design leader and designer and colleague in environments that don't always suit his personality and he is going to share some of that thinking with us today. So I'm really happy and proud to welcome to the stage this morning, via video. Tim Yeo. Good morning, Tim. (APPLAUSE) TIM YEO: Hello. STEVE BATY: We can see and hear you. Over to you. TIM YEO: Noice! I will just share my screen. Are you ready to go? STEVE BATY: All good, Tim.
3. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 2 TIM YEO: All right. Introverts, extroverts and ambiverts, my name is Tim Yeo and for the last 40+ years I've been an introvert. And this, this is what introversion feels like for me. Small talk is really hard for me. Now I grew up in Singapore and for anyone that's lived in Asia or travelled to Asia you will probably agree people back home, we don't talk to random strangers on the street, especially now. Most of us will be reading our book or staring at our phones, you know, like normal people do! Instead when I moved here to Australia 10 years ago, and then now in Adelaide, western society, you could be in a queue, you could be waiting for a bus, a tram, a train or even the toilet. Somehow small talk just creeps up on you when you least expect it. So I had to learn how to talk about the weather, asking people how they are, what their plans are for the weekend. In the beginning when people asked me how I was I actually told them and then I quickly realised that I was probably over sharing or they were not that interested. Because for me, too much social interaction is exhausting. Even if the social interactions are ones that are like friends and family and if this conference for me was in real life sometimes I just need to step away and have some quiet time to recharge, like this animal crawling into a shell. A few myths about introversion that I like to dispel. Firstly, introversion is not about being shy. Being shy is a fear of social judgment. Even an extrovert can be shy. Rather, introversion and extroversion is about how we respond to stimulation where stimulation could be social interaction, noisy environments or working in open plan offices for example. So for an introvert to operate at their best they require an environment that has less stimulation and vice versa for extroverts. Next, introversion and ex-interest version is not an absolute. How an introvert or an extrovert behaves depends on context, the
4. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 3 environment and the people that are around you at that time. No one is truly an introvert or an extrovert all of the time. Now in 2012 Susan Cain gave a TED Talk called the power of introverts. She inspired my talk. She said when she was growing up she felt like her quiet, introverted way was wrong - wrong. Like, imagine that, imagine growing up thinking that the way that you are is wrong. She also said that we live in a world where the extrovert ideal is desired and as a design leader this certainly feels true to me because when people paint a picture of what they expect a leader to look like it often looks something like this. A leader commands the centre of attention, a leader is outgoing, talkable and confident. A leader is able to deliver charismatic speeches, rallying large audiences at a drop of a hat. A leader is, in essence, an extrovert. Now, I am not saying that this is a bad way to lead, I am saying it is not the only way to lead and certainly not all the time, which begs the question; if we can accept that the world is the way that it is, a world that desires extroverts then how can we, as introverted designers and design leaders operate successfully within it. If you are an introvert and you are happy in an individual contributor role you can probably get away by focussing on pushing pixels but if you want to lead, especially people leadership, then your pixels are now people and you can't push people the same way as you push pixels so how can an introverted design leader succeed? Now the answer to this question is not be more extroverted. Now I've tried that, it's lame, it always felt unnatural and instead the techniques that I'll be sharing with you have allowed me to remain my true authentic self, or, in other words, how can we use our introverted ways not as a flaw, now as if there is something wrong with us, but to use our introverted ways as a super power? Now I want to take a moment to acknowledge the world that we live in today. You know, I've given this talk before, but those talks when I
5. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 4 gave them were given in a world where people could shake hands and stand less than two metres apart and not be worried about contracting a deadly virus. The world that we are living in today has changed but people endure and social dynamics exist and even though the lucky ones amongst us find ourselves in good health with a job, those same expectations, norms and projected beliefs of what a leader looks like still exist. It persists through the tiny lenses of our webcams on our laptops where we look our best from our waist up on video calls through to the peers that we work with and the teams that we lead. Now case in point, I started a new role back in April 2020 and it was the start of the COVID pandemic and I started that role fully remote, leading a team in a company that was newly remote. Then all of a sudden remote was the new normal. I had never worked remote and I'd never led a remote team and so much of the leadership that I felt I did was in person, peer to peer, face to face, being in the room to be the room. And then just like that all of that was gone. So I wondered, in that new normal, in this new normal, will I, as an introverted leader thrive or wilt? Will this new normal be a boom or bust for introverts like me? And will my techniques, my introvert super powers still serve me well in the fully remote world. The answer is yes but with a few tweaks. In this version at the top I will share with you new techniques that I've learned to lead as an introvert in a world that works remote. I'll be sharing these techniques around four areas - they are meetings, team management, social media and lastly networking. Everybody loves meetings, right? Look at a calendar, if you have a white space in your calendar, great, you've got time for one more meeting! By far my favourite type of meeting has to be one on ones. As an introvert you only have to focus on one person, not a group of people competing for attention. More importantly, it is away from the public eye.
6. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 5 People are more open to being wrong when no one is looking and they are also more open to tell you what they really think when nobody else is listening. And when working remote, one on ones are more important than ever. Bumping into someone at a water cooler or the pantry, it just does not happen anymore. You know, you can't just turn your chair around and ask someone a quick question because you are no longer in the same room. So schedule one on ones with peers and leaders intentionally so that staying connected not left to chance. Also if you have a difficult subject to discuss you can change your space. Before you could take a walk with someone or meet over lunch or coffee but when working remote that's not possible. But you can still change your space. You could take that call in the garden or at the park or from your living room or on your phone. You get to engage or a more personal level, away from business and behaviours as usual. Changing yes you have your meeting can change your behaviour and the outcome of the meeting. Next, arrive at virtual meetings early. In real life meetings tend to happen in rooms, at tables, sitting side-by-side or across from each other. Meetings in real life are bound by time and space. So unless you just can't get to your next meeting quick enough because your next meeting is three floors up in a different building, but not when you are working remotely. When remote, meetings happen virtually and your next meeting is just a click away literally. And the one thing that remains true about meetings in real life and when working remotely is that there will always be someone who is late. Someone whose arrival you are waiting for to meeting can begin. There is no point starting the meeting because you will just have to repeat what you say all over again when the late person finally arrives. So why arrive early. You arrive early because in that small pocket of time you are alone with the punctual attendees. Not
7. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 6 everyone arrives at the same time. So being early gives you precious one-on-one time to connect with the people that you work with. Sometimes it is your team who is early. Other times it is your boss or your boss's boss. You can practice small talk. You can ask them what they had for lunch. Is that a new shirt? How did you partner's interview go? Did the baby sleep through the night finally? You know, these minutes between meetings are when people speak more freely, when there's nobody else there to listen. It's an opportunity to connect at a more human level. By arriving early you get to ask people how they truly are, especially when working remote. And you will never have the opportunity if you arrive late. So arrive at virtual meetings early. Now sometimes you find yourself in the meeting and someone asks a question and you know, it's a really interesting question. It is one that's really caught your interest and then your brains are on it. You know, the gears are turning and your synapses are firing and you can see the shape of it and it is cloudy but not fully formed. Then owl of a sudden someone in the room calls your name and says, "Tim, what do you think?" And then blood just drains from your face and your mind is racing. You know, you are not ready. You know that great idea that was still forming in your head, pouff it is gone. You make some executions and nervous noises and quickly the attention passes onto someone else and then you are kicking yourself for not speaking up. This comes up a lot in conversations, how do you speak up before you are ready? Well, the thing you have to do is to give yourself permission to speak up, a licence to speak up, before you are ready and that licence could sound something like this. This might sound really stupid but I'm going to say it anyway, "you probably know this already but..." "Now what I'm about to say is not fully formed yet but this is what's come to the mind so far." "I don't know if I
8. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 7 fully believe in what I'm going to say but I'm going to say it anyway." Just some examples. By prefacing what you are about to say it gives you permission and licence to say it even though you are not 100% ready or whether that idea is fully formed yet. You know, maybe you are not even close to being ready, maybe you do need a little bit more time to process, but the microphone has been passed to you so in this case you could say, you know, I need a little bit more time to process, I'm almost ready. Do you mind moving to somebody else and then coming back to me next. And then other times you are ready with something to say but then there's something inside you that holds you back. You know, you've never really enjoyed the spotlight when everyone's gaze and eyes are on you but what you have to say is important and it's meaningful. Now in moments like this you have to train yourself to raise your hand or somehow signal that you have something to say before your brain kicks in and starts making excuses not to speak up. Now when you do this, doing this quickly shifts your mind from making excuses not to speak up. It shifts it to focus on how you are going to say what you are about to say. The important thing you have to realise is this, you were invited to that meeting for a reason. It is important for you to speak up because nobody can read your mind. To participate in the discussion is to be a team player. So speak up to be a player on your team. Also not everything has to be a meeting. You know, meetings aren't always the best way to get things done. On a practical level meetings are synchronous where all attendees need to assemble at a fixed time. Even if you are successful at calendar Tetris and you find one precious hour two weeks later where all the attendees are miraculously free, when you meet across time zones, it will always be too early or too late for somebody on the call. If they even show up. Also group meetings are rife with social dynamics - politics, positioning, power.
9. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 8 Some people even encourage adversarial behaviour claiming that conflict leads to better decisions. Now as introverts we may not always get our turn with the microphone and the louder voices on the call seem to say it the most but don't always have the most to say. Meeting this way isn't just bad for introverts, it's bad for most of us. So if not meetings, then what? Use asynchronous communication methods to get things done. You probably communicate async already if you write messages or use blog posts, here are a few things you can do, especially for introverts. Instead of a 15 minute monologue during a meeting where you present your point of vie, why not record a video of yourself presenting so that people can watch it in their own time. Now I will admit you will cringe the first few times you rewatch a video of yourself and it may take a few tries before you get a good take. But as an introvert you are not put on the spot to speak or interact or interrupt and lose your train of thought. You have all the time to reflect and deliver a thoughtful, polished presentation. Also rewatching a video of yourself is a good way to get better at public speaking. You know that initial discomfort of watching yourself, it will pass. And then you will start to notice little ticks and habits that you have when you speak like how you say things like um or ah or like, like, like, all the time. What you notice in these videos you can then fix, iterate and improve. Next not every Slack message or instant message warrants an immediate response. When working remote, communications through digital channels has increased exponentially. You know people's inboxes are lit up like a Christmas tree with unread messages. Your team isn't just working, they are dealing with kids who are working at home or getting home schooled or they are feeling cooped up in the same four walls for the 50th day in a row. As a design leader, make sure that your
10. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 9 team knows when a response is required. You know, if the building isn't burning why should you expect an immediate reply. Instead of sending a message at 12:45am that suits you, why not write it now but schedule it to be sent the next morning. Communicating this way asynchronously lets your team work their best when they are at their best. Next, high-stakes meetings. A high-stakes meeting is one where an ultimate decision has to be made. It's a go or no-go decision. Your boss is there, your boss's boss is there too. The people in the room tend toe have strong opinions and loud voices. So as an introvert what do you do? Now, I've been to a few of these high-stakes meetings and I think that there is a secret to them and the secret is this. People who attend these meets have most likely already made up their minds before the meeting itself so the thing here is to influence the outcome before the meeting, not during. Let's think about the audience here for a second. High-stakes meetings usually involve senior executives, right? And senior executives usually have more experience. Senior executives also tend to have more things to focus on and less time to make decisions. Also very few single decisions would truly break a company. It's usually a series of poor decisions that will break a company. Therefore, senior executives will lean onto their prior experience in order to help them make decisions quickly. Now once these decisions are solid feed in their names, in my experience it's very hard to change that. So what do you do? Well, you have one-on-one's hours, days, weeks even months before the meeting. How far in advance depends on how high the stakes are. The goal here is to influence their thinking before they make up their minds. You've got to explain your position, your rationale, you can also ask what they think and if it's a one-on-one people are more open to being wrong or to say, "I don't know." Think of it like steering a container ship. Now a container ship
11. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 10 takes 20 full minutes to come to a full stop. So if you want to change the course of a container ship you have to start steering early. Really early. The final point about meetings I would like to make, you know, in the last two-and-a-half to three years of the COVID pandemic I have never felt more seen or more heard compared to the last 18 years that I have worked in design. Whether you are on Zoom or Google meet or WebEx, everyone is on equal playing field. People actually have to take turns to speak, you know, speaking over one another just doesn't work anymore. You put some of these practices - if you put into practices some of these techniques you will be heard, you will be seen. Switching gears - team management. Now when it comes to hiring I've always tried to hire for our team's weaknesses. And as an introvert you are going to need some social butterflies. Work is a team sport and having social butterflies will help you build bridges across teams, across the company and across our industry and these connections will have - extend the circles of influence and the impact that we designers have on the work that we do. It does not matter that working remotely makes it harder for butterflies to socialise. Butterflies will find a way to do what butterflies do. It does not mean that every team member has to be a social butterfly. It also does not absolve you, the design leader, from the need to build relationships. But, you know, it certainly wouldn't hurt if this trait came very Natalie to some of your people, people that you can lean on when you have maxxed out on social interactions. Next, choosing managers. In 2011 a professor and his co-authors wanted to answer this question, "Do teams always operate more effectively under extrovert leadership?" Their research concluded the following. If your team is made up of proactive members, an introverted leader can get better results. If your team is made up of passive members, an extroverted leader can get better results. The reason is
12. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 11 this, when you pair an extroverted leader with a proactive team extrovert leaders can feel threatened as though their top-down vision is being threatened. They may be less responsive to ideas and then consequently teams become less proactive. On the other hand introverted leaders tend to be more receptive to bottom-up ideas, more willing to listen if a better idea emerges. Consequently, team members become more correct. So when choosing a manager think about your people and what kind of leader would help you get the best from them. Ask your team how they want to receive their recognition when they've done a job well done. Many people assume that the best way to deliver recognition is in a public setting in front of as many people as you can find because, you know, you want everyone to know how awesome you are and then having everyone look at you and applaud you on a job well done. But where the introverts that I coached, that is not true and that is not true even for me. Receiving recognition this way, while appreciated is very uncomfortable. The heat of the spotlight and people's attention on me is often too much. Not only that, sometimes we will be asked to say a few words on the spot, which is even worse because we did not expect it and now we have everyone looking at us and we have nothing to say. Now just because someone doesn't like the default way that you give recognition doesn't mean that you don't give them recognition at all. The answer is not don't give recognition. The answer is give recognition the way that it wants to be received. Just ask them. It could be over a Slack message to the whole department, it could be at a team meeting. It could be one-on-one. Don't assume - ask. For me, I prefer receiving recognition for the work that was well done rather than praising me doing the good work. You know, it depersonalises the work from me even though I did the work and I feel like it puts a spotlight on the work rather than on me. Receiving recognition this way I still feel the
13. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 12 glow and appreciate for a job well done. Next, play your role. People assume that when it comes to leadership styles we each have one fixed style that is fixed and cannot be changed. However, the reality is that we each have a preferred style and it's not fixed. Just like in our personal lives, we each play different roles depending on the situation and context that we are in. We might be a mother to our children, we might be a UI designer to our team. We might be a cook preferring a dish for the first time. All these roles are being played by the same one person. The trick here is recognising the role we need to play and knowing what it takes to play that role successfully. We can then adapt and adopt those behaviours and both on those roles, in those situations successfully. Now on this slide you will see a screen shot from a recent talk that I did on The Quiet Achiever where a friend that I respect very much, Hong Khai Seng from Studio Dojo - he is one of the smartest people that I know, that most people don't know, and I highly recommend that you follow his work. He is also an introvert and he talked about the four dispositions used to adapt and adopt different rows and different behaviours to be successful in this work and the four dispositions are a jester, a king or queen, a lover or a warrior. So, for example, let's imagine that you are a design leader and you have been asked to justify the need for more head count so you can hire more designers. In this case you might choose to adopt the role of a warrior. You adopt a more fighting stance and mental disposition. Eve then though public speaking and conflict may not be the things you like the most you can adopt this role in service and defence of your team you want to protect. The role could sound something like if you don't get the hires that you need your team will be overworked. The quality of work will suffer and your team will leave because no good designer wants to be working long hours doing average work for long periods of time. How role
14. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 13 play can help introverted people and design leaders is recognising that who we are is not a fixed thing. We are human, we have multitudes and it is those multitudes that allow us to do incredible things, things that we would not normally do, like public speaking in front of hundreds of people. Now some of you listening to this might be thinking, "Gosh, Tim, you are asking me to be someone that I'm not. You are asking me to fake it before I make it and it feels unauthentic." What I will say in response is, "Well, I'm not asking you to pretend to be someone else. I'm asking you to show up as your best self. Who you are on your best day." And be the person that your team needs to be in service of your team. And now we turn our attention to social media. In my opinion social media is a gift from the introvert gods. Before public speaking was one of the best ways for us to broadcast our thoughts and ideas but we introverts, we don't respond as well to public speaking as extroverts do. With social media we introverts can reach across continents, across time zones all of your own terms, from behind the safety of our screen. And then at no time has social media been more important for us than now. So if you wanted to argue with Jared Spool about why everyone is not a designer, just be him. All of a sudden all the people we respect are right there at our fingertips and if do you are an introvert like me a handful of deep, meaningful conversations means so much more than plenty of shallow, forgettable ones. Also, if these conversations happen in public channels, they represent your thought leadership. You are what you write, share and tweet. What you say and how you say it will represent who you are. So how you start to have visibility and influence on social media as an introvert? Here are a few techniques. Find the people that you respect and follow who they follow. That's it. That's the Tweet. You know, both - birds of a feather flock together. Chances are high that people you respect actually follow others that they
15. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 14 find interesting and respect as well. By following who they follow you open yourself up to new ideas, new people and new conversations that you never had before. This opens up your thinking and your network and one day when you get - when you see the one thing that means most to you, that person you respect might just follow you back. Also, not everything has to be a blog post. You know, people have this false expectation that if you want to be a thought leader everything you post has to be an essay, an article, a thesis or you have to write a book. The reality is that most of us simply do not have the time or the head space for everything that we write to be long form. So you can think of your content post in three sizes, small, medium and large. Small might be liking or adding a comment to someone's post and offering your view. You might even be retweeting or resharing a funny or thought-provoking meme that came out on your feed. Small is something you can do in about a minute. Medium might be a review of an article that you read and now resharing with your network, adding your perspective. Medium might also be an opinion that you have. Medium doesn't have to be long in length, it could be less than 160 characters. It could even be a two-minute video that you make but medium takes more than a few minutes to shape. A prominent design leader previously from apple and pin interest does this is best dropping his pearls of wisdom once a day in two paragraphs. Finally, large can be a long form contribution you write. By varying the size of the content you make you give yourself for options in the quantity of the content you make without sacrificing the quality. Next, schedule your post. If you are like me, moments of creativity do not happen on demand, it happens in the morning when you are five minutes into a hot shower. It happens in the middle of the night at
16. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 15 3:45am for some reason when you wake up from a dream with the most awesome of ideas. Creativity comes in waves and the last thing that you should do is to release all that creativity at one go. Remember, to be visible and have reach on social media, what's more important is to have a cadence to how often you post. Instead of releasing all that creativity in one go, schedule your post, create a backlog of content that you can schedule and post once a day or once a week. That way the content that you create in one creative wave can last you weeks and months to come. As a final point, I want to talk about a common limiting belief that is heard about not sharing or not speak up on social media. Now things I've heard sound like, "I don't have enough experience. Maybe once I've worked longer in this industry people will pay attention." "What if what I want to say has already been said before by other people, it is not new. No one is going listen to what I'm going to say." If what you say is true to you, it's authentic and comes straight from your heart, you will have an audience. There are people out there who need to hear what you have to say. The best advice that I can give you is this - your perspective is always unique and always interesting. You just have to say it. And now we arrive at every introverts favourite activity - networking. Oh how much do we introverts love networking?! Networking is one of those activities that magically combines all of the things that we introverts do not enjoy and you know pre-COVID it mostly happened like this. You arrived in a room full of strangers. You grab a drink and then you stand awkwardly on the side quietly scanning the room hoping that someone will make eye contact with you. And then you see others just like you scattered around the perimeter but you dread having to make small talk again. So you just stand there with your drink in hand and you stair at your phone. Now clearly networking doesn't come naturally to me. Since I'm working remote I no longer have to
17. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 16 make excuses not to attend networking anymore. Nonetheless I know that it was important as a leader to extend my network. For me, the goal of networking is resourcefulness. It is to grow the pool of people that I know who I can help and who can help me. It's something that I needed to do to become better leader. So how do you network when you are working remotely, when networking events might not be easily accessible to you anymore. Here are a few techniques. Do your pre-work about attendees you would like to meet. Some events like meet-ups and conferences, they have gone virtual and the virtual events still have a list of attendees. Go through the list, pick out people that you'd like to meet. You can look them up online and say hi on Twitter or LinkedIn. With virtual or hybrid conferences like this one it is never been easier to network on your own terms. Next, always be networking methodically and consistently. Extroverts ...interacting with people. Extroverts loose energy even if the conversations are stimulating. The trick is to method call with your networking. Have a system. Spend 15 minutes of your morning serendipitously stumbling only people on LinkedIn or on Twitter. You can reach out to them or join the conversation. Talk to them about something they recently posted online and if you are keen you can exchange direct messages or catch up one or one on a video call. By being method call and consistent you do not leave networking to chance. For me, 15 minutes every morning is less draining compared to one hour circulating in a room full of strangers once a month. Also, don't just network with people who can help you. Reach out to people that you can help too. Now, more than ever, people need all the help that they can get. You can review portfolios or CVs, you can share stories of how you have adapted to remote working. For those who may have lost their jobs make introductions to others in your network.
18. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 17 Our design community never fails to surprise me how willing we are all to help. And you get to meet new people and you get to keep passing the goodwill forward. And then one day you will get to say, "Hey, I know there's someone that can help you with that, let me introduce you." Now this technique is a bit of a Jedi mind trick. What if, when you are networking you pretended it's user research. Now by pretending it's user research a collection of strangers suddenly turns into opportunities to learn about people, you know, who are they? What do they do? Why are they here? What do they want to get out of this event? Maybe I can help them? Maybe they can help me? Now through this lens small talk questions come more naturally. Just remember not to ask questions all the time. It will feel like an interrogation rather than a conversation because it's not really user research. When networking, have some measurable output. It might be exchanging contact details or adding the person on LinkedIn or Twitter. Remember, the goal is to become more resourceful by growing the pool of people that you know. You can't do that if you don't know how to contact that person again when you need them. So you've made all this effort networking to get to know this one person. In fact, you actually genuinely like this person. It is someone you can see yourself hanging out with. Interesting people probably know other interesting people that you should meet. So why stop at one. When networking, don't stop at one. Ask your new connection to introduce you to two other people that you should meet and you can do the same. Next, have an exit script. Sometimes conversations come to a natural end. You know, we just run out of things to talk about. What you must know is that this is totally okay. Rather than awkward silents, have an exit script so that you can leave and start another conversation with someone else more interesting. Even when you're networking virtually.
19. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 18 Practice, practice, practice your exit script. Repeat it until it comes naturally. It could sound something like this, you could say, "Hey, John, I've really enjoyed chatting with you. It feels like we've got a lot in common. Are there two other interesting people that you know that I should talk to? Can you introduce me? I'm happy to do the same." And who says networks has to be a group activity. Now, more than ever, video calls are the new normal. Reach out to the people that you like to meet and arrange for catch up to talk shop. One on ones are a great way to get to know someone better. In closing, I would like to bring our attention back to Susan Cain's talk and the extrovert idea. The world may continue to favour extrovert as leaders but I hope I have convinced you that we introverts have our place as effective leaders as well. This talk, it was never intended to be introverts versus extroverts. I think we all have a role to play and I hope that these techniques that I share can be put to good use by introverts and extrovert alike. Introversion is not a flaw, introversion is not a disability, it's a super power and I hope you will let your super power shine. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) STEVE BATY: Thank you very much, Tim. I'm a little fearful about asking people for questions now. So I have received one though that I would like to pass along. Somebody asked how - you mentioned the technique of recording a video and going back and watching it and picking up some of the pauses, the ums, the ahs, the m'mm, like in your speech, the question was, how do you go about training yourself to remove those awkward pauses from what you're saying? TIM YEO: If there is one tip that you take away from trying to get better at public speaking today there's only one tip I can give you, the one thing
20. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 19 you can do is to just speak slower. Just slow down. Take the time to say the thing that you want to say and in that - change your speed variance, speaking fast and then speaking slower you also create emphasis. And, like, everything else you get better with practice. Often times we might think if we don't record ourselves we might thing we are speaking and it is the most awesome thing ever until you watch yourself back and because watching yourself back, at least for me and I'm sure for many other, it was so uncomfortable because in most cases when people watch videos of themselves back, the first thing they realise - why is my voice so high pitched?" (LAUGHTER) Apparently it is a scientifically proven that the voice that you think you hear and what people actually hear is almost two octaves higher than what you think it is. After a while you get used to it, after a while you get used to watching yourself on the video and then, and only then, once you have processed that you can then start noticing the little things that you don't like, that you want to do better. The problem is that a lot of times people don't actually practice. So the key here is practice. Practice, try it, iterate, improve and you will get better. STEVE BATY: Wonderful advice, thank you, Tim. I will ask though, does anyone wish to ask a question by putting their hand up. Yes, Kit, let me grab you a microphone so we can hear you. Then there is someone back there. >> That was really interesting, thanks, Tim. My question is about the part that you were presenting about the passive groups doing better with certain types of leadership and proactive groups with others. My question is about mixed groups and whether or not you would organisation teams so that you group passive types together so the leadership could be more
21. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 20 effective or whether you would adapt the leadership to try to - I don't know, how would you cope with teams that are made up of both passive and proactive people? TIM YEO: I think in general diversity is good. I personally believe that having a diverse team gives you diverse ideas and better outcomes in general. I think the problem here is that often times when people are choosing managers or choosing their teams they don't think that way, they don't actually have a look at their team first and then saying this is our team, where is the gap. More often than not what I've seen person she people hire people who are like them, which is, in my opinion, not the best way to build teams. So I think the key is really acknowledging that you know who - what your skill sets in your team have, not just their skill sets but their personals and how they behave and how they operate and then making sure that you can intentionally hire people that will fill those gaps. You do have diversity. The other thing that happens is people don't realise that when you do hire diverse teams that you will have more conflict. If everyone was homogenous and everyone was same-same you will have no arguments because everyone is on the same page, right? But the key thing is when you do work in diverse teams is that you have to learn how to deal with conflict and to deal with it in a positive and respectful way. And then truly, the best ideas will deliver. STEVE BATY: I have another question for you, Tim. >> Hello. I have a question, a follow on from talking about looking at yourself, rewatching yourself, I have a great fear about that that is more you watch yourself the further it will degrade any confidence you built to do that. What happens after you watch yourself, how do you kind of get
22. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 21 past that potential, like - the irony of that? STEVE BATY: How do you build yourself back up again? >> How do you build yourself back up again? TIM YEO: I don't know if you guys have watched that movie Clockwork Orange where the guy had his eyes opened up. I'm living proof and I can tell you that that awkward feeling will pass, that feeling that you have, you know - how you actually build your confidence up is actually when you start noticing those things that you are doing, that you actually notice them in the first place, that you fix them, you stop doing those things and then you record another one and then you get better and you get better and you get better and then one day you will be watching this and you will be like, "Is that me?" "Wow, I sound better than I thought I did." That day will come. That day will not come if you don't start, if you don't start practising. So you just have to start and you will get better. STEVE BATY: One more question down here. >> Hi Tim, thank you very much. I wanted to ask you about how can we help the other introverts in the team? So now we saw your speech, it was amazing, I will take with me all the tips but how can we help others? TIM YEO: I can ask a follow up question, how do you want to help them? >> Let's say we are in a meeting, all of a sudden I notice somebody in the corner who is not talking?
23. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 22 TIM YEO: So this comes back to the norms you might create of how your teams want to operate. I will give you an example. Let's say from your team there is a bad behaviour and the bad behaviour is people talking on top of each other. What you could do as part of your team building exercise to form that team is have a discussion and saying what behaviours are okay and what behaviours are not okay. How do we - what kind of team do we want to be? Often times when people come together and they form a team they don't actually realise that they can actually design the kind of team that they want to be. They just start, they just work, and then they don't talk about the behaviours that they want to have and behaviours that they don't want to. So if you do run this exercise make sure everyone is involved and everyone has their say and then you agree it could be a very short list, start with a few, and then you go through a list and then when people don't behave the way that we all kind of agreed on, you can call them out. And it doesn't have to be forever. You can start with a list and then you try it for three months. If it doesn't work you come back and look at the list again and take out what you don't like and then you keep on going. But just be intentional about designing the kind of behaviours that you want to have when you work together and stick to it. I will give you an example, in one of my teams one of the norms that we had was to pass the mic because the majority of our team was actually introverts. One of the things that didn't happen was people speaking up. So one of the things we had was we passed the mic. Whenever one person finishes what they were saying they then passed it, "What do you think, John?" And when they are done they will say, "What do you think JB?" That way in a very safe way you can pull people in so they can have a chance to have their say. STEVE BATY: We have one more question from Sarah.
24. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 23 >> I just wanted to thank you for the talk, it was really useful and I have some introverted leaders in my team so I will share some of those tips. I think some of the tips you provided will help neurodivergent people so networking for example and preparing for a networking scenario rather than impulsively over sharing things you might think about how you are going to network before you get out there so I thought I'd share that as an alternative tip for those of us with those skills. STEVE BATY: Thanks, Sarah. Thank you Tim. TIM YEO: If I was there with you guys right now at this point in the conference I would be super nervous because I know in about two minutes I'm going to be out there with people walking around in circles and just not knowing how to introduce myself so I'm quite glad that I'm over here and I don't have to do that. STEVE BATY: All right. Please join me in thanking, Tim. (APPLAUSE) Thank you so much. We now have a short break for morning tea. Tea, coffee, biscuits, things - have a bit of a break, walk around, reset and we will be back here in about half an hour. Thank you all very much. (MORNING TEA) STEVE BATY: Hello, everyone. Welcome back. Lots of excited voices, as always, that is a good sign. We are joined now remotely by Julie, Jennifer, Nika and Rebecca who variously work at Microsoft and Google and are joining us from the USA and Singapore in their home cities. They are going to talk to us about how to scale culture and how to scale UX culture