How To Capture & Mobilize Your Project Wins Without Feeling Icky

​[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Galen Low: Hey folks, welcome to our panel discussion on how to capture and mobilize your project wins without feeling icky. Um, we do events like this one, uh, every month actually as a way for our members and our VIP guests to engage directly with the experts who contribute to and collaborate with us here at the digital project manager.

Uh, for those who don’t know me. I’m Galen. I’m the co founder of the Digital Project Manager and I’m also your host for today. I’ve also got with me an incredible group of talented senior project management leaders who have spent years mastering the art of framing their value. I’ve got with me Sally Shaughnessy, Mackenzie Dysart, and Ben Chan.

We’re going to do a formal introduction shortly, but first I wanted to lean into a little bit of tradition. Um, so chat in our events is a whole separate experience. Get in there. Um, and what I thought I would do is just ask, I’ve already kind of pinned it there, but if you could just let us know in the chat.

where [00:01:00] you’re joining from, uh, and maybe what your biggest project or process challenge has been lately. Uh, it doesn’t have to be a long description, but it can be, um, but you can even just give me two words that sum it up, like maybe scheduling conflicts or AI pushback or recentering your philosophical outlook on the new geopolitical reality.

Okay. That one was more than two words.

Also, as I mentioned, we don’t think it’s rude to have a completely different side conversation going on in the chat, uh, commenting about Ben’s hair. Uh, it’s all fair play. Um, that’s not something we consider rude. Um, even if it’s got nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Um, and the chat actually won’t show up in the recording anyway, at least as far as I know.

So, fire away. Um, the last thing, uh, we are going to make some time at the end for questions from our career builder members, and if that’s you, um, just post a question in our live event Slack channel, and we’ll answer as many as we can during the Q& A part at the end. Um, and I know we do have some VIP guests in the audience today, uh, so if that’s you, welcome.

Um, this is just one of a series of monthly sessions we hold for [00:02:00] our members who get access to a number of other benefits. Including our entire back catalog obsession recordings, our library of templates, resources and mini courses, as well as our flagship certification course, mastering digital project management.

You can join the fun by going to the digital project manager. com slash membership. Okay. let me, uh, get us, get us into it. Let’s get into it. Um, Today, we are getting our heads wrapped around, uh, how to capture our big project wins and convert them into compelling stories of our value when it comes to advancing our careers, all while avoiding that icky feeling that PMs can get when it comes to talking about ourselves.

Uh, so let’s, let’s meet our panelists. Uh, first up is. Sally Shaughnessy, Vice President of Program Management at AZDS, AZDS? I’m Canadian, I’m just trying to figure this out. AZDS Interactive Group, AZDS rolls off the tongue. Sally, you lead a team of program managers delivering [00:03:00] digital solutions for luxury brands.

Um, what’s the favorite? What’s your favorite part about supporting your team?

[00:03:07] Sally Shaughnessy: So, uh, hi, everybody. Happy to be here. Thanks, Galen. Uh, so, yes, I’ve been in the project management space for almost 20 years now, and I started with AZDS last summer. So, um, part of what’s exciting me about this chapter of my career is, um, helping to support and scale an organization that is really dynamic.

AZDS is both a full service digital agency, and it’s also a sass product owner company. And so I’m learning a lot about in house product management, which is new to me. Uh, I have been exclusively agency side, creative project manager for a long time. So it’s exciting me that I get to help scale this company and coach and mentor, uh, the, the.

the project managers on my team, but at the same time, I’m learning something new. And I think it’s really important, especially when you’re as seasoned as I am to try to figure out ways to keep it fresh and to keep [00:04:00] skill building.

[00:04:01] Galen Low: Oh, I love that. I love the sort of hybrid organization challenge folks are in that situation.

No, exactly what I mean. Nice to have you here, Sally. Um, next up, uh, is Mackenzie Dysart, delivery principal at ThoughtWorks. Mackenzie, you are actually one of the original members of the DPM Experts team, and you joined that team when you were just a wee product manager slash project management tour de force.

Um, now you are a delivery executive, if I may say so, but you started your career actually in food services and hospitality. Um, and just in the context of this conversation, I’m wondering, do you still use some of that adjacent experience in your professional storytelling?

[00:04:38] Mackenzie Dysart: Absolutely, I think also hi, everybody.

I think it’s, it’s critical and it’s something that I’ve actually been on a non site with a bunch of other this week and it’s been. It’s critical because it’s customer service, it’s understanding, communication, transparency, and all of those things that can make you a good person in service, hospitality, retail, that all [00:05:00] ties through to what can make you a really strong DPM.

And I think it’s, it’s critical. I mean, part of my role now is a bit of account management and that ability to understand what everybody wants, what everybody needs from us as an organization and how do we provide them with that is absolutely part of my day to day. And I think it kind of ties into. How we can prove that we’re we’re successful.

[00:05:20] Galen Low: I love that understand what everyone wants superhero skill Speaking of superheroes. Um, i’ll land out with mr. Benjamin chen, uh, who’s a principal? Um project leadership success coach and consultant at clam consulting Uh ben your linkedin is in my opinion absolutely off the chain just in terms of quality and actually comedy And I noticed that like Superheroes do they do make their way into your like project management coaching practice Uh, so i’d ask if your coaching persona was a superhero What superhero would it be, and why?

[00:05:53] Ben Chan: Well, he’s actually right behind me here. On, uh, my left here is Wolverine. [00:06:00] Um, he’s resilient, can heal from anything. He’s actually out from Alberta in Canada, so that’s where I’m also located. So it’s all aligning there and sometimes a little bit of a mean streak. So, yeah, for me, that’s, that’s kind of my hero able to go and bounce back from, from anything.

And really for me, it’s really trying to help other project managers develop and enhance and show off their superpowers inside of their work. How do they do that on a day to day basis? How are they able to go and continually improve on what they’re doing? Cause sometimes I find, I mean, even in my.

Experience as a project manager, you can feel very much alone. You’re the solo hero type of thing. And I don’t want you just to be the only hero. I want you to be able to run your own team of Avengers or X Men or your justice league, whatever it is that you can go and head all of those things up as their leader, not just as your own individual.

Superhero. [00:07:00] Boom.

[00:07:00] Galen Low: I love that. Um, that mean streak thing. I love that. Hopefully we get to see some of your adamantium claws come out in this conversation today.

[00:07:09] Ben Chan: Thanks.

[00:07:10] Galen Low: All right. Let me tee this up. Uh, for many of us, Our projects move at like a really fast pace, um, really high urgency, uh, we feel it as project managers.

And often the last thing that we’re thinking about is pausing to like celebrate our own wins. And then when the project’s finished, we’re usually swiftly moving on to our next project or to look for it. Um, and Honestly, that’s a fairly efficient way to work. Um, and tell you have to tell the story of what you contributed to that past project success.

Maybe it’s in a job interview or on your CV. Maybe it’s for your performance review or part of your bid to win a new client. In any event, the story that you tell can make or break the opportunities that get put in front of you. And I’ve seen. Project managers get carried away with their own egos taking credit for even the most ridiculous things on [00:08:00] their project while throwing their teams under the bus.

I’ve seen project managers gush about their teams but absolutely fail to mention themselves in the story altogether. I’ve seen project managers who have presented obviously made up numbers and figures for projects that somehow 10x revenue a month after launch. The question today is what is the right way to storytell about your value?

Um, to gather those wins. How can we make time to be intentional about capturing our project wins and then weaving them into authentic tales? spinning those yarns that accurately reflect our value as project managers. Um, so I thought I’d kind of like start with the basics. We zoom out to the title of the session.

Um, how do we do all this without feeling icky? Um, and in my head, I’m thinking, okay, well, why does talking about ourselves as project managers feel icky? Like what drives that ick of advocating for yourself? And actually, who is it icky for in the end? Um, I thought maybe I’d get everyone to weigh in here, but maybe I’ll start with Ben.[00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Ben Chan: Sure. And that’s a really great question because part of it is You know, we might feel icky and bringing up some of our wins and making it about ourselves. And at the same point, you know, Gail and you kind of talked about a little bit earlier was how sometimes you hear these stories and you’re like, Oh, this person is exaggerating these type of areas.

It makes you as the listener feel icky or they’re not talking about themselves. And why, why is that? Right. So I mean, for, I’d say there’s two kinds of experiences that, that come out for me. And part of it is from a cultural perspective. So I’m raised by, um, Chinese immigrants, right? My parents are, we’re from Hong Kong and such.

And so culturally I’ve been very much conditioned to be like, just do your work, do good work. It will be recognized by itself. You don’t talk about how good you are by how much good work you do. People will recognize it. People will see it. Right? And later on in my career, I found out [00:10:00] that’s not true, right?

Instead, you just get more work to do. You don’t necessarily get promoted. You don’t get recognized for it. They just say, Oh, you can do it. Great. So that became kind of ingrained from me as a child to just, you know, let’s not talk about it. People will be able to go and see it. And I think as well as also the project management culture.

Right? A lot of it has been focused on, hey, as a team, we celebrate our wins, but if your project fails, you’re the person accountable and that already sets up the mindset of, well, I have to make sure my wins are distributed amongst it. Everyone else. But if ever there’s a negative piece, I have to be able to go and take the bullet.

And yet we are not necessarily conditioned, even with the pieces around servant leadership and such to be able to go and say, Hey, we have one. So those to me are kind of the areas where I think for Us personally, inside of our mindset is how do we do that in [00:11:00] balancing the areas of, I’d say being arrogant to being too shy and what’s that balance that we can find in there where we can reach confidence.

[00:11:10] Galen Low: I love that. Yeah. If we win, it’s not you’re doing, if we lose, it’s all your fault and totally relatable by the way, in terms of like, you know, um, that culture of like, just do good work and you’ll get noticed. Yeah. Um, not so much. And that’s what we’re going to dig into today. Mack, what are your thoughts in terms of like the ick?

Is, uh, do you relate to that ickiness and what makes it a sort of an icky situation?

[00:11:34] Mackenzie Dysart: I mean, I think Ben already covered a lot of it in the sense of that balance of not being too braggy and not being like, you don’t want to draw too much attention. And I think similarly to the cultural background, there’s also the fact that like being women in the workplace, there is a little bit of a like, You know, don’t be too loud.

Don’t be too bossy. Don’t be too, and I wish I had my shirt that says, like, loud, assertive. That would be the vibe, but, [00:12:00] like, you’re kind of told to be a little bit less than and take up a little bit less space because you don’t want to make other people in the room feel uncomfortable or less than. Um, so I think it’s, it’s a bit of that, right?

You don’t, we start to devalue ourselves by not saying anything, which also doesn’t help. And then you feel icky because you haven’t said something about yourself. And then you become, there’s like this ick spiral, if you will. Um, and you’re stuck in a little bit of a cyclone. And so I think to Ben’s point about like project management is, it’s, you know, win by the team, lose by the PM.

And that’s a tough thing. I have said that in interviews. I’m like, this is what I believe in. And arguably, like the team does drive success. I can’t make a project successful, but I also genuinely can’t make a project fail either. Like it’s not, it’s not a one person show. Um, and I think it’s understanding who it’s making icky is very important.

We’ve all been around that person who brags and it’s like, oh, yeah, I did this. I did this or like, oh, I put out all these fires and great. But like, why did the fires [00:13:00] exist? Like, we start asking those questions. And I think. We need to understand ourselves, what’s holding us back as individuals and then figuring out how to narrate the story in a way that we’re comfortable with and that we’re backing up the claims so that we can speak a little bit more comfortably.

[00:13:16] Galen Low: Ick Spiral is getting a lot of love from folks in the audience here. We will make t shirts. This is just like a merch ideation session actually. Let’s like carry on with that Ick. You know, um, Sally, you mentioned, uh, where we were talking, I guess, about the sort of ickiness for self. Uh, Mackenzie, I love that point about also ick if you don’t tell your story.

Um, can we dive into some of the, like, ick on the receiving end? Like, have you been the recipient of, like, icky PM storytelling that you’re just, like, kind of cringe?

[00:13:47] Sally Shaughnessy: Mm hmm. Hi, everybody. Yeah, so, um, the icky PM, like, cringey stuff, I think, is Um, as PMs, we’re sort of conditioned to think like, like Ben and Mackenzie were [00:14:00] saying in that team mindset, right?

No, I am team. We’re facilitators. We’re a unit. Um, and so I think a lot of people are, um, also they’re protective and defensive of their teams. So they want to, you know, come in and start saying, like, we’ve been doing this for so long and we’re the best at this. And sometimes it can feel a little like, um.

You know, you, you’re proving you’re trying to sell me on yourself instead of actually showing me, um, your competency or your wins through your actions, your behaviors through your data. And so sometimes there, it feels icky when almost people have to like preface and say, like, I’m a certain way or my team is a certain way.

And you’re kind of like, all right, this is coming off a little like salesy, if you will, like, and almost sometimes it can have a negative effect where you’re like, what are you hiding? What are you trying to prevent me from thinking when you have to like lay it on thick and like tell me who you are and how awesome you are?

It’s almost like goes back to Ben’s balance point, [00:15:00] right? Like you want to find the right spot on the spectrum that feels authentic. That feels like really excited to work with this team because they sound great instead of like, maybe they sound too great. Something’s got to be wrong, or I don’t, I don’t believe this because it’s coming across too heavy.

So I’ve definitely seen it happen in the sales world. I’ve seen it happen in like, you know, I’m in the agency space. So maybe we’re on a call with another vendor partner, right? And we’re jostling for position with our clients. And so somebody comes in real heavy about how awesome we are, right? You want to do that, but at the same time, you also kind of like reel it in a little bit.

[00:15:39] Galen Low: There’s this fulcrum, right? This very pointy fulcrum that you have to kind of sit within. Someone mentioned it in, in the comments as well. Um, and you outed my, my, my sort of ulterior motive. Like, we’ve assembled this panel to talk about, uh, you know, gender, women in the workplace, um, like multiculturalism, um, and what that storytelling means.

Um, so, uh, absolutely, you know, like, weigh in in the comments, [00:16:00] uh, in the, in the chat. Um, we want to hear stories as well. Um,

[00:16:03] Sally Shaughnessy: Galen, there’s also a generational aspect to it, right? So, there’s also, like, a lot of us are maybe younger workers, but maybe we’ve got parents, maybe we’ve got grandparents who are not accustomed to us, um, selling ourselves or selling our wins, you know?

Generationally, think back, like, We used to be, um, a, a culture and a society of workers that were, you know, more union based. So they had union representation who did the bragging and the advocating on behalf of the employees. So they didn’t have to do that sort of thing. Or like, um, you know, people stayed at jobs for 20, 30 years.

So it was just like, it wasn’t a thing that they needed to do because they just kind of stayed where they were. But now we’ve got more of this like global nomad sort of individualist. type of employer situation now. So people are switching jobs more frequently. So it requires us to get more [00:17:00] comfortable with celebrating wins.

It requires us to get more comfortable trying to find that authentic spectrum so that we can sell ourselves, create that branding for ourselves, because we anticipate that we’re going to have to network more, or we’re going to have to sell ourselves more. You know, I’ve gotten into this with my father where he said, you know, after I got a promotion and I called him, I said, I got a promotion.

He said, wow, kid, I’m so surprised. You know, you’re, you’re really getting out there and selling yourself. And I said, dad, I don’t have a union rep doing it for me like you did. So nobody else is going to advocate for me. I have to advocate for myself. And so there’s a generational aspect to it too, that we might not be getting taught this by our families because this is new to them as well.

[00:17:46] Galen Low: Yeah, I totally agree. I, uh, I want to dive into some of the sort of practical stuff you had mentioned. Um, uh, there was mentioned of like the metrics, right? Like the, the sort of the, the data around, [00:18:00] um, project success. Um, and I thought maybe we could go there first. Um, because when it comes to women, sometimes it’s hard to know, like what to capture.

Um, so I thought I’d just ask the question, like, how do you define what you want to capture during your project? What are some of your favorite data points that you pay attention to in your products and projects, rather? And, I don’t know, maybe I’ll start with Mackenzie.

[00:18:24] Mackenzie Dysart: I think it kind of depends on what the purpose of tracking it is, right?

So, if we’re thinking about, like, just long term general I want it for my CV. I want to be able to be prepared for future interviews. You want to track the pretty standard metrics that exist everywhere, right? Like what percentage off were you on the original timeline? What happened? What is that story?

Where did it start? How did it end? Or how did you hit from a budget management perspective? What was that earned value looking like throughout it? How did you manage any challenges? All of that kind of stuff. It’s always a great story to tell when you as the team, the PM are like, Oh, It’s going to take this long and cost as much.

And they’re [00:19:00] like, no, no, you can do it with less people, less time, and like still the same quality. And then you get to the end where you’re like, oh, we’re going to be late. Oh, it’s going to cost more. And then you get close to that original number and you can be like, I was right all along. Thank you. This is my told you so moment.

Um, but those kinds of things are really important to share. Knowing your team size, getting feedback from the team, those things are good metrics, but then there’s also the. The strategy around like, Oh, am I just looking to grow within my own company? And if that’s the case, then you have to look at how your internal roles are structured.

So, um, as a ThoughtWorks, for example, we have great expectations. They are very clearly lined out for what is expected at each level. So we’ve got the five different grades and at each grade, how you are going to perform in different areas of like just general practitioner stuff or business values or problem solving.

And this is an exercise I go through with my direct reports. It’s one that I go through personally to manage and, you know, Advocate for myself is going through and like, how am I exhibiting these [00:20:00] things? And every time that I do a thing that kind of maps to it, I write, I have a little spreadsheet, it’s a Google sheet and it just, it’s what I update on a semi regular basis as I’m updating my goals or having my one on ones with my manager just to go through and like check in on how I’m, how am I progressing against my career growth?

And if I’m not getting somewhere in that area. How do I get the experience that I need to grow it? Or how do I, how do I prove it if I don’t know how to prove it? Right. And that’s also a conversation you can have. Cause some stuff is like soft and squishy skills. And you’re like, okay, how do I measure success with soft and squishy?

Cause it’s like flubber. Right. So like, how do you, how do you measure the things? And I think working with figuring out what those metrics are to measure against success within your organization is also really important because then come performance review time or come like. Advocating for yourself for a new role or promotion, you can say, look, these are all the things and then you can call, like, add some numbers to it and say of the great expectation for the next level.

I’m already behaving or just showing the skills of like 80 percent of there. So really. [00:21:00] It’s a no brainer. I’ve got math to back me up, right? So I think those are areas that you can start tracking and it does depend on what your goal is of the tracking

[00:21:10] Galen Low: I love that like using your sort of like Metrics in your role as a lens to like approach your day to day job And actually, you know what?

I really love the told you so because like that story you just told um, you know, it’s about Kind of planning accurately having the right conversations to have an accurate plan, um, that what did you do, right? When you got squished into, you know, deeper constraints, right? Like less budget, less time, but same scope and same expectations.

Um, and then that’s that, like, you know, expanding out in terms of how you manage those expectations, how you communicated that. Yeah, actually. We landed out here and told you so maybe not like verbatim, but I mean with Mac, you never know You might say

[00:21:51] Mackenzie Dysart: that There might come with a sticker in slack, which just here’s the screenshot of what I originally said.

Thank you

[00:21:57] Galen Low: I love the comment in chat. Yeah, always keep keep your [00:22:00] receipts I think it’s a really great way of approaching it.

[00:22:03] Sally Shaughnessy: I literally had this conversation this week. I presented a project plan to a team and it was a new type of work, ways of working. And there was a lot of backlash. Like, why do we have to do this?

And we don’t want to do this. And this seems wrong and blah, blah, blah. So there was a lot of swirl. And we ended up having a conversation yesterday about, like, how to approach the project. And after we sat down and talked about it, literally after an hour of going around in circles, we landed exactly where I had planned it in the first place.

And in my head, I was like, this is good. And being right, like, here’s the other thing with the I told you so, right? Like the being right and making sure that people know you were right is not always as important as just acknowledging that we’re going in the right direction. And so there was a lot of moments yesterday where I wanted to be like.

So we’re right back where we started with my plan. Okay, cool. Great. Just wanted y’all to know that. And I wanted to say that, but like, I don’t know that that would have endeared myself, you know, endeared [00:23:00] me or the plan to anybody else. I don’t know that it would have brought people closer to the plan in the first place.

So that’s one of those moments where you’re like, do I celebrate the win of like the original plan was the right plan? Or do I just sit back and just like, let the team think that it was their idea? Do I want to take credit for this myself? Or, and say, like, I was right all along, or do I want to let them think it?

And in that moment, I was like, I gotta step back and make this a team win and not a Sally win. That’s the point you

[00:23:28] Mackenzie Dysart: saw from. Sally

[00:23:29] Sally Shaughnessy: win

[00:23:29] Mackenzie Dysart: for later when we

[00:23:31] Ben Chan: talk about your

[00:23:31] Sally Shaughnessy: method. Yes, when we’re thinking big picture and talking about, Impacts and change management. Then I can say, Hey, remember that conversation when everybody freaked out?

And then once we got them talking, they realized, Oh yeah, we do need to do the things that she recommended, right? Like that’s going to be for me and my boss. Right. But it wasn’t in the moment of a team of 12 people who had finally agreed to move forward. That was the result I needed. It just needed everybody to move forward.

I didn’t need to get credit in that [00:24:00] moment and I didn’t need to distract. I just need the team to move forward. So I’ll collect that win for me later. 100 percent it’s going on my little checklist, but in that moment you have a decision to make. Like, do you want to get the win? Do you want to celebrate the win and is, is celebrating the win actually going to work against you?

[00:24:18] Galen Low: Yeah. Because, uh, see, I was right all along is, you know, it, on the other receiving end, right? Yeah,

[00:24:24] Sally Shaughnessy: totally. And especially, yeah, like in, in those there’s, I know somebody in the chat was asking about gender issues. There’s also, you, there is a gender issue. And so in that moment, I’m also one of the only women in the room.

I’m also one of the highest ranking people in the room. So if I come in there and I say, I was right all along, I might be, I might not be endearing myself to people because they’re like, uh, you know, woman just wants to speak up and be right. And then it goes back to those. gender issues of like women just need to be sweet, right?

And so, um, there’s a moment there [00:25:00] where you also don’t want people to be intimidated by like, well, now I can’t speak up with the vice president in the room, or I’m never going to be able to share my feedback with her in the room. So again, lots of variables. You got to make some quick decisions. Trust your gut.

Keep it authentic.

[00:25:15] Galen Low: Boom. Love that. Um, I wanted to also dial into something else that I saw in the chat, which is like, what if some of these things aren’t defined, you know, metrics or even like project KPIs. Um, Ben, you do a lot of work sort of coaching project managers who maybe like find themselves in that situation where they’re like, I don’t even know what I’m being measured against.

Um, but I’m definitely I don’t feel like I’m winning.

[00:25:36] Ben Chan: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, for myself, a lot of my career is So it’s constantly moving from different organization to different organization, helping them to go and deliver. And so there’s a lot, actually, for me, it was a lot less around the internal metrics of my organization because I’m myself.

Um, but really then how am I going to be able to go and show these wins to [00:26:00] other? Potential clients that I want to go and have and and do business with right and so along with those I’ll say key metrics that are very easy to go and track around budget, you know team size What type of teams how many departments are you working for right things that are easily tracked then it’s also understanding What does it impact you’re actually doing with the organization?

So what constitutes project success? And I’ll tell you that the triple constraints, or if we add quality in there, then it’s four, right around budget, scope, schedule, all of those types of things. That’s only part of the success, right? That’s not the whole entirety around it. And so it’s then understanding how is this impacting the organizational strategy?

What is this actually doing for the organization? Why are they doing it? And that usually comes out through the business case. And so as you start to go and go and deliver your project. Is then when you’re having your sponsorship, um, meetings, your stakeholder meetings, you’re talking with other sponsors.

[00:27:00] This is where there’s a lot of the soft skills being implemented, right? Are you have, do you have the right relationship with them to go and just ask simple questions like, Hey, how am I doing? Right. Am I, am I contributing to our, to our bottom line? Do you see this project going well? Right. Because you could still have your iron square that you’ve mentioned there, right?

That could all be aligned. And yet when you go. In and talk with executive they could still have a negative impression of how the project is going So why is that right? And so when we talk about some of these intangibles Your relationship with your stakeholders with your team with executives those also play into it because for me if anyone that says Hey, Ben, I want to go and call up one of your past previous, you know, jobs that you’ve worked at, one of your other projects.

I want to get a referral. I should have no issue just calling any of those people up from my previous projects and say, Hey, Hey, Can I get a referral, right? If I look back at the project, [00:28:00] I’m like, Oh, I’m not sure I want to go and talk to that or ask that person to come and ask as a referral to me. Okay, well then there must’ve been something there that from a relationship perspective that may have soured or that they may not have viewed it as a success.

And, and part of the mentality as well is if your project gets canceled or they decide to go and shelve it, it does not necessarily mean that that was a failure. When we look at some of our decision making processes and how we’re guiding the project forward is it could be a success that it was closed.

That they decided to go and end it early, right? When we look at things like sunk cost fallacy and whatnot. So what was your contribution to go and say, Hey, we should go and close this because there are so many other opportunities that we can go and use to. Advanced the organization in different ways.

How have I also helped the team go and succeed, right? So part of, when I go into a team, I don’t necessarily know all of them. In fact, I usually don’t at all. And I’ll go and ask, how can I help [00:29:00] contribute to your goals? Right. Maybe there’s a project analyst that says, Hey, I want to be a PM someday and say, okay, great.

Well, throughout my project, maybe I’m assigning them some of the PM tasks for them so that they can grow as well. So those, that’s just a small sample of how things can, can play out from, we’ll say some of the intangibles to then making it tangible for other people and satisfaction, your relationship building and growth for your team.

[00:29:26] Galen Low: I love that. I love it because, like, you know, you started out with the simple metrics, right? Like, team size actually tells a story of scale and complexity. Um, and it’s something that you will generally know, you know, thereabouts. Uh, but I like the other side. It’s like, you know, um, you know, creating checks that you can cash in terms of, like, relationships.

Um, and not, like, in an icky way. Not like, ooh, I’m gonna, like, cozy up to this person so that, you know, they can be part of my project success story. Really, like, I’m If I’m picking up what you’re putting down, just showing that authentic interest in actually supporting the people engaged in the project and being that person [00:30:00] who’s going to kind of build that trust, build that relationship.

Um, and then where you wouldn’t have to hesitate to say like, Oh yeah, listen, like I built great relationships. Talk to this person, right? It’s not always a data point. Sometimes it’s a testimonial. Sometimes it’s just the relationship driven aspect of things. I think that’s super cool. We’re already kind of getting into it, but I kind of wanted to get into like the how, um, like how you go about sort of gathering and tracking these things during a project.

Mackenzie, you mentioned that, you know, you’ve got your spreadsheet, you’re tracking wins, you’ve got these data points. Ben, you mentioned that, you know, you’re going in there and you’re building relationships. Um, so that you can have, you know, a sort of, uh, anecdotal impact as well. Um, Sally, I want to just kind of get in your head and your process about how you are sort of tracking wins in your project throughout your career, because, you know, you started like managing projects.

Now you lead a team of project managers. Um, What’s, what’s your process for capturing your wins?

[00:30:58] Sally Shaughnessy: Yep. So first of all, I [00:31:00] think let’s talk about what are the wins, right? So what types of things can be wins? You think about different categories, big wins, like results, meeting milestones, winning new business, keeping clients, you know, things like that.

Small wins like, wow, that meeting really went well. Or that presentation, we nailed it, you know, or I don’t know somebody’s been really nervous about a tough conversation that they needed to have and it went as well as it could have, right? Those are, you know, think about big wins, think about small wins, think about qualitative, think about quantitative, right?

Qualitative, everything that Mackenzie was saying, like data, using all of that, but like, you know, quantitative wins too, just like Hey, the team’s really gelling right now, right? Or like team’s feeling really good right now. Everybody’s very clear on what’s going on. Everybody’s treating each other with respect.

Like we’re really creating this like dynamic that we could thrive. Maybe not measurable stuff, but like, you know, quantitative wins. Then you think about positive and negative. Like I see in the comments, right? My biggest win is that [00:32:00] nobody quit, right? That awful thing that we were worried about didn’t happen.

That’s still a win, right? Like things that did happen, things that didn’t happen. So I think in terms of like capturing them, just think about what they could be, right? Big, small, qual, quant, positive, negative, people focused, team focused, organization focused, client focused, like think about all of the different categories.

Because when you just kind of think about like, you think about a big picture, When you really extrapolate what you do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, and who you interact with, um, there are, you know, there are wins to be had everywhere, right? Like one of my personal growth, um, things is here is to really stop interrupting people.

It’s rude. It’s awful. I do it all the time. I’m, I get excited. I’m, I’m kind of an alpha, right? Like, so, but honestly, if I can get through a call without interrupting someone, that’s a win. Right? Like, there are wins to be had everywhere if you’re looking and thinking correctly or thinking big. [00:33:00] Um, and so, that is, I think, a great start in terms of, like, how to capture them.

I think, first, you gotta understand, like, what am I looking for?

[00:33:09] Galen Low: I love that. You know what I like about it too? It’s like this like, um, it’s like the, it’s almost a mindset. It’s like a vibe. I know that’s probably exactly what most people don’t want to hear from this session, but it’s like, if you have that mindset of like, yes, this project was great.

Um, and then you have these stories about what went well and it could just be, yeah, you know, this team member really stepped up, you know, they, they, they didn’t feel comfortable with presenting. And then they did, or this meeting went well. And like these kinds of like stories come through. Um, that still accumulate into like a story that doesn’t have to be like, Oh, I, you know, 10 X, this number, um, you know, over a period of this many days, you can do that too, but it’s not the only thing.

And it definitely doesn’t paint the whole picture of what you do as a project leader to make the success happen.

[00:33:56] Sally Shaughnessy: Yeah. The only thing that I would also add is, um, you know, a lot of us [00:34:00] feel like we’re in very stressful jobs or, or. things just sometimes aren’t going right. And especially for team facilitators, a really easy way to collect wins, even if it feels fleeting, is ending Meetings or ending collaborations and work sessions with a high note, right?

My sister used to do this thing with her kids when they were little before they would go to bed at night and they would do a reflection. What was your high point? What was your low point? How are you going to avoid your low points again? Right. So I’ve tried kind of tried to adapt to that to some meetings.

So like, if we have a really hard conversation or we’ve just, it feels like we’ve just labored through a working session, try to take a moment at the end of those calls to just say like, you know, Hey, can we talk about like the wins that we just got here right now? Like, Talk to me about something positive that you’re walking away with from this call, right?

So sometimes in that way you can also like avoid, you can change people’s mindsets just by forcing them to think about something [00:35:00] positive. So if you’ve had a really challenging call, maybe experiment with taking, you know, a minute in your wrap up to say like, does somebody want to share something positive that they’re taking away?

You’re forcing people to think about it even if they themselves don’t share. So hopefully they’re leaving that session. Thinking positively, or at least having a good positive vibe and energy leaving it instead of carrying what could be negative into their next task.

[00:35:26] Galen Low: Love that. I see a bunch of people in the in the chat kind of sharing their way of celebrating highlights as well.

I think it’s really neat. I think one of the things that kind of, you know, has been coming up is, yeah, sort of these like individual stories like team member stories, really, Ben, I wanted to swing back real quick, just on your point about You know, building these relationships where you could sort of say, yeah, call this person, you know, like they, they will tell you that we had a great relationship.

What is your like process for that? Are you actually going you’re like, hey, this was a great project. Um, [00:36:00] Would you be a referral for me? Or is it kind of more organic than that? How do you go about doing that?

[00:36:05] Ben Chan: Yeah, I mean, that is a great approach for after the project is done. But you should be continuing to go and build a lot of that throughout your project.

And a lot of the time, I’m actually quite shy around Executives, right? Because that power dynamic for me always feels a little bit uncomfortable. And, and I, I know a lot of people sometimes when they go into their steering committees, they can also feel that pressure of, I need to go and change how I talk.

I need to go in and change all of these things. And how do I present this? They don’t want to hear the bad news. And suddenly you find yourself with a watermelon situation where everything is green, but everything’s really red. Right. And I’ve seen that with a lot of project managers and that’s where I think when you.

When you have a better understanding of yourself, what is your authentic piece of it? How are you able to go and continually convey that inside of your meetings, inside of your interactions so that they understand you [00:37:00] as a person, not just as your role. Right? And for me, like, I’m a bit of a jokester.

People know that inside, like, when I’m working on some of the projects. And one of our, our executive sponsor, he was actually on vacation in Portugal at the time. And we needed him to go and sign off on a change request that we needed. Because we needed to adjust some things around the schedule. We needed to make sure it was tracked.

And. He was calling long distance and everything like that and, you know, before we closed off the meeting I kind of made the little crack of like, well, I hope you’re able to go and sign it off because it, you know, hopefully you’re able to sign off your name in Portuguese, right? Because he was in Portugal.

Even though, you know, you don’t sign off your name in different languages or whatever, right? Um, but then he had a good laugh around it. Right? So being able to go and show yourself as not just, Hey, I’m a, I don’t know, lack of a better word, a subordinate that’s just answering calls. It’s like, Hey, I’m a person I’m here to go and help you be able to go and deliver what you [00:38:00] want.

Right? And that’s where sometimes when we’re focused on our team, we sometimes leave the executive sponsors are, are. Our steering committee somewhat just segregated because you’re seeing them as a purely professional relationship, but there’s so much more that you can go and show them that they can say, yes, I have confidence.

How do you show that they have confidence in you? Right. And every person is a little bit different. Every situation is, is unique. And so understanding that culture that they have for me has always been a huge challenge that you have to be able to go and overcome. You have to be able to go and adapt to it because how I work inside of an oil and gas energy company can be very different than a software development company.

[00:38:44] Galen Low: You said something there, and I want to make sure people caught it too because, uh, there’s this notion of, um, another way to win is to make your sponsor look good. Because the power dynamics and, you know, their sort of political ecosystem is different. They might be a different person to you [00:39:00] one on one than they are in the boardroom, um, but if you sort of understand that dimensionality of the relationship, then like, you know, a win could be, hey, yeah, like, I mean, my sponsor kept their job, or, but like, we, we, we made them look, we framed this project as a success.

As a success internally, uh, you know, I, I helped do that. And how do

[00:39:18] Ben Chan: you, how do you help them be able to be successful in their job? Right. So if they’re in front of their executives, they need to present on the status of their project because they’re the sponsor. How are you bringing forward? Not necessarily the, I’ll say the rosiest picture, but how do you present a confident picture, which may not necessarily be the same.

[00:39:41] Sally Shaughnessy: Mm hmm.

[00:39:41] Ben Chan: Yeah,

[00:39:42] Sally Shaughnessy: I have an example of that. There is a woman on my team and we have identified a clear opportunity for our, our organization to do better and she realized this on her jobs and, and we need executive sponsorship to make the improvement that we want without [00:40:00] even asking. She knows that I have a leadership meeting every Friday.

Where I need to bring this information and advocate for this stuff without even asking, she sent me a report that said, Hey, I’ve distilled all of the patterns that we’re seeing here so that you can go into that meeting on Friday and make the case for us. And I was just like, Oh. Love you. You’re amazing.

I’ll go and fight for you and for this and for us. But she just like went ahead and did it. And I was just like, this is huge. Win huge kudos on her, but also it’s selfish, but it’s both. She’s trying to help me, but she’s also trying to help herself. Right. And so she just went ahead and did it. And I was like.

Happy to fight the good fight for you, Sid. You know, like, there we go. So, it’s, I love that. I love the whole, like, it’s not just about me. It’s about making other people, like, helping other people do the things. Because if I can’t control it myself, I have to somehow steer it. Right. What are the ways that I can control this or steer this or [00:41:00] influence this?

And she totally did that.

[00:41:03] Galen Low: Love that. Love that, love that, love that. Yeah. Um, I want to tilt into the storytelling a bit. Because I think, um, we’ve got a lot of insights here on sort of gathering that and building, building the whims. Um, and I think the, the bit about the ick is also You know, finding that balancing point of how you frame it, you know, and how you don’t come off as obnoxious and egotistical, um, and how you can be authentic about it.

Um, I also realize it’s like 13 minutes after the hour and I do want to get to Q and A as well. So if you’ve got questions, um, keep firing them into the chat. Uh, Michael’s, uh, backstage gathering them up and, and, uh, we’ll, we’ll answer as many as we can. Um, but I thought maybe we could kind of tilt into this as well.

Um, and maybe I’ll just like center around this one question, which is like, How do you weave these wins into that conversation, right? Whether it’s a pitch or your performance review or a job interview. Um, like what is your process to gather these all [00:42:00] together and tell it in a way that, you know, doesn’t feel icky for you, uh, doesn’t feel icky for the person on the receiving end, um, does not create a spiral of ick.

Um, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, talk me, talk me through your, your sort of personal processes. Mac, maybe we can start with you.

[00:42:18] Mackenzie Dysart: So I think the easiest way to approach it, especially when you’re learning and getting more comfortable with telling the story and the storytelling aspect of it is the star method.

And I think we’re all pretty familiar with it. But for those who aren’t, it stands for the situation. Situation, um, task, actions, and then the results, right? And so, like, what happened? What did it look like? And going through that, like, setting the groundwork of, like, what was the situation that was going on?

What was the task that you had to do? And then, like, how, how did you tackle it? And it gives you a framework to just tell the story and then come to this nice little shining star moment of, like, and then this is how it, what the outcome was. And I think there’s a piece to it, [00:43:00] too, that, again, to balance that ick factor is When you’re speaking about the outcome, it’s not necessarily like, so I was great and everybody loves me.

And that’s, that’s the result is just, I’m everybody’s favorite person. Like I’m, I was the best on this panel and everybody loves me the most. That’s, that’s not how it goes, right? You’re going to tell a story about like, Oh, this was the challenge that the team was going through. And this is how we kind of overcome it.

And you’re still going to tell that story as a team, as a whole, because that’s how we as people. can speak about things anyway, inherently, it’s always the royalty whenever talking about anything. So going through that experience and then saying, Oh, and then we did this. It still allows you to speak to the things that you achieved whilst not feeling too like braggy, right?

So I think that first and foremost is like the lowest way to like start practicing the exercise. Then depending on the conversations you’re having, who you’re having them with, you can, you can adapt that story, right? And how you start telling things. So like, for example, Um, moving into delivery principal role [00:44:00] at ThoughtWorks, like, I have grown my relationship with the client.

Like, that’s been a big part of it. I’ve been working with the same client for three and a half years. And I joke that, like, sometimes I feel like I work for them more than I work for ThoughtWorks just because I’m, I’m in their ecosystem so much. But all of those, that little story alone speaks to the relationships that I’m building, right?

That just groundwork of, oh, these are the things that I’ve done. And then you can start to be a little bit more direct sometimes when you’re not getting The support you need and you need to be like, no, no, here is my bullet list. Cause we all know I’m a little direct sometimes of like all the things I’ve achieved.

This is what I’ve done. This is how I’ve done it. And it doesn’t have to feel braggy. Cause you’re just going through and be like, no, I did this thing. I did this thing. It just is, this is a reality and it’s lovely. And then I think another piece that helps remind you of the stories you need to tell, or whenever you get a nice little piece of kudos or a call out, if you have a Slack channel that does it great.

Sometimes your client will just say something nice to you in a different project setting and you’re like, oh, that was [00:45:00] like, this was kind of lovely. Capturing that in the moment so that you have it for later, like have a little highlights reel of the stuff that you’ve done over the past year or so that you can then be like, oh, yeah, this did happen.

And then you remember the story of the context of that moment. And then you can tell that story again, right? Because you have to leave it. You can’t just give a no context quote, but you can lay that groundwork to provide the quote. And again, it gives you a chance to tell the story without saying the braggy things.

[00:45:24] Sally Shaughnessy: Yeah, I know that we’re basically at time, but if I could jump in with just a suggestion. Um, I’m reading a book right now. I’m not finished with it, but it’s so applicable to this conversation. It’s called Likeable Badass. And it’s geared towards women, um, but it’s applicable to anybody. Um, and the major message of the first part of the book is balancing warmth and assertiveness.

Uh, and trying to weave those ideas into your daily lives and things in opportunities that don’t feel like opportunities to sell yourself or celebrate wins. So if somebody’s asking you, [00:46:00] how’s your week going? Instead of just saying, it’s fine, or I’m underwater, or whatever. standard issue replies are used that kind of passing moment to say, like, you know what?

I had some really good sales calls last week and I’m really riding high this week because of those awesome sales calls. So I’m trying to bring this positivity into the week, right? Feels authentic. It’s a better answer than fine. And it also lets somebody know that you had a really good sales call last week.

That’s your subtle win. So likable, badass, Alyssa for jolly for golly, I believe her name is, but yeah, the first. Part of the book is all about balancing warmth and assertiveness so that you can be successful in celebrating your wins

[00:46:40] Galen Low: I you know what? I love that you mentioned that because like Mac as you were talking I was like there’s so much like good tonal advice here That is like a balance between you know Kind of like this like fun humble brag like that lightheartedness and then facts, right?

You’re not like I’m not bragging. These are facts And I love that sort of positioning overall [00:47:00] I, I, um, I pasted like an over way too long of a URL in there. Thank you, Amazon. Um, but, uh, hopefully it takes, uh, folks to the book there. Um, Ben, I wanted to kind of land out on you just in terms of like your storytelling.

Like, I mean, what are your best storytelling tips, uh, for folks that you work with in terms of framing their wins?

[00:47:19] Ben Chan: Sure. I think first of it is identification of it. So the, when you think about the wins that you’re getting is really think, are they we? And the more that you can kind of segregate of the things that you actually did, the tasks and actions you have personally performed of I created the project team culture to succeed.

I helped facilitate the decision making for these type of things, right? Those are the ones that. As you go and tell them, people will recognize, yes, it was you exclusively. When you say things like, Oh, I 10 X the revenue of things that were like, well, we know it’s not just you. We know that it’s the team.

And that’s where you start to go and see that conflict, right? Where there’s a cognitive disconnect. We time. between [00:48:00] what the we is versus what the I is. And the more that you can kind of keep it towards what your eyes are to help enable the we, this sounds really weird now, but that’s where, that’s where you can really start to go and see how you can go and elaborate that.

A little bit further and also understand then what are you doing from a soft perspective of realizing some of these things, right? So in one of these projects that I was working on where I was working remote, we didn’t even have teams at this point. So we were doing remote working before it was cool, uh, or forced upon you.

Um, and everything was done over the phone. So they’ve never seen me before and I was, you know, walking through our project plan, getting weekly updates, all those sort of things. And. You know, uh, uh, about two weeks afterwards, I did an onsite visit down to the, uh, work group in the U S and one of the comments that I got back from one of the developers that still sticks to me to this day was, he came up to me after the meeting and he [00:49:00] said, you know what, I thought you were a bit of a nerd and just really annoying, always, you know, type eight, but you’re actually kind of cool.

And that was it. That was to me, that was my biggest win that I love to go and say from a culture perspective and, and even then the value sometimes of the in person people things, right? So I know remote work, I still, I love it still sometimes with these in person reactions and these in. Interpersonal relationship building when you are in person There’s something there that you can really grasp and hold on to that actually adds value to you that you can demonstrate to not only Yourself your team, but your future clients your future projects and your future prospects.

[00:49:41] Galen Low: Boom. I love that Ah, gosh, there’s so much there. Just even the categorization of like making obvious I and obvious wes. Um, yeah, we’ll make a whole bunch of t shirts. What do we have so far? Ickspiral, I we we I I, I win we win. Uh, [00:50:00] Awesome. I promised to have some Q& A at the end. Uh, we do have some questions here.

We’ve got about eight minutes to go here. Before we get to the Q& A, Um, I know that a lot of folks probably are peeling away to the next meeting. That’s totally okay if that’s you. I just wanted to say thank you for joining us today. This has been loads of fun. If you are loving this, then we’d love for you to, uh, just join us at our next event.

Uh, we’ll be hosting it in February. Um, and we’re going to post The details of the event on our homepage when the details are announced or just follow along on LinkedIn And check back soon And if you are a guest today and you want to continue the discussion by becoming a member of our community check us out at the digitalprojectmanager.

com Membership, we will throw the link into the chat as well. Um All right. Let’s do some Q and A. Let’s do Q and A. Oh, Rama, eight minutes. We’ll rock it out. Um, we had a question, uh, from one of our members that says, uh, when, when you have a job description that lists ongoing tasks and functions, but with no 90 day plan or large deliverables or challenge assignments, like [00:51:00] what are some metrics they can establish to show that they’ve Um, are doing these sort of ongoing functions.

Well, I think Mac, this kind of comes back to your kind of like lensing it through your scorecard, but maybe it’s not so definitive or measurable. Um, that’s kind of what I’m picking up from the question. Please let me know in the comments if I’m interpreting that right. Um, but yeah, when it’s kind of like.

The job description is actually sort of blurry and ongoing. Um, how do you sort of, um, track, uh, some of the, uh, like numerical quantifiable wins within that?

[00:51:35] Mackenzie Dysart: I will say that if you can find a way to make it numerical, that in itself is a win because then you’ve made it measurable. And then that’s like.

You’ve created a process, right? Like, sometimes when stuff is gray and unclear, just the act of organizing it in a way that you can track it in some, like, even just tracking the tasks that you have to do, like, if you come up with a, Oh, hey, if someone were to come into this role, like, you’ve created an onboarding document for the next person to come on.[00:52:00]

That helped you understand the role and then oh now you, you’ve got an artifact that you can share. So there’s ways of like taking the fact that it’s ambiguous and making it a bit clearer for yourself can be a metric, um, metric in itself. And I will not babble further because we don’t have a lot of time.

It’s

[00:52:17] Galen Low: such a

[00:52:17] Mackenzie Dysart: good tactic though. I was like nodding along and like she probably wants to add something and doesn’t want to interrupt me so I’m

[00:52:21] Galen Low: going Sally’s not interrupting goal at work.

[00:52:30] Sally Shaughnessy: It’s so hard for me.

[00:52:33] Mackenzie Dysart: I’m right there with you. It’s fine. It’s such a good goal.

[00:52:41] Sally Shaughnessy: No, honestly, I, I have nothing additional to say about, uh, because I I’m with you. Necessity is the mother of invention. It’s really hard to know if you’re doing a good enough job, if you don’t have metrics to track against. And so I, I, it, I, it, I can’t say anything other than try to get the metrics. [00:53:00] If you don’t have a job description, ask, ask somebody to build it with you.

Uh, if you don’t have core competencies or don’t know what the next level in front of you looks like, ask for the job description of somebody, of somebody in front of you. Um, be proactive just because it doesn’t exist. In front of you doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ask for it or Or design it yourself and get approval on it.

Um, because you know, you have to sometimes like it goes back to the very first thing I said, you have to advocate for yourself, you have to solve your own problems. Sometimes I think we have a lot of people who just kind of say, well, I didn’t know I was supposed to do it, or I didn’t know that I had a template to follow.

All right, well, if you, if you know you don’t have a template to follow, but you know, you could probably benefit from one. Just create it yourself. Take the initiative. That in and of itself is a win. I will second echo retweet. What?

[00:53:50] Galen Low: Love it. Love it. I, I, I want to dive into some of um, there was the next question and um, I see some of it happening in the chat as well.

Um, like even the step before that, right? The [00:54:00] imposter syndrome. Uh, the question is, do you have any tips on overcoming that dreaded imposter syndrome to help position yourself as your own cheerleader? Like, even pre taking that initiative to like create an asset or to advocate for having measurable goals.

Um, you know, how have you each personally sort of gotten past that? Like, uh, you know, I guess I’ll just keep my head down and do my work. Um, and I’m probably not good enough for that thing that I want.

[00:54:24] Sally Shaughnessy: Can, can I just jump in and just say that I don’t think that we should be resistant to imposter syndrome.

Honestly, I think imposter syndrome is natural and I think imposter syndrome can and should happen to you at different stages of your life and of your career. If you’re continuing to progress in your career, you’re hitting seasonal chapters, right? And with every chapter, you’ve gone from novice to expert.

And now you’re going to be the novice at the next line and at the next one. So I think we should all anticipate and expect some level of fear, anxiety, or imposter syndrome, and just know and expect it and be okay with how to [00:55:00] process through it. That’s my first, my first advice is that if you’re moving forward, If you are not a complacent person, then you should be anticipating different stages of your life that come with a new set of anxiety or imposter feelings and, um, knowing and acknowledging where you are on the novice to expert spectrum and say like, cool, I was the most amazing senior project manager.

I’ve never managed people, but now I’m now a people manager. So now I’m I feel like I’m inadequate. No, you’re not. You earned that spot. It’s okay to feel this way. Process it, document what you’re nervous about, and then back into that. Because then, now you’re a people manager, you’re going to go from a novice people manager to an expert people manager.

And then you go into group director. Fresh set of new things to be nervous about and have anxiety about. So I think just getting comfortable with the fact that if you’re doing a great job and moving forward, there’s always going to be new things to learn and be nervous about. So just [00:56:00] Acknowledge that first.

It’s valid.

[00:56:04] Ben Chan: Yeah. And I, I’d add on to that. The imposter syndrome is basically you, your response to uncertainty. You’re not certain you can go and accomplish it. There’s a lot of new things. That’s where if you want to start addressing some of your imposter syndrome is how have you dealt with it previously?

And you, and thinking about what is your experience in managing, adapting all of those types of areas. Cause for me as a consultant, I’m always going into different. Industries, different clients, I know very little about them, right? And so that first thing I’m like, when I go in, I’m like, Oh, I don’t know if I can go and do this because maybe I don’t know their systems.

Maybe I don’t know these things, but what has helped me be successful, right? What have I done? Reflect back on your previous experience and see how you’ve been able to navigate it. Because you know what kids when they start walking, they’re like, Oh, I don’t think I can walk. I don’t think I’m going to go and do it.

Right? Would [00:57:00] we all still be crawling around on the floor? Probably not, right? I know I’m using a very extreme example here. But, as we kind of grow up, we start to go and be complacent and saying, I like to go and be comfortable in these areas and not pushing myself, right? I just want to continue crawling.

But, what if? What if, what are you giving up and what are the opportunities that you may not be reaching either for other organizations, but most of all for yourself? Right. What are you leaving on the table by one is taking a look at the imposter syndrome and then seeing how you want to go and address it.

If anything, it’s yeah, to your point, Sally, having imposter syndrome is not a bad thing. It’s how you go and deal with it.

[00:57:40] Mackenzie Dysart: Yeah. And I just want to add one final thing because I’m very aware we’re like at time is it’s also about the people that you surround yourself with. Right. So having a community who can hype you up, right.

You need those hype people in your life where you can. Be vulnerable and say, like, I have to do this thing. I don’t know if I can do this thing. Like, I don’t, like, should I even be [00:58:00] going for this job? Why did they hire me for this job? What is, like, all the, a safe space for you to be yourself and, like, say, I don’t feel confident.

I don’t, I don’t think I can do this thing. And then you can have those friends. And I’m this person for a couple of friends. I’m like, oh, but you’ve done this before. Like, or do you remember this time that you did this thing? Like having that community, that sense of, Like that sense of support and other people who can be the hype for you when you cannot show up for yourself, because we’re not all good at it.

Um, especially when you consider like the neurodiversity aspect of things, some people really can’t take a step back and see that. So being able to be that support system for other people and also having that support system, like a little hype circle is just. Also really beneficial to to see it from an outsider’s perspective because sometimes you you genuinely can’t see how capable you are sometimes Yeah,

[00:58:48] Galen Low: the hype circle.

Oh Actually, I think that’s actually a fantastic place to land out. There were some great questions in there We are going to chat about them in our community if you want to learn more about that Um, come talk to me [00:59:00] actually, uh, you know, find me on linkedin, um, and we’ll work something out I want to say a big thank you to everyone in the audience here.

I know some people have had to leave to their, um, to their next meetings. Uh, we, uh, I think you’ll get a feedback survey sent to you after this. Um, if you could take a couple minutes to fill it out, maybe submit a topic that you’d like to see in the future. That would help us out immensely. Um, and of course, just a huge thank you to my panelists.

Uh, thank you so much for volunteering your time, your wisdom, your insights today. Also, it’s just been a great deal of fun. Um, so thank you again. Um, and to everyone else, uh, actually everyone here, um, have a great rest of your day. Um, thank you for joining us and we’ll see you all again real soon.

​