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REIN:  Welcome to Episode 77 of Greater Than Code. I’m here with my good friend Janelle. 

JANELLE:  Hi. And I’m Janelle Klein and happy to introduce my great, fabulous cohost, Sam Livingston-Gray. 

SAM:  Hello. And I get double duty. I get to introduce Rein Henrichs, who did not introduce himself. 

REIN:  Oops.

SAM:  And today’s guest is Anjuan Simmons, who calls himself a Technology Translator. Anjuan is a consultant, technologist, speaker, and author who likes to build things and help others understand how to build things. I invited Anjuan on the show because I saw a wonderful talk that he gave at RubyConf last year about lending privilege. And we may or may not get to that, because it sounds like he’s got a bunch of wonderful stuff to say. But Anjuan, we usually like to start the show by asking our now signature question which is: What is your superpower and how did you acquire it?

ANJUAN:  Thank you, Sam. And I would say that if I had a superpower, it is flexibility. And I think that I learn to be flexible because contrary to what people see me do on stage where I’m often talking in front of hundreds of people at technology conferences, I am a huge classical introvert. I’m a Myers-Briggs INTJ introvert, meaning primarily that I get drained by contact with a lot of people. And if you see me at a conference and I’ve just come off stage, I can kind of fake the funk for maybe a couple of hours. But I’m going to go back up to my hotel room and crash. But when I was younger, I realized that despite being an introvert, I had some driving need to help people. And I always liked to help people. And I was a fairly good student. And I was particularly good at math, science, and engineering. And I learned that I could help people with their math homework, or with their physics projects, and it was hard to be helpful if you’re an introvert. So, I had to flex my own style. And I had to overcome my shyness and my introversion in order to be helpful to other people. 

And so, I learned to be flexible and I learned to adapt to different environments and to adapt to different personalities. And if I had to say I had a superpower, it’s flexibility. And as someone who is an engineering manager and currently I’m leading a team of about 10 developers, and over my entire career working with people whose job is to build and develop code, flexibility has been huge. Because no matter what type of person I am working with, either a fellow introvert or an extrovert or someone who like to be micromanaged or people who are like, “Hey, leave me alone. I’ll let you know when it’s done,” I’m able to flex my management style and align with the people who I’m working with and serving as their manager/leader. So, I would say that my superpower is flexibility.

REIN:  You certainly seem very outgoing. So, you must have developed some effective coping strategies.

ANJUAN:  Caffeine. [Laughs] Because like I said, there are times when I’m at work and I’m in meeting five of a 10-meeting day and I’m drained. And I’m running to the break room to get caffeine. But my desire to help people, specifically the people who I work with, and the wonderful people in the tech community who I’ve been able to come across either at conferences or online and on Twitter, my desire to help them outweighs my lack of energy sometimes when I’m doing that. And so, that really motivates me. Sam mentioned that you saw me give a talk at RubyConf. And I’ve been fortunate to give talks in Budapest, in London, and all over the world. And I take the stage not because I like the spotlight. In fact, the spotlight drains me. But I like helping people. And that is what powers me. 

REIN:  I want to highlight one thing that you mentioned, which is finding ways to be flexible in work with people the way they like to work and support them the way they need support. And I think that’s really important because to me, one of the most important things that a manager can do is cultivate variety on their team. And I think that’s one of the ways that you do it, by supporting each individual way of working, set of experiences, things like that.

ANJUAN:  I think that’s absolutely right. There are little teams that I’ve worked with and I’ve worked for big companies like Accenture and Deloitte and I’ve worked for smaller startups. And I’ve never seen a truly homogenous team where everyone’s the same. They may be the same in certain ways, but with their personalities and with how they think about life and how they think about code, always a variety is present. And so, the ability to be creative is essential. And one thing about being an introvert who can masquerade as an extrovert is that I have what I think is one of the true powers of introversion. And that’s observation. As an introvert, you’re typically on the perimeter, on the outside. But you’re observing, because you don’t have the motivation of a lot of extroverts to be in the spotlight and to be the center of attention. You’re able to take a step back and actually observe what’s happening. And you’re seeing that, “No, this person here has no idea what’s going on,” or, “This person here really needs this,” or, “This person here has something that the other people in the group don’t see. Let me try to give space to that person to get some shine.” 

And I think that my ability to observe and I think that the reason that a lot of writers are introverts, is because of that. You’re able to take yourself out of the picture and then paint that picture for others through how you write. Or for me, how I manage teams. And I do try to find creative ways to meet the needs of teams, because teams are almost by definition not the same. And there are differences in how people like to be approached, differences in how people like to be managed. And the careful manager will not have a sledgehammer approach where, “This is me. This is how I am. Deal with it.” But they will have the ability to flex their style in response to the people that are really leaning on them to provide direction and guidance. 

REIN:  And not only that, but variety is a survival value. Variety creates capability. 

ANJUAN:  Absolutely. One reason that we like food, food has multiple ingredients. Very few people like bland food. But if you add some salt, some paprika, some maybe different things, then that variety makes food better. And the variety that we see even if you look across most city landscapes, if you look at – I’m in Houston, but if you look at the Houston skyline or the New York City skyline, you see that all the buildings look the same. There’s variety in the architecture, which makes that variety more pleasing. And that variety and that creativity that’s exposed makes everything better. And I totally agree with you. There’s power in variety and variety I think is a big part of creativity. 

JANELLE:   I feel like I should give a caveat of explanation of why I sound awful because of all the crazy pollen around here. It’s crazy. But I’m listening to this and the theme I keep hearing through all of your metaphors that you use is mirrors in that you see yourself as an observer on the outside. But at the same time, you can see the needs and wants of other people. You can see their need to shine. You can see the makeup of how all the mirrors sort of mix together, create a team. And then you flex yourself in response to that and you flex yourself to mentor and to teach, is what I’m hearing. And so, what I would really love to hear is your philosophy on what makes a great team. What is it you see that you feel like you’re building towards? 

ANJUAN:  I would say that continuing with the metaphor or variety and the power of variety and creativity, I would say that a great team is like an orchestra where you have a variety of different instruments. You have the percussions. You have the woodwinds. You have different types of instruments. And a good conductor is able to take all of those different sounds and follow a plan. There’s normally music that everyone reads. So, there’s one sheet of music. But the conductor has to follow the layout of the music, but also blend the different harmonies and the different sounds that come from the orchestra. And so, I think like a good band, a good team has people who are experts at their instruments. You have people who know if their job is to play the harp, they’re really good at playing the harp. If their job is to play a percussion instrument, wow. They know how to make that beat. If their job is to play maybe a trumpet or a saxophone, then they’re really great at those instruments. And so, a great team has a group of people who are experts at their individual contributions to the team’s music. But also, a great team is able to follow a unified set of guidance, and that’s the music, right? Everyone has sheet music that tells the notes that the band has to play. And so, you have that shared understanding of where you are in the music, where you’ve got the start of the song, like “I know we’re at the middle of the song. Oh, now we’re at the end of the song,” and knowing how to guide the team as the conductor through that music, that’s what makes a great team. 

And you know, I am an Agile-ist, and so particularly with scrum. And a lot of aspects of my job are being the scrum master and the best of my title. Though I’ve been a named scrum master at several companies, I think that scrum is like the sheet of music. It’s not prescriptive. It’s not super detailed. But it is a way for the team to harmonize and get on the same sheet music for how we do things. So, I think that having people in the orchestra or on the team who are experts at their chosen instrument having a same sheet of music that everyone can see and read along with the conductor, but they also have to have a trust in the conductor. Because if you don’t trust the conductor, you’re going to do your own thing. And so, the conductor has to be able to earn the trust of the team and be able to guide them through the music. 

So, one question that I saw you ask in the chat is: What gets in the way of that? Well, there are a few things. And I’ll go backwards. One is when the team doesn’t trust the conductor. When the team doesn’t trust the person who’s supposed to be guiding them. And there are a lot of ways that you can lose trust. One is, you may feel that the team lead doesn't really care about the team. That the team lead is only trying to promote themselves, they’re just trying to get this project done because it’ll make them look good. And there’s really no regard for the humanity of the people on the team. Or they may not trust the conductor because they don’t really believe in the competence of the conductor. The conductor keeps making mistakes and doesn’t really adjust for those mistakes and doesn’t really help the team learn from them. 

Other things that get in the way of having that harmonious music is people don’t see the actual music. And one thing that I do in scrum is set up what I call information radiators. And those are ways that we can put, whether that’s a burn-down chart on the wall, whether that is mockups that we’ve built that we put around the room. But those information radiators are really sheet music that will allow everyone to be on the same page. And so, those are some of the things that I think get in the way of teams being really effective and that prevent the creativity that you should get by having a diverse team really coming together to make a harmonious sound, or to make harmonious software. 

REIN:  I love this metaphor so much. There are just a couple of things I wanted to highlight. One is something I learned from Benjamin Zander who is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, which is that a conductor’s only power is in making the people around them powerful. It’s only in empowering other people. They don’t themselves, they don’t make any noise. 

ANJUAN:  I think that’s awesome. One reason that a lot of great software engineers are people who have a lot of experience building software, they often struggle when they move from individual contributor to a team lead or manager, is that when you’re an individual contributor you’re trying to maximize your own power. You’re trying to be more effective at shipping software, more effective at writing code. You’re supposed to have a command of the latest technologies and how they work for what your company is trying to get done. And you’re trying to maximize your own power. But when you move into a leadership position, the best thing you can do is maximize the people around you. The best thing that you can do is to help people reach their full potential. 

And a lot of people who move from individual contributor to manager, they forget that. Or they’re slow to learn that. And so, if a piece of software or if a feature is running behind, they’re like, “Well, forget it. I’ll take it from you and I’ll complete it.” Whereas often it’s better to help that developer understand, “Hey, here are some things that I think maybe you don’t really understand,” or, “Here’s one way to go about this,” or let’s say, “I don’t know if you understand polymorphism. And let me help you understand that,” or, “You don’t really understand how we’re structuring the methods in this code.“And so, by sitting with that person and helping them realize their power, by powering them up, then you enable that person to get better. And I think that that is so key, that as the conductor/team lead/manager, you really need to invest heavily in powering everyone up around you. 

SAM:  Yeah, I agree. And I feel like that’s a skill set that you should be practicing by the time you hit senior engineer. A lot of people hit senior and they think, “Oh, this just means I’m able to take on more complex tickets by myself. I’m able to do architecture and crank out bigger and bigger stuff.” But really, if you’re a senior engineer and you’re not already trying to level up the people around you, you’re doing it wrong as far as I’m concerned.  

ANJUAN:  Absolutely. And that’s why pair programming is such a great technique.

SAM:  Yeah.

ANJUAN:  There are a lot of, I think, emerging practices of software development where you can be someone, even if you don’t have a lead title, you can begin to help to power up other people, help to improve their ability to craft code. And I think that most people who do this realize that you become better by doing that. You really know if you understand a concept if you can explain it to someone else. And if you get into that practice, then you’ll become a better developer while you’re helping other people, too. 

JANELLE:  So, I think this gets back into your original metaphor though, that everyone is different. And maybe that particular role, maybe that mentoring others, isn’t something that brings that person joy. Maybe that’s something that that person just finds draining. But they love putting their headphones on and getting into code. Does that make them bad for trying to evolve in a different direction? Or are they just playing a different instrument? Are they just a different shape?

ANJUAN:  I believe that every organization should make space for people who simply want to go heads down, get into the zone, and crank out code. I think that there are people, to your point, who, “You know what? I really don’t want to become a manager. I really don’t want to become a lead.” And if you want to land at software developer or if you want to land at architect, I think that we should make space for people like that. Now, I do think that everyone should have an attitude of being helpful. And I think that everyone should understand that a team is greater than the sum of its parts. And that means that there are times where hey, if you see someone or you run across some code and you can refactor it or you have some ideas, that hopefully the culture of that team is such that there’s space for people who are either because they’re shy or they’re not interested, that there’s space for them to be helpful. 

But I think that every organization that is in the business of software development should make space for people. Because there will be people who have that. But I want to be careful in that, just like there are anti-patterns in code, I think that there are anti-patterns in teams. And that person may be exhibiting an anti-pattern that’s more than just personality based, but that could possibly lead to some toxicity. And so, I want to be careful with that. But I do think that as a general statement, we should make space for people who simply don’t have the personality or the interest to exhibit that leadership element of powering up others. 

REIN:  I’ve got a lot of things that keep getting pushed onto my stack that I want to talk about. But Janelle, you mentioned the right shape. And I just wanted to talk about that. Part of my job on this podcast is to name-drop things. And today, it’s going to be mythology. So, there is a dude in Greek mythology named Procrustes. And he was an innkeeper who had a bed. And he promised everyone who visited his inn that the bed would fit them perfectly. And it did, because if they were too short, he stretched them out. And if they were too tall, he’d cut off the parts that didn’t fit, until they fit perfectly. So, when I hear culture fit, a lot of the time, that’s what I think about. “We’re going to make you fit us,” rather than the other way around.

ANJUAN:  And that is an anti-pattern. I’ve seen that, unfortunately, in too many companies. That culture fit is really, “Make everyone the same.” And I think that culture fit is ideally, “Let’s make sure that we have people who can contribute to the whole and make it better.” And I think that often, a great culture is one that brings people from a variety of backgrounds. There should be a shared set of values, things like respect and things like honesty and trust. But there should be space for people, if they have the skill set that is needed by that company, to come in. No matter what the personality, no matter what they look like, to come in and make contributions. So, I think that we really need to be very careful when it comes to cultures. And like you were saying, that term ‘culture fit’. But I think that if there are very openly shared values and what the company cares about, ideally I think the dignity and respect that everyone is treated when they come into that company, then I think that there should be lots of space for people to come in and contribute to the culture.

REIN:  Okay. This lets me pop another thing off my stack and I’m very excited. 

ANJUAN:  Okay. 

REIN:  You just mentioned sort of the tension between shared values and goals and individual empowerment. And this reminds me of what I think is one of the most fundamental tensions in work, which is the tension between structure and agency. And to go back to your metaphor of the orchestra, this manifests itself in, “How come even though they’re playing the same music, different orchestras sound different?”

ANJUAN:  Ah. Okay. That’s a great point. So, I would say that when it comes between the tension between structure and agency, especially with the illustration of orchestras playing the same music but sounding different, I would say that’s actually a feature and not a bug. I think that different orchestras play in different halls. And so, the acoustics of those halls can be different. I think that conductors can take liberties with the music, that you can riff on a certain beat or if you’re taking a [inaudible] from hip-hop – hip-hop has a tradition of sampling other songs, often songs of a different era, and then wrapping that around a new song. So, I think that that’s something that could contribute to, even though you’re playing the same music, that you’re bringing different sounds to the audience. And I think that organizations do a service to the people who work in them by making space for that. 

And you know, I think that an orchestra that’s playing, let’s say some traditional piece of music, and nothing comes to mind but just imagine a very traditional piece of music that an orchestra would play, and then they pause. And someone may stand up and then play some jazz. Because you have a great saxophone player and you may just let them stand up and do something, just almost freestyle, right? And so, I would say that different organizations will provide agency that let people shine and walk in their gifts, but it takes a graceful orchestra and a graceful conductor to pull that off. And I think that organizations can do that but with care.

REIN:  I’m going to mention a couple of things. One, because I’m a huge nerd which is that Mozart actually wrote his piano concertos such that they gave him room to improvise as a soloist. 

ANJUAN:  Exactly. 

REIN:  And you can see this from, he wrote out improvisations for his students, for instance. So, you could see what he would do in the context of an actual performance. The other thing is I think the only thing that you maybe didn’t mention for me is that each musician gets to decide how to play each note. And it’s the conductor’s job to make sure that they all play in harmony with the conductor’s vision.

ANJUAN:  Exactly. And I think that it takes trust, that you trust your individual musicians to make that choice in how they’re going to play their notes. And that you’re ready for it and you’re [just going to weave] it into the overall sound.

JANELLE:  So, one of the reasons I really like this show is that we can have conversations completely in metaphor and be able to carry the abstractions through these different contexts. It’s a lot of fun. At the same time, we keep going down this road, and sometimes we need to go back and anchor things in concrete land. And one of the things I’ve heard you talk about repeatedly is the importance of creating space. And another thing that struck me that you said most recently is optimizing for people to shine and walk in their gifts. And those two things seem to fit together, is creating space for people to shine. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about in concrete terms what kind of things that you’ve done, what kind of things that you’ve seen, specifically to create space for people to shine. How do you do that?

ANJUAN:  That’s a great question. I would say that a few things that I’ve done to create a space for people to shine and walk in their gifts are fundamentally people have a desire to feel safe. And I think that that essential human need is something that a lot of managers don’t really think about, because managers are thinking about, “Okay, big picture. I have this project and I have all this code that I need to get shipped to production. And then there are all these people and then I have to corral them and get them to do my bidding and to align with the charter for the project,” and all these management/leadership aspects. But we forget that we’re working with people. And at least for the time being, if you’re going to build software, you’re going to have to get people to build that software. And so, I think that understanding that essential human need to be safe is something that i’ve spent a lot of time doing. 

And to give you a concrete example, about a year ago I was working with a new team. And I had a variety of different personalities. And I worked really hard to make sure that the team was aware of, “Hey, I’m here to serve this team and I’m here to take all feedback, good, bad, and ugly,” and I just spent a lot of time repeating that. I think that a lot of people, when they move from individual contributors to managers, you’ve been drilled into your head DRY – Don’t Repeat Yourself. That’s a good way to build code. But I think that often we forget that you have to repeat yourself constantly. Because anytime you say something as a manager, there’s probably at least one person who’s tuned out or there’s one person who is thinking about something else. And so, I think it’s really important that we repeat that message. Because when people hear you say something over and over again, then they eventually will begin to grok it. And so, I think it’s important to be willing to really share that message of safety.

And again, about a year ago, I had this team and there was one person who was, I would say, different from what I’m used to. And this person was kind of a wisecracker and they would often crack jokes. And sometimes, their humor was on the edges of what I was comfortable with. And just the way that they viewed the world and shared their views through just even casual conversation. And I did a lot of work with the team individually to make sure that they weren’t being offended by the humor. And I think they took it all in good fun. But I was concerned that this person was I guess a little more lax with some of the professionalism that I’m used to. And again, a lot of my experience are at these big companies where things are a bit more buttoned down. But I made space for this person. I let them know that, “Hey, I’m fine with your humor. I’m fine with your jokes. As long as we’re aligned with what we’re trying to get done, then hey, have at it.” The team took it all in good fun. They took it all in stride. And I was able to make space for this person, even though they were from a personality standpoint and from, in many ways, a professionalism standpoint, outside of the pattern that I was used to. 

And that person went on to be one of the best contributors to our team. And they tackled some really thorny features. They took on some technologies that were new to everyone. And they were able to quickly master them and become a very valued contributor to the team. And I think that if I had not made space for that person, even though this person and I had really different personalities, and we had different ideas of what professionalism is in software development, then I would have missed out on working with this person, seeing them really be hugely consequential to the success of that project. And I think a lot of managers in that situation may even try to roll this person off the project, they to get them off the project. And I was able to swallow my own discomfort at this person in a lot of ways. And he never ventured too far into misogyny or anything like that. But by helping him shine, by making space for this person who what I would say is kind of on the bubble of my comfort zone, I was able to have someone who really helped our entire team be successful. 

SAM:  I feel like you’re talking about me personally. [Laughs] I’ve been that guy on the team. Sometimes I willfully admit, I’ve been kind of toxic. And as my career went on, I feel like I got better about recognizing that I needed to pay attention to that sort of thing myself and get to a place where I will make jokes about, “Who writes this crap?” but I will deliberately make them when I know I’m the one who wrote it, to sort of establish that sense of trust with the team that I’m not making fun of you, I am having fun with my own weird way of looking at the world. And I’ve had those bosses who have been able to make that sort of space for me. And having that trust from them really made a huge difference for me in being able to police myself a little bit on that, too. 

ANJUAN:  Exactly. And I think that it’s important to make that space. And I think that often, when you become someone who is responsible for a team, you have to understand are people are on different journeys and that they come to your team from different paths. And if they have the talent and the skills and the attitude to, “Hey, I’m willing to get my hands dirty. I’m willing to take on things that other people don’t want to do and master it,” which is what this person did, you have to kind of peer past some of the layers of personality that you may not care for and some of the humor that isn’t like your humor, and see the benefit, see the value in that person. And then make space for them. You do have to be aware of times when yeah, that person’s humor may go too far. But as long as they’re within the bounds of what you would say are expected behaviors, then that person can become huge. And by building that trust, then you let that person hopefully feel that, “Hey, I can be me. I can be me. I can be a respected member of this team and help make it successful.” And I think that that’s really important. I’ve been very [inaudible] at the time for not being able to do that by working with someone.

SAM:  I’m curious. Did you at any point explicitly elicit a shared agreement about that behavior from the team?

ANJUAN:  That is a good point. I did not explicitly do that. A shared agreement about this person or a shared agreement about behavior?

SAM:  About the kinds of behavior, so that people can hold each other accountable about it. 

ANJUAN:  I gotcha. So, I started before that project, one of the things that I typically do when I do a project kick-off, is go through working agreements. And those are things that are like, “Hey, during the sprint retrospective, you may get some feedback that may be kind of close to your comfort zone. Or you may get some feedback that’s hard to receive. But we’re all going to have tough skin and understand that it’s meant to be constructive.” And there are working agreements around basic things like working hours, so on and so forth. But there are some behaviors that are in there. It’s lightly touched. But yes, we do have working agreements that are meant to from the beginning set that tone. 

SAM:  This can be really useful to all. Thank you for bringing that up.

JANELLE:  So, you mentioned this individual that had weirdness, say from cultural norms. And I’ve seen a couple of different types of responses to weirdness. One of them is tolerance. So, it’s like kind of a distancing response. “Yeah, you’re a weirdo. And I’ll put up with you and accept you being a weirdo,” kind of thing. And another response you see is normalizing. “So, if you’re a weirdo, I’ll be a little bit more a weirdo like you and then we’ll be weirdos together,” right? Either one of those effects has an effect on the culture. And so, I’m wondering, in addition to how this individual responded, how was the culture affected by this person on the team?

ANJUAN:  So, I would say that first between normalization and tolerance, there’s acceptance. And I think that I took that approach where it is, “I accept this is who you are,” and I also try to get to know this person outside of their role and their assigned work items, and get to know their friends and what they care about. Some aspects of their personal life. So that they know that, “Hey, I’m interested in you as a person. And I accept the fact that hey, you’re really dedicated to athletics. And hey, if you need to leave early to go hit the gym, as long as your work’s done for the day, and as long as your commitments are done for the day, that’s fine,” and be very flexible with them when it comes to aspects of the project that I know may intrude upon their personal life. And I did that with the entire team, not just with this person. But by doing that, that was really important in helping this person feel accepted and knowing that, “I’m not just tolerating your behavior nor am I trying to say that I’m going to mirror it. But I’m going to make space for you to be you, to the degree that I can.” 

With regards to the impact on the culture, this person became a beloved member of our team. And people really liked having him around. And so, I did my due diligence and regularly checked it to make sure that people were taking his humor in good fun. But I think that that was what I think was brought up earlier, that we have to make space for people to freestyle. That every now and then, the orchestra can be in our chairs, in our tuxedos, in our formal gowns. But let someone come in, in their pink suit, every now and then and rock that out. And I think that I’ve always benefited from making space for those people. And the group often benefits as well because they know that everyone has some hidden weirdness, that they’re just better at hiding than other people. And by letting this person have that shine, then that people just be their essential true selves, that lets other people know that, “Okay, there’s space for me to also be my true self.” And they may not do that immediately. But I think just knowing that is helpful for the overall culture. 

JANELLE:  This is another aspect of mirroring then, is you brought this up as a metaphor just explaining these things a couple of times, of how people mirror behavior. And it’s not just tolerance, or I should say – I’m trying to remember what specifically you said – that it’s between normalization and tolerance, is acceptance. And taking the time to really get to know someone and that you’re genuinely interested in who they are as an individual, and that by with your own behavior of accepting people for who they are, you make space for those people. And you set a precedent for that kind of admiration of the beauty and the uniqueness of the individuals. 

ANJUAN:  Absolutely. And I think that that just – my respect for humanity includes the parts of humanity that aren’t like me, the parts of humanity that aren’t like the collective. And I think that it’s important to make space for those people and that by doing that, then people do see that. People do see that reflected. And even if they don’t have their own divergence from the collective, even if they tow the line and they’re a carbon copy of everyone else, I think that they see that and that they respect that. And I think it does make the overall environment richer. 

REIN:  There are two things I want to highlight in this last discussion here, because they’re both actually part of again, I love bringing this up, Virginia Satir’s family therapy model. So, how do you build constructive, authentic relationships with people? And for her, two of the important things are acknowledging the inherent value in everyone, that everyone has just by being a human being. And two, is giving each person the gift of seeing them for who they are, and not for who you want them to be.

ANJUAN:  So, that resonates so much with me. Because a key part of my management/leadership style is making sure that everyone knows that I care about them for who they are, that it’s critically important to me that they can walk in their authentic selves. And I think a lot of the times at a lot of companies, we look to upper management, the CEO and the CFO and the CIO, and we think, “Well, that’s who this company wants me to be.” Whereas that’s not the case. That’s not who I want you to be. You can be who you are. And I will totally accept you as your authentic self, because I think that we bring our best performance, we bring the best outcomes when we are comfortable in just being who we are. And I think that it’s a severe de-motivator to a lot of people when they believe that when they walk into the doors of their company or if they work remotely, when I log into the corporate Slack or the corporate Zoom or Google Hangouts for video conferences, that I have to put on a mask, in addition to doing my work. I really want my team to know, “Take off the mask, man. Or woman. Or gender non-conforming person. Take off the mask, person. I care about the human that you are. I don’t care about the mask. I don’t care about the facade. I care about you. However you want to present yourself, that’s what I want to see.” And I think that when I can create an environment where people do that, man, that’s all to the better. That’s all to the benefit of everyone. 

But so few organizations and so few teams do that because it’s hard work. It’s hard work to create that environment. It’s hard work to have the conversations that you need to have. It’s hard work to get to know a person and so easy to take the shortcut of stereotypes, take the shortcut of, “Hey, shut up and get the work done.” Those are all shortcuts but you lose so much when you take those shortcuts. It’s always worth the investment in humanity and the investment in helping people understand that you truly value who they are.

SAM:  You know, this gets back to something I was thinking about earlier. You mentioned that variety exposes creativity. That made me think of what Sarah May tweets about fairly regularly. She talks a lot about how having visible differences on a team puts people into a different headspace where they pay more attention to how they communicate and that in turn improves the communication patterns on the team which leads that team to a place of improved creativity and better group intelligence. I like just having an emphasis on that creativity. But I really like how you’re taking this further and talking about adding the psychological safety aspect to that, because that seems to be one of the most important things for getting the most out of your team.

ANJUAN:  Absolutely. And I love Sarah, by the way. If you hear this, hi Sarah! Thanks for all you do.

REIN:  I just wanted to mention Virginia Satir again, because one of her quotes that resonates the most with me is that we come together through our similarities and we grow through our differences.

ANJUAN:  I think that that’s so true. I think that similarities bring comfort and often complacency. If you could imagine the last time you went to an event and you weren’t properly dressed, that’s really highlighted to you. Everyone’s wearing tuxedos. I’m wearing flip-flops, some jeans, and no shirt. You’re really going to pay attention to the environment in ways that you probably would not if you’re dressed like everyone else. And I do think that when we put groups together and there are differences, just simply the act of doing that forces people to pay attention in ways that they would not if everyone looked the same. So, I think that that’s totally right. 

JANELLE:  I’m just imagining the difficulty of going to work every day and putting on a mask and feeling like you have to conform to this environment. And that you can never be yourself. And that not having to do that because the effort it takes to get to know people, the effort it takes to see people as people, is so hard that we don’t do it. And it’s effectively this wearing masks every day is the norm. This is the norm of society, the norm of our world, is to shove your weirdness in a box, put yourself in a box, and how draining that must be and how much freedom you bring to a team just by creating this environment, this culture, where people don’t have to do that anymore.

ANJUAN:  Absolutely. And Sam mentioned my ‘Lending Privilege’ talk. And one of the reasons that I started giving that talk is that I had really great opportunities to have conversations with people who are often othered by working in tech. There is the othering of being in tech. And women share with me that, “Hey, I’ve changed my outfit four times before I left home because I was concerned that my blouse was too low-cut or this skirt will make people think that I’m not skilled or I’m not worthy of being respected as a team lead or a developer.” Or someone who’s trans said, “I’m having trouble just even having space to go to the bathroom at work.” Or someone who has a handicap, they have a hearing aide, and they’re scared that, “One day the battery in my hearing aide may go down and I won’t be able to hear something and I’ll miss some.” They may be on the infrastructure team and they’ll miss something and there would be some high-security issue that they’ll get blamed for because their hearing aide went out. 

And I’m a straight, cis-gendered able-bodied person thankfully, and those are things – and also, I’m male – those are things I don’t even think about. I don’t think about what I wear. If I’m not naked, I’m good, right? [Laughter] I make it to work and I don’t have any physical disability. But there are people who have to go through all these things. And people who don’t have those experiences, people who are again cis-gendered, able-bodied, male, and other factors, we just don’t even see those struggles. And I think that if we create technology and the business of making software a space where we see those differences, we try to remove them, we try to make sure that people feel welcome despite their differences, then I think that we’ll see people bring their true selves and in many ways, their true gifts, to this industry. And I think that that variety and that creativity link will become more evident. 

And I think that it is exhausting if you’re a woman and you feel like you have to hide who you are, hide even your femininity. If you’re a woman who feels that you have to be less feminine to be in tech, or if you’re someone with some other measure or some other characteristic that’s not the norm, that you have to hide that. And I think that we do our sector a great disservice, we keep people out, because of that. And I think the degree to which lending privilege and there’s a lot of the people who are doing great work in this space helping make technology more inclusive and more accepting, then I think we’re doing a lot for making better software. We’re doing a lot for making an environment that hopefully future generations can come into without the restraints, without the shame, without the limitations that we put on the current generation. I’m really all about that. 

JANELLE:  So, taking this back to where we started with your superpower and flexibility, I’m wondering. Did you have an experience that helped you to see other people in this way? Because you said people that are similar to you often are blind to these things, yet you seem to see them quite well. 

ANJUAN:  So, I think that one of my earlier experiences in my career was as a black man in tech who was fortunate enough to my mid-20’s begin leading software development teams, had the experience of being in a conference room and having someone come in and ask, “Where’s the team lead?” And I said, I’m the team lead. Or I’m the team lead and then a person comes in and they begin talking to someone who reports to me because they assume that because that person’s white, that they’re the team lead. And having those experiences as a black person in tech, being othered and having to deal with that gave me an understanding of the way that even I sometimes would other different individuals because of their gender, or because of other preferences. 

And I began to do the work and helping to remove my own biases and removing the shortcuts that I took and assessing people. And I began to see that wow, there is a lot of work that I need to do and there’s a lot of work that the industry needs to do. And I think that that gave me greater empathy. And that, coupled with my flexibility has made me into the person I am today who’s able to flex to other people, to accept their differences, even when they’re radically different from who I am, but to see the [inaudible] humanity. And I think that there’s one thing that summarizes what I try to do either through talks or just the daily work I do with my teams, I am mining humanity. I am trying to mine humanity to get to people’s essential selves, make space for that humanity that I find, and help [lift it up].

JANELLE:  I feel like we should do reflections. That was beautiful.

ANJUAN:  Thank you. 

SAM:  I do have a quick response, if I may. 

ANJUAN:  Please.

SAM:  You didn’t actually talk about this, but I assume that somewhere along the way some people shared their own challenges with you. And again, this all comes back to safety. At some point you had to behave in a way that you earned those people’s trust so that they felt that they could come to you and tell you what their struggle was and know that you would be there for them and hear them and listen and respond appropriately. 

ANJUAN:  I think again, one benefit of being an introvert is that you get really good at listening. And it is surprising how many people don’t listen. They may pretend to listen but they’re really waiting for you to stop talking so that they can say what they want to actually say. I, being a lifelong introvert – listening – when people talk, I listen to what they’re saying. I’m looking at their body language. Again, being an introvert, my ability to truly observe people I think has been honed. And I can hear what they’re saying and get a sense for what they’re not saying. And I’m able to say, “Well, you’re saying this but it seems like this is what’s going on with you.” And I think that by being a person that just through my behavior and how I conduct myself with other people, people see that Anjuan actually listens. And by being someone who people see as a listener, that helps me gain their trust. And when people feel that you are a listener, they give you more to listen to. And they’ll begin to share their true selves, their true concerns, their true fears. And so, I think that along with flexibility, if I had another superpower, it’s being a listener. 

JANELLE:  So, at this part of the show, we normally do reflections and recap on things that stood out to us, ideas that we’re going to take away from the show, things that were common themes or things that were major themes that stood out.

SAM:  For me, a lot of what we’ve talked about today really boils down to safety. And safety is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot personally in the past couple of weeks. And we talked about it extensively on last week’s episode. And last week, we talked about it more from a personal standpoint of individual one-on-one relationships. But it’s really nice this week to hear about the ways that safety can improve a team as well, and lead to all kinds of wonderful harmonies. And yeah, I just really want to underline how important that is even if you haven’t necessarily been paying attention to it. It’s worth going around and looking for environments around you that you enjoy being in and you probably feel safe there once you’ve had that realization. It’s really helpful in figuring out how to go out and create that safety in other spaces that you’re in and for other people that you’re around. 

REIN:  So, as people may have noticed about me by now and to I’m sure some source of consternation for Janelle, I like to think about things in abstractions and generalities and make models for systems that are as general as possible so I can understand things and apply them as broadly as possible. For me, a lot of what we’ve been talking about comes back to the concept of a psychological hierarchy of needs at which safety is at the bottom. And where the questions like, “Do we have a shared sense of purpose?” are non-sequiturs if you haven’t even met the bar of safety. And to ideas of, “How do you build caring, genuine relationships with other people?” that I think are at the bases of management, of leadership, or building teams in general, I think that comes back to truly valuing the other person for who they are. And I think that everything we’ve talked about can be, these things form a basis I think for understanding and a reference frame for thinking about everything that we’ve talked about today. I really appreciate this discussion. It’s caused me to think more deeply about some of the metaphors that I like to use and where they apply and how they can also lead us astray sometimes. And I’ve just really enjoyed it, so thank you. 

JANELLE:  The overriding theme in all of this seems to be around culture. And a lot of times with management, I’ve found myself really disappointed in the leadership, in our engineering leadership. From company to company, there’s so much dysfunction that is largely a result of seeing people as objects and everything that kind of comes along with that. And I’ve been listening to Anjuan talk about culture and the way he sees and the way he lifts people. And it’s quite beautiful to me because I can imagine this world that he creates around him just by being a leader, by people mirroring this world of getting to know one another as people, seeing the diamond and the potential in their souls, seeing all that they can be and giving them the space to take off their mask, and to set a precedent that we can all be our unique selves, our unique diamonds, and the beautiful creative culture that emerges from that. And so, I think about how much I’ve been disappointed with so much in the way of leadership. I’m walking away from this conversation with a feeling of deep respect.

ANJUAN:  Thank you so much and that’s very, very kind. I think that I’m just someone stumbling around in the dark, grasping around like everyone else. And when I find a little bit of light, I try to share it. And I think that Sam really hit the nail on the head with safety. I put into the chat an article I wrote for [inaudible] Culture which isn’t being published anymore. But I wrote about making tech safe spaces for diverse faces. And I wrote that article because I go to a lot of conferences and I was going to a lot of conferences back then when I wrote it. And I just saw that a lot of conferences didn’t really seek safety as a key part of the experience. They may have talked about it. Maybe they had a code of conduct. But it was often just words on a wall or maybe something they put into the registration page. And that safety aspect is key. There’s the famous Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where if you have food, water, shelter, you can self-actualize. I think even beneath food and water is safety. Because if you don’t feel safe, you’re not going to go out and forage for food. You’re not going to go out and find water. It’s going to be hard to meet your needs. 

And I think safety is a foundational aspect of life that people really need to be their best selves. And I’ve put a lot of thought into what I can do with the people who I come into contact with, the teams I have the privilege of serving, the companies that I have the privilege of walking into to give a talk, the people I meet at conferences. And if there’s anything that I want to be, is be that safe space and be someone who is an agent to make the space that we all work in, this technology field, the software engineering field, safer. And so something that I really am impassioned about and I’m glad to have the people who listen to this hopefully hear this and also take up that mantle, take up the baton of making the technology sector a safe space for everyone. 

JANELLE:  That was so beautiful. Well played. I’ve really enjoyed this show. It’s been great. 

ANJUAN:  Thank you so much. I’ve enjoyed it as well. 

REIN:  Can I just mention one thing to clear my stack? We don’t even have to air this. But we were talking about masks. And I just want to mention that I think it’s really important to honor that the masks we choose to wear are also a part of who we are.

ANJUAN:  That’s a great point. Yes. And people should have the agency to choose those masks and to take them on or off as they feel the need to. Yeah, fair point. 

SAM:  Well, thank you all and listeners, we’ll be back at you real soon.