Lessons from a Battle Tested VP ft. Mallory Randall

Speaker A: Numbers can tell you all of these different things, but at the end of the day, people are not going to make human connections with numbers. They're going to make it with something that they love and makes them feel something.

Speaker B: What is going on? Certify homies. Welcome to another episode of From A to B. Shiva. And I'm joined by, and by the way for all my guests. I don't know if you've listened to an episode. I have a nickname for every guest. So Mallory, take the mantle. Randall.

Speaker A: That is what's. What is take the mantle? Is that like a. Ah. Is that a specific saying or was just. It happened to rhyme with Randall.

Speaker B: Like a. Isn't a mantle like a thing where you put sports trophies on.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, you can put. Yeah, you can put trophies on mantles. Yeah, that's good.

Speaker B: Or you could put. You could put photos of your children too. But I'm, I'm going the sports metaphor because we just talked about sports before we hopped on here. So you take the mantle with your awards, with your demeanor, with your personality and. Yeah, just. I don't know, it was hard to find other rhymes. Some of them were very odd for like rhyming with Mallory and rhyming with Randall. So I was like, this is the, this is the coolest one of them. So let's just pick mantle. How about that?

Speaker A: I like it. You know, you, uh, landed the plane, so keep going with it. I think that's the best compliment I've had all week.

Speaker B: I might have landed it like Sully in the Hudson, but it did land and land.

Speaker A: Yeah, you made it. Is that how you start? It's how you finish, Right, Exactly.

Speaker B: So the really cool thing I wanted to talk to you about was you're a VP at your current company, but your career was like being specialist. And you've progressed through the ranks from specialist and manager to director to vp. And that's something that I think I've struggled with at times. And I think it's a cool career related episode that I'd love to dig into how you were able to grow your career and, and how you were able to like slightly turn off the parts of running the program and upping the parts of managing the program and managing your responsibilities and roles for your team. So that's kind of where I want to get into. But the one question I said I was going to ask you is just like, talk to me a little bit about your career growth. Like, walk me through your journey so we can kind of understand Mallory in

Speaker A: a Deeper level, I am, um, and have always been a storyteller at heart. Like, I just loved the art of the written word. I loved how they can make you feel. And uh, you know, I was, I read a lot as a child and I still read a lot today. And so, um, I started wanting to get into career of writing. So, uh, my original, my original goal was to have my own magazine and it was to called Mal Modern American Lady. Uh, luckily that didn't take flight since nobody reads magazines anymore. But, um, what that led me to, is to starting to get into copywriting and the marketing sense. And I loved how you could take something as mundane as like a men's button on their shirt and you could talk about how, you know, it's mother of pearl and it just sort of elaborated and built this beautiful story. And so I think that was really where I wanted to take my career and understand, like, how can I tell stories and evolve that. And then, uh, the evolution of that became into how do you tell stories through brands? And so a lot of my career has just been learning to tell stories in different ways. Before when I was heavily in marketing, um, and doing some of those things, yeah, it was about particular brands. And now as I, you know, the older I get and the more I get to more senior positions, it's like, how do you tell stories with data? Um, and I know this is something that you do obviously very, very well in your career as well, but yeah, I mean, I think that's really kind of always been my, like, what drives me, what pushes me, is like, how can I tell the story of what's in front of me? Um, and how do I go chase that next story?

Speaker B: That's cool. Uh, there's so many story related, I guess stories, pun intended, of just conversations we've had with folks where storytelling is one of the more important things of what we do. And it's not like the data that necessarily gets you towards making decisions. It should. But at the end of the day, humans are humans. They like stories. They like to be told how the data weaves into a story. Not necessarily. Here's the data, do the thing. Let's say you're joining a new company. I think you joined your company. I forget how long ago. It wasn't like decades ago, but it was like fairly recently.

Speaker A: Yeah, it was about a little over a year and a half ago.

Speaker B: So one of the things you have to do is almost like tell the Mallory story and like bring that towards the company, especially at your level in your role. So how do you tell the Mallory story to others so people can get to know you better? Can get to know what? Why they should trust you, why they should value you. Why are you someone worth working with? Like internally?

Speaker A: In most onboarding programs you're going to go through, they have you go to talk to one or two people. And I always ask, ask people in those questions, well, who else should I talk to? Who else should I get to know? And so I think it's really about learning the different people on your teams and understanding to them, like understanding them, what drives them and getting to know them more on a personal and a professional level. And so I think by doing that, you know, not having to jump in straight to just like working on a project together, getting to know and set that stage and it's sort of, uh, yeah, let me know you and your background. I think that helps a lot. I think it's really easy to want to go in and make some change and just show like, hey, I've, you know, I could do all these things. I think it's about observing, but then taking action when you see something where something can get filled in. Right. And so for me, a lot of my career too has been, um, I've come in where I don't want to say it's a dumpster fire per se, but there's a lot of stuff that's going in and it's sort of like baptismal by fire. So I think in those moments too, you know, for anybody that gets into a situation like that, it's really easy just to kind of go down and get to brass tacks. But you've got to step back and say, okay, like, what's the 50,000 foot view of really? What's going on? What is it that we're really trying to do? And then making sure you're getting that information from some key people. I learned early on in my career, um, if you take it from like just your team's vantage point, you forget about the entire ecosystem and how it all has to work together. So then that's when I say go back to like talking to different people and knowing and being comfortable enough to ask their questions and their input so you can really start to make a difference there.

Speaker B: Yeah, so it's almost like your brand is getting to know other people's brands. People don't necessarily know you as Mallory. They know you as someone who actually wants to know everyone else and get to know everyone else. You're the collaborator, you're not necessarily like the data expert. Or the while you might be those things, that's not necessarily what you're known for. Is that fair to say?

Speaker A: Yeah, I, I mean, no, I think that's an ex. I mean I've always said yes and then no, I did that. Classic. Yeah, no, um, yes. I'm not known for data. But to your point, I think what you're getting at is I'm really good at trying to figure out how do disparate people, disparate systems, what is it that they need to sort of come together to tell that cohesive story. And I think that's really what I've been like a lot of my career has been culminating in.

Speaker B: So it's interesting you mentioned like the thousand foot, fifty thousand foot, whatever level of high up air level of stuff. I'll tell you a quick anecdote and a little bit of personal sharing on my side. That's something that I've actually struggled with a lot. I've gotten this feedback from three or four different managers and try as I might to address this feedback, it's been really challenging. I've been managing programs for like five, six years now. One of the biggest challenges is managing the program, being in the weeds, doing the thing. I've been an individual contributor. Even as a manager, I've had people like, I've been a people manager, but for the most part, at least for um, my industry, it's hard to like not only get your role filled but also get support within there. So a lot of times it's individual contributor. One of the challenges is because you're still in the weeds, because you're constantly having to run the program, taking that 50,000 foot level view of actually like messaging the strengths of the program. What's going on? Where are you strategically going? I find myself, uh, and I love doing the individual contributor part just like you said as well. So like I get excited to talk about the very nerdy stats things, but then sometimes I have to literally like pull myself out. I say like literally pull myself out of the weeds. M. Like literally I think about pulling myself as a weed out of the ground to like try and get myself out. There's such a challenge of like being excited, being an individual contributor, living in that data and then having to pull yourself out and then talk strategically about the program. So that's, that's me. I think I've gotten better at it. If I had to talk to my bosses, I think they'd probably say he's gotten better at it. So yeah, my bosses can chime in however they'd like. What advice would you give? To me, I feel like that's such a struggle for people to manage.

Speaker A: It is. And I still don't think I'm. I'm great at that either. For you specifically, you always have to think about, like, a couple of things. One, know who you're talking to, like, and what's their end game, right? So you deal with a lot of data, right? So if you're talking to an executive team, yes, they want to know those stats, they want to understand them, but they also want to know, like, what does that mean and what are we doing next, right? So I think kind of getting in there and getting into the. Well, it says this, but it could go. I mean, like, they, they just, you know, they don't care, right? They just want to know, like, what does this mean for the business? Where are we going forward when it comes to, you know, like, your team and like, you know, when you're trying to direct where to go next, that's where I think you can get a little bit deeper. And my favorite thing to do is, like, especially if you have younger people on your team or people that are just starting out, getting really in the weeds with them and help, helping them understand to connect the dots. Because that's where I see like, eyes open, people get really excited and you can get to that like, super nerd out level. Right? And. But yeah, it's taken me a really long time to get there too. I. I'm not a numbers person. I got into the marketing and advertising world thinking I will never have to deal with numbers again because it's all about storytelling and it's about creative and brand and all these things. And, uh, now that's pretty much what the majority of my job is, is all to be in the numbers. So I've had to learn that and learn to speak that language, but still hold true to the, you know, numbers can tell you all of these different things, but at the end of the day, like, people are not going to make human connections with numbers. They're going to make it with, you know, with something that they love and makes them feel something. So, yeah, I think for you it's just one, know your audience. And then two, when you have that opportunity to pay it forward and help people understand how, why these things are important to you and make sense to you, I think that's really where you can start to kind of like, figure out how far up do you need to come versus how in the weeds you can go?

Speaker B: I'll follow up to that and say what challenges I faced, and I think other people probably face as well, is it might be easier with different cultures and companies and people to collaborate and work with them. Because it's like they're just people who, if they get a calendar put on their, their, uh, calendar, if they got a meeting put on their calendar, they show up because that's kind of what they do. But then there's other people who are like, I don't think this is valuable for me because I'm super important and fuck you, so I'm not coming, I'm not going to the thing. I wonder how do you navigate some of those complex conversations where it's. I don't want to say it's role based because I think there's certain roles where like, I never want to say it's role based. I think it's just on a human level because you could have an engineering team where the engineering manager is super collaborative, or they could just be. Not. I don't think it's a role specific thing. It's kind of a personality thing. But how do we break those barriers to continue to work with these people knowing that maybe they don't, they don't care to collaborate, they don't see the value. You haven't even, you haven't had a chance to market the brand or your program or your success because they kind of just drag you on for a ride without giving you the time or space.

Speaker A: No, I mean, I think like you said, it's kind of going back to getting to know these people on a personal level. Right. That's just something to me that's always been really important. You know, just going to somebody one on one and say, hey, this is what I'm trying to do. But I get it's probably not important to you, what information do you need? How can I make this relevant for you? Or like, if you don't care, cool, that's fine, you don't have to care. But I get to need you to kind of. You got to give me something, right? And so I think that's where I've been able to. And I think a lot of people can find success when you find sort of that humility on one on one. And then the project manager and me will always say, like, okay, if we have to have a meeting, I'm going to tell you very quickly upfront, like, what is what we're going to be doing? If you don't need to be there for the whole time, I'm going to tell you, like, I don't. Time is people's most precious commodity, and I don't believe in wasting it. And people will tell you, I will not go to meetings if there's not an agenda. If you don't have an agenda in a meeting, I'm declining it because I. I don't want you to. Like, I don't want my time to be wasted either. I don't want to.

Speaker B: What if I just like talking to you, Mallory? What if I just enjoy the time that we get to spend together?

Speaker A: Because I already know you, and so anytime you would put time on my calendar and it's just the two of us, then obviously I'm going to show up. You know, I like to gap just as much as anyone else does.

Speaker B: I think that's. It's funny because I genuinely love talking to my coworkers and I don't add agendas sometimes. Like, I have some recurring standing syncs with co workers, and we'll just shoot the shit for, like, 20 minutes in the middle, in the beginning of it, because I genuinely like talking to them. I think that's part of, like, the. Get to know your coworkers, get to know their brand, get to know what makes them tick. Some people might think it's manipulative because it's like. I think it's only manipulative if you don't like talking to them and you're doing it to build a fake relationship. I genuinely love talking to them. Like, one of my coworkers is getting, um. He's engaged and he's, uh, like, planning his wedding. And I was like, what? Like, tell me about your wedding. Like, what's. You got, like, a rooftop bar. That's sick. You have, like, a white tuxedo theme. Like, that's amazing. That's so cool. Tell me more about this. And we're just, like, shooting the shit. And you could see me even just, like, I'm, like, happy to talk about it because he's just. He's a cool human. I want to get to, like, talk to him about this stuff. Also, because I work remotely and I don't get to interact with many humans, so maybe that's part of the social part of it. I'll let my therapist diagnose that.

Speaker A: I'm the same way. I will probably take any opportunity, like, to talk to my coworkers. I don't think it needs to be, like, a black. Or. Or like, you only need to operate in this way. You only need to operate in that way. I Think it's more of like when you're getting to know people and you're trying to establish yourself in a certain position, then yeah, I think that that's appropriate. But then I think as you develop those relationships over time, I do the same thing. Well, I'll have one on ones with people on my team and it's like, I know the first like 25 minutes we're just literally going to talk about what's going on. The other five minutes we'll get to stuff. Like, we'll get our work done. Um, you know, and I think that is something, you know, a lot of people struggle with. I think especially people that are our age too, and younger. There this sort of like long standing rule where it's like you're supposed to be friends with your colleagues, but you can't be too like, friendly with your colleagues because, you know, it's so competitive out there and you'll never know what people will. And I'm not saying that there probably aren't situations like that, but I do feel that we're in a different time where you can be more friendlier with your colleagues, where I think it's, there's power in developing relationships because you never know like, you never know like how, like how you're able to both like, mutually benefit each other in working together in your career. I mean, some of the best moves I've been able to make in my career is because I had the support of some of my teammates and my co workers. I mean, they, they made me look good. Uh, and by default, like, you know, in exchange I want to make sure that they look good too. So, yeah, I don't think it's like a black or white thing. This is how you have to treat people. I think it's more of a being genuine and authentic, or as authentic as you can be in a, in a workspace, I think is important.

Speaker B: I think that's a common theme I've heard across almost every episode is some flavor of that, whether explicitly or implicitly. And I think that's a testament to the people I like to have on this show is people who are like that where like, I think every guest I've had on this show I would happily want to work with in some capacity if that was an opportunity that presented itself. It is interesting that there is something about just like culture of the companies that you work at that you want to. If you feel like you're at a company and you don't feel like you actually want to talk to your Coworkers, like the slack message from coworkers gives you anxiety. I don't want to say necessarily leave because sometimes you just got to put food on the table. But it's worth like revisiting. Is this like really the place for me? Like do I really want to be part of this? Because on a mental health you might not love it, you might not be able to do your best work, but on an actual get work done, it's going to handicap you in some way.

Speaker A: I think it can for sure. I will say the times where I've been in positions where I didn't love my job, it was having those colleagues that really allowed me to like keep my mental sanity in those moments. And so yeah, I don't know about you too though, but whenever I've been interviewing and trying to get a, ah, semblance of what culture is, that is the thing that I have the hardest time really trying.

Speaker B: When you are interviewing or you are interviewing other people, like for, for your team or going to other jobs, maybe both.

Speaker A: I don't know. Like I think it's probably, I think it's yeah, both and yeah, it should be both probably. Yeah, yeah. So when I've gone on, you know, interviews for previous roles, trying to get a semblance, especially now in remote cultures, how do you get a semblance for what culture is like when you are talking to people? I mean I think there's a rhythm, there's sort of an energy I think you can pick up on. But until you're there, until you're in the day to day and maybe I just haven't been brave enough to ask hard questions like, hey, what do you not like about your job? What is the hardest part in the culture? And I think the older I get, the more, I think the um, more gumption I have to ask those types of questions. But I think a lot in my career I never, I really never had a good sense of it. I had one job where it was the strangest interview process that I've had, but it was one of the best ones where they made me do a project which I know people are, you know, all different opinions about that. But then they had me come in and do a workday where I would shadow um, different people within different departments. And it was a small company but it was a great experience because at least I did get to understand like what it was like to work with there. I talked to one woman, I think we talked about Britney spears for probably 20 minutes. And then after I got hired onto the company. They changed that, that changed the workflow where it's like you need to keep it professional and talk about like business related things and not talking about. But I was like, that's not, I mean that's not genuine. That's not who we are the, at our company. But uh, so, so yeah, I mean, I don't know what has your experience been?

Speaker B: Every place I've worked at the uh, surrounding team has just been incredible. I've never left a company because of that or thought about leaving a company because of the people in there. I'm always my authentic self. Like this person talking to you that you're listening in your ears right now is the same person that you've gathered at the company. You'd hear on LinkedIn, you'd hear in person. It's the same person. It's nice to not have to put on a fake Persona for other people. Although I don't want to ask you a question about that. But it's hard to suss that out. I think the places I've been at, it's rarely been a culture problem. There might be culture problems, but that's not the biggest problem. The problem is process. The problem is like micromanagement from top down or people holding things way too close to the chest without collaborating. It's been like a couple culture leeches, I guess, rather than the whole culture sucks. But uh, you know, it's stupid because like sometimes one poison apple ruins the bunch. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's really true. When you get to that point, like when, you know, when you wake up every day and you realize like you would rather be anywhere else even with the people that you're working with, that's when it's like, yeah, you know, it's time, time to go. And I hope people realize that a lot sooner. I hope nobody gets to that point because then you, you end up taking jobs just because you're so desperate to get out. And then it sometimes leads to the same thing over and over again. So I feel the. I agree with what you're saying there.

Speaker B: I want to ask you another question, but I want to quickly broach this subject around like the AI interviews where you're talking to like a, like a fake agent or what? I don't know. I don't even know what to call it. It's not a human. It's just some fake AI thing and it interviews you. It's not a human.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker B: If I interview, if I was interviewed by that, I would not take that Job. I would fuck with the robot for 30 minutes and then I would not take the job even if I was moving on.

Speaker A: I know I was like, I would love to be on the person that's reviewing the interview after you have gone through that, because I just like, knowing you the way that I do now, like, I would be. That would be the funniest thing to see. Like, the answer set, you guys.

Speaker B: I feel like that would increase my likelihood of getting the job because he'd be like, oh, I kind of want to work with that guy.

Speaker A: Yes, yes. Or like, would it just fritz out? Would it be like, would it just get stuck in this, like, constant loop or whatever? You would just break it and be like, all right, thanks, bye.

Speaker B: You know, there was this Instagram video that I saw and it was like.

Speaker A: It was.

Speaker B: I think the question they asked was like, talk to us about how you would season a post. Like, it asked the dumbest, weirdest question. And then the guy was like, fucking with the robot. He's like, recording his phone on the side and he's like, well, I make sure I add salt and pepper to my posts because, you know, we don't want to add garlic. That might be too seasoning. People don't have a love hate relationship. And it's like, I would just do that. Fuck this. Like, if you're going to waste my time with this, I'm going to waste your AI credits. And we will burn the environment down while we do this.

Speaker A: Hey, yeah, no, I agree with you. And, um, yeah, if anybody would approach me or any company approach me with that. Like, even though I understand from, like, what an efficiency gain standpoint, no, there's no way that I would want to work with somebody or like, work with a culture where they're like, yeah, we're going to have you talk to this. It's a waste of our time not to. To talk to, you know, And I'm like, no, no, it's not. Like, nobody's time is a waste. I mean, well, I shouldn't say that there are some things that are. Time sucks. But you know what? I think? You know what I'm trying to get there. That human connection has to be there when you're trying to find a new job.

Speaker B: I know. Are you a Microsoft Teams pro or anti person?

Speaker A: I. I don't. I do not like teams. I missed. I've used teams now. I miss Slack so much. M. It was my favorite thing. I have not used Microsoft products. I hadn't used Microsoft products until I started this job. Since before, in like 20, 20, 15, 2016 maybe. And so now having to go back and see just the user interf. Face the. I hate it. I hate every aspects of Teams.

Speaker B: I'm um, not anti Microsoft products because I think Microsoft has built some really great products. Teams is one of those that for some reason, like, I've met a couple of people who love teams and I'm like, I don't know if I could be friends with you. I feel like you have bad taste. If you like teams, this might be a make or break deal breaker. I don't know if I can be friends with you anymore. There's a, I think there's a new feature coming out on Teams where it like it detects how much you're working and it's like based on your online status and like how much you're engaging. I'm like, uh, if you don't trust your coworkers, I'm um, out. You have to trust me to know that I'm delivering the output. It doesn't matter the means to get there. You gotta trust me to deliver. And I'm sure you as a manager operate in the same fashion of like, I don't really care how you do it. As long as you're not pissing everyone off while you're doing it and you're achieving the goals and the output that I need you to do however you want, I don't really care.

Speaker A: That's exactly how I mean again, for me it's like we're all adults here. As long as you, yeah, like you said, get your work done, you do it in a respectful way. We're doing it in a healthy way. Like I don't expect my team to be working 24 hours a day. You know, like, everybody needs to eat and to sleep and to take breaks. But yeah, like there's no need in my mind to have that constant pressure around. I think when you try to hang on to that and you try to, you know. And I think it starts from a place of like trying to control quality. But then it gets into the. This sort of like, uh, it gets into this thing where it limits creativity. It limits. It really does reduce and limit your productivity all over. And so yeah, I just think it's like uh, it's one of those things for me where I. Why companies want to get that granular of detail. I don't know. You know, like if you don't know which of your teammates or your employees aren't doing the work, then you have a bigger problem.

Speaker B: In my mind, shifting gears a little bit, this is a. It came up, up with a co worker of mine who I'm not going to name, but as we were working through some stuff, let's just say some tasks and some decks to present to some stakeholders, it was really funny, but kind of depressing but funny. As, uh, they were working through some of the decks, one thing that came out was, I don't want to say incorrect language. Everything was fact based. But it could have potentially come off to other people in certain lights as combative. Disruptive. Uh, m. Like more combat. I'll say combat is probably the appropriate word. It's fact based. But people might take it offensively who shouldn't, because our goal is to help you, but it might be taken as offensively. So as I was reading through this output of deck, I was like, we might need to soften the language here and here and here. Just so like, we don't come off as combative. We're coming off as collaborative, blah, blah, blah. M. This person was like, can I

Speaker A: ask you a question?

Speaker B: I'm like, sure, hit me. What's up? And they're like, why do we have to do this?

Speaker A: I'm like, honestly, right?

Speaker B: I'm like, I. I was like, welcome to like corporate America, right?

Speaker A: It.

Speaker B: It sucks, but like, it's. Sometimes you kind of just have to do that. I don't really have. It's more of a statement of fact rather than asking you what to do with it. But sometimes you kind of just got to bite the bullet and just suck up to people.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, it's a, it's a complicated thing, you know, and try to, to teach somebody. The way I always phrase it is like, you don't have to respect the person, but you have to respect the role and you have to hierarchy, right? So unless they're doing something that is like blatantly disrespectful or blatantly, you know, whatever, you know, it may be, it's okay. Don't have to like the person, but you have to respect the role. When times like that comes up, it's like, yes, honestly, like, this is what we're trying to say, but we have to say it and deliver it in this format because otherwise they'll completely shut down. Right? And so I get it, like, it is sort of this sort of like song and dance a little bit about, hey, at, uh, the end of the day, like, this is really it. And sometimes you do get there, right? You just get there in conversations. You just can't have it in a deck. But it is frustrating to not feel like you can just kind of go and have in those direct dialogues. But then I think, you know, I think about too, if I was in that reverse position where if it was like somebody was coming to me and wanting to share some knowledge, like, it just, it would be so just like, very pointing fingers and combative. Like, uh, yeah, of course I'm gonna shut down too. It can go both ways. But yeah, I again, just. I think it's more of respecting the position necessarily. Always having to respect the person.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that framing. You don't have to necessarily respect the person, but you do have to respect the position. That's some bars right there. I think that's such a good perspective that you might not like the human, but their role is important and you need to make sure you respect their role, their authority, their responsibilities. I mean, I hate that sometimes you kind of just have to do a lot of sucking up to kind of get things done. But it is true, like, you put yourself on the other side of that. If someone's just, like, coming at you with, like, the worst energy, you don't want to work with them. A lot of times it's like, you might be right, but if you're an asshole, it literally doesn't matter. And that happens a lot. I think, uh, in our, like, product CRO world, that happens a lot where you're right, but if you don't communicate it properly, it literally don't matter.

Speaker A: I used to get so mad and upset when I was like, I'm right. These people don't want to believe me. I have shown them time and time again that I'm right. And it's like there was a while where I would just be so, like, there were hills, every hill I wanted to die on, right? And then I just got to the point I was like, oh, uh, oh, okay, get it now. Where it's like, I can keep doing this and, like, spinning my wheels and getting upset about it, but sometimes you do. You just kind of have to, like, bite the bullet and do what you want. It's like, what is it? What is it they say, like, you may lose a battle, but winning the war. And I think that's all about it. It's like kind of choosing your battle, so to speak. And so even though it's like you got to kind of grit your teeth and bear it, it does lead sometimes, like, down the line. Getting to do, like, better or, like, getting your direction acknowledged, you know, in

Speaker B: the Long term, I've explicitly said this is not a hill I'll die on a lot almost. I don't know if it's maybe me being passive aggressive, maybe it is because I've never been passive aggressive my entire life. For anyone who knows me, I'm um, all pass aggressive all the time. But like sometimes there, uh, I will say that as a means to say like whatever you want to do, I'll defer to you. This is your decision. I'll, I'll side with you on this. I don't care as much about this, but I say that also as like a. The next time you hear me push back, know that that shit's real. So I'm like, I'm almost. It's like it shouldn't be transactional, but in some way it is kind of transactional. We're like, I'm m giving you this token, take it. Next time I am pushing back. You need to give me that token back because I'm not going to fight you on this. But then you can't fight me on certain other things as well. It has to be, it has to be give and take.

Speaker A: You're exactly right. I would say probably like 92% of the time it usually works like that. Uh, there are some people, you're going to cross their paths where they're always going to, it's always about them. It's never going to be. You're never going to get your way. You're just. In that case it was, you know, I would probably not want to work with those people much longer. But in a respectful way. People do need you also to push back on them in a respectful way. And I think the more that you're able to say and back it up, then you know what you're saying to say like, hey, I really think this here's why we can go this direction. Here are the trade offs. I mean I think that's something else I had to learn too, really was like, we can do this this way. Here are the trade offs. If you're comfortable with these trade offs, that's fine. But then we're going to need to acknowledge X, Y and Z in the next go around. Right? And so I think again learning sort of like that art of the trade, learning the allowing, like what's an acceptable risk tolerance, you know, for people to. All of those things I had to learn versus just like this is what we need to do and this is why we do it. And if you don't do it, you're absolutely Wrong. Like uh, yeah, I had to learn that the really hard way not to, to make that approach anymore.

Speaker B: In some ways I'd argue it increases the trust of who you are that like you're making your claim and you're not just someone who's always going to give in. I think in some ways it, I uh, mean hopefully sometimes people just take and don't give ever. But ideally it's like you build the trust. It builds you as an authority figure and someone who you can work with to say no, no, no, this shit, this shit fucking matters. Because I tell you, when it does and it doesn't, it can create a positive trust, a more authoritative version of you when you do stake your claim in the ground and say no, this shit fucking matters and you should be able to back it up. I'm sure anyone who is listening to this would be able to make the claim for most things in these, these, in these conversations. But it does increase the like authority figure that you perceive that, like that, that part of your brand internally.

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. It increases your authority, your trust. And I think just the fact that you're thinking of like, I'm not making this about me, I'm trying to do it for the good, like for really the good of like the project, you know, the business, whatever it is. Like again it's, it's not a personal thing. I'm trying to make it better, you know, whatever we're trying to do, I'm trying to make it better in general.

Speaker B: And that kind of full circle, right? Where when we talked, when we first started talking it was about not just the program growth but you are trying to have a perspective from other folks and talk more business wide about the things that you're doing. To say this is why it checks all the boxes for all of these things. Not necessarily. It's my goal, it's my unique thing. It's going to check this box for me that breeds the trust in the authority for growing your internal brand and being able to kind of get more shit done.

Speaker A: You talked about like your internal brand. I think that's something that's so underrated that people don't think about. And it is, it's important not only externally, you know, in the outside world, uh, you know, because again we, everybody knows like networking, all of those things are important, but your internal brand is just equally as important, you know, and it's not necessarily like, it's the way that you talk to people, it's the way that you, they know that how you operate can I ask you a question. Yeah.

Speaker B: If you had to pull your co workers, what would they say is the Mallory Randall internal brand?

Speaker A: Oh, that's a great question. What would they say? I, I mean, I hate to say like generically nice, but like, I think for me, like I, I would hope that they would say like I would go to the depths for my team. Like my, I want my team to make sure that they know that they are supported and anytime that somebody needs somebody to like support or like pump them up, like, that's, that's what I'm here for. But then I also think too people would tell you, like, I can be a pit bull in the sense of like I, I do the work, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it really well and I'm gonna defend my work. And uh, you know, I'm gonna challenge you, uh, you know, just as I expect that challenge to be. And um, you know, I might be short and five feet tall, but like, I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm saying. And so, yeah, that I'm gonna get that authority. I'm gonna take that authority.

Speaker B: Pack a punch.

Speaker A: Pack a punch. Yeah, you can edit that out how, make it more, sound more eloquent. However you want to edit that, that would be great.

Speaker B: I love the Mallory Randall Pitbull. I like, I think that's a solid brand is like, you'll defend your pack. You're a uh, loving, sweet dog. Because most pit bulls are like the goofiest animals you've ever met that like they're scared of everything. But when it comes to like being tough, protecting the pack, when it comes down to brass taxes, they get shit done. I love that. One final like wrap question. I'm curious as we have discussed a lot of topics here, what skills are the most important things you think are refining for people growing from, let's just say trying to move from specialist into manager or manager into director roles? Like, what are the most important things that we should be refining to make sure we grow? Is it just a politics thing or is there something else hard or soft skill that we need to make sure we like super lockdown.

Speaker A: If I had to have like a quick handful of things, one, ask questions, but ask good questions, right? Asking and understanding not only like, what the purpose of whatever, whatever it is that you're doing, but like, how is this affecting the ecosystem? Right. Like, what is the long term implication of this? Right. Like where. How was my work contributing to that? Right. Uh, and I say that because early, early on in my career, you know, I was just given tasks to do. You know, I would get them done, trying to get them done on time, but it wasn't until one of my coworkers came to me one time and was like, hey, you know, you were doing this thing, you got it done great. But, like, you could have gone a little bit further. Why didn't you? And I didn't realize that, like, the depth in which they had wanted me to do something, how it was going to impact, like we were working on some kind of like a research study or something like that. So I would say, yeah, ask. Making sure that you're asking like, like better questions. I think also too, when you're looking at jobs going in and not just looking at the role, but what is it that you want to get out of there, right? What are the skill sets that you want to start learning? And I think early on when I was looking for jobs, I was just looking to see, like, what was the salary and, you know, what was the job title. And now, you know, I think, like, as I got older, started looking at, hey, what are these skill sets that I needed to like to develop? And again, it's a lot more, I think, think if as you start to get longer into your career and you want to go from that sort of like director to manager, you really have to better understand, you know, like, you've got to know your numbers, you've got to understand how they impact the bottom line. You've got to get away from vanity metrics into, like, really, how is this contributing to, you know, the profitability, P and L statements, all of those things like, uh, we started the episode earlier and we'll just come full circle. It's. It's the art, the art of being able to tell the right story of the right people. You could sit there and tell the greatest things with all of these, like, stupid, fundamental vanity metrics. But at the end of the day, it's like, how. How does that really contribute to the bigger. The bigger picture? So, yeah, I would say maybe those, like, those three things I would, I would hone as you get. As you people get further into their careers.

Speaker B: That's perfect. I love it. And then as we wrap the plug you said you wanted me to plug is your LinkedIn. And I think you said you're hoping to maybe spin the wheel a little bit more, get some more content. So we get to. Everyone has to follow Mallory on LinkedIn because she's going to start spinning up more thought leadership and she's going to start talking more about how to accomplish these things. So we're going to will this into existence. I'm going to hold you accountable to that as part of this episode. People aren't going to follow you, and then you're not going to post anything you have to post.

Speaker A: That's right. That's right. And then if I don't, please feel free to send me direct messages. And being like. It has been now three days since you've last said that you were going to do this, right? Uh, yeah. So, yes, thank you for that. I will absolutely be posting a lot more. And, uh, hey, maybe I'll have a podcast one day and you'll be my guest and we'll get to do this again.

Speaker B: I would love that. That's amazing. I love people having podcasts because the more people get to talk about things, it helps us flesh and figure things out and problem solve. So you should have a podcast. I love this. And I think you have a great voice and great talent for conversation, as we could tell by this whole episode. So awesome. Mallory, take the mantle. Randall, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker A: It's been great. Thanks, Jeanne.