Leading Through Change: AI, Culture, Burnout & Cognitive Balance.

Speaker A: M. Foreign. Hello and welcome to the let's Talk Leadership Podcast. The platform where inspirational leaders from the tech, digital and business world share their insights, experiences and, um, learnings. I'm your host, Sondra Patel, and I'm thrilled to bring you conversations with some of the brightest minds and most passionate leaders in the industry from across the world. Whether it's about navigating challenges, driving innovation, or building diverse and inclusive teams, this podcast is all about learning from the very best. Each episode is an opportunity to hear real stories of success, personal growth, and how our guests are giving back to the community. And it's also a chance for me to learn right alongside you. So get ready to be inspired, motivated and, um, equipped with the knowledge to take your leadership journey. Journey to the next level. Hello and welcome to the let's Talk Leadership Podcast. So in this episode we explore Emily's fascinating career journey. From client side roles to consultancy. We dive into her, huh, passion for team topologies, the practical integration of AI in daily workflows, and the future of platform engineering and, um, DevOps. Emily also shares valuable insights on managing cognitive load, preventing burnout, something I'm particularly interested in at the moment, and balancing personal growth with the demands of a working life. We hope you find the talk valuable and you get some useful takeaways from this session today. So. Hi, Emily, first of all, welcome. How are you?

Speaker B: I'm good, thank you. Very good, thank you.

Speaker A: Good, good. Fantastic. Um, so I think before we go into a little bit more detail, um, I'll hand over to you to just do a little kind of intro, quick intro, um, walk me through your career that kind of led you to where you are, um, today and maybe just cover off a few kind of pivotal moments that you've experienced along the way.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure, no worries. Um, well, as you can, I always start with, as you can tell from my accent, I wasn't born here. It's, it's my standard Canadian toot, toot. Gotta promote my, um, homeland.

Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: My heritage indeed. Yeah. Because everybody always asks me if I'm an American straight off the bat. So I born in, born in Toronto, in, in Ontario in Canada, um, and I've been over in the UK for 25 years now originally, um, came over, um, on a second actually in the 90s and I loved it so much and fell in love with the people and everything. So I decided at any opportunity I was going to want to come back, um, and the opportunity to arise, uh, in 2000. So I've literally been here a quarter of a century.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And um, yeah, and I came over working for a company called Bloomberg. It's a, you know, um, quite a big global organization and really, really I had six years working with them and I just sort of got really into um, delivering software for clients, um, and started learning a lot about the sales process there and, and I ended up getting poached by a client. So I went to a client side and started doing a lot of IT systems work and project management and really that's where sort of the ball started rolling and I just kept going and started to get into um, involved with bigger teams, bigger implementations. Um. And yeah, I did actually take a slight sabbatical and get my teaching degree. I'm actually a qualified ICT teacher. So there's still an ic, an IT theme. Yeah, um, but uh, but yeah, no, I've been over here and working you know, pretty strongly in, in it for at least 25 years. So uh, that's me in a nutshell.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Brilliant. And we, when we initially spoke, we talked about your um, you know, kind of shifting to do more in that consultancy, um, world. And obviously you've worked client side, um, and I guess you've had a mix of um, internal external roles, consultancy positions. Um, what was some sort of, I guess initially how did you find the transition from client side roles to working more within consultancy? Like what challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, I thought my career was going to always stay in client side and then um, it was sort of after the pandemic I thought, you know what, it's time for me to start getting into a place where I'm giving back to people and ultimately getting rewarded and paid for to do that. Because I kind of want to make sure that the stuff that I'm actually observing and the experiences I've had teach others how to deal with those experiences so they're not staggered as much as I was in those situations. And um, post, uh, post pandemic I thought, you know, this is the time, this is the time. I'm, I'm in my 50s now and, and it's, I feel like I need to be giving back. And I also have um, a niece and nephew that are in, in the business as well. Um, or working now. One's actually a teacher and the other one's more in media. But I like that rewarding feeling that you get when you're sort of mentoring and coaching people. Um, so that was, that was really an easy transition for me. Um, I had a few false starts in, um, getting into consultancy, but now I feel like I've really landed with a great company and a company that really m matches my values and approach to both leadership and both client relationships. So, yeah, I didn't see a lot of. I didn't see a lot of challenges to it, funnily enough. Some people do when they come from client side. It's um. Yeah, it's a lot less regimented when it comes to, uh, processes and you can do things, um, more collaboratively and you're not. There's not as much operational overhead as that you find in some regulated industries when you're on client side. Like I spent most of my career in financial services, which is highly regulated. So, um, I find that consultancies, um, are much more flexible in their processes, so it's easy to find streamlined ways of dealing with things.

Speaker A: Yeah, I speak to quite a lot of, um, obviously with me being in recruitment, and I've been in recruitment for 23 years now, and I speak to, I speak to a lot of people about their careers and their challenges and their transitions from, you know, different industries. Um, and a number of people do find it difficult to break into the consultancy world having not had that. And I wondered whether you'd have any, you know, were there any barriers to entry there?

Speaker B: That's a really good point. Yeah, yeah, no, that's a really good point. It's um. I think when you're in. In IT in particular, you find that there's often different types of people, people that are much more technical and not. And I'm not stereotyping, it's just, it's factual. In some observations that I've had, you have some people that their strengths are in technical and some people their strengths are in soft, soft skills and process and um, communications and stuff like that. And I find, um, sometimes people that are really, really talented technical people don't always find that transition super easy. And I do find in consulting you're very much, um, if you have an entrepreneurial and a growth mindset, you're going to be successful at it. If you have a bit of any kind of fixed mindset on things, it's not probably the right place for you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And because I think what you have to do is you have to look at things and analyze and say, is this an opportunity? Is this the right opportunity? Is this the right time to actually, um, present the opportunity, like consultancy, you're selling yourself and your ability to do that. Right. So what you have to do is you have to analyze an opportunity and say, okay, is this relationship and what we're doing, is it worth passing on this message and saying, oh, bringing in someone else in the company that might have better skills than you or um, that T shaped skill set in another area that the client needs? And that timing, nobody. I mean I've been doing this for four or five years now and I still am not perfect at that timing, but I'm getting better at it. And that's the whole I have a growth mindset. So I like to learn and I, and I, I experiment and I make mistakes. You know, that's, that's important to recognize

Speaker A: and it's how you learn as well, isn't it? It's how you move on from those. Yeah. Fantastic. And when we initially spoke, um, you mentioned your passion and interest in team topologies and um, cognitive load.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So can you explain how these concepts are important for teams today and share any insights or strategies on managing um, yeah. Cognitive load, um, effectively.

Speaker B: So I read um, Matthew, um, Skelton and Manuel Pace's book, it's called Team Topologies. And those guys are local folks as well. Like Matthew I think.

Speaker A: Matthew again.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, I'm, uh, not, no I'm not. I just love that, I love the material that they wrote that the, the concepts behind it is just fantastic. And I know a couple of people that have worked with me over the years, um, have also, um, really, really buy into it. Um, I really like the idea of looking at teams because what you're doing is you're looking at the people part of things and that's the important. To me that's the most important thing to get right. Getting the balance of the people in your team. Um, and you know, cross product, cross functional skill sets. Great as well. In a night. And we're talking in an ideal world. Yeah, yeah. What these guys promote are four different types of teams and they talk a lot about managing the cognitive load. And that's really struck a chord for me. Um, and I think it strikes a. And I'm not, I'm not a technical person, I'm not an engineer. I am much more technical than I was but um, years ago. But um, I don't come from a technical background. I come from more of a BA project background. And um, so I think a lot about the processes. Um, I also think a lot about the team balance. And as my journey into leadership I started thinking a lot about that as well and getting the right balance in team, what I call a team construct or A team structure is really important. Uh, particularly when you're looking at what you're trying to deliver. I think that's really important. Um, and these guys came up with these four types and they just totally ring true to me. Um, and there's the enabling, there's the platform, there's the stream aligned, there's the complicated subsystem stuff and I just really, really um, I really connected with the theory behind it and I've observed a lot around different team constructs and in my. One of the client that I'm working with right now really they're um, looking at, they're building out the sort of platform as a service and platform as a product, um, team construct which is fantastic and it's great to see. Um, the other thing that they talk about is the three different interaction modes which I also find that's really important because you're connecting people and conversations and collaborating and I feel so strongly and passionate about collaboration. It really, really is important. Um, you asked, you asked an interesting question about um, about the cognitive load and I think about that a lot because um, during burnout I'm probably one of a gazillion people that got ah, during burnout, during lockdown and during the pandemic. I'm probably one of about thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people that got burned out. We didn't, none of us, none of us have ever been through the.

Speaker A: Yeah, we didn't know how to respond to it. We don't know what it's, you know. Yeah, like you said, we didn't know what it was like. Um, actually now you mentioned burnout obviously I said that there was, we were going to cover that topic as well and it's something I've personally experienced quite a few times to different like varying degrees. So I'm always, I'm really passionate about this subject and I don't think it's talked about enough um, either openly which. Yeah and I'm really trying to kind of um, work towards helping to break that, that stigma which not no one single person is going to do that but I believe that we've got quite a good collaborative community that are all trying to move towards the same um, goal but with, with the rise in work related burnout. What, what, what your. And obviously you've personally experienced it as well.

Speaker B: Yes, I own it. I own it. I think we talked about this before the, the um, in 2021. I definitely had, I had just literally during the pandemic I had had my head down and was Grafting away. Um, and felt like I was there. Well, I think it was January, February. I felt like I was drowning. I really did. Um, because, you know, the context switching, the not being able to get outside, the, you know, the. Anybody that suffers from sads, you're just like, oh, my God, the world is closing in on you. And my anxiety went through the roof. Uh, and. And I'm. I don't shy away from being vocal about that. It's important that you recognize the signs of anxiety coming on because it can be really bad for your health, both short term and long term, both mental and physical health. And being in my 50s, I'm really. I'm trying to get attuned to that and really make sure that I'm. I live the long life. Um, and so I'm really trying to, um. When I see signs of any triggers, I step. Take a step back, see warning signs. And when I see it in other people, I do the same thing, because that's just the kind of person I am. But, um, but yeah, I did experience it. And I think, um, one of the things which just to go take loop back on cognitive load is that if you have too much load on your. I just too much going on in the engine, and that is your brain, it can burn out. It needs. It needs that, um. It needs that oxygen. It needs those walks, it needs those breaks. It needs that time to not be focused and grafting on one specific thing or multiple context switching. M. Ah, you need break. And. And I just. I walked in for. For lunch today, and I said to my husband, I said, I'm taking my lunch break. I haven't taken a lunch break in over a week. And guess what? I need this to not just stretch my legs, but stretch my brain. Because I literally, I could feel my. I could feel my calves cramping and going. I was like, oh, I. I know I've been drinking water all morning. But, uh, that was physical. Physical load in that I hadn't moved. And you forget.

Speaker A: Do you know what? I think that's more important when you were. You know, there's so many more of us working from home these days as well. And you're not. You don't get up as. As much as you do as if versus being in the office. Because obviously you have, you know, you go into meetings with your colleagues or you'll have a little, you know, corridor chat or chat in the kitchen or something like that and see you taking more breaks as well. Um, so that's. Yeah, very important. I'd like to just go back to. You said, um, that you, um, you know, you can kind of. It's important to take those breaks and recognize when you're starting to feel like you could be heading for. For burnout and those triggers and things. How does. Could you. Are you open to describing, um, what you felt, what your symptoms have been, and um, kind of how you felt and, and how you now, um, recognize those early signs? Because I don't think everyone does. I think a lot of people, you know, it's too late by the time they do.

Speaker B: It's um. I'm not saying I'm great at this, but I do recognize things like my. I got to a point where my. One of my eyes would twitch because I was tired. I didn't realize I was tired. So it would be like I could feel like a little flutter. And that was from staring at the screen too long, right? Moving my eyes around enough. So, uh, the location that I was um, not my. Not in the current office. I was up in my loft during lockdown. Um, and I switched locations and I actually have a window over here now that I can go and move my eyes and it. So that's really helped. Just, just even that, um, the other, the other trigger I had was um, I have. I actually have a temperature monitor in. In here as well. So this. I'm in a. I'm really lucky. I have a. I'm in a garden hut that's all kitted out for my office and everything. But one of the things that I did when we built this after uh, at the end of lockdown was made sure I had a temperature monitor and I keep an eye on it. So if it goes above 22, I know that it's too warm for me. And I'm like, okay, I need to get up, I need to go out, open the door, that kind of thing. And so I keep it. That's a real sort of data driven decision. But it's important. I don't want it to get too hot. I don't want to be sleepy. I want to be on point when I'm on calls. And I also need to make sure I'm not feeling physically uncomfortable. And I know my brain works really well at a certain temperature just through age and time. I've noticed that. So, um, so if it get like, literally it's at 23 right now and my brain's like, oh, is it sleep time now? So it's wait o', clock, it's the three, three o'. Clock. It's Three o' clock munchies. That's what it is. Um, yeah, that's some of the triggers. And, and um, I also recently, uh, I had back problems up until a couple of years ago and I. There was a certain point where after a certain period of time my back would go and it would physically tell me. It literally would start cramping just around the, where I had problems with my discs and I could. That was a, it was a painful trigger. But it told me, get off your bum.

Speaker A: You can't really ignore.

Speaker B: No. So don't let it get, don't let it get to that point where you're, you know, in your um, late 40s, early 50s and you're, you're spines telling you by kicking you in the backside. But you know, do it, schedule it. But interestingly enough, and I'm not, again, I'm not promoting anything, any particular product, but I found these great things on my Mac where it's the one thing, it's called um, Motion Minute. It's a piece of software. You have to buy it, but it's not super expensive. But it honestly, it stops my everything on my Mac and every half an hour you can set it to an hour and it makes you do like stretching exercises and it shows you how to do those, uh, stretching exercises. Fantastic. So if you can find any tool, be it super expensive or free to do that, get it on your computer if you can. And I'm lucky enough to be able to work off my Mac. So it's been great. Really good. Sort of preserving for, um, my aging body.

Speaker A: One thing I want to see. If you've not had a lunch break in over a week, until today, have you had morning and afternoon breaks? I'm guessing not.

Speaker B: I have, I have not. You know, I got into a routine where, and this started probably maybe about 20 years ago where I just didn't really think about lunch or I would bring it in and I might eat it at 11:30 when you were working from your office. Right. But now, because I've got the house literally a stone's throw away, um, I actually forget about it. So I've got my coffee, I've got my water. I do have like little, those little tiny sorine bars that I have them in, in my, in my outdoor fridge. Uh, so I don't, I don't go unrewarded when it comes to food. I just don't sit down to a lunch really anymore.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, same. I've been doing that for quite a long time. Perfect. That's Brilliant. It'd be really good I think to, given your um, uh background in your years in um, leadership and consultancy, recent consultancy experience, I think to talk more around that cultural and behavioral um, practices that play a really big role. Um, and we've, we touched on it slightly um, in technological transformation within organisations. Like how, you know, how, how what is the impact would you say? And how do you think that that has shifted over the years?

Speaker B: That's it. So that's a. I love this question because um, I think it's really important. So I came from a background, I know obviously been doing this for, in, in the UK for 25 years but I did have a small career before that um, in Canada and in New York. But in it I've been doing this for 25 years. And that goes back to sort of the noughties when everybody was in the office and everybody um, had to dress a certain way and you had certain hours that you badged in and badged out, you know and that's kind of like the old school, um, punch in, punch out kind of with your time card. And that's the way it felt at the time. And that was very, I felt quite restrictive. And then slowly over time there were companies, companies sort of picked up the idea that it is restrictive and it's not super flexible. Um and I decided, I left one company because um, I knew that the restrictions weren't suited to me in my life and the way I wanted to life. So and that's what a lot of people, why a lot of people leave organizations. And I found another organization that was much more flexible to me and I think one of the um, one of the things that we've really, really found and I'm in the camp of I think the hybrid working is fantastic but I have a preference and I am way more productive when I'm working from home. I do love those face to face meetings but I don't want them to be forced uh, on me if you know what I mean. So I think one of the things is that the culture that's so open and collaborative and organizations are making space, collaboration spaces in the office way more collaborative and I like that and I like organizations that have um, said oh yeah, you know, go in, go in two or three days a week. But you know what, you don't have to be in from nine to five, you can do 10 to two but we still want to make sure you've got your presence available and we know where you are and that kind of thing. The optimal Working time. And the thing is I, you know, it allows you to not have to micromanage. Nobody likes, I don't know anybody that likes micromanaging. Um, but you know that the T word trust, um, you're creating trust in culture and allowing people to flex their lives. And if you're observant enough, you know, the people that are taking them in, you figure that out in the end. You know, it might take a little bit longer through the hybrid model, but I still feel like organizations that are much more open and collaborative and trusting are going to be the successors, the ones that are the successful. Um, and that's the kind of culture that I sort of um, connect with personally. But over the years, loads of different cultures, very restrictive. You find a lot of the regulated companies, um, regulated industries are a little bit more restrictive than, than things like media. For example. I worked in a media company that was not restrictive at all. Um, but you also find what, what we'd call Skyvers there too. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Seen it all before. Been micromanaged myself. Like, you know, um, frowned upon if you left the office at certain times, but even on Friday. Um, I mean it's. It was awful in the early years in recruitment, um, and you just. But it was the norm.

Speaker B: So you just, it was, it was,

Speaker A: you just did it. But I agree, I agree with you that that much more open collaborative environment, um, you know, will definitely get the best out of the right people. And as long as you've got the right people in your team, then formula.

Speaker B: And that goes back to how you. And I'm not segueing nicely or anything, but it goes, it goes back to how. What kind of talent you're hiring and doing the uh, doing the legwork properly in the talent. You know, a lot of people are um, you know, because of uh, deadlines, they're hiring people for the hiring in order to get it done. But you m. Gotta, you gotta have

Speaker A: a formula that makes the time in. At the start of the process. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Interestingly, we've talked, we've, we've mentioned a few times about your consultancy background and you sort of been in consultancy for about five years now I think. Is it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And that it, it took you a um, few goes to get to the right, you know, kind of find the right thing for you. I'm sure you've learned a few things along that um, you know, along the way there as well. Um, um. Where do you see the future of tech consultancies heading? And the reason I ask that is that your, your personal experiences but also within the community that I'm, you know that we're in. There's, there's, it's a, it's a, it's a tough old market out there at the moment but also there's a lot of new consultancies popping up um, here, there and yeah, so it'd be interesting to understand your take on um, you know, have given you work for um, you know one of the, one of the bigger sort of corporates, um, where you see things, the future heading um, in terms of client demands, industry changes, etc.

Speaker B: It's interesting. Um, it's a good question. I, the industries that I focus on and the skill set that I bring to the table are things that um, are more social and person related, um, but also process related because I'm an agile and DevOps architect, shall we say I call it more of a social technical architect. But um, the things that people are really important. As I said before, people are really important and with the advent of AI and machine learning a lot of what the processes that we were doing before are changing and they're automated and so what, just like any sort of. This is, this is what, what did they call. There's the digital revolution, there's Industrial revolution, Digital revolution now the AI revolution.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And at each point humans had to um, deal with change, incorporate change into their life and, and crack on and, and form individuals. People had to transform their skill sets. So I, you know, as someone who's toward uh, you know, heading towards, well probably closer to the end of my career than the beginning of my career, I look back and I go, I mean I've, I've really tried to adapt and change and have an open mind and a growth mindset through all of my career. Um, but I look back and I go, the people that are coming into the industry, into it now, they're going to have the benefit of AI and they're going to have to come in with a really strong AI skills in order to be that much more productive. You know, I'm finding my productivity going up with the usage of AI tools significantly. All the things that used to take hours to do take me minutes to do now, which is great and I love because it gives me more thinking time, more time to sit down and come up with ideas, etc. But I do think more chances of

Speaker A: you getting your lunch breaks in as well.

Speaker B: There you go. Yeah, more chances of me actually getting a physical break as in I might get to the gym, that kind of thing. And I'm healthy. But, but I do think right now people really have to, coming into the industry really have to jump in on what's going to make them the most productive and keep them employed and, and um, AI. If you don't, if you're not up to date on AI, you better, you know, pull your socks up and get learning. So important because yeah, it's, we are in the AI revolution that's transforming the world and in most cases for the better. Not always, but most cases for the better I think. But I'm an optimist so. But I do think you said, you said something interesting that there's a lot of tech companies popping up. But that's like, it's. If I reflect back um, at the, what was it called, um, the dot com boom. Same, same sort of thing that was what, 20 odd years ago?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's when I first started my year.

Speaker B: Every 20 years there's a cycle of things that you know, we, that companies pop up and if they have the right business model and the right leadership, they will be successful. If they don't, then they either get morphed into something else or they disappear. Right. But uh, uh, it's about being as operationally efficient and lean as possible when you are a startup to be able to sustain it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Fantastic. And um, a couple of last questions for you actually. Um, one, just more expansion on the AI side of things because we, we've, yeah, we've just nicely moved into that, onto that topic. Uh, you, you mentioned earlier that you, you're saving yourself like hours a day. Um, um. And um, you know, it's giving you more thinking time and I think that also ties in the whole kind of um, you know, preventing burnout as well. Um, which you know, see it kind of alter all kind of circles back around. How have you integrated AI into your daily work at Cap Gemini and what. Could you give some examples to our, uh, listeners and viewers that where you're finding that your processes have been transformed. Are you saving time?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I've, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a. What do they call. I'm a. Did what they call a digital immigrant in that I wasn't born in the age when digital. You were just born with a phone in your hand or an iPhone in your hand. Yeah, um, I'm not a digital native. I'm a digital, I classify myself as a digital immigrant because everything I've learned, I've been, you know, everything digital I've learned myself or Taught myself.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So if I categorize myself, categorize people like that, um, that's going back to what I was saying earlier. AI needs to be in any digital native's career path and learning path for sure as well as, you know, people my age definitely need to be having it in their, in their, in their line of vision from a learning path. But uh, for me, when I started learning about it, I'm think I'm always thinking about my process and how I can do things quicker and have more time to think and have more time to, to have that work life balance, um, trying to optimize basically. So, so some of the tools that you got, I mean I love, I love Copilot. I think it's fantastic. Copilot and all of the Microsoft um, tooling it does, it really does. You know, being able to throw in ideas and have them come back with suggestions around the structure of slides. Perfect. Uh, on a PowerPoint presentation that would have taken me a lot of thinking time in the past because I'm not a super creative person. So doing m that structure, that would have taken me so much longer. So it's like a relief when I have Copilot structuring it for me. Um, and then I go and I ask for what, what would be a good image and then. And it just fills it in, gives you suggestions and I'm like this is great. You know, it create. It generates my creative juices that I, that are very dormant in my head. Something like that. Um, obviously working at a consultant. Everybody, Everybody loves a PowerPoint, don't they? Yeah. Uh, but also there's, you know, fantastic tools out there that I've found. Um, being. I also found I'm, I'm, I'm on the, uh, I'm uh, what do you call it? I'm not neurotypical. I'm neurodivergent. So, so I find that some of these visualization tools, um, and the copilots being able to create visual representations I think makes it easier for me to learn. So that's another super productive thing. I also found a thing called Visual Mind and it's a Mac app that I've got. Fantastic. I respond really well to learning, um, in mind map format and I can prompt stuff into this app and it gives me a mind map and I just go through that and I go, oh, this makes sense, this makes sense. And what I often do with mind maps is if I have to do a talk or either virtually or in person, I use those mind maps to get make sure I'm sticking within my framework of how I want to present structures. It's a really, really useful tool I find and I've only started sharing it with people. It was my secret for a while. But I love sharing good uh, when I know it's really impacted me. I like sharing stuff like that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: There's three things. What was the other one? Oh yeah. If you're an engineer, I mean you, everybody's talking about we're not going to need software engineers in the future load of. You know what I think what's going to happen is um, the skills of software engineers like with anybody are going to have, they're going to change um, and I think a lot of, a lot. We're going to have a lot of um, soft skills, uh, transference into, into engineers. Yeah. And they're notoriously technical and so we're going to have to work. I think what's going to happen is a lot of the um, time saved through co pilot is going to have to be much clearer. Not in documentation but in communication. Um, because people are going to get more productive so they're going to be expected to deliver faster and more um, frequently. So then you're going to have to get better at communicating what you've done. So it's a vicious cycle. The faster we get, you got to get better at communicating. So I think that's going to have an, there's going to be an impact um, in the engineering space. Um, but you know, long live the co pilots. I think they're fantastic.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: I really do. I don't think humans are going to completely disappear. We're not going to be a bunch of robots. No, it's not like and I'm, you know I'm in my late 50s so I don't think it's gonna happen. Not gonna be like the Terminator anytime soon.

Speaker A: Great. Yeah great tips there. Absolutely. Um, agree and thanks for sharing, sharing some of those. So last question on a personal note. Um, and obviously you've just talked a little bit um about kind of how you learn and, and you love to, to um, learn. How do you um, from a personal growth perspective it's quite challenging to um, you know keep on top of professional life, personal life growth in both areas as well. How do you manage the balance between the two the personal, professional commitments, the personal life. What self care practices do you find most effective?

Speaker B: Um. Oh, uh, I, great question. Um, and this is. I've only really I went through my 30s and 40s going woohoo you know what? I don't need self care. And then I kind of walloped it walloped me around the head on my 50th birthday and I'm like whoa. Um, so I really focused on that. My husband's amazing. He's sort of, he's helped from uh, supporting me in, in my health journey. That's like healthy exercising more um, moving up here, up to Yorkshire. It got me out of London and all the, the fun and shenanigans you can shrinking shenanigans you can get up to in London. That's all I did do. Anyway. Um, so yeah coming up here I have much more healthy uh, outlook, healthy environment. Healthy environment. Um, and that you know, as I've, as I've aged well whether it's disgracefully or gracefully, I don't know. Um, but I've really committed to stretching first thing in the morning I do that and it blows me away that I still did that. I did that. I, I've made it a habit. I can safely say I've made it a habit and that's because I want to. You know after having two back surgeries I've needed to do that but it really kicked it home that if you don't get up and stretch your body and move it around you're gonna be crippled sooner. Not crippled but you're gonna age faster. And so that's something that, that's my personal commitment to then also be healthy professionally as well.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: That keeps my physical and mental capabilities sharp. I did actually funnily enough. I have a lot of um, games like um, number games games on my phone. I'm actually a gamer. Well more, more in sport or I, I, I have an Xbox and I love playing sports and I actually have a meta quest thing and one of my, one of my, my son's just

Speaker A: got one of those for his 10th birthday.

Speaker B: I love, I've always been a get been involved in, in video games since I was a teenager and you don't find many late 50 year old women that have video games.

Speaker A: I think the point that that makes though is that you know finding something like that just helps you like really switch off from the world, doesn't it? So m. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Like sometimes I've got those Mandela coloring books um, and I've got loads of different like coloring pencils and sometimes I'll sit for half an hour doing, doing

Speaker B: that or one of those.

Speaker A: Um, I don't actually, it's just reminding me because I don't do it Enough. I haven't done it for a while. Lego, I'm. My Lego because I got into it with my son. He loves it.

Speaker B: And so then, as you said, those are things that take your mind off of.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's. It doesn't really matter what it is, does it? It's just that taking your mind off

Speaker B: everything you need to. If any was giving advice to the younger me, I would say, listen, um, you make sure you disconnect. Make sure you draw the line. You know, don't get forced. Yeah. Create boundaries, healthy boundaries, and make sure that you're clear. And yeah, you will break the rules on an exception, but remember, you're contracted to work this amount of time and you know, you're, you're, you're, you know, you're good at what you do, so make sure you keep healthy boundaries. Um, because a lot of people think, you know, working long hours and being seen to be working long hours is the secret to success. It might be, but it's not the secret to longevity and having a good, long, healthy career, I don't think. Um, yeah, but that's just my opinion. But, yeah, there are some things that I do that, uh, help me disconnect at the end of the day. And sometimes just watching trash telly, you know, and I, when I say trash telling, I'm talking Real Housewives of something where they're fighting it out.

Speaker A: You're just sitting there laughing at Netflix series or something. Yes.

Speaker B: Yeah, trashy. Just because it disconnects you from what's going on in your, in your real world and you can just immerse yourself in complete insanity and it's hilarious. So, yeah, that's one of the things that I do. But would I call that self care a little bit? Because I'm disconnecting, but more, um, more about that disconnection than anything else. Um, yeah, I just, from a, from a personal perspective, that's so important, but then it also makes sure that you have those healthy boundaries between your personal and professional life.

Speaker A: Perfect. Brilliant. I think that's a really good note to, to end on. Um, actually good bit of advice there and that we all know, and we don't, we often don't take it, but it's, yeah. Very important. So thank you.

Speaker B: Just quickly, one of the things that I want to. If you ever, If I know we're, we're on the podcast, but I'd love to do a, uh, platform engineering panel conversation with some of, some of your friends. So let's get that, let's get that organized. Yeah, my network is really into it and that's a really good segue from team topology.

Speaker A: So, yeah, absolutely perfect. We'll put with that later on then. Definitely. For sure. Thank you very much, Emily. Thank you for sharing all your valuable experiences and insights. Really interesting. Um, if, um, anyone wants to reach out to you once we release this podcast, is that. Is LinkedIn probably the best way to go?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely perfect. Brilliant. Well, thanks very much for your time.

Speaker B: Thanks, Sandra.

Speaker A: See you later.

Speaker B: Cheers.

Speaker A: Bye. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of let's Talk Leadership Podcast. I hope you found it as insightful and inspiring as I did. A huge thank you to our guests for sharing their experiences and, um, wisdom. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your network. It really helps us reach out to more readers like you. If you're interested in joining me on the podcast or have someone in mind who you think would be a great fit, feel free to reach out and get in touch as well. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, keep leading with purpose. And remember, leadership is all about learning, growing, and giving back. Take care and, um, I'll see you on the next episode. M m. It.