GitLab Learning and Development Live Speaker Series Recordings, 9 Mar 2022

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From YouTube: Live Speaker Series - Lavinia Mehedintu, Communicating your All-Remote Career Development

Description

This speaker series is part 3 of a 4-month all-remote communication speaker series hosted by the Learning and Development team at GitLab.

Learn more about career development at GitLab in our handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/career-development/

A

Case you've never been to a speaker series call by the learning and development team, I'm just going to do like a quick overview of what these calls are for and then I'll introduce our speaker and we'll get right to it. So this is a live speaker series hosted by the learning and development team.

A

We try to do these about once a month and we bring in really amazing external speakers from all different industries to come and share their expertise about whatever their focus area is and right now we're in the middle of a four part series on all remote communication, and so we've had two sessions. Already we had one session about video communication in an all remote space.

A

We had a session that was about text-based communication and today our speaker here, her name is lavinia and she is here to talk about career development conversations and communicating your career development in an all-remote space.

A

I'm really excited to be putting on this series we're going to have one more session, that's happening in april that will close out the all remote communication series and if you haven't attended the two that I just mentioned, um we always record these sessions and we share them on our youtube channel and in the handbook, and so, if you want to catch them, um I will add the links to the previous sessions in the meeting agenda for today.

A

A quick note about the structure of these calls. So this is me giving an introduction to let people trickle in and make sure everyone's here on time in a minute or so I'm going to turn it over to lavinia to introduce herself and then for the first about 20 minutes.

A

I have three predetermined questions and we'll do kind of an interview back and forth with myself and libya answer answering those questions at the end of those questions which yeah should take about 20 minutes, we'll move to team member questions and there's a section in the document for you to add your questions like in ama style and greg has already added one in there.

A

So if you have questions that come up as we're talking feel free to add them to the bottom of the agenda and then we'll get through as many as we can until the end of the meeting at 45 minutes past and yeah I'll remind you after the second question, or so. If new people join to add any questions that you have for lavinia um and then I think that's all um so I am going to pass it over to lavinia to introduce yourself before we get into the first question.

A

B

Hello, everyone: I am lavinia, I'm from bucharest, romania, I've been designing, learning programs and career development programs for about 10 years now, both in higher education and in a corporate setting.

B

Right now I went all by myself and I'm building a platform for learning and development professionals such as samantha to upskill themselves and yeah just make sure that they are ready to build a nice learning programs. Nice, useful learning programs for for their colleagues yeah. I'm super passionate about the subject so really excited to ask to answer your questions and yeah. Just tell you some some of the thoughts I have.

A

Yeah cool well, I've been following lavinia for a while on linkedin and was really excited when she said yes that she'd come chat with us today, so really looking forward to this conversation.

A

um Okay, so this first question that I have for you is: um how does self-talk and your own personal perspective impact your career development goals and also, if we can talk a little bit about how we can shift our internalized thoughts to benefit our career growth.

B

Yeah, so I I really think everything starts with us honestly, and I do know that at gitlab you have this. This sense of ownership over your career and you're, trying to yeah just help people own their their journey. So it's a great place to just start, um and I have three thoughts on that. The first thing is about the usual suspect, which is growth mindset.

B

Like do I believe that I can grow that I can learn all the things that I need to progress, my career and what the theory says is that in a fixed mindset, it's your beliefs are a lot about talent. So, if I have talent, I can do that. If I don't, I won't be able to to learn and to to grow, because, if you're in a fixed mindset, you believe that effort and challenges are not something that that you need.

B

Basically, because you have this idea of talent and we've been taught in school, that talent is so important and when you're in a fixed mindset, maybe asking for feedback might come really hard and embracing challenges and opportunities might come really hard, because if you do that, you might fail, and if you, if you fail, it's just a mistake, you've done you, you are in this negative space and yeah you, you just can't grow, whereas in the growth mindset, you are really aware that your growth comes in incremental steps not overnight, and that you need you need to put in the the effort, and you know the the hard work to to actually yeah learn and develop your your career and yeah.

B

Honestly. The the next follow-up question that comes after presenting this fixed versus growth mindset is okay, but how do I get into the growth mindset and for the sake of the conversation, let's say that we are all in the fixed mindset and um I I think it's a lot about reflection.

B

First, it's about how we talk to ourselves, what we constantly repeat in in our minds and what I've observed in my case and in other people's cases, is that we're so we're constantly in this rush of getting things done, and we often don't take the time to just you know, take a break and think about all the things that come come through through our minds and this skill, maybe you've heard of it before is called metacognition, is thinking about thinking and what metacognition does to us is help us be more aware about who we are and how we react to our internal and to internal and external factors, and there are so many ways to to train.

B

uh You know this muscle of metacognition and they range from more complex processes like going through through therapy or having a coach to more simple things. You can do like journaling on your own or having conversations about yourself and what's happening to you with friends or co-workers or your manager as well.

B

But my belief is that mindset shift is one of the hardest changes we we can embark on and we need to be realistic when we, you know, try and and change our mindset, because, if we're not- and we don't see that change overnight change, we might give up. So just be aware that if you try to to change your your mindset, it's going to take time and and hard work and just shifting how you talk to yourself and just out of my own experience, uh I was so shocked to you know.

B

Listening to my thoughts being more aware of what I'm telling myself and hearing how many bad things. I I tell myself and obviously it's not enough- and I did this exercise where I just wrote the bad things.

B

I was telling myself and then wrote down exactly what I want to to to tell myself- and I was just I remember, being in my car and driving and saying those things out loud, because you know you've been telling bad things to yourself for for so long that your neural pathways are are so you know ingrained in in your brain and to unlearn those yeah. It just takes time and and intentional effort to do that and yeah.

B

The the the other good thing about metacognition is that it helps with what it's called self-authorship and self-authorship means being aware of your beliefs, your attitudes, your principles, your values, what you want in life and, ultimately, what you want in in your career and why? I think it's really really important to have self-authorship, especially now, is because we have so much information.

B

You know we take in about other people's careers both externally and internally, and you know we we might be prone to follow those paths that seem cool to others or seem fulfilling to others, but might not be fulfilling for ourselves.

B

So having self-authorship knowing who you are and what you want, will help you with making the right decisions for for your career, so yeah I've talked a lot about it's.

A

A subject I really love yeah. No, this is awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that and I feel like it's just making me think of two things. I think that the self-authorship is really fascinating and I will have to go read more up on it, because I you know conceptually understand what you're saying but haven't heard the phrase before and would love to go.

A

Learn more about that, because I think it does really align to like what career development is like here at gitlab, and I think that as individual team members there's like support from leadership and managers to grow your career and that kind of support probably looks a lot different, depending on who your manager is.

A

But there's also like some serious onus on individuals to be the ones to lead those conversations, and so I think that that's a really important attitude to have towards career development here and then I also just wanted to share because it's cool how related it is.

A

I was listening to a podcast yesterday and I can't remember the title, but it was about the conversations like that we have with ourselves and like the stories we tell ourselves, and one of the exercises they shared was like thinking about the kind of person that you want to become like whether that's in your career or just in your life, or you know the kind of friend or partner or parent whatever that you want to become and then like think about how that person would talk to themselves and then practice talking to yourself like that, and I thought that that was a really like interesting exercise.

A

To kind of have this almost idealized version of whatever goal you have and trying to think about how that person would talk to themselves. Nice.

B

A

B

It's a very common exercise in in coaching, usually, you know envisioning, who you want to be and actually building a small step to to reach that that person yeah nice.

A

Thank you, yeah great okay. I'm gonna move this on to this second um question, which doesn't feel like a supernatural shift from the conversation we just had, but we'll go with it anyways. um So the question is what makes career conversations with managers in an all remote workspace difficult um and then also, if you want to talk about this at the same time, is how can managers support their ics individual contributors to have these career conversations.

B

Yeah, it's a really nice question for everyone honestly, so I think everyone here might have some some thoughts on on difficult. What makes remo remote career conversations difficult. um My first thoughts are first about something: that's called proximity bias and proximity. Bias basically means giving preferential treatment to those that are closest to you and in remote workplaces it doesn't, it's obviously not about physical. You know contact, but rather about those people that are outspoken, maybe or those people that are.

B

um You know you work as a people manager, at least you work close with them for a longer period of time because of their role, different projects, you're, managing and so on. So I think that's really hard to as a people manager, at least to be aware that you might be prone to proximity bias and I've heard some people say, oh, but that doesn't happen to me, but you're, a human being. It might happen to you as well and yeah.

B

uh This is the first one uh and the second thing it's something really interesting and I've been reflecting upon it, because I I was a people manager in a remote space, and what I saw is that it's difficult to build trust in remote, not difficult, but maybe it takes longer to build trust in remote workplaces, because trust is a lot about.

B

You know personal relationships, vulnerability, human interaction, more than you know just having talks about projects and goals and responsibilities and so on, and what I think is that in on-site um workplaces, these uh natural, this personal interactions, happen more organically, because you know you commute with peers and with maybe with your manager.

B

You have, I don't know you go to the gym together after work or you have your coffee or your cigarettes together with them and those yeah. Those just happen organically, whereas when it comes to remote workplaces, I think you need to be a bit more intentional, as a people manager in building those spaces where people can interact with each other.

B

Personally, like happy hours like all hands like one-on-one conversations, or you know just five minutes before starting the call to just rant or or talk about how you've been doing so yeah and to answer your your your second question, apart from you, know, building these in intentional um spaces for a personal connection which, in my opinion, leads to more trust and people being more open to share their dreams.

B

You know how they envision their career, because that's that's not always easy to do. You know because you're you're so vulnerable when you do it. um So that's one thing people managers can do and the second thing which I'm pretty sure you have you have at gitlab, is having a common process among all your individual contributors. So, no matter how outspoken some people are or how close you work with them, you need to have, I don't know, one-on-ones or regular career conversations with them to make sure that you first encourage them to be.

B

You know to have that self-authorship. I was talking about first, because you won't be so close to them to observe them constantly how how they grow and what they need. So they need to have that you know, so you have to encourage self-authorship and then just track their progress and know how you can help, because some some people might need you to be a coach. Some people might need you to be a mentor.

B

Some people might need you to be just a sponsor for them, because they're more senior and they know what they want- and you know you you just pair them with certain projects, so yeah encourage self self authorship and be aware of of their their needs, not.

A

B

Answered your question, but yeah.

A

No you have. This is great. I think that the discussion about like proximity bias is really important too, because and it's like a new way to frame it for me because um yeah in an all remote space, we the time that we spent that we spend with other team members, is almost always focused on projects and that's how we get to know each other um and maybe through, like tmrgs and other like kind of social calls, but the people that we're around the most, like that's kind of like our own.

A

You know bubble of awareness within the company.

A

Maybe that happens in office spaces as well, but I think it's so important to be aware of that and know that, just because we don't see these people all the time or we don't see what they're doing and especially as as managers, especially maybe if you manage a large team and you work more closely with some of your direct reports than others being aware of those relationships that you have, how they're influencing the conversations that you're, having and leaning into like consistent systems that will help you avoid the proximity bias taking over right because, like we're, probably we're all like prone to like calling for a bias or believing a bias as truth.

A

But if we can have systems that are built to avoid that bias and we use those systems correctly. It sets us up for a little bit.

B

Yeah yeah and just coming back to your your first question and my answer, I think in a remote workplace where again, your manager is not always close to you or doesn't observe your interactions with others as as often as you as it might happen on site. You really need to again be aware of yourself be aware of what you need uh just communicate. Those needs honestly, and you know I was thinking that it doesn't even matter how you on which channel you communicate.

B

You know because we we had that chat uh about uh or the two of us about acing versus uh synchronous communication and maybe even async systems can work for career development uh as well like having your plans written, sending them over to your people manager. Just so you know they know you're you're on track your your your keep grow, you keep growing and and so on so yeah. I think it's really important. Being the owner of your career in remote workplaces.

A

Yeah and I'll just add a just, a quick plug for the career development and mobility resources that we have in case. There are team members on here who haven't used them before or maybe you're new, and you didn't know that we had them, but we have a few different formats that you can use and also you're welcome to create your own format to have your own. um You call them individual growth plans and it's linked up at the top of the dock in the gitlab team member resources. Section so check that out.

A

If you are, you know needing like a some sort of system to start this, you know self authorship of your career.

A

um Okay, before we move on to this last question, I'm just going to remind anyone if you have questions that you want to ask lavinia, um please put them at the bottom of the dock and we'll get to them for this last question from me: um okay, so this last question from me- and this kind of um you know the way that we kind of structured these these questions and relating career development to communication was like.

A

How do we communicate to ourselves and like this internal talk to our managers and the people that we work closely with at gitlab and then externally to like our larger network to the world, whoever you want to communicate to, and so this question is like that third level, and so I'm wondering what kind of impact does sharing career development externally have on your long-term growth and then also, if you can speak about how you can share it efficiently and effectively, um especially like maybe for people who you know, don't love sharing on linkedin like.

C

A

Know if that's like, not something that they love to do.

B

Yeah awesome yeah, so I'm uh I might be biased here. I have to say, because I I am a promoter, I've been doing this for a while, and I am a promoter of you know, sharing your your work out there um and I think there are so many so many benefits to doing that.

B

uh The first one I can think of is related to your own learning process, because the truth is that when you go out there and share your knowledge, you need to kind of double check, to make sure that you know you're, not bullshitting people or something. So it's it's a good way to be aware of what you know of what you don't know yet, and you might you know you might want to double check before before, putting your knowledge out there. So yeah, it's just a good measure of of your your learning journey.

B

So that's the first one, the second one and which I think is so so important. Is that sharing your knowledge out? There is also an invitation to others to build upon it. So you know you say something. Let's give the linkedin example, because that's the fresh in my mind, the one fresh in my mind, so you say something linkedin and someone comments and with an insight.

B

And then you comment and it starts this loop learning loop on building on on each other's knowledge, which I think it's it's a really great growth tool for for everyone, social learning and yeah. The third one, which might be really obvious, is that you'll be more visible for different opportunities and I think both for internal mobility opportunities and for the external ones. You know, if you you choose to go to in yeah, go to another organization or just you know be involved in a in another project.

B

People will know that you have a certain expertise and you could help in in different settings and for the second question, it's funny, because I keep going back to self-authorship, because I think it's really important um because you you asked: how can you communicate effectively and again?

B

I think it's really important to know what you want to communicate, which are your career goals to you know, choose even the the channel you use because you mentioned linkedin might not be the best for for everyone yeah just it will help you choose your channel and it will help you choose the topics you want to talk about being having that that awareness of of who you are- and there are so many you know so many ways of doing that, like so many spaces created right now, maybe you know 20 years ago.

B

It would have been a problem, but right now, honestly, if you want to go out there yeah, maybe linkedin is not the best option, but you have communities of practice, for example, which I think they are great and I I know their their community communities of practice out there for literally everything and, in my opinion to actually you know, be effective in engaging in communities of practice.

B

You just you, don't have to be just a stalker, I I have to say like just watching threads and watching what other people are asking and answering, but rather be involved. Like choose one community of practice that you you actually like, and it's useful for you and get actively involved in it like you know, host sessions or offer your support or yeah just answer questions and all that just be a bit more active than you would usually be in other communities where you're just maybe they are not your the focus of your career and yeah.

B

All the learning building and the working out loud movement is is out there. You can I've seen this example, so so interesting example of one person who opened a blog and it wasn't for other people. It was just for themselves to reflect upon their learning journey. You know, so that's that's even a thing right now and yeah. If you want to build something that then there's the building out loud program where you actually can get feedback on on your work and so yeah, there are amazing opportunities out there.

A

Yeah, that's awesome. It makes me think a couple months ago I had a conversation with someone who used to work at gitlab and she- and I were talking about how important it is to like, grow your career brand, both internally and externally,.

D

A

That and making sure it like aligns with where you want to go, and so, like you know, internally, if you are working towards moving to a different department right, you want to like be involved in those conversations that that department is having, and so people start to associate like you, with whatever department you're trying to go to and the same for external and she like her reminder of how important that is internally as well.

A

I thought was really great and I think at gitlab we use slack for a lot of conversation and we use issues as well, um and so I think the fact that we work so transparently and like if I wanted to become an engineer I could be following along with those engineering conversations whenever I want to and be contributing to them.

A

As I saw opportunities to which I think is a a way that you, you know, if you don't, if you don't love linkedin and you want to grow at gitlab, specifically there's opportunities for you to kind of build those communities within the company using the transparent communication that we're already using.

B

Yeah and I I've seen your handbook on career development and I've seen you have like so many opportunities for like. I really appreciate how many opportunities you have um compared to other companies like I've seen you have internships and you give people the space to work on on projects that are not. You know within their team, um yeah just being out there involved, just like you mentioned in different projects and even helping out or being an apprentice. You know. That's that's a great way to show your interest in growing internally.

A

Yeah yeah great um okay, so we have just about 15 minutes left of the call and we've got two questions, and so I'm going to see if these people are on the call and want to voice their questions and greg, it looks like you have the first one: uh do you want to come off me and and ask your question greg?

A

If not, I can voice it for you.

C

Yeah, that's the problem um hi. I I had a question around when it's okay to start those conversations um if you just join gitlab, especially when uh what you're hoping to, I suppose go to is in another department, because that seems awkward right anyway.

B

Yeah yeah, so um honestly, my first thought would be like as early as possible because for for two reasons first, even if you want to move to another department, your people manager might be, you know, might have the connections you need to. Actually you know reach your your goal and move to that other department and because for as a former people manager, what I can say is that it's fine for me to know that you want to move to another department, because I can prepare beforehand.

B

You know like I have the comfort of of knowing you have that intention and yeah. I won't be surprised with you just coming. You know tomorrow I want to to move into marketing department or or any other department. You know, so I would say as early as possible to make sure that you receive the support you need and for you know, to give some comfort to your people manager as well.

B

A

B

You have uh an answer as well.

A

Yeah, I just added an example in here, um because we encourage, like team members to start having their career development, career development conversations with their manager really early, because it's a big part of your of your growth here at gitlab, making sure that you are on a path to grow the career that you want to, while you're here and as an example.

A

um The learning and development team has a job specific onboarding issue, as a lot of teams do and one of the tasks like in new for new team members on the learning and development team within their first three months. One of their tasks is to have a career development conversation with their manager and to work on their individual growth plan and so like right from the start, we're like wanting team members to be thinking about where they see themselves growing and developing here at gitlab and so yeah.

A

Just encouraging that early conversation and then I also linked um earlier. I don't know. Maybe it was august of 2021.

A

We did a couple of trainings about how to have career development conversations and they were recorded and so greg. If you weren't here, then you can go and watch that recording and it would give you some like tips on how you could bring up your first career development. Conversation.

C

Sure, that's that's great thanks that helps.

A

Thanks for the question greg uh jerome, you have the next one. Do you want to voice it.

E

Yeah happy too um well hi lavinia, uh thanks for the I was I was enjoying the bit around um fixed and growth mindset and um yeah. Thanks for sharing your ideas of how we cultivate in ourselves.

E

I guess I was just interested in you know if you're working with someone else, whether that's in the direct reports or some in your team, it could even be something outside. You know. Maybe a family member, but have you seen anything any sort of tactics, work to help encourage people to move out of a fixed mindset.

B

Yeah, that's that's a hard one. um The the first thought that comes to mind is that just telling them will never work. You know that's the the basics but being kind of a coach to them more than you know, telling them and often um it. I have this idea of holding the mirror in front of them. You know so they they listen to themselves and just voicing voicing out their thoughts like repeating with your own words what you're hearing you know.

B

So what I'm hearing is that you're saying that this won't help you blah blah blah, also asking them about different um opportunities in their lives where they thought they couldn't make it they couldn't learn and so on, and they they did.

B

I think it reinforces this this self-efficacy, you know I I can do this because I've done it in the past and the third thing that comes to mind- and I have to go back to social learning- is encouraging them to be in places that, where people you know have this not particularly it's not like, I, I will say I have growth mindset, but rather act in that way like they constantly learn, because, usually you know when we're in social social settings that uh you know embrace learning we're gonna emulate that those behaviors uh as well.

E

Awesome yeah. That's really interesting. um Yeah very helpful.

A

The part about like sharing back what you are hearing as well, makes me think of a training that we do at gitlab called crucial conversations and one of the likes. I can't remember what they call that strategy.

A

um I think they call it mirroring like you were just saying yeah where, like by saying that you give the person the opportunity to either say like yes, that is what I said or to say. No, that's not what I meant to say like what I actually meant was and then you know they go on to read what you're talking about, and so it's like a really great tool to use.

A

If you're, having a conversation where you want to encourage that person to you know, to redefine what they're saying or to be more get more clear on what they're trying to communicate.

B

Actual has a question as well.

A

Yeah, actually, you want a voice.

D

Yeah yeah, thank you very much lavinia for for this conversation, so um one of the problems that I see is not is less related with growth mindset, but more like uh people is very busy on every day. You know in in the task issues that they are trying to resolve and the the problems.

D

So uh the approach about career development is more like one-off thing. Do you know like do you think at one moment, or maybe you have one conversation, but what I'm considering more difficult is to have an ongoing thing, not not from the manager, because the manager, maybe is very aware about you, know having this conversation or like uh up stealing people, but it's more like for direct reports like how this can be an ongoing thing for them. You know like switching from one of them to like an ongoing thing like how.

D

How do you think that we can approach this change on on the mindset.

B

Yeah, that's that's a very good question and honestly, a very common problem. I've seen um you mentioned that it it's not about the people managers but, in my opinion it can people. Managers can do something to influence that, and first is the most basic one like having making sure that you have those conversations. Even honestly, even if it's five minutes ten minutes out of a personal conversation, you have with your direct reports just asking okay, what are your plans?

B

What, where are you right now and um you know making sure that out of those conversations they take specific actions and you don't have to tell them which actions, but rather okay, now that we've talked about this?

B

What are you going to do until our next conversation to make sure that you, you can progress in your goal and that will you know it will give people the the sense and the idea that it's expected of them to work on their goals beyond just having the conversations with managers and more going beyond that give feedback, like, I think, giving feedback to to people it's a very, very powerful tool um and yeah.

B

You know it is this feeling that making a career shift or learning should be this huge event, that's happening in your life, where truth is even if you first, even even if you have five ten minutes one hour out of your day when you just read the book or you're engaged in a certain project, and so on that that can help you, you know, and you you need to have the ability to reflect on the impact those interactions will will have on your career growth, and another thing is that even being involved in certain projects will help you, like you, don't have to take those 10-5 minutes if you're busy, but the question is how how does being involved in certain projects at gitlab, for example, you know, may helps me in my career development and uh having again self-authorship and ownership.

B

I can go to my people manager and ask okay. I have these goals, which types of projects projects should I take in to make sure that they are a boost for my career development, and if, because your question is okay, I don't people, maybe don't have those abilities just frame them. Like this, when you give them a new project, make them aware that that will help that their career development as well yeah, so rambling thoughts, but.

D

Yeah no thank you. Yeah very good.

A

Yeah, I think that's great, because it's more it's more than just saying, like you need to take this course to grow your career. It's like telling the story about what projects you're working on and how those are contributing to your career growth. Even if they're part of your role, description right, it doesn't have to be like a thing.

A

It's like what you're learning in that project, and then I also I just linked there's a section in the handbook about suggested agenda headers for one-on-one meetings and if you are a people manager or if you're, an individual contributor like I, I organize my one-on-one doc with my manager, and I think that a lot of or maybe most individual contributors at gitlab do that.

A

um There's a suggested like header that you can use and my manager and I recently started using it, and one of them is called performance management which um I think like could stay or could also be renamed as career development and my manager, and I have a section. We don't talk about it on every one on one, but it's there in the agenda for every one-on-one, and so it reminds us like. Oh yeah. We should be talking about this really consistently.

A

We're just about at time I don't see any more questions in the document, so I'll wrap um this up, and just thank you lavinia for being here.

A

This was a really great conversation and it's been cool to kind of see how how, like you know, we've thread mindset through the discussion, and I think that there's been some really great ideas, and you know this is that you've shared that members of this fall and anyone watching the recording will really be able to kind of use in their day-to-day work at get lab and in their career growth beyond giving. So thank you so much for being here with us.

B

Thank you thank you for for having me uh it's honestly, an honor. I appreciate your your work uh so much and yeah. If anyone here wants to connect beyond this call, yeah just pick me on linkedin and I I can help. However,.

A

Yeah, however, you'd like right, thank you and your linkedin profile is linked in the agenda. So if anyone wants to connect with lavinia, you can find it in there um yeah. Thank you again thanks everybody for attending and making time to be here. Hope you enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you all soon bye. Thank you.