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Vaneese Johnson: Be irrational in the way that you think about your career, strategically choosing the right employers that allow us to unfold the passion.
Barry O'Reilly: Choosing jobs to give you the experiences that you want is actually really, really important. Why I chose to go and do Nobody Studios because it was outside my comfort zone. It's in an area that I want to explore and build skills in.

Jill Finlayson: Welcome to the Future of Work podcast with Berkeley Extension and the EDGE in Tech Initiative at the University of California focused on expanding diversity and gender equity in tech. EDGE in Tech is part of CITRIS, the Center for IT Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute. As we look forward to 2023, we'd like to close out 2022 by looking back and future casting what next year has in store for the future of work.

So we're bringing back two of our amazing past guests, Barry O'Reilly and Vaneese Johnson. Barry joined us in May for our conversation on unlearning to learn. Vaneese joined us in July and August for a conversation on developing essential people skills and being bold.

As a reintroduction, Vaneese Johnson is the boldness coach, and she helps leaders bring authenticity, intrinsic values, and new levels of engagement to their work. A lead instructor for the professional development program at UC Berkeley Extension, Vaneese also is founder of Girl, Get Your Business Straight and Girl, Get Your Career Straight. She's an expert in leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, entrepreneurship, and small business. Her book on boldisms helps folks disrupt negative self talk, treat their career like a business, and update themselves to stay competitive.

Barry is a business advisor, an entrepreneur, author who works with business leaders and teams from global organizations that seek to invent the future, not fear it. Barry is the author of Unlearn-- Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results and co-author of the international bestseller Lean Enterprise-- How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale. In addition to being a writer and speaker, he recently co-founded Nobody Studios with the goal to launch 100 companies over the next five years.

So let's get started. Where did 2022 go and what did we learn?

Vaneese Johnson: We blinked, and it was here. We blinked again, we were in the middle. We blinked again.

Jill Finlayson: Barry, how did the year go for you? Was it a blink, or was it a long journey?

Barry O'Reilly: Yeah, no, it's definitely been a personal journey for me. And in February, we moved out of San Francisco, having lived there for six years, and moved to the Philippines. My wife works for the World Health Organization. She works in emergency preparedness planning.

So we took our whole family, two small boys, and moved to Southeast Asia. So it's been packing, unpacking, getting settled in a whole new sort of region of the world and enjoying every minute of it. So it's been a lot of fun.

Jill Finlayson: Well, you certainly have had to reinvent and deal with a lot of change for sure.

Barry O'Reilly: Yeah. And again, like I always think, sometimes your environment plays such a huge influence on your outlook and your perspective and even your behavior. And one of the commitments I made to myself when we moved here is that I was going to meet one new person from Manila every week. And I was able to sort of stick with that, where it was either a Zoom call or meeting someone as the country opened up more in person and integrate myself more with some local communities here.

So lots to learn about this region. It's my first time living in this region specifically. I obviously grew up in Ireland and lived in Europe. I've lived in South America and North America, Australia. But this is my first time like really going to be in living in Asia for a number of years. So I'm looking forward to the experience that offers me and my family.

Jill Finlayson: I mean, you're taking networking to another level when meeting a whole new country and a whole new culture. Vaneese, you've been networking a lot. What has your last few weeks been like?

Vaneese Johnson: My last few weeks have been really being open and receptive to listening to my clients. I do a lot of workforce development training, a lot of career coaching, and working with groups as it relates to preparing them for the next level in the career world, or the world of work. And I've really just been opening, so kind of unlearning what I think I know and opening myself up to new ways of thinking based on the conversation, opening myself in new ways of really blue sky in the possibility of how I can help my clients, both on the corporate side and the individual side. So lots of great conversations of things that I've been learning and I'm excited to put into action as the year unfolds.

Jill Finlayson: So what would be one thing that you're being bold about and what would be one thing you're trying to unlearn?

Vaneese Johnson: Well, I'm unlearning a lot of the old ways of work, meaning still the kind of traditional ways of how to train people and to include integration and interaction into the training is what I'm bringing in now. More experiential type of training, where individuals get to bring parts of their narrative into what's possible and marry the two, so really unlearning just old ways of what training used to be like and then blue skying what's actually possible for us on a deeper level as we continue to grow.

Jill Finlayson: Amazing. And Barry, same question. What are you unlearning and what is your bold action for this past year?

Barry O'Reilly: Yeah, well, maybe it's sort of a culmination of both of them. I think the boldest bet in my life has been starting this venture studio, Nobody Studios, where we're trying to create 100 compelling companies over the next five years. And one of the things that's been truly profound about it is if we're going to create that amount of companies at the scale and volume that we're thinking about, trying to build companies the way I have always built them is not working.

It's actually-- first of all, I didn't think it would work. And now I'm positive it's definitely not going to work. So there's been a huge amount of uncomfortableness, if you will, about many assumptions that I believe thought were needed to make a great team. Like when you have a great idea, you need to have the whole team there to work on it before you start, or can you start to onboard people as the idea grows and grow the team with the idea?

It's been really interesting trying to figure that out, trying to find talent all over the world to work on these companies. And a big aha for me was reading, understanding how important my product passion fit is for people who are involved in the beginning. Sure, you can hire someone to work on the business and try and help it grow. But in its very infancy, it's so important to have people that are really passionate about the problem domain to drive it forward and almost be irrational about what it's going to take to bring that company to life.

So yeah, it's as I think I wrote even it's funny, Vaneese, here we are. Almost two years ago. I wrote this blog "The Boldest Bet of My Life." And that was starting Nobody Studios. And here you and I are on the podcast talking about boldness. So it's a nice loop to close, and there's a lot of unlearning that's gone on. And yeah, I'm excited to share and talk more about these challenges I think on the show.

Jill Finlayson: And what made you so convinced that the old model was broken? What did you see last year that confirmed that for you?

Barry O'Reilly: Like I, as guilty as anybody of falling into the trap of doing things that have brought me success in the past. But it's very different building multiple companies in parallel versus building one company as your sole focus. And that's sort of been, first of all, the curiosity part to me was like, wow, look, I've been lucky enough to be part of businesses that I've built or contributed to and grown that were very focused on a consulting business or an advisory business or a product management business.

It was very focused. But now, I'm working across lots of different companies, trying to get lots of them up and running simultaneously in parallel. And just like a lot of the things that I thought worked when you focused on one thing at a time don't work when you try to parallelize finding talent and giving people context that they can run with ideas.

So the big aha for me was just really finding this sort of product, passion, people fit has never mattered more when you're going to give people ideas and hope that they run with them and make progress. That was probably one of the big ahas for us this year, especially in the studio, is how important it is that the initial people really almost have this irrational belief in the product to bring it to life like a will when everyone says it's never going to work. No, that's not how it should be.

You really need these people who can just push through that and find the answer. Where often you have people that are hired to do the job, and they hear, oh, it's not going to work. They go, oh, OK. And that's the end. And I think that's what you see a lot of us are entrepreneurs and business founders on the show here.

So when you believe in something, Jill, like whether it's bringing this podcast to life, I'm sure loads of people told you it'll never work. It's not going the way it's going to be like that. But you have to have disbelief to push through and bring the vision to life. And I think that's what being bold to Vaneese's point and that's what it is all about.

Jill Finlayson: Yeah, so Vaneese, building off of that, he's talking about startups. But it's not that different when you start to think about individuals and following their own passion. So as you're looking back on all the people that you talked to in the past year, what doesn't work anymore? And what do we need to do differently as individuals?

Vaneese Johnson: Well, what doesn't work anymore is the complacency. The complacency with your career, as Barry talked about letting go of the old way, thinking that what I need to do best is really just sharpen my resume, pick some projects to work on, or connect with certain people within the organization, and voila, I'm on my way to the next level. So that no longer works not necessarily because the environment itself is not a great environment, but it doesn't work because the demands of the marketplace are different.

The shifting with technology, the rapid shift into digitization and AI coming into our careers. So that's been one of the things that is not working anymore is just the way that we used to work and thinking that that way is going to continue to propel you to the next level in your career. And so as I'm doing my research and preparing for programs and classes, courses next semester, is really taking a deeper dive in terms of mindset shift with really owning and managing your own career.

So we've kind of toyed with that before, saying that in the past, that you really should own your career. However, pre-pandemic, we still were giving employers that responsibility. And every now and then, we might take a little some of it back. But when COVID happened, it really put us in different spaces, like Barry is saying, is to really be irrational in the way that you think about your career.

And we've saw some of that realized as it relates to remote work, telework, hybrid forms of work. But now we need to bring that to the way we manage our career, a level of irrationality, and really blue skying how we want our career to unfold for us, what's important for us, strategically choosing the right employers that allow us to unfold the passion, like Barry said, and let that be a lead into opportunities that attract us and then opportunities that keep us and create that retention. So those are the kinds of things that are I'm really working on letting go and helping people to create irrational bold thinking.

Jill Finlayson: Barry, what are you seeing that works to get people to be, I guess, less complacent, to be more assertive?

Barry O'Reilly: One thing that really just sort of gave me tingles listening to Vaneese there was this idea of choosing jobs to give you the experiences that you want I think is actually really, really important. Like at a personal level, why I chose to go and do Nobody Studios because it was outside my comfort zone. It's in an area that I want to explore and build skills in.

I don't have all the skills to do the job I'm doing today, but sure as hell, in this job, it's forcing me to learn things that I would only learn by doing this role, by going into the unknown of company building and bringing people into the journey and fundraising and everything that goes with building a company from zero to one but a company that builds other companies. So that was really sort of attractive to me in terms of a personal growth perspective. I just don't think-- there was nothing else I could have done to give me these experiences that I've had.

So I think there's a lot to be said there, especially for people out there-- and this time of year is always so poignant. There's a lot of reflection. There's a lot of recalibration. How do I want to grow? Can my current place of work provide that? Do I need to look at other options?

Am I being forced because of a lot of attrition or even redundancies that are being forced sometimes people into this role and it can feel a bit scary? But like I guess my message would be one of hope to say whether you've chosen this opportunity, or it's been pushed upon you, I think it's a really important question, as Vaneese said, is what are the experiences you want to get out of your next role? And where is going to be the place that can give you those?

I think that's a really great framing question to write down on the blank sheet of paper that you probably are writing, whether it's December 31 or January 1 or whatever it is for you because for me personally, that was a huge guiding light to help me figure out what I'm doing now. And as hard as it is, I'm being rewarded by personal growth through the role. And so yeah, that just sort of really leapt out at me is what she was saying there from a personal point of view.

Jill Finlayson: I like that emphasis on reflection and trying to understand your values, what's aligned with your values. But change is hard. Change is very difficult, and there's risks. So how do you help people take intelligent risk, not careless risk?

Vaneese Johnson: One of the ways that we can help people and that I help people to take intelligent risks are twofold. One is really being introspective and reflective about what's important to you, what really ignites you. And that goes with the passion. And what have you been getting joy out of?

When you reflect back on your work, what parts of the work really give you joy? And really qualifying what that joy has resulted in. What does that look like? Does that joy help you to increase your performance? Does that joy excite you to learn more? Does that joy excite you to be creative?

So not just asking top layer questions but really asking deeper questions in that introspection. The other part is on the outside, we really do get to look at what the data is saying. And I don't think in the past that was a component that you put into your career management equation. You really kind of focused on what you wanted to do in that particular area of your profession, and you just kind of did a linear approach and just kind of went for it, just following the bread crumbs.

But now it's important to really look at the data in terms of what is shifting in the workforce because the profession that you're in may no longer be that attractive or in demand in the marketplace. That industry that you're in may no longer be growing at the rate that the digital skill set is required for that. Or perhaps it is growing so fast until you're realizing that the college degree that you just received now doesn't really separate you from other candidates. So it's important now to bring a data component to really managing your career so that you can be able to really take intelligent risks because you have more information to now plan with.

Jill Finlayson: Yeah, I think I always say if you know how to do your job, you've probably stayed there just a little too long. And so this idea of where do you want to go from here and how do you figure that out. Barry, do you have deep questions that help you surface what you want to do or where the data is leading you to opportunities?

Barry O'Reilly: Yeah. No, this is-- like for me, I sort of have this life mantra, which is sort of think big, start small, learn fast. And the idea being that like thinking big is important because it encourages you to be bold, to be brave, to get outside your comfort zone and challenge your assumptions. But it is also scary to take on these huge tasks that we sometimes set ourselves or these significant shifts or pivot and how we're going to approach things.

So thinking big and trying to go big straight away can actually be really difficult, really quite risky but where starting small allows you to learn quickly what works and what doesn't. So if you're interested in changing your career, and you're currently a designer, but you'd like to be an engineer, like could you do something small, like a small course on artificial intelligence for a few weeks and see how you like that? And feel successful that you're trying.

Like this is the most important thing I always think. Success is that you are just keep attempting, not the result so to speak. The results are just feedback positive, negative, I like something, I didn't like something. But what's most important is that you keep trying things to find out if you like them or not.

And I think always trying to create opportunities is one of the things I'm-- whether I'm working with people in my team, and they have growth goals and trying to create small opportunities for them to experience like what's it like to try and do fundraising, what's it like to try and hire someone, what's it like to lead a team through a facilitation session, like always trying to create these little experiences that people can have an opportunity that small means it's safe to fail. It doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world, but they get the information, to Vaneese's point, to help them inform what they might do next. So I think that's a huge part of my strategy for how I really deal with uncertainty at any level.

Jill Finlayson: Yeah, I like the idea that not making a decision is a decision. But sometimes, it's really hard to start. Vaneese, any advice on what it takes to start if you're feeling stuck?

Vaneese Johnson: If you're feeling stuck, one of the things coupled with looking at the data and being introspective is to really find communities that are like minded professionals, such as yourself. I know COVID has put us in a position, the pandemic put us in a position where we had to really isolate ourselves for a number of reasons. Now the world is opening back up, and I do want people to feel safe as I share some ideas in terms of really getting yourself into community with like minded individuals.

So just like Barry was saying, that if a person has an engineering background, but they want to learn something in the arts industry is to go and find professionals in the art community. And you're going to find that individuals will share with you like I always had a passion about this, and I didn't know where to start. So I just came here.

So getting in community is going to be really important. Volunteerism is still important and not only developing particular skills, enhancing skills. Volunteerism is also a great way for us to develop those human skills that we talked about on the prior podcast. So it's a great way to enhance emotional intelligence, thinking skills, communication skills.

All of those other components can help enhance what is possibly next for you with that big dream that you have. I want to bring something full circle for us, and Barry brought the full circle moment up. But there was a time in the workforce that a lot of professionals were saying they wanted to get into other pathways in their careers. And some of them felt very stuck, that they kept getting repetitive type jobs. And then the frustration was, well, nobody will hire me because I don't have the experience.

So now we're coming to a full circle moment where it's like you get to go out there and you get to create experience for yourself with the skill set that you want to develop and then parlay that into a career trajectory for you. So no longer should you be saddled with, well, I don't know where to start or nobody's going to hire me. I have to go back to school. There are so many ways that you can be bold and step up to the next level and start it yourself.

Jill Finlayson: I'm a big fan of what I call engineering serendipity. Encounters happen. You meet people. You see ideas and opportunities to collaborate. So I love that.

The other thing that you said, and I think this is really key, is we're coming out of what was really a period of isolation. And so as we look at the impact of COVID and the remote work environment, what red flags are we seeing about what's carrying over from COVID, or what red flags are we seeing from what is not carrying over in the workplace? So Barry, maybe you want to take that first, and then Vaneese jump in.

Barry O'Reilly: When the pandemic kicked off, I had the opportunity to work with Stephen Franchetti. He's the CIO of Slack. And we were trying to build a community because a lot of people were going from this idea of in-person office work to suddenly everything being remote. And nobody knew how to do it. Even people who thought they knew how to do it, they were self surprises too as well.

So part of that community that we would meet every month over literally from April 2020, we met for like 18 months doing this and still continue to keep in touch with a lot of those people. But sharing lessons learned through that process was really, really fascinating. And there was also a team at Slack they called the Future Forum, which is a research entity, that then started to interview a lot of these leaders.

And one of the biggest ahas from the whole process from this shift to remote work was people thought it was all about where do you want to work. That's what matters. Do you want to work at home? Do you want to-- but actually, what the huge aha was is that more people cared about when they were working, not where they were working.

And that was for me like this huge aha of hang on a sec. Actually, what suits me in my lifestyle-- like I have two small children. What actually suits me is I don't mind getting up early and doing a call from like 7:00 to 8:00 because I'm an early riser. But then I need time to shove them off to school and come home, and then I can do a whole other set of work. And then they come home, and actually, I'm really lucky, I get to play with them for like when they come in at 3:00, and I can play with them for an hour, and then they go do their thing, and I do mine for another couple hours.

And then you start thinking, that's just my home environment. Then I'm like coordinating with other people on my team and what time zones are they in. And so this was a huge aha moment for me personally and really thinking about actually, what matters is when you're working much more than where you're working, just thinking about designing my life, my all encompassing life of both my personal and family time and my career time and the exceptions that pop up and the health and wellness of activities and fitness that is important for me to perform.

So it was just-- it's really interesting now how I've designed my life much more about when I work not where I am because I live in the Philippines, and most people who talk to me today still think I'm in San Francisco, which is hilarious to me half the time.

Jill Finlayson: Yeah. And Vaneese, aha moments or red flags?

Vaneese Johnson: I'm going to shift a little bit to the employer side. I think the red flag moment has really been for employers. And I think it's really challenging employers to be in a mode of continuous change as it relates to work culture and either creating new work cultures intentionally and listening to the feedback from their employees because employers found themselves behind the eight ball when it came to the pandemic. They did these mass layoffs thinking that, OK, we can downsize and save money.

But what happened with some of those companies is that they let go senior talent that was really great. And so the thinking that they brought to that approach was we're just going to cut costs and save money because we know human capital is really expensive. So I think that was a red flag for companies to now really start to thinking about fluidity as it relates to how it manages and really partners with its employees versus the hierarchy model that had been in place since forever.

So that's a huge red flag. Companies, you cannot operate the way that you used to, and fluidity should be part of the conversation when you are strategically planning for the year ahead, as well as within the quarters and just being able to turn on a dime versus, well, let's wait and see what the market is doing.

Jill Finlayson: If I were to give you a magic wand to fix the workplace in 2023, what would you use that magic wand to do?

Vaneese Johnson: Well, I like what Barry said. And in the research, too, having non-linear workdays, asynchronous work environments are really something that is shifting now really from production to really quality, from performance to quality. So I would wave that magic wand and say, let's really look at the quality of the output and not so much the performance because people can do, do, do. And then output can be produced, but is it really good quality?

Jill Finlayson: Barry, what's your magic wand going to be used for?

Vaneese Johnson: One of the things like I personally experienced myself as well is that I've also fallen a little bit too much into the trap of doing virtual work and also substituting that for social time. I've noticed that I'm very lucky. I love what I do. I love spending time with everyone here on this show.

But we're doing it virtually at the end of the day, and there's something very unique about in-person time with people. What I have found very rewarding, and something I really have to institute and make sure I do almost every week is to go and meet people in person, go to a community event, go and meet someone for lunch or a coffee, because otherwise I'm living within like a five-meter radius of where I wake up in my house. I walk over to my office.

And if I'm well behaved, I do some exercise in the garden for the day. And that is my confined in a way. And it is amazing to have these conversations with you both and feel mentally connected. But there's also something really important about being with people for me personally. And I've probably learned that about myself is that the social interaction, whether that is a personal time or in work context or whatever it might be, it's really important for me to get outside the confines of just my mind, which is easy to stay in the virtual world all time.

So that's just another thing I sort of probably learnt my way through during the course of the pandemic. When I was forced to be away from people, I could accept it. But I've almost let the complacency, if you will, of staying in that mode stick with me when that has now changed because I can spend time with people.

Jill Finlayson: So Vaneese, if we need that in-person contact, but we want the flexibility, what are the reasons we all should come back together at the office and how much of the time do you think we need to do that?

Vaneese Johnson: I think what's really important is that humanness, that humanity is missing in the work environment. And we really do need that back on levels that work for teams, individuals in a way that we hadn't before. And we get to really think about that.

There may be opportunities for creative teams to come together and kind of cocoon on projects and perhaps counter to that activity out, where we know once a month we're going to get together for three days or for a week, and we're going to work these particular hours within the team. And the team hours could also be divided up. It doesn't have to be at one time.

I think what would be important also, too, is really being clear about what type of environment is going to support the creativity of being together. So we get to really think about how we still want to have the humanity component in work but in a way that really supports what's important to each team member. Is that going to be possible for every team member? Maybe, maybe not.

But I think just having the conversation and discussing it and taking that into consideration definitely will help and be important. So don't be afraid to put the bold idea out there and say, you know, I want to come and see you all. Let's figure out how we can make this work.

And for those individuals that aren't comfortable, depending on whatever in the background that needs to happen for them, then what way can they still be included in this working? But Barry, you're absolutely right. I spent the last quarter of this year intentionally going out to do business develop networking, human connection, getting from behind the email, getting from behind the Zoom call. And I've had the opportunity to do that out in open spaces because I want the person I'm talking to to feel comfortable.

I want to feel comfortable so we can focus and really be present in the conversation. So figure out ways that work for you to increase your human contact.

Jill Finlayson: And speaking of human contact, COVID didn't just affect where we worked. But at the same time, we had George Floyd. We had a lot of social justice issues. There was a lot of things that were going on.

We saw a reaction where there was an increase in efforts around diversity, equity, and inclusion. So I'm curious, Vaneese, from your perspective, was that a flash in the pan? Did we get real change? What is your prediction for the future?

Vaneese Johnson: Thank you. I'm glad that you're bringing this up because this is really important to really discuss. It is still the elephant in the room. I think for companies-- and this is my opinion. I think for some companies, it was a flash in the pan, and they just kind of mitigated just within the confines of that energy to do something. However, there are some companies that were doing that prior to George Floyd.

And for them, they were like, listen, we have a track record because we believed in this before anything propelled us to believe in it because of who we are. So that has become an attractive component for a lot of passionate people because they don't want to worry about do you see me, do I belong, is the environment equitable for the talents and skills that I'm bringing to your project. And it's important for companies now to really be introspective and look at their business model because when it comes to talent, I mean, there's a shortage of talent in some areas. But sometimes, the shortage in talent isn't skill-based.

Sometimes the shortage in talent is because of the cultural environments. And I think companies also that were in the flash in the pan, they were putting white men to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. And you still had people sitting in the audience like they're not getting it, they're not getting it. And so I think a lot of companies now are recognizing that in order to talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, that we really do need to have, whether that's trainers to come in or whether that's a person in the role that really reflects their employee base so that they can build trust in that way and create those environments.

You don't want your employee worrying about trusting you or worrying about do they belong. So I think it's important for companies to continue to peel the layer back but not just sit around talking about it. They need to take some small steps, as opposed to trying to get consensus. It doesn't work to get consensus.

Jill Finlayson: Yeah. And Barry, your thoughts. And this also is a big problem in startups in venture space?

Barry O'Reilly: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, like talk about pale, male, and stale like it hits home with that sort of world. But I've had very interesting experiences in my life. First of all, the last company I worked with was called Thoughtworks, and they were a really interesting company because there was always-- one of the pillars of the company was social and economic justice. It was technology running a sustainable business and social justice.

And there is always a conversation around us looking at measuring and modeling like how many males are we hiring, how many females are we hiring, what backgrounds are people from. This was always talked about it was a live conversation. And they're one of the only companies that actually published their data about hiring and makeup.

And we had literally 30% of the engineers were female, which is the highest proportion of any software company that I'm aware of. They would constantly win the awards, the Grace Hopper Award, which is about female engineers and supporting them because they put the data out there. But it was also talked about.

And that was something that really struck me. There's many companies that I'm part of where they-- to Vaneese's point, they talk about the program. They talk about training. But if I ask them what's your ratio of male to female executive team, what about engineers, what about designers, silence.

And one of the things we did-- and I credit this to Mark McNally, our chief nobody, or CEO. The third person he hired in the company was our chief culture officer, Sejal Thakkar. And Sejal's background is actually corporate attorney. She dealt with employment law.

And she was sort of at the very end of the cycle when stuff got so bad, that relationships in employment are so poor, that she often said she would find herself defending people that she could not resonate with. But her role was to defend them, because that was her job. And that inspired her to sort of leave that field altogether and start to move into she calls herself a civility officer now to try and champion some of these movements within her businesses.

But it's been fascinating working with her in Nobody Studios about just that mindset of someone who was an employment attorney now is trying to teach civility in the workplace and challenging us and our values. And we started so well in our company. Our exec team is 50/50, but we've grown very quickly, and that has now flipped.

We're about 60/40, maybe even get into 65/35. But it's a conversation that lives, that we talk about it. And for me, that feels healthy that we do it, but it's still not where we want it to be. I do recognize that this is sort of alive and well and sadly, and it's something like this complacency point is that we can't just let that be the six-month conversation, and now something else boils up to the priority.

And it has to be alive. These conversations have to live. They have to be measured. They have to be reported on. Otherwise, they don't change. And I think we've still got a huge problem in our industry of suppression ultimately of information, and that's the easiest way to not deal with the issue ultimately.

Jill Finlayson: Can you say a little bit more about integrity and ethics? Especially in light of there's been a large number of corporate layoffs and how they treat the employees that have been let go. When there's a lot of financial pressure, it seems like people aren't prioritizing responsible and ethical innovation or appropriate culture when they're feeling squeezed. So what do we do?

Barry O'Reilly: Does the saying like brass tacks-- you're right. Like this is where you get to these crucial conversations or crucial moments as a business where you sit there and go we're in a situation now where maybe we've not made as much revenue for the year. We've not made as much projections. Maybe we hired too fast. Maybe we were hopeful of growth that didn't happen.

And maybe we have this excess human capital now in our company. What are we going to do with it? Are we going to make space and take the hit and keep those people in the company, find new roles for them, make opportunities for them? And this is the harsh reality.

Like the thing that kills businesses is cash flow. If you do not have cash flow, your business dies. And often, one of your biggest capital expenses in the business is human capital. It's that simple.

But there's a dignity in explaining to people decisions and tough decisions that have to be made and putting context around it. So for me, when I've ever had to make any of these really difficult decisions in a startup because sometimes you're living from hand-to-mouth, actually bringing people into the decision that needs to be made is one of the most powerful and empowering things for everybody involved.

If the three of us were on a team, and it just happened to be my responsibility to make a call about this decision, if I sat you both down and said, hey, everyone, this is how the company is performing right now. This is the revenue that's coming in. This is the cost base that we have. These are the options about how we have to think about growing the company, sustaining the company, help you understand the context of the decision.

Here's the options we have. We could cut back on our marketing team. We could cut back on our product development team. You bring people into the context and the pros and cons of each of those decisions. You show your work. So therefore when you get to a conclusion, while it might not be perfect, and it is never perfect for everybody, if people have context about how that decision was made and that you felt considered and that there was dignity in it, like that is life.

And people will be upset with the outcome, but they can appreciate that it is a choice that has to be made. And I think that is sort of what ends up lacking. What people just see is tough decisions being made but no context shared, just a result.

So you walk into your office, and suddenly you're like, sorry, we're closing down this department. You're out of work next Friday. And that is a shock. Like, there's no context. There was no expectation. There was no understanding that this may happen, and people are totally lost with something that is very key to their whole identity, their job.

So that is not a dignified way to deal with people. And it's a tough part of leadership, getting the information sharing right. But if you're telling people a week away that they're going to have to be let go, that means you've devolved tough conversations earlier, and that, I believe, is not satisfactory.

Jill Finlayson: I love that showing your work and the emphasis on dignity, Vaneese, to some extent employees, feel a little bit more empowered. There is competition for talent. So given all of these conversations, who's kind of running the joint, who has power, how do we make sure that everybody can play?

Vaneese Johnson: It brings, too, as I was listening to Barry, it brings back up, again, the humanness, the humanity in the work environment, and how we show up for each other with compassion, with emotional intelligence and not only with those two elements, but also with support. When you're giving support to people that now are embarking on transition because, like you said, Barry, their identity, some people is wrapped up in the work that they do, but they also have a livelihood that's important for them to support.

And so when you are giving people support, meaning I've worked for an outplacement firm before where they had career coaches on the premise the day when they made an announcement, and they let people know here is how we're supporting you. This is tough. This is uncomfortable, and it hurts us as much as it hurts you. But however, we want to help you to position yourself or at least give you the resources to position yourself so that you now can be able to see what's possible for you next in your career.

So that within itself brings down the anxiety a lot. If you are helping me with workshops for reskilling, upskilling, just having that person to talk to about what I'm feeling as it relates to the workforce that I haven't been a part of because I've had this job. So I think that's really important to know that this is a way to help people to position themselves to be-- I don't necessarily want to say competitive but to position themselves to be an integral part of the evolution of the workforce.

Jill Finlayson: You kind of touched upon something that we've never really called out directly, but that's mental health and wellness. And as we think about people comparing themselves to others or feeling competitive, just wondering if you have any tips for a healthier new year. So Vaneese, we'll go to you first.

Vaneese Johnson: Yeah. The good news that I'll say is-- and a lot of the research that I did around new benefits that companies are going to be offering in 2023 because they now are really seeing the value is that mental health will now be an added component that will be part of your health care package. So mental health now is something to consider to have once a year when you're getting your physical. So I think that's really important to know that.

And as it relates to just on a personal career level, take time to really be introspective and reflective and really assess your whole year, how you've been feeling about the work that you've been doing, what impact have you been making in the world with the work you've been doing, the quality of your life from the work that you've been doing, the quality of that life that you've created from maybe family members or extensions in your family from the work that you've been doing and to really sit with that and ask yourself those questions. This is the exact direction that you go, but possibility is exploration.

When we are in the exploration energy of what's possible to us, we can feel a little better about what our future could be. And as you're in there thinking about possibility, again, peel the layer back. So if this is possible for me, what could this look like? And based on this looking this particular way, what type of resources might I need? Who are people might I want to talk with?

So as you're peeling that layer back, it just kind of breadcrumbs you to some actual actionable steps. And when you feel like you have a sense of direction with what's possible for you, again, it just takes the anxiety down. But when you're in your head about it, you're isolating yourself, you're not really qualifying the experiences that you have, it could keep your anxiety up and definitely affect your mental health.

The last thing that I'm going to say is-- this is an oldie but goodie. It's important to exercise. It's important to get out in nature, even if it just means taking a walk for 20 minutes. It's important to get out, get fresh air whenever possible, so that way you can disconnect from the digital components around us that drive the way we think and influence the way we think, but get yourself out so that you can be able to start to connect with yourself.

Jill Finlayson: I love those suggestions. And they really hearken to Barry's advice of start small but start. Barry, what are your final resolutions or recommendations?

Barry O'Reilly: I can really only underline a lot of what Vaneese has said. The biggest sort of levers for me, I would say, was designing how I wanted it and where I wanted to spend my time and journaling. I can't state how helpful both of those activities were for me and continue to be, to be honest.

And yeah, like a little bit of every spice, as you say, a little bit of exercise, a little bit of social time, work time, family time. A lot of these things are important and different emphasis for different people. But I think knowing what that looks like for you. I think is super key and journaling, for me, then is like closes the feedback loop on that because you reflect. You write down both how you're progressing and what you're learning.

Jill Finlayson: What's one or two words for your prediction of what 2023 is going to be like?

Barry O'Reilly: For me, it's wow. Like I just think the most interesting wow for me so far already is just seeing what ChatGPT is doing in terms of AI, like creating loads of content. So I think we've just tipped over here where people are actually going to experience real technology innovation in ways that they didn't even think was possible in a very tactile way with an AI content production. So whether it's artist, visuals, or written content, I think people are just going to be blown away next year by that.

Jill Finlayson: Blown away. Vaneese, 2023.

Vaneese Johnson: My word for 2023 is possibility. I just encourage people to really live in the space of possibility and ask open-ended questions when they are in the space of possibility and allow it to unfold.

Jill Finlayson: Fantastic. Thank you, Vaneese. Thank you, Barry. I really appreciate you joining us and reflecting and looking forward to a new year and sharing all those words of wisdom to help people get started. And with that, I hope you enjoyed this latest in a long series of podcasts that we'll be sending your way every month.

Please share with friends and colleagues who may be interested in taking this Future of Work journey with us. And make sure to check out extension.berkeley.edu to find a variety of courses to help you thrive in this new year. And to see what's coming up at EDGE in Tech, go ahead and visit edge.berkeley.edu. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll be back next month to talk about trust and the workplace. Until next time.

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