Introduction

[00:00:00] This is the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet episode 47 .

[00:00:05]

Show Teaser over Music

[00:00:15] Welcome to the engineering and leadership podcast. The show dedicated to helping engineering leaders thrive today. I speak with strategy and leadership specialist, Pamela Kellert, about what it takes to better manage international. Hi everyone. And welcome to the show. Very, very happy to have you long again, for another episode of the engineering and leadership podcast, excited also to be sharing an interview with my friend, Pamela Kellard. It had been quite a while since she and I had had a chance to, to get together and chat. She and I used to work together. So

[00:00:55] Really fun to get caught up and hear about, uh, the kind of work that she's into now. And especially, especially during these times of COVID this discussion around managing international teams and teams that are not only not co located, but are spread throughout the globe. Very interesting stuff, very practical advice that she gives.

[00:01:15] But before we get to that, a few housekeeping. Items, sundry items, things wanted to share with you. Uh, first of all, thank you so much to everyone who came out to the latest webinar that Jeff Perry and I had done on the challenges and opportunities of the great resignation. We had a really good turnout, really interesting conversation, really engaged session.

[00:01:37] If you didn't have a chance to join us for that fear not for we recorded the webinars. So, uh, I'll be leaving a link to that in the show notes. You'll be able to check that out at your leisure. Another thing I wanted to mention is that I recently had the opportunity to join Isaac Oakson on his podcast called the civil engineering academy podcast.

[00:01:57] We had a lot of fun with that chat and the episode is really interesting in that it's not specific to civil engines. Only, but certainly if you are a civil engineer, I would absolutely encourage you check out that podcast again, that's the civil engineering academy podcast with Isaac Oakson, uh, I'll be adding a link to that in the show notes as well.

[00:02:19] Nothing that I wanted to share big news coming soon. Very soon. I'm not quite there yet have so close, but I'm going to be launching my long anticipated productivity for engineering managers online course, that should be coming out very, very soon. You are an engineering manager or a leader, and you don't find there are enough hours in a day.

[00:02:39] I can guarantee that at least some of you are nodding your heads right now, listening to this, this course is for you, uh, all the details, everything you need to know, including early access and an early bird discount. You can get that through my newsletter engineering leadership weekly, and that's a free newsletter.

[00:02:57] If you don't already subscribe. Please do that's the best way to find out about what all was going on in the engineering and leadership project universe. So do check that out. Engineering and leadership.com/e L weekly. And finally, I wanted to say, thank you. Thank you very, very much because you have helped me in a very big way. We recently crossed the hundred thousand download mark for the podcast, which certainly in, in the grand scheme of things in the world of podcasting, there are lots of podcasts that have tens and hundreds of millions of downloads, but to be a small.

[00:03:32] Independent podcast to hit a hundred thousand downloads. I'm super excited about that. And I have you to thank for that for being part of this process, part of this community. And I'm really looking forward to hitting the next a hundred thousand and who knows maybe, maybe one day we'll get million downloads, which would be an awful lot of fun.

[00:03:50] All right. Let's jump to the main content for today.

Guest Introduction

[00:03:52] With the world becoming increasingly interconnected and co-location becoming less and less critical to business operations, engineering organizations everywhere are transcending national boundaries. Well organizations absolutely benefit from finding talent globally and integrating a diversity of thought and background into the ranks.

[00:04:23] Managing international teams is incredibly. Not only the engineering managers need to sort out the intricacies of remote work, cultural and linguistic differences also need to be considered carefully as well. Managers who succeed in balancing all this and having engaged, thriving, high performance teams, managers who don't, however can quickly find themselves in a world.

[00:04:46] Today's guest Pamela Kellert has made a career out of managing large global technical teams and a number of different industries in today's interview. She shares her insights into how to better manage international teams. Pamela is a seasoned strategic leadership expert with over 15 years of experience, working in strategy, business development and project delivery to head diverse teams, leading organizations across Australia.

[00:05:14] Europe and north America today, Pamela focuses on helping female professionals in stem sectors. Grow into senior leadership roles by teaching them strategic non-technical skills, critical for success. Here's my interview with.

Interview

[00:05:34] Pamela Kellert, welcome to the Engineering and Leadership Podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to have you here today.

[00:05:40] Thank you, Pat. It's my pleasure to be here today. Thank you for having me

[00:05:44] uh, I'm very, very excited about this, excited to, to reconnect with you after a number of years. And, and you're calling in from Germany today, uh, and I'm here in Halifax and east coast of Canada. And that I think, I think it's great because it sets the scene for the subject for today, which is managing international team.

[00:06:02] Before I start, uh, asking questions about this. I I'd love, I'd love it. If you could take a minute and kind of share your story and kind of your background and how does you built up this expertise in, in managing international teams and, and global organizations?

[00:06:17] Sounds good. Thanks pat. Um, look, I think it started really already with my background. I was originally born in Bolivia then moved to Germany. And so I'm growing up with two cultures and two languages already naturally was a, a normal thing for me. And the later on I started international management. And it's really through the, those studies that I, um, started working in international teams already at university.

[00:06:41] And, and that took over too, into my professional time as well, but it really started already when I was a child, as a child already having to live, you know, with a, a home that has the Bolivian values, south American, um, lifestyle in Germany, uh, which both have very different colleges as you can imagine. So that was a way to stop.

[00:07:03] Yeah. Progressed into your professional life as well. If I understand things correctly, you've really, um, you've, you've covered the four corners of the globe. You you've, you've been everywhere. You've done some really interesting things. What, what are some, some of the highlights for you in terms of, uh, your, your career and how it's giving you the chance to see the world?

[00:07:22] The thread look, I think, um, for one, I was just always interested in working in international teams and working in different countries. I was always fascinated by understanding how different cultures work. So it was really me actively looking for international, um, opportunities, which was my studies. And then they later on in the profession, Um, when I had the opportunity to move, for example, to Asia, specifically to Malaysia, um, I directly jumped on it because it was a great opportunity to get to know Malaysia.

[00:07:54] And with that also Asia and later on, I moved also to Australia. What fascinates me? Understanding how people work, how people think, what they value, because you see as leaders we really need to get into, how do we motivate people? How do people actually work with each other and try and find ways how we can motivate in and getting them to work together.

[00:08:19] So having an exposure to those different areas and regions. the world?

[00:08:24] was fascinating for me because I got to understand how different people think, what they value, how they communicating. So those were various different aspects. And I think now that I've worked, yeah, not only in Asia, Australia, but also in Canada, I can really see that there are a couple of really important topics that we need to look after when we lead us.

[00:08:45] And when we're managing international teams,

[00:08:47] Absolutely. Well, let's get into that. What, what would you call kind of the big, the, the big ideas or the big themes that are important to bear in mind when, when managing an international.

[00:08:58] Yeah. I find that that's three big areas that we really need to look after. And, um, I'll just break them down. One is. Goals and strategy and having clarity about what are the goals and the strategy for that particular team. The second is building trust. And the third one is what I'll call cultural engagement and I'll, I'll walk through those themes.

[00:09:22] Great.

[00:09:23] First one is the one about goals and strategies. Th, uh, team meets a purpose, right? A team only comes together because they have one giant purpose. So clarifying what the common goal is, is really essential in order to have the team cohesion, because if people are not clear what the common goal is, then they might just walk off and run off in different, different directions.

[00:09:47] So that is really important clarifying the project goals and the risks. And the next step is to breaking it down into what the individual. Uh, distributed around the globe, what their contribution is, what the staff task, what is their scope and what is it that they need to deliver in order for the overall goal to work.

[00:10:07] Right? And it's only that breakdown into tasks for the single teams and then each individual that can help us lead us also to create accountability. Right, because in order to achieve the overall goal, we actually need to break it down in several tasks and ultimately, um, what packages run. So that I think is one of the most important things.

[00:10:29] Also clarifying what the common goal is. Whenever there is a conflict, uh, later on, and we might talk about a conflict later on, whenever there's a conflict, we can always resolve it by reminding ourselves what is actually the goal that we're trying to achieve. Because even though international teams might be distributed across the globe and across different time zones.

[00:10:53] The one thing that the team needs to realize is we're in the same boat, right? We're all rowing towards the right, the same goal and we both, or all three or four one, or achieve exactly the same thing. So clarifying that goal and the strategy, how we want to get there is absolutely essential.

[00:11:10] I wanted to, I wanted to pick up on, um, on a word you used that, that I think is an interesting one, an important one that is risk, because I could see how in, in different cultures and different work practices, uh, a view of, and tolerance for. Risk could be very different depending on, on the cultural environment.

[00:11:31] Is this, is this something you've, you've seen yourself and, and if so, how do you manage that? How do you get people on the same, uh, on the same page with respect to, you know, evaluating uncertainty and the, and the badness of particular risks.

[00:11:46] That's a great, um, topic you're raising because yes, risk is really something that depending on the culture can be assessed and valid in a very different way. So it's important to, to standardize the same view across all the teams that are involved and you can do it by, for example, um, let's say you're working on a project with chest liquidated damages for late delivery, and, uh, some conscious might just have a different interpretation.

[00:12:11] Off times and delivery timelines. Right. But if we explain to all the team members, what the actual financial consequences are of late delivery, then we create a common understanding for everyone. And I think it's that creating the common, understanding clarity and visibility of things that helps us to bring everyone on the same page.

[00:12:33] Right. And you've already used that word a couple times is clarity, right? It sounds like being as conscious. Uh, as possible is super, super important here. What was the, uh, what was the second theme you wanted to touch on here?

[00:12:48] Yeah, the second one is a very important one, which we can really use in any team, not only international teams, but particularly important in international team and that's crust. Right. And maybe we just need to step a, go a step back when we have teams distributed across time zones and across different regions.

[00:13:08] We just don't know if we're sitting on the other end of the phone or the zoom line. Right? So if, if I have certain priorities that I need to do for my team here, and the team over there is asking me for other priorities, then we also need to understand how. Trust each other and how to trust that the other side, going to contribute to my deliverables and vice versa.

[00:13:29] Right? So trust is really important. And there's a quote that I like about trust and that says trust is always. It's never given. And I think an internationally distributed teams, that's something we really need to very actively work on to get to trust, to create trust in the team. And other question is obviously how do we create trust?

[00:13:55] It is by creating a mutual understanding of each other, understanding. What are the personalities involved and understanding how do people work, understanding what is also the background of other people? Uh, you know, I might be assuming, I might assume that I'm the expert on something. Um, but maybe if I take a little bit of time to understand my counterparts sitting somewhere else, I might discover that they have quite a lot of technical expertise as well.

[00:14:22] So creating that mutual interest and understanding, and each other is very important. And I think a couple of things that managers can do in order to do that is right at the beginning. In particular, when we work in, um, in a project environment, the team building activities at the beginning are really important.

[00:14:41] So things that managers can do is, um, things like creating some meetings or. If you can't, co-locate people in at least through zoom to get to know each other, what are their hobbies? What is also the professional background? What have they done before? Right? Because it's not like we meet people and we get to see their whole CV and know all the things they've done before rind, but also whether they live and what circumstances do they have as well in their life.

[00:15:07] And what is the personality? Because once we understand how another person works, Right then I also have a better understanding how to work with them. For example, if I'm someone you give me a task and my personality is in a way that I say, okay, thank you for the task. I'll come back in a week with a result.

[00:15:27] That means I don't want to be followed up on every day. Right. And if my manager follows up on me every. I might think that the person distrusts me. So in order to create trust above all, we need to create mutual understanding amongst all of the team members.

[00:15:45] Yeah, it's, it's critically important. And it's something that even, even for distributed teams within a common country or culture trust can still be an issue. And I I've worked in a number of places where I've heard. The guys over in office X, they do their own thing. Or we, we, you know, w we've got a double check their work or so, so I can see, I can see how it becomes even more important, uh, important rather, um, when the distances grow larger and larger, um, you mentioned the importance of making.

[00:16:20] To, to get together, to get to know one another personally, um, you talked about, you know, setting up a meeting. What other ideas might you share with people in terms of creating these opportunities for people to connect personally? Because I think trust is often been built on really knowing and eventually through knowing someone, getting to like them.

[00:16:43] Right. You can find the common ground, right. So, so what kinds of things can you do? Um, even, even, uh, during a pandemic, like we're, we're living in now where co-location is a virtual impossibility, what, what, what can you do to, to, to try to get to know your.

[00:17:02] Yeah, Yeah. It's really about creating a connection. Right. And creating a connection we can do by, by sharing. So it can be by organizing. I used to, for example, like to have, um, Friday night virtual calls, right. And during the pandemic, just grab a glass of alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage doesn't matter.

[00:17:22] And then we would just meet on zoom and not talk about work. Just talk about, uh, lives, you know, Someone got a pet during the pandemic or someone, um, moved houses. I moved houses actually, you know, just get to know the person and what they like or don't like, um, so meeting, but if there's no time for meeting people that Friday night, they also just want to switch out from work.

[00:17:46] And other thing that I did that worked quite well was a coffee email. You know, like if you're in the office, you would sometimes just go grab a coffee and then whoever's in the kitchen. You might just have a five minute chat. Whenever you feel like that. And let's say you just want to share a joke. Send an email to the colleagues that you want to involve in the joke, but really make it clear in the email title. it's a coffee chat, right? So if someone is super busy, they're not going to open the email straight away, but they might open it later on when they do feel like they also want to have a coffee and therefore engage in that time. So that's a technique where we can share that we can share across locations, but also a synchronous, you know, it's not happening.

[00:18:27] You're right. That the same moment people can actually share time. At the time when they want to take a break.

[00:18:32] Yeah, it's perfect. It makes so much sense. I, um, my own team, what I was working at, uh, at Lockheed Martin, we, we occasionally would play games. Th I, I think Wordle was one of them and I'm terrible. I'm terrible at most of these games. Um, but you know, uh, a free online thing with a zoom, a zoom call going where you can trash talk each other and just have fun is, you know, it's, it's, it's a quick and simple way to, to bring people together and, and have that connection.

[00:19:02] So I really, I really liked the idea of the, uh, the coffee chat. That, that makes a lot of sense to me.

[00:19:07] Absolutely. So it's that connection and that fun part. Right. But there are a few more things one can do about the trust. Namely, trust us also, um, agreeing on what are the shared values that we as a team. Right. For example, how what's the, um, culture that we want to establish in terms of challenging each other and questioning us.

[00:19:28] Right. And the team should ideally determine that at the very beginning, so that the same understanding is created and again, across different cultures and different locations that when we ask each other and challenge each other, it's in a constructive way. Right. And so nobody should be, um, taking it personally, but.

[00:19:48] When we established those common rules also to define what's no longer, okay, Brian, for example, to determine rules, when we have a brainstorming session, um, to allow everyone to speak up or to allow everyone to, uh, finish the sentence, listen, first, before we jump in. So creating those common rules helps us to create a safe environment.

[00:20:13] And have for everyone to feel like I'm welcome to you. I can bring in my ideas and their rules for everyone, right. And that helps us to avoid certain personalities, overtaking the room. And that's particularly important when we're dealing with different cultures where maybe our culture is a little bit more reserved in the eyes of the other, or maybe we're another culture is more outgoing.

[00:20:35] Let's say.

[00:20:35] Sure that this was a, and I'll spill the beans a little bit. You, you and I go back a little ways. We worked together in Malaysia and what, which is a phenomenal experience. One of the things that really jumped out to me was the, the difference in deference to. Between Canada and Malaysia and not that one is right, and one is wrong, but, but there is a difference in, in Canada.

[00:21:00] Uh, it's much more common for someone to challenge their leader or to not to try to overtake them or over overrules so much as, you know, uh, put their ideas on the table. If it's, uh, if it's different, I found that much less common. Uh, when working in Malaysia and that created some interesting dynamics and a common room, uh, where we were discussing, uh, certain designs.

[00:21:25] I'd be curious to know how do you, how do you navigate those cultural differences to set, to set those rules? Like you said, in a way that doesn't push anyone to too far outside of their comfort zone, because. Uh, you, you know, you want everyone to be playing from the same rule book, but you don't want to just say, okay, we're going to adopt that country's rule book.

[00:21:48] Everyone else get on board, but I can't imagine that'll work. So how do you, how do you navigate.

[00:21:54] Yeah, exactly. Well, that's why it's really critical to establish those common rules. Right? So that, for example, if we're talking about a culture where typically things are very hierarchical, it's the boss who mainly speaks. So that jointly, we established that in this team culture, we do want everyone to speak up.

[00:22:13] And so that. You know that college that initially might not have felt comfortable with it so that they realized in this environment it's okay. And it gives them permission to contribute as well. Um, that also other ways how we can go about it. For example, if we are having a brainstorming session, rather than brainstorming out loud, as in asking a question and everybody to jump in and bringing their ideas, we can do a silent brainstorming.

[00:22:39] Hm.

[00:22:40] Yeah, I'll ask the question. People write down their ideas and either bring them to the presenter or, um, or presented themselves, but that's told, so another idea of how to bring in their ideas navigating around that culture.

[00:22:54] Yeah. I love that idea even, even within co-located teams, right? Because even individual's personal comfort level with speaking up. The loud person has already declared their position is can create problems and can, can silence people who might otherwise have great ideas to table. So I really do appreciate that.

[00:23:16] There was just one more important, uh, topic on trust. So one was the creating connection between people. The second was establishing a common ground of rules, but the third one is also if I want to trust people, I also need to respect them and feel respected. And, and the one key topic that we need to overcome with international teams, just for example, sharing the burden of who goes onto late-night calls. Right, Oh, who goes onto early night calls. Right. Um, and you, you and I, we have experienced that. I think when we worked together, there was literally zero time of official office hours overlapping. So there was always one team, um, going either into late night calls or early night calls. So it's about sharing that. right.

[00:24:00] because there is an additional burden when we have not, when we have not co-located teams and in particular, across different time zones. And it's about trying to find ways that, that additional burden it, this just additional administrative task, but it can be a burden on the private lives of people run rather than hanging out with the families that might be hanging out on Kohl's.

[00:24:21] We need to distribute to be aware of distributing that load as well. I wasn't a formal organization where they liked having Friday calls in the morning, but then in, in Asia Pacific, that would mean their Friday night calls. And as you can imagine, many people have other topics to do other things to do on a Friday night call.

[00:24:43] So by, by becoming aware, What burden is being created through this international setup. Also being aware of how do we distribute that burden accordingly, and it could be all right, alternate one month, one teams goes into late night calls and you know, the next month might be the other one, but you just need to be aware of where those areas are.

[00:25:05] Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and this is, to me, a theme that's emerging a little bit is. be clear about expectations and to be intentional about thinking through a lot of things that you might not otherwise have to think about. Right? Like sharing, sharing the burden of conference calls, conference calls are an everyday fact of organizational life, but you don't often think that well, in this situation, we have to actually think about who's who's on the call and when, and not to totally appreciate that.

[00:25:36] Correct, correct. Yeah. And that's really difficult. And with that.

[00:25:40] so it's one is sharing the burden, but also, um, celebrating, for example, the joint successes and the status. Um, so I think another best practice is to create in particularly when we're in project teams, across with distributed teams to create.

[00:25:54] With the help of online tools, visibility of the overall project status, because if all sides have right visibility of where we're at, they can all have a sense that they, um, play a role and that they have a say. So again, transparency and visibility by using those tools can be very helpful to establish trust.

[00:26:14] I want to get into the third theme that, that you mentioned off the top of, before we move on to that, I did want to ask you about, about tools, um, being, being an engineer. I'm a, I'm a big nerd and I were discussing my, my obsession with gear before we started recording. Um, do you have any particular tools or anything that, that you really like in terms of providing that visibility to, to a disperse.

[00:26:40] Yeah, I guess it depends what systems companies use to share information. Um, some have, uh, you know, a shared service where they can, um, internationally have access to folders. So even just a folder structure that can be accessed remotely is already okay. Or a for example, also a, um, a chaplain.

[00:27:01] Sure.

[00:27:02] Yeah.

[00:27:02] So some documents structure that helps to put things together.

[00:27:05] Yeah. And, and for all, all those out there rolling their eyes at SharePoint, it can be, it can be very, very well done. I've seen it and it's great. Um,

[00:27:15] Uh, I have seen it as well, working really well. so yes, it does work.

[00:27:22] so what, uh, what's the third theme you want it to cover here?

[00:27:26] Yeah. So the third theme goes then really more into the cultural aspect of nymity. I would summarize it as cultural engagement and within that area, two things are particularly important. One is the language and they are the one understanding the culture. So let's talk about language for a bit. If we imagine, I mean, English is really is unestablished international.

[00:27:50] But English is not everyone's first language. Right? A lot of people, including myself, we have learned English. And when we work with international teams, we just may be working with people who have a very different proficiency level in English. So when we're a manager, we'll also team members, um, working with international teams, we need to be very conscious about that.

[00:28:14] And for us, it means we need to slow down. That's lot. We need to slow down speak slowly. Um, and according to the level of the other person, right. So make an effort to try and understand how well is the other person speak English. If the other person just asked. Yes. Yes, I understood. It doesn't necessarily mean they actually did.

[00:28:33] Right. They might not want to admit that they did not understand. So talking slowly through things avoiding, Um,

[00:28:43] any idioms tried, um, that may only be, uh, accessible for people from the same culture, the same language, and basically keep it simple and short. Just make it easier to digest. Don't allow the language to be the barrier to comprehension, right?

[00:29:00] Because on top of language, there's obviously all the content and scope and technicalities that need to be understood. So the language should not be the barrier. And we just need to be conscious about that and, and slowed down the. Oh, the item in language that we can do is if we feel that there is a bit of a gap in terms of, um, language proficiency and in particular for really important things, it's best to then still summarize a meeting or a cooler decision in anemia.

[00:29:30] Because if the other person receives it in Britain, it gives the time to digest it at their own time, right? To look at maybe certain words or certain abbreviations they're not familiar with. And, and that, that just gives them guidance. Of course, it may be just a little bit off additional work to write down that email, but in the long run, it.

[00:29:52] saves a lot of misunderstanding and it provides clarity.

[00:29:56] I, uh, I've had the experience recently of working with, with colleagues in Scotland. Um, and, and you made reference to idioms and. It's amazing that I live in a province that translated from Latin is literally new Scotland. It's Nova Scotia. So, so as far as, you know, being in a different nation, we're, we're only so far removed from that ancestry, but it's incredible how different the same language can be from place to place.

[00:30:27] Um, and how, uh, and how jarring it can be to try and make sense of, like you say, Or acronyms are particularly bad, even within a common industry. It's, it's very, very easy to lose yourself in that if, if you're not careful for sure.

[00:30:43] Yes, absolutely. And I can always remember one internship when I was younger. I did in the UK and I think the team over there thought I'm just shy. I'm not participating in the discussions. But I just literally could not understand them.

[00:30:57] Sure, sure. Absolutely.

[00:30:59] I just could not understand and follow the conversations. And with that also, we need to be sometimes a bit careful about jokes, right?

[00:31:07] Because instead we might find is unacceptable joke in one culture is not acceptable somewhere else, or can just lead to misinterpretation. So, again, just stripping away from a communication, anything that could be misinterpreted or which is just very simply too, too difficult to understand, just keep it simple, simple, and short and make it clear what you're really want to do.

[00:31:32] And if you really feel that maybe a person didn't get the message or you just want to cross check, ideally if the message has really been understood. So again, we just need to allow more time. Yeah. When we work with international teams. So not only time for building a connection, but also along the working steps, ensuring that the communication is fine, that everything has been understood.

[00:31:55] There's a, there's a line in, um, the, of a member of a group called the international council of systems engineering and in their handbook, they've got a line that, that I really, really love. And that is thick thinking is always in scope. So no matter what the project thinking is always in scope. And I think the same could be said for communications.

[00:32:15] It takes. Time and it takes energy and you have, you always, always, always need to take that time and energy and the, the stakes get higher and the risks get, get greater in, in these huge programs with international teams. I, I think it's absolutely critical what you're say.

[00:32:33] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It just takes time. And we need to appreciate that. I think with communication, indeed, we under estimate the value of it. Um, because we just think our communication is just words coming out of my mouth. Right. But not, it's so much more, uh, understanding what am I saying? How am I saying it?

[00:32:50] Am I clear? And also. Putting ourselves into the perspective, plus the other person, right? What is that background? How much do they understand of what I'm saying and how can I communicate in an easier way so that both of us benefit from each other and that will ultimately save time.

[00:33:07] absolutely. Absolutely. So I, I imagine, uh, there are a number of people listening who may be new to, uh, distributed work or new to working within or leading international teams. If you could give one piece of advice. Um, in terms of smoothing that transition and really kind of paving the way to success in that environment, what, what, what would you suggest people do?

[00:33:30] Yeah, I think one thing is put yourselves in the shoes of the other person. So, for example, let's say I'm meeting a team that has, um, engineers from, uh, Korea, right? If I put myself into their shoes and if I was joining a team where everybody spoke Korean, how would I feel? Right. I would appreciate if they spoke, uh, you know, slowly and clearly me trying to learn Korean.

[00:33:57] So just put yourself in their shoes. Also, if they're working in a different time zones, put yourselves in them shoes. Try to, um, understand what are their time zones. If I'm scheduling a call at 9:00 PM, where would I be at 9:00 PM? Right. Am I having dinner with my children? Or am I putting them to bed? How would I feel?

[00:34:16] So we need a lot of empathy. That's what it is.

[00:34:20] Yup. Yup. That's exactly. That's the word that, that popped into my mind is, and that takes. Effort as well, but, but it's effort that is, is a very, very important to put in. I, I think you've made a very strong case for that today. Um, as we, as we kind of near the, the end of our chat here, I did want to pivot a little bit because, um, you've recently made a big career transition, uh, and you've started a, uh, Business at ingenuity coaching.

[00:34:49] Uh, I'd love, I'd love. If you could share a little bit with us, what, what the business is all about and how your, how your experiences as a world traveling international team manager, uh, is, is, uh, is supporting this new.

[00:35:03] Thanks Ben. Yes, that's right. Um, indeed just a couple of months ago, I decided to become an executive coach and, um, to bring my, my experiences and capabilities and to share in particular with, uh, people who work in, um, in the sector of stem, because one thing that I've realized. As in management, as we grow through the ranks, um, we need to learn different capabilities.

[00:35:29] It's no longer about our technical skills, but it's actually about a couple of other skills in particular when we reach senior management. So since I've worked also for a very long time in strategy, Used to be a strategy consultant, bringing in particularly my strategic skills to help people reach a senior management role where it's really critical to develop strategic thinking.

[00:35:51] So, yeah.

[00:35:52] looking to spend more time as a coach now on helping people and in particular women, since I'm very passionate about having also more women joining me in the stem cell.

[00:36:02] Oh, that's great. That's great. That's fantastic news. I'm very, very excited for you. This is going to be, you're going to not knock it out of the park. That's a very, very confident, um, if someone would like to learn more about you or, or, or maybe learn about your work, your business, where's the best place for that?

[00:36:22] I think the best is I'm on LinkedIn. I'm quite active on LinkedIn. So feel free to reach out it's Pamela Kellert sent me a message connect with me. If you have any questions, um, around what we've discussed today or anything else, that?

[00:36:34] would be the best way to, to connect with me.

[00:36:37] That's great. Thank you so much. Uh, Pamela, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:36:42] Fantastic pat. Thank you so much. You've been a great host.

[00:36:45] Thank you. We'll talk again soon.

[00:36:47] Thanks.

Post Interview

[00:36:58] Thank you. Once again, Pamela, that was so much fun. It was so much fun. I hope you could hear that in the back and forth banter. Uh, Pamela and I get on famously and it was great to chat with her about this. There was so much that when I listened back to this episode popped out and really got me thinking.

[00:37:18] One was the importance of clarifying goals and purpose. And as a leader, whether you've got an international team or not the importance of clarifying goals and clarifying purpose and rallying around that. Could not possibly be overstated. This is critical, no matter what the composition of your team, but especially critical, especially.

[00:37:42] So when the team is large and international and when differences in backgrounds and work cultures come to play, this is absolutely critical to the success of a team. So I'm really glad Pamela brought. Another thing that popped out was that this is two interviews in a row now where clarity is a major theme back in episode 46 with Dolores Hershman.

[00:38:07] In fact, that was one of the core messages of the whole interview was the importance of communicating with clarity. Well, here again, with my interview with Pam, Clarity became what are these really important themes that came out, making clear decisions and providing clear direction is critical. And as engineers, I find we often don't want to be.

[00:38:32] Uh, seen as committing too much to something when there's such uncertainty in our world of work. And despite that uncertainty, despite the risk of choosing a very specific direction or making a very specific decision, it's important to do it anyway. And if that decision needs to change, if you need to adjust course, that's fine.

[00:38:54] You just need to be clear about when you adjust course and explain the background. And again, if you could walk away. With any one thing from this interview, I would really encourage you to think critically about how important it is to be clear finally, and I couldn't help, but chuckle at myself a little bit.

[00:39:14] Listening back to the interview. Pamela mentioned the importance of idioms and being judicious with their use, because if you are speaking to people who don't share the same culture, the same background as you. Is very easy for the meaning of an idiom to get lost. It just doesn't make sense. And not two minutes after having that discussion on idioms, I think I made mention of knocking it out of the park in reference to Pamela.

[00:39:44] Uh, almost a certain success with her business and I couldn't help, but chuckle to myself that I used in idiom, right after being told, I'd need to be careful about using idioms. So again, this is something that, unless you're conscious of it, unless you're looking for it, it's so easy to slip into idioms and sayings and acronyms.

[00:40:04] Very, very important to be careful. So once again, thank you so much, Pamela. I really had a lot of fun with that. Again, all of the resources and the links will be in the show notes, just go to engineering and leadership.com/episode 47. Next up we've got the engineering and leadership man.

Mailbag

[00:40:22] well, my friends, you know how this works.

[00:40:33] This is the part of the show where I read your messages and answer your questions. I promise to read everything you send me. And I promise to read my favorites right here on the podcast. First up, we've got a letter from Ellen, pat. She says, I listened to episode 42 today, and it was so good to hear your voice.

[00:40:50] I'm thrilled for you, that you were growing this passion of yours and would love to catch up sometime, keep on being excellent. Well, thank you very much for that, Ellen. I am very much looking forward to getting caught up with you. I appreciate the feedback and next up, we had a message from Peter Atherton, uh, who runs an organization called actions prove, which is a really interesting group, which really caters to the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, and particularly helping leaders in that industry.

[00:41:19] He's also got a podcast called the AEC leadership today, podcast. You absolutely have to check out, uh, very, very good stuff. Peter says, congratulations, pat, on your big move earlier this year, and for your podcast milestone, I saw on LinkedIn this morning, that is very impressive. And that of course is in reference to, to hitting that a hundred thousand download milestone mark.

[00:41:40] So thank you very much, Peter, looking forward to hopefully being on Peter's show in the near future, that's going to be a lot of fun. And again, I would encourage you to check out his show as well. Thanks again, to all those who reached out, if you would like to chat or leave a comment, please do find me on LinkedIn or leave a comment in the episode. Show notes.

Outroduction

[00:41:59] That's all the time we have for the show today, but I'll be back as soon as I can with another episode, which will feature Anthony Fasano of the engineering management Institute.

[00:42:13] Anthony is a longtime friend of the show. Someone I consider a friend tour who I've learned from, an awful lot. And, we'll be discussing the importance of leadership development for engineers. And Anthony's got lots of really interesting things to say on that. So please do stay tuned for that. And don't forget.

[00:42:30] I did mention off the top of the show that productivity for engineering managers, online courses coming out soon, do sign up for the engineering leadership weekly newsletter, because that will be the best way to find out about how you can sign up for the course and even get early bird pricing and early access.

[00:42:48] That's it engineering and leadership.com/e L weekly. If you enjoyed the show, which I hope. Please hit the subscribe button so that you can catch all future episodes. And if you have a moment, it would be great. If you could leave an honest review to let me know what you thought of. Today's show for more information and links to the resources mentioned today.

[00:43:08] Just go to the show notes again. That's at engineering and leadership.com/episode 47 until next time, this is pat sweet reminding you that if you're going to be anything.

[00:43:20] You've been listening to the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet, to learn more about the engineering leadership project, including other podcasts articles, free resources, courses, consulting, and much, much more. Just go to engineering and leadership.com. That's engineering and leadership.com.