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Kerry Ann King on Rethinking Productivity, Culture Lessons from Google, and Decolonizing Tech
57 Plays8 months ago
Kerry Ann King (eluminatelabs.com), Founder and CEO of Eluminate Labs, joins host Dan Freehling (contempusleadership.com). Kerry Ann explains the background behind her company's debut offering, Fin, an app designed to help users understand their productivity style and break the cycle of productivity-related anxiety. She also shares her insights from her time with Google on corporate culture change. Kerry Ann emphasizes decolonizing tech and the need for a shift in corporate culture and government policy to protect workers and promote wellbeing. Kerry Ann and Dan also discuss building a global remote team based on mutual respect and collaboration, leadership lessons from the arts, the value of incorporating diverse perspectives and methodologies in technology development, and more. Recommended reading: The “Poldark” series by Winston Graham, “Decolonizing Philosophy of Technology: Learning from Bottom-Up and Top-Down Approaches to Decolonial Technical Design” by Cristiano Codeiro Cruz, “Kaandossiwin” by Kathleen E. Absolon (Minogiizhigokwe). Show notes at forwardlookingleadership.com.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast & Guest
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Forward Looking Leadership, a podcast for visionary leaders building future-ready organizations. I'm your host, Dan Freeling. I'm the founder of the Coaching and Consulting Practice, Contemptus Leadership, developing the leaders and teams you want in charge through cutting edge approaches and common sense solutions.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm honored to be joined today by Carrie Anne King. Carrie Anne is the founder and CEO of Illuminate Labs, a software development company dedicated to building solutions that decolonize tech and put people in their well-being first. Carrie Anne brings a wealth of experience promoting inclusivity and well-being in the workplace. As a vendor slash partner at Google, she helped to found the Black Google Network Wellbeing Committee and spearheaded Google's community building efforts during the pandemic.
00:00:43
Speaker
Listeners, you're in for a thought-provoking conversation that may challenge you to reconsider your beliefs on productivity, work, and business.
Vision for Illuminate Labs
00:00:49
Speaker
Thanks for joining me on Forward-Looking Leadership, Carrie Anne. I'm so glad to hear to be here. I'm excited to have this conversation. Absolutely. Likewise, and thanks for taking the time. So first, I'd love for you to share with listeners what you're up to with Illuminate Labs overall, and then the FinApp in particular.
00:01:06
Speaker
So it's yeah, it's an interesting story. I think after being in tech for 10 years, what I realized is that I loved the industry, really enjoyed the people, loved the problems that were being solved, but did not love essentially the exploitative foundation of the business practices. And I think if you think about it ah Facebook,
00:01:35
Speaker
you know Facebook started because a bunch of guys wanted to be able to rate girls on their hotness and somehow we're now flabbergasted that this is not turning out to be a great thing for all of us.
Fin App & Productivity Styles
00:01:48
Speaker
ah so It really comes out of my desire to instantiate the values that I think are important in the industry that I think has the potential to solve a lot of the problems that we face today. um And then in terms of solving problems, Finn, our debut offering, is an app that is designed to help people with their productivity goals.
00:02:16
Speaker
But rather than offering them a particular solution, the app is really designed through feedback and coaching to help people understand their productivity style so they can get past some of the negative feelings they might have and just be happy being themselves and being productive in the ways that they're productive and therefore be able to do even more.
00:02:43
Speaker
Sounds so important. that I think with them a lot of the sort of productivity tools and frameworks and apps and everything out there, it's refreshing in a lot of ways to hear that that you're you're making something that's designed to work for people's own styles and in ah in a positive way. So it's just really great to hear. Yeah, no, I'm i'm very much not about internalized capitalism.
00:03:08
Speaker
as my as the whole conversation might begin to make clear. ah Absolutely.
Internalized Capitalism & Productivity
00:03:13
Speaker
I mean, what what do you mean by that for for people who who are curious about that, like internalized capitalism, decolonization, intact, all of that kind of stuff? So let me start with internalized capitalism. And I think this is something that we all, ah particularly those of us who have been in the corporate yeah world in the past 20 years have experienced is the sense that we are not doing enough. this is There was a work human study that was done recently, a thousand respondents. Of those 1000 respondents, 80% of them had experienced productivity related anxiety. 60% of them experienced it every day. ah So there's this way that we have
00:04:04
Speaker
begun to think of even our own existence as needing to have the value extracted from it rather than being able to be because it's pleasurable or fun or we want to have an impact on the world. that The interesting thing about that process is it really increases our sense of burnout, our sense of disconnection,
00:04:32
Speaker
our inability to spend time doing things that connect us to other people, that connect us to our community. so But we're blind to it because we're so indoctrinated into this idea that we have to continually be productive, produce, get better. So really for me, helping people break that cycle is super important.
00:04:59
Speaker
And I find it really interesting from our previous conversation and now ah you're not saying don't be productive in any way. You're really saying make sure that you're not just being productive for productivity's sake, right? Like it's like you still want to have and do things that are important, and spend time with people, have an impact, all of that kind of stuff. And there this is a way to better channel that.
00:05:27
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And that's, you know, there's too many problems for us to solve, right? We can't next Netflix and chill right now. There's not ah not a dropout moment. Yeah. Yeah. We, the world needs us. It needs all of us to get down to business. So I guess for me, the question is, can we return to a place where people feel connected to that sense of productivity. The example that I frequently use is, you know, 150 years ago, if I had churned some butter, every time I used it, I would have the satisfaction of seeing this thing that I had created using it for my own benefit. And this cycle of a feeling of having accomplished something would feel very grounded and very real to me.
00:06:23
Speaker
Whereas so much of what we do now, it just goes off into the ether. And we're left kind of trying to scramble to fill this hole of feeling accomplished. So it's absolutely not that I i actually think quiet quitting, kind of checking out of what's going on in the world while it might be soothing. I feel like we can't afford to do that right now. It's that what's going on is too important.
00:06:50
Speaker
like Thanks so much for sharing that.
Decolonizing Tech: Consumer & Worker Benefits
00:06:53
Speaker
I kind of double barreled the question at the beginning with the decolonizing tech is as well. id I'd love to hear what decolonizing tech means to you and and how you're doing your part through Illuminate Labs and and making that happen as well. Yeah, it's really part of the same project, right? So as much as we have this weirdly exploitative relationship with ourselves and how much we do,
00:07:19
Speaker
In technology, really the foundation from a business perspective is frequently about extracting value from both consumers and workers without sometimes everybody really understanding how that value is being extracted. So when we think about colonialism, colonialism is fundamentally about extracting value without permission, without consent, without providing value to the other um and really getting away from that model. I think we need to get away from that model overall. And I understand that for a lot of people hearing the word
00:08:02
Speaker
decolonization can feel like a lot. It's a strong word. And for some people, it might carry implications of them being blamed or ah kind of tearing apart the world that exists today and taking it back to something that would feel uncomfortable to some people. And honestly, like that's not how I see decolonization. I love penicillin. I have a latte every morning.
00:08:32
Speaker
You know, i shot and it's I'm not a Luddite. um It's really more about elevating the perspectives of people whose values and opinions and ideas have not traditionally been elevated as part of developing tech. I also frankly kind of think that this is our lane. This is the way we find more innovative ways to do technology.
00:09:02
Speaker
by elevating these other ways of being, other ways of seeing the world, other ways of gathering knowledge, I think has really has the potential to lead to innovations moving forward that will be super important for all of our futures.
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, so both both just being and not not being extractive in in nature and intent and then in broadening the kind of tech bubble mindset into you know who who else can can be involved in this and and what would that look like for many, many, many more people to be involved in tech in a big way. Yeah, I mean, i mean imagine if Facebook had been started by not just a group of white boys.
00:09:46
Speaker
non harvard dating app ah yeah the What would it look like if some other community had decided to build an app to create connection and help people see each other and learn about each other?
Insights from Google Experience
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, so on on this note, so you you have a ah really fascinating experience working with Google, doing their employee engagement and and workplace culture work for the New York City campus, right? So um I would just love to hear what your experience working at Google taught you about employee engagement, workplace culture, any lessons you have for people listening on this. It's so interesting. I was there at the kind of transition period. So I started there in 2011. I left in 2022. And in that 11 years, that was a big shift, a lot of scaling, a lot of shift in the culture at Google. And I had a ringside seat. My role in New York was very varied. I actually started there as a once a week dance instructor. And then i buy that by the time I left, I was a director of community on the account. But
00:11:00
Speaker
Everything that I was involved in was really about employee well-being, community building, and that's all really their employee engagement program. right like They might not call it what you would call it outside of Google, but essentially it's employee engagement. and When I got there, what fascinated me and delighted me was that the culture was really this co-created thing between leadership, the organization, and the employees. but I'll give the example of the 5K that I used to help with. We had a 5K that started with two employees who basically, I think, Ken Fessa and David Dorban, one of them was on the wallet team, one of them was on the finance team, and they were arguing about which team was faster. So they just had to race along the Hudson.
00:11:55
Speaker
And this kind of ballooned into a thing that was more teams in the office were involved. Eventually during the pandemic, it became a global event. There were thousands of participants. Teams are being formed all over the world. Teams were being formed across continents. It was this huge, delightful,
00:12:18
Speaker
and incredibly impactful event that started with those two employees and was allowed to flourish because leadership said, wow, people like this. Let's do more.
00:12:31
Speaker
Let's support it. Let's give it budget. It just, it became this beautiful outgrowth of employee enthusiasm combined with organizational support. The problem with that, of course, is as you scale, it gets harder to manage. Things can go wrong. The values that the employees are trying to instantiate might not completely align with where the organization wants to go. As the groups of people get bigger,
00:13:01
Speaker
And what happened was Google really started to try to professionalize this aspect of the culture. So rather than it being completely employee driven, there would be someone who was, their job was to make these things happen. And it really began to shift the culture into this sort of engagement and employee enthusiasm for the company and the culture became more of an entitlement than a mutually created thing that everybody was responsible for. And that, of course, led to more dissatisfaction on both sides, right? The company was less satisfied with how enthusiastic people were about it and the users were
00:13:56
Speaker
less satisfied because it started to lose the feeling of that it being about them. And it was this entitlement. So if anything went wrong with it at all, it was something to complain about rather than something to fix. So it really, I felt like it really started to disintegrate that culture of mutual responsibility. And I you know i kind of, ah i when I left part of the reason I left is because it stopped being exciting to create things for the users the way it had been when I started. Yeah, so you're seeing that cultural shift. and did Do you feel like that was a cultural shift that happened with Google overall as well, from as far as you can tell?
00:14:37
Speaker
I think so. I mean, I, you know, I'm talking completely from my perspective, obviously, like, this is, you know, one, one woman's hot take on what happens on Google. um But I think a lot of it has to do with scale. And again, this goes back to that extractive baseline, that extractive foundation that corporations have to have if they're publicly traded, if their success is measured by profitability and stock price and growth. you There's a point at which you cannot make that sort of mutual responsibility happen at scale.
00:15:21
Speaker
And realistically, from a business perspective, what Google has done, the way they've worked to change, the way the perks are distributed, even the layoffs, like all of this stuff makes enormous amounts of sense from a business perspective. If your business model is that you have to extract as much value out of your customers and your workers as possible in order to succeed.
00:15:46
Speaker
So that in a certain sense, I can't fault the decisions, right? Because it's the only thing that makes sense from a business perspective. I just think it would be better for us to start thinking about business models that don't require those things. Yeah. What do you, what do you think it would take to lead to real change in those kinds of models and in having much greater inclusivity wellbeing in the workplace?
Corporate Structure Changes for Inclusivity
00:16:11
Speaker
Well, I think it's, it's,
00:16:13
Speaker
really a few things. It's really two prongs and the first prong is how companies are run. Obviously, I have pretty strong opinions about extractive late-stage capitalism and whether or not. And I think we you know we can see that it's ultimately inefficient. It's very efficient at concentrating wealth in one small segment of the population. It's very efficient at extracting value out of people, the earth, the environment, you know all of that. So it's it's not that it's inefficient.
00:16:46
Speaker
in ah some sort of a basic way but it's a terribly inefficient for making people happy making sure that their well-being is cared for making sure that the planet can continue the thing is for a lot of us these organizations they are our civic institutions now right there we don't have big institutions that people belong to that are having an impact on their world in the same way we did you know fifty eighty a hundred years ago.
00:17:16
Speaker
People don't belong to the lions. They're not going to church. Their town isn't a close knit community in the same way. So I think we do need to change corporate culture to reflect the fact that your workplace is where you meet your friends. It's where you spend most of your waking hours. It's where you derive a lot of the meaning out of your life and work.
00:17:42
Speaker
And companies should be addressing that for people and providing opportunities for meaning building and purpose and all of those good things that help people thrive.
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, so taking some responsibility for now occupying that that place and in society and looking beyond just how do you increase the stock price, increase the bottom line, extract as much as possible, and how do you turn around and and own that you' you're now serving this function and in society as well? Absolutely. And it's we know it's not sustainable, right? This extractive approach that we've had has even in the last 100 years We've gone back and forth to you know the labor movement in the 1930s. There's always this push and pull between the two. And I feel like we're so worsere swinging. We've swung really far in the extractive direction. And it's probably time for us to swing back. And my hope is that with each cycle,
00:18:53
Speaker
we maybe get a little less extractive and a little more human centered. I think the other piece of this that's really important is policy. If we have don't have policies that protect workers, if we don't have policies that enforce regulations, there's not a lot of incentive for corporations to change their approach. And if you're a worker and you don't have the kind of security of knowing that your health care will be taken care of, regardless of whether you have a job, that you won't be abandoned in your old age by the nation where you've worked and contributed to the economy for, power, maybe 40, 50, 60 years, without those kinds of policies in place that protect workers and protect our sense of security. It enables that sort of
00:19:49
Speaker
extraction right because it means that people feel like they don't have a choice. Yeah, so the the corporate responsibility here and then also the the societal and government responsibility in terms of of policy and and both of those prongs being important to making change and in this way in a real way. Yeah, exactly. I don't you know i don't think it can it can happen on one side or the other.
00:20:14
Speaker
And that's, you know, that's part of why I wanted to start my own organization is because I also feel like it's very difficult to change large organizations. We just went through this, you know, it's been in the news over the last year or so. After a groundswell of people being excited about DEIB, after George Floyd was murdered, we're now seeing companies cut back their DEI staff, their engagement staff.
00:20:42
Speaker
It's the first thing to go when companies feel like they're under pressure. So the rest of us need to build the organizations that will value those things regardless of whether or not they feel like they're a threat to the bottom line.
00:20:57
Speaker
I think about this a lot of there think a lot of people like you know dislike what happened with Twitter immensely. right like There's all these complaints about how that is shifting and all of that, but I rarely hear people trying to start companies to do it in a different way and to to have that be part of the the strategy. It feels like everyone is still kind of using X or whatever we're calling it now rather than like trying to do things in a and a better way. and I'm sure there's efforts out there, but it it just it feels like this is ah an important and often overlooked way to respond and and change the world in the way that you want to see it. I can't tell you how many people have said to me
00:21:37
Speaker
So are you just going to sell this to Asana or Atlassian or something when I talk about Fin, the productivity app? And when I say that I'm actually not building something so I can sell it for a half a billion dollars three years from now, people are shocked.
00:21:56
Speaker
doesn' yeah
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah, like at yeah that that makes total sense. like the you know there's There's this just assumption that you're gonna... The the reason you're building things is to to sell them and that you're gonna go sit on a beach somewhere or pour that into your next venture where you're gonna do the same exact thing. And you're you're doing the exact opposite with your approach here. You're building this for a purpose and you're building a wonderful team and company along the way and the doing it for the the people using this app and for the purpose that you're you're making it is more important than you cashing out as quickly as you can. Exactly. and i you know i ah Every once in a while, I do find myself thinking, am I nuts? I lost my mind. I should be and you know trying to get rich. and and It's not that I don't want. I want to have a nice life.
00:22:56
Speaker
ah That's not it at all. ah But I do think it's possible for us to create companies that give the people who work there and the people who own them nice lives without having to destroy someone else's life.
00:23:11
Speaker
to make it happen. It's also just a <unk> a very trustworthy way to do business. And I just i just feel like as someone who's you know using various you know apps or platforms or whatever it is, like if if it's you know if if you're offering a productivity app in this case that's you know that's made for the right reasons and is not intended to be this quickly turn it around and sell it kind of a thing. It just feels like a much, much more sustainable and trustworthy group to do business with, as well as ah on the consumer end, or even if you're partnering on a business end. And I i always wonder if there's a ah huge missed opportunity there for people to like, they feel like they have to do this in this terrible way. And it's like, you you really don't, you can, one of the big benefits of running your own businesses, you can run it in basically whatever way you want. And its it's really your choice of how you do that.
00:24:04
Speaker
Exactly.
Critique of App Pricing Models
00:24:05
Speaker
And I think and that you know you kind of hit the nail on the head with the relationship with the user as well. like It's really important to me. you know We've had neurodivergent adults in mind all through the development process. And when I went out there and started looking at the competition, you it's shocking how many apps say they're for people who are neurodivergent. And then their paywall and their pricing model is incredibly complex. So if I'm distractable and have trouble focusing and you offer me your app at 63% off and you send me 15 emails with 10 different offers and then I have to renew and it renews without warning me so that I keep paying for something that I don't really want. Like to me that is,
00:24:58
Speaker
a morally questionable business practice. and If you're trying you' trying to help someone who's distractible, tell them one price, remind them before you ask them for money again, don't take them down a rabbit hole in order to get clicks or increase engagement when the engagement isn't useful to the user. it just it's To me, that's obvious, but it's the way a lot of those apps work.
00:25:25
Speaker
I think that's exactly right. I think about that a lot when I'm building my coaching and consulting business here. And it's it's just like, you know are you building a funnel? Are you you know getting all the people into the top of the funnel and churning it? It's just like, that's not the way you build a trust-based business. And like that's kind of the whole point of having a business in my opinion is you can you can do it in a better way. You can do it in a way that's different and you don't have to just follow whatever, you know, quote unquote, best practices are are out there that you can you can do it in a different way. And like, that's a benefit to you as, as a business owner, that you you don't have to do this, you don't have to be wed to this, this terrible way of doing things, and you can you can change things. And I think you you get a much more sustainable relationship with with your customers in that sense, too. And it's just, it's a so better thing. It feels like a mutually beneficial way of doing things. And it sounds like you're more than in that camp as well.
00:26:20
Speaker
Oh yeah, definitely. So you mentioned um starting off as ah a dance instructor at Google and I know you're you're also a choreographer and you've had your work reviewed in the New York Times and and all this all this really cool stuff with the the choreography and dance backgrounds. How does that influence who you are as a leader?
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's so funny. I don't know. Maybe it's just because of my, the way my feed works on LinkedIn. I feel like everything that's about being a good leader or learning to be a better leader refers to sports or the military. It's such a common trope. And I feel like there are so many leadership lessons in the arts that we don't take advantage of.
00:27:07
Speaker
that would be good for business. you know i'm not it like I feel like there's this way ah in which ah yeah everything that we're talking about today, inclusiveness, not being extractive, elevating other voices. We have a tendency to think about it as you only do it because it's the right thing to do, but it's also good for business. And but I feel that way about my dance background. Dance is fundamentally pattern recognition, right? I've spent my whole entire life doing body mass. There's this many counts. There's this many parts of your body. How do you fit all these things together? There's a certain degree to which it's mathematical, which always fascinates me. And then
00:27:51
Speaker
Fundamentally, the the task of the artist is to solve a problem. You've got an idea in your head of what you want to create and you have to solve the problem of how to get it out of your head and onto the page or onto the bodies of the dancers that you're working with or into the space where you're creating your work. So there's this way in which doing art teaches and enables problem solving practice.
00:28:18
Speaker
I think way better than a lot of other things that we think of as teaching problem solving. And then for me, the other thing that's super important about it is communication. I would say this to sometimes when I'm mentoring people and about learning how to be a leader, I say, go take a dance class, go go to a salsa class and lead and follow in that class. Because if you have to follow, you have to listen.
00:28:48
Speaker
If you're going to do what you're being asked to do correctly, you have to listen to the person you're dancing with. Otherwise it doesn't work. And then if you lead, take the role of the leader, you suddenly realize you are responsible for communicating clearly and accurately what needs to happen next to the person you're dancing with. It's just such an incredible lesson.
00:29:15
Speaker
in that give and take. And that's been incredibly influential to me as both a leader and frankly, as a follower also. You know, I think you've learned being in a band, right? Like what's a better example of having to learn how to cooperate than being in a band. So I feel like arts, arts need to get out there more in the business world and say, we've got something to tell you to teach you in the business community. It's all really, really important.
00:29:44
Speaker
points. i I tend to agree on the the um sports and and military kind of metaphors too. And I think they you know for sure there's a lot there in terms of leadership and it's not to downplay those, but they do get so much play that it's, I think one of the problems is is they're they're kind of these like artificial zero-sum scenarios. And like I think sports is like basically exclusively an artificial zero-sum environment.
00:30:09
Speaker
like we're going to like make up this thing where there's going to be a winner and a loser and your goal is to to beat the other side or team or people. And you know there's not that like mutual creation and the the sum of its the the whole being more than the sum of its parts to the band and dance and all those kinds of metaphors. And and think similarly in the military, the goal of the military is to when when you're in an actual war or combat situation, the goal is to win. And it's it's not you know it's not this like mutually creative and and um you know more comes out of it than than started kind of an environment. And yeah, I think about that a lot. there's there's so much to There's so much to learn from them. And there's also so much to learn from other aspects that are definitely out of the zero-sum mindset. Yeah. And I think that
00:30:58
Speaker
you know Again, going back to this idea of the foundation of the way we do business being competitive and extractive, that to me part of the value of elevating other voices and other ways of knowing is there are also other ways of ensuring the economic success of the group that don't necessarily have to rely on competition only. So I think the more we can make sure that we all start learning other ways of thinking about these things other than the football game or the military metaphor, the more we can bring in other perspectives, the more likely we will be to be able to start building things that don't require that somebody loses just so that someone else can win.
00:31:58
Speaker
yeah So what what advice would you give other founders or leaders in general who are working with a remote team and particularly a global remote team like you are?
Managing a Global Remote Team
00:32:08
Speaker
So this is so fun. it's it's so I love working with a global team. I've been doing it, you know, even when I was at Google, I managed the group fitness uh, globally at one point, that was fascinating. So I've done this a lot and worked across a lot of different crazy time zones that, you know, there was a point when I knew what time it was in Australia for like a year. But to me, the biggest thing is that sense of listening and being clear. And I think it, the way to do it is.
00:32:45
Speaker
a bunch of different techniques. I mean, the the reality is at this point, offshoring for a lot of small companies is a necessity. Getting development work done in the United States, if you're a small startup, if you are an individual is a great idea. You kind of need to work with someone who is outside the US in order to be able to afford to get the development work done. And my approach has been to build a team rather than to hire manpower. And I think that's been incredibly powerful for me and for the team. I happen to have connections in Ghana and Rwanda. I interviewed, I got i want to say 30 applications. I interviewed about 20 people. It was an extensive interview process.
00:33:37
Speaker
because I wanted to build a team, not just like find someone on Fiverr who I was never gonna see again, have them do something for me and then walk away. Which means that we've really been able to build, eliminate labs as a lab. Everybody brings their ideas. And I think that's a really important thing to focus on as well. Treating your team wherever they are as collaborators rather than hired guns.
00:34:05
Speaker
And that's been so fruitful for me. It's been incredible. And I think also just learning about people and showing them that you've learned about them. The example I'll give is one of the guys I'm working with, Phil Mankuma, he likes anime. It's even in his bio on our website that he likes anime.
00:34:26
Speaker
So when i you I'm doing these screen recordings of the app if I find a bug in it. And every once in a while, ill because your phone records whatever is playing in the background when it's recording the app, I'll just put, like I think the last time I did it it was the Pokemon theme song was in the background of this video I so sent him of a bug that we had in the app. out So just, you know, not just saying, you know, so how are you today at the beginning of the meeting, but really showing people that you heard what they said, that you see who they are and showing them that you recognize it on a daily basis.
00:35:12
Speaker
I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on the cross-cultural or intercultural aspects of this. I know you're working with folks that you said Rwanda and and Ghana, I think. um On this, I'd love to love to hear anything you've you've picked up on intercultural, cross-cultural communications. So what's been interesting for me it is I haven't felt like there have been real places where we're at cross purposes at all or where we're not understanding each other. And I think that is partly because the interview process was so extensive. I think that meant that I you know i had so many conversations with them before we started that is the I knew the communication was going to work. And I think for me, what's been interesting is there's, I feel actually less pressure, I think, and less
00:36:11
Speaker
kind of fundamental misogyny ah from my team, they're both men as a leader than I think I have working with men in the States. I don't know whether that's because we're remote from each other or ah whether it's, you know, partly a function of my age, you know, I'm old enough to be both of their moms.
00:36:38
Speaker
So maybe I've got a little bit of mom energy, so people are like a little bit careful about how they talk to me. But ah i haven't that's been really interesting for me, actually, to kind of feel like, oh, these guys are just fine with me being in charge. yes sir you know There isn't ah some sense of, like because I have worked with technical people who um kind of want to act like they're the wizard and I'm Dorothy and I couldn't possibly understand anything they're talking about. And that's, you know, I do feel like there's like a fundamental sense of respect that I really appreciate from the guys. Wow, it was great to hear. um What leadership books or other resources of any kind do you find yourself coming back to the most often?
00:37:37
Speaker
So it's interesting. like i I'm not a re-reader. I think you know when I started this business, I you know i read a couple of classics. I read Measure What Matters. I read the Lean Startup. um But I also spent a lot of time reading the academic literature about procrastination and really examining so how the shame cycle interacts with people's inability to complete a task.
00:38:07
Speaker
um because my fundamental desire with the app was to help people break that shame cycle so they could just do their stuff rather than be ashamed about not doing it. So I've done a lot of academic reading and I've also been reading a lot in the kind of philosophy of technology space about decolonizing technology, like mostly academic articles. And then I'm also reading this book called, I'm going to mispronounce it, and I apologize, Kinasewain, which is about indigenous epistemology.
00:38:54
Speaker
So really how the fundamental differences between how people gather knowledge in Indigenous populations as opposed to the way we tend to gather knowledge in Western society. So really how you know looking for ways that that can help innovate. but i also i you know I feel like I also read a lot of fiction and I feel like that's another place where business people could do better. And if there's a lot of research that suggests that reading fiction increases your ability to feel empathy and to take another's perspective, which is one of the fundamental tasks of leadership. So I think people should read more fiction. I don't you know i wonder sometimes if people feel like, oh, if I'm not reading Dostoevsky, I shouldn't bother at all.
00:39:54
Speaker
It's okay to read fun fiction. Yeah. like So right now I'm reading this series called, um, pull dark and it takes place in a late 18th century, early 19th century Cornwall. The great thing about it for someone in my position is it is fundamentally about business. It's taking place during the birth of venture capitalism and so much of what goes on in the book.
00:40:21
Speaker
is the moral questions between the people who are only interested in extracting value from the mind or the villagers or whatever, is it people who feel like they have a moral obligation to take care of their people, ah the ins and outs of the emotions of business, the highs and the lows. So I you know i think there's a lot of value to be gained from reading some fiction because you know nobody in a business book makes you feel the emotions the way you you feel them when you read fiction. What a great take. You piqued my curiosity on all of these rags, on the academic literature on productivity, procrastination, the shame cycle, all of that. What what have you learned from doing that research?
00:41:16
Speaker
so the It's interesting. Some of this grew out of like me confirming a suspicion that I had about myself. And I think what happens, there's a lot of the the literature about procrastination is focused on academic procrastination, right? Like all of the studies have been done on students and why students don't get their work done. And the What's interesting is there's a little bit of controversy about why people avoid tasks. There's one theory that's more about pleasure, right? Like I avoid doing this thing that's unpleasant and replace it with this pleasurable thing. i That never really ran true to me and
00:42:07
Speaker
there's other literature that talks about the avoidance having an emotional tenor, right? So I, people who avoid a task because they find it overwhelming, they might have a sense of shame associated with whether or not they can complete the task and then that sense of shame leads to them avoiding the task even more. right So i I need to do this thing. I'm ashamed of how hard it is for me to do it. So I don't want to think about it. So I'm not going to i'm going to even hard do it not doing even harder than I was before. I'm like, I'm really going to avoid doing this thing. And that breaking that cycle is an important way to
00:43:04
Speaker
get people past the, because almost always, right, when you do the thing that you've been avoiding, you feel a sense of relief, you feel a sense of pride, you feel happy. So how do you get people to to get past that sense of anxiety or shame to just do the thing?
00:43:28
Speaker
that that makes so much sense. I can see the parallels and uses in your in the way you were describing the app too. So it's it's less of this um you know you're you're being lazy or you you're trying to just maximize your pleasure all the time and that's that's why you're procrastinating and it's much more compassionate toward people and and all of us procrastinate in something right to some degree and it's just how How do you get at this without triggering that that shame cycle and and just having people be able to go and and do the thing that they actually want to do? but That's just fascinating. I love this. Yeah. And that's like, it's really like for me, the thing is building awareness. Like i've I'm using the app now and like I have this task on my list. I have some plants in my backyard here. We're moving soon and I want to cut some so that I can force it and
00:44:19
Speaker
grow it in our new place. And I've been avoiding doing this task for weeks and weeks and weeks. And it's stupid. All I have to do is walk out the door with a scissors. yeah there's no i And I've been, you know, so it came up in the app. The app shows you the things that you've been avoiding doing. So it came up in the app and I looked at it and I sat, you know, gave me a moment of contemplation around it. And I realized that the reason I'm avoiding it is Our backyard has a lot of mosquitoes right now. I am a mosquito magnet. I know if I go out there, I'm going to get bitten to all get out. As soon as I walk out the door, I and don't have any bug spray. And so like I'm just not doing it because I don't want to have mosquito bites for a week because I'm very allergic to them. So you know that's what I'm hoping people will get out of this, is that sense of
00:45:18
Speaker
like having a moment to contemplate why they're not doing something. And it could be just like something as easy to solve as there are mosquitoes where I have to do this thing and I don't want to do that.
00:45:31
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely. And then you mentioned some other really interesting academic literature you we were reading on a couple of different fronts. There was one on philosophy of technology. Could you share a bit more about that?
00:45:42
Speaker
so the the One of the articles I'm reading is decolonizing philosophy of technology, learning from bottom-up and top-down approaches to decolonial technical design. um and really It's a very, very deep dive into the philosophy of technology, understandings of decolonialization,
00:46:03
Speaker
and how to take a approaches to develop technology that don't just perpetuate what I think we all know now I believe is a colonial approach to how we develop technology. um It's fascinating to think about this in terms of how we think design usually should happen. We have talked about like human-centered design, user-centered design. ah There was an article recently in new york ah The New Yorker, I think it was, about how Spotify has shifted from being user-centered to corporation-centered. So it no longer kind of feels like a
00:46:51
Speaker
the pleasant, rewarding experience for the user, but it's probably letting the company extract more useful data about the user. um And that's really fundamentally what the article is talking about and how we can elevate other voices and work collaboratively with potential users to solve problems. third There's a great example in the and this article of somebody who's doing research in South America and they're working with this these women who make lace and they go to the group, they're there to do an academic project and they say, we can completely automate the way you make this lace. You won't have to work so hard. It'll be much easier. A computer can do it. And what they ended up finding out is that aside from just taking the jobs away from the people who were are making lace, this
00:47:48
Speaker
was going to take away what for them was a really and important social, emotional, relational project and behavior and pastime. It was it was they part of their identity was doing this thing um and how wrong headed in a certain sense it was to come to the group to solve this problem for them.
00:48:19
Speaker
when that was ah what they needed solved was an economic problem, not a technical problem, you know which has so many implications right for change management in organizations. What do you see on that front? yeah so If you go to an organization and say, like you guys need to start using X product to do your work because it's going to be more efficient and it's going to make it easier for you to do your job without understanding how people use the current technology to do their job. What's their relationship to it? How does it build or prevent relationships in the organization? You know, is there a
00:49:08
Speaker
one person in the organization that everybody loves who's associated with the old technology and then that person they're not going to interact with that person anymore. There's all these clues that we ignore when we only look for the most efficient, effective, and dare I say extractive solution when we're managing change in an organization.
00:49:31
Speaker
I think you're spot on with change management. and I do a lot of organizational development, change management kind of consulting too. and it's it's um yeah One thing I see is a lot of times when you're working with an org that has a technical mindset, which sounds like a lot of the tech fields obviously has.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's sort of this just like it's trying to solve the problem in a logical way when it's it's so much deeper than that. And there's there's so much more that goes into it than just applying like the most you know linear logical framework you can imagine devoid of any context to it. And it's just so counterproductive and in terms of actually leading to sustained change. Yeah. And that's you know ah think I we You can't fault, under the circumstances, we can't fault organizations for wanting to be efficient. So even if you do have to be efficient, how are you are you really understanding the social and psychological web that's been built up around the thing that you're trying to change well enough to manage that change?
00:50:40
Speaker
Absolutely. um And I think there's the the last one was on different ways of knowing and different epistemologies and that kind of a thing. We'd love just to hear any any thoughts you have on what you've been reading with that. Yeah. So the the book is called Ka'endu Siwen. And the rest of the title is How We Come to Know Indigenous Research Methodologies. And this is something that I've been fascinated with for a long time. Our ancestors did research all the time. That's how they learned to do all the things that got us here. But we tend to not think of indigenous cultures as innovative or doing research or having scientific methodologies.
00:51:32
Speaker
So the book is really doing a very deep dive on the author um Kathleen Absalon is a native Canadian and really ah thinking about how storytelling And the the kind of fundamental the relational way that indigenous peoples understand the world is different colonial actors and how it can enrich our overall understanding.
00:52:13
Speaker
um i've literally like I burst into tears reading the full word to this book because you know she's talking about how her um academic work, she sees it as an offering that she likens it to gathering blueberries and she's gone out and she's gotten the berries and she's sorted them and she's made them into a pie and she's offering us this heart work of hers
00:52:45
Speaker
to enrich us. And that's how she sees her academic contribution. And it's just like, yeah, sister, that's what I, that's the, to me, that should be what we're striving for. What are we, what are we building and in a loving way and offering into the world rather than like, how can I get more people to see this ad that's going to pay me a half a cent?
00:53:14
Speaker
every time somebody sees it. and And just research not having to be the sterile, devoid of of humanity thing. And and it's it's part of, yeah, there's just so so much depth to that. That's but's great to hear. Yeah, it's exciting stuff.
00:53:29
Speaker
Absolutely. What's next for
Addressing Agricultural Issues Globally
00:53:31
Speaker
Illuminate Labs? So we're, um, San right now, as we're kind of finalizing the beta test, we're adding some new features. We should be launching the app, um, officially it's already in the store, but we should be launching it officially, um, in the next week or so. And then the next problem we're going to be looking at is trying to solve a problem that exists in Africa.
00:53:58
Speaker
and North America, um right now we're kind of focused on agriculture, but thinking about um are there ways that we can bring people together across the two continents to solve a problem, to develop a solution that's not, you know, oh, I'm coming to Africa to fix your problem, but more like we all have this problem.
00:54:26
Speaker
How can we solve it for everybody at the same time and also build those connections? What is it about farming that's drawing you there? So I have, ah my husband and I have a farm in upstate New York and I have spent a lot of time and energy and money and blood sweat and tears trying to grow vegetables.
00:54:51
Speaker
So I have a fundamental interest in it because of that, but I've also because I've spent a lot of time up there now and talked to people who own small farms. ah There's so many issues in our food system that push us towards this aggregation across the system, which actually makes our food less good and makes us more vulnerable. right if Sure, everybody remembers during the pandemic when there were you know if you eat meat, there were problems in the poultry factories and you know you would go to the store and there wouldn't there wouldn't be everything that you would want.
00:55:41
Speaker
and it We're not solving those problems well, and that also means that there are a lot of people who are getting left behind economically, ah at least in the States, because you know they could be producing food for us efficiently, but it's very difficult to do, and there's not a lot of tools to help them do it efficiently at a small scale.
00:56:08
Speaker
There's a big operation called Norwich Farms near us that goes a lot of the vegetables that um end up in fancy restaurants in New York City, probably in Boston as well. and where there are actually And this is you know part of my inspiration for trying to move us away from the blinkered way that we seek to research and build knowledge.
00:56:36
Speaker
The method that they use at Norwich Farms was brought here from Egypt. It's high hoop technology. So you've probably seen these big white hoops if you ever drive out in the country of um that are on farms. And it's ah it's an Egyptian growing technique that um allows for better control of the environment around what you're growing. And ah I don't understand everything about it.
00:57:04
Speaker
but this is a technology that has come from Africa and is helping us here grow food. And I think we don't believe that those that that kind of an exchange is also, excuse me, also possible. you know We kind of think we have the solutions and we have to go out into the world and give everybody our good solutions where maybe there are other people who have good solutions for us that we should be considering and check out maybe.
00:57:32
Speaker
So it's so true. no I do a lot of um a lot of work with leaders and teams in Africa. I just always love it. I just did actually an Ubuntu coaching certification with this really wonderful coach who I've co-facilitated with over there. and it's just It's exactly that. It's like, you how can we learn from you know the generations of of wisdom you know in in South Africa and in Africa in general? and bring that to something that's like so, you know, Western and so academic and all of this kind of stuff. And it's just, it's like, it's hugely impactful. And I just think it's just the gentle tip of the iceberg on what's possible there. Yeah. And I really, you know, I, I, not to sound super businessy, but I'm very bullish on Africa. Like I've had, I've had such great experiences. The people I interviewed were, I wish I could have hired them all.
00:58:25
Speaker
You know, they, everybody was great. Technically skilled, creative, interesting. And it, it's just been delightful. I'm getting to know the, the guys that I'm working with. I can't wait. Like one of my main goals is to have enough revenue that I get to go and visit them. Like, that but you know,
00:58:50
Speaker
That sounds lovely. I think that's a ah fantastic next goal for you all. i would that That sounds sort like an amazing experience to to see these people you work so closely with. Keri-Ann, how can listeners learn more about Finn in particular, Illuminate Labs, Follow Along, any of that kind of stuff?
00:59:10
Speaker
So you can follow me, Carrie Anne King, or Illuminate Labs on, right now, just Instagram and LinkedIn. I haven't gotten into the Twitter pool. And no matter how many times somebody tells me I need to be on TikTok, I just can't prove myself to do it. And our website is IlluminateLabs dot.com. And there's a page on there for Finn if you want a beta test.
00:59:33
Speaker
um jump in, we'd love to have you. It's a super mutual process, as you might have imagined from this conversation. And really joyful for me. like but I've had so much fun talking to our beta testers and learning about them and what they want to get out of the process. It's just been amazing. ah and And keep an eye out for Finn.
01:00:00
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, all my best. It's been such a pleasure speaking with you, getting to know you through this. And I'm sure listeners have learned a lot through our conversation. So I encourage everyone to check out those resources. We'll link to them in the show notes and Carrie Anne, thanks again. Really appreciate it. No, thank you, Dan. This has been great. Thanks to everyone listening. So if you've got something out of this episode, if you could please share it with a friend or a colleague and take a second to leave a quick review, even just the stars is great. How much ever podcast app you're using goes a long way in helping others to find the show.
01:00:27
Speaker
If you liked this episode, check out some of our previous ones on all things leadership, organizational culture, and career development with real deal executives and experts I respect and trust. Here's a clip from a recent episode with Spencer Campbell, who's the founder of the Spencer Campbell Talent Agency and a recruiting expert. If you're in the job market, you know anyone who is, or you help others to navigate their careers as a manager, a mentor, or a coach. Give it a listen and share it with someone you think would find it useful.
01:00:53
Speaker
We all want sort of, it's natural to want a quick fix. It's natural to want something easy and painless. you know These are tried and true techniques to to sell anything. And I think for me, because of the way this business is structured, yeah I have very little because I get only get paid when we win, right? I only get paid when they get the job. So if anything, my incentives are to go the other way. you know It's like to really,
01:01:23
Speaker
get people into this very practical sort of, let's figure this out, let's solve this thing, let's let's confront the you know the tough issues directly, because that's the thing that's ultimately gonna eventually get you hired. And I think for anyone who's listening to this, who's on the job hunt, you're in the same boat, right? Like you only get paid when you win, right? And so I think for job seekers, even though it may be uncomfortable in the moment to to grapple with some of this stuff, eventually you will have to, right? Unless you have an unlimited you know pool of money behind you,
01:01:52
Speaker
the The quicker you can really sort of get a handle on where you are in the market, what's working, what's not, where do you fit in, who can help me, the quicker you answer those questions, the quicker you can end your search.