Narrator: You're listening to the Humans of DevOps Podcast, a

podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills,

knowledge, ideas, and learning, or the SKIL framework.

Lindsey Pollak: I lost almost all of my speaking business at

the beginning of COVID. And I had to pivot very quickly and

the metaphor that I used was recalculating, like when your

GPS takes you down a certain road and you make a wrong turn,

and you have to find a different path.

Eveline Oehrlich: Hello, and welcome to the Humans of DevOps

Podcast brought to you by the DevOps Institute. My name is

Eveline Oehrlich, and I'm the Chief Research Officer at the

DevOps Institute and your host today. Our podcast today is

Navigating Your Career During Times of Crisis, and we're

having an exciting guest, Lindsey Pollak. Hello, Lindsey.

Lindsey Pollak: Thank you for having me.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yes. excited that you're here. Thank you for

giving us your time. We're very grateful. Let me tell the

listeners a little bit about you because there is a lot of things

here I want to make sure that they know so first of all,

Lindsey is a New York Times bestselling author and one of

the world's leading career and workplace experts. She was named

the 2020 thinker, 50 radar lists, which honors the top

global management thinkers whose work is shaping the future of

how organizations are managed and led. Of course, that is a

very important topic in where we are in this world. She has

written many books. Her latest book is the response to the

COVID crisis. It's titled "Recalculating, Navigate your

Career Through the Changing World of Work". It was published

in 2021. Other books, the remix "How to Lead and Succeed in the

Multigenerational Workplace". Then she wrote to the yearbooks

for some of the younger professionals, which I was just

telling Lindsey, I was going to order for my daughters, but I'm

don't want to intrude on them. So if they're listening in

ladies, maybe you should get them. The first one is called

Becoming the Boss new rules for the next generation of leaders

and getting from college to hear your essential guide to

succeeding in the real world. Normally, Lindsey has a great

speaking audience and consulting clients, which include more than

250 corporations, law firms, and she speaks at conferences and

universities. She has appeared on today's show, The New York

Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and NPR. And she's also an

ambassador for CAP Finiti V. Brand, LinkedIn, and a

millennial workplace expert for the Hartford and Chair of

Cosmopolitan magazine millennial advisory board. Welcome again,

Lindsey and thank you so much for being here today.

Lindsey Pollak: It's my pleasure, Eveline and thank you

again.

Eveline Oehrlich: So when I was listening to one of your

stories, where you talked about hiding under the cover after you

graduated eating ice cream, not knowing what and how to get

started, and that reminded me a lot of myself when I started my

career at 24. Not really wanting to be a programmer, and

somebody called me a programmer, which was a very huge

disappointment. I wanted to just walk out, because I was a 4.0,

master's student in computer science and the gentleman called

me a programmer. So I thought, wow, we have to have this

wonderful woman on this podcast. So again, thank you. We have

ambassadors at the DevOps Institute as well. So I'm

curious, what does your work as an ambassador actually include

Lindsey.

Lindsey Pollak: So I've worked with a couple of organizations

linked in, I was an ambassador for six years from 2009 to 2015.

And now, as you mentioned, I work with kept FINITY. And it's

essentially aligning myself with organizations that I think have

a lot of value to the people I serve, which is people who are

interested in their careers. So I guess it's similar to being a

spokesperson or a partner. But I like the word ambassador,

because it really is a community oriented role that I partner

with organizations that I believe in to get more people

involved in their communities and kept FINITY has a Strengths

profile product that helps people find the strengths that

they have that are unique to them that can still serve them

in their careers. And I really believe in that mission of

having a strengths based career as you said, a lot of us aren't

sure what we want to do when we graduate. And I think when we

start from our natural strengths, we often find a lot

of value and a lot of happiness and fulfillment when we follow

that path.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yep, that is exactly what I keep telling my

daughters to try look for that happiness and fulfillment, and

as they're just starting out the career, of course, they

sometimes think their mom doesn't know anything, just

because I am old. But I sometimes give them a hard time

that I am not yet old. I am still here. And have advice to

give. Great, yeah, we have forgot. We have over 250

ambassadors who help us in a very similar role. So that's

great. I was curious about that. All right, let's talk about this

whole topic on Skilling and Upskilling. And in the future,

we've just done some research from the DevOps Institute where

we found that getting, there was a significant amount of lack of

skill. That's really the number one challenge for our audience,

which is IT leaders, CIOs, and so on. And they're having a

challenge in terms of keeping and retaining and hiring new

skill. So I want to explore this term of with you. Of course, the

great, great resignation is one great vinegar. Yeah, but I have

also heard about the great renegotiation and a great

reshuffle. The three sometimes seem to be used at the same

time, but wanted to see what you're seeing relative to this

whole grade resignation. Is that a US thing? Is it you see it in

Europe? I do see it in Europe, because we've, you know, where I

live it, it is Europe. But I'm curious, what do you see in your

work and in your day,

Lindsey Pollak: You know, I prefer to call it the great

reshuffle or the great reevaluation, because some

people, they're not actually resigning, but they are

rethinking how they want to do work or how they want their

careers to be. So we do see a lot of the statistics of people

actually quitting their jobs and starting other jobs in the US

and elsewhere, like Europe, as you mentioned, but I think the

broader picture, which relates to rescaling and upskilling is

that COVID And the advancement of technology and globalization

and all of these different factors generational change, as

well, are all causing people to pause and say, Am I doing what I

want to be doing? And is this a, an industry or career that has a

future to it. And for a lot of younger people in particular,

who see many adults now working into their 60s into their 70s,

even some people into their 80s, it's a very long term choice.

And so when you think about what you want to study in school,

what kinds of organizations you want to work for? I think the

skill conversation is really important. We have a huge need,

particularly in the US for STEM talent, science, technology,

engineering, and math. And I know that's a global phenomenon.

But we just simply don't have enough people to fill the jobs

that we're going to have. I think that's also a really

important point for older workers who, you know, maybe are

in their 40s and 50s. And say, you know, I'm nowhere near

retirement, what kind of career is going to carry me through the

next several decades where there are going to be jobs available.

So I think a lot of it has been accelerated by COVID. But these

trends of looking for more fulfillment, looking at the

future and what it's going to be, I think that's been going on

for a while, and it's only accelerated with the pandemic.

Eveline Oehrlich: So do you think this is going to get

better or even worse than where we are at this point of time?

What's your crystal ball saying?

Lindsey Pollak: My crystal ball is saying that we are in the

messy middle of this, we are at the moment where people are

quitting, people are restarting people are searching. I think

there's a lot of uncertainty right now that has continued on

from the pandemic. So I think that it's a tremendous

opportunity for job candidates and employees to use their

leverage right now and say, particularly if you have a

technical skill that you are in demand, if you are eager to

learn a new skill, I think there are tremendous programs and

opportunities globally to rescale or upskill. In

technology fields, there's a lot of government and nonprofit

funding for that. Now. I think if you're an employer, this is a

challenging time because employees do have leveraged,

there's a lot more opportunity out there, particularly for

organizations that offer some kind of workplace flexibility.

So I think the companies or the employers that are smart, are

saying well, we should really look at our well being offerings

or employee benefits, how well our managers manage talent, how

well we train employees to keep their skills sharp. I think I'd

be a little concerned as an employer and make sure that I am

looking at the future and I think for employees use this

moment of leverage and opportunity to put yourself in a

good position and take advantage of the opportunities that are

out there.

Eveline Oehrlich: Mm hmm. Yeah, so we see some changes in of

course, the work hours right? Friday's off. We're to DevOps

Institute have actually implemented that for our team to

have a Friday, summer day, that means that's the day where we

start learning, doing some training to ourselves or having

some special projects. I hear a whole bunch of new things. I

keep saying to some of my enterprise clients that just

putting up a workout place in the basement or having a beer

fountain in the developer community. That's kind of a

popular thing, having the, you know, 12 different liquors, or

whatever it is to your developers or others is not

going to cut it, you have to dig a little bit deeper and think a

little bit deeper. So yeah, interesting. Most we'll see how

that does. I want to shift our thinking a little bit,

particularly in light of your book, "Recalculating". I have

ordered it, it's not here yet. But I do know that you have

written and talked a lot because I listen to some of your

speeches. They are around the mindset. And I am actually a big

fan of Dr. Carol Dweck, who I've tried to get onto the show,

hopefully one day she will say yes, I'll keep working on her.

Tell me about this mindset. And what what can we what have we

learned during the pandemic? In terms of our mindset?

Lindsey Pollak: I love this topic. So I wrote recalculating

because of the pandemic, I lost almost all of my speaking

business at the beginning of COVID. And I've had to pivot

very quickly. And so I started researching how people were

responding as employees or business owners like I am to the

pandemic. And the metaphor that I used was recalculating, like

when your GPS or your Sat Nav takes you down a certain road

and you make a wrong turn or what have you. And you have to

find a different path. And so when I think about people

navigating through any environment, but particularly

challenging times, I think about how they make choices. And what

struck me as I was interviewing people, is that you could have

two individuals in the same situation, for example, somebody

who had been unemployed for a long period of time, and one of

the people would say, I'm never going to find a job, nobody's

going to hire me because I've been unemployed. And the other

person in the same situation would say, everybody's gonna

want to hire me, I'm so refreshed. I've been out of work

for a while I can start, you know, hit the ground running.

And that's where I decided to start the book with a chapter on

mindset. And I think those two sides are very good examples of

what Carol Dweck refers to as a growth mindset or a fixed

mindset. A fixed mindset says, This is what it is, it's never

going to change. So for example, I don't have a good singing

voice, or nobody's going to hire somebody who's unemployed. And a

growth mindset, all you have to do to adopt one is to add the

word yet to the end of those sentences. So nobody's going to

hire somebody's unemployed yet, well, I haven't found a way that

they're going to do it, or I don't have a good singing voice

yet. I'm sure if I took some classes and practiced, I could

get better. And what I found is the people who were willing to

find different paths, try different strategies, use their

network, get some extra training, who had that growth

mindset that their situation could change, even during COVID,

which was such a challenging time, that made all the

difference. So I really think while a lot of people are

experiencing burnout, and mental health challenges that often

need professional help, we also sometimes do ourselves a

disservice when we sit in a negative mindset. And assume

that things can't change when actually very, very, very small

steps can make a big difference in finding a job or even when

we're in a job making the changes that we want to see for

our well being or for our career development.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, so in our field in it, there is of

course, a lot of topics around automation, right? We NIT

doesn't matter if we're an IT operations, if we're a site

reliability engineer, or if we are developer, we are wanting to

do an automate ourselves, to some extent out of a job and for

some individuals. That's a significant challenge in my

research, over the years, in large and with Corporation,

there's always this one or multiple people who are saying,

I'm just going to do it the old way. I'm not going to be out of

a job, I'm not going to be automated away. And, and that's,

I think the biggest challenge our community has, to some

extent because there's this fear, right? What advice could

you give those folks were saying, Hey, I'm going to do my

process the way I've done it always, and I'm not going to be

replaced by a machine even so that individual could do

something much more valuable, and maybe even something more

interesting. They still will not be able to change the mindset.

How could these folks think differently? What would you say?

Lindsey Pollak: That's such a good example in I think of a

parallel in journalism, you know, that so many journalism

jobs have been lost, but many people have survived and thrived

by pivoting their skill set to something else? So I think it's

a classic growth mindset exercise, which is, where are

the opportunities? What do we know is growing? What does work

what people have found success despite automation, and rather

than focusing on what is not going in your favor, what is not

helpful to your career, look for the opportunities, and I'll give

you a framework to think about one of my favorite frameworks

for generational thinking is rather than doing things the old

generation way, or the new generation way, I like the word

perennial, which was a term coined by a technology

entrepreneur named Jean appel. And a perennial is someone who

knows their history, they know the way things have been done.

So they have that grounding that a lot of IT professionals have.

And they keep up with the times. So it doesn't mean you erase

everything that made you good at your job in the past, it means

that you use that foundation that you continually build on

it. So I think of some architects I worked with, who

had learned how to design with a paper and pencil. And then in

the 1980s, CAD technology came along. And so they learned how

to design in CAD, but they know how to do both. And they see

value in both. So when they see a new technology coming along,

they don't say I'm a dinosaur, I'm never going to learn it.

They say, Oh, great, here's another tool to add to my

toolkit. So I think it's really about being willing to change

with the times and putting yourself in a mindset of saying,

okay, things may be different, but I'm going to seek out the

opportunity. And I think sometimes older people get more

worried that they're not going to be able to keep up with the

times when I think we're all perfectly capable of it. We just

have to make a choice to adapt with those times and not decide

that we have been overrun. Does that make sense?

Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, makes perfect sense. And I have

actually a follow up question, because I know you've done some

research in the millennials as well. What I also see in the, in

this space is that of course we have folks like myself, I am you

know, a baby boomer, I've been in it, I know how to do certain

things. But there's new folks coming in. They have great

capabilities. They, for example, can manage five different

screens and write code on all of those together. I can just

follow one. And I may be content switching maybe in two things,

but they're just incredible. And I can deal with it. Because

maybe I don't know, maybe I'm having a growth mindset or

because of my personality. I'm not sure. But there's a lot of

folks that I meet in IT organizations who are threatened

by millennials, not just because they have technical skills or

abilities, but they're just different. What advice would you

give those folks because I know we have people, mainframe folks,

we still need them. Some of the largest financial institutions,

if we turn the mainframe off, and we go to cloud, it's not

working, we cannot we cannot get our money. So what what advice

would you give somebody like, like a baby boomer, like myself

or even older? How to deal with that?

Lindsey Pollak: Yeah, I see this all the time. And I think

particularly in technology where things are so stark and move so

fast. I think that one way to reframe it is rather than saying

they're faster, or they're better, is to say that they're

from a different culture. So just as you're in Germany, and

I'm in the United States, if I came to Germany, I think I'm an

expert on my topic, but I would inherently understand that I

would probably have to adapt a bit to the German culture. And

so it's not good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse. It's

just a different culture. And so if you see it that you come from

the culture of a baby boomer IT background, and the young people

you're working with or in a millennial or a Gen Z it

culture, then you both have things to offer. And so if you

come at it from that level playing field, a lot of younger

people would love to hear how you learn to code 10 or 20 years

ago, they would love to hear about your purse. spective that

the architect who learned to design a pencil, he said, a lot

of young people say, show me how to do that. I've never done it

that way. That's really interesting. I can learn from

that. And so I think that the magic happens when we just spend

time together and have curiosity, rather than judgment.

So I love to talk to people who did business in the 80s or 90s,

you know, pre email, pre technology, you know, how did

you do sales? What did you do? What are the tricks that you

used, and there's a lot of value in that in some of the tools

that other generations haven't use. So I think if you see it as

a cultural difference, rather than a judgment call, and you

bring your natural curiosity, I often find younger people think

that older employees are resistant to that conversation.

And the older employees think the younger people are

resistant, and when they actually get together, they have

a lot to talk about.

Eveline Oehrlich: I love how you face that the magic happened.

And actually, has happened to me at the DevOps Institute, just

recently, so. And we actually learned from each other. And I

think that made us both a better individual, and it has tightened

us or connected us towards a better team. I love the term the

magic happens. All right. Fantastic. I have another

question. Because of we also do assessments at the DevOps

Institute, we have an assessment, many enterprises do

assessments, but not as much about the skills as you have

written and you have an assessment model, but we assess

the capabilities around processes. How fit are you

around technology, but I'm really want to dig into your

example. In your book, you said you had that you have a

capability to assess skills, how and what would you suggest? How

was it? Because I always thought I cannot? How can I assess my

skills? Because if you would ask me, am I my human skills? Right?

Am I a great collaborator? Am I a great communicator? For Yeah,

I think I am. Am I empathetic? Yeah, I think I am. So I'm

sometimes thinking, how can I assess my skills? Yes, I can

say, I'm not really good at cloud, or I'm not really good at

security. Because I'm not a security expert. I'm an

operations person. But assessing skills tell us a little bit more

on that topic, because that really intrigued me. And I know,

our listeners are curious, because we just did a upskilling

at 2022 research, and we'll talk a lot in that research, we talk

a lot about different skills.

Lindsey Pollak: So I like to differentiate between skills

that you can learn hard skills, like written communication, like

particular coding languages, and then the word strength, which is

the company Captain entity that I'm an ambassador for. And the

difference is a skill is something you do that you're

good at doing. But a strength is something that you're good at

doing. And it energizes you. So you could be very, very good at

filing papers alphabetically, but it doesn't excite you.

Right, it doesn't interest you. So the difference with a

strength is that it excites you, it energizes you. So it's

something that you want to do. And what's really interesting

about a lot of strengths, and I think the difference between a

strength and a skill is there a lot of people, for instance, who

are really good at math in school, and so they became an

accountant. And they don't really like it, they're good at

it, but they don't like it. And I'm sure that's true with a lot

of technology jobs, you had an aptitude for it. So you did it.

But if it doesn't energize you, it's not a really great career

choice. So the magic is finding the things that you're good at,

and you enjoy. And what's very, very interesting to me, is a lot

of times, we actually do a terrible job of knowing our

strengths. Because when something comes easily to us,

and it doesn't feel hard to learn, we don't think that it's

a particular strength, because we think though, everybody must

be good at that, right? So if math comes really easily to you,

or coding comes easily to you, or empathy comes really easy,

easily to you, you might not value it, because you're just

don't think it's a big deal, that you're good at it. And so

when you assess your strengths, and I can be happy to provide

you with a link in, in your show notes to take a simple strengths

profile finder, there are things for instance, I was speaking to

an academic, a PhD professor, and he said, he's really burned

out on writing. He's very good at it. But it doesn't energize

him anymore. And so he doesn't want to do it. It also tells you

what are what's called your unrealized strengths, which are

those things that you're good at, but you don't even realize

about yourself. And sometimes that's really helpful for people

who are reskilling or who are looking to change careers

because again, it's something that you've been really, really

good at. Maybe you love introducing people to each

other. Maybe you're very social, as you said, maybe you're very

empathetic. And so maybe you've been coding, but you'd actually

be really good at managing other people to code because you're

very empathetic and a good teacher. So I kept filling his

strengths profile and happy to share that link. But I think

that magic again, is the skill that you actually enjoy doing.

Eveline Oehrlich: Hmm. That relates to the great job then

right? So what is that great job, is the great job, the place

where I have energy? My husband, sometimes I have to tell you

this, my husband sometimes says he cannot. He's in construction.

He does all kinds of things, right? And on Sunday night, he's

like, I cannot wait till Monday. I'm like, Oh, wow, that's really

exciting. I'm just saying way I love what I do. I'm an analyst,

I get to do research, I get to write, I get to speak to very,

very good and fantastic people like you. So I love my job. And

I would say I have a great job. But there's a lot of others who

don't, because they don't have that excitement. So that is the

great job. One part of the great job is that excitement, I know

what I'm good at. And I can thrive in that. And I learn what

else goes along with the great job, because I know you talked

about that as well.

Lindsey Pollak: I think that's a really good description of it.

And look, we can be you know, happy in our jobs, but not every

minute. And every task that we have to do, I don't want people

to think that work should be bliss that you know, and if not,

you're miserable. I think it's a combination of where you feel

fulfilled. And I actually use the word energy, instead of

excitement. It's not like you're giggling every second, but you

really feel energized by it, you feel like you're making a

difference. You feel like your work has purpose. You're not

slogging through the day. But I think the environment in which

you do it is equally important. And I think this is a big change

in the workplace, which is do my values align with the

organization that I'm working with? So do I feel that the work

that we're doing and a big picture, there's my job, but

then the bigger organization, I think millennials and Gen Z's

have put a lot of energy and attention into making sure that

their values align with the organization they work for. And

I think that's part of the great resignation that you brought up,

is during COVID, people had a lot of time to think about what

they really wanted in life. And if the organization they were

working for was at odds with what they wanted from their own

values, I think a lot of people made a change, not necessarily

always because of the actual job, but sometimes for the the

broader picture of the organization.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, absolutely. I am hoping my

daughters are listening into this at some point to get them

excited about or energized. I love that word. You have given

us some great language. Well, this has been fantastic. where

can folks go to learn more about your work? Of course, the books

we read about the books, but is there a place you would tell our

listeners to go and say, Hey, check this out?

Lindsey Pollak: Yes, I'm very active on LinkedIn. So feel free

to connect with me there at my name, Lindsey Pollak. I also

have a website, Lindsaypollack.com. And under

the tab that says Recalculating, that's where you can find that

free Strengths Assessment if you're interested.

Eveline Oehrlich: Fantastic. I have one more surprise question

for you. What's your favorite thing to do on the weekend?

Lindsey Pollak: Oh my, favorite thing to do on the weekend. You

mentioned the ice cream. The ice cream example is I live in New

York City and there are a lot of ice cream trucks. So my daughter

and I go out and I love vanilla ice cream with rainbow

sprinkles. So taking my daughter for an ice cream cone on a sunny

weekend is my favorite activity.

Eveline Oehrlich: That sounds fantastic. That's what I might

do this weekend too. We have 33 Celsius here in Germany, so

now's not the time to visit. But if you ever come over here, I'll

take you for ice cream. We've got some great Italian ice

cream. Lindsey, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for

your time. Enjoy the weekend. Enjoy the ice cream and

everybody else. Thanks for listening in. Have a great day.

Cheers.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of

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