Profiles in Tech, Part III: Life in the Middle
Rebecca, 35, is used to working somewhere in between. She always has. It’s one of her gifts.
According to Rebecca, she’s both a left- and right-brained individual, which is one of the reasons why she was attracted to an interdisciplinary undergraduate program that allowed her to study both computer science and the fine arts. It’s also what propelled her to look for jobs as a user experience (UX) designer in the tech sector after she graduated.
“I’ve always been creative and technical at the same time,” Rebecca said. “Growing up, I was always told to choose one or the other. Even in school. It was either math or painting. Science or music. Not both. So, I feel really lucky that I was able to find a job that employs both parts of my brain.”
For the past 8 years, Rebecca has worked as a senior product designer at Apple. It’s a position she loves. However, it’s also a job that requires her to not only straddle her right and left brains, but to liaise on a daily basis between product managers and software engineers. That’s both demanding and challenging.
According to Rebecca, it can be a struggle to work with certain members of the engineering team who don’t communicate well.
“I don’t want to generalize, but a lot of people who work in tech are stuck in their left brain,” Rebecca said. “Communication doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people. What I’ve learned working in tech for as long as I have is that some people are very aware of the people around them and their thoughts and feelings and body language, and some people don’t have a clue.”
Just as she’s constantly working to improve communication between product managers and software engineers, Rebecca is also an intermediary between her five direct reports and the upper tiers of middle management. It’s a role that she takes very seriously.
“I feel responsible for their livelihoods, their career growth, and their needs. At least at work,” Rebecca said. “That means making sure they’re feeling happy, productive, and passionate.”
That’s why she’s committed to doing everything she can to guide her direct reports towards their right brain. During weekly one-on-one meetings, she doesn’t want to just hear about how each of them is doing with their work: she wants to know how they’re feeling.
Talking about feelings is one thing, but what to do with them is another. Rebecca’s professional training is as a product and UX designer, not as a therapist. She’s taken a handful of webinars and online trainings about management, but they’ve been few and far between. Rebecca claims to enjoy having direct reports, but as her team continues to grow, she’s concerned about how having to be responsible for so many others will affect her own well-being.
“Talking about feelings at work is important,” Rebecca admitted, “but being a manager is tough. I’m not just their manager. I’m their mentor, I’m their friend, and their colleague all at once. And nowadays, at tech companies, employees expect to be inspired by their manager. That’s a lot of pressure. It’s like another full-time job.”
In short, Rebecca, the equally left- and right-brained in-between working at the nexus of technology and design as a mid-level manager for one of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, has become really good at juggling. She has to be. There are constant pushes and pulls from her direct reports and her boss, her product team and her engineering team, and the two sides of her brain.
To keep everyone happy, including herself, she has to be superwoman.
“That’s the reality of working at a high-performing company with very talented people in the tech sector,” she said. “It’s a constant negotiation.”
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Hats off to Rebecca. Her superwoman-like proficiency with both the creative and technical side of tech is something to marvel at.
Rebecca refers to coworkers who are stuck in their left brain. It’s common to hear that someone is right-brained or left-brained… but what’s this distinction really about?
Think of the right brain as the “Yoda” of the two hemispheres. It takes in information in an intuitive, holistic manner. It gives us an overall sense of things. For instance, when speaking with someone, your right brain helps you sense the expression on their face, their body language, their tone of voice. It helps you pick up on that person’s subjective life.
As for your left brain, despite being much-maligned it’s also much-needed. It helps us put words to what we see and sense. It interprets and defines the world around us. It’s filled with facts.
Why might so many of us be oriented towards our left brain?
We can blame (or credit) our schools.
The American education system has traditionally emphasized left-brain processing. In studying for a test, we often memorized words, and then spit them back. Many of us were favoring the left brain on a daily basis, developing and reinforcing those neural pathways, making us more likely to use them in the future.
And why might many of us be unaware of our feelings?
Because our parents were similarly unaware.
According to relationship expert John Gottman, an “emotion-coaching parent” is aware of their own emotions, and values them. They also value their child’s emotions, as a way to connect. They listen to how the child is feeling, help put words to the emotion, and help the child find ways to cope with how they’re feeling. As a result, the child trusts his or her emotions.
By contrast, an “emotion-dismissing” parent either ignores or disengages from how their child is feeling, viewing it as unimportant. They assume that with the passage of time, the emotion will fade. As a result, the child may feel ashamed of how he or she is feeling, viewing emotions as inappropriate or unacceptable.
But because emotions naturally happen (for example, when a child gets momentarily separated from her parent inside a store), if the parent can’t be relied on to mirror and label that emotion, the child winds up doing something with it, in order to cope. This often means that the child will suppress or disconnect from whatever they’re feeling.
Now, back to Rebecca.
She’s already a rockstar manager, providing a space for her direct reports to talk about how they’re feeling. But when she’s struggling to get them to access what they’re feeling, Rebecca would be wise to follow these 9 steps:
Go micro. You don’t need to hear them say how they’re feeling. I mean, that would be nice. But their face and their body language may give it away. It may help to become familiar with microexpressions, which occur so quickly that we’re often not aware of them. Paul Ekman’s website is fascinating and may help you get better at reading microexpressions.
To the left, to the left. We present a greater intensity of emotion on the left side of our face (particularly on the left cheek). That’s where you should be looking.
Don’t judge. Our limbic system naturally produces emotions, so whatever her direct reports are feeling (even if it’s anger), best to maintain a stance of non-judgment. If you fault someone for feeling a certain way, or express disbelief, you’ll just be inviting them to become defensive and shut down.
Conjecture. See if you can make an educated guess as to what the person is feeling. And see if you can frame it in a gentle, non-accusatory way. For example, “I’m wondering if you might be upset with me.” This helps them feel safe in acknowledging it.
Reflect. If they tell you how they’re feeling, do a quick paraphrase to show them you get it. “I’m gathering that you’re feeling upset with me.” They’d be likely to continue discussing it.
Double check. Make sure you’ve got it right, as to what they’re feeling. It feels good to know that someone really wants to understand and will take the time to ask. For example, “Have I got that right?”
Be spacious. Emotions are rarely packaged into one neat, pithy statement, which we can perfectly convey on our first try. Give them the luxury of some space to articulate it. If you’re getting flooded or overwhelmed upon hearing it, there are ways to guide yourself back to a receptive state.
Validate. If you show them that whatever they’re feeling is understandable (even if you’re not feeling the same thing), they’ll be more likely to feel safe sharing more.
Get all Pavlov. Consider thanking them for sharing. It’s positive reinforcement. When they sense that doing so resulted in you being pleased or appreciative, they’ll be more likely to do it again.
Just as employees expect to be inspired by their manager, Rebecca’s multifaceted skill set is what’s truly inspiring. Not to mention her genuine concern for her direct reports, and the time and effort that she devotes to their well-being. As her team grows and she’s forced to juggle even more, may she direct that care and love back toward herself.
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This story is part of a larger series called “Profiles In Tech,” which is intended to highlight the unique mindset of those who work in tech… their outlook, their concerns, and their quest for fulfillment. Stay tuned for future installments.
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In case you missed it: Check out Part I, which chronicles one programmer’s struggle with what it means to be productive, and the important role that coding plays in his life, and Part II, which introduces you to a front-end engineer who’s questioning whether coding is for him.
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References
Blackburn, K., Schirillo, J. (2012) Emotive hemispheric differences measured in real-life portraits using pupil diameter and subjective aesthetic preferences. Exp Brain Res, 219(4):447-55.
Nielsen JA, Zielinski BA, Ferguson MA, Lainhart JE, Anderson JS (2013). An Evaluation of the Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain Hypothesis with Resting State Functional Connectivity Magnetic Resonance Imaging. PLoS ONE 8(8): e71275.
Paterson, Ashley & Babb, Kimberley & Camodeca, Amy & Goodwin, Jacqueline & Hakim-Larson, Julie & Voelker, Sylvia & Gragg, Marcia. (2012). Emotion-Related Parenting Styles (ERPS): A Short Form for Measuring Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy. Early Education and Development - EARLY EDUC DEV. 23. 583-602.
Siegel, Daniel & Hartzell, Mary. Parenting From the Inside Out. New York, N.Y., Penguin Random House LLC, 2014.
Solomon, Marion & Tatkin, Stan. Love and War in Intimate Relationships. New York, N.Y. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011.
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