Continuing Interviews 2.0 with Sebastian Sheikha

Welcome to building better developers, the developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of interviews, calling it interviews 2.0. Got a really brilliant marketing branding kind of name for that. But nevertheless, back end interviews, we are wrapping up our interview with Sebastian Sheikha and we are sort of just picking up where we're talking a little bit about interviews and assessments and basically a sort of a smarter interview kind of approach. And then we're going to get into sort of some of the wrap up things and some of the challenges maybe and not really the shoot the messenger, but some of the messaging problems or or potential struggles that can happen when you're coming into a situation like Sebastian's group does where you're assessing things and it may not always be sunshine and rainbows. There may be some things there that are not welcomed or that are politically a positive, we'll say, and talk to them a little bit about that and then wrap this one up. But since I start out talking here, I guess I'll go ahead and dive right back into let's listen to me. And then more importantly, let's check in with Sebastian. I love that as a as a sort of an informative action as you go into an interview is to have that if you've got already an idea of what that person's like and some of their personalities and their motivators, that does make it much more in a useful interview. Now you're not just checking off boxes and asking the same five questions to everybody. Now you're really able to say, OK, we've we've dealt with those five boxes that everybody needs to have or whatever it is. But now we can actually figure out and spend some time really learning how does this person think, what are they like and get that feel, whether they're going to be, you know, are they going to be happy or are we going to want them? And if you don't have both, you know, if it's not some of their good fit in the team and they're happy, then usually it's it's going to eventually have issues and not work out. In terms of follow up, have you had situations where you've gone through the evaluations with teams and people have realized they just they are not going to be happy or they're not a good fit, there's something about it that's not right, where it's instead of, you know, red flags and saying, OK, we've got to push you off the team, where it sort of becomes a mutual, hey, we just realized this is not a good fit or they want to move off. Or is it does that not happen very often? No, it doesn't happen very often, but it happened. It happened at one client where we we run this assessment and in the course of not directly in the week, but a bit later, this person realized by learning what it's important for them, by learning about their own personality and seeing the team dynamics, realizing, hey, that's not my place. But I mean, hey, it's good as well, because, I mean, it's not good for the employee to stick around in an environment which they don't enjoy. And it's not helpful for your organization having someone who is not who is not really fitting. So, of course, I mean, this happens and it's part of every process. You know, it's part of every process that people come and go and they realize, hey, maybe this is not the right way. So, I mean, I think it's a positive outcome, even if someone decides to leave, it's positive, because in the end, the result, the team works better in the long run and everyone can only win, even if it's maybe painful in the short run. Hey, such is life. Yeah. No pain, no gain. You got to work to grow a little bit. Exactly, exactly. No pain, no gain. Yeah. And, yeah, it's a fascinating topic. And as you said, learning about yourself is one of the main outcomes. And as no one really learns about personal development in school or then for some people, it's really an eye opener. Yeah. Wow. Oh, I agree. I think and I think to, you know, circle back a little bit on the idea of, you know, this is not just this is a science. This is not just some touchy feely, you know, soft thing is that you. Yeah. And I want to sort of have you go a little more into. It's not just I'm different from you and I have different motivations. Is it part of your your challenges and part of what you do is teach people that where you're at in certain areas and your focuses in your I know your biases in your your personality and drive is going to have there are tried and true ways to view other people or to communicate with other people and to help. So it's not just you're different. I think part of your challenge is also is how do you now communicate knowing your differences, knowing your differences, learning a better way of communication, appreciating, appreciating differences and appreciating the person you're talking to and understanding, OK, you just need more time and more data when I give you a task. And this doesn't mean you you're not intelligent enough. It doesn't mean you are not not good enough. No, it just means that, OK, you are different. You have different different wiring. And my job as a leader is to acknowledge this and to treat you in a way that you can do your job. Properly and with all information you need. And and there are other peoples where I say, OK, can you do this? And they say, oh, off we go. Boom, it's done. You know, and this is, as I said, it's not it's not the good, no bad. It's just the different way, the way we different, different we are. And and this is what we what we teach. Helping people learning about themselves, learning about the others and learning how to communicate with the other person within the team to have better results in the end. So this and this is just a curiosity is when you're talking to leaders and you're taking them through these, through these challenges and you're and you're seeing how the team is. Now they're a little more diverse maybe than they thought. And they're going to have to be a little more intentional in all their communication. To me, it it means that a leader now is going to have to is really going to have to step up and lead a little bit more because you're not. It's not a template anymore. It's not like you just treat everybody the same way. And so do you get sometimes you get is it something where you the leaders embrace this and seeing the value of it? Or is it more of a pushback where they're like, oh, no, now I've got to I've got to actually, you know, spend more time with the team and and have a really it's almost a customized per person approach because I have to maybe maybe it's not completely different, but I have to probably tweak it a little for each person and how I direct them and how I manage the team. I mean, it's a good question. Sometimes people hire us because they know that. I mean, they know that they want to grow. They want to develop their own skills and to do it on behalf of the team. So this is the best case. So everyone who was out there and to say, yeah, you know, I could could. I want to grow. I want to become better. I always say, hey, my job is all on myself. Every day, I want to be a little bit better than they before and also have my team. But there are also people who say, hey, my team is not working. So they hire us and then we come in. And then we look at the team, but also look at the leader. And then we realize, yeah, you know, there are some areas where you could also improve. And of course, in the beginning is sometimes oops, you know. But I think most of them, they realize, yeah, I mean, this is not this is a bad, you know, everyone needs to grow. Everyone needs to develop skills. And they really appreciate that we get to have this data, this information, and we have them also to step up because also also in leadership, I mean, many leaders are just put to this position and they don't have any real training. They don't have any any long term experience. Sometimes in big organization, yeah, they just promoted. Boom. Now you lead this team. But no one had them. No one told them how to lead the team. And then they're sort of. Lost in their own own world and only have their. Capabilities, they they just picked up on the way and helping them more in a in a formal process or a formal process, but more in a structured way to to develop skills. Most of them are very thankful and appreciate the support. That's good to hear, because it's sometimes you get people have this view of leaders as, you know, standoffish or arrogant or or, you know, they they they know it all. And it's good to know that, yeah, there are a lot of good leaders out there as well that we all need to grow. And often, often these people who come across arrogant, maybe these are very nice people, but they are fearful. Yeah, they are afraid they they they have this team and they don't really know how to handle them. And they have their inner conflicts, you know, and then to protect themselves. They come across arrogant and and and untouchable. But deep in their inner core, they are actually quite, quite nice people. But they don't have the tools at hand and and maybe not a strong enough mindset to to handle these fears. And and this is also part of leadership mentoring or leadership coaching is to to help leaders to step up, to help the leader to unleash their power and to eliminate their own fears. In order to be. The leader, the team deserves. And so I often met people in my past where I initially thought, oh, my God, this is. Strange person, you know, unfriendly and very reserved, but deep in the core, they are actually quite nice. Just being afraid. Once again, it's one of those where once you understand a little bit about their personality, their motivations, that things become much more clear and it's and now it's not a matter of you know, pushing somebody away because they're odd or whatever it is, it's embracing it a little more and saying, oh, OK, there's a little different. I understand how to communicate with them now and realize that we have the same goals and we can actually move forward as a team. Exactly. So I want to. This has been we could talk for days on this. This is this has been an excellent discussion. But before we go, I just wanted to give you an opportunity. If somebody's heard this and like, wow, this is exactly what my team needs or I need to talk to my boss at this what you know, he this is where he's struggling. What is the best way to get a hold of you and take advantage of some of the tools that you provide? Yeah, I mean, the best way is I'm very active on LinkedIn. There you'll find all the information you can message me. We can hop on a call and and and see look at your topics and and take it from there. Yeah, I mean, LinkedIn is really the place of choice. And we also have a website, of course, which will be in the show notes, I guess. So Sebastian Schieke dot com. But just hook me up on on on LinkedIn and there we can communicate. Excellent. Excellent. Well, I want to thank you for your time. This has been it's been excellent. Appreciate you ending your day with this conversation. I get to start my day with it. So I get to I get to utilize this log. I get to, you know, bask in the glow a little bit longer here as I go through the day. That being said, we will wrap this one up. More than happy to to have. I mean, they have all the information, they are linked in profile. I can look at we have videos or challenges. We have testimonials, everything there. So. Excellent. Yeah, I think that's it's just yeah, this is this has always been a fascinating area to me is how to make getting teams work better, you know, tighter together and be more, you know, the buzzword, I guess, of being high performing teams. But that's what you want. You know, you want to get together and be the best you can be as a team. So great to have people like either out there helping them do that. Thanks a lot, Sebastian. We'll talk to you later. Have a good one. Bye bye. And there you have it. That will wrap up our conversation with Sebastian. I hope you found it as interesting as I did. As I mentioned, there's a lot of material there that he's brought up. There are a lot of ways that we can help ourselves, that we can do better as a team member. We can do better as a mentor, as a lead, as a manager. Everybody in a team contributes. And when you understand how people work, how they think, what their motivators are, all of that information that Sebastian's group helps you really explore as a team and how to utilize those, it just makes it better for everybody. Even if you're in a situation where you're maybe not a perfect fit for the team, when everybody understands that, you can still get the most out of your particular skill set or somebody else's skill set. If there's somebody that isn't, you know, maybe not the best fit. But the thing is, is you can make it work while you're there and then find, you know, a happier solution for everybody, maybe with a little less hurt feelings and things like that. But that's actually, as he says, probably not as common as people, I think fear. More often than not, it's really just a matter of understanding how to work with your your particular team, with your team members. And you can find some amazing improvements and become a high performing team, even when you think you may think you never had it in you. It's your team never really was going to be that team. And yet you put everything together right and things can start clicking. I will have all the links out there for Sebastian, as we have in the prior episodes and of course, for this one as well. If you want to reach out to him, definitely do so. He's got if you catch him out on LinkedIn or something like that, he does regular sort of like virtual meetup type things. So it's a great way maybe to do some networking. If you want to get to learn a little bit more, obviously, it's maybe not obviously, but because of his remote setup, it is it's pretty easy. It's pretty much like almost a global kind of a group, which could be a cool one to just hang out with a little bit and fly on the wall even just to hear how some of these people in other areas are tackling some of the same things that you do. With that, I think we'll wrap this one up. We'll come back. We're not done with we've got a whole line of interviews still coming. As I mentioned, you should have heard it. I think depends on when these things go out. But as I mentioned in one of the specials, we're going to adjust the time going forward instead of doing, you know, basically 15 to 20 minutes episodes. I think I'm going to push these will be closer, probably 25, 20, 25 minutes, something like that, because we have so many interviews. I want to make sure I get people in. And I don't want this to run for, you know, 100 episodes for the season. So we're going to probably adjust. We'll still do Tuesday, Thursday releases. They'll just be a little longer so that we can try to get, you know, more. We'll we'll pile a pack a little more in so we can get more people in and get some of these interviews moving forward and keep them timely as well, because there really are some great interviews. I've had a blast doing it so far. Not done yet with the season, but I know that it's going to be it's going to continue to be a good one. We've got some great people lined up. That being said, let's get out there to your day that hopefully is all lined up and ready to be your best day yet. You know, only superseded by tomorrow being an even better day. But as it is, however it goes, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Noor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. One more thing before you go, the Develop-a-Noor podcast and site are a labor of love. We enjoy whatever we do trying to help developers become better. But if you've gotten some value out of this and you'd like to help us, be great if you go out to developernoor.com slash donate and donate whatever feels good for you. If you get a lot of value, a lot. If you don't get a lot of value, even a little would be awesome. In any case, we will thank you and maybe I'll make you feel just a little bit warmer as well. Now you can go back and have yourself a great day.