CEO Shell-Shedding Moments: How to Fix Friction at Work Fast with Helen Tupper

0:00Hi, my name's Sarah and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast. This is one of our special episodes where with CEOs I'm asking them about their shell-shedding moments. What happened, what helped and words of wisdom to help you when you have those shell-shedding moments too. And I feel like today is an extra special CEO slash a very convenient interview. She needed someone so she found me. so today I don't think I've ever interviewed Helen um and when I had the idea it made me chuckle so I was like oh this sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun but obviously I'm going to be very professional um and I am going to try and stick to the same questions I've asked the other CEOs so that Helen you you so I'm being fair and consistent okay so the first question is can you share with our listeners a shell-shedding moment that you've had as the CEO of Amazing If.

1:01Yeah I just thought gosh I probably just I'm so open on our podcast I feel like I've probably talked about them all but I was thinking about um when I was interviewed for a podcast and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna name the podcast I'm not gonna name the person because I don't really think that is useful but what happened on the podcast was I was expecting it to be kind of like just a normal nice chat like I hope ours are normal nice chat we'll see you can wait wait to the next question. Yeah. But I was expecting it to be a normal nice chat about squiggly careers. And it felt much more like I was being interrogated and that my answers were constantly being challenged and almost like the integrity of squiggly careers was being challenged.

1:49And whilst I'm always up for a challenge, it didn't feel constructive. And it felt like a shell shedding moment because I remember thinking I want to stop this interview okay and then feeling like I couldn't in the moment thinking this doesn't feel like it's the right intent I'm not comfortable with how I'm answering is because taking me by surprise but I also don't feel able to stop it because it's you know it's like a live podcast recording and it felt very difficult and you know as our lovely little lobsters go through quite it felt quite exposing. So what's interesting about lobsters I'll have you know just in case you didn't know this is they shed their shells and then afterwards even though it's been a energy zapping and exhausting process they are better because of it so they you know they grow back and they're bigger and stronger and listening to you there describe that I'm like oh it's definitely shell shedding but when you look back do you think you are better because of it or do you just think it was a bad experience you know what I did learn some things that I don't think I've acted on since but I did learn some things at least you're honest at least I'm honest I should probably do more of them I think I just sort of trust people that they've got good intent but what not very long after the moment at all um I did think about like okay what would I do differently if I was in this situation again and I think one thing that might have helped me and I didn't do was listen to that person do a previous podcast because what I didn't know really was whether that person just didn't click with me like was it a bad day was I just a bad fit for that person or was this their was this their style yeah it's just just deliberately provocative or whatever yeah yeah and I didn't know that and that that was on me because I hadn't listened to another podcast that that person has done um and I did think my learning was oh don't put yourself in that position again like go in prepared and make sure that you've listened to somebody else's podcast before you are on their show now honestly I've not done that I've not done that for any anyone's and because I because I kind of go oh I just hope people are curious and operating with good intent which neither of neither of those things I think were true in that in that particular instance I suppose though what's interesting is those shell shedding moments feel uncomfortable but they probably do make us more resilient you know because if you think back to the lobsters they have repeated shell shedding moments and we have the same in our in our weeks in our careers and sometimes they're those big memorable shell shedding moments like that that example that you were sharing there feels quite visceral you're like I couldn't I can remember what that felt like and you looked even like uncomfortable just talking about it and then we have like all of the smaller like shell shedding moments every week where something might take you by surprise because you talk there about like being kind of taken by surprise um and I guess where we are different to our new friend the lobster is we can get some help or support so lobsters sort of do it themselves um but I'm interested to know maybe for that example but also generally a CEO of Amazing If, like what are some of the things that have helped you during those uncomfortable energy zapping moments?

5:08Is it people? Is it places? Is it something that's different? Definitely people. People definitely helps me. So that particular situation, I think I came back to the team really, really quickly. I was like, ah, I've had this hard thing, which I don't think helped me to learn, but it did mean that I wasn't, I didn't start to spiral. so actually sharing it pretty quickly um stopped the spiral which meant that i could move more into a learning frame of mind um the thing that also helped me was getting somebody's accurate reflections so like in the moment people are like oh i'm sure it wasn't that bad you'll be okay you've done podcasts before which is very supportive and helped stop the spiral but the thing that i think really helped was when a couple of people listened to the episode afterwards and then I kind of got it it really wasn't that bad and that was sort of reassuring and they weren't taking away from how I felt like oh you didn't need to feel bad about it no one said that it was just it sounded like it was really hard Helen but actually the interview is useful and it is good and that's the thing that we need to care about and I think it helped me to learn sometimes to disconnect almost like the experience of something from that output in a way like do I want to do that interview again no but what was the thing thank you but was the thing that came out is okay I don't have to worry about two things you know I mean like the actual output was okay but I think generally in in hard moments particularly where I feel vulnerable the thing that really helps me is not keeping it to myself I you know like the problem the problem shared um and just just talking it through with somebody tends to help me kind of get back on track but I think the even better if is that not for that to be not just a supportive conversation but a reflective conversation because supportive conversations kind of make you feel nice but you don't necessarily learn but if I talk to you for example you will just naturally ask me some reflective questions so I get support and learning out of it yeah I think it's an interesting question for everybody like how can you look for the learning in those shell-shedding moments because often that's the last thing on our minds you know when you've when you've just had that interview experience you're not you're not trying to learn you're like coping and trying to find your way through a moment and then probably afterwards want to do whatever your default is to make yourself feel good again you know like hide away get a coffee have a drink like you know like whatever whatever it is and so I do think it definitely takes almost a level of learning maturity to be like I am going to look for the learning and I'm going to do it now you know I'm going to try and do it as quickly as I can while it's fresh not because I think the shell-shedding moments are necessarily always repeatable certainly the big ones I think rarely are you know you rarely have exactly the same situation twice I think it's more when you practice shell-shedding moments like learning in a shell-shedding moment whatever the next one then looks like you've got some like some ways and means to like look for that learning so is that about a conversation with a person who just asks you some really good questions is it about writing down the three what worked well is the one even better if um is it about someone who's um really far away from a situation so they're going to give you some different data because they've got that kind of distance um so though i would never want to force people into shell shedding moments i think the more you do practice them the more kind of comfortable you feel with that the kind of shell shedding experience and people will have perhaps heard us talk before about you know we share mistake moments in our team so we have a channel where everybody shares the mistakes they made and more importantly like what did they learn um how do you feel like sharing your mistakes in that channel and is there anything else that you do when you do make mistakes that kind of helps you with the uncomfortableness having the process of mistake moments has definitely helped me um and sort of seeing how well the team have embraced it because I could sometimes I make a mistake and I'll be like but I probably keep it to myself a little bit but I think the fact that we have that process and that I really do believe in role modeling and I really I really do think it's important for our team to see us taking learning from mistakes seriously so that that definitely man like matters to me and I find the process useful so when we when we share mistake moments it's sort of like a what was the mistake a bit of a what what led to the mistake so kind of like a little bit of an analysis and then a well what have you learned from it and I find that just a very useful thing to go through through mentally but I often I I think my biggest thing with mistakes is like I feel like I've let either like let myself down or let someone down like I have to letting someone down versus letting the learning in like I have to work quite hard to change that because if I feel like I've let someone down it's it's such a strong emotion that it can be hard for me to let the learning in which is which is why that practice has been very useful because I kind of get I get but I still feel it I still feel that oh I'm so annoyed at myself that I did that and I still have that but the process means that at least I can let the learning in and and in sharing it you end up getting support from people as well and maybe you haven't let someone down quite as badly as you thought what about shell-shedding moments between you and I so we're in like an unusual situation so we were friends first for a long time we became co-founders you're obviously our ceo um and we're still friends mainly until the end of this episode until the end of this episode i would imagine a relatively unusual dynamic in that we've got friends so as in we will with friends we'll talk about other stuff other than work at least sometimes um yeah on occasion but you know then we're running a company together and not only are you running a company together you're writing books together and doing events and all sorts of different things.

11:22Some of our friends know each other. Some of our friends don't know each other. You know, all of those kind of things. I think there's also kind of shell-shedding moments between the two of us, between kind of our relationship where things might have felt hard or energy zapping. And actually, maybe our relationship is better because of those moments, but they didn't feel particularly fun at the time. I mean, I can think of some clearly, otherwise I wouldn't ask the question. I can think of several. So you could choose. I was like, oh, I wonder which one she'll be brave enough to choose. But yeah, maybe if you share one and if my one in my head is different, I'll share one too.

11:57Well, I think probably the usefulness is what you learn from it, right? So I can think of two situations where we have had friction and the thing that we had friction about was different in both. I don't know how slowly you're talking. I'm like, well, I'm kind of thinking because I actually don't. I think one was about money and another was about, I don't even know what the other one was really about, but it was definitely a moment of friction. But my reflection on it was that they both happened in social situations. And I think what I have learnt is that we are just not very good in social situations together.

12:43I really have learnt this. So Sarah and I. this makes it sound awful no it does but I think I think Sarah and I are as in sync as two people I think could ever be about work like we are so in sync with our values and what we want to achieve and the way that we work and and even our differences are they fit together like even where we are different approaches I just think if we talked about work all day every day we'd be in sync it'd be fine but we also do things other than work and the things that we do outside of work are where our differences are not very in sync like we just we just spend time with different people we do different things we get our energy from different sources and so I think anytime we spend time with each other I think there's a reason we weren't friends at university it was because because that was more about that side of us and it's and it's so different from each other and I don't think it's not that we don't respect each other's differences I just think it doesn't spending time with each other socially is never where we our connection is at its best but I think one of the ways that we were better because of it was that we didn't just leave the friction so we could have done right we could have gone well doesn't really matter but you're very good at like fixing friction fast we're both quite good at calling it when something doesn't feel right and after that we both as like you say we're probably I can't remember some of the specifics now but I remember us both being like that doesn't feel good and I would also reflect I think it makes you well I think perhaps a bit like kinder to each other as well you know sort of the the way that we show up the rest of the time spotting some situations where it's like okay okay let's be a bit kinder to each other because in those situations we are slightly different it's a different aspect of both who we are and it is the reason we weren't friends in the first place and that is okay um but you know I suppose having the openness and the confidence to talk about that because imagine if you didn't you know like imagine if you just kept having those examples you would never grow from it you'd just be stuck stuck in the same shell like you know like the repeat the repeated because it did happen a couple of times I think for us before we learned from it until we were like something's not right here this is like clearly and then you're sort of stuck in your shell you're not learning and growing and then i suspect it just feels worse and worse and worse and then that's why people say don't run companies with your friends you know because then people have you then have one instance where someone says something you know they really regret and you kind of can't can't come back for it i was actually also thinking of a non-social one to okay which I thought might be a good one um because I was trying to think of like joint shell-shedding moments as well I was thinking when we wrote You Coach You this was very work related and because we couldn't see each other we had a real we had a bit of a shell-shedding moment around like ways of working we had one chapter we were writing on relationships and it was like ironic it was ironic that it was on relationships I think I just I always I can like viscerally remember this and the way that we the way that we were writing that chapter was I would write one version Helen would read it and obviously think well I don't like it and so what she would do is get up really early because she wakes up really early almost like rewrite her version and send it and I would wake up in the morning at like whatever time seven probably and Helen had sent me like four million messages in the last two hours it'd all been like redone I'd sort of breed resentment then I'd wait till she'd like I wasn't like waiting but it was probably like once Helen like gone to bed or like later in the day and then I'd be like well this is not right and then I would just do my version again and so we just had this like I think it was probably only about three days but it did feel really bad where we were sort of kind of it's like passive aggressive I guess isn't it because you're not actually arguing you're just going my way my way stuck again aren't you yeah you're stuck in your shell again yeah like in order to grow sometimes you do have to say the hard things which doesn't have to sound like a bad thing it might be just this isn't working like that might be saying the hard thing and the other thing that I wonder whether has helped both of us and like I think this is kind of what you were describing before is I think we have both got better at you know the whole let it go to let it grow thing like if you and I are thinking very differently about something almost I think the way that we resolve it now and I think we're often better because of it is we both go well let's individually both let go of what we think like I think a you think b and we both go okay let's ignore a and b let's just remind ourselves you know like why we're doing what we're doing or what we're trying to achieve or what matters most it's like a bigger question and then once you start talking about that question it helps you to kind of find your way through you keep the bits are important but you don't get too attached um and I think that helps you in those shell shedding moments because I think it's really natural in those moments to feel defensive um to cling on you know it's it's often more comfortable to cling on to the shell you've already got um than it is to shed the shell and so I think knowing that that it kind of takes that letting go which isn't very fun and you don't want to do it but just having the confidence to do that I think when you're thinking about like what this looks like for you if you're in an environment where it feels harder um perhaps you don't see people being vulnerable or kind of talking about learning from you know we're talking about oh yeah we just all share all of our mistakes like that's a normal thing in lots of companies that would feel really hard to do or in lots of teams that would feel really hard to do so I think you also do have to do this kind of in the right way for you depending on kind of where you are at the moment I think another thing that can mean you can get stuck in a situation is where you don't kind of change the context so that you know if we're just messaging each other um then sometimes that can get misinterpreted or even last night we were messing each other and it could have we could have got a bit antsy each other and now i think we know each other well enough now that we can kind of hold we can hold that debate but also we do discuss a lot and so i think if you are in a hard moment i do think like changing the context like oh can i go for a walk and talk or yeah and i get on the phone because i've got a situation that'd be really helpful to just get your perspective on it and just existing on Microsoft Teams messages and WhatsApp and Google Docs with comments or whatever we're doing where something might feel like it's not quite working I think maybe changing the context might change how you feel about the hard thing and back to kind of like the letting the emotion go to let the learning in thing that might help yeah it's interesting actually I wouldn't I think with a lot of our examples once we talk to each other we're okay you know often it is because obviously you're having to use message and whatsapp and you're maybe commenting in documents I think if you're finding it hard to you know you're like you're writing five million comments just on one page you're like okay it's probably not time to put comments it's probably time to have a conversation yes or like you and I can go back and forward on ideas very fast and actually we can critique ideas very fast in a kind of very low hold way like it's like fine like oh I don't think that would work because of this and you're like yeah probably not you know like we can do that what was interesting about when we were doing that yesterday we had someone else from our team involved and then actually I think we both paused and thought oh that this could look really harsh you know from the outside in this could look like and it wasn't actually I think we've had way harsher like interactions with each other but you know like going oh that won't work because of this but we just say it in a very sort of short and succinct way because what we are trying to do is we're almost like going back and forth really fast it's like oh what about this so that could be oh yeah what oh that'll be tricky and we're just so used to doing it we just don't think about it and then I think if don't forget as well to your point on context change the context but also don't forget if you're not one-to-one which you're not always often we're in group we're in group shell shedding moments right like a company is going through a hard time a team is on a really really difficult project I think that also changes like how you might learn about those things how you kind of do it together um so just to finish Helen thank you thank you for the interview thank you for interviewing me thank you thank you um I'd like I'm like I'm so intrigued to see what people think listening I'm like oh are you are you the CEO they thought you were or maybe they didn't think about you being i don't know she's better um i've asked all other the ceos there so i want to get yours as well because then we can combine them all and compare and contrast see what everyone's saying see what the themes are um what's one piece of learning advice that you would give to all of our listeners for their shell shedding moments so specifically when they're going through those hard energy zapping moments that are uncomfortable but we are better because of them what's one thing you'd say to people?

21:50I don't think you want to be defined by it. So I think you want to be developed by it, but I don't think defined by it. So, and I'll just give you an example of this. Maybe one of your shell shedding moments was where you didn't get on with a manager, or maybe one of your shell shedding moments was a quite a big failure you have at work. I think the trick here is what can you learn from that experience in the moment that can help you to learn grow and develop but I don't think for the rest of your career you should just be going back and back to that moment that moment is done that moment is gone you are bigger and better because of it look for the next moment and the reason I say is I talk to some people and they're so they're so defined and affected and dented they're so dented by some of these really hard moments and I think we almost want to see take from it what we can and then leave it behind because there are lots more shell shedding moments ahead of you to come and yeah and I don't I dragging yourself back to the past when if you know you've learned and grown from it like just leave it behind like kind of move on to the next that would be mine yeah I do think that's brilliant advice I think one of the things that we say in learn like a lobster is I think you are often remembered more for how you almost show up after a hard moment or like during it you know if you made a mistake it's what you do after the mistake that people remember rather than the mistake you and I can't even remember some of those examples we were talking today we were like oh I can't even remember exactly I remember it felt hard but yeah and I was I was trying to think for some of them and I couldn't and so it's interesting but it's like it's actually kind of what you do next that matters and part of that is like have you learned so that then you can think about what you do next and it is that ability to let go I think is such a skill and for someone like me who is more of a thinker and reflect and that reflection can turn to rumination that can feel easy to say but really hard to do um but some of the things i think can help you to do that you know if you're like i know i should do that i think helen's advice is good i just don't know like how to do that that's often where i do think writing things down makes a massive difference there's all that evidence i think some of it was from ethan cross in chatter you know right if you can write your own story down and you actually write it out you're sort of getting out of your brain and that's a good way of letting it go um or if you can tell the story in some way but you know if you're just re-talking about it all the time you know to your friends and you're still going back over and back over it somehow you're not kind of moving on um i agree helen thank you so much for your interview i feel like now we have to write another book that means that you get to interview me but that's probably not a good enough reason to write another book because um we've only just finished writing this one that's very true thank you so much for listening everyone i really hope you're enjoying the ceo shell shedding series and we'll be back tomorrow for another episode bye for now