I spent about 15 hours on three slide decks for a training day, then handed them to my collaborators, people on my team with a different background from mine. I expected the decks to look different. What I didn’t expect was that they’d keep my concepts and have the attendees study their own team the way an outsider would, which changed how the whole room took in the ideas. This episode is about what it’s like when someone else’s perspective changes who your audience gets to be, and what happened to my ego along the way.
Summary
I spent about 15 hours on three slide decks for a training day, then handed them to my collaborators, people on my team with a different background from mine. I expected the decks to look different. What I didn’t expect was that they’d keep my concepts and have the attendees study their own team the way an outsider would, which changed how the whole room took in the ideas. This episode is about what it’s like when someone else’s perspective changes who your audience gets to be, and what happened to my ego along the way.
Takeaways
Good Vibe to Go: It’s WNBA Finals season, and there have been plenty of good vibes in these games. Game 5 is tonight!
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I recently spent about 10 hours working on a couple of slide decks, handed them off to my collaborators, and then I got back something I could have never made alone.
Hey folks, welcome back to Good Vibes Leadership. I’m Bernadette Smith. I’m CEO of Equality Institute, and I’m your guide to playful, inclusive leadership.
I recently spent about 10 hours building two slide decks for a training day for a client. 10 hours. I didn’t really use AI. It was working through the learning objectives and the content. I mean, writing out speaker notes. It was a lot of time.
And then I handed them, these decks, off to my collaborators. These folks are from another firm. We’re working on this project together, and they have a very different background than I do. The type of work we do is the same, but the perspective that they bring is different from my perspective, and I knew that going in, and that’s why I was really excited for this collaboration.
And because I’m not really a visual person, that’s not my biggest strength, I definitely expected the slide decks to look different when they came back to me. But then I actually got the first revision, and my jaw dropped.
It wasn’t just about the visuals. They were beautiful. But these other folks reframed the content. I had a typical training structure, and they kept my concepts, added some of their own, and had the attendees study their own team the way an outsider would while we worked through ideas like inclusive communication. So they brought a completely new lens to the training, a lens that I still don’t have, to be honest. It’s very, very cool. Our ideas merged into something that I couldn’t have made alone, and definitely something far better than what AI could deliver.
But here’s the part that is worth noting. I’ve spent about 10 hours on those decks. I was really proud of my first drafts. I was like, “Yes,” I felt like I did a really solid job, like I’m setting this up for success. And then I got the revisions and my ego was bruised. It was bruised for just a minute. In fact, I opened the deck and I saw that it was so different, I was like, “I cannot even process this now. I’m gonna close it up and check it out later.” And so I teach inclusion for a living, and it’s embarrassing to admit that I had this moment of an ego bruise when my work was being challenged or improved upon.
Here’s what I expected. I expected different packaging. I expected a different look. The same training, but a different look. But what I got was the same concepts, but with a completely different way for the attendees to be in the room. Nobody really changed what we were teaching. They actually changed who the attendees got to be while they learned it. They made it a more academic and research-focused training, which is so cool and beyond the way my brain works, actually. I would never have gotten there on my own, and I definitely wouldn’t have gotten there with a team of people who look like me or think like me or have the same background as I do.
So yeah, it turned out really cool, but at first my ego was bruised. I was like, “Damn, I gave them something good,” and they just gave it a significant glow up.
So what moved me from this place of being bruised to actually being incredibly grateful? Just one sentence. I had to remind myself very simply, everything we’re doing is in service to the client. This is gonna be better for the client. The client doesn’t care about whose draft is whose. The client cares about the impact. It cares about the better training day.
So my challenge for you this week, my reflection for you, is to think about the next time you’re given feedback, or you’re given a revision that’s pretty different from what you started out with. It could be personal even, and your ego gets bruised for a moment. Hold off on responding. Maybe think about one thing that’s better in that new version than what you had. What’s one thing that’s better? Maybe say it out loud, maybe write it down. But what’s one thing that’s better? And then ask a question about why that person would have made that choice. So is your ego still bruised after you do that? Think about that this week.
All right, folks. That’s it for my reflection. Let’s move into this week’s good vibes to go. It is WNBA final season, and if you haven’t been watching, there have been plenty of good vibes in these games. In fact, there is a game coming out tonight, game five, Golden State Valkyries versus the Atlanta Dream, tied up 2-2. Check out the good vibes from those players.
And if you want more good vibes every Saturday morning, that’s what the Five Things Newsletter is for. This week’s stories are about late night soccer in New York, free prescriptions at Walmart, and more. You can subscribe at fivethingsdei.com.
All right, folks. That’s all for this week. I’m Bernadette Smith. I’m cheering you on. Have a great week.