Perspective, Team Units, and Positive Feedback with Deb Liu, CEO of Ancestry
Everybody has a Superpower. Do you know what yours is? And how will the world be different if you know what yours are? And if we help one another discover theirs? This biweekly newsletter gives you the perspectives, stories, and tools to do just that.
I recently sat down with Deb Liu, the CEO of Ancestry when she visited. Deb and my 20+ year friendship go back to our time as undergraduates at Duke and we have helped each other grow through the years. Deb is also author of the book - Take Back Your Power: 10 Rules for Women at Work - out next month!
Starting with the basic building block—the individual—we talked about 3 key insights - personal empowerment, the necessity of teams today, and positive feedback.
For those who have been on this superpowers journey thus far, familiar patterns should surface in how each of us have a unique set of personal perspectives and experiences and therefore something valuable to add; in how superpowers isn’t in its application - only about understanding our differentiating strength. It’s also a path to building teams that recognize the interdependence and value of the teammates.
Gifts and Positionality
So often, we think that our gifts are what we can do – what we are capable of accomplishing, what we can bring to the table, and what we can make happen. This isn’t necessarily wrong. If we can’t use our gifts to make things happen, we’re probably not functioning to the best of our ability.
Deb shared that your vantage point may also be what you can offer. What can you see that nobody else can see? She shared a story from her days working at Facebook as a new mom. As a new mom using Facebook, she noticed that many moms on Facebook were using groups to trade and buy baby supplies from one another. “I could see this entire community of hundreds of millions of people who were trying to do commerce on Facebook,” she said. “Nobody was paying attention to it.”
Because of her particular life experience and position, she was able to see an underutilized potential on Facebook: buying and selling goods. Deb’s insistence that there was a market for people who wanted to buy and sell on Facebook led to Facebook Marketplace.
Deb trusted herself and her specific vision. She could see things from a perspective that nobody else at Facebook could. While the idea of Facebook Marketplace was initially unpopular with Facebook executives, Deb persevered. She knew the potential she had seen.
The superpowers connection: As you read this, think about your unique vantage point - your combination of experiences and also where you sit. What do you see that others may not see? Do you trust your gut enough and do you have the team support to voice it?
2. The team unit
To build strong teams, Deb encourages her team members to trust themselves and their particular experiences just as she has had to learn to trust herself. Empowered people build empowering teams. This is critically important because “the atomic unit of success is not an individual, it’s a team.”
But, as Deb noted, this doesn’t mean the individual doesn’t matter. “Know what you add to your team. Is the team better because you were there? In what way? Do you up-level them? Or are you somebody who’s a taker? Are you taking away energy from the team? Are you tearing others down? You get a choice every single day.”
The superpowers connection: So, dear readers, as you reflect on how you are adding to the team, recognize that others also may have this questions for themselves. What can you do to help them understand how they energize and up-level the team? What can you share with them?
And that leads us to the next point……
3. Sustaining healthy teams: feedback
Teams are not sustained just by having self-aware individuals comprising them. Feedback is the regulatory function of the team that keeps an eye on the temperature. But feedback often gets a bad reputation for being, well, bad. Instead of team members dreading feedback, Deb tries to focus more on positive feedback.
Feedback, Deb noted, should “unlock something in someone… [It should help] someone to see something they couldn’t.” This has been a powerful tool in building teams that mesh well. Figuring out who can fill a gap on a team is easier when you pay consistent attention to what everyone is doing well at your organization.
The superpowers connection: Taking the time to give positive feedback is a core aspect of my superpowers work in building greater psychological security and super teams. Often, in my CEO and C-Suite coaching and mentoring, I work with great leaders and teams who readily seek out and accept tough feedback. What’s often tougher is seeking out understanding of the positives and what had worked.
It’s just as important to cultivate a habit of calling out each other’s differentiating strengths, each other’s superpowers. An insight is that our superpowers are among our biggest blindspots. Everyone has superpowers. Do you know what yours are?
Helping each other see and “unlock” that insight is critical to building super teams and understanding where we can personally focus our efforts to help our teams achieve the goals.
Thank you for reading this issue of Leadership Playbook: Unleashing Your Superpowers! A reason for me in writing this this newsletter is to refine the ideas that I’m developing. But I need your help.
To do that best, I’d love to know what question you may have on each issue, or how it applies to your situation. Please email questions to me at CoachSanyin@gmail.com and share your feedback with me. THANK YOU!
The next issue -out July 19th - will be on Superpowers and Cohering Teams. I’ll be writing you from the Global Sports Leadership Summit in Monaco, hosted by HRH Prince Albert II and for which Duke University’s Fuqua/Coach K Leadership & Ethics Center is an Academic Partner. I’m proud to serve on the steering committee and be part of this summit for the last 12 years.
There, I’m leading a special session with 4 Star General (Ret) Bob Brown (CEO of AUSA and one of the best team builders of our time) and Joe Ravitch (Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Raine Group who has built new sports leagues and franchises) on the topic of Superpowers and Super Teams. More next week!
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