Gather at the Well | S2E4 The Art of Multi-Leader Collaboration (Lindsey Fuller and Marisol Pineda Conde) | Otter.ai

Gather at the Well | S2E4 The Art of Multi-Leader Collaboration (Lindsey Fuller and Marisol Pineda Conde)

Sabrina Li34min

Lindsey Fuller

00:01

Hey yo, welcome back to gather at the well, we're so excited to welcome you in and I'm hyped, because if you tuned into Season One of micro dosing wellness, it was mostly me running my mouth, musing and, of course, demonstrating the vast inspiration I experienced from my team and our client work, but it was more of a solo reflection. And in this second season, periodically, I'll be inviting in guests, and I'm thrilled to have my co Madre and CO leader, Marisol Pineda Conde, Deputy Director at the teaching Well, joining. Welcome in, Marisol. So excited to be here today. So we want to jump in. And as you all know, we are focusing primarily on human centered leadership as well as policies. In this second season, it's really anchoring back to the notion that in times of uncertainty, in times of high stress, we are committed to identifying what's in our locus of influence and control, and both of those are so buckle up. It's time to jump in before we get to some of the questions that we have schemed up for. Y'all would like to just welcome in a couple of breaths to settle into the space. I don't know how your day has been, but we want to invite you to get comfortable, sit back and open your heart and mind to these reflections. So you might just take a moment

Lindsey Fuller

01:31

to get comfortable in your seat, or if you're standing or driving, gazing off to the horizon or out a window, you might take three deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, welcoming In that audible exhale, two more, just like that. And

Lindsey Fuller

02:00

yeah, and you might be multitasking, and if that works for you, bless it. But if you really want to center this one focused task, I invite you to reflect on either a current co leader, whether you are on the leadership team or you've observed leaders inside of your organization, or perhaps it's a past example that you have calling in that individual or That team, and when we kind of stir back up and get ready to jump in. You might even write down those names or that name on a post it to hold them steady as you take in our content today and think about what's applicable in your own organization or life. You might just pinpoint that individual or that team, and when you feel ready, you can flutter those eyes open, write it down and hold it as sort of a problem of practice. All right, dope. Let's dive in. So if you don't know, I guess if you follow me on LinkedIn, you'd know how high regard I hold Marisol. I don't really want to lead with anyone else ever again, not that I can't fold other folks on. Shout out to rebe and Aliyah. And there's something really unique when you feel totally matched. And so maybe we should tell him how he met. Marisol was a former client of the teaching Well, it was a phenomenal school leader. And at the point where I was going to be taking on an organizational leadership role at the teaching well, and the founder, at the time, was going to be heading out on maternity leave, I was like, I'm gonna need some support here. And Marisol came to mind immediately to the entire team, and we set up a 15 minute call. What happened? Marisol,

Marisol Pineda Conde

04:04

yeah, my recollection of that was that it was an exploratory call, and you came in and you were clear about what you wanted, and I forget, but you were like, here are the three things that I'm looking for, this, this, this and this, and I'm really looking for a road dog. And I said, and then I said, I'm your girl, right? And at that time, the role was, like, operations, which I was, like, absolutely excited to be, shifting from a really front facing role into a role that wasn't doing as much front facing. And that's where the story begins.

Lindsey Fuller

04:43

I also have never heard anyone get so excited about operations. She's like, spreadsheets are my love language. And I was like, bless that absolutely. Yeah. So it started. It was quick. We were clear, and loyalty and collaboration came. Peacefully for us. So you know, as we think about this and so, much of our work has been ensuring that everything we do is aligning to the values and the mission of the organization, really tending to the team, I wonder if we can share a couple of ideas with folks so you're starting a new co leadership relationship, or you're already in one, and the energy is funky. You're still storming and trying to norm. If you think about the stages of team development, what are some of the tips or tricks that help co leaders create a unified vision? In your opinion, soul,

Marisol Pineda Conde

05:39

I think what was true of that interaction that I want to like thread into our work and partnership together is that it was very evident from the start that we were aligned on values beyond the organizational values that are values about people, that are values about the relationships that we held. There was, there was an opportunity to explore and align on those values. And so when I'm thinking about folks entering into a new partnership, it has to be opportunities to engage with each other that allow for them those values to come to the surface beyond the mission. We know we are supportive of the mission, or else we weren't work there. And we also know that likely the value sometimes we inherit those, but we have some synergy to them again, we wouldn't be there otherwise. But what are the values that we hold personally that we can really lean on when things get sticky, that are more personal, and you know, things like being human centered, that I know you and I deeply align on or the idea that relationships really are important and we want to nurture and support relationships in our workspaces and outside of them, those are the places where I think there's opportunity for folks to really unpack and Find bridges, especially when times are sticky.

Lindsey Fuller

07:01

Yeah, exactly. And I think about how often we fold a new leader in and we expect them to just hit the ground running. And so much of our meetings or our onboarding process is really technical, and we when we think about above and below the green line as one framework often referenced in educational spaces and nonprofits as well. We skip over the adaptive components of relationship, building of trust, building of establishing psychological safety and so definitely a recommendation that you ensure there's some split. It might not be 5050, it may look more like a 3070, but that there are meetings just dedicated or ideally in person, connections or even retreats where you're saying like, who are you as a human? Some of the leadership workshops that we do help co leaders externalize their life, map what are significant life events that have brought them to this org, to this role, to this time, we also recommend building community agreements or communication norms, externalizing our working styles right like there are actually technical things you can do that still dial into the adaptive connection that's required to trust someone to lead alongside you? Yeah, I think psychological safety also came really easy to us. I wonder, can we get a little meta with that? What are some of the ways that we intentionally built psychological safety? If not named,

Marisol Pineda Conde

08:34

I would say that one of the things that was most valuable for me as somebody that was coming into the org was your lived authenticity, and that in that process of you feeling authentically who you are, and I remember distinctly you saying, like, I'm too old to code switch, I was like, finally, finally on my team, because it is, it's part of what contributed to my psychological safety. I felt safe to be fully who I was, because you were fully who you were, and there was space for both of us to do that. And some of that is, and that's not to say, I want to be really clear, that's not to say we don't hold a high professional regard, but that there were these elements, or these moments where we were working one on one, where we could fully unmask and say, here is what I'm thinking, or here's how I'm approaching this. And there was both modeling and permission to do that, and that contributed greatly to that psychological safety, even in spaces that were, as I've mentioned before, a little sticky or that felt complex,

Lindsey Fuller

09:53

I think, to layer on its modeling, its permission, especially as CO leaders with a supervisory. A reality, right? Like, even though I regard you as my co leader, technically I'm also your supervisor, so there's a layer there of complexity that has to be unpacked, but I'd say it's also an active practice that professional authenticity, and we had explicit conversations and activities that try to search for, like, What permission do we actually need to unmask after both of us left either school leader or district leader roles where masking was required, we actually had to unlearn and we had to create space to be like, You know what? That's no longer serving me, or I'm exhausted carrying this particular code switching load. Or, I think even thinking about, how do I want to be in relationship to work? Because I remember distinctly our first couple of meetings, we would do, like a four hour, five hour marathon meeting, and we were like, Oh snap, we can both really hold it down, like we'll get after it. We talk about the cat GIF. If y'all are into gifts, look at just type in a cat typing. That's like what we looked like. But we actually then had to have some explicit dialog around, what type of mom, wife, friend, daughter do we want to be? We haven't had that invitation, and now we're leading the organization. We set the tone. We can establish greater work life balance. Let's explore it first with us, before we bring it to the team. And that going first, that socio emotional connection that we built, was really essential.

Marisol Pineda Conde

11:36

And I think that underscores that notion that we were finally in a position where we could dictate policy, practice and model, what we wanted to be true, what

Lindsey Fuller

11:49

a what a privilege and honor and a huge responsibility, absolutely, I wonder if we just quickly externalize some of the ways that we sustain alignment, because alignment is one of my love languages, I have learned that loyalty and alignment are key for me experiencing psychological safety as a global majority woman leader and Marisol and I invest a significant amount of time, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually, making sure we are calibrated. It is an investment. And some folks are like, ooh, couldn't that be an email? It could not, in fact, be an email, because when it can, we use it. When we need to use Slack, we do that too, but we meet to open every week with our weekly sync. That's actually all leader, our whole leadership team, for an hour on Mondays, we have a mid week supervision meeting, because I believe coaching and supervision should be sacred, and what's often lost in CO leadership responsibilities is that you're co working, you're getting ish done, but you're not necessarily also affording that person in development or feedback or thought partnership. And then we close the week with a system sync, and that's typically a longer meeting, 90 to two hours, where Marisol and I are able to dive into bigger projects, like establishing a policy, drafting it, revising it, thinking big picture, finances, budget, etc. So I wonder so like, if you have any reflections on kind of that three pronged approach to weekly calibration, yeah,

Marisol Pineda Conde

13:28

I think it's one. It's critical, it's critical to staying aligned. It's also responsive, like there is space, if something comes up throughout the week for us to have a placeholder and we're not scrambling for things. That doesn't mean that we're not creating intentional touch points if something does emerge and we have the opportunity to huddle up via a phone call or another way of engaging with each other that's more responsive when something does emerge. But I think that for me, the true test of that alignment came as we started growing the team, and so when we started adding directors to our team and thinking about where in those spaces, is there opportunity to fold folks in, and are folks seeing value in that? Because you and I might see value because it aligns and it matches our working style, but when we bring additional sort of team members into the space, does that structure also create value for them? And that's been particularly true in that weekly sync where we have all directors present, and there has been an emphasis on alignment across the team, and that really setting the tone for the week as an opportunity to align the entire team and create momentum in ways that is in service of the org. And so I do think that it is a tremendous investment, and it's absolutely worth every moment. We are able to connect, and it's flexible, because we might not meet all three at those three junctures every week.

Lindsey Fuller

15:09

Yeah, we'd love to let the listeners dive into a little bit of rest as they chew on some of our concrete examples. I wonder if you'd be down to facilitate a little somatic and then we'll dive into a couple more concrete reflections. Yes,

Marisol Pineda Conde

15:26

I'd love to bring a practice that we call dots and squeezes, and this is a practice that invites us to use our hands as a body anchor. And what I love about this practice is that it is accessible to us at all times, in all spaces. It doesn't require us closing the eyes. So I might invite you to do that, if that feels right, but it invites us to think about the palm and to visualize that we have dots throughout, and we're going to take our pointer and our thumb and we are going to squeeze those dots and so, again, an invitation. You might do this with eyes open or eyes closed, to find a pressure that feels nourishing. For some folks, there may be a need to bring more pressure for others, that gentle touch might be just enough, inviting you to work your way through the palm And then transition to squeezing and tugging the fingers, of course, remembering to breathe as we do this practice and as you make your way, perhaps Shifting to the other side, again, visualizing those dots and

Marisol Pineda Conde

17:07

and as you make your way transitioning to tending to the fingers by gently squeezing and tugging and

Marisol Pineda Conde

17:33

I love this practice also because it can be done under a desk, In a tense moment in a meeting, or perhaps even as we transition into different spaces,

Lindsey Fuller

17:47

beautiful and yeah, if you are in a co leadership relationship that is tense, we encourage you to identify somatics and mindfulness practices that can occur Real time as you interact or integrate that tension to try and stay present, stay in your body, stay engaged and persevere through any dynamics that maybe feel at your edge. So love that beautiful well, would love for us to think a little bit about the cost of misalignment, right? Because again, we do invest a lot in our people, and we do invest quite a bit of time meeting with each other. Often, those meetings include what we call work burst. So we're actually getting things done real time, in good company with feedback, especially tasks that we're procrastinating on or feel like they have implications across roles or departments, or potentially even ones that feel challenging due to finances, change management, buy in, etc. But I just wonder about some of the potential ways that we can identify misalignment early or stay anchored in our values while we try and navigate those moments. Any thoughts on that? Marisol,

Marisol Pineda Conde

19:07

I would say that the practice of checking in on alignment as a proactive action is invaluable, and that some of what is maybe contributing to misalignment is the absence of that practice. And so if there is a feeling, either folks are sharing with you examples of misalignment, I heard a different message from this other leader, or if there is a felt sense that there is misalignment, I would really encourage folks to check in right, to create space to check in on that alignment. I think often misalignment is shared back with leaders from other voices, and that can be tough. And so an invitation also, as we're in this calibration, especially for new. Partnerships of what it means to assume positive intent, to stay in our body, and to be able to not be responsive or reactive to those instances of misalignment, and create space to say, let me check in or taking a pause. And I think often it can be really challenging, right, especially if there's been intentional work to have conversation, and yet we're experiencing this misalignment. It can be really dysregulating.

Lindsey Fuller

20:32

Yeah, I was just connecting with what you were sharing. And like somatically, how does that manifest, right? And it's like that experience of confusion or uncertainty real time when you're like, wait, but I thought we had and sometimes shame, embarrassment or frustration can emerge when you're like, oh God, we didn't create any space to talk about this. And now we're live in front of our team, or we're live in front of our board, or we're live in front of clients. And that's why to folks that question our upfront investment, I say that is harm reduction, that is community building, that is discernment building, and it's, it's the calibration that is not just responsive, but preventative, right? I do want to name that there should be regular checks on the efficacy of those syncs, because if it gets to a point where it could be an email when you don't maybe you need to shorten the length of the meeting, maybe you skip the cadence to every other week, but just seeking feedback regularly around like, is this still working for us? Is this serving us? Or are we? Are we off the floor too regularly for this because over sinking, and I would also argue unclear job descriptions or a lack of role clarity can lead to role overlap in unsustainable ways. Right? The goal is to align and then build momentum and go and do the thing. It's not to then take every meeting across the week together. It's building confidence, independence,

Marisol Pineda Conde

22:09

clarity, and then it's enacting that likely individually, so that you can still get to the many demands of the work. So yeah, I appreciate you. Appreciate you thinking about that. Yeah, I'll layer on to that. It is important for the team to also have clarity on the especially with a job description when it may be an ED versus a DD conversation, even if there is alignment. So that's another element that feels really important when we start to overlap too much, we confuse our team, and that may be a lot of energy that can be diverted elsewhere. Yeah,

Lindsey Fuller

22:49

I hear that. I think ultimately we want to offer, though it seems obvious, maybe we need to state it, never disparage one another, and it is more than okay to take a pro social pause real time in front of any stakeholder and say, You know what we've we've touched on that topic, but I'd like to circle back with my co leader and ensure we're 100% aligned before I confirm. Can I loop back to you by end of day, or can I loop back to you in the next 48 hours? That's a part of leadership presence that cannot be overstated. You it is within your right to respond in time, not to react in the moment, and then have to clean up the rupture on the other end, at the end of the day, I often say we don't have to agree, but we do have to align. And if we're unable to align within that meeting structure, then we're unable to communicate effectively outside of it. So we may need to also say, let's put an asterisk on that. We need to come back. No decisions have been made, and let's actually keep that under wraps until we have further time to iron out the details. Beautiful. So I think the last thing I just wanted to share with our community here at gather at the well is a specific tool that we have. CO created, Marisol, and I really articulating our what we call co leadership, human centered values. They underpin everything we do. You can go back to episode three of our micro dosing wellness series, where we talked about operationalizing your values. How do you get clear on your individual values before then brokering and navigating the org values and then leadership values with a partner, right? And so we'll be excited to share those with you in the blog. But I wonder if there's one or two, because there are six that you'd like to share Marisol that are most resonant or feel most on top.

Marisol Pineda Conde

24:50

Yeah, I think the one value that stands out the most is the value of orient heat. Orienting to our team as everyone having the right and deserving of coaching and supervision, and I think that informs so many of our policies, of our structures, of our supervision approach, of our definition of success, right, and how we're supporting folks to get there, but that when we were able to align on that, we had so much clarity on the other side, that I think that value really informs the way that we work together and also informs how we interact with our team. Yeah,

Lindsey Fuller

25:38

for sure, because our budget communicates our priorities, and so that CO leadership, belief or value also dictates the benefits that we provide our team, the learning opportunities, the investments we make in them, beyond compensation, and that feels really central. Yeah, is there a second one that you'd like to bring forward to the community?

Marisol Pineda Conde

25:59

I think the value of the middle path is one that feels also really resonant, particularly as we're thinking about this CO leadership, this notion that not one person has all the answers, and that often we're bringing our collective expertise, our collective experience, to figure out what is the path forward. And it's not mine or yours, but it's what's in service of our org and our team. I think so often we experience that in our alignment conversations, and I know that is a value that we orient especially when things are hard, or where there feels like there is a value misalignment. We're always trying to take that approach of it's not binary, but how do we stay in the gray and figure out the path forward? That's

Lindsey Fuller

26:47

the value that you will see underneath the specific examples that I shared in episode two, self and collective care. It's really this continuous pursuit for us of supporting our team with both professional authenticity and living collectivism, which is not necessarily ingrained in the everyday workplace. So if those are ideals that you hold, those don't happen by chance. These are intentionally designed internal PD conversations, coaching conversations, team activities at retreats, and more importantly, there are pre conversations and alignment that occur with the directors team to live that value. Yeah, I want to share one more that I think is really key, and it actually sort of sinks number four and number six soul, but number four for us is change is hard. It doesn't have to be traumatic. And that really guides a lot of our change management, our communication cascades, how we lift the veil for our team on challenges that the org is facing, or strategic investment areas, et cetera. But it's really linked to number six, which is every employee is treated with dignity and respect until the very end. And so as a retention focused organization, it's dope when we can retain our internal team as well. I think it's demonstrating that we're professionally about that life, as I spoke about in one of our change leader episodes. But I also think it's unrealistic to think that you will retain 100% of your people or 100% of your clients will renew year over year, and we are often experiencing a lack of human centered leadership when folks decide they're transitioning, whether you're a school leader and you do intent to return forms and folks let you know in February they're not coming back. Do you cut all of their coaching meetings and observations. If it's a non profit teammate who's indicated that they are not going to be returning for the next year, right? Are we like, oh, we could save some money, so we're going to cut your PD budget. The disinvestment in people preemptively is really problematic and too common. And so for us, we need to depersonalize, I think, to a certain extent, someone's transition, and try and find again that middle path of what's best for them and what's best for the organization. And no matter what, we're going to treat them with dignity and respect all the way until their final time, because we're a part of each other's professional history. We want to make sure folks leave our orgs without venom in their mouth, and we also know that there are whole humans trying to do the best we can, and so I really value so are we okay, and we will make mistakes as leaders, and so don't forget that too, the us versus them narratives between staff and directors, between teachers and admin, is a dynamic we're constantly working to address with our clients, because it is a distraction from the work of centering those most marginalized that you're working to support. But it's also a. An unnecessary barrier, or like a wall, it's a wall between people who, if they could link up in solidarity, would achieve a greater impact together. As homework, we're inviting you to reflect on two questions. You might do this individually and then bring it to a co leader, or share it with your leadership team. What are your Human Centered Leadership values? And how do these values show up for yourself and your team? In other words, how would you make those measurable and observable so that folks can see you living your values as always, we love to provide you all with a couple of affirmations that can be used across your next week. Marisol, I wonder if you'd like to share any affirmations for the community.

Marisol Pineda Conde

30:50

Yes, I'd love to share an affirmation that emerged from my partnership with the teaching wall when I was a sitting principal, and that affirmation really spoke to when I am fully my authentic self, I give permission for others to do the same.

Lindsey Fuller

31:09

And I would add we can do hard things, so long as we choose each other. I might add one more linking back to the start of this conversation around how do you launch a relationship that is CO leading? How do you establish psychological safety? I can unmask with my co leader. It will help us reach our goals like you. It has to start with you. You have to be self aware. You have to be vulnerable. You have to be open. We can't align if we're just trying to navigate each other, our personalities, our preferences, our triggers. So as we close out with a critical hope, I'm wondering if you are feeling anything, any inspiration coming through Seoul, and then I'll cap us off.

Marisol Pineda Conde

31:58

Yeah, my critical hope is that we can anchor, continue to anchor, in the belief that once we've made it to a position that has power privilege, that we can make space for others, that we can continuously do that.

Lindsey Fuller

32:19

And I think when I started this episode saying I don't want to co lead with anyone else, it's because it's not just that we're matched in terms of gifts. And I truly want that for every other leader to understand that you don't have to be excellent in every area. You just have to be self aware enough to know what your strengths are, where your areas of growth are. That doesn't mean we don't continue to pursue professional development and grow a skill set, but when we can rest into our superpowers, individually and as a collective, that's where you actually achieve greater sustainability. I also think that we are providing a corrective experience for our team to have leaders that aren't workplace abusers, and that's my critical hope. My critical hope is that leaders who are getting feedback, or folks are too scared to share it with you, who know you're burnt out, who know you're doing harm, who know that you are saying one thing and doing another, that before you decide to step out of a leadership role, that you decide to welcome someone else in with you. We don't want to lose you in the field, but you may need help. You may need a different perspective. We're stronger together, so that's my critical hope. Is that folks that have been telling themselves I'm not good enough. I just keep making mistakes. Maybe my my time is done, and some of y'all it is and bless that we love you and we want you to transition with ease and joy. But some of y'all we need to do to stay you just need to get a co leader. That's my hope, my prayer and my invitation. Do some reflecting. We're here at gather at the well. Come back to join us. We hope that you have a beautiful day. Thanks for tuning in. You.

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