Let's Think About It Podcast
Welcome to the Let's Think About It Podcast with Morice (Coach Mo) Mabry! Are you ready to break free from fear, doubt, and uncertainty to unlock your true potential? Join Coach Mo on a transformative journey as we tackle the barriers hindering your personal growth. In each episode, we engage in insightful conversations with certified coaches, career professionals, and thriving entrepreneurs. Together, we uncover practical strategies to overcome self-imposed limitations and cultivate resilience. Gain clarity, boost confidence, and thrive in the face of uncertainty. Coach Mo, an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and a published author, serves as your guide on this empowering quest for self-discovery and growth. Through mindfulness and mindset mastery, we empower you to navigate the inner critic and life's challenges to seize opportunities for success. Tune in to the Let's Think About It Podcast to equip yourself with the tools and inspiration needed to embrace uncertainty, conquer fear, tame the inner critic, and chart a course towards personal fulfillment. Start your journey to greatness today!
Let's Think About It Podcast
Stepping Up to Leadership in the Tech Arena with Limor Bergman Gross
Explore a transformative journey toward professional excellence with our distinguished guest, Limor Bergman Gross. 🚀 From software engineer to executive leadership, Limor's career metamorphosis is a testament to the profound possibilities within the professional realm. In a candid discussion, she shares insights on empowering women in tech, facing fears, and embracing the art of celebrating small victories. 🌟 Whether you seek to enhance your public speaking skills or ascend the corporate ladder, Limor's wisdom shines as a guiding light for those navigating the complex landscape of professional growth.
This episode serves as a masterclass in managerial finesse and fostering team dynamics, providing a roadmap for those entering leadership roles, especially in the digital nomad era. 🗺️ Limor unfolds a compelling narrative of a client's success through strategic self-awareness and building strong stakeholder relationships. The conversation concludes with an uplifting affirmation of the transformative impact of self-belief and the vital support networks that bolster our journey toward unlocking our latent potential. 🤝 Join us for a session promising to equip you with the resilience to pursue your ambitions and cultivate a thriving career in the tech industry. 🌐
Welcome to another episode of the let's Think About it podcast. I'm your host, Coach Moe, and I have another wonderful, wonderful, amazing guest, Lamor Bertman Gross. She is an executive and career development coach. Lamor, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm great, Maurice. How are you?
Speaker 1:Man, I'm excited. I'm excited to have you. I'm excited to have your nuggets, your wisdom that you're going to share with my audience. But before we get into that, you got to tell us where you're calling in from.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I'm calling in from Israel, where it's nine PM right now.
Speaker 1:Nine PM. Oh okay, israel, there's a lot of things happening in that region of the country.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How are you doing in that regards?
Speaker 2:And I'm doing okay. I mean we are safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Okay, can you please share with my audience your background, your career journey that's taking you to this exciting adventure that you're on and being an executive and a career development coach?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I started my career in tech. I was a software engineer and I grew into leadership. I grew leading engineering organizations and I used to live up also in the US and got back here to Israel four years ago, and along the way, I found out that I really enjoy helping other leaders both people that I managed, but also I started mentoring managers in 2017. And I got great feedback from managers that I mentored. They really appreciated my support. That, combined with my passion to having more women in tech and even more so, having more women in executive roles, kind of led me to what I'm doing today. That's great.
Speaker 1:So tell me, about when did that light come on? What was it? What was it? Whether it was a bit, whether the special situation where it's just like where you said to yourself I want to do that, I want to help leaders become better leaders what was it that really took it to that next step for you?
Speaker 2:It was a I think it was a process like it didn't happen overnight. But at my last role in corporate I was heavily involved in the women women energy and I really put a lot of effort into amplifying women's voices hierarchical women, doing different initiatives above and beyond my role, and I really enjoyed that. I remember asking myself well, if I like it so much and I'm making an impact, why not just focus on that? And that, combined, I think, with my return here and making a huge change already right moving countries with my family kind of led me to think that that's the right time to make a change. Also, career wise, I wasn't sure initially what exactly I'll become, that I'll be a coach, but I knew that I wanted to support women in tech.
Speaker 2:I knew that the direction kind of happened over there Took me about two years, I guess, to figure it out. Go take a course, a coaching certification. It was a process.
Speaker 1:Okay, One of the things that I really try to help my audience through is just certain fears and barriers that they approach and their professional journeys. So my first question for you is how did those fears come up for you and what ways did you overcome them in becoming a coach?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. So, first of all, fears still come out today. I mean, it's not that I'm free of fears.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:I think the gist of it is not to try to fight with the fear, but embrace it. It's okay to be afraid, but then you need to tell the fear. Okay, I heard you, but I'm going to work with the fear and challenge myself, because I was afraid throughout my career. I was afraid to become a manager for the first time. I was afraid to move countries with small children. I was afraid to grow into a director role. I mean, I was afraid many times.
Speaker 2:I was afraid living corporate and becoming a coach. So fear is there. The question is, how much space do you give fear and are you allowing yourself to overcome it? And the best way to overcome it is by taking small steps Every day. A small challenge, not everything at once. Stepping out of comfort zone, small step at a time.
Speaker 1:Like creating miniature milestones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And as you hit certain milestones, celebrate it, and then that's what helps create the momentum, and then, with that momentum that builds courage, which ultimately shifts one's confidence, to go after and overcome that fear.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I like to compare that to getting in shape physically, Because that's the best analogy. If you want to gain muscle or if you want to train for a race, you want to start running. You wouldn't do a race from 0 to 5 or 10K or whatever half a marathon or a marathon. You need to train right and every day you challenge yourself a little bit more. That's the same thing. If you want to, I don't know, maybe you are intimidated of public speaking, so you want to go to a TED talk from being like never spoke at all.
Speaker 1:You would start small.
Speaker 2:You would say okay, today I want to speak up in this meeting. Maybe I'll volunteer to do a talk to my team, to three, five people, and then you know. So you challenge yourself small steps, take small steps, get feedback, grow and learn.
Speaker 1:Who is your client's base and how do you work with them through creating such milestones that build their confidence?
Speaker 2:So my clients are typically in leadership positions in tech. It could be in engineering, it could be in other functions, but usually they are in some leadership position. And what we do is we try to think about goals first. Right, what are the goals that they are trying to achieve? Like, public speaking can be one goal. It could be something else, it could be getting to the next level, like being promoted, maybe it's a career shift, whatever the goal for them. And then we start planning Okay, that's the goal.
Speaker 2:Maybe you want to get there in six months, or maybe less, or maybe more, but what's one step forward you can take today? Try to map like a plan In order to get there. So, looking backwards, let's say you got there in six months. What are the milestones along the way? Sometimes people don't know everything, and that's okay, first of all, if it's career related. That's why you have managers, that's why you have HR, you have people around you that should support you in your growth. But regardless of that, even if you don't know everything, at least figure out what's the next step you want to make. What's one step forward? And once you've done that, you'll ask yourself okay, what's another step forward that I want to take and I just challenge them to think about those things, to allow themselves to think that they deserve and they are capable, because one of the challenges is that people are not even in their mind, are not even willing to dream, to think that it is possible.
Speaker 2:So first you need to imagine it.
Speaker 1:I agree with that, because we're so accustomed to being an autopilot in react mode and putting out fires and dealing with the current circumstances we deal with, and it becomes a little bit more difficult to foresee what my intentions are, what the future aligns with me. How do you work with your clients, helping them get to that point of focus? Because I can imagine that when people come to you, their initial thought is I want a promotion, I want to do a career change, I want to jump here, I want to do this. What's your specific technique and how you take that person to the next level?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. So, first of all, it really depends on each specific individual. Some need more clarity in what they want. Some know exactly what they want but they don't know how to get there. And a lot of my work is building the confidence and cleaning noise, because, especially women, they tend a lot to bring all the barriers Bring oh, I don't have these, I don't know how to do these, I'm not these, I'm too old, I'm too young. They start raising all the things that they are not or they cannot do. So we try to clean that, say, okay, let's put that aside and let's try to see who you are, what are the things that you have, what are the qualities you have. Sometimes it takes them time to realize that and we need to do a deeper work in order to realize that it really depends. With some clients I get into working on their personal life Because they think that they want to grow in corporate but they are not even allowing themselves to have the space at home. They're so burning themselves out.
Speaker 2:They don't even have the space to think of what they want. They're finding that space, giving themselves the space To just be, to just do something for fun. So it really can go in different ways depending really on the person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in our coaching world we specifically call that like limiting beliefs or that negative inner voice that we hear of ourselves telling us we're not good enough, Just carrying self-judgment that shows up in the forms of fear, stress, anxiety. All of these different things really start to limit us in how we move forward or not move forward and keeps us stagnant. So I appreciate the work that you do to help people in that field, because the power of what coaching brings and the value that it brings to people in all walks of life. Focusing on engineers or the tech industry, with us being in this remote Environment, how do you help your clients be better prepared in this type of environment so that they can Become more confident in their roles and promote and make sure career advancements?
Speaker 2:So first of all I mean when you work remote, it's all about building relationships. You need to put that as a focus item because it doesn't come naturally typically identifying the key stakeholders who they need to really Think about and reach out to and start building their relationships. And it's hard because you don't see those people in the office, you don't have opportunities to just Hang out with people, to go for coffee or for lunch, so you need to kind of find the opportunities to build those relationships virtually. So typically what I you know if if that's related to building relationships, I try to work with them on identifying the key stakeholders, identifying what they need, what worries them, what they care about, and see how they can be Someone who is helping them. Not just schedule like a meeting, but be someone who is there to support those people, those stakeholders. How are you Bringing value to those people? That's the best to work with people and build relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and let's dive a little deeper into that, because when you're talking about promotions and being a leader in this world where we have more remote work and how we communicate, going forward, now right, and someone that's introvert, low in confidence, and they're moving from an independent contributor to now managing a large team in a remote Environment, how do you help them improve their confidence?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's hard, especially if you, if you make what you describe as a huge jump right for someone from IC to Managing a large team, typically it's better to start small, like managing a small to be. Actually, I started managing a huge team and that was very intimidating. So I would say, first of all, if you make a really big leap, find a support group, join communities, get mentors, coaches, get help. Don't be alone. You know, I have I have managers that work with me for a long period of times and I'm kind of serving both as a mentor and a coach to them, because they really need support and I needed support when I started something.
Speaker 2:You know, when someone is starting to be a manager, regardless if you're introvert and remote, right, you don't know. Management doesn't come with a playbook. You don't know what to do and you don't know what, how to handle different situations and how to handle people. And people are Complicated and and not always it's easy to understand them, especially when you work remote, especially. So get help first of all. Get help. Now, how do I help them? Typically, when it's related to other people, we try to understand their motivations and typically, if they don't know, then I challenge them with. Okay, go and speak with them and try to understand what's going on in their life, what's top of mind for them, what is important to them, what do they need from you. Just be proactive and handle those conversations, because if you don't understand people, that will be very difficult for you to build relationships with them remote.
Speaker 1:Let's take that to the next step. For me, how do one extend out to build those relationships in a remote environment when they were an independent contributor and now they're running a team?
Speaker 2:So you just have to meet with people, virtually, right, I mean, you're not there next to them. If you cannot travel, the best way would do to arrange a face-to-face meeting, but I know that it's not always possible. People live different places and it's expensive. So schedule time to meet with each person that you manage. Get to know them, Be curious about them, about their life, as much as they are willing to share, right, just get to know them as people first, who they are, where they live, where's their family, what's their situation, and then be curious about their career. What do they enjoy doing? Maybe? What frustrates them? What challenges do they have? Where do they see themselves grow? What kind of help do they need from you? Just be curious If you will be genuine and generally care about people. Eventually, with some people it takes more time than others because, depending on the personality, they will eventually want to work with you, because who doesn't want a manager that cares for you and want in your success?
Speaker 1:Tell us about a success story, about a client you worked with and they were lacking confidence or they needed the help of which you're saying, in order to get that engagement. How did you help them share that story with us?
Speaker 2:Sure, absolutely, I mean. So. I had a client that she was considering a career I wouldn't say change, but expand expansion of her responsibility to go from a local role I mean she worked remote but it was with local kind of geographically local team and she wanted to grow into a more international reach, into a much more senior position. But when we started working together she knew in general kind of direction what she wanted, but she didn't know how to get there. She felt a lot of insecurity about if she's even capable and she didn't know how to approach it with her manager. So we started by trying to map out first her strength and I asked her to talk with people that she currently work with and try to get feedback from them. So once she started collecting those feedback she got a clearer kind of more confidence and a clearer picture of who she is as a leader. What are her qualities.
Speaker 2:Then we started building her career trajectory and what kind of role she thinks she can do that is benefiting both her and the company. How does she see herself in that role? What kind of impact is she going to make? What are the problems that she is going to solve for the company? Why her, what is unique about her, what makes her the best fit.
Speaker 2:And then we started building really a case for her and I challenged her to start talking with different people at the organization not just her manager, because there were different stakeholders that she needed to buy in To start really mapping out that plan and starting building those connections with the relevant people. She had some travel, so we strategized about, okay, if you have a travel to that location, strategize, you know, meeting with that person, based obviously on what she told me, and really mapped out the plan. And she worked also all that time also with her manager and she had to really, I would say, squeeze a lot of information from the manager, because a lot of time managers they don't do that with from bad intentions, but they just don't open up enough and don't share enough, they don't help enough.
Speaker 2:They're a little bit passive. So she really, you know, brought her manager in to help her and to support her, and it was about a six month process that we worked on that and eventually she was promoted. Basically she kind of invented, in a way, her role, because, you know, a lot of times I hear that a lot from people that tend to think there is no opportunity. Sometimes you need to make the opportunity.
Speaker 1:It's a mindset. It's a mindset, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I always like to think about it not just from your own personal. You know goals, aspirations and benefits, but what's the benefit for the business? You have to make a strong case. Not just it's good for me because I'm going to be making more money and I'm going to have a title and all that, but how is that going to benefit the organization?
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you for sharing that. Here's another question how do you help these leaders with handling performance issues amongst their staff? And overcoming that fear that might tap into it.
Speaker 2:You know, any new manager and a lot of times experienced managers are intimidated from not just feedback but, in general, hard conversations, and there is no secret only to do it. So experience facing hard conversations. So I would say, if you need to handle performance, it's always best to be transparent and share what you observe. I like to use the SBI framework situation behavior impact. So one of the challenges that many people face is that they put too much emotion or too much feelings. I feel. I think you know, and sometimes, depending on the people, it tends to be kind of a back and forth you say you feel something or you think something and the other person just say no, I don't think that. So you need to really create feedback that is based on facts, that it's really not something that you think or feel, it's something you observe. I observe this. I saw that the impact was that. So try to leave emotions aside and stick to facts, but always listen also to the other person to hear them out. You need to be willing to listen and be open-minded.
Speaker 1:Tell me what behaviors can a person implement to make that shift? So let's say a person who had blind spots, who show up with a lot of emotion and trying to provide the feedback and it creates just a lot of barriers and challenges in the whole performance management handling of that. How do a person shift and create more awareness from moving from the state of carrying emotions into their conversations with what we're talking about performance management? How do a person move from carrying the emotional aspect into these conversations to being just sticking with the facts? How do they do that?
Speaker 2:How do they do that? So usually in our conversations we just talked about it. We strategize before having those conversations. Really okay, building a case, right. You go to a meeting. What are the things that you want to mention? What have you seen? What are the facts that one? It's not like something that you can argue about, just facts, just the way it is. During the meeting you were doing XYZ. It's not something you can argue about and it's about practicing it, and typically the best way to do it is to practice with, maybe, people that you find it easier to talk with, rather than the ones that are the more tough cookies, right, because they are different kind of people that you manage and some of them are more resisting to feedback and some of them are more open and willing to listen and accept what you're saying. So start with those Practice, you know, because it's hard and you need to train those muscles.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I want to add to that asking more questions, asking more open-ended questions to help you stay present, because a lot of times the emotion comes from the judgment that we carry going into certain circumstances right, and the more questions. Like you said early on, just be curious, be curious, ask open-ended questions and as you're asking these open-ended questions, you're obtaining information. And as you obtain that information, there's knowledge, and with that knowledge you don't have to assume you're getting it right there from the horse's mouth, and so that brings down some of the judgment and it allows us to be more present in these conversations and in all it makes us feel more confident and they tend to often go better. And because the fear isn't as present, how would you recommend that a person goes about building trust with their team?
Speaker 2:It's about building relationships, goes, you know, being transparent as much as you can. Right, even if you don't know something. Be transparent. Always explain your motivations and your why. You know when you come to a team and you ask them to do something, you need to explain why. Why are you asking them to do that? What's the motivations? Get the sense of we, rather than I or you we're in this. Together. We have shared goals you know, and be genuinely curious about them and their aspirations. Support them and eventually you know and, as I said, I mean relationship building. Relationship and trust can take with some people more time than others and each person is different and you need to treat each person differently. Some people will prefer a more direct you know approach that you talk with them directly. Some people you need to be maybe a little bit more gentle in your approach. So it's also kind of identifying different personalities and how you can interact with each one of them.
Speaker 1:When a person was looking to grow their career in 2024,. What are the top three tips that you would provide for these professionals and how to navigate and advance in their careers In the tech industry?
Speaker 2:of course, First of all, identifying what is growth to them. What do you mean you want to grow, what growth look like? Let's say I meet you at the end of 2024 and you told me what a great year you had and what you're doing. Just write yourself down a letter, even To yourself, like as if you're writing it down at the end of 2024, and try to be as specific as possible. Define success first of all, because success look differently to each person. Define success and then figure out what are the gaps together. You don't have to figure this out alone. That's why you have a manager, right? I said that before. Figure out, you know the path there. What are the gaps, what are the things that you need to work on, get support from your manager and from HR and if you need to get mentors, you know whatever Help that you need, trainings, whatever you need. Build a plan to get there and, along the year, constantly seek feedback, always, always be looking for feedback so you can learn. Get support, get feedback, improve.
Speaker 1:That's great. What's on top? Any big happenings this year or what's in store for you.
Speaker 2:Right now I'm focusing on really building my coaching business, while I want to build some programs that will be group programs. I still do that today, but I want to build more like for people who maybe want a group. You know, because some people really like to be part of a group. It works better for them. It's also a lot of times more affordable to create group programs for women around specific kind of areas. One can be, you know, towards career progression right, that's the classic one. Another one could be around negotiation and communication, like I've already done that. But I want to build like those programs and offer them on a regular basis, because I think women really need that, need the support they need a group, need accountability and support from each other.
Speaker 1:And to our audience. How can I find you?
Speaker 2:Find me on LinkedIn. That's the easiest. Limor Bergman. On LinkedIn You'll find me and I post daily, so that's the best way to get to know me. You can connect with me, you can DM me, whatever. Happy to meet you. I'm there all the time.
Speaker 1:As we wrap up today, any final thoughts message you would like to share?
Speaker 2:So I want to share to all people believe in yourself and find people who believe in you more than you believe in yourself, so they will help you. They will help lift you up and they will support you when those inner voices rise right, those inner voices that tells you you cannot do something, you're not good enough. Those people, they will help you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that. This goes back to what we were saying earlier about the self-judgment that we carry, and because we carry that self-judgment, it puts a barrier sometimes in our way for asking for help, because we feel that it may be a burden to ask other people for help, but the reality is there's people like yourself, the type of coach that you are executive coach, career development coach you want to help, I want to help. That's why this podcast even exists to just give different viewpoints of how you can get out of your own way. That's how I like to describe it, but I really do, you know, appreciate the more that you're coming on, that you came on today, you know, to share your insights and your value and how you help your clients in the tech industry to level up, and I really do appreciate your time for today. I appreciate you sharing all these wonderful nuggets and helping people advance in their careers in the tech industry. So, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I just want to say thank you, Maurice. It was a pleasure speaking with you today and have a great 2024.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you, and we'll talk soon.