Left Behind Isn't Evenly Distributed

Apriel Biggs: That is our responsibility: is to catch the first impact, so that you know. For us, it might feel like somebody knocked the wind out of us, but for them, it might feel like you know they they cut a corner too quickly, right? Like they just brushed against something. Devon Morris: This is the lagging team falling behind. Is a position not a verdict. Today's episode is stop blaming the team, diagnosing the real gap. Welcome, welcome, welcome, Big Timer. Hey, Apriel, how are you today? Apriel Biggs: I'm amazing. How are you? I'm so excited for this conversation, Devon Morris: man! I, you know, I, I feel, I feel good because I actually have one of the dopest people on the planet sitting. You're not sitting across me virtually. You're sitting across from me. So this is what makes it amazing, and I've just been looking forward to this kind of conversation. We have had conversations offline several times, so I'm just like, let's just see this greatness just come on out, y'all. She's excited, Apriel Biggs: but like we're gonna invite people into the kind of dialog that we have, so it's gonna be amazing. Devon Morris: Well, that being said, we we started. Look, welcome y'all. Apriel is a technologist, a theologian, and a transformation strategist wrapped up in one. She's driven change inside of organizations with global teams and complex modernizations, and she's led teams of 160 plus. Now she coaches delivery leaders and their teams through changes no framework can actually fix, which means the girl got skills. She's a chief transformation architect at Blagile, and I asked her to be here because I know she's dope. I know she can answer questions that most people actually miss. So hopefully I got that a little bit right about you. You downplay yourself a little bit at times. So we're not gonna do that here today because you are great. So here's the thing. Here's what I keep coming back to, Apriel. When a team falls behind, everybody doesn't fall the same distance. Can you tell me about a time you watch the ground kind of move under a team? Apriel Biggs: I've had that happen so many times. One time that I can tell you is we were in the middle of a huge deployment. There were implications like out to the street, so and it was around the holidays, and there were a series of of announcements to Wall Street around things going live for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then the day after New Year's, and before our first deployment, we realized that our partner did not have their stuff together. And at the time, you know, we were all together. This was pre-COVID, and you could see like the color in people's faces like just disappear once it was really clear that we were literally like three weeks away, and it was one of those situations where everyone is like, "I don't think that we're gonna make it, and so then the room kind of turned and looked at me like, "Apriel, what are we gonna do? And so to your point, I feel like when the ground starts to steady or starts to become unsteady, the person closest to leading the change is the first person to feel the effect. And so, to that end, not falling at the same rate largely depends on who the person is that's the first to catch the blow, right? Because as a transformation architect, as a project manager, you know, as a coach, you can do several different things. Like if you, if someone pushes you, and you are the one who bolsters the fall, then anyone behind you is not gonna feel it the way that you felt the blow. And so, oftentimes, when I think of us as being transformation, change leaders, agileists, that is our responsibility is to catch the first impact, so that you know, for us, it might feel like somebody knocked the wind out of us, but for them, it might feel like you know they they cut a corner too quickly, right? Like they just brush against something. Devon Morris: Yeah. Well, that that that's interesting because you you said something that I I really like because you said you caught you caught the stray first, right? And since you caught the stray first, I'm curious as to in that example. How did it feel for you day to day? Because there's something unique about coaches where they kind of get that stray first, and they're the ones that first kind of see it, and then start to bring the rest of that to other people. Everybody don't have that eyesight. Everybody's not listening. So I'm curious as to what that looked like day to day for you in that environment, Apriel Biggs: there's a couple of things that I think require mentioning. And so, first, the idea of selecting a coach and hiring a coach who has actually gone through some kind of formalized training is important, right? And so, we're in a season where everyone is calling them a coach, and that's not to minimize anybody's experience. Because once you have lived experience, sure, you can teach up and train folks up on a thing. I think the difference about where you go to get coaching is what comes with it, right? And so I spent a lot of my time working with folks in the army, and one of the things that I remember is that in combat, a soldier defaults to their to their lowest level of training, and so coaches like you and I are taught how to be emotionally strong, right? And so we have tools that we can rely on in those moments, and so for someone who has a large amount of responsibility but does not necessarily know how to be emotionally strong can wreck a team, right? Because they can pass, you know, again that blow off, you know, to the rest of their team, and now no one knows what to do. No one knows who to Devon Morris: look to? Apriel Biggs: So I think I think that bears naming, right? That it's it's really important to make certain that for anyone who has a team that or is looking for some kind of transformation and who isn't, right? To select a coach or to select a lead who can not only lead you through the change but is emotionally sound and grounded enough, like in those moments where things are gonna go crazy because they will. Devon Morris: Yeah, I you you you brought that up and you said something really interesting because you and I I'm right I'm writing a couple notes right because training is absolutely critical. You said that in the in the army and armed forces in general, you default to the lowest level training. Well, that would be true for a coach as well. They would default to that, and a lot of times in many of these coaching programs, you're gonna go through practice. You're gonna go through when you're doing stuff, and that is a really interesting statement because it's not just the people that are there doing the work, but also the coach needs to make sure that they're trained and they're just not calling themselves a coach just for the sake of it. What are some of the differences you see between people who have had that kind of training versus people who have not. Apriel Biggs: I think for me, the first piece is the quality of questions that get asked. That gets asked, excuse me, is completely different, right? And so, you know, trained coaches are literally like months and weeks of looking at and asking a more beautiful question. It's not about surface answers anymore, right? It's about looking at patterns, not seeing people as broken, not making wrong the mistakes or the issues that are being unearthed, right? But it's more about this process of uncovering and untethering that the coach is skilled in being able to guide the the team, the organization, the leadership through that really helps them get to the outcomes that they want, and also uncovering what's in the way of that. Devon Morris: Yeah, yeah. So then I would ask you in that example that you brought up, you mentioned patterns, right? When did leadership finally notice some of them patterns, and and beyond just you telling them, what tipped them off? Apriel Biggs: I mean, it was it was me, right? And I think I mean let's not make any mistakes about it, and because oftentimes leaders are so disconnected from the day to day, right? Yeah, yeah. And you know, I've seen leadership teams, and you too, senior leadership teams, where they have a whole bunch of yes folks around them who are keeping them from the real struggle, strain, and strife that's happening in the organization, and so unless somebody who's a worker bee has an in with senior leadership and is able to really talk about the issues that are happening, the impact that those issues are having on the day to day, and ultimately the goal, then those two things. Are very very you know far decoupled, and I think right now we're seeing a lot happening with that middle layer. And I really feel like the playbooks and the frameworks that many professionals have been given just are fundamentally incorrect, and we're seeing that now, right? And I do not think a lot of senior leaders are really taking the time to upskill that middle layer because they are literally the conduit. Right, if we want to get technical, they are the API between what you think you built and how it actually works. And so, if that API connection is not working in real time, there's going to be problems, and the only way that you see those problems is ultimately what happens in a delivery, what happens in a deployment, and why those things are not actually getting traction. Devon Morris: Yeah, I I agree with that, and I'm I'm I'm thinking to myself about helping leaders to be able to notice those patterns because they they're not the ones that's coaching. They're probably not the ones that's been trained like you and I have been trained. And so some of the things that I've done is I've tried to train them up to it to some degree. How does how does leadership take that advice from you when they see these disasters going on, they see you noticing them. Then, how do you help bring them forward? So, and then they grow a little bit as we continue to move forward in these directions. Because you know, for a lot of us, Apriel, we're not there forever, right? And leaders aren't there forever either. But we want to at least leave some grace there. How do you bring a leader forward? Would be the question. Apriel Biggs: I think the first part is always, you know, you have to deal. You have to deal with the issue, right? Like you get a cut, you got to deal. You got to deal with the bleeding first, right? So we deal with the bleeding immediately. We go get a band aid, and then we need to talk about how we got here, right? Like proverbially to lead with a cutting thing. Did you leave knives out? Like, do we have knife safety? You know. So, do your teams actually understand the decisions that they're making and the trade-offs that they're making on a day-to-day basis? Right. How could you personally have stopped this? What kinds of questions are you asking your leadership? You have people on your team. You're responsible for an organization. When was the last time you had a skip level? What are you talking to them about? Do you care about the things that they're unearthing, right? And so then we need to talk about like who you are as a leader. What is really your expectation? Does your expectation match your actions? Do people believe that they can come to you with their problems and trust that you're gonna do something about it, right? So it's this, it's that conversation. Devon Morris: Hey, bro, you got to do me a favor, right? Because these folks that's in these conversations, you and me, we know a lot of definitions and we know a lot of everything. The audience may not be familiar with what a skip level is? Can you tell me what a skip level is? Apriel Biggs: Sure, absolutely. So a skip level is. Let's say I'm a project manager. A skip level could mean just meeting with one level above. So I skip a level. I'm not talking about that. I'm. I want you to skip two levels. I want you to skip three levels. And this is going to do so much. I have not met a senior leader who was not willing to have a conversation with someone who was deeper in their organization. So you know, it's September. The end of the year is coming. Many organizations work on performance evaluations on a calendar year basis. This is a great time for you to do this. Why? Because in 60 days, your leadership team is going to be having conversations about compensation, about promotion, about who's going to get exited, who's going to get placed on PIP, a performance improvement plan, and so you do not want to leave your career in somebody else's hands. And so I literally just posted about this on LinkedIn. So having a skip level is your opportunity to connect what you do with who it matters for. So you could say I'm a project manager that's delivering X project, and I notice that that's actually on one of your target goals for the year. Here's how my work is advancing your goals, right? And so you can have a conversation with them, 15 minutes, you know, to just say what's really important. Why is this project so important to you? Why is it so important to the organization? If you could wave a magic wand, what would you like me to solve for you? What on a on a high on a high breaking fruit, a high reaching fruit, and a low-reaching fruit, and then just say, "Hey, would you be open to me having one of these conversations with you, maybe once a quarter, or even me ccing you on my stakeholder management communications, just so you can see the body of work that we're delivering and begin to ask more questions." Devon Morris: Yeah, I think that I I mean I'm gonna be agreeing with you a lot because it's it's super important, right? Because I I I have a colleague who has skip levels, and it's a status meeting. It's not skip level, and and you're not really talking about a skip level, and so I want to take that a little bit deeper because I want to make sure people understand what is the benefit of a skip level to the leader, and also pair that with what the benefit is for the person that is skipping. Can you kind of give a little bit of information about both sides of that. Apriel Biggs: Sure, having been a senior leader, senior leaders want information that helps them make decisions about where investment should go, about what should be stopped, about what needs to be paused, about what we have not thought of, and because they are not connected to the work, typically on a team, the person who's doing the work has and has a problem has likely also thought of the solution, and so now you essentially get the chance to collapse time. You solve the "Are we doing the right things? question for your senior leader. You for yourself. You now catapult yourself in the eyes of a senior leader who may not necessarily have known your name to now begin to think about well. Since Apriel brought this idea to me, I feel like she's the right person to now run this new, you know, Skunk Works project, or to go lead this new team because it was her idea, right? Additionally, for a lot of teams who may have managers who are funky, right? Because let's not next let's not believe that every single manager that we have actually wants us to win, right? We have had managers who have taken our ideas, represented them as their own. Now this mitigates that, right? And so you now have a senior leader who can weigh in on your performance plans because you're having conversations about the work that they're delivering. You now are see seeing them on the on the artifacts and the outputs that you're delivering, and so now they have a chance to see the quality and the caliber of work that you have. And so the other thing that I do think is really important to name is that for anyone who is on a team, and this is a part of change as well, right? Anyone who's on a team who feels like they're not getting the shine that they should from their manager, senior leaders are not going to buck their people in public, but in private, different conversations happen. And so now, a senior leader who has data, firsthand data about who you are, they've spoken to you, they have their ability to make their own judgments, they've seen your work, now has an additional data point to add in the conversations they're having with your manager, and so now then the senior leader who ultimately has to make the decision on compensation, on pay, on promotion now can make their own judgment call about what's really happening between the in the dynamic between you and your manager, Devon Morris: and I would say that for the places that I don't see that broad that that vertical communication occurring is where I see individuals truly get left behind, and so it becomes one of those things where, if you are in a position where you don't see that as a leader or even as a team member, it's one of those things that maybe you want to experiment, try to suggest that you do as an organization because you don't because you end up being super unhappy, and then next thing you know, there's going to be turnover issues and all kinds of things happening. So I think that what you're saying is absolutely critical to helping you keep yourself from drowning. So then, as an individual that's on the ground doing the work, if it doesn't exist in their organization, how would you suggest they present that to the powers that be? Apriel Biggs: So anyone who is a rule follower is probably going to have a hard time with what I'm about to say. Yeah, and so if it doesn't exist, go create it, and I don't believe in asking for permission. Right? You ask for forgiveness after the fact. Yeah. There's no senior leader that's gonna go get close with all of the EAs, the executive assistants, the secretaries of the senior leaders. Let me tell you something: you get close to those people, you will always. Get close to the senior leader because those folks will make certain that any time you need 10 minutes, that you will get it. They will look on their calendar and you'll-they'll just slide you in. Such and such has a spot on their calendar for 10 minutes, or they're going to be walking to this particular meeting. If you go hang out at this door, you'll-you'll catch them on the way in, or leave me a sticky note for those who are still in office, and I'll make certain that such and such gets it. And so, go ahead and schedule the meeting and say, "Hey, I am a project manager in your organization working on X Y Z project. I would love to learn why this is important. Do not make it selfish and make it all about you. You are making it About the stakeholder, Devon Morris: why Apriel Biggs: is this important to you? How do projects actually get prioritized and unearthed? How much should we be spending on this? How much time should be we be taking? So you want to get in their mind. You want to understand what they think about and what's important, and then you want to have in your back pocket two to three ways or two to three skills that you know that you are advancing. So this takes a little bit of super sleuthing, right? Have a conversation with the EA first. Get 30 minutes on the EA's calendar. People forget about them, and they see everything. EAs are reading emails. They say who people are meeting with. They, the EAs are in the details, and so this is your opportunity to go create a process that may not necessarily be in place. Devon Morris: That's that's an amazing nugget, right? I mean, that's super amazing. But here's a question, right? Okay. When that doesn't, when individuals don't take that risk, okay, what is the downstream impact on the overall team's performance when that is not happening from individuals taking that risk? Apriel Biggs: You leave so individually, you leave your career to chance. But bigger than that, on a team perspective, the team could be potentially left out of the dark of what really is important and working on bodies of work that they think are important that are actually not important to the organization. Teams become disenfranchised; they become absent. They are looking for new roles, and you see, you know, them quietly quitting. Or best performers, you know, are exiting the organization, or just suddenly they've just started doing just enough in order to get their paycheck, right? Because they don't believe that their body of work matters, and so as leaders and as leaders, as agileists, as team leaders, it is our responsibility to make certain that people come to work every single day ready to do their best work because they feel like them being in a place matters. Devon Morris: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then, then, then, how do you, as a coach, help to position the team and the individuals on that team to do more of that. Apriel Biggs: For me, it's about having conversations, right? Like I, I like to get to know people. You know, I want to understand how you got this job. I want to understand what makes you show up every day or not? You know what I mean. Like I want to know if you are looking. I once had an associate director who told you, asked me flat out. She said, "Hey, I have a question for you. She said, "Would you be a reference for me on my new job? And I paused for a second and I said, "I don't know if I should be flattered or if I should be upset, right? Because here you are, someone who works for you, saying like, "Hey, I just want to let you know I want to quit, right? And I said, "Well, can we talk about can we talk about this a little bit? And so it was really odd, but ultimately I felt like it was, you know, I was flattered about it. Yeah. But her rationale was like, "Hey, I've been in this organization for a long time, and I don't believe I'm ever going to get promoted here, so I'm leaving. And to your point, this this is the the underpinnings of of what this lack of process has. Devon Morris: Yeah, that that I would have I would have taken. I would have done the same thing that you did. I'd have been super surprised. Like, well, they just told me they leaving. Let me put. I gotta replace them. I gotta start thinking about all this up. But let me be here right now and actively listen and hear this person. Right, that could be really hard to do. Oh boy, I really like that. So then, when a team is in that position, Apriel, they're they're stuck. They are. It's hard for them to recover. You see attrition really happening. What are some of the things that we should do? That a leader should do to help that team recover. Apriel Biggs: I don't necessarily know if recovery is always the goal. Okay, like is it? I don't know. I think I think there's an evaluation that needs to happen first. Okay, right. So if if a team has fallen, they've buckled. Devon Morris: Yeah, Apriel Biggs: and after we've addressed the emergent situation, we now need to have a conversation with: Is the thing that we have been working toward the right thing, right? So, so I think that is, and I guess maybe you could say that that's a regroup. I think there's an evaluation that happened that has to happen first, and once everyone is able to evaluate, we're we're all walking in the same direction. We're not, you know. There's a start, stop, shift, save conversation that has to happen, and that's why I say I don't know. I don't know if the regroup is the right thing. Well, Devon Morris: let's go down that note for a second, right? Because there are multiple directions that you can go in, right? And correct. Let's just say you do the evaluation, and you want to turn things around, and that's the direction that we kind of agree to move forward in. Is there an example that you have of that being the answer that we're going to turn things around. What did you find on day one as you started to do that turnaround? Apriel Biggs: There's a there's usually some kind of disconnect, right? And so this is why I had used the managers as as middle management as API, right? There's usually some kind of disconnect between the the strategy and the work, like always. Yeah. And so people who think that the work should go away and the way the work actually goes are usually different. I started my career in aerospace manufacturing, and funny but true, I worked with my dad, and I remember my father saying to me, he worked on the manufacturing floor, and he called me on my desk phone, and he said, "Come down here. I want to show you something. So I go down, and he says, "I don't want you to be one of those engineers who builds things and thinks that just because that's the way you build it is the way that it works, right? And so he showed me an engineering drawing, but then he then showed me like the aircraft because we could see them, and he says, "Do you see here that the holes are on the left hand side, but when we built them, they are on the right. And so he said that all there's usually a disconnect between what you think and how it should go on paper and what happens in real life. And so, to that end, having spent some time in lean manufacturing, there's three principles that I live by, and they have never ever failed me. Devon Morris: The Apriel Biggs: first is always to go see. You need to go see the work happening with your own eyes, right? The second is always to show respect. You need to show respect for the people who have done the work and the work that has happened before you got there. And the third is always to ask questions. Well, how did we end up with a drawing that has them on the left and a fabrication that has them on the right? Where in the process did that happen? Is it that the engineering drawings are inverted, right, and we need to we're missing a direction, or is it that you know the welders are taking liberties that we? I don't know, right? But I think asking better questions leads to better solutions. Devon Morris: So, so then, these things have never failed you, okay? But I know that you have seen these things and implemented these things, and ultimately it didn't work out. What are some reasons why it didn't work out? They had nothing to do with the principles, right? Because the principles are what they are, and they are proven, no question about that. But why it didn't work out? What are some of the things that you say? Apriel Biggs: I think sometimes we make transformation and change hard, right? You know, as people, have you ever gone to to to get a suit, and you had in your mind that you were like, "I'm gonna get this suit, and it's gonna be best. Devon Morris: Yeah, put Apriel Biggs: it on, perfect. You go to the place that has the suit that you want, and you get it on, and you look crazy. Sometimes it's just not the right fit, right? Like it could be too long. The nips and the tucks were in the right place, so it just at the point in which you were in your journey on the day when you went to go buy that suit, it wasn't the right fit. The same thing happens with change and transformation. That sometimes the thing that we are so exercised about, we think that this is going to be the best decision for the organization, and it's like womp womp. It's not, you know. We're just not. We're not where we should be in our journey. This just doesn't match who we are as people. Like, it's just not going to work. Devon Morris: But Apriel, I'm I'm the guy that will buy that wrong. Suit and go wear that wrong suit. So then, when I wear that wrong suit, the result just doesn't look the same, Apriel Biggs: right? And you know, deep in your heart, you know, you know that, like, you know that the suit is not right because now you're spending the day hiking, hiking up the pants. You know, Apriel, I don't. I don't know that. I'm Devon Morris: excited about that. Apriel Biggs: Yeah, yeah. I mean, hey, some people do. Some people do, right? And that, that, hey, and that's why I say it all comes back to who you are as a person. Me, I'm only buying what I love, and if I don't feel like a stunner the first time I put it on, I'm not buying it. Or I have a rule. I have a two-week rule that if I buy something and I haven't worn it in two weeks, chances are I'm not. I'm not going to buy it, and so I'm taking it back, right? Like, so I think it all comes down to who you are and what makes sense for you. Devon Morris: And and I guess it hearkens back to a really simple thing that feedback loop, right? Because you know, it's one of those things for me. I create a feedback loop where, when I put that suit on, I have somebody like a wife or something that's gonna say, "I like it, I hate it. So I put in a feedback loop. So then it's just not my judgment by itself. I got an and somewhat objective party out there helping me. And the good thing about being a coach is that we're allowed in many cases to be as an objective party as we can be. Hence the reason somebody can say, "Be my reference. I'm leaving, but be my reference because I still got to do this work now. Right? You've shown that time and time again, so I love that answer. And the example that you used is perfect. I wish that I could get the many ladies that have existed in my life over time to take something back that they bought and they didn't wear within two weeks. I wish I could do that. It Apriel Biggs: just has not. They must have really loved it, and they were saving it for a special occasion. Listen, I'm always gonna take up for them, so Devon Morris: I would. You probably are, but I'm just like, man, if I could get, because you know, I probably be a little, I probably be rich at this point if that was the case, right? No, Apriel Biggs: I mean, hey, listen, look, no crying over spilt milk. The money is spent, you know, milk. Devon Morris: Now she is she is gonna support their nonsense right here on camera. You see this, y'all. I'm trying to be sensible, right? So then here's here's here's a getting back to it, right? Um, so let's talk about turn it around, right? What leaders should do, right? If a leader knows a team is behind, what is one of the first things that they should look at? Apriel Biggs: I think there needs to be a real conversation around how did we get here, right? Without blame, because that's the hard part in corporate, right? Like everyone wants to blame each other, and so at the point in which things have gone wrong? There is multiple people complicit, including you, right? There are multiple people complicit, and so I think the first thing is is how did we get here, right? Because now we need to do a little bit of root cause analysis, and so that literally means like getting to the underpinning and the nubbin of the thing, right? So there needs to be some kind of root cause analysis. You know, how do we end up here? You might want to ask five whys. That's another. That's another tool, right? You ask why until you feel like you've gotten to the bottom of a thing. So ultimately, for that situation where we were close to launch and it was three weeks, right? The other team had told us that they were doing all of the work. We did not. We weren't at a place to look at the integrations until we got to that point. So essentially, and we also weren't asking like, show us the code. You know what I mean? Like, show us where you where you are. So those are two things that I think had come to it. So, getting to the root root cause, asking how did we get here. The next, I think, is asking the question about so where do we go now, right? And so, on that same project, the question is, well, are we changing our commitment to the street? Are we tanking this project? Are we asking for an extension? And the answer to all of those questions was no, right? So then, once you're able to check off a series of questions, then the solution become it almost illuminates itself, right? So I think for senior leaders, it is really I'm gonna go back to the emotions to get out of the emotional. I can't believe this. How do you know? I can't believe you let this happen. All of those things, and now let's get to the part of solutioning and asking questions. Devon Morris: There and there's a you can see the difference between a leader that realizes that they're complicit in this versus. Versus ones who act like they they they are not. Can you tell me some of the differences that you see between those two type of leaders? And again, this is not one of those things where I'm talking about you got certain certifications or anything like that, right? But just the I'm I know I'm complicit versus the ones that don't. What are some of those differences? Apriel Biggs: I think the first thing to name is that the leadership playbook has changed, and anyone who's thinking that you know you're managing by objectives, I'm concerned. I think that leaders who are in the trenches with their teams are very much inquisitive. You know, they are very much like tell me about how you got here, almost like a show your work kind of way, right? Like, tell me what steps you took to to get to this solution. Tell me where you elevated this and didn't get what you needed, right? Tell me about where you flagged this and we missed it, right? And so it's more about a leader who's seeing the failure of the team as their own versus the responsibility of the team for leaders who I think are I'm going to say blaming the team, they see it as the team's responsibility without recognizing that on a daily basis teams are making decision micro decisions about the organization's strategy. Devon Morris: You talked about a few things that are throughlines here, and one thing you brought up was management by objective. What are some things you believe that leaders should stop doing immediately? Apriel Biggs: Trust trusting the data that that they're they're being told. I think that senior leaders need to go get their own data, right? That's one of the things I feel like as as technologists, as scientists, that we approve, that we have come to to rest on. Like I have a saying, like in God I trust everybody else, bring data. I want to go see myself. This is why I said to you, those three things have never failed me, and I was sitting in reviews with that person, and my synopsis was markedly different than what they were being told. And I said to them that I think that you should just pop in on a review, and then begin to gather your own data and see. I think senior leaders need their own data because once you have access to the data, you ask better questions because then you can begin to understand what the data is telling you and what different points are popping off the page as you are looking at the data versus you taking someone else's interpretation of the data, right? Because then it's like you know making your own smoothie versus drinking the smoothie that that you buy. You get a chance to control what the ingredients are if you know that your hands are in it. Now, then the next question then becomes: Well, Apriel, I'm a senior leader. I shouldn't have to be going to dig into the details, and isn't this why I have middle management? And isn't this why you know I have leaders in my organization? I'm not suggesting that you go and do the work of these people. What I'm saying is, you have a conversation with the people who are closest to the work, particularly in the places where work is not getting done where there are bottlenecks, where there are obstacles, where there are problems, and I'm saying to you to begin to have a conversation with the people whose hands are in the dirt about what really going on, and to have a conversation and spend 30 minutes, 30 minutes looking at the data. You as a senior leader will begin to make different abstractions about what things look like and what's going on once you are having conversations with people whose hands are in the dirt. Devon Morris: You know, one of the things that you you you have a certain experience that the vast majority of technologists don't have, and that is the lean manufacturing experience. Apriel Biggs: A Devon Morris: lot of things that you say come out of that playbook, like directly out of that playbook. Would you recommend that leaders go into those type of environments to get some of those lessons? I'm assuming your answer is yes, but Apriel Biggs: it's not. How? Devon Morris: It's not okay. Well, well, tell me why not. Apriel Biggs: I think once you've gotten to a certain place in your career, I'm not necessarily saying that just going off into a tangent for tangent's sake. I don't necessarily believe is beneficial, right? This goes back to the suit. Just because you like the suit and it doesn't fit, I don't think that you should buy it. I think that you should go find another suit that you like and that fits, and then you should buy those two things. I do think there is a world where senior leaders can begin to borrow the experiences of people in their organization who have had those experiences. So, to that end, Lean Six Sigma for me has taught me process, right? And there are first first principles, right? Like you know, we teach is the alphabet, and then we begin to teach them phonics, and we begin to teach vowel placements because we are building building blocks. And so, I think if you can begin to understand and begin to become a process thinker, then I think that that will illumine your mind to asking, like I said, different questions. I feel like that's the through through line. If I had a through line for for change and how to make certain that as a as a leader, as a change leader, as a transformation leader, as delivery leader, that you're making certain that your teams are not falling behind, it is certain that you can begin to coach yourself up to ask better questions. Because if you begin to understand that at some point leaders in a room got together and said these 10 principles are the things are our north star for the year, and then we went and we disseminated them out into an organization of 500 people at every single letter, or excuse me, every single level. That telephone game is going to get long. It's going to get longer. It's going to get distorted. It's going to become misunderstood. So then, you as the person who set those goals, it is your responsibility to to manage the telephone line all the way down to the to the deepest part of the organization to make certain the the the goals, the objectives that you have set are understood. And I know we did this as a senior leadership team, which is why I'm so passionate about it. And so we came up with a set of objectives, and then we didn't go to our next level of leadership. We went to the managerial level of leadership and asked them to present it to the organization because that is the line that is responsible for delivery, and so we knew that if our managers could understand it, then that also increased the likelihood that the deepest parts of the organization could understand it. Devon Morris: Yeah, no, I that you you just gave a beyond amazing answer because when you when you have experience in that lean world it brings a lot of great things to you, but as leadership, you got access to team members that probably have some of that experience, and you can actually borrow it. You you literally said you don't have to know everything, and some leaders think they need to know everything or nothing, and that's a big dichotomy. And so, when you say that, that borrowing note, I think, is one of the biggest nuggets that people can take away from that. So, how do you, how do you get that thought into their heads that they don't have to know every single thing in order to be really effective in borrowing from the people that exist within their organization. Apriel Biggs: I think that's what we talked about a little bit earlier, right? That as we're seeing, we we're seeing in 2026 a different kind of leader emerge, right? We're seeing younger senior leaders. We're seeing more female senior leaders, and they are from varied experiences. Right, we're seeing more female CIOs, more CIDs, more female CTOs, and more female CEOs. Right, and so to that end, I think that that the old school of leadership is shifting now in a lot of places and a lot of industries. You know that change hasn't really taken fold, right? But I do think that you see a lot more leaders who are seriously like come come have a conversation with me. Come let's really talk the work, right? Like I know back when we were in the office, that I I worked with a CIO who would frequently just stop by people's desks and say, "Hey, want to have coffee or want to have lunch? And people would freak out, right? And so he'd be like, "Look, I just want to talk to you about what's going on and how you like things, right? And so he would tell people that, and he he would give people an out and say, "Hey, if if I make you too nervous, like we don't have to do it. But you know, Devon Morris: yeah, Apriel Biggs: people loved it, right? Because it was like, oh my gosh! Like the person who's running the organization actually cares about my work, and he also got incredible ideas from the people who had their hands in the dirt about what. Was really broken, right? And so, was one of those conversations that illuminated for him that one of the goals that he had was crazy because we still had network closets that looked like the day after Mardi Gras, and so he had no idea. And then he took that person with him to go see the network closet that he looked at, and he came back furious because the leader who was responsible for the project related to the network closets did not know. Right, so this is saying to you: the go see it all comes back because if you knew that your infrastructure team was supposed to be doing a rip and replace of infrastructure in a particular closet, but nobody knew which wires went where because it looked like the day after Mardi Gras. Then you probably would have prioritized something else, right? Devon Morris: Yeah, yeah. So then, then the question is, when when when leaders start to see messes like that, right? How do they believe in themselves that they can help get this thing back on track? Apriel Biggs: That's an interesting question. Yeah, I think that internal belief about being able to deliver a thing really. Now, this is gonna like I'm gonna get into my theology and coaching a little bit. Please do, please do. You believe that you are, and what you believe that you're capable of, right? And so that comes down to the internal compass about well who am I you know who am I to do this body of work who am I to fix this solution that's or fix this that's broken even though I didn't make the mess and you know this is something that I don't feel like we talk enough about that there are some challenges that we get at working in life, right? Because I do think that the two are are mirrors of each other, that we just don't believe that we can surmount, and then we tell ourselves that I'm not the person, I'm not good enough. This is not the reason why, or this is the reason why I didn't get promoted, right? Is because we have a belief about ourselves that is less than, and we have countless, countless examples of people who believed in themselves, and are in places where we're like, "Oh my gosh, I cannot believe that this happened. And so, think that the first piece is for someone to begin to interrogate what do they believe is possible for them. Devon Morris: I think that is an amazing, amazing answer because there's one thing when it's a team member looking at a CIO and just don't believe we need to have a conversation. There's another thing about what you believe internally that has an impact on everybody. So I'm going to ask you a final question here because this has been amazing and I think we're going to do this again for sure. What would you tell a leader whose team is behind right now and knows it? Apriel Biggs: Bad news doesn't get better with time, right? So, I am a fan of a white sheet of paper. Have been and will be until glory carries me home. And so, on a white sheet of paper. You just need there's there's an exercise that is the 2% truth, right? Free game. I'm giving y'all. Yeah. Clean sheet of paper. Do the 2% truth. I want you to just list out all the things that have gone wrong, that are wrong, that have you know that could go wrong. I just want you to get them out of your brain. Yeah. Because sometimes that mulling it over and carrying it, you know, begins to affect you and affect your counting, affect your judgment, affect your ability to see. So then, I want you to take one minute to do all of that and write as fast as you can. Literally, set a timer. Go walk away. Go get a glass of water. Stand outside. Go get some sun on your face for a minute. Come back. Set another minute timer, and then I want you to then go back and circle the things that are actually true about the problem. You know, our team didn't deliver. You know, might be one of them. We didn't really understand the deliverables. So go through and circle all the things that are actually true that like can be proven by data. We missed the milestone. We didn't have enough resources. Our resources weren't trained. Whatever. Take another minute. Walk away. Come back. On the last one, I want you to circle two, no more than three, of things that you are committed to do something about, and then with the two or three that you have committed to do something about you. Then go and make your plan on that, and you save that piece of paper for once. Those two things are done. Then you can come back and you can prioritize the other things that you've circled and have conversations from that place. Devon Morris: That's an amazing note to close on. I'm gonna ask you. At this point, right, because people are going to want to reach out to you. Where should people find you and tell us about what's coming up for you? Apriel Biggs: I have a whole bunch of things coming up that I just can't talk about yet, but they're not public yet. So the one thing that I will say is connect on LinkedIn. I love community, so connect on LinkedIn. Tell me, send me an inbox or an inmail, and let me know that you heard this podcast. And let's connect. The other thing that I would say is I'm Apriel Biggs on all socials, so come follow me and see all the great things that I'm talking about. And if you have any other suggestions, let me know. Devon Morris: You know what? This is amazing. I, I, there, there are so many nuggets in this conversation that you guys are going to play this conversation back over and over again. You're going to ask me to bring it back in, and I'm just going to have to. So hopefully, you are reserving a spot to come back here, Apriel, because if you don't, I'm just going to ignore you for the rest of life, just so you understand and know. No, but I really, really appreciate you. I mean, claps, right? I got to tip my hat to you because this was amazing, and you know I appreciate you, right? Apriel Biggs: I appreciate you. I'm so glad to have been here. I really hope it's helpful. And please let me know how this helped you and what part of the podcast helped you. Devon Morris: I love it. So on that note, we will see y'all next time. Everybody, have a good one. Bye. Thank you for joining us. Where every Tuesday and Thursday, we work toward bridging the gap for teams that are Devon Morris: behind.