Speaker 1: 0:01

Working in an office environment was a whole new experience for me, and I made my share of missteps. There's so many things a first-time professional doesn't realize are important. It makes the start of a lifelong lesson. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. My first role certainly started with me putting my foot in some seriously wrong places. Once I was even accused of staging a coup.

Speaker 1: 0:26

Hi, I'm Becky Fraser, an award-winning coach, author and entrepreneur. I'm also a leader, shaped by decades of experience inviting others on a journey towards adaptable leadership and fulfilled potential. Welcome to Short Story Long. Today is a novella. These episodes share the journeys between the inflection points. They still have growth, a little drama and insights, just in a smaller package.

Speaker 1: 0:52

In the first episode of Short Story Long, I shared that my focus had turned to getting out of university and not on finding a career path. That didn't set me up for the best job search path. That didn't set me up for the best job search. I did find some part-time gigs, but was thrilled when I finally landed that first full-time position. Oh, the relief of getting that offer. There were a few things to balance. What was that role? Well, there wasn't a lot of stability. It was on soft funding from government projects. So it also was a little bit low pay and I will tell you it was one of my favorite jobs ever. I was a general administrator and voice from home for the US travelers temporarily based, sometimes weeks or even months, in countries that had just transitioned from communist or socialist governments, in countries that had just transitioned from communist or socialist governments. It was a lot of fun and it was really interesting.

Speaker 1: 1:48

There were just a few times while I was there that I really stepped in it and I didn't win friends with a couple of my email we'll just call them snafus. In one of those instances I was using a software program, an email program, and through no fault of the program, it was entirely user error. I responded to who I thought sent me the message, responding with all of the information about why the person wasn't doing their job and they needed steel-toed boots to encourage them to get their job done. Well, you may have guessed it Instead of sending it back to the person who sent it to me yeah, I sent it to the original sender. You know, the one that I was describing needed those steel toed boots.

Speaker 1: 2:35

That didn't go well and I remember watching that email send with no way to cancel it and screaming in horror over it, my boss comes running into my office wondering what I had done. Fortunately for me, he actually thought it was pretty funny. So when the subject of my email faxed him yes, it was at that time faxed him a message with a copy of the message that I'd sent. You know my boss, he was really understanding with that. But boy did I learn a lesson there. You don't send a message when you're frustrated and very important. Always look at who it's going to before you click send. That might be a bit of a small learning compared to what ended up being a larger one Still the emails.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So with this role I had mentioned that I was talking to the travelers and talking project strategy, really just being that voice from home and giving them that connection to the United States while they were out navigating all of the difficulties in the research that they were doing. And apparently in those conversations with one of the researchers I had influenced his thinking and somehow we had documented that a little bit in the emails going back and forth. To this day I'm not entirely certain what caused all of the kerfuffle with all of this, but ultimately my executive director brought me into his office and said what happened here? What have you been doing with this project? I, legitimately, was silent just staring at him going I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Well, send me the emails, okay. So I actually cut out maybe some of the private messaging that we'd been doing, but I sent the rest of it to him, and the very next day I come back and he accused me of staging a coup.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Now I'll admit that I was young enough in my career. I wasn't entirely clear on what all of that even meant, and once I'd kind of figured that out, I was like well, that feels like a bit of an overreaction. And yet he was absolutely furious with me and our relationship really didn't recover from all of that. I could be, and I was outraged by what I felt like was an attack from my executive director. In truth, I simply wasn't properly tuned in to my environment. I wasn't recognizing where I fit in to the organization.

Speaker 1: 5:21

These relationships were important. I was looking at who I was talking to, based on the task I was trying to accomplish. What I wasn't realizing was how much those relationships are really important for really understanding the whole scope of what's happening, but also just being connected to my co-workers and making their life a little bit easier instead of making their life harder. I wasn't thinking about that in that context. I didn't know what. I didn't know about how hard that would be to keep that connection flowing when someone felt like I was undermining them. It wasn't about me understanding how I was undermining him. It was that he, as a consequence of what I did, felt undermined.

Speaker 1: 6:13

So here I was wanting feedback. The extent of what I received. Was that stage a coup comment? I did learn a couple of other things, though. What seems huge is sometimes small, and the opposite is also true. That first email, my reply to sender email that felt enormous and it was laughed off. And the other thing where I was just thinking that I was a voice and someone to talk to and somehow I influenced strategy in a way that I didn't mean to, yet that turned out to be a big thing. So you in your own head can't necessarily see all of the different variabilities that are going on within the organization, and so you have to get that feedback in some mechanism, hopefully not being accused of staging a coup. The other thing I very much learned and learned and then had to learn again a few times more. Was that poisoned pen rants? Yeah, they're not great. It took me years to truly understand that lesson. Now don't get me wrong. I was quite good at sending them with great aim, but they ended up doing harm.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Now I'm an advocate for venting privately and solving publicly. Having your feelings and releasing them productively is critically important before you can choose how to respond in some of those situations. It's about building those relationships, and part of those relationships is being able to what I often call read the room the room. In that second troubling event, I was thinking about what mattered to the traveler and didn't have the bigger picture in mind. That's if I spent any time thinking beyond what I was trying to accomplish. Your role is important and influential, no matter the seat, and it's important to be your best self in that role, while also recognizing that there are other people in that room that you need to be thinking about as well. I'm a big fan of no burned bridges. I learned from my missteps and did better. I made an effort to rebuild relationships even when I wasn't absolutely clear what I'd done wrong.

Speaker 1: 8:37

When I reflect on this experience, it makes me think of when I'm running on uneven ground.

Speaker 1: 8:43

If I watch my feet, I lose balance and momentum. I can't see what's coming ahead. If I set my gaze slightly ahead, I can anticipate where my feet should go. Building relationships warrants a similar approach. Pay attention to your surroundings, anticipate what you will encounter and establish your journey forward. Naval gazing doesn't help you and it doesn't help others. Be intentional about where you place your attention. Otherwise, you find yourself accidentally standing on someone's toes. In the world of work and life, you want a better foundation than that. I stepped off their toes and worked toward building something better. Ultimately, I started making life and work decisions and making changes, planning for where my life would go. It turns out that resulted in an inflection point, but that's another story. Thank you for listening to my story. My hope is that you will get insights for leading as you. If you know someone who would benefit from this episode, be sure to share it. Interested in connecting with me on LinkedIn? Drop me a note telling me where you found me. The link will be in the show notes. Okay, bye.