Finish Strong: Interview with Google's Lia Garvin
I recently went one on one with Lia Garvin. Lia is a Senior Operations Manager at Google and the author of the new book Unstuck: Reframe Your Thinking to Free Yourself from the Patterns and People That Hold You Back.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Lia: I’ve spent the majority of my career in program management and team operations, from finance, to design agencies, to big tech. As I was working with teams in roles centered around helping people get things done more effectively, no matter the size of the team or the company, I kept seeing the same pattern - the issues getting in the way were never skills or expertise, it was challenges within the interpersonal team dynamics, a lack of clear roles and responsibilities, siloing of information, behaviors that excluded people. Sadly… early in my career when I would point this out, people would say “just focus on the work, and the ‘people stuff’ will work itself out.” I was told I was raising too many flags and was focusing on the wrong things. As a woman in tech I was feeling the double burn of impostor syndrome of being underrepresented across two dimensions: gender and a non-technical background, I second guessed my hypothesis around why things weren’t getting done. But this hunch didn’t go away, so I didn’t let it go. I continued to advocate for the importance of inclusion and psychological safety on teams, and fortunately, as these concepts became more widely understood and celebrated in the workplace more broadly, it became easier to articulate the impact of approach to the work. This focus on a “people first” centered approach to team dynamics and operations is central to the work I do today within tech and as a consultant.
In parallel to my work with teams, I’ve had my own personal ups and downs as I navigated the workplace. About two and a half years ago, I started mapping the patterns that were getting in the way of the success I and my colleagues, mentees, and coachees wanted for ourselves. What started to emerge were a set of limiting perspectives around workplace challenges, things like the beliefs that “feedback is a criticism,” “it’s bad to talk about money,” “good work gets noticed,” and more. These traps were not only holding us back, but were fueling our inner critic, continually telling us we were too much and not enough at the same time. But there was also a pattern behind when we persevered. When we broke through these limiting beliefs and double standards, it was the moments when we reframed our perspective, challenging the beliefs and asking ourselves “what else is possible?” in a given situation. Discovering this, reframing, or looking at a situation through a new perspective, became the central theme of my book “Unstuck,” and reframing questions (what else is possible, what might I be missing, what might be going on with the other person) became my mantra for the first place I start whenever I run into a roadblock in my career.
Adam: What do you hope readers take away from your new book?
Lia: My hope is that readers who are feeling stuck in a rut in some place in their career - whether it’s navigating how to action difficult feedback, find a way to get their work noticed and celebrated, make peace with a frustrating coworker, or anything else - will see not only that they aren’t alone in feeling stuck, but by shifting their perspective, they can find new ways of dealing with these challenges that seemed so insurmountable before. That they can achieve their goals and aspirations, even when they encounter setbacks; that reframing gives us the power to go after what we want.
Adam: How can anyone identify and overcome the obstacles they face?
Lia: A giveaway that we are stuck is the classic scenario: we keep trying the same thing and not getting the results we want. That’s a signal that something we are doing isn’t working. And the most important point I want to land here, is this doesn’t mean there is something wrong with us, it means there is something we need to change about our approach. In these moments, asking ourselves questions like “what might be getting in the way” or “what haven’t I tried?” sheds light on new possibilities.
I was once mentoring someone who was looking for a new job and kept hearing “no.” She came to me frustrated because she knew she could do all of the roles she was applying for if someone just gave her a chance. We talked about how she was positioning herself and what might be getting in the way of getting selected. She was framing herself as a ‘jack of all trades,’ which is awesome in some contexts, but when she was applying for specific jobs, the hiring managers wanted to know she had the specific skills they were looking for. We talked about how to focus her narrative around one thing she did great, and then weave the other areas she shined into her interview answers as opposed to leading with them right out of the gate, raising questions on if she was too much of a generalist for the role. She reframed her positioning and ended up getting a role shortly after, in the area she was most experienced in, and then blew her management chain away with all of the other things she could do in addition to that.
Adam: What are tangible steps anyone can take to improve their confidence?
Lia: Two strategies I’ve found useful for improving confidence are: facing our fears and recognizing our wins.
Facing our fears means asking the familiar and sometimes terror-inducing question “what’s the worst that could happen?” and then playing out the actual likely scenarios to follow. Instead of letting the scenario snowball (I mess up the meeting, I get fired, I lose my house, etc.), we consider what we will do if we encounter a setback, reminding ourselves that we have power and agency in situation, even if something goes wrong (I mess up the meeting, I talk to my boss about what happened and share my action plan for improving, I work on that thing, it goes better next time). See how that works?! When we give ourselves credit that we wouldn’t just standby and watch our career go up in flames, we start to feel less afraid.
Recognizing our wins means internalizing positive feedback and appreciation, even when it’s not straightforward (e.g. someone asking you to partner with them on a project, someone sharing your work as a great example to a new colleague, etc.). Reminding ourselves of the things that we’re doing well and what others appreciate about us combats the inner critic’s belief that nothing we do is good enough, bolstering our confidence.
Adam: What are the keys to developing a winning mindset?
Lia: I see winning as finding inner peace - not finally getting to some goal and feeling terrible about it because of all of the tradeoffs you had to make to get there.
With that lens, the first key to developing a winning mindset is to get really clear about what you want and what is important to you, or getting in touch with your values. These are the beliefs that stay with you no matter where you go and what you achieve, so it’s critical we know what they are (...since they’re present whether we recognize them or not).
Second, we celebrate others and lift others up with us. This means sending the elevator back down, to thank those who have helped us, and find ways to leverage your success to help others. No one wins alone, and the more we recognize that the community around us is a wonderful thing and not a signal of a gap we have or competition we have to overcome, the further we can go.
Last, we take failure as feedback. Yep, I said it. Winning means learning from our mistakes, and being open to facing the behaviors or actions we’re doing that aren’t serving us or the people around us.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader
Lia: Hands down, I see inclusion to be the most important quality. Leaders who recognize that when people feel included and that they belong, there is no limit to what they can achieve, obstacle they can overcome, and creative roadblock they can jump past. I’ve worked with teams large and small, leaders responsible for teams of 5 people and 5000 people, and being inclusive and ensuring everyone sees where they uniquely fit into the bigger picture has been the differentiator between leaders who had effective teams that delivered amazing results, and those that floundered.
This comes with related qualities like being a great listener, not only to what is being said but what is not being said (e.g. the tone of the room when they are speaking, the nature of the questions in Q&As, patterns around employee retention); humility and listening and weighing other perspectives that might be different than their own; and a keen understanding of the importance of team culture.
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Lia: Study other leaders - not only ones you aspire to be like, but ones you aspire to be completely different than. Observe what works, what doesn’t, how they inspire people to action or inaction, how they motivate. These attributes start to weave together into who you want to be as a leader, giving you a north star of what to aspire to be. This doesn’t mean we pick a few CEOs to emulate completely, it means we understand the qualities that set great leaders apart versus what makes leaders fall short, and match those with the leadership qualities that we bring to the table or aspire to develop.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?
Lia: First, you are best equipped to talk about your value, figure out how to talk about it in a way that is authentic to you, and then shout it from the rooftops. It is rare to find someone that can capture and fully articulate all of the gifts that we can bring to a situation and the unique ways in which we look at a problem - and when we leave it up to others, hoping someone else will plant a seed or open a door, we’re often disappointed. Take control of the narrative around your value and then tell your story.
Second, who you hire early on will shape the trajectory of your business. The startups I’ve consulted with always say the same thing, I wish I started thinking about this earlier. And I think this goes both for hiring people from different backgrounds into leadership positions from the beginning, and also thinking about the culture you want to create, the experts you want to have on hand, and of course the wide ranges of experiences you want to be able to capture. This might mean early leadership team reshuffles, but these will cost you way less time and resources in the long run.
Third, reframe reframe reframe. When we are building a business or trying to get an idea into the world, it can seem like the odds are against us and people don’t understand us, or we’re encountering painful rejection so many times that it makes us want to give up. But by asking ourselves “what else can I try?” or “what else might be going on here?” as opposed to jumping to giving up or a doom and gloom potential outcome, we build resilience to keep going and refine our approach.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Lia: Finish strong. It can be tempting to start to check out when you’re about to leave on vacation, change jobs, head into any moment of transition. But this is where you demonstrate your character is to see things through to the very end; and how you finish something is often how you’re remembered. Keep the foot on the gas, race past that finish line, and end on a high note - it will lead to lasting relationships and bridges intact for the future.
Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.
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