People First! with Morag Barrett

Welcome to this week's episode of People First. And my guest this week is Andrea Wanastrand, who is a seasoned leadership strategist, executive coach, and a founder of A Three Culture Lab. Andrea has more than twenty five years of experience inside global giants like Microsoft, Meta, T-Mobile and Hitachi. She helps leaders shift from burnout to bold influence through her mindset maven method, which I'm particularly curious to learn about, and her A-three philosophy, authentic, autonomous, and accountable. Andrea has designed programs that have impacted leaders from more than one hundred countries, and she blends neuroscience, behavioral strategy and sharp business insight to drive powerful cultural change. Her work enables organizations to build high performing human centric workplaces where people truly thrive. And so join us in the next thirty minutes. Together, we're going to help you to truly thrive. Andrea, welcome to People First. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. I am looking forward to this conversation. But I'm curious, before we dive into the depths of your work, tell me what role have relationships played in your success? Oh, relationships have played such a key role for me. In fact, I wouldn't be doing the work I have now if it weren't for A internal client, when I was in T-Mobile earlier in my career, about twenty years ago, I was an IT program manager. And she saw something in me and she brought me over as her director of org effectiveness. I'd never worked in HR. HR was my client. But that relationship was huge. But otherwise, the work environment and the collaboration and the energy that you get as being part of a team, for me, is critical for how we all get work done. Oh, I couldn't agree more. It's the relationships that both make the work, well, work, but work worthwhile. Because if you can have a little bit of fun and connection and so forth with your colleagues, it makes those hours that we spend at our desk, whether it's through the camera or in person, just better. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm going to go straight to what's the mindset maven method? I mentioned it in the introduction. We talked briefly about it in the green room, but tell me more. So the Mindset Maven, for me, I really wanted to look at what's the driver for the highest performance. And it is our mindset. And at Microsoft, we did a lot of work around growth mindset, etc. But for me, I wanted to click into the mind-body connection. Okay. And the methodology that I have with the Mindset Maven is really becoming an expert in our full nervous system and our three brains, which is our thinking brain, our heart brain, and our gut brain, where we have neurons that are influencing intuition, emotions, and decision-making. And so through the mindset maven method, I take a mind body approach with my my clients, everything from mindfulness. So for the maven itself, it stands for mindfulness, awareness, visualization, energy and navigation. Also playing on the word Maven is to be an expert on the topic, but also somebody that applies it and services others. So that was the intent with Mindset Maven. It's interesting. I love the layers that come through the thought process of even coming up with what we call the work that we do. And it's interesting there that you talk about the three brains. I was working with a client in Chicago last week, had fifty five leaders in the room and took a little segue to talk about essentially our limbic system and the vagus nerve and how our bodies are hardwired. and always looking at a conscious and a subconscious level for perceived threats real or not and that triggers those three brains so can you talk more about why those three brains matter especially when it comes to stress and burnout absolutely so there's a myth that you don't have emotions in the workplace but the reality is us as humans we're emotional beings And emotions are energy, right? They're also based in our memories. It's generally about things that have happened in the past that we may be excited about in the future. But it's not necessarily the moment that we're at. And our body is trying to protect us at all times. And so with any situation that we're going in, we're having a physical reaction to it. You're excited. I use the analogy of a good belly laugh. You can't stop laughing because there's energy moving through that emotion for you. And many of us are showing our emotions before it's even gotten into that thinking brain of ours. And that is the power of how we're showing up. on a day-to-day basis with those that we interact with, how we're interchanging our energy with others that we're, you know, as the emotions are coming through, how does that actually show up? So there's an emotional awareness, which is part of emotional intelligence of how aware are you of the physical symptoms, flags, or tells is sometimes used that you're giving to others before you've even said a word. Or as you're speaking, are the words matching your intonation and the energy that you're putting forth? So those three brains are getting very activated. You've got, you know, follow your gut. You've got your intuition. Your heart actually has neurons in it, just like your gut does and your thinking brain does. But it's sending more messages to your thinking brain than your thinking brain is sending to your heart brain. So if all of this information highway is happening in our nervous system, which is also influencing our breathing, our physicality, our intonation as we're speaking, those three brains are playing and your emotions are present. And so I work with clients to help them understand and have an awareness of how their emotions are at play. And then they can show up in a consistent way and how they make others feel because what's the old saying? It's not what they, they don't remember what you say. They remember how you made them feel. Working with your nervous system and those three brains in really mastering your presence every day. So you talk there about awareness, and I think that's the sticking point. I think back early in my career when emotional intelligence first came out, I remember thinking, oh, this woo-woo stuff, it'll never last. And then coming to the recognition that this is fundamental to everything that we do. Because to your point, we are emotional creatures. You don't get to switch it off at nine a.m. when you walk into your office or switch it off or on at five p.m. when you leave, if anybody even does nine to five nowadays. So what's a simple technique that leaders listening to this conversation right now could do to take their emotional pulse in this moment? Absolutely. First and foremost is before any interaction, pause. Think about how you're feeling about the upcoming interaction that you're doing, whether that's a meeting, an interview, or, you know, being on stage for an all hands, whatever that is in in in your organization, or even just going into a one on one. How are you feeling about it? How would you like them to feel when you're done with the interaction? And how do you set that intention when you go in? So that pause, take a breath, that helps us reset our nervous system. And we can get really intentional about how do I need to show up in the next five, ten minutes or an hour or whatever the time period is so that we can be more intentional. Because, again... Your emotions are at play and your nervous system never got a memo that work is work. You and professionals, personal you, it's just you. So taking a pause, thinking about how I feel in this moment and how I want to show up in the next moment. Awareness is like an important step, but it's not the be all and end all. So what do I do with that information? you get curious if you're not able to, you know, what's coming up for you? Are you nervous about something? Does it even have anything to do with the person that you're interacting with? We can carry our emotional energy if we're upset and worried about something into a room. A lot of managers do this. They come out of a strategy meeting or something else, and then they go right into a one-on-one. And whatever we're feeling and whatever emotions that we have have nothing to do with the individual that we're interacting with. That individual, we are storytellers. We're gonna fill in the blanks. Why is she looking so stressed today? Why is she really tight or short? Or why is she cutting the meeting short? We believe it's about us when, in fact, it really may have nothing to do with us. So if we can get curious about how am I feeling right now? Are my shoulders tight? Is my jaw clenched? Did I eat breakfast this morning? I mean, just get curious a moment in your physicality before you engage. you can take control of that moment and do so moment by moment moving forward. I like that, just the channeling of curiosity, because it does it from both sides of the equation. Because as you've shared, we tend to fill in the blanks. And so if I look a little fierce-faced, then the story could be, oh, Morag's annoyed at me, Morag's distracted, whatever. So there is something on if you detect it in somebody else to ask a question, hey, Morag, you don't seem yourself, everything okay? But also it behooves us as, to your point, if I take that pulse beforehand, I know that the previous meeting may have put me off balance and either choose to reset in the moment, or if I can't, then I need to give a verbal, which is, hey, Andrea, it's great to meet you. Just want you to know that the meeting before, it's just left me a little on edge. So bear with me. But now the story that you're going to write is hopefully one that gives me the benefit of the doubt versus assumes the worst that I'm just being pissy because. That's me. And we call it in instructional design, we call it signposting for the learner, right? But in relationships, if whatever the relationship, if we're not communicating, others around us will fill in the blanks. And unfortunately, we're in protection mode as we started off in this conversation. So those stories and filling in the blanks don't always work in our favor. And so if you can actually... manage the narrative in that aspect. And I'm not talking about faux narratives and faking it to make it. I'm talking about being clear, being honest, and not necessarily oversharing. You don't even have to say that last meeting. Just say, hey, I'm a little off today. My time with you is really important. But I just wanted to let you know I'm not feeling a hundred percent today. Whatever that might be, right? Now, it's interesting, though, because in the introduction, I talked about your background and your time at Microsoft Meta, T-Mobile, Hitachi. Not small organizations and not necessarily organizations known for a warm, fuzzy, humanistic culture. And so the idea of even admitting I'm not myself, that feels risky in of itself, right? So there are pros and cons. Speak up, it becomes risky. Don't speak up, it continues to fester. Help me navigate that internal stress that could be pulling on me in that moment where I know I'm not at my best, but now what do I do? Great call out on the multinationals that I've worked for. And I would say, when I started twenty five years ago versus the current environments for all those companies. At Microsoft, for example, the manager expectations is model, coach and care. And when that was rolled out in twenty nineteen, folks were going, what do you mean care? And we we actually did have the conversation. You don't necessarily even have to like them, but you have to treat them as a human being with respect. So you might not be able to share everything. And that might be based on your position, what you're allowed to share, this might be a client, whatever the reasoning is, but you're at twice as to how you show up. And so you don't have to necessarily share the transparency. But if you're going to like show up with as much positive energy as you can, or with the positive intent, of the interchange that you're going to have with that individual. So again, focusing on how do I want them to feel at the end of this? And it's not about necessarily making them all feel good. As a manager, you might have to give some really hard feedback and they're not going to feel great when they leave, but will they feel supported? Will they feel clarity that they had something constructive that they can go work on? They might not take ownership. Maybe you're trying to instill that. But if you set that intention of how do I want to show up in a way that treats the other human with dignity and respect for them as a human being and look at the outcome, I call it kind conversations versus nice. Nice is how you're going to feel it, the whole thing. But kind is showing up in service to them and Adjust your behavior as you can. And if you really can't do any of the above, reschedule the meeting because you're not in the right spot to do that. Cool. I mean, I love everything that you're saying. And I'm curious, because you said there the new management expectations, that those rolled out in Microsoft. So I'm curious, how have you seen that conversation around humanistic leadership, caring leadership? How has that shifted both during the pandemic, but since the pandemic? I would say, say that there's more of a hyper awareness since the pandemic of the humanness the when we were all in lockdown you couldn't fake it because you couldn't go get the haircut or you couldn't get you know you know the dry cleaning done or whatever your suit and armor were And that, I think it's opened up the conversation more about how do we treat others? I saw it happening over a decade ago on the global scale. So I wouldn't say that we've achieved it. I think there's a great debate as to what does human centricity look like, and it's compounded even more with AI and different thoughts about that. But My personal take is AI is not here to replace us. It is a tool that's going to help us do bigger things faster, greater scale, et cetera. But long answer to your question, companies that have focused on the human workforce of their company as an asset and really wanted to scale with the mindset, such as Microsoft with the growth mindset with Carol Dweck and their manager expectations, or looking at the things that you see happening in these other tech companies. It is still a learning curve to go because there is a bottom line. They're publicly traded companies, so that can feel not human, right? But I see it increased. Yeah. So for leaders listening who might be trying to balance that empathy approach with the authority and delivering results approach, where can they start? It's not an either or, it's an and. And so your role is to manage a group of individuals to achieve a certain business outcome. You can have empathy on personal situations. Each company has their own guidelines depending on which country you're in or state you're in. There might be HR laws that govern what that can look like. But in a human to human conversation, are you showing up in a kind way that shows courage to step into the hard conversation and be constructive about it? Take in with empathy the situation or the constraints that might be involved? And do you do anything and everything in your power that is allowed for you to enable that person for success? And at the end of the day, if they don't own their success or they don't step into ownership with accountability, that's different. That's on them. Okay. I mean, what are the side effects of having a human-centric culture and workplace? Stress goes down. We talked about our nervous system. We cannot be creative and innovative when our brains are in fight or flight. It is physically impossible for us to do that when we don't feel trust. So that is the biggest implication is business bottom lines are impacted when we are not human centric. So I'm going to go back to your origin story. You mentioned there, the leader that brought you into talent development and HR as being a new part of your career, but what has fueled your passion around the human centric focus and, you know, the Maven mindset and the A three framework that I mentioned in the introduction. So for me, Leadership development for so many years was something you kept until they were a leader rather than starting right from your first job going forward when we are learning leadership. And when I stepped into a brand new role in a new industry, new career, I had imposter syndrome. So part of my passion was figuring out how to overcome my own mindset blocks. And I had the privilege of doing the performance management programs for both Microsoft and T-Mobile globally. And I saw the challenges that we have in having honest conversations, right? And helping others grow. in a way that we can give honest feedback that's going to help everybody going forward. And so those things, and I've seen it at scale, were my catalyst for stepping in and going, okay, how do we do this a different way? Because I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly. And All of the companies that I worked for, I can't put into one category. Each of them are so large, they had subcultures. And I had the pleasure of seeing subcultures that were doing it really, really well. And it came down to human centricity and the A-three that I talk about. So I'm sure there are going to be leaders listening to this who think, yeah, but my organizational culture I'm going to go with sucks, but maybe it's just not where they want it to be. And it would be easy to think, but there is just me. I can't change things. What would be your message to a leader who's feeling overwhelmed and with a small sphere of influence in this bigger pond that may not be ideal at this time? Culture starts with each of us. So what can you control? And how do you want to be remembered? What is the legacy of an interaction of an employee or colleague with you? And it starts with us one by one in showing up in a way. And yes, you might work in an organization that isn't aligned to you. And I would beg the question along the way, if your values don't align, what are you doing long term to begin with? But you do have control in how you show up every day for those that work for you and work with you and your customers. So start there. And it's amazing how we as humans, when we see good things happening, and good things will happen when you show up in that way, we want to start doing things like that as well. And you're teaching your team what success can look like. even if you have to navigate some bumper rails that you don't a hundred percent agree with. So what are the good things that you do to help you to navigate those bumper rails when they appear in your work and in your life? for me is being really clear on my values. And people first is a nice alignment with just even this conversation. I don't say that to be, you know, tongue in cheek is, am I able to be with a client and be somewhat forthright and aligned with my values? And It determines whether I will work with a company, an individual, a team at any level at this point. And so it's a hard stop for me if it's not congruent. And again, I'm not talking about the whole behemoth of an organization. I'm talking about the individuals and those relationships. So for leaders listening, if they'd like to learn more about you and your work, where can they find out more? Two places. You can find me on LinkedIn five days a week where I have upcoming things posted there, as well as some of my insights and learnings over twenty five years. And then my website, a three culture lab dot com. Andrea, I'll make sure that that information is included in the show notes below. But thank you for joining me here on People First. It's been a pleasure to learn a little bit more about the Maven mindset and the work that you're doing. And I encourage everyone listening, take that beat. What are you feeling as you go into your next conversation? And how do you want the other person to feel at the end of that conversation? And that's how you start to build the culture and relationships where we can all truly thrive. So, Andrea, thank you again. Thank you. Well said. Okay.