Leadership Curveballs, Blind Spots and Black Holes, Episode 8

Taking on a new leadership role can be challenging under normal circumstances.  Due to the pandemic, and the unique challenges it is presenting for business leaders, we’re continuing our special series of extended In the Fire segments featuring executives who are managing through the biggest curveball many have seen in their lifetimes, COVID 19.

In this episode, we’re featuring Nadya Duke Boone, VP of Product at DAT Solutions, the leading provider of freight matching analytics for the trucking industry. Nadya shares with us how the pandemic has affected her role as a leader, her biggest challenges, and her thoughts on “what’s next.”

Podcast Transcript

Hi everyone, this is Bobbie LaPorte, your host of Executive Aid Stations, Leadership, Curveballs, Blind Spots, and Black Holes Podcast. Each week we help busy leaders navigate through complex and versatile times with practical solutions to real life. Today’s episode is not our usual format because of the pandemic and the unique challenges it presents for business leaders.

We’re conducting a series of extended, what we call, in the fire segments, featuring executives who are managing through the biggest curveball many have seen in their lifetimes, COVID-19. And today, we have a very special guest joining us, Nadia Duke Boone, who will share how the pandemic has affected her role as a leader.

Her biggest challenges and her thoughts on what’s next. So let me tell you about Nadya. She’s the head of product for DAT Solutions, which is the leading provider of freight matching analytics for the truck industry. She builds great products by leading and serving the product management user experience and data science teams at DAT.

Prior to DAT, Nadya was a product leader at the high-growth SaaS company New Relic, where she developed the first artificial intelligence products and branding-led product for the development and launch of the integrated product platform and was the general manager of the flagship product. A lot of products in there.

One fun fact about Nadya. She’s a published science fiction writer, which I just love. I think that’s super cool. So now, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Bobbie. So, interestingly, you’ve recently transitioned to this new position as head of product at Dat during the pandemic. That must have been an added leadership challenge for you.

So tell us about it.

Sure. My last interview for this position was, I think, pretty much the day the lockdown started. And I started in the beginning of May. So my whole onboarding, all my experience there has been, at the entire company has been, working from home. So as I thought about that challenge, how was I going to onboard into this situation?

I use the framework that I’ve been using for several years to think about my job, which is that I am both a product leader and a people leader. And I hope folks in your audience who aren’t product folks can still connect with that. Because maybe they’re a technology leader and a people leader or a finance leader to people leader.

But it helps me make sure I’m balancing my energy and my time if I remember that I have both those roles. For me, the first step of leadership is building trust, and you have to earn that trust. So I thought about coming into an organization. How can I do that? When I can’t use a lot of my normal tools, like having lunch and hanging out, having coffee with people, and things like that.

So I took a more deliberate approach to introduce myself to folks on the human side. And I had just learned about a technique called PechaKucha, which is Japanese for chitchat. And it’s a very structured approach to introducing yourself, which I then, completely just kind of bent to my will. The basic idea is you put together a slideshow that is really just pictures, about ten pictures about yourself, and talk about yourself as a human.

And so I did that. And then, I added a few more slides that talked about my approach to product and leadership. Because I knew I was already in questions about that because I was coming on board, and I use this every team meeting I went to, whether it was folks on my team or folks in partner organizations, like marketing or engineering.

And then I had a different challenge, which just suddenly I was going to talk about myself for like 10 minutes in front of the people I don’t know, which felt super awkward. So I told people why I was doing it, and I showed a little more vulnerability, I hope, in saying, I’m doing this because we know as humans, and we know the science shows that we work better together.

When we start to get to know each other as people, and most responded really well to that. And it’s been great. Like now, when I have follow-up conversations with staff, they’ll say things like, oh, you’re a science fiction writer, and we’ll talk about that. Or, oh, you grew up in San Diego, let’s talk about that. So it’s helped at least get that first level of just people knowing me, as a person, not just somebody who’s coming in as a, as an executive.

And then, the second side of that, about building trust to me, is a lot about delivering something for the team. So people talk a lot about quick wins, and you’re in a job, but for me, the first quick wins are, what can I do for the team to show them that I’m really there to help them. So that probably speaks more to the product side of my job, where I looked around at the things that were going on.

There was a lot of great work in progress. But there were opportunities to say, make things more clear or get the strategy straight or connect some groups that maybe weren’t clear and weren’t aligned on goals. So I found those ways and brought in some tools, using some templates and things I’d used before to just bring up structure in and get clarity around things.

And I am filling a position that had not had a full-time incumbent for a while. So there was a lot of just sort of open space where people were hungry for leadership. And so I was able to move in there pretty quickly and just bring some tools in to help folks, really at the ground level. And again, I think that’s been a good step.

Well, and trust is really the keyword here, right? It’s so important in general, but particularly during times of uncertainty, you know, people need to feel like their leader is there for them, to understand something about them personally, just the vulnerability that you displayed by talking about who you are and why you were doing what you did do.

I think we’ll definitely go a long way towards you having a successful transition and being a successful leader there, as well as, as you said, just delivering on quick wins. Because that tells people that get you it, it gives you credibility about your role and what you can deliver for them. Very interesting.

Right? Impactful. So tell us how you’re thinking about what’s next because many people now are planning. So, you know, post, like, you know, whether it’s coming back to the office, you know, now that they’re thinking about what is the next phase of work looks like? So what does that look like for you at DAT?

I think a lot of what’s next, and this would be true regardless of whether we’re working at home or not.

And frankly, you know, our options are, we’re still exploring the right path for us in terms of how we’re going to bring people back into the office. And so the thing I’ve been thinking about a lot for what’s next is how do we get really tight and crisp alignment on our goal and expectations. And this is something that, I’m I know it’s always important to a leader.

I think it’s even more important, now when you’re, again, you don’t have all those little… it’s harder to get those whole in-the-moment reinforcement of your values and your goals. So I’m looking at tools like OKR, other things that we can do that really reinforce what we’re trying to get to, how people can be successful.

Because I think that anytime you’re leading a large organization, you really need to make sure that the folks out there executing, you know, 40, 50 hours a week, that you may have been only talked to for a few hours a week are really aligned and moving towards the right goals. So that entire strategy really comes together.

And so I’ve been thinking about that and also about how do I keep up on the personal side so that as challenges do come up, I’m approachable, right? I want people to come to me and be like, you know, you said this thing later I saw this action that doesn’t align with the thing that you said, could you help me bridge that?

Right. So then I can find out, you know, we’d been misinterpreted if things got lost in translation, or if there’s just a little bit of smoke, you know, smoke that I need to help put out. So those are, again, my two things, clarity expectations and then keeping up those relationships. So that is the challenges that do come along.

We’re asking so much of folks right now across the entire world right now to work in new ways. And so I want, I want to make sure they know that there’s, there’s lots of avenues for help.

Well, Excellent. The relationship piece is so important, particularly if you’re going to continue to work in a virtual environment, and I know that’s one of your strengths and so that’s super interesting.

Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I wish you all the best in your new role. We really appreciate you being a guest on our podcast and sharing your insights and advice. And thanks to our listeners. We hope this week’s episode of Leadership, Curveballs, Blind Spots, and Black Holes provide you with some practical solutions and insights to the challenges you face as you navigate your own leadership journey through the new normal.

Be sure to join us next week for another episode. And in the meantime, stay safe and be well.