Don’t tiptoe around what you want: Girl Geek X Dinner at Optimizely
Girl Geek X Dinners have been a staple in the SF Bay Area for 10 years! It’s been absolutely incredible to see brands grow along side with the GGX brand. For this reason, we love seeing companies continue to partner on hosting GGX events! Here are highlights from the Girl Geek X session at Optimizely:
What is the best piece of advice you’ve gotten?
Check out Radical Candor. Women are often socialized to be kind and soft, but in reality, we aren’t doing anyone favors when we are. Be more direct — it’s better for you and better for whoever you’re directing your comment to. Tiptoeing around doesn’t get things done.
When you call a meeting, it’s your meeting. Take action and ownership of it. When you go to a meeting, be focused on what you want to take away from the meeting and allow that focus to drive the structure of the meeting.
Acknowledge tough conversations. As a manager, you are going to have to have difficult conversations. It’s okay to know that you’re going to annoyed or frustrated by them. Acknowledge the emotion before having the conversation and let it pass. Then you can be affective and objective when engaging in the actual dialogue.
Ask questions, even if you think they’re stupid. Most of the time they’re not dumb and someone else is probably wanting to ask the same thing. Even the most basic questions have the hardest answers.
Avoid unnecessary work by asking more questions. When someone asks you to help out, ask what problem they are actually trying to solve, not just the solution they seek. This helps you better understand their goal, which helps you better understand the question at the core of their ask. Sometimes, this means they can actually help themselves. You can say no. You don’t have to do it all and people can wait.
Do the thing that scares you.
Ask for the feedback.
What are your favorite productivity tools?
- Todoist
- Trello
- Jira
- Taking a break and then revisiting the problem later
- Snoozing email or Chrome tabs
- Slack reminders
- Notebook/pen
- Investing in yourself to pay forward later (through workouts, venting, coffee breaks, etc.)
- Hack Weeks to build out ideas that would be useful to the company
What is the most difficult piece of feedback you’ve gotten and how did you deal with it?
Be more direct.
Stop trying so hard and just be you. You’re good at what you do. Just be you. You can be successful because of who you are.
Speak up more, event though it’s not natural. Find a way to speak up more that makes sense for you. It could be by calling smaller meetings, speaking up on Slack more, whatever, find what works for you. Not speaking up is not the same as not being heard.
Polish up your work. Show that you’re someone who cares about what they’re putting out by giving it more polish. It helps you stand out more.
“Be more technical.” Ask for concrete examples of where you can improve. If there is no support in the critique, look at your metrics/data to see how you’re performing and don’t be afraid to congratulate yourself if you’re really crushing it.
How do you remain emphatic to the user when you may not use your company’s product/service all the time?
Eat your own dog food. Find ways to use your product frequently and become a power user. If you can’t, join product team syncs or listen to customer calls to hear directly from those who are using your product frequently.
How do you learn and grow?
- Read books
- Go to conferences
- Have other interests outside of work
- Use as many opportunities at work to broaden what you’re doing by working with people who are more senior than you are or having a small project that takes 10% of time — researching helps you learn
How do you know if the company you’re interviewing at is a good fit for you?
Ask if there is someone on the team you’re interviewing for that you can talk to. Be upfront about what is important to you and don’t be afraid to ask questions that help you access if you’d be happy at the company long term.
Thanks again to the Optimizely team for hosting their THIRD Girl Geek X Dinner! We loved the coloring book swag! We’d also like to share a thank you to Jessica Chong who served as the organizer from Optimizely. As always, thank you to every single girl geek who attended and made the dinner one to remember. ❤
Having FOMO about missing this event? Never fear — there’s plenty of upcoming sessions! Check out girlgeek.io to sign up for emails.
Engage with fellow Girl Geeks and see what’s going on at our events on Eventbrite, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Our 2018 Optimizely Girl Geek Speakers:
