Sarah Braver, COO and interim CEO of coLeague, embeds fractional People Leaders in mission-driven organizations. Her operating principle is that most workplace rules are made up, and you can build the one you actually want instead.
In this episode of RONderings, Ron sits down with Sarah, who works with the fractional talent firm founded by Lora Cover, to talk about ADHD at work and why psychological safety is the layer everything else sits on.
Sarah made up her own major at Furman, then spent her first job out of college color correcting photos for The Greenville News. An old professor called to ask what she was doing, and within weeks she was on Microsoft's campus in Redmond, in flip flops, because nobody had told her what to wear. She ran executive education for Fortune 50 companies out of London, wildly undiagnosed, learning the business from the back of the room while her actual job was making sure the binders showed up.
She and Ron compare notes on ADHD as a work style, including why crochet works for her brain and knitting does not. Sarah makes the case that most of what looks like a performance problem at work is an anxiety problem, and most anxiety is an information problem. Her employee hierarchy of needs puts safety at the base, and she defines it broadly: not just feeling able to raise a problem, but knowing your paycheck will be right.
Tune in to hear why Sarah believes mindset follows behavior, and what that means if you are trying to change how someone thinks.
Chapters:
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04:05 Sarah Braver on Tijuana tacos and a life that never adds up
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10:19 The dad who invented fractional work and called it tent making
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13:07 Flip flops on Microsoft's campus and learning from the back of the room
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26:37 Building three companies she no longer fit in
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45:11 The designed distraction that lets an ADHD brain focus
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51:34 Inch wide and mile deep: why fractional work is interim work
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55:09 The employee hierarchy of needs and why anxious people cannot work
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01:00:15 Most rules are made up, and mindset follows behavior
Links:
Connect with Sarah Braver on LinkedIn or visit coLeague to learn more about embedding fractional People Leaders in mission-driven organizations, from chief people officers down through the full talent vertical. coLeague also offers a free Talent Diagnostic, a ten minute quiz for organizations trying to find the root cause of a people problem.
Episode 112
