01:27 - Andrew’s Superpower: Stern Empathy

03:30 - Setting Work Boundaries

Matrix Organizations

18F

Acknowledging Difficult Situations (i.e. Burnout)
Health Checks

Project Success
Time Tracking

Heart Connection / Motivation
Work Distribution

Greater Than Code Episode 162: Glue Work with Denise Yu

18:54 - Providing Support During a Pandemic

Stretching/Growth Work
Comfortable/Safety Work
Social Connection

23:37 - Keeping People Happy / Avoiding Team Burnout

Project Aristotle by Google
Collecting Honest Data
Psychological Safety & Inclusion
Earned Dogmatism
“The Waffle House Solution”

36:26 - Developing Team Culture

“Gravity People”
Honing Communication Skills
Staying Ahead of Big Problems
The ACE Model of Leadership

Appreciation
Coaching
Evaluation

Learning Skills

Managers: Coaching How To Coach
Communities of Practice
Hiring External Consultants
Online Courses, Books, Podcasts

43:08 - Knowing When to Jump Ship and Understanding Your Skills

TKI Assessment

Competing
Collaborating
Compromising
Avoiding
Accommodating

46:51 - Developing & Enforcing Boundaries

Summarization
Normalization
Asking For Support

59:05 - Making Mistakes

Demonstrating Vulnerability
Acknowledge, Internalize, and Learn
Rebuilding Trust
Acceptance: Start Over – There’s Other Opportunities
Dubugging Your Brain by Casey Watts

Reflections:

Arty: The intersection between identifying and acknowledging creates the precedent for the norm.

Jacob: Evolving culture to enable vulnerability more.

Casey: Andrew’s river metaphor and Arty’s cardboard cutout metaphor.

Andrew: Talking about and building psychological safety is foundational. Going first as leadership or being first to follow.

How to start a movement | Derek Sivers (being the first follower TED Talk)

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Transcript:

ARTY: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Episode 248 of Greater Than Code. I'm Arty Starr and I'm here with my co-host, Jacob Stoebel.

JACOB: Hello! Nice to be here, and I'm here with my other co-host, Casey Watts.

CASEY: Hi, I'm Casey, and we're all here together with our guest today, Andrew Dunkman.

Andrew, he/him, is an engineering leader and software developer with 17 years of experience. He’s worked on and launched tools for contact relationship management, predictive sales, radiology and healthcare, learning and management, business-to-business timekeeping, and most recently in government at 18F, a part of the US General Services Administration that’s helping the federal government adopt user-centered technology approaches. He loves those.

He also likes building community in his free time. He helps moderate the DC Tech Slack, a 10,000-person community of tech workers in the DC area and he helps to run DC Code and Coffee, an informal hacking and community-building event every other weekend.

Even though his cat, Toulouse, is glaring at him for talking too loud, he is excited to be here with us today. Hi, Andrew!

ANDREW: Hey, y'all! So nice to be here. I'm honored to be a guest.

CASEY: Let's start with our standard question to kick stuff off here. Andrew, what's your superpower and how did you acquire it?

ANDREW: Thanks for asking. Yeah, this is whenever I answer the question of what my superpower is, it feels like bragging so I did what I normally do when I'm uncomfortable asking a question and I ask other people that question. I asked a few friends and they highlighted both, my ability to empathize with people and also, my sternness in that empathy.

I think sometimes when you get caught up in empathizing with people, you