Leading When Change Disrupts

James & Dee discuss the current turmoil within the WordPress ecosystem following recent leadership decisions.

Leading When Change Disrupts - Episode 5 of the Future of Team Podcast
Leading When Change Disrupts - Episode 5 of the Future of Team Podcast
Future of Team
Leading When Change Disrupts
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In this episode of the Future of Team podcast, James & Dee discuss the current turmoil within the WordPress ecosystem following recent leadership decisions. As change disrupts their professional community, they explore how to lead and support teams during uncertain times. The conversation touches on emotional regulation, personal experiences of leadership challenges, and the importance of transparent communication. Dee and James emphasize the need for empathy, self-care, and creating a North Star for navigating change, highlighting the emotional impact of the ongoing situation on both personal and professional levels.

Transcript

James: Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to this episode of the future of team podcast. I’m joined by D D it is great to see you. The thing that’s been really cool for this episode that I’m excited about is we’ve just gone through the time change. And so we’re actually meeting. At the same time for you, but I think an hour earlier for me, which is just that little bit of extra joy because it’s late in my day and I have a bit more brain power right now.

So that’s awesome. 

Nice. 

Dee: Well, it’s still, it’s It’s early, it’s the same time for me, so it’s 7am. And I’m sitting here with my cup of tea, looking out to the beautiful blue sky. And it’s just nice that it’s, because of that time change, it’s just a little bit darker in the morning. It feels a little bit earlier than it has done.

But it’s, it’s good. I’m raring to go. 

James: We are meeting around mid October. It’s actually coming up on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend as we record this episode. And it’s a few weeks after WordCamp US 2024. And if you are involved in the word few weeks, yeah. If you’re involved in the WordPress ecosystem at all, you’ll know that this has been a pretty, Shocking few weeks, I think is the best way to describe it.

And in this episode, we thought. Rather than talk maybe about the specifics of what’s been going on in the community. If we were to have a conversation about what, what the impact is of that conversation and extrapolate out a little bit about that to our workplaces. And so this was going to be a little bit raw cause we’re, we’re, we’re not.

Prepared for it or, or we didn’t plan necessarily to have this conversation this week. So bear with us as there’s probably more ums and uhs as we ask each other questions and formulate responses on the fly, but maybe to just kick it off and to preface it, what’s happened in, in the community and what we want to talk about is this, this idea that.

Or this idea of, of when change disrupts and when change comes about or when things happen that disrupt our ways of working, disrupt our teammates disrupt our relationships. This veneer of kindness that we kind of try to have or professionalism or professional kindness That we have in the workplace and how do you navigate that as a leader as an individual?

community member so Yeah, that’s sort of how I’m thinking about it. Does that sit well with you Dee? 

Dee: Yeah, that resonates with me I don’t want to be kind of diving into, well, they, somebody must be thinking this, or somebody must be thinking that. It’s that sense of, How do we respond? Who, how do we look after people?

And then how do we kind of keep moving forward when it feels like the goalposts have shifted? When it feels like the sand is, you know, that there’s a little bit of quicksand because things are uncertain and we’re not sure what’s going to happen next. We’re not sure what the fallout is going to be. All we can see is a landscape of people who, are no longer certain of things that they felt like they have been certain of in the past and how do you manage that?

James: How do you lead in the midst of that and bring calm right into the midst of that when you’re reacting and you’re hearing about things at the same time as everybody else? That’s another piece of this as well. Typically you would hope that in situations that as a leader. You might have a bit of advanced notice or the ability to prepare or plan for a situation to unfold and Sometimes you don’t get that luxury right of the ability to plan in advance.

So you’re rolling with things as they come Yeah, that too. Yeah, so Let’s let’s make so so We’ll provide a little bit of context and then I think let’s let’s jump in. So Within the WordPress ecosystem right now, there is a debate going on about one company in particular that has been challenged morally by the project lead saying that, you know, like WordPress is built on contributions.

This company is not contributing their fair share. And as a result the project lead has taken personal actions as well as leveraging the company that he runs to to challenge things as well and, and challenge trademarks. And so it’s created a situation where you’ve got company one versus company two and the community.

Stuck in the middle and the community, the people in, in sort of in the everyday day to day building and managing of, of WordPress and all of the teams that, that build or support the infrastructure of WordPress are feeling a bit caught in the middle and the ways that we want to talk to each other, the ways that we want to interact with each other are being disrupted.

We’re challenged by the actions of somebody that we,

who, who we’re, we’re not fully confident in as, you know, in what they’re doing. We don’t have all the inputs they have. We don’t know the strategy behind what they’re doing. And so we’re, we’re running blind, if you will, in this situation and reacting to things. And we’re not. And some of them are very personal, right?

If we’ve got friends who are impacted, it’s, it’s very personal. Some of them are at a policy level that seems surprising. And Yeah, that whole just like sense of togetherness and, you know, we have debate and we have challenge and we might not agree with Gutenberg or we might not agree with how some things are done, right?

But there’s this general togetherness of moving forward that we were still part of that has been a bit mucked up for lack of a better term. 

Dee: A bit mucked up, undermined or it feels, it feels that way, right? And so it’s so easy. It’s so easy. It’s so easy for me to sit here in my comfortable home and, and look at all of the conversation.

And I mean, it’s, it’s also very privileged for me because I’m not currently working in WordPress to be able to have, have opinions. I mean, I look at the people that have left. I look at the people who are expressing all of these thoughts and opinions. And I feel like that common thread or the thing that I keep coming back to is, is just around, there’s a whole lot of reaction happening, but it’s happening around a whole series of unknowns.

I think to some extent, I mean, obviously we know the core things you’ve laid those out, but the people that no longer have access to be able to contribute the way that they used to. Without an understanding of why, or yeah, and the, and these are the kinds of things that when you’re in, and we’ve talked about this at length before, when you’re in leadership, transparent leadership is something that’s has the power to diffuse some of the kinds of things that we are seeing people feeling.

And so,

and because when people don’t know the story, they write their own story. That’s right. Well, this must be what’s going on. This must be what’s going on. And I think I’ve tried to keep a reasonably neutral position because I’m like, there’s a lot of things that I actually don’t know what is going on. But what I do see is the people that are hurting, that are that have more skin in the game or that are closer to the fire.

And I’m like, okay, so if I was extrapolating this out to a situation in which I’m in leadership, what would I do differently? Or how do I support, I guess the bigger question is, we can have all of those opinions, what we would do differently, but we’re not sitting in that hot seat. So how do I then navigate with my team of how, how to, how to, how to You know, absorb, live with, respond to the feelings that you have around what else is going on, something that in a lot of cases we don’t have any control over.

So I guess that’s my question for you, what, how, what do you say to somebody who’s coming to you going, I can’t do what I used to do before, I have very big opinions about why this is so, I have, and, but. What do you do with that? What’s the, you know, what’s the triage for somebody who’s coming to you because I was gonna say their arms cut off.

That’s a bit dramatic, but you know what I mean? 

James: So maybe, maybe another way to think about it and to make it less specific to this situation is to consider. Sure. You know, you, your Q2 numbers have come in and they’re there, they’ve fallen off a cliff, your revenue has completely collapsed and now you’re sitting in a place where you used to have revenue beating expenses and now that’s flipped and you’ve, you’ve got 30 percent lower revenue than you anticipated and your expenses are still 30%.

Above that. Yeah, sure. And now you’ve got a position where your leadership team is telling you you’ve gotta make drastic cuts. Right? Or, or they’ve made drastic cuts, right? They’ve sliced off, you know, a percentage of of staffing at the company and nobody had any control over it. But all of a sudden, this layoff round or this redundancy round has gone through, everyone’s picking up the pieces.

People you thought were doing a great job have been made redundant. Projects that you thought were the most important thing in the business have been left behind and actions, the actions of people in leadership who you thought were professional and that seemed highly emotional, right? And you’re trying to figure out what’s going on.

And that’s probably another example here, maybe that we could use as a parallel to something like this. Yeah. So As a leader, I think you’ve got a couple of different things that you’ve got to think about. One, self care. You have got to be in a place yourself where you are emotionally and mentally rested, and emotionally and mentally capable.

Of taking on that challenge because of, you know, it’s like the, the thing they say on, on airplanes, right? Put the mask on yourself before you put it on someone else. And I think that is often a step that people miss in leadership is they’re so worried about their team, whatever else that they don’t pause to do the self care and to get themselves in a place where they can handle things.

You look like you’ve got something to say. Do you, do you want to? I’m having some thoughts. Okay. I’m having some thoughts. I think and no, I absolutely, absolutely think you’re right. I think, I think as a leader, when you’re going into that situation, there are things that you also have to be prepared for.

Dee: Yeah. People are going to be upset. 

James: Yeah. 

Dee: And I think part of putting that mask on first is, this is not about me. Yeah. People are going to be upset and you have to be able to prepare or understand and accept that people are going to be upset and not take that on because people are going to need to vent, people are going to need to talk it through, people are going to have opinions, people are going to be reacting out of place of hurt people, and, and you just have to be able to, to take, you don’t have to take on all of that criticism necessarily, but you have to understand that this is going to happen.

And be able to live in that discomfort for a bit, because when shift hits the fan, they’re quite proud of that. Then. People need to be able to process it and the first kind of big steps and processing that is often outrage or concern or because again, when it’s all these kinds of big things are impacting you, you start to wonder about what your future looks like.

And I’ve been through massive upheaval in the workplace actually, interestingly, quite similar circumstances, but that sense of, okay. It’s going to be rocky for a minute. We have to let it get out there, but we have to keep calm. Right. And, and so when you’re on the receiving end of that, yes. Or when you’re the leader and that you’re watching all of that happen around you, it’s really important to be able to not internalize that and go, Oh, This is a natural outworking of what’s happened, but we have, we have a plan, we have a direction we have, this is where we’re going and being able to engage in dialogue around that without internalizing it, I think it’s probably quite important.

James: Further to that, I think after you’ve put on your mask you know, you’ve done your self care is to create space for folks to vent or question, because there will be fear, there will be uncertainty, there will be. Discomfort and disquiet, maybe some rage, maybe some animosity, some anger, frustration, all of all of those emotions.

And when it, so depending on your position in, in your team, right? Some teams are small. And so if you’re the leader, you are the one ultimately making the decision, but sometimes you’re maybe not the one ultimately making the decision. You might contribute to it, or you might have no role in it. And in those situations, you have an opportunity, I think, to authentically engage with your team and what they’re going to want to see is a little bit of vulnerability as well, a little bit of your own processing and how you’re feeling about all of this.

And I think that can do a lot to create. Opportunity for people to come to terms with their own emotions if you can demonstrate a healthy way To articulate or create an outlet for that right and and give permission to for people to feel What they’re feeling I mean that can go a long way as well to just going.

Okay. I’m i’m not alone Right for yeah someone on your team. I what i’m feeling is normal what i’m feeling is Shared and just yeah alone Can bring people together and help you as a lead make the pivot from processing to path forward. 

Dee: Yeah. Yeah. 

James: So as you’ve said, that path forward or, or having, having that calmness, like that helps.

But what if you don’t have a path? What if, what if you’re as a leader? Reacting or hearing about these things, you know, at the same time as everybody else, how do you, how do you manage that? 

Dee: I feel like, I mean, a lot of this is emotional regulation, right? Is, and for me that, that first thing is, What can I control in this situation?

The only thing I have any control over is me. So that makes me cautious about, because then I’m also mindful of the people that I’m leading. And if I am not in control of how I’m feeling or what I’m saying and putting out into the team or into the company, then. I’m not helping the people that I’m leading.

So even if there isn’t a plan, there is that sense of, for me, being transparent. Okay, I’m not sure what’s going to happen here. I know what I can control. I can control how I react. I can control what I need to do as my next, first next step is, you know, we’ve got work to do here. Let’s keep doing the work until we get told to do otherwise.

And then just being that space, I mean, when you’re the leader, right, the, it’s, I want to be able to create and keep and maintain that safe space for my team. And I do that by absorbing what’s ahead or what’s coming towards me. And diffusing as much of possible of that as possible so that I’m not pushing that back out onto my team, you know, it’s not the, you know, all of this stuff is coming towards me and I’m not just vomiting it back out.

So the, so for me, as the leader, my role is to, to be that, I mean, I can have my opinions, I can have my concerns about it, but if my first responsibility is to my team and their emotional safety, I am very careful about. What I’m what I’m feeding back

feel like that’s the right thing, but it’s the right thing for me I think that me but yeah 

James: now go ahead. Sorry. No, I think that makes perfect sense, right? you’re absolutely right the only thing that you can control the only thing in the situations like that that you can’t control is yourself, right and Usually you’ll have a pretty good idea of what a step is even if it’s not the best step what if you are the one who is Creating the change or breaking the context.

What do you think your role there is? Cause it might be a little bit different. Like let’s say you are a leader of leaders and you are the owner of the company, you’ve got four or five direct reports that manage their own teams. And I’m not even talking big companies. I’m talking like you’ve got a company of 30, so you’ve got four or five direct reports and they’ve got their teams of like four or five, right?

You’ve had this big, maybe you were 50 before and now you’re 30, right? Or you let’s, let’s be a bit more realistic. You were 40 and now you’re 30. So you’ve lost a good chunk of, of people. How do you, as the leader in that situation, what do you think they can be doing? And you’re taking flack from outside because of the choices that you’ve made, as well as navigating uncertainty inside.

Dee: Who is your first responsibility to? The people on the outside or the people on the inside? 

James: Great question. Great question. 

Dee: Your first responsibility is to the people on the inside. 

James: As hard as that is to say to everyone on the outside, Oh, you’re right. It’s the people on the inside. Oof.

Dee: I’m not quite sure where that come from. And then of course, I’m extrapolating out to the situation that we’re in in the middle of at the moment, but the it’s, yeah, I’m thinking about somebody who’s there and that 30, 30 people team being able to acknowledge that this is really hard and that this is impactful both inside and outside.

I think one of the things that is critical around that is. Being able to hear from people and to be able to absorb that, and also to be able to take on, none of us are perfect, right? So when you’re in that situation, you will be implementing some of these changes imperfectly. And it’s still being able to maintain that sense of, you know, being open to learn and continuous improvement.

I mean, obviously, when you’re making people redundant or when you’re doing, you know, big change or the company’s pivoting or shifting, all of those things come with, you must have a North Star about where you’re going with that, right? Theoretically, hopefully, and so if you keep keeping close to, here’s the direction that we’re going, here’s the direction we’ve set, we’ve been transparent about this in the past, we’ve had these road bumps that we’re going over that have disrupted, but we still have that North Star, we’re still heading in this direction.

I accept and understand that this is really, really challenging. I am hearing you. I’m willing to adjust where needed. But we have a direction that we’re going and here’s where we’re going. That’s, those are the kinds of things that you want to see in a leader, right? If you’re in the team, okay, okay. Yep, this sucks.

I hate how this feels right now. We have a direction, but I know where we’re going. And I trust where we’re going. And I think where that trust gets broken is when You’re not sure of where you’re going. You’re not sure you still agree with where you’re going. Maybe? Does the trust get broken there? That’s a, that’s a you thing, isn’t it?

There’s nothing, you know, a leader can make the choice and go, Hey, here’s where we’re going. And you, and That becomes that decision that you need to make, do I, am I still aligned with this? It’s very prescient considering you know, where we’re at in the middle of this whole situation, but yeah, again, as the leader, your job is to have that direction.

Your job is to bring people along with you. I still feel like your job is also to be open and learning and careful. Perhaps that, yeah, I know I kind of lost the thread there. I was going there, but. 

James: You’ve said a lot of amazing things that I 100 percent agree with. And you know, one of the, so, so, you know, to add a little bit more context for those who aren’t in the WordPress space project lead, the, the leader of the situation had that exact challenge from up.

He decided on a direction and said to the company, this is the direction we’re going. I’m going to give you all until such and such a date to decide if you’re going to be with me or not. And that individual choice was made by everyone and 8 percent of the company left, took a buyout offer and and walked away.

So a lot of the things you’ve described, which is really interesting, right? Because when we see it on the outside of this, this whole WordPress thing looking in, It’s easy to see how some of these things have been twisted by other actions in And around it and turn into something maybe that they’re not right and You can see like in what you said there of what you would hope a leader would do and then you see that it’s actually been done But then you also have to reconcile that with some of the other actions that these imperfect actions that have been done You Oh, how do you weigh that up, right?

And how do you reconcile the two? And where, where do you give grace, right? And where do you say enough is enough? That’s it’s hard. We’re, we’re talking around this for folks and I don’t want people to get bogged down in this issue or, or anything like that or get into the, like the, he said, she said of it.

But, I think one of the things, so, you know, and full disclosure, I work for the company of this leader, so I am full time there. And I did not coach Dee at all ahead of time on what to say. She is, this is, this, and this whole thing, we have no script, this is just us trying to be genuine and honest as we navigate it, but.

Dee: It’s so, it’s so difficult when you’re like, I’m on the outside, James is on the inside of this particular storm that the community’s in. And I have opinions and I look at how stuff is discussed and I look at actions that are taken. And again, I can, and I, it’s so easy to be it’s not easy to be neutral, but it’s so easy to go, well, I wouldn’t do it that way.

And I’m looking at my friends hurting and I feel protective towards them. I’m sad about people that made that choice. But I understand the choices to come or to go. I, and, and again, I’m on the outside of it. And it’s so funny to me because I’m sitting there, not so much having revelations. I’m not becoming an apologist.

I still am still very angry about a lot of some of the things, a lot of the things that I’ve seen on both. I was going to say both sides, but when the kinds of things that I want to see in a leader in a situation like this is. Yep. I get it. It’s really sucks. This is really, really hard. And I, I have, I have been in situations where I’ve seen people lead through this kind of massive change and that vulnerability and that understanding of how the, this is impacting them can make or break that situation.

I think when a leader gets up and goes. I understand this is really, really difficult. And I have that North Star and here is where, here’s where we need to get to. And for somebody to be able to say that this is going to hurt, and here’s how, To talk about how that hurts, but to also know that. We feel safe to be able to say to the leader, and you know, and again, I’ve walked through redundancies to be able to say, this is how this has impacted me, and know that that’s heard and not dismissed I think is important.

And now I’m waffling again. But

it’s be it, we . It’s getting too hard not to conflate it with whether what we’re in the middle of, isn’t it? And talk around it. Yeah. 

James: But I think, I think one of the things I’ve, I’ve noticed, and I’ve tried to say this a couple of times in, like, I write blog posts and I do different things like that, we do, we all have a very emotional, almost visceral reaction to the project lead of WordPress because we feel so familiar with them because we’ve been around for so long.

There’s that Feeling of closeness and access to them, maybe that gives us maybe this feeling of like permissiveness around or ownership over things, right? I’m having thoughts. And 

Dee: maybe 

James: I’ll speak for myself then because I can’t control myself. So I’ll speak for myself. I have known of the project lead for 15, 17 years, I have interacted with them in person when I was young and they were young.

I have seen them take positions that have been uncomfortable before. I’ve also speak of them often with their first name, right? That person is just who they are, right? And, and that sense of familiarity and perceived connection to them, because without them even realizing it, they play an extremely important role in my life, in my livelihood, in the work I’m doing right in the community that I surround myself with.

And when I see them. Making choices or doing things that I may or may not agree with. I maybe have a bit more of an emotional reaction to that. Because the version of them that I’ve created in my head is maybe different to the reality. And so I I am not just being confronted by the discomfort of choices that are made, but that the person that I had created in my head of who I thought they were is, is not who they are.

And now I’ve got to reconcile the perfect, in my mind, version of them with the imperfect reality. And. 

Dee: I feel like that revelation is something that, not about this particular individual, but I’ve walked through a situation in the past where somebody that I worked very, very closely with, in fact, was there in their immediate circle of leadership, and whom I put to work a great deal of faith and trust in as, and, and almost for me, this is my situation, unhealthy amount of faith and trust.

And it was, it was, it was an unhealthy relationship, but I couldn’t see that it was an unhealthy relationship until It got blown up in a weirdly similar kind of situation to the one that we’re in now. And so for me nowadays, I do not approach other human beings in the same way. So I do not put people as a general rule on pedestals because I have been right in the middle of.

The fallout of a situation where my putting that person on a pedestal absolutely devastated me. It was a trauma that was 12 months of therapy, like it was a big deal. And so now I’m a lot more skeptical. About people’s motivations. I’m a lot more, you know, this probably has a detrimental effect on relationships in some ways, because there is probably a healthier balance of, but I am much more likely to err towards the side of people are self serving than, but, and I think when we’re in a situation too, I think one of the things.

Yeah. that maybe some of us have been under an illusion about is the extent to which this is a community project. And I feel like one of the things that has blown up is that sense of just how much input we might have thought that we had and feel like, whether this is true or not, but feel like we no longer have, because Of, you know, all of the, of who owns what, of who controls what, of where, and so I feel like there may have been this illusion of, well, this is ours and perhaps it isn’t.

And so some of the tension, anger is like, oh, I thought I had more of a voice here than I do. 

James: I don’t know if it’s more of a voice as much as it’s more of an influence. 

Dee: Yeah, and for instance 

James: and that I could, and that

more people had the ability to shape and and move the direction. I think,

and, and, you know, beyond the situation, you know, to take it out of this immediate, very specific thing and make it, you know, more generalized. There are probably projects, there are probably You know, I would imagine if you’re working on something internally and it’s a project where a group of people get together, right, maybe because of interest rather than hierarchy, you’re working on something that you believe in and you’re working on it together, And you feel like you have ownership of it and you’ve been, you’ve, in a way you’ve been given ownership of it because you’ve been allowed to create maybe something around it or do something specific toward it.

And then the one with the real authority comes in. and disrupts that flow and takes what you’ve been working on in the direction you thought you were, had all agreed on and it was going and says, no, we need to move it in this direction. And all of a sudden you realize, or you’re confronted with that reality of the illusion of ownership.

Oh, this wasn’t mine after all. Yeah. 

Dee: Well, I think, I think back to my last season in my last role that, I was involved in the leadership team. I was contributing. We were at a leadership meetup. I had been flown across the world to be a part of an event that was around this. I felt like, here’s me involved in making these decisions and, and contributing in this leadership circle, and felt a shift.

And you know, sometimes when you kind of just feel the wind change and you’re not even sure really what’s going on there. Anyway, within months I was back home and didn’t think anything of it at that time. It’s easy for me to go now. Oh, what I was feeling then was a shift. It wasn’t that I saw it in that moment, but, you know, a couple of months ago, a couple of weeks go past and then it becomes super clear in the conversation in the sit down.

Hey D, things are changing. We want. Your role is changing. We want to offer you something different in that role. And then all of a sudden, all of the stuff that I thought I was working towards was gone. And it was, it wasn’t me personally being made redundant. It was the role was changing. And then it was like coming to that realization.

Business is business. The business has got a business the way that it wants to business. And I have to go with that flow. Or not, and chose over a long period of agonizing decision making and chose not because that was just in the end of the day, what both of us needed. So, I guess there’s been a lot of us in, you know, in this situation, making, coming up against those realizations.

It’s like, ah, it’s, yeah, that.

That shift, that changes, it’s not quite what I thought it was. And so now I need to adjust one way or the other. And people are making those adjustments either, you know, in the company or in the community about what they, or what they want to do. It’s hard because people that we are fond of finding it hard.

James: And no matter what, there’s a human cost, no matter what decision is made, there’s a human cost. No matter how right you think you’re. Position is there’s a human cost and it really sucks. Really sucks. When I think of, you know, eight, 8 percent of my colleagues, 

Dee: yeah, 

James: are gone. 8 percent of people I was in conversations with one day we’re gone the next, 

Dee: yeah.

James: And, oh, like. We were going to record last week and it was the day that everything finished. And we were literally sitting there watching the messages come in. This person’s gone. This person’s gone. This person’s gone. I couldn’t record last week. I couldn’t, like, it was, it was too much. You okay?

Dee: I’m okay. I’m okay. I was unexpected. You know, it touches old trauma for me in some ways, but it’s the reality of this kind of situation that we’re in and the, and the, the fallout for a lot of people. And yeah, it’s a tough road to navigate. It’s a tough road to feel. Like, I can’t feel neutral in it. I’ve been super careful about what I say and what I don’t say because for me, I’ve spent so many years going, I don’t have all the information or I’ve been in places where I had all of the information and I Yeah, said or did the wrong things.

And so I’m so much more careful now around, you know, I don’t have all of the information. The only thing I can control is myself. You know, but I see, and, and, you know, absorb some of the hurt that I see going on. And I think for me, is, yeah, I’m just really sad. I’m really sad. I’m really sad that the things that I thought weren’t the situations that the, the landscape is not what I thought it was necessarily.

Maybe that was my illusion in the past, or maybe. Yeah, maybe it’s shifted, maybe there’s, you know, it’s been an earthquake, right? So the landscape is different. What happened? Anyway, I’m rabbiting on again. I’m hurt. I’m sad. My friends are sad. I don’t know. I can’t fix it. So there’s a helplessness around that.

And I think when you have a team and a cohort who are feeling that way, you know, what are the kinds of things that you take away from that as a leader? It’s empathy. Understand that you’re feeling that way and it’s hard. And, and being able to give space, people space to have those feelings, to not take on board.

I mean, I know in this situation, there’s a huge amount of emotion around it. It’s probably people speaking too soon. It’s probably. People who are not speaking at all, who perhaps should, but at the end of the day, I can only control what I can do. And I can be there and hold space for people who are feeling like me and don’t know quite what to do.

I mean, this is, it’s, it’s work. But that feels like there’s so much more, I think, for something like this. It feels bigger than just work. It’s a cause that we’ve put our shoulders behind. It’s a community that we’ve been shoulder to shoulder with and building something amazing. And this hurts.

James: Thank you for being willing to let those emotions come through. If you are feeling like this, You are not alone. There are lots of people who are

navigating this uncertainty as well and unsure what even their next step is. All they know is what this moment is. 

Dee: Yeah. 

James: And so I don’t have the answers. I don’t, I don’t know, even as an insider, I don’t know what the end goal is. This, I have an aspiration. My aspiration is that both sides of what is this, this conflict will come together before they cause any more damage and negotiate this and in good faith, negotiate it and create.

The conditions that allow the community to flourish and for WordPress to hit its next major milestone, what we’re all working toward is the open web where all, we all have this shared belief that everyone should be able to publish, you know, and everyone should be able to create and have their little space on the web that’s theirs, but that they own.

And that isn’t controlled by any other special interest group or, or anything or company. And and that’s getting disrupted by interests on both sides. Right now, whether you agree with the project leads view that there’s harm being done or not right now, we’re all experiencing harm. We’re all experiencing that.

Let’s put that aside for now. I hope that’s okay. And let’s end this hopefully on a bit of a constructive note for those of you who are leaders. I think D you’ve demonstrated, you know, a very authentic, emotional. Experience that all of us as leaders. are going to be confronted with at some point in our leadership career, which is the raw reality of decisions we don’t have control over and a perspective or a view or a hope or a dream or a vision being changed or shattered.

And as leaders, the best thing we can do for folks is to acknowledge the hurt and Acknowledge the, the, the discomfort, create space for those feelings to be articulated, to be shared and to create, if for nobody else but you and the people that are following you as a path forward, give them a North star because in the absence of a North star, people will come up with their own worst case scenario.

They’re not going to come up with the best North star. Right? They’re going to come up with the worst case North Star and that’s the fear, right? That’s the uncertainty. So my North Star for UD and my North Star for anybody who’s listening is that this, this is a pivotal moment. This is a change moment.

But there are so many incredible people. who share a vision for what this community has been becoming that are not going anywhere. Their titles might change, their passion for this community, their passion for this project are no dimmer today than they were yesterday. One person who was affected by this, the executive director of the foundation changed her title from executive director to community steward.

And I hope that in that you caught the message of support and continuity and that the North Star we all have been working toward will be there. We’ll get through this and you know, hopefully, hopefully damage that has been done, relationships that have been. Damaged can be healed and restored. It’s going to take humility.

But hopefully, hopefully that can happen. 

Dee: We shall see. We shall see. It’s a ride. It’s a ride. WordPress is a ride. Life is a ride. I just want to stay on. I want to stay on. I don’t want to fall off. Thanks James. Whoo. Thank you. This was unexpected, but I appreciate the opportunity to talk it through. 

James: Well, we’ll end here.

I think let’s just call it and thank you. If you’re listening, if you’re if you have comments, we’re here. I, I will just say. I have. I have been leaning in. One of the promises I made to myself as I started this future of team thing. I wrote about it a little while ago. We had some drama a little while ago as well.

Some things were said. And I felt really bad after it unfolded because I didn’t stand in the gap. I didn’t step in and try, try to guide and, Present a North star or be that calming voice in the midst of what was going on. I didn’t have at that time any direct role in what was going on, but as a community member, I felt I had let the community down because I had not stood there and, and tried to not rationalize somebody else’s poor decisions, but like add in context or try to broaden the conversation beyond the emotion of what was going on.

And so I’ve been taking a very specific step this time around to try to do that. And I have been surprised at the emotion that’s been thrown back at me for making that choice. Which just goes to show me that. Yeah, there’s a lot of hurt and uncertainty and things out there. But I am going to continue to take on this role because as a leader, I’m, I’m going to assume a mantle of leadership, even though none has been given to me.

That in this, in this thing that I, that will create space for conversation. And even if you don’t agree with my positions, that’s okay. Even if you don’t agree with how I am articulating things from my perspective, that’s okay. If you need space, and you want to come and talk to me, or, you know, vent at me about what’s going on I’m around.

I’m on make slack. I’m on post status slack. I’m on Twitter slash X. I’m on Facebook. I’m on LinkedIn. You can find me and you can message me. You can call me out on my blog, whatever it takes. You can find me. I’m around and I will happily listen and engage. Hopefully respectfully. If you come at me with vitriol, I’m just going to block you or mute you, but I will engage.

Thank you, James. Thanks all. 

Dee: See you next time.