Looking to improve the performance of your team? Improve the way they communicate, and you just might surprise yourself.

When we take the time to understand how people like to be communicated with and how they like to communicate with others, it changes everything. In episode 331, Erin O’Quinn is back with us to share what it takes to create a safe space for collecting ideas from members of a team so that all voices are heard and the right people get the credit for great work. You’ll hear all this through the backdrop of Erin’s experience as a team lead and people manager, and you won’t want to miss the story of how Erin shifted her personal brand to improve her own job performance in the process.

Original Recording Date: 05-14-2025

• Erin O’Quinn is a senior manager of customer advocacy at a sizable tech company. If you missed part one of our discussion with Erin detailing her early career, check out Episode 330.

Topics – Elements of Leadership and Experience as a Team Lead, Giving Others a Voice and a Space for More Contribution, The Tactics Behind the Strategy of People Management, Promotion and Personal Brand

2:49 – Elements of Leadership and Experience as a Team Lead

• To this point we’ve talked about a lot of projects with which Erin was successful, and people started to give her more. In all of these cases there were elements of leadership in getting the project accomplished by working with others. Let’s explore how Erin moved into the team lead role.
  • The team lead guides a specific group of people toward a goal and is usually not the people manager of any member of the team. A team lead could be leading a team of people who report to many different managers, for example.
  • Erin began leading programs in her twenties, but at first, some of her colleagues with more experience were apprehensive about Erin’s placement in that position.
    • Erin remembers having great managers who would sense a conflict coming and have a conversation with people before Erin did as a form of blocking and tackling and supporting her in these situations.
  • “With the team lead piece it’s figuring out how to get a successful delivery of something. You may not always run each of these people’s schedules or timelines, so it’s being that program or project manager. And you have to deliver a successful result. Usually for me, with these marketing pieces, it was to an event or to a point…. It was going to have a final point and stop. There was a put up or shut up moment that will happen for every single thing that I touched, and you will know if you succeeded or your failed because it happened or it didn’t. And if it didn’t, then we have another problem, and that’s another conversation you’ll have with your actual manager.” – Erin O’Quinn
  • Erin says the team lead role is about learning how other people work, and one of her biggest challenges was figuring out how to best communicate with people. She gives a few examples:
    • People take criticism and feedback differently.
    • Some people are very shy in a group setting and don’t feel comfortable speaking up, while others are loud and consistently speak up in a group setting. Erin gives the example of navigating how to take feedback from the person talking the most in a meeting as well as feedback from someone who sent an e-mail or had a 1-1 conversation with you after the meeting because they were not comfortable speaking up in the meeting.
  • “Being able to hear the different levels of voices as a manager of a program or a project or a team became one of the challenges that I got really excited about because I knew so many people…they were geniuses when you would put them on a stage or get them speaking to people, but they would get in these…quagmires when they were talking to their managers because they didn’t know how to speak to that one individual.” – Erin O’Quinn
    • Erin saw this kind of thing happening and didn’t want to be in this situation. She also did not want to be the future manager who didn’t let a top performer shine due to not knowing how to make them look better / get seen in the best possible way.
    • Erin would e-mail the team to communicate decisions in a way that showed the rest of the team how she was going to take in team member feedback. She gives the example of sending a message and adding in an important context point one member of the team brought up to her directly.
    • “It became a learned process to how to work together…. A lot of times the loudest person in the room is the one that gets heard the most, and that’s the way that you always go. But…they realized that sometimes there was a benefit to the other quieter voices actually having a say or letting them own a piece of something in a different way and letting their creativity shine in a new way that maybe would have been squashed down in a bigger group so that everybody had something that they had ownership of. There was more pride. That allowed the team to do more things better because they were willing to do it that way. And it was a lot of fun.” – Erin O’Quinn, on being a team lead

7:41 – Giving Others a Voice and a Space for More Contribution

• Did experience as a team lead get Erin comfortable to start looking for a people manager position?
  • “I think I was always looking for a people management position, but being a woman in tech…there’s a tendency that if you’re not already qualified to do the job you’re taking on you don’t apply for the job that you’re taking on, that you really want.” – Erin O’Quinn
  • Erin mentions there is statistical data supporting the stark difference in the likelihood of applying for a job between women and men. Women feel they need to have significantly more of the required skills for a specific job before they are comfortable applying.
    • It’s been harder for women to get into upper-level management because they are more tentative and don’t push because they think they shouldn’t unless they are perfect for the job.
    • “I think there’s a little bit more bravado that comes from a lot of guys where they’re like, ‘I want that so I’m going to go for it’ versus women who say, ‘I’m qualified for it so I will go for it.’ One is a lot harder to do than the other.” – Erin O’Quinn
  • Erin was on a team that was half men and half women with each person having their own communication style.
    • Erin noticed women on the team would be collaborative with each other and work together well. If put into a larger group with men, they would often not speak up the same way they would if part of a group of all women.
    • “So, figuring out how to be the voice willing to come over the top and say, ‘such and such has an idea or such and such has this approach…let’s look at all of them together’ became my superpower…. And it didn’t have to be me. If anyone else put a new idea on the table let’s at least look at it because even if it wasn’t the perfect idea, it’s going to spur on ideas from others that maybe leads to that perfect idea or a better idea than just the one that was shouted out the loudest. That’s where I started to learn the team management skills….” – Erin O’Quinn
    • Erin first had to learn how to lead a group of people, and the people manager skills came only after getting to that position.
• Were people initially uncomfortable with their ideas being shared with the entire team if shared with Erin 1-1?
  • Thinking back to the first time this happened, Erin shared an idea without asking first because the person was not comfortable speaking up in larger groups. After doing this Erin went back and spoke to that person 1-1. Everything turned out ok in this case.
  • After later becoming a team manager, Erin would have these conversations with people beforehand to ensure it was ok to share their ideas / feedback with the larger team. As part of these discussions, she would help team members understand the value of their idea to the larger group and both the timeliness and urgency of sharing the feedback.
  • In early management roles, Erin liked to make deicisions, go fast, and consider the right factors and team member input before a decision couldn’t be reversed.
• John says in an ideation phase, having more ideas is better than having less. But judging the ideas is a separate phase entirely.
  • Erin says it should be but may not always happen that way.
  • “If you go into a room with a lot of people and there’s different levels of role within that room…if I’m not at the bottom, I try not to talk first. There’s a power with having a title or having an experience or what have you where if you say, ‘this is my idea,’ some people who are junior might go, ‘oh, that’s THE idea’ not ‘this is an idea.’” – Erin O’Quinn
  • Even if a person with a high title says something just to get the conversation going, junior team members may think their opinion will not matter.
  • Erin stresses the importance of letting more junior people share ideas first. The team can then iterate on those, and junior team members will not be afraid to participate. It puts everyone on equal footing.
  • Erin tells us there have been a number of times where she asked a question about something a senior leader said in a meeting because she felt like it was a safe enough environment in which to do it. She made sure to ask questions before a decision was made so as not to question the direction set forth by the leader.
  • “If we’re still trying to figure it out or trying to sus out what the goal is, throw everything up then, and don’t be afraid…. If I was doing this with one of my teams I would always start…asking other individual contributors first…. Where should this go? What is your idea? What problem do you see with this? Give them a space to critique somebody else, or give them a space to critique somebody who is more senior to them, even if they have the same title, because a lot of times…some people put a lot of value and weight to somebody else who has years, age years, on them…. The world is changing all the time, and somebody who is looking at it with fresh eyes may have a better approach. And there’s nothing wrong with listening. Even if you disagree with them, hear it out first, and then decide…is what they said worth it? I think a good manager and a good team lead or a project lead can provide a lot of space for more contribution so you don’t get stuck in a ‘this is how we do things.’ I think that is one of the challenges of being at a bigger company. Because you’re working with a matrixed organization and a big machine, you gotta do all these steps and all these processes, but sometimes if you don’t stop and look at the machine, you can’t figure out how to change it. And you will be left behind by these small, nimble organizations.” – Erin O’Quinn
    • Erin has seen very experienced colleagues think they are right because of the extent of their experience, but they might not be.
    • Try listening to fresh ideas and being open to new perspectives.
    • Ask the newest member of the team how they are looking at or seeing something. This can open up questions and topics of discussion that can lead to better results. Erin reminds us there is no harm in asking for this kind of feedback early on.
• Nick loves the idea of providing a safe space in which people can give feedback and share ideas. Did sending out people’s ideas to the team make them more likely to speak up in future discussions?
  • Erin likes to give credit for concepts. While we do have to be careful about adding ideas after an open discussion concludes to not look like we’re pushing a personal agenda, Erin wanted to let her teams know that people who may have been quiet in the room were indeed participating. Their participation was in a different way than others, and that is ok.
  • It may feel like a time suck, but Erin tells us it is well worth it to take the time to go through a process to understand how people like to be communicated with and how they like to communicate to others.
  • “Understanding that process really can make a huge difference in how a team functions. I’ve been on very dysfunctional teams. I’ve been on very, very streamlined teams…. One of the teams that I was on…it was a great team. Everybody loved each other. Working as individuals with each other, everybody got along, but there were some communication challenges. And we went through this process and learned that certain people, even if they were quiet people, they communicated in a different way than you expected them to….” – Erin O’Quinn
    • The communications exercise Erin mentioned above cleared up a lot of misunderstandings with one particular team and made a massive difference in the way people worked with one another.
    • Erin shares an example of how understanding communication styles helped junior team members gain confidence, dispel fear, and collaborate more effectively with other teammates faster than they would have without that understanding.
    • “If you build the team, you know the players on your team. You kind of know what you’re bringing into a group. If…you’re inheriting a team, setting a level playing field for how people talk to each other is very helpful so that everybody understands the communication process.” – Erin O’Quinn

19:04 – The Tactics Behind the Strategy of People Management

• When Erin got the manager role, did she feel she was fully qualified before she applied?
  • Erin says she had no doubt at that point and that she probably should have tried it earlier.
  • Erin is in customer advocacy / customer references, and it’s a pretty flat organization.
  • “It’s hard to move up when everything’s pretty flat. Your responsibility changes. Maybe you mentor more or you guide more or you’re seen as an expert by more people. But you’re rarely moved to a different layer of management because it’s usually a fairly flat organization.” – Erin O’Quinn
• Did Erin seek out the manager role, or did someone encourage her to do it?
  • Erin thinks she had been speaking to her manager about it. She was given a promotion but not necessarily to manage people. When asked what other kinds of things she wanted to do, Erin said she wanted to have a team.
  • “I want to have a team, and it’s not because I need more people, necessarily, to do everything that I’m doing. But, I think that I’ve picked up rapport and skills that I could help others navigate these things in a more meaningful way…. I can help somebody else. That’s why I wanted to be a people manager.” – Erin O’Quinn
  • Erin cites having excellent managers in the past who were great mentors that walked her through processes even when they were very busy. She was able to observe how those managers did blocking and tackling, learn from their strategic thinking, and understand how decisions were made. She was able to understand “the tactics behind the strategy” to make it easier to move into people management later.
  • “Not everybody is cut out to be a people manager. I think there’s a lot more people who could be amazing…thought leaders or individual contributors, and there’s no harm in that. And a lot of tech companies have realized some of the people who are genius level individuals are not designed to have a team of 50 report to them because that takes them away from what they are amazing at…. For me, I realized that there’s only so many things that one human being can do at a time, and I think I’ve picked up the skills and the abilities to actually be able to help others even if what they’re doing is not my expertise. I don’t have to train them in my image. I just have to be able to give them the space and the tools so that they can do what they’re going to be good at.” – Erin O’Quinn
  • Erin has also seen examples of very bad managerial conversations. She mentions one instance of a manager reprimanding an employee who was never told until the reprimand that there was a problem.
    • “In a space where people don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, sometimes it’s ok to be the bearer of bad news. You have to actually just say it.” – Erin O’Quinn, on giving difficult feedback
    • Erin shares the story of having a discussion with someone about specific challenges. The person thought everything was fine and working well, but that was very different than how things were being perceived by others. Erin had to give the person some very candid feedback on how what they were doing was being perceived, making sure not to label it as right or wrong. This person needed to communicate their successes and the gaps more effectively to their management. Erin took the time to coach this person in better ways to communicate via the quote shared below and helped develop a plan for improvement. In the end, this person thanked Erin for the feedback and help because they did not know.
    • “You can’t do that. Until they know that you are the expert, they won’t necessarily believe that saying ‘we’re good’ means anything. So, you gotta prove first that you get it, you understand the metrics the way that they need to see the metrics, and show them repeatedly that you’re delivering these results. And then, after that, if they see the pattern, then you can say ‘we’re good’ and they know that that means that you got all of these metrics down and we’re set…. But until you can articulate it and speak it in the same language, that’s not how it’s being seen.” – Erin O’Quinn, feedback to someone on how to better communicate with leaders
  • Erin likes to address things early on to avoid “kick in the pants” moments like the one shared earlier. If you see something, you should say something.
    • Erin might send someone an e-mail with feedback after a meeting, for example.
    • She encourages team members to take credit for the work they are doing. It is better for a team member to talk about the great work they are doing in front of others so they get the credit. If Erin mentions it, she might get the credit instead of the team member (which she does not want). Erin has even encouraged peers of hers to promote themselves in front of others so that the team overall looks stronger.
    • “The rest of the people are why I’m a leader – because they’re doing all these amazing things, and these are all the amazing things that they’re doing. Give yourself credit. Don’t just say, ‘this happened.’ Say, ‘I helped this happen’ or ‘this happened because I did this work.’ And show the work…. Being able to help people toot their own horn is one of my favorite parts of being a manager.” – Erin O’Quinn
    • Erin tells us there’s a misconception about customer advocacy. People think stories being out there make them magically appear. It takes work to identify the story and give someone the space to tell the story that can then be packaged into something amazing. It’s the extra pieces brought to the story that make it work, and people deserve credit for shaping that final product.
• Nick likes the way Erin didn’t label anything as good or bad when giving difficult feedback to someone and focused only on how someone’s actions were being perceived.
  • We need to give people a context to work in. If we tell someone something is wrong, they need to understand what is wrong and what is right.
  • We have to set a context and tell a person what people are seeing and the mismatch between what others see and what they are trying to do. Erin likes to help the person build a plan to get the person closer to where they intended to go.
  • “There’s a lot of people who are great at promoting other things, but they’re not great at promoting themselves. For a long time, I was in that boat….” – Erin O’Quinn
    • At first Erin felt like promoting herself and her work was bragging. She wanted to be humble and stay behind the scenes when it came to event marketing.
    • Erin says we cannot move forward if we don’t talk a little bit about what we’re doing.

27:25 – Promotion and Personal Brand

• John feels like we’ve been talking about personal brands in the last few minutes. What’s Erin’s take on personal branding?
  • Erin says a brand is the feeling we get when we perceive something.
  • When we see company logos of brands, there’s an instant emotional reaction of some kind that happens.
  • “A personal brand is, ‘what does this person mean to you in the context of work?’ Straightforward. Everybody’s got one whether you want one or not.” – Erin O’Quinn
  • Erin says she re-built her personal brand during COVID but didn’t realize she was doing it at the time. She had a number of personal challenges during the lockdowns in addition to just COVID.
  • “Being a mom with a kid at home going through personal stuff during COVID, and everything was on display because everybody’s working from home. It takes a lot of effort to have your business persona and your home persona, and I realized that I was putting up a lot of effort to separate them…. I stopped trying to separate that and just be more present, more me…. I realized that what people said was professional was just being in a box, and I kind of threw the box out.” – Erin O’Quinn
    • Erin had been told earlier in her career what being professional or being approachable looked like. There were some other preconceived notions as well.
    • “I kind of scrapped it and said, ‘I think I’m good at my job because the people that I work with appreciate my candor. They appreciate my sense of humor or my approachability. Just do that and be that all the time. Why try to be something else if it’s working?’” – Erin O’Quinn
    • Erin realized she did not need to separate those parts as much and could bring her personality into all parts of her job. It was ok to do it.
    • After making this change, Erin felt more comfortable, and because she was more comfortable, she was more approachable and able to do her job better.
    • Being more present as a person allowed Erin to have better conversations with co-workers. She was more candid and open. Erin was able to approach customer conversations very differently than before as well.
    • “It makes it easier to have the conversation, easier to do the next step, if they are talking to a person as opposed to a role. Once I figured that out and let it go, my job got so much easier, and I got better at it too.” – Erin O’Quinn
  • Erin has been able to maintain this brand and attitude ever since making the change. Multiple times she has been able to approach something differently or ask in a different way to encourage someone to share their story with the customer advocacy team. It helps eliminate doubt.
    • “Any time I can do that to help somebody get their story out in the world, I’m in to help that.” – Erin O’Quinn
  • John refers to this as injecting human and personal relationships into a business process to remove friction. Organizations are ultimately made up of people.
    • “I think if people realize that they’re working with a person and that person has thoughts, feelings, and emotions you are more beholden to act. If given the opportunity, I’d rather have the conversation in person. I’d rather have it on Zoom than on the phone because I can see your reaction or you can see my reaction, and you know that I’m being genuine. You can’t fake real. You can try. You can be the best actor in the world. You can know how to cry on command or whatever, but there’s a falsehood to it. And I’d rather just be genuine, make an ask or connect with somebody, and it’ll work better. It’s helped me maintain more meaningful work relationships over the years…my whole career, quite honestly.” – Erin O’Quinn

Mentioned in the Outro

• While not mentioned in the episode, Erin has used empathy as a skill in effective team management.
  • This pairs very nicely with Marni Coffey’s use of empathy to build inclusive teams in Episode 278 – Uncovering Empathy: The Greatest Skill of an Inclusive Leader with Marni Coffey (1/3).
• Erin’s focus on improved communication even as a team lead was also a focus on developing the people around her.
  • If you listen to Marni Coffey’s story of becoming a team lead in Episode 279 – Change Management: The Hardest Leap and Developing People with Marni Coffey (2/3), this theme of developing others is reiterated.
  • We’ve heard multiple guests reiterate the need to develop others to be successful as a team lead.
• Even if you’re not a team lead or a manager, you can figure out how to best communicate with your co-workers by just asking them.
  • Brad Pinkston told us way back in Episode 84 – Management Interviews and Transitions with Brad Pinkston that one of the first questions he asks a new boss is how they like to be communicated with.
  • We can also blend our personality into our communication with people to strengthen connection.
• There were a number of motivations for becoming a people manager in that episode:
  • Helping other people avoid mistakes
  • Make sure people receive credit for the work they are doing and that they can communicate their work to management in an understandable way. Some of Erin’s work as a manager is getting employees to advocate for themselves to tell the story of the work they did to achieve an outcome.
    • Hopefully you’re communicating the work you are doing in 1-1s with your manager, but don’t forget that documenting your accomplishments is a pre-requisite to these conversations!
  • Erin paid attention to things her managers did well (i.e. how to have difficult conversations) and what some did not do well.
  • Check out Episode 244 – An Array of Decision Points with Tim Crawford (2/2) as a compliment to this episode with some extra considerations on the decision between individual contributor and manager.

Contact the Hosts

• The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte.
  • E-mail: [email protected]
  • DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney
  • Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman
  • Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_
  • Leave a Comment on Your Favorite Episode on YoutTube
• If you’ve been impacted by a layoff or need advice, check out our Layoff Resources Page.
• If uncertainty is getting to you, check out or Career Uncertainty Action Guide with a checklist of actions to take control during uncertain periods and AI prompts to help you think through topics like navigating a recent layoff, financial planning, or managing your mindset and being overwhelmed.