Rachel Lee Nabors

How to Navigate Professional Relationships in the Tech Industry

What if the hardest bugs aren't in your code, but in your team? Learn to debug human interactions and navigate professional conflict with a practical toolbox.

How to Navigate Professional Relationships in the Tech Industry
#1about 3 minutes

The hardest part of tech is other people

Interpersonal challenges like code reviews and office politics are often the biggest hurdles in a tech career.

#2about 5 minutes

Understand that relationships are a 50/50 equation

Stop taking things personally by recognizing you are only responsible for your half of any interaction or outcome.

#3about 5 minutes

How to apologize effectively using a COE framework

Use the "correction of errors" model from Amazon to deliver an objective, impact-focused apology that leads to improvement.

#4about 5 minutes

Navigating power dynamics with the big dog, little dog analogy

Recognize your relative power in any situation to understand behaviors and adjust your own approach accordingly.

#5about 8 minutes

Setting temporal and emotional boundaries at work

Reframe time as a finite "lifespan" currency and use a consent-based model for sharing personal information to protect your energy.

#6about 5 minutes

Managing emotional dysregulation in yourself and others

Learn to identify the signs of being emotionally overwhelmed and create an emergency procedure to de-escalate and regain control.

#7about 4 minutes

The essential skill of repairing relationship ruptures

Embrace disagreement as healthy and learn a structured process for addressing the source of a conflict to repair trust.

#8about 1 minute

A recap of the human debugging toolkit

A summary of the key interpersonal skills for navigating the workplace, from depersonalization to rupture and repair.

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