On Mother’s Day, I had an accident. I was running down the driveway in a rainstorm with our dogs and our big, little puppy hit the back of my legs as I was on a pathway incline with gravel washed over it. You can probably guess where this is going.
All I remember is the feeling of Bella hitting my legs and the sound of my skull cracking. After that, I can recall hearing my husband asking the same questions over and over. I was screaming I wasn’t okay but I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t listening. Later Jay told me I wasn’t talking, I was moaning. Thankfully, it was a mild concussion and only needed staples to fix – I was going to be okay.
When work started to come back to my mind and how I would handle it, Jessica, my amazing executive assistant, said she had everything covered. I’d been training her on project management and planned to one day hand that task off to her. However, when she stepped up after my accident, I realized Jessica didn’t need a day in the future, she was fully capable now. I needed to remove myself from her path of growth.
I’m sure plenty of us have all experienced that one boss who dumped way more on us than was ever fair. They didn’t care about your sleep, your life outside of work, or how stressed you were. As a leader, I wanted to avoid this at all costs, but eventually, that overcaution led to me holding back my team. I thought they needed me, when really, they needed me to get out of their way.
I was always worried about the balance of handing off too much or not handing off enough, but if this experience has shown me anything, it’s that my team can handle what I throw at them. And if I’m ever not sure, our communication together has so strongly improved, we can always check in with one another about what we each need.
The weeks I took off to heal could be enjoyed completely stress free thanks to my team, they could always handle it, I just needed to see it for myself. As wild as it sounds, I told my coach that maybe, just maybe, I needed to hit my head.
Whenever I look at our whole 20Degrees Media team, I can be so proud of what we’ve accomplished and what an amazing group of people we have. They ceaselessly impress me and I’ve never felt so grateful for a team to work with.
Thank you to each and everyone of you!
For the rest of this post, I wanted to let Jessica speak for herself about what this experience has been like for her, and for her own perspective on how our team runs.
How did you meet Mindy? What led you to joining 20Degrees Media?
I met Mindy through a local Facebook group I help run called the Denver Boss Babe Collective. We are a group of nearly 8500 professional women and non-binary individuals in the Denver metro and surrounding areas looking to create genuine connections and form partnerships.
Mindy made a post asking if anyone had recommendations for a virtual assistant and we spoke a few days later. What was supposed to be a quick interview call to get to know each other a little better turned into an hour and a half of chatting and laughing. I immediately knew Mindy was a fantastic person and wanted to be part of the 20Degrees mission.
What is your role on the team, what tasks are you in charge of?
I am Mindy’s virtual executive assistant so my tasks look different depending on the day and I help with everything from keeping her calendar and email inbox organized to copywriting and proofreading or creating processes for different tasks we each work on. Essentially, I am responsible for keeping things running smoothly behind the scenes while Mindy goes out and makes new connections in the community to continue driving business.
From your role and perspective, what are some of the ways the 20Degrees Media team communicates and works with one another?
Mindy fully believes in each of her team members and empowers us to interact and communicate as we see fit in order to accomplish the tasks at hand. There are often many moving pieces to projects we are working on and often, the project management for these is something Mindy and I tackle together. The team knows they are welcome to reach out to either of us if they ever need anything but they also can reach out to each other if there is something they need. We also hold monthly team meetings which allows us all to get to know each other better and feel more comfortable working with each other to provide excellent service and results for our clients.
What strategies or methods would you recommend to other teams to improve their communication and collaboration?
I think a lot of this starts with the leader of the company choosing excellent people to work with. When the leader puts their full trust in someone and communicates this with the team regularly, it adds an instant trust factor for each of the team members with this person as well. Mindy is great at calling out our strengths and is never afraid to tell us we should chat with another member of the team if they are really good at something.
