Life-Changing Reflections from my Experience in ELEVATE, an Employee Development Cohort at Intuitive

I joined the inaugural ELEVATE cohort class earlier this year along with ~40 inspiring and high-performing peers from across Intuitive.

Ashley Wickliffe, Psy.D. , Maia Almendral Esteves , and Megan Gage expertly led our cohort through the past 6 months of self-development. We explored impactful and important topics such as self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and psychology safety to name a few.

For me, the two most impactful components of this professional development program were the Intuitive Business Knowledge series and the assessments we took to learn more about our strengths and how to leverage them. I wanted to write this brief article to highlight these learnings and how truly life-changing they have been for my self awareness, self management, and confidence.

Gaining exposure and visibility across the organization through my peers' eyes was invaluable. I gained a renewed sense of awareness and respect for the varied and complex components of our company. I'm amazed by the ongoing efforts across our entire cohort to push innovation further and redefine how we tackle complex and hard problems. Not only does it take a cross-cutting and cross-functional product design and development team to create our technology and devices, it also takes an entire organization. This experience broadened my perspective to the fundamental importance of all of the teams and work at Intuitive - from Finance and HR functions that keep the company running, to our impressive Sales organization that brings our devices to hospitals, surgeons, and OR staff. We truly are one team and this was an excellent reminder of the critical role we each play. Michele DiMartino joined our cohort this week and spoke to these points while highlighting Intuitive's overarching goals and mission. I continue to be impressed with Intuitive's leadership and how thoughtfully they navigate and communicate business decisions.

We completed two separate strength evaluations, the CliftonStrengths and the Fascinate Advantage. I took the CliftonStrengths assessment 5 years ago (thank you, Kate Knudsen , for facilitating this within our Human Factors Department!). I was fascinated by the delta in my results as my strengths had shifted dramatically. I interpret many of the changes to shifting from being “green” and early career to now being more seasoned and experienced. For example, my strengths shifted from “responsibility” and “activator” to “futuristic” and “maximizer”. I still resonate with my initial strengths as I’m driven by creating value through responsibility and action; however, my new and improved strengths have been eye-opening to begin to see myself as a true strategist and leader. My new strengths didn’t immediately resonate and have been a slow burn as I've reflected further on the ways in which I am thoughtful, visionary, and strategic.

As insightful as the CliftonStrengths assessment was, the Fascinate Advantage assessment was surprisingly even more so. Months ago, one of my dearest friends and mentors, Savira Sharma , recommended the book "Power" by Jeffrey Pfeffer to me. This book easily became one of my most treasured career “nuggets” as it outlined how to gain power, even if you have none. For me, it was life changing to being shifting my thinking from all the things I can’t control to discovering little pockets of life that I can influence. Here, I really started to experience the shift from “life happening to me” to “life happening FOR me” – a powerful idea that was also discussed during our ELEVATE cohort by author and speaker, Andy Storch .

Circling back to the Fascinate Advantage assessment, you’ll never guess what emerged as my primary trait... POWER. When I received my results, I was surprised and didn't quite believe the results could be correct. How could it be that in one of the most difficult years of my career and life where I've felt virtually powerless in many ways, that it emerged as my primary advantage? I was at a loss for words until I started making the connections. Could this be why I had been feeling so out of alignment with my current situation where I felt powerless? Mind. Blown. The secondary trait that emerged for me was Prestige – which means that I hold myself and others to the highest of standards when it comes to quality. Here, I see the overlap here with my Clifton Strength “Maximizer” – wanting to turn “good” into “great”.

Kelly Smales expertly facilitated a powerful session focused on understanding and digesting our results. We learned about how we can get into our "double trouble" and double-down on our advantages if we're feeling stressed, tired, or triggered. For Power and Prestige, this might come across as dominant, intimidating, cold, and/or superior. This was a light bulb moment for me as I had started to realize that at times, when stressed, I might default to streamlining my communications and avoiding pleasantries. Sometimes this can rub others the wrong way. What a gift to receive this objective, clear, and constructive assessment as to why I reacted that way to stress.

Kelly then walked us through how to get out of our "double trouble". She shared two suggestions. First, do something that "fills your cup" or as Quirina de Ruiter, PhD likes to say, take an "adult time out." You should do whatever you can to meet your needs and get out of your stressed and triggered state, whether that's taking a nap, eating a snack, and/or having a good cry. It's okay to take a minute. You (and those around you) will be better off for it. It is far better to be late and balanced than it is to be on time and in your double trouble.

The other major insight that Kelly provided is to lean into your "dormant advantage" when you're in your double trouble. Your dormant is your lowest scoring advantage. My dormant is "Mystique," which means to quietly observe and look for opportunities to communicate with substance.

In recent years, I've felt compelled to speak up - to ask the right questions and to share my insights. I've felt a responsibility to ensure clear and effective communication since others may have the same questions or unexpressed thoughts that I have. I've also enjoyed having an opportunity to share my thoughts and ideas since for most of my life, I've felt like I didn't have many "value-add" contributions. I felt this way for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I hadn't yet stepped into my power and expertise. Now that I've earned my PhD and am a respected academic and engineer, I have many valuable contributions that I'm eager to share. I'm recognize that this can be a dangerous gift. I want to protect my bandwidth and not feel responsible to always be the one to raise questions or share thoughts. It's also important to me to maximize my ability to hear other perspectives which will allow me to learn and receive more. My opportunity to further lean into my dormant advantage is to effectively "zip it" and give others an opportunity to speak up.

Thank you to the entire cohort for bringing your vulnerability and brilliance to this experience. I’ve truly made some of the most meaningful connections of my career. and have had important and thought-provoking discussions. You've each been a gift to me and I've valued your vulnerability in sharing your experiences and for modeling your unique and powerful strengths. I also appreciate the feedback that has been shared with me, both positive and constructive, so that I can continue to grow and improve. I'm impressed and inspired by each of you and I can't wait to see what you accomplish at Intuitive and within your careers. Stephano Tsaganis Kelly Patterson Joetta Jackson Stephen Tezanos-Pinto Jeffrey LaCroix Vishok Amar Kumar Ninna Burkhardt Mary Saetern William Cambardella Jonathan McGlohorn Jiazi Li, MBA Edward Mandl Ethel Chou Erkut Duranlar Gloria Taja Nikhil Sahai Jose Gonzalez Carlo Camporesi Diana Nawbary Phani Krishna Parupalli Cheng Kuang (Thomas) Shaw Samaneh Br?ck Fei (Kelvin) Chu, MS, MBA Richard Filice Rory Brannan Maribel Montes de Oca Jie (Eve) Yi Nadine Trotter Daniel Biskupski Jiazi Li, MBA Terrence Barry McKenna

Within this article, I've primarily highlight my main takeaways from this amazing and insightful experience, though I have many other takeaways that I’m excited to share. In the meantime, I would love to hear... What can you do today to learn more about your people (peers, customers, family, community) so you can be better equipped to make connections and serve them??2. Have you taken either of these assessments – if so, how did they impact how you see yourself and how you show up??