{"version":"1.0","provider_url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu","provider_name":"Warpwire","is_public":true,"duration":0,"has_caption":true,"links":{"caption":[{"label":"English","url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/api\/caption\/NQEIAA\/310631\/vtt\/?nonce=d88489ea2c01eda74e949de9f863f30a&expiration=1787371200&signature=72e5e6fb6a116eff08d5281d5f10dcd089d029d45e727bd89d8b9e4c8be748b8"}]},"views":0,"upload_date":"2023-11-07T19:41:03+00:00","description":"When someone says superpower \u2013 what do you think of? What about when it comes to work?\r\nWhen you think of putting together a team, what are some of the superpowers you MUST have?\r\nForgotten superpowers of the workplace are often unspoken, sometimes forgotten, but never undervalued components of any flourishing team. They come in many different forms - from nontraditional skills to an endless supply of charisma. These superpowers can be found in anyone at your place of work but are most often found in the people that seem to make the workplace tick. From leaders to those who prefer to stay behind the scenes, we want to highlight these essential skills that make any workplace, a better place.\r\n\r\nTranscript:\r\n- Hello and welcome to the \"What's Career Got to Do With It\" podcast, where we hope to provide a space for honest conversation and information that encourages a listener to take the next steps in their career journey. Wherever you're at in this process, we hope this episode will meet you with affirmation, guidance, and maybe some laughs along the way.\r\n\r\n- On today's episode, we are joined by special guest, Marcus Shaw, Administrative Assistant, Operations and Logistics Manager for the Duke Career Center, or as Kay says, \"the man with a plan.\"\r\n\r\n- Man with a plan.\r\n\r\n- Woot woot! As we discuss an answer, or many, to the question, What are some forgotten superpowers of the workplace? Yeah, and Nicole , thank you for sounding so cheerful.\r\n\r\n- I just flip it on.\r\n\r\n- You're welcome message.\r\n\r\n- Joy to the world.\r\n\r\n- I mean, I got the Christmas cup, I had to, on October 19th.\r\n\r\n- I love it.\r\n\r\n- All right, so we're gonna hop right in. I'm gonna start with Kay.\r\n\r\n- I mean, can we do, \"Hey, welcome, Marcus! \"We're so happy that you're here.\" We are so happy that you're here, operations and logistics manager.\r\n\r\n- Oh, it's gonna be a ride, folks, this morning, enjoy, buckle up.\r\n\r\n- Yeah, Marcus, if you don't mind introducing yourself beyond just this title that we've got here. I think there's so much more to that and to people beyond just the title that carries, so if you don't mind sharing a little bit about who you are and, yeah.\r\n\r\n- Well, the operations and logistics manager for the Career Center. I'm coming here after 23 years in the Marine Corps. So I started back in Duke in 2015. Again, I did a brief stint at a warehouse prior to coming to Duke, but then prior to coming to Duke, again, 23 years in Marine Corps, retired, so that's makes me retired almost 10 years now, or a little over 10 years. There's not really too much to say about me. Nothing in particular, I guess, it's just the way I look at it.\r\n\r\n- I just want to tell y'all, Marcus is lying. There is so much more to Marcus Shaw within this office, but I'm gonna let him finish pretending like he's not more than he is and then we'll bust open that.\r\n\r\n- Exactly.\r\n\r\n- I mean, at least that's how I see it. I just come in. I'm just happy to help where I can. Provide little tidbits of wisdom where I can, I guess. Again, I really don't think too much about, it's not that deep, I guess, you know? I just come in and happy to serve, I guess, I don't know.\r\n\r\n- I love that, and there's so many different encounters and so he does say, \"provide a bit of wisdom.\" There's so many different encounters with Marcus in our office though that will just catch you off guard, 'cause you'll be like, \"Man, that was good, that was good stuff.\" The other day he walked up, and I have the pleasure of having my office right next to Greg, who Marcus regularly goes and converses with, so I always overhear a thing or two. And I don't know if you knew I was gonna bring this up, Marcus, but you were talking about your experience and some acronyms that you use in the military. I think this captures it perfectly, and I'm not gonna spell out the acronym, because I don't want the FCC to give us a violation, not that they listen to this or do they? But the acronym itself is FITFO, so figure it out. Yes.\r\n\r\n- They grown, they don't say it.\r\n\r\n- But that's the mindset. Can you tell us a little bit about that, Marcus, and where that stemmed from and what it even means?\r\n\r\n- Well, again, coming outta the service, the services, if you're not familiar with it, it's, in my opinion, a lot different from certain corporate or civilian jobs, just depends on what you do. Where I came from, it's more or less, especially if you join when you're young, it's about not asking for assistance on the first round. So, if something comes out, if a problem comes out, then instead of just going to your immediate supervisor, it's a matter of figuring it out, because that's what was instilled in me. Even going to university prior to the military, it was more of, yeah, I could lean on my mom or this, that, and the other, but once you go to the military, yeah, you can lean on somebody, but they're gonna look at you funny, or they're gonna be like, \"Well, we provided you with the training, \"we provided you the ability to use your brain \"to figure certain things out.\" Again, coming out of the military, the mission is a little different, and I'll just use it as a term here. And you have to understand, even at 18, 19 years old, you're responsible for other souls. You're responsible for other people, period, point blank, end of discussion. So, you have to be that example for them, 'cause they might be 18, you by 19, they'll look at you a certain way, and being able to figure certain things out or think outside the box gives you a measure of credibility. In my opinion, it allows people to look at you in a certain light, whether it be positive or negative. 'Cause we have this other thing, sometimes it could be a good initiative, bad judgment. Hey, guilty of that too. Sometimes you'll see a problem, you'll be like, \"Oh yeah, \"why don't we just do it this way, do it that way?\" But unless you understand the larger picture, what you're doing and your contribution could be more detrimental than helpful. So, it's just a part of growing, and whatever environment you're in, whatever job you're in, whatever lifestyle you live, the figure-it-out piece is, you know, it comes a point in time when you have to grow up, you have to be an adult, and you have to at least, on the first go, all right, well, 'cause you might be alone and unafraid out there in the world by yourself, so you gotta be like, you know, you can't be like, \"Hey mom, hey pops, hey uncle, hey cousin,\" this, that and the next, all the time. And speaking from my experience and even my situation now, it's really just me. I have to figure out things not only for myself, but I have to figure out things for other people. I have to figure out things for my family. I don't mind doing it. Some people might look at me different, but I like to believe, and I use that term a lot too, because I understand that I'm not the end all, know all, be all. But there are a lot of occasions where I like to believe that I'm bringing value added to whatever the situation is. So, the bottom line of what I'm saying is there is a solution to every problem out there. You may not like the solution, you may not want to utilize that solution, but there is a solution. It's a solution.\r\n\r\n- And sometimes it just gets to that point, well, you know, I figured it out, whether or not we're gonna use it, I don't know.\r\n\r\n- Another story I'll share is when I first got to Duke, almost two years ago, exactly two years ago, and I sat down with Marcus, and we do this thing in our office where we go meet with everybody on the team. And my conversation with Marcus, I still remember it today, because we were talking about emergencies in the world, and Marcus, we both agreed that so many people have an idea of like, this is an emergency, it needs to be done. We've gotta figure it out. We can't mess this up. And Marcus was like, \"There's very true, real emergencies,\" and I appreciate that, and Marcus, if you don't mind sharing your thoughts on that as well. I think that's super helpful for our students as we think about, hey, going out into the world, somebody's gonna come up to you and be like, \"We've gotta figure this out,\" and do we need to figure it out immediately?\r\n\r\n- No, depends on what it is. Now, I recall that conversation, and I don't know, I'm just gonna say it, 'cause I'm gonna say it. My take on the world is, unless there's bullets flying, mortar's coming down, your life is in danger, it ain't that deep, it ain't that serious. It's paperwork. I mean, it is what it is. And if it is that deep, then your boss or your supervisor will come down and say, \"Hey, this is important. \"This needs to get done.\" Okay, depending on where you are in that ladder, just because it's important to them, it may not be important to you, but to be fair, that doesn't mean that it's not important to the institution. So, but again, that depends on where you are in that ladder. It's part of the process, and you have to be able to understand that. You have to be able to prioritize and you have to, you know, you just have to use... In some instances, you have to use common sense, well, I would say in most instances, common sense. But in my opinion, the way I come at certain things, and I probably shouldn't say this, the way I come at it is I'm going to do what's asked. If I'm working on something, and it's not important, but you come and you sit here and say, \"Hey, this is important, this needs to get done.\" Okay, I'm gonna assess it, because I do have my order of priority. Now, depending on what I work on, based on what you provide or whoever provides something to me, that's gonna dictate whether or not I'm gonna stop what I'm doing and work on this quote, unquote important problem. Or I'll be like, \"Okay, yeah, \"this might be a little important. \"It's more important than what I'm doing, \"so let me just push it to the side.\" But again, in my mind, first and foremost, in an administrative world, unless it's the president of the university or the VP or somebody like that, yeah, it's not that deep. Again, depending on what I'm working on, 'cause far as I'm concerned, eight hours in a workday, it's part of the process. Again, it's all about balance, time management. There's probably other things there too. I can only speak to my work ethic where some people may look at me and question it, but I also look at it as a team effort. I know my job. I'll be honest with you. My job, in my opinion, can be, from my perspective, like I'm a small team of one, 'cause I manage so many different areas. Now, to be fair, in my opinion, it's not overwhelming or it never gets overwhelming unless I make it overwhelming. For me, sometimes you just gotta sit back, assess the situation, and then okay, once you start working on it, or for me, once I start working on it, it's like, oh, maybe it's not as bad as I thought it was. So that leads me back into the importance, the priority of things, oh, this is important, it needs to get done now, da da da da da da da. Well I think it can wait five or 10 minutes for me to finish this. Or again, it's not just me that says it, but others say it. If everybody's stuff is important, then nothing is important. I mean you can't, you know, and some of that, even with some of the processes I use, they have orders of priority. Even in my training, they tell you, \"Look, unless it needs to be done yesterday, \"nothing is this priority here.\" You always put it at the medium, and then they'll get to it when they get to it, so.\r\n\r\n- Yeah, and the reason we say all this, and I ask these questions is because these are superpowers. These are things that people don't often talk about when it comes to being in the workplace. People wanna talk about presentation skills. They wanna talk about teamwork and creativity, content curation, and those are important. They are important. Wow, okay, yeah, they are important. But also, being able to prioritize things, being able to...\r\n\r\n- His supervisor's sitting right in front of him.\r\n\r\n- We're gonna pause for the giggle.\r\n\r\n- It's a great giggle.\r\n\r\n- Being able to prioritize things, being able to accept when you had good initiative but there was bad outcome or something along those lines, bad judgment along with it. And being able to say, \"All right, \"now I'm gonna figure this out.\" That takes time, that takes effort, and to know that everything's not an emergency and be able to prioritize what is real in the space that you're currently inhabiting and what you need to take care of, that takes time to be able to accomplish these things, so it doesn't always occur right at once, takes practice, takes going through some experiences to say, \"Oh, I need to reevaluate why I did this.\" Now I'm curious with my colleagues, since I've been talking so much, I want to ask you a little bit about your superpowers or things you perceive to be superpowers in the workplace. Maybe you see some of them in Marcus, maybe you see 'em elsewhere, but I'm curious what you have to say about that.\r\n\r\n- I'll jump in. I'll say one of the fun parts of being able to supervise people is to be able to see their superpowers and maybe sometimes realize their superpowers before they do. So, I have to speak for myself. I have a team of people that report to me that are pretty magnificent. And the beauty of it is that when I need to be refilled, I know who I can go to, based off of their superpowers that they either know they have or they don't have and get replenished, so that I can continue to be good for them as well. So, I think that's definitely one of the perks of supervising people and helping to grow them professionally and being able to develop relationships with them. But that's probably one of my biggest favorite things on my list of quote, unquote responsibilities, is being able to be a part of seeing that growth happen and watching them realize all those superpowers and secretly being able to have them refuel me without knowing.\r\n\r\n- Yeah, I think for me the superpower I feel like people don't recognize is one, as often, is being able to learn how to treat people. Like, what you were saying about the initiative or the intention not really matching the result that came from it. You've got people who are like, \"Oh my God, I got this goal. \"The department has this goal, \"let me go ahead and help them achieve it.\" But they done stepped on your pinky toe, your big toe, your mama's thumb, your sister's finger, while trying to get to that thing, and I'm like, \"Well dang, did you not want to say, 'Hey, how you doing? \"'Was your dinner good last night?' \"I remember you said your kid had a sport event.\" So it's stuff like that, when you come into the workplace, remembering what it's like to be a person, remembering what it's like to be a part of a larger community outside of the institution, like you were saying. I feel like that's one superpower people don't take the time to exercise and really feel out, because a lot of times, when I see you at 9:00 in the morning, I don't want to talk about the content that I'm posting on Career Hub. I want to talk about-\r\n\r\n- What you ate for dinner.\r\n\r\n- I'm messing, I'm messing, weekend, I'm just messing. But it's stuff like that that makes the workplace feel like you can supercharge that superpower if you keep that stuff in mind. But that's just me.\r\n\r\n- Marcus, what about you? What do you see as some superpowers or forgotten superpowers of this workplace?\r\n\r\n- I don't know if it's forgotten, but I see a lot of the, like Kay was saying, a lot of the personal touch. It's a personal touch, mixed in with the teamwork, mixed in with the willingness, to Nicole's point, to grow. The leadership is awesome. The junior levels are awesome. I'm just using these terms 'cause senior and junior, the team, and you hear it around the university, this team is probably one of the best teams in student affairs, yeah, I said it.\r\n\r\n- Pow, pow, all those other podcasts out, .\r\n\r\n- He's a military vet, don't come see him.\r\n\r\n- Well, and I'm sincere when I say it, and I've had the experience of dealing with a lot of different teams. And for me, that intangible piece is the willingness to want to work as a team. Again, mixed in with that willingness to work independent, but if you get to that point where there's a wall, you know that there's someone you can go to, and you know that they're willing to help you out. In that regards, when we were talking about the priorities and the emergencies, my priority is the service to the staff that I support. So yeah, I know I said it earlier, and I stand by it, depending on what I'm working on, if you come to my office and say, \"This is important, this needs to get done,\" behind the scenes, yeah, more likely than not, I'll probably put down what I'm doing, and I'll be like, \"Okay, let's see what's going on.\" And I'll be honest, depending on what it is, I'll probably go back to my office like, \"Oh my gosh, that was not important.\" But it's about this service. Again, it's about putting others before yourself. So I think that's definitely the superpower that I see on this staff here and student affairs too, but.\r\n\r\n- It's too late, Marcus, you said we're the best. We're gonna run with it.\r\n\r\n- Oh no, I stand by that.\r\n\r\n- We're gonna run with it.\r\n\r\n- I'll stand by that. I will challenge anybody to test that theory.\r\n\r\n- We're about at time this morning, so I do want to go ahead and put out one more question. We used to do this a lot where we'd go around in a circle to provide one last little bit of wisdom, so I wanna go ahead and do that. And the prompt that I'm thinking of really today is, if you were able to tell someone anything about going into work and how they perceive themselves and what their superpowers to be, what advice would you give them about their view of the workplace when it comes to superpowers? So what advice would you give them when it comes to the workplace about superpowers?\r\n\r\n- Oh, I can go, that's an easy one for me. Don't take anything personal. Everybody has good days, everybody has bad days, but at the end of the day, you're responsible for what you bring to the table, period, point blank, full stop. 'Cause I do believe that in most instances, if you come to work with a good attitude, then even if somebody else is having a bad day, that might change their attitude. So it's all about that attitude, and it's all about not taking things personal. Yeah, we're here to do a job. Yeah, we're here to get things done, but just relax, be cool, it is what it is. Tomorrow's gonna come. That's the way I look at it.\r\n\r\n- I think I'd go with own your superpower, and I think that goes back to what we have always talked about in this podcast, the importance of knowing yourself. And when you know yourself, and you feel like you have something that's unique, that you contribute, own that. I take a lot of things seriously, but often always have a joke behind it, just because that's who I am, and sometimes it helps. If it's in an intense situation, yes, I'm taking it seriously, but also, like Marcus said, it ain't that serious, right? We'll figure out how to get through it, and that's how I approach it. So I know sometimes people will be like, \"Why in the heck is this girl cracking a joke right now?\" And I'm like, \"Because I need you to know that it's okay. \"This is okay, we will figure it out.\" And then sometimes it also helps, again, when you're supervising people to crack a joke behind it, like, I'm not firing you. It's a learning experience, we'll be okay, we'll be fine.\r\n\r\n- Kay, why are you laughing?\r\n\r\n- A Career Hub content. We'll talk about that at 11:00 today. No, I'm kidding. But yeah, I think again, own your superpower. If it's something that you feel is unique to you, and you feel like it helps you give the best version of you, own that.\r\n\r\n- Yeah, I think because we talk to undergrad students mainly, I think the one thing that's really important for them to remember, in addition to remembering that it's not that serious, the job ends at 5:00, life continues on after that. To own your superpower, I think it to own it as well, like you were saying, Nicole, I think it's also important to remember that you don't have to measure or compare what someone else's perceived superpower might be to what you're capable of doing. So, if you see this person over here is great at knitting sweaters, don't feel like in order for you to be a part of that community, you've got to learn how to be or do like they are. Be confident in knowing that what you have is enough for that space and that it's worth you cultivating and growing and understanding to know what value it adds, like you were saying before. I think that's the most critical thing. And remember that you don't, as an early career professional, you don't have to walk into a space feeling like you owe people a level of respect that you would give like a professor of faculty or something like that, that you come into that space as an equal team member building on what that institution is looking to accomplish and achieve. I think that's what I meant to say. I'm gonna leave it like that.\r\n\r\n- And I'm gonna leave it like that as well. So this has been the, oh, Marcus, you got something?\r\n\r\n- Well, I was just gonna add to that, to both points. That's why they brought you into the institution. They already know, for the most part, what value you're gonna bring to the team. And to Nicole's point, know yourself and always seek self-improvement. That should be that superpower right there. And the key thing is, is know yourself and seek that self-improvement.\r\n\r\n- So before you do close it out, I'd like to hope that everybody listened to this episode and realized that our guest is much more than he said he is. And I hope that this series, when we're talking to folks about those hidden superpowers that you get out of this, take some time to know the people that you're working around because you'll get drops of energy, wisdom, feel of family, all of that from these people if you just take a moment to get to know them. Nine outta 10, they'll surprise you. Marcus has a word of the week, of the day, of the moment that he'll come share, and those are the things that you'll come to value in a workplace as important as the place that you work. So, hopefully as you all listen to this series that we're doing now, that you'll realize the importance in the relationships you develop with people.\r\n\r\n- And these mics can't drop, because they're on a mechanical arm, but there's \"What's Career Got To Do With It?\" podcast. Thank you for joining us. We look forward to seeing you soon.\r\n\r\n- Bye.\r\n\r\n- Bye.\r\n\r\n- Thank you.","author_name":"Sandhya Pakala","html":"\u003Ciframe width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/w\/NQEIAA\/\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media; camera; microphone; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E","height":360,"width":640,"thumbnail_height":360,"thumbnail_width":640,"url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/w\/NQEIAA\/","type":"video","title":"S3 E6 Forgotten Superpowers of the Workplace with Marcus Shaw","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/img\/10ED13AE-DB77-4E78-BDAA-21F9B14D30E1\/B63C7418-913D-4A18-AC70-46C158D6B898\/large\/"}