Ariana (00:00:07) - Welcome to Secret Ops, the podcast uncovering the world of business operations, one episode at a time. I'm your host, Ariana Cofone, and today's guest is Carmeanna Eberly, Director of Operations at Refined Labs. I am so pumped to have you on Secret Ops. This is a treat.

Carmeanna (00:00:26) - Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. I love all things operations and the chance to talk about them, so thank you so much for the invitation. It's gonna be great.

Ariana (00:00:37) - I'm just grateful you said yes. So we're gonna kick off where we kick off with everybody, which is your journey into operations. So how did you get to being a director of operations? Where did you start and how'd you get to where you are today?

Carmeanna (00:00:51) - Sure. So early on in my career, I was actually on the admin side of things. So I started as an admin. I started at Goldman Sachs. I was working in the private wealth management division, supporting that division in Chicago for a couple of years. And that was kind of like my, one of my first jobs out of college. It was where I was kind of honing my ideas of what it was like to be in the workforce and, and the things that I liked to do or might like to do. And what I loved about the admin side is I really liked supporting executives. I liked supporting my peers and colleagues, but I also liked being kind of in the background. And so that kind of role really spoke to me and I felt spoke to my skillset. But what I found out about myself in that job is that I like to build things.

Carmeanna (00:01:48) - So that was the first role where I was like, I'm working in this huge corporation and it's great. I'm networking, I'm building my network, but the work itself, I want to have more say, I want, you know, more responsibility. I wanna be able to work more cross-functionally. And so I took kind of that role and I went looking for that type of role on the startup side. And I actually, through my network there, was able to join an emerging VC. At the time it was called Invenergy Future Fund, and now it's called Energized Ventures. And they happen to be looking for an admin with my skillset. So I joined them after a couple years at Goldman as the third hire, so definitely a founding member of the team. And I stayed through the fundraising, the entire fundraising process. So they raised 150 million fund.

Carmeanna (00:02:44) - And over the course of a couple of years there, that was where I dipped my toes into this whole idea of VC and startups and building companies and working with founders. And that was when the light bulb moment happened for me, that this is the side of business that I wanna work in, the energy, that comes with working with founders and startups is exactly the type of energy I want in my work. And so, with that being said about me, I was able to use my time at the fund to both understand VC more. It's an amazing journey to be a part of an emerging fund because you really, you're really, it is a startup itself, so you're really getting to see the ins and outs of what it is like to build a VC fund and what it is like to work with the founders, you know, that you're kind of evaluating for investment.

Carmeanna (00:03:39) - And so through that opportunity, I was actually introduced to the Chief of Staff role because all of these founders, they were now, becoming, you know, aware that this role is a tech role. It's not just in politics, it's not just in the military, but it's something that became, you know, one of the most prominent operational and strategic roles in tech and in startups outside of an executive role. And so I started to see that get more and more traction, and I was quite interested in it because it seemed like a role on the operations side that would go hand in hand with my administrative skillset. And so at the fund, I, stayed for, maybe two and a half to three years. Just kind of honing my skillset on the operations side and the admin side, kind of straddling those two things.

Carmeanna (00:04:35) - As well as trying to figure out kind of, you know, what would a Chief of Staff need to do at a startup so that I could make sure I gained that skillset while I was there. So when I went from the fund to my next role, it really was me saying, okay, I know that the administrative role is a super strong role. I really, really liked it, but I feel like I want to see what I'm capable of. I want to get into operations fully. I wanna transition into that type of role, and I think I'm ready. So I departed the fund, totally like great terms with the team. It was fantastic. They were so supportive of this, they totally understood kind of the career trajectory that I was chasing. And I landed, my first chief of staff role at a health tech startup.

Carmeanna (00:05:32) - And let me tell you, it was wow. Yeah, it was, it was everything that I thought that role would be. It was rumored to be a role where it's kind of trial by fire where it's sink or swim, and that was absolutely true about the role. So it is something where you're expected to have a fairly short learning curve in a really, quick amount of time. So you, you go into this role and they want you to add value immediately, while you're learning about the company, while you're learning about your responsibilities, and while everything is super dynamic in a startup.

Ariana (00:06:05) - So, can I ask you a quick question for our listeners? Yeah. For, some folks that may not have any concept what a Chief of Staff is doing within an organization. Can you just break down at a high level what a Chief of Staff is doing because they do it so many different things. But in at a high level, where are they providing the glue within the, the organization? Sure.

Carmeanna (00:06:26) - I would say, the Chief of Staff role, I feel like falls into kind of two categories. So you're gonna have a kind of a technical Chief of Staff, so someone who's supporting one executive, usually at a larger company or a super, product-heavy company. So someone you need to be the right hand to say, you know, your Chief Technical Officer, or a Chief Technology Officer. And that person has a skillset that's pretty, expert, in that field so that they can actually execute really deeply in that department. And then you have Chiefs of Staff who kind of serve the entire C-suite or the CEO, but who actually kind of operate as a Chief of Staff of the company because the breadth of what they're doing really does touch, it can touch anywhere in the company. And so I would say it, the Chief of Staff role itself could be boiled down to being a right hand to an executive or to the C-suite.

Carmeanna (00:07:25) - So somebody who is really kind of the strategic and execution arm of the executive that they're serving, or the executive team that they're supporting. So there's the strategic partner who, you know, you go to when you're trying to kind of outline where where the company is headed and where it's going. And then you would likely pass off those things to the Chief of Staff to actually execute with your other employees to work cross-functionally with other department heads and other executives to actually get that achieved. So that's what I would say the Chief of Staff role is kind of, if we were to boil it down, and the Chief of Staff role I took was actually, I supported the CEO e o and I was really the chief of staff to the company. So I was touching everything from, you know, finance to HR, which I was running, to learning and development, which, really kind of was directly related to enablement. So it was sales and marketing enablement, that learning and development function. So I really was touching everything that was being built, at the, the same time supporting the CEO strategically. So it was one of those roles where I was like, I got everything that I asked for.

Carmeanna (00:08:48) - It was an experience that kind of was like, either I'm gonna like this or I'm not gonna like this. And I'm lucky that I kind of, you know, thought about it ahead because I ended up really liking the role itself operationally. But I didn't end up staying at that startup. So it was a fantastic first foray into the Chief of Staff role. I felt like I understood it very quickly. I understood what kind of the responsibilities were, the autonomy that comes with it, the fact that you're kind of, you know, acting on behalf of the CEO or the, the executive team that you're supporting. So there comes, you know, the decorum and the professionalism that has to go with that. So you learn a lot very quickly in a first Chief of Staff role, but not to scare any listeners away from it, it's just something that if you're gonna work with a startup in a Chief of Staff role, you have to be prepared for, a lot of dynamics that are always gonna be going on, things that are changing all of the time.

Carmeanna (00:09:49) - And you have to be prepared for, you know, the, the weight of the responsibilities of continuing to move things forward even though things pivot and change so quickly. People, sometimes report to chiefs of staff, sometimes they don't. But really you're kind of the wizard behind the curtain in a lot of ways. And a lot of times when you're at a young startup, and I usually join between 10 and 15 employees, so when you're at a young startup, there is so much growth possible that you really get to kind of figure out what lane you wanna be in after touching on all of these things. So if you see Chief of Staff roles, or they're talking about kind of a tour of duty where it's like 12 to 24 months, that's very specific because they know that you're going to touch on so many things that eventually you'll figure out, I want this role in this department, or I would like to lead this team, or, I'm really good at that. I would like to pursue that. So it's very, it's very expected of the Chief of Staff role to evolve eventually into a more executive or senior leadership role in a specific department.

Ariana (00:10:56) - That makes sense. And you can also see, because it depends on the industry, it depends on the particular team dynamic. Like even if it's global or regional, like there's all these components to kind of see where where is your happy place within that 12 to 24 months. Exactly. So if we can leapfrog then to what you're doing now as a Director of Operations, where did that shift happen into a more operations focused role? Like what was the impetus there?

Carmeanna (00:11:21) - Yeah, so after kind of my first Chief of staff role, fast forward a bit. I'd been a Chief of Staff three times, um, before I joined Refined Labs. And, in each time it was like a different industry. It was a different experience, but the core of what I was doing kind of only solidified and remained the same. So, when I was kind of networking and joining communities of Chiefs of Staff and kind of getting that support from, different, peers and colleagues throughout my Chief of Staff roles, people were talking about like, what the heck do we do after we leave the Chief of Staff role? Like, this is all very dynamic as a role itself still. And so I began to kind of research like, yeah, how do, not how do I get out of it, but like, what are avenues for a Chief of Staff to take once they want to progress their career?

Carmeanna (00:12:15) - So, you know, there are a couple of different things, that you can do, but I decided to actually go into operations because I felt like that was a huge part of my Chief of Staff role consistently throughout all of the roles that I've had. And, what kind of called me about operations was all of the things that called me about the Chief of Staff and the admin role kind of put together . And so when I joined Refine Labs, you know, I was, I was employee number 12, so I could have been in a Chief of Staff capacity. However, the need for the business was actually on the operations side. And since the Chief of Staff world touches so many things, I touched all the operation things that needed my expertise in skillset, that were important to what Refined Labs was building at the time.

Carmeanna (00:13:08) - And so they didn't have a people function, they didn't have anybody on operations outside of the COO who I reported to. And so as that kind of really lean team, my diversified experience as a Chief of Staff was like clutch, I basically came pre-packaged and ready for, you know, tackling whatever operational, you know, tasks and responsibilities and building the processes and foundational kind of, you know, infrastructure that was needed. And working with such early stage startups was a huge help in that regard because I've seen things, I've done things, I've succeeded, I've failed. So I came with a lot of, experience in that regard as well. So, joining when you join that early, you can pretty much expect that there, there isn't going to be a lot of infrastructure, there isn't going to be a lot of process, there isn't going to be a lot of structure in general, especially across operations.

Carmeanna (00:14:11) - So that was exciting for me because this is the role where I get to come in and really build. And so, partnering with the COO to kind of understand like what is the ideal state that we're trying to get to, and then working backwards from there. So if we know we're gonna try and hire X amount of people by the end of the year, then that means we need to put all of these infrastructure things in place, and then we need to hire people who can, you know, run these different functions and build out these departments. And so it really was kind of a strategic move to hire me, because I was what's called a key hire, hired specifically for the operational function to make sure that the COO had the room, in their kind of, you know, responsibilities room on her plate, to actually strategically move things forward without being bogged out in the minutia of everything.

Ariana (00:15:07) - And that's so easy to get into that if, and then you don't have any time to actually look at the high level or do the thinking that is involved.

Carmeanna (00:15:15) - You can't do both. You're one, you're one human being. And so having the support of me who comes in kind of knowing what needs to be done was really key. But that's how I got to Refine Labs. And one other thing I'll say is that throughout all of my roles, and I encourage all listeners to be paying attention to this in your own personal career growth, understanding what in the next opportunity you need to enjoy work. So I started out having something to prove, right, like I everybody does when they're kind of entry level and entering the workforce. And then throughout my career leading up to Refined Labs, I had gained an expertise. Like I had a skillset and I knew how to use it, and I knew what it was worth. And I knew that, okay, if I'm a valued asset, then I should be looking for a place I want to work, I should be looking for a leadership team. I feel I can actually, you know, support vocally because that's what I'm gonna be doing. I wanna be, you know, part of a team that's building a product. That's exciting to me because at every step of the way you're being asked to, to produce the best work of your career to date,

Ariana (00:16:25) - So much of what you're saying is echoing to my experience that it's like, before we, we hopped on, I'm like, you can articulate what I've never been able to articulate so beautifully. I wish I could have your brain to be able to say the things that you say because it, I actually, I'd love to hop into sort of, when we're looking at operations, we're looking at people, process, technology in a simplified way. The people part, I think is the part that is just the hardest bit, in my opinion. It's the part clearly that you're passionate about from mentoring and coaching, building operations, building a culture. So in all of the industries that you've worked in now, which you've worked in a lot of different industries in so many capacities where you're really seeing all the different manifestations of operations and, and departments and all that.

Ariana (00:17:17) - What are some things from the people side of your learnings that, that would be good for our listeners to sort of take away? Like, one thing that you just said that struck with me, which is leadership in a company is vital, good leadership can influence the culture. And truth be told, bad leadership, you can't build a good culture on bad leadership. Like, it's impossible. Yeah. So what are some things that you've seen outside of that or, or in that, that would be important for us to, I guess, take your knowledge and bring it into our day-to-days?

Carmeanna (00:17:49) - Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I feel like culture is going to happen to you whether you like it or not, whether you focused on building it or not. And so when, when you're thinking about kind of, you know, team culture, it's this nebulous thing. It's, it's always evolving as your team evolves, as you grow, as you lose people, as you change direction, as you pivot, get new leadership. So it's something that is definitely not static and it's hard because of that, but it's also difficult because team culture is one of those things where, you know, like what feels good. And so with all of those kind of added layers to what you're trying to build out in terms of your team culture, it just becomes progressively difficult to nail it down. and I don't have the secret sauce or anything to that, but in kind of being at the forefront of building team culture at the startups I've worked at being, you know, one of those very early employees who gets a lot of say in that direction, some of the nuggets, I suppose that I've taken away are like, definitely engage in survey and poll your team.

Carmeanna (00:19:06) - So, understanding your employees and listening to them is gonna be key to understanding what you can tangibly do to help your team culture become what you would like it to become.

Ariana (00:19:19) - Sorry, are you a fan of engagement surveys? Cuz there's like pulse surveys where you can sort of do weekly pulses, there's the more like annual or biannual engagement survey. That's like a big lengthy question there. But that can help to give you an EMPS score where you can start to track your progress. Like, what are you, what's your opinion of those? Do you like them? Do you think they're helpful?

Carmeanna (00:19:41) - What's so funny about it is like, I don't necessarily like taking them, but I do like deploying them because I understand, I understand what you're trying to analyze. Like, it's very difficult to get all of that information if you're not surveying and if you're not asking. So if you are trying to figure out what you should do, there are a couple options and you can try them all. Like we're, we're big about experimenting at Refine Labs down to the DNA of the company. So we experiment with people initiatives all of the time. So we have pulse surveys and pulse surveys go to a mix of random employees every week or every two weeks. And so you get a pulse survey. And a pulse survey is kind of just like a moment in time where it's like you're kind of just testing out the temperature of, you know, employees at that moment in time.

Carmeanna (00:20:33) - But we also do quarterly employee engagement surveys where we customize some of the questions and leave others the same, to continue benchmarking our team's views and opinions of the company. So if we're, you know, trying to figure out, hey, internal comms, that's gonna be our focus for this next engagement survey. We wanna get a pulse and get a read on what our internal comms state is from the view of the employee, what the employee might consider, you know, a better use of resources for internal comms and just kind of understanding their, their point of view on that. But also the quarterly surveys, they ask a lot of questions about like, leadership and about your manager and about kind of like your outlook in terms of your own career at the company and how you feel the trajectory of the company and, and the strategic vision of it, how that relates to you and your role.

Carmeanna (00:21:30) - And so those types of longer, they're a little bit longer, but those types of surveys, they kind of serve a different purpose than the pulse surveys. And using them hand in hand can be very, very helpful. And if you show employees that you care about their voice and you care about listening to their needs and their wants and desires, then you're gonna have a really great jumping off point. We get Refined Labs, coined this term “talent destination”. Like that's a huge part of, you know, the strategic vision of Refined Labs. We want to be a talent destination. And what that means to us is building a culture that both employ, like attracts perspective candidates, but also retention of the talent that you do have. And so both of those things together, are a huge focus for us because we understand that as a professional services, you know, organization, you are asking employees to deliver services to clients. And so, if you're doing that, then you need to be able to retain the best talent that you can. And that means investing in your employees in different ways and listening to what they want. And so some of the things that have come out of our surveying of employees are like, what benefits do you want?

Ariana (00:22:50) - Mm-hmm. Oh, yep.

Carmeanna (00:22:52) - What's the most important next benefit to you out of that list? And so, we've gotten our 401K out of that. Like we've, you know, extended our maternity and paternity leave because of that. And so, you know, understanding like what's most important to employees, you can't go wrong , you can't go wrong with, you know, making sure that your company is making it a priority to listen to employees.

Ariana (00:23:17) - Well it's also, a way of being data driven in your decision making. Like again, culture is so hard to develop and to do because a lot of it is in the little interactions, the little things. But if you can track something at a high level that gives you some sort of data that you can consistently review with the team track, it's actually useful. Even though I know people hate filling out the like 70 plus question surveys.

Carmeanna (00:23:42) - They’re not gonna like that, but that's okay.

Ariana (00:23:44) - They're gonna like it. You can't always like it

Carmeanna (00:23:48) - Yeah, exactly. And so, where you're talking about like ROI of your people initiatives and trying to understand what makes something successful as an initiative when it's not generating revenue, when it's not like producing, you know, marketing assets and actual tangible, you know, documents or things for customers. How do you even understand like what your return on investment for that programming is? And part of that is gonna tie to tangible things like your employee retention rate, like you said, your employee kind of NPS score for the company. And those, you know, goals that you have kind of lead you to what paths you wanna take to collect that information so that you have it. But also just kind of fielding different remarks from your team, from different communication initiatives, whether you're in Slack or email or whatever it is. That really will help you understand why an initiative was important and from the view of the employee, why they liked it, why how they experienced it, and things like that. So I feel like we don't have to reinvent the wheel really. So to speak. But we do have to be creative in, in how we engage employees cuz they don't want the same over and over. So it's, yeah, you could do a whole other episode on that!

Ariana (00:25:14) - You're gonna have a part too in a couple months we'll do a whole part of this. Yes. I guess just a quick touch on the technology and process part, because those things are just so important to operations. What would you say are like one pro tip for technology implementation with operations and what's a pro tip for process implementation or setup that you've seen?

Carmeanna (00:25:39) - So I'd say a pro tip on the technology side is be prepared to build a business case and build a business case that's biased towards the business. So when you're, you're a young company, you're evaluating a ton of tools on the operations, you're trying to put some foundational tools in place, but also when you're strategically thinking ahead and you're growing, you're then gonna do what I call an infrastructure glow up.

Ariana (00:26:07) - I love that

Carmeanna (00:26:08) - An infrastructure glow up where you're trying to put tools in place that will get you from, you know, say 50 to a hundred employees to 300 employees or 500 employees. And you don't wanna have to keep putting infrastructure in place because the change management gets harder and harder and harder the bigger you get. So you want tools that will grow with you, that will scale with you, that will make a process easy to tweak without burning it to the ground and having to start over. And so strategically being able to kind of think from the lens of the business is absolutely under operations and under your purview. Also, when you audit vendors, you audit utilization for savings, right? Like, have you cleared out the 12 people who are no longer here so you're not paying for the licenses anymore? And so things like that.

Ariana (00:26:59) - There's literally platforms now they're like, Hey, we can manage all of your licenses and remove them in case you forget. Like that's, that is literally God, I, I'm in love with the idea of a technology glow up cuz that's literally usually the things where I come in, they're living in Excel or Google Sheets and we're in that first phase of just introducing them to the world of glow up possibilities. Yeah. But that is, yeah I'm gonna coin that copyright that.

Carmeanna (00:27:27) - It's an interesting thing to be in because as the operator, you're evaluating tools, you're gonna have your favorites.

Ariana (00:27:35) - Definitely.

Carmeanna (00:27:36) - Does. However, when you're trying to put a tool in place, it doesn't matter if it's your favorite, what matters is that the business case you build, it makes sense for what you are trying to implement. And so when I'm building a business case for, say a new intranet platform or something like that, first I have to gather the information from the executive team and from key stakeholders and end users as to what's important. Like what are we trying to achieve. Then I have to tie it back to the strategic goals and company kind of, you know, OKRs so that there are through lines to the strategy and then I have to evaluate that tool from all lenses. So I have to understand how cross-functional is this tool, the more cross-functional, the better.

Ariana (00:28:22) - Absolutely.

Carmeanna (00:28:23) - Right? Like what will this tool enable us to do across its cross-functionality, right? So like I have to kind of really dig into from the business perspective, the impact of this tool and then I make my recommendation based off of, you know, really diving in and outlining those things. And I've gotten to a point where I've submitted a business case and almost gotten approval and then gone back and said, we don't actually need this. Like, I know I wanted this, but we don't actually, it's not a strategic decision that we need to make right now.

Ariana (00:28:58) - Wow. Good on you. Good on you. That's hard to do. That's hard to like pull it back cuz it's so much research, so many demos and walkthroughs and prototyping. Oh my gosh. This probably gets to also the process side, which is the tools and how you use those tools go hand in hand. Exactly. How many times have I implemented a tool, you know, with a prototype way of working and nobody uses it? And that's also I'm guessing a part of, you know, the business use-case is not just about what will this do today and in the next year or two to make the operations better, but also this is how it's gonna improve the day-to-day process through these like X, Y, and Z steps. Or how this is gonna work.

Carmeanna (00:29:39) - Exactly.

Ariana (00:29:39) - Oh my gosh. Need to have a part two.

Ariana (00:29:44) - We do. I wanna pick your brain on all these things, but I do wanna get to the part that I think is one of my favorite parts of Secret Ops, which is the advice giving as far as, you know, this is the the real talk, the inside scoop, which is I think, you know, a lot of people don't know what, what our roles entail. And so the first thing is what do you think people get wrong about roles in operations and people who work in operations?

Carmeanna (00:30:11) - Yeah. So I feel like it can be sometimes difficult because you don't know what you don't know. And so in that you can miss things that are critical, that like they aren't, it's not your fault you don't know it, but if you miss things that are critical in the business, then it comes back to really bite you later. And so one of the things I'll use in his example is, I manage our IT at, at Refine Labs. I managed it from the very beginning when we had a small team and then we grew and we were realizing of course steadily, I am not an expert in information technology. I am not an in expert in data and information security, but we're getting to a state where like I am no longer able to maintain, you know, the survival status of our IT. And so what I didn't know could have really damaged us down the line as we grew if we hadn't strategically looked at that and said, okay, I can foresee that we're gonna have some major hiccups and pain points here because I'm now finding it difficult to even keep up with shipping laptops to new employees. There are so many.

Ariana (00:31:25) - Oh totally. Oh God, that's a whole thing.

Carmeanna (00:31:27) - I think people, can go wrong when they don't continually analyze the processes that they have and try and strategically think ahead as to what your pain points will be when you're this big, when you have this many employees, when you have this new product launching. And so if you don't do that, you end up being very reactive. And while that is, you know, kind of the name of the game at an early startup, you need to mature enough to be able to be proactive in how you're strategically thinking about things to position yourself to mitigate risk, to continually improve process effectiveness and efficiency. And so what we did was we did, you know, this whole analysis of where we wanted to be. So your ideal state and then what you do is you wanna work backwards from your ideal state. So that will help you outline and draft a process in phases for how to reach that.

Carmeanna (00:32:23) - And I think people can get hung up on kind of trying to, to be like, I want this thing and then move forward to try and reach that thing without the the planning process and the planning process..well it might be kind of annoying and it might kind of seem redundant or silly or maybe it's just one page. That is going to be the baseline for how you evaluate bigger tools that have bigger impact, that require more change at the company and require a lot more steps. So, you're building a habit that's gonna serve you very, very well. And to to, to tie it in a circle, what we ended up doing with it is we evaluated hiring someone in-house very seriously. We evaluated hiring a strategic IT partner and I built business cases for both. Then we decided to go with the IT partnership and then I had to go to my network cuz I don't like reinventing the wheel, right? So I went to my chief of staff network and I said, does anyone know any great IT partners!?

Ariana (00:33:23) - Yes!

Carmeanna (00:33:23) - I do not want to comb Google for this. I wanna, you know, get direction from my peers. And I say that's that's really important in an operational role is to leverage your peer network because someone's had the challenge before someone's solved that challenge before. And so you're gonna be able to get these warm introductions, you're gonna be able to get these kind of drafted outlines of policies, of procedures, of ideas, of initiatives that you can build off of. And leveraging your network is an easy thing to do. It's something that's free, free to do and a lot of times you'll also be able to provide value to that network as well.

Ariana (00:34:05) - I definitely like, I, just to be really open with the listeners. I was so bad at networking cause I felt like an awkward turtle every time I would try and network and then I, I had this moment in the last year where I'm like, oh, it's just one person talking to another person. Maybe there's something that comes out of it. Maybe you just develop a friendship. Maybe it's, you know, who knows what's to come out of it. But there is that, that mental hurdle sometimes that, that you have to kind of let go of, to engage with people that work in what you do. And for some reason I had a lot of trouble with that. Like it took me a decade to get to that point, which is so nonsensical. But that is, I think the first thing that really captured, I guess my history when you said I just reached out. I didn't wanna reinvent the wheel, I knew people had been here before cuz everybody has. And then in reaching out and asking for help, now you've got a community that can help each other and you can cross pollinate all these ideas and it actually makes doing operations so much more fun and less stressful. I found in the last year my jobs have been way less stressful cause I have people that can ask for help. That specialize in what I do too.

Carmeanna (00:35:18) - Exactly. And that's so important because if you think about the things you've had to build, I'm sure some of those things were exceptionally manual as a process. Oh yes. Whether it was creating a policy from scratch or putting a platform in place that requires a ton of manual upload and kind of, you know, tweaking all the levers and settings to get it ready to launch to the team. There are so many things that require that much effort that if you can tap someone in your network who has done it before or who can help you at least understand like, this is what you can expect or here's some hurdles I had that you're gonna wanna kind of think about or here are things to avoid, do not use this vendor even though they're popular because I used them and then X, Y, Z happened. And so it really is advantageous for your job to, to leverage your network. And it's kind of scary because just like making friends so scary and other, you know, relationships, it's kind of scary to just reach out to someone cold and be like, Hey, can you help me? But chances are, if you're not selling something to them...

Ariana (00:36:27) - Yes!

Carmeanna (00:36:27) - You know, don't do that on your first message. If you're reaching out to them because you want their expertise is a very validating thing. When people reach out to me for my expertise, it's extremely validating because I know what I'm doing. But to hear someone else go, Hey, do you wanna chat with me about this? Because I'm also going through it and you know, I've read about yourself or I've heard of you or you know, listened to your, your podcast features or whatever and you mentioned this and that really resonated with me. And so there are many ways to kind of get that warm kind of, in, or open. And if you're shy, that's totally okay. I don't like posting, I'll just be honest with you. I don't like posting, but I love being active in my networks and communities. But seek out specific communities that are your peers because that's where you're gonna already be surrounded by people who understand you and understand the challenges you're going through. And so that can be a lot easier for someone who doesn't want simply cold outreach to people.

Ariana (00:37:33) - There's, it's interesting too cuz I've mentored people in the past, it's so gratifying to help others. It really is. Like it gets you out of yourself and into the world. But I also end up learning a ton. I mean, I you mentor and you are the one that's taking away all this new knowledge. Cause you know, that person has lived their own life's experience and, and you're like, oh, this is a great way to think about this or, I'm glad that you asked that question. It's like getting a fresh set of eyes on all of the things that you've done in your life through somebody who wants to learn it and vice versa. Exactly. It's a beautiful thing. So, we're now going to do some rapid fire questions to wrap up this chat. And this is literally just for us to get to know about you as a human. So we just go and jump in. What morning rituals do you start your day with?

Carmeanna (00:38:20) - Ooh, lala. So I like to do in the morning is one of the first things I will do is light...it's not lit right now, but when we started there was some incense burning back there on the, on the table.

Ariana (00:38:33) - I did see that.

Carmeanna (00:38:34) - And what I really love about that is like I'm a hundred percent remote worker, I love it, but I'm home and my home is my it's office and my house, and home life. And so really setting kind of the atmosphere is extremely important for me in my routine so that I can kind of like focus.

Ariana (00:38:53) - What, I guess what do you do to wind down? What's the, what's the bookmark at the end of the day? So you wake up with, you know, pretty much all your senses being awakened in different ways. How do you wind that down?

Carmeanna (00:39:06) - Yes. So, at the end of my day I will probably want to zone out a little bit, so I'll wanna like turn my brain off a little bit. So I'll likely do some online window shopping. While I won't buy anything a lot of times it's just like a numbing agent to my brain. And the the reason I like that is I'm going a million miles an hour. I'm to kind of wind down from all of it. I just want to, you know, stare at something that I like visually that does not make me do much thinking and doesn't ask anything of me. So whether that's reading a book for you, whether that's going for a run or a jog or those things, you wanna have those moments to break away and to just kind of turn off your brain to all of the stimuli that you have been having constantly throughout the day.

Ariana (00:39:54) - What, book are you currently reading?

Carmeanna (00:39:57) - What book am I currently reading? I have not picked up a book really since I finished The Great Divorce by CS Lewis, which I actually really love. But more video watching shows now.

Ariana (00:40:12) - Ooh, what shows are you watching?

Carmeanna (00:40:14) - So, White Lotus season two has been fantastic. Also loving, I don't know if I can say this on the air, but Schitt's Creek is great.

Ariana (00:40:27) - So good!

Carmeanna (00:40:28) - So, getting through that in the last season. And then Cobra Kai for some reason Ooh, is like a banger on Netflix. And so that's been really, as someone who watched the Karate and like now owns a bonsai because of that...that movie Cobra Kai has been a ton of fun. I was like, I must have a bonsai And I do, of course.

Ariana (00:40:50) - What is your favorite quote?

Carmeanna (00:40:52) - My favorite quote, and I have no idea who said this, I'm sorry. I saw it on a framed picture on someone's like mantle or side table, likely my grandma or something like this. But it said, do your best and leave the rest. It's like, that's all you can, it's literally all you can do. Like you can do less than your best. Sure. But if you do your best and you truly did that, then let let things fall as they may. And there's another quote that kind of goes along with that, that I saw someone post on LinkedIn, but basically they said like, if all you have to give that day is 40% and you gave 40%, you gave a hundred percent that day.

Ariana (00:41:34) - Ooh, love it. I'm, I'm stealing them for sure. At this point in your life, what is the most important lesson that you've learned to-date?

Carmeanna (00:41:45) - Hmm. I have learned, that relationships are priority for me because everything is finite. Like my energy is finite, my time is finite and those are the things that I can never get back. Once I've given them money, I can get back, I work a job, I get paid so I can make up for that. Other things, you know, that, that are material, they can break, you can buy 'em again, things like that. But the things I can never get back, energy and time. And so how I, you know, place my energy in time is ever increasingly more important to me.

Ariana (00:42:20) - Whew. A good one for all of us. This is the last one, which is, what do you wanna be when you grow up?

Carmeanna (00:42:27) - What do I wanna be? I'm gonna be honest with you. I wanna be excellent at what I do. I have no title in mind. Like I don't wanna be COO of a company actually. Like, I'm not quite driven to be in a such a visual-forward role at a company. So I still want to be kind of in my behind the scenes wizard behind the curtain role, but I wanna be excellent at what I do because I love operations. So part of that is me continuing to grow my own skillset in my career and be very proactive in that. Part of it is me accepting and receiving and seeking out mentorship from those I am inspired by, from those who are more senior and tenured to me who have a lot of wisdom to pass down.

Ariana (00:43:14) - Hmm. It's just been a complete joy. Where can people find you if they have loved hearing everything you say, where can they find you?

Carmeanna (00:43:24) - Yes, so if you are interested in learning a little bit more about kind of the people side of operations and talent destination and culture, Refine Labs has an amazing podcast. The first season of Talent Destination is out on wherever you find your podcast. Like you said. I love that. My COO Megan Bowen and Senior Vice President of People, Jessica Winder, have an excellent podcast about team culture. Where you can find me is on LinkedIn. And I, you know, go by my name Carmeanna Eberly, so you can feel free to add me. And you know, we can go from there on connecting. I don't have a ton of social so, I have like Facebook and LinkedIn and that is where you can find me .

Ariana (00:44:12) - We'll link this in the description so that people can, can hunt you down after this convo. But I, I just wanna say thank you very much. My cup feels very full after talking to you and I literally have so many takeaways I'm just gonna try and implement immediately after our conversation. So thank you for sharing your knowledge and your experience with all of us. We really appreciate it.

Carmeanna (00:44:32) - Thank you for having me. It's been a treat. I feel like I just opened Pandora's box on many topics, so, you know, I look forward to more opportunities to be able to dive down deep. And I look forward to kind of posting on my LinkedIn some more from, uh, what I call the Op Shop, which is where I post tidbits about operations and how you can navigate and think about operations. So definitely be on the lookout for that kind of stuff, but it was an absolute treat to get to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. It was wonderful.

Ariana (00:45:05) - Oh, thank, thank you again. Thank you to everybody who is listening. We appreciate you listening to Secret Ops. Please follow us wherever you find your podcast and check us out secret-ops.com. We will see you next time.