Bridging Worlds – Communication Mastery with Meric Ipek

Hello dear listeners, welcome to This Week

in flow podcast where we share unique experiences to help you

unleash your leadership voice. Today we have an amazing leader

Marish could loop she is at from a scientific background at Roush

diagnostic. Hi, Merec. Hi, good to see you. Thanks for being

here.

Thank you so much good to be here, too.

Like I mentioned, you have a scientific

background, and I want to hear what you do and how you know,

it's great because we can relate it to communication. As you

know, science is difficult to translate into communication. So

I'm, I'm happy to dive into your perspective around this.

Yeah, that is so true, because I started my

studies back in Boston, and I worked in lab right after that.

But what hit me hard was like working with animals and tissue

was making me feel less of a human at least I'm the chatty

type. And that helped me to get into science in a more chatty

environment. Because one of my good friends from college, she,

she said, Hey, there's clinical research. And since then, it's

been it's going to sound like I'm a really old lady, but

still, I'm a great looking old lady. So I've been doing great

for more than 20 years. I'm in clinical research, I just

diverted from human studies to instruments. That's why I'm in

Roche diagnostics, because I I witnessed a lot of things

throughout my career and when you work with humans, when you

do research, you have so much risk. So what I do basically now

we are qualifying qualifying instruments, medical devices,

for for human use, like could be a you know, like a glucose

metre, which is very popular right now. Everybody's checking

their glucose correct. And for future everything is becoming

more hobbies a personalised perhaps you heard that before.

So it's for the betterment of everyone, you can go to the lab

or you can have your own lab at home. So I'm in that line of

work, and it is true, I think scientific people like to read,

and most of the personalities are introverted, which I didn't

know before. I mean, I am a little bit introverted, but I'm

most extroverted. So,

communicate Yeah. How do you bridge that gap with

communicating to more than introverts?

So we usually do personality tests. And Roche is

very big in that. So you know, your group got it, I ususally

Or did you do the insights?

work with blue people

Rouche rolled it out. So I don't know the name.

But we like colours.

But yeah, that's insights. Yeah. Yeah, blue is

more of the analytical structure, logical. And then

yellow, I imagine you're more red, you definitely have a lot

of red, which is direct, demanding. result oriented.

Believe it or not, I'm yellow, then red, yellow,

green. Yeah, green, because I love to entertain people.

So yellow for the audience, yellow energy. So

there's four distinct colour energies and different and they

say they're all have different communication preferences. And

it's not that you're one or the other. But it's where you lean

more toward your communication preferences. And so it's helpful

for you to know what yours is, and also helpful for your

audience to know what your audience is. So in this case,

you work with a lot of people that are more introverted, and

analytical and you have the yellow Sunshine Yellow energy,

which is entertaining, I like to have parties, social events

communicate, and then they may not want to on the opposite

side, and you also have the directing the commanding, and

then green, which is the nurturing, which we'll talk

about a little bit later, which is like your husband, which is

more probably more of the green energy, more emotions, if so,

share with us how you change and the different hats that you have

to wear. So

I made a lot of mistakes, but I'm such a curious

person, which probably keeps me doing my job and stay alive. I

love to learn. I have good friends and my husband has

actually a blue first and a green later. Okay, so I do get

along with blue because I love data myself, but I have a way of

expressing myself as opposed to blue. Right? I told as I learned

like I just do the brainstorming like you would see in a normal

like I'm so creative, creatively this part of my life so like

music, and theatre. So with them if I'm commanding to an

audience, which is going to be mostly blue because it's not

always like that. I literally just sit down and prepare for

half an hour prepare my bullet points and I just don't make so

many jokes because they really don't enjoy that. So it becomes

very dry information. And at the end I'm like any questions and

usually thank God if you did good job there no questions

because they are very good in catching details, right? And I

would say this a good group, if you want to roll something to a

bigger audience, right, roll it to the blue audience first,

because they will catch your deficiency. So,

so true. Yeah, yeah, I,

I learned by making many mistakes. So I always liked

my field, but I struggled a lot to get the respect because blues

are very easy to read you off. If they don't like what you

said, because I work with a very strong blue manager recently.

She and I get along, but she really didn't like some people.

And I was listening to her. I'm like, boy, they're off. Like,

they can really demand more. And if they don't get it, like,

you're off the list, and that's very dangerous when you're a

manager, because then that person is not going to follow

you anymore, that they're not your team anymore.

so, that happened before? Where? Yes,

yes, it happened to me. And I had, let's say six

people, and two of them, they don't agree with me, and it's

okay. I am not looking for a fan club. I'm a pretty confident

person. I'm not looking for people to follow me. But my

manager was someone I always lean on. And I said, What can I

do to get there buy it helped me because I was aware. I mean, I

think a manager should be someone very confident about

themselves. And I'm not here to preach everyone. I'm not a you

know, Pastor. So I wanted to understand what was I missing as

she coached me. So you know, you have to find your ways to work

things out. And I think I have a keen eye for that I can read the

audience very well, which probably, you know, when when I

got my training with Lynn, that is also very important, right?

Like, you have to read the people well, so I got the buying

of those two, the one leader, but the one still didn't buy now

she left the group. So it is true. If you don't like her

manager, you live the group. But I mean, I didn't mind because I

still have five people. And so that was an experience. I mean,

I had a group where, you know, two of my people didn't

completely agree with me, one of them start to agree with me

later. And then the other one is,

how did you do that? Just more conversations.

I got to know her. Yeah. And because sometimes we

have this facade, that we go to the meetings, I'm actually

extremely deep person spiritually. And

philosophically, I read a lot, but you don't show that at work.

It's very superficial, I think. And I spent so much time with

her. I invited her to lunch, I got to know her and people will

always respond. Someone being compassionate that always pays

off. And I asked her, What do you want? Like, I'm very

responsive to that, because that's how I progress in my

life. And I gave her everything she wanted, I got her promoted.

Because she was good. I mean, not that I want some if, you

know, thumbs up, but she was my best one. Like, she was really

good. I mean, she was a blue. So blues are if you get them,

they're good workers, but you have to really get their

attention. So I got her promoted. And I mean, my

manager, and I agreed that you know, she's our superstar. So

that was easy. That was easy. But that was one of my intimate

interactions with a blue. And later on, it came so easy,

because this experience was my first leadership experience

hands on. Because you shadow leaders, but when you do it,

it's different. It's very hard. Yeah. So yeah, I, I learned that

you will fail very, very badly. So I just said, Okay, so this is

how it feels. Because I'm a very accomplished, kid. You know, I

was always such a nerd, you know, pimples, braces, I had it

all, you know, and I said, Wow, okay, so this is what it's like

to do it on your own because I feel that school too. But this

is different. Like when you fail with people, at least you feel

like that. You really have to just let it go. Yeah, let it go.

But coming back to communication style, you just change your

style. Yeah, blues don't care. You talk too much. They just

want to get the information right away. Right. Don't waste

their time because they have so many things to

do. Right details. Right? The right details. Yeah.

And when people ask you that, so know your business?

Well, like no, it's so well, because I liked the way they

asked stuff about, let's say we do protocols, it's kind of a

recipe. So they will ask stuff about the protocol. And I'm

like, okay, you know what, I was very honest, in that group, I

would say, Hey, I don't know I stopped doing that. You cannot

be too honest with your team because they want to see someone

who knows everything. I just say I'm gonna come back to you

later. I don't really speak my heart because I you know, I told

you I'm very upfront. I speak my heart. I'm a Mediterranean

person, you know, everything I do is from my heart. So I said,

Oh, okay, this is business maybe a little bit hard but a little

bit brain you know, just combine both. So yeah, that was pretty

much it very hard, but very rewarding experience. I'm still

still benefiting from that experience tremendously.

I love that the idea the concept of people

teaching us things right they you know, we we get to

opportunity to lean into what can what can we do to learn

what's hear if somebody is annoying me or somebody is doing

something like what can we do and taking the opportunity,

because sometimes people might avoid it, they may avoid the

conversation. But if you like you, you kept on going at it

getting curious learning about the other person. And then now

you know how to relate to them. So you didn't avoid it. But now

that taught you something, a different skill set, because

that's not generally your communication preference. But

now you get it. And now you know how to speak to them more about

it. So

and I'm this kind of person, I have so many ideas. So

I have so much desire to communicate across. So a good

friend of mine back in college, she told me, Oh, my God, it was

so hard to talk to you when you were younger, because you would

stop me. So blues also teach you that you have to listen to them,

because introverted people are not going to be like, hey, stop,

I'm gonna say this. So you have to really give them the space as

well. And listen them like you should see me and my mom

talking, because we are both talking. I don't know how we

understand each other. I just was on the phone with her. I

haven't. Oh, funny. She and I are very similar. So it's like,

I'm looking at my older version. And she's looking at our younger

version. And we talk at the same time and we understand each

other. Yeah,

I love that. I love that. That's awesome. Like, what

about the like the vibe, right? I can, I can almost imagine you

and your mom talking. It's like just a fun and energetic vibe.

You

know, the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. That's

how complicated. There's so much drama and so much joy. Yeah.

That's the end. And then what about you and your

husband? Can you share you mind sharing a little bit about that?

Oh,

yeah, sure. He's, so my husband is American. He's

from San Francisco, just to give a brief background. And so being

a Turkish and I lived in many countries, by the way, so it

changes you I lived in Switzerland for a while it was

like five years, it changed me a lot. Because you have to get

away from your comfort zone and adapt to a new culture that was

substantially different for me. And that country is very

introverted. Like we say California, you know, San

Francisco could be very introverted, in a sense, because

we have engineers and you know, all these quarters and stuff.

But Switzerland was a different level. Like at least the town I

lived was on Northwest and I learned so much about, you know,

patience and communication there. But coming to my husband,

he's a little bit like Switzerland. So, Mike, that's

the name. I hope he doesn't mind. You guys not gonna come

and find me at home. But

how long have you been married now?

Oh, seven years. But we dated a long time because you

know, he's a blue he wants to make sure he accumulated his

data to make sure that I'm married double.

So I'm asking that because it shows all the the

dedication of you both being together. So talking about

something difficult right now, the communication challenges,

you've obviously shown that you work through a lot together? Oh,

I think it's the hardest companionship is

marriage, because we are we are different cultures as well. And

he struggled a lot with the Turkish culture, because we are

very dramatic. As opposed to him. When you check his

heritage, he's he's, you know, Irish, Swedish. He's from the

very cold part of the world where these people don't really

talk with their eyes, you know, they don't even open their

mouth. So he really learned to talk and defend himself when he

was with me and with my family. So how I talk with him is, so he

enjoys food. So you have to be strategic. If I have something I

want from him, there's always food in that discussion. So I

always offer him food, because I know he's gonna say yes, because

I'm a good cook. But, you know, if there's nothing that I need

to worry about, you know, you can just casually ask him, he'll

say yes or no, because I go with the, you know, you always have

to go everywhere with a plan in your mind. Yeah. So that's my

plan. If it's very important, they're really good food, you

have to cook and just make you feel comfortable. He's very

relaxed. Get into the point, because you know, he's a blue,

he doesn't want you to do well around so longer on the bushes,

right? Hey, I want to, you know, do this. Let's go there. You

know, let's travel this place. I'm just making it. So usually

it goes well, but you know, I think he's a really good

communicator. I like his style. I actually learned from him more

than I am actually achieving things because shadowing him

taught me how he prepares for, you know, he prepares at least

three months if he wants something from me, he's a great

prepare, and I was going to tell you that too at work. If

something is very substantially important for me, I spent so

much time preparing because we underestimate preparation.

Preparation can actually make you wince so many discussions,

especially heat at once. There you have to get something let's

say promotion or something, you have to prepare very well. So

he's the kind of who prepares for months, because he knows me

so well. Usually I'm very tight. Write in kind of Money Matters.

I'm very, very, like the things he likes I don't like and the

things I like he doesn't like. So we always say no to each

other. Let's say he's going to buy something for his car. I

always say no. Because I'm like, why we need that? You know,

like, why? And of course, I want something for the house and he's

gonna say no to that. So we do our own preparations, but to be

fair, preparation and like making the environment

comfortable, I think are the key for our relationship to work.

We, we know each other and we show the respect and the

kindness I think that wins the relationship you always get a

good answer for that. He's not spontaneous, though. I think

that's what I'm trying to say. You cannot be spontaneous with

this person. You have to be very, give some clues. Like

you're, you give treats to a dog, you know, you just give

little little treats. Yes, just drop the crumbs. Finally go what

you want, like very slowly, strength steadily.

Right, right. Oh, I did she very good strategy. I

mean, because it's a part of Yeah, so it's not a such a

shock, right. And then and then, like you said, you're preparing

already, it's not like, you're just going to go drop a bomb on

them. So you mentally prepare, you have all using you prepare

her. And then you also set up the environment. All right, and

so that the person feels comfortable, they feel relaxed,

the more you feel relaxed, and and you've already dropped a

little bit of breadcrumbs already. So it's not such a big

deal, as most

blue people don't like change. Their heart

convince in that sense. So I learned that art way I'm I love

change changes my life. When somebody look at my astrological

chart, they were like, Ooh, you had a life. I'm like, Yeah,

bring it on. Like, the more complicated things comes to my

way. I'm like, yes, it's just I have it. Drive for like,

unknown. Yeah, my curiosity. But for some people that stress

Right, right. So of course, I stress myself a lot too. But for

my husband, I can see that like, I couldn't move him from the

house he lived Can you believe it? So many houses? I am 46.

Right now, I lived in many places, I did so many things.

Because that's what I live for yellow. Like, I can't wait to

meet different people everywhere. Because for me,

that's excitement. You know, I love that. But when you start to

work with blue, and all the I mean, I enjoy the, you know,

flavour, they bring the quality, but you have to appreciate that

they just don't want anything that different. They respect

that things go as planned, because their key word is, is am

I prepared for this? And am I going to deliver very well

quality, because they're very high quality people to which was

very, you know, joyful for me to learn. I have huge respect, like

tremely, a lot of respect, I have my key people actually,

every function that I go in as ask, and they're mostly blue.

And I'm like, I'm going to do this. What do you think like,

these are the people I would go and really depend on as well,

just to say, My husband is one of them. Like in certain things,

I really depend on him. Right? Because he's very reliable. I

think reliability brings the stability with them, they have

And I think that's where you are able to even

to have stability.

though you have different communication preferences,

whether it was through their husband or someone with your

staff, I think when you go in there with the respect, like the

high respect for even though the different perspective, you still

respect it, I think that's what helps them you both to all see

eye to eye and things like how do we find, you know,

commonality even though we because you respect each other?

And so eventually, some time or some way you will find an

answer? Yeah, yeah. That's beautiful.

I hope they feel it. Because now that we have zoom

meetings everyday, it's so hard to share your mood.

I thought it I thought that because you pause

and you said, you know, they do all you know, they don't change.

But I have high respect for their quality and no down. So

they felt that I felt that so thank

thank you, to you. It's

it is hard, but that's what's your secret to

successes. And that's how you're able to build these

relationships and build a good team. It's all a team, a

successful marriage, even with people that have different

communication preferences. It's a teamwork,

it's two. I always say that and I love Arnold

Schwarzenegger and that like this funny Austrian guy, right?

He always has huge respect for everything he achieved in his

life. And of course, he worked so hard, right? But as an

immigrant, I really take him as like my mentor. Funny enough. If

you don't have that gratitude for every single thing you do,

there were so many people helping you to get there. Same

for work. I mean, even the bus driver has something for you to

do to go to the work because he drove the bus. It's as little as

that if we if we delivered that gratitude because sometimes I

feel like some leaders just get very disconnected with your

team, where you see the results because the team gets

disconnected with the leader as well. I wanted to stay grounded

I saw from my dad from many stories I read That was my cue

word. I have a lot of gratitude. I always feel very blessed. And

I love that English word blessed because in Turkish, we have so

many words for this because I guess we've been through a lot.

So we just throw so many words in the language because we're

like, Well, you know, we're alive again. Thank God. So, you

know, the language gets richer and richer, and we were very

blessed people. So I am blessed is the exact feeling I have

every day I wake up, I'm healthy. Same in my

relationships. Same at work. I'm so blessed. I work at restaurant

Roche diagnostics, I say to everybody, and I'm blessed. I

work with very qualified very smart people, too. And sometimes

you need to remind this to the people you work because they're

just so qualified, they forget that. You're like, You guys are

the best of the best. Like, you know, there's nothing better

than you guys like you are really the best in the market.

So sometimes it's really like I said, teamwork. It's, yeah, it's

teamwork.

Yeah. Well, would you give? What tips final tips

would you give to the leaders out there who are working with

different? Yeah, different communication preferences? So if

you're the team leader, what would you give them? What team

would advice you have

to spend personal time with your team, I was very

surprised because I had a really good Swiss manager back in

Switzerland before I moved here. I have huge respect for him,

because he, he gave me a hand. And I have few leaders that I

really think they gave me so much that I can never forget

about them. He's one of them. And he spent so much time with

me because I was the first Turkish person he was managing,

but he got to know me and my culture. And he gave me this

tip, I'm just sharing is like a, you know, friendly think,

because I'm that kind of a person. So everybody knows, he's

like, when you're sailing, you said, and this is your life. Try

to get in line with the vent. Don't change the wind, because I

am such a forceful. And so in love with everything in my life,

I want to change everything around me to make it work for

me, because I was so young by them, you know, you think

everything's working for you. But for the leaders that I see

right now, especially with the new generation, and I love them,

they're kicking so much as I love I love the new generation,

there's so much, you know, you know, bed repetition for them,

but boy, I love them. So get to know your people, especially in

this period of time where everything is from a camera.

People talk too much, but they don't ask very specific

questions to their team, like, what do you like to eat? Right?

What is joy for you? Is family important for you like very

personal stuff? Because people will follow you, when you make

them seen? See them? They don't see their people? Because I

mean, I get it leaders are busy about their, you know, you know,

their milestones, but they're going to achieve, right asked me

when you see people because most people have so much trauma. And

you know, we did some work on this when I was doing the

communication thing, which I was very excited. And I learned so

much about my life. We all have I'm not good enough. We all do.

I would be very surprised if somebody said no, I don't have

it. No, we all do it. Right? If you make someone visible with

something, they know they're good enough, right? You got them

like see, or people just just show them the care, maybe they

don't have that courage to show to themselves because everybody

has some talent. Yeah. And your job as a leader, you got to make

sure you see those people. You're getting paid for that.

Sorry to save. So I think that will be my first thing because I

had many leaders so far here, I think the stress has so much in

us. And there's so many responsibility for one human,

then you would say, well, they should have I or two people. But

you know, we have just one person doing that. So that time

is skipped. But that is actually a very critical time. Because if

you buy your people, if you buy their hearts, in a gentle way,

if you if you flourish their hearts, you don't buy hearts, I

mean, that's very harsh. You flourish their hearts, you see

them, you have a team that's gonna say, hey, I want to do

that for you. That's my number one. Number two, maybe you know,

don't be unrealistic about the things you ask for people,

because sometimes leaders are usually read, right? And I had a

read leader and I said, Oh my God, I feel like I'm running a

marathon everyday, they expect so much from you, you have to

know the personalities to like, I'm not going to expect weird

things from a person who's very slow, you know, I'm going to

expect quality from that person. Right? So you got to know your

people. So I usually like to do this, you know, personality test

is I joined a new group, I would say very rare. If it's possible.

I mean, not every time it's possible, but because you cannot

immediately start spending time with them. Because let's say you

have 15 people, I mean, you're busy. So you can maybe do lunch

and stuff, but it will take some time. So sometimes time has to

be by yourself. So try to roll up personality tests, try to get

their feeling and spend time with them. And the job is easy.

I mean, these people are there to do the job obviously for a

reason they are qualified but to give the exam Mission to give

the power to the people. They need to believe in you. So be

that believable person, don't put that facade and say, Oh,

we're doing great. I mean, nobody believes you. And I have

so many leaders like that. I said, Oh my God, why do I hate

this guy? Oh my god, I just don't believe in him.

Right, right. Because then you don't know

what's real. What isn't? Oh, my goodness, that those are so

great. Those are great, fabulous tips. I think they're so true.

And I think that it especially like you said, we're all we have

so much going on. But really, they slow it down really get to

know their people help their people be seen be heard. Like

bring out their strengths and really get to know them. Like

you said, it's I think that that then they're not climbing the

mountain top on them by themselves. You have a team, you

have people with you doing it with you together, and it's so

much more fulfilling. Yeah, it does require extra communication

skills. So listen, which includes listening. Right? And

presence. Yeah. So thank you marriage. That was so good. I

really appreciate that. And I really appreciate your time. And

thank you for saying yes to being on the podcast. It's

really fun. Your energy and I'm I'm trusting that the audience

also really took a lot out of today. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Blessings to you more blessings. Yeah. Bye.

Bye bye.