Kristeen Barth: Creating a Healthy Relationship with Work

Reinventing Nerds

Joanie has a conversation with an IT-manager-turned-coach, Kristeen Barth. Kristeen works with people and teams to challenge their current thinking, and she is committed to their growth experience. Kristeen also has a nerdy background. She has worked in IT project and product management as well as cultural integration. Her current work focuses on team culture and individual growth. Kristeen Barth believes that a healthy relationship with your work is key to a healthy life. That’s what we talk about in this episode.

Highlights:

Q: How did you become interested in technology management and what roles did you have in IT?

Kristeen holds a BS in Technology Management and MBA from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She worked in the telecom and toy industries as a business analyst, then moved into IT program management in the finance industry. It was in this role that she discovered the field of learning and development.

Q: What inspired you to transition from IT to learning & development?

Kristeen said that, working in IT, she had focused on improving systems and using Agile methodologies to improve productivity, but she found it even more rewarding to be able to focus on the people. She was interested in how people work together, why they work the way they work, and so on.

Q: How do you define a person’s relationship with work? What kinds of unhealthy work relationships have you seen, particularly in the tech fields and what does a healthy relationship with work look like?

Kristeen describes three components of a relationship with work: meaning, growth, and shared goals. The extent to which these factors are positive and balanced indicates the health of the relationship. Listen to the podcast to learn more about these factors, how they appear in tech jobs, and tips to develop healthier relationships with work.

Words of Wisdom:

If you are depleted, you won’t be fresh and ready for an urgent situation, like an outage.

Customer service can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on what is driving it.

Fear of making a mistake can lead to an unhealthy relationship with work.

A healthy work relationship is when you are standing up tall and strong and are ready to take on a challenge.

Contact Kristeen Barth for a free 30-minute coaching session:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristeenbarth/

Saboteur Assessment & Coaching Offer: https://www.kristeenbarth.com/saboteur-assessment