At Taylor Newberry Consulting we are grateful to be able to connect to incredibly talented, passionate and dedicated individuals. We are especially fortunate that some of these individuals have chosen to call themselves “TNCers”. We are continually inspired by members of our staff who share laughs, values, and learnings. Each month our website will feature a different member of our staff who will share a little bit about their work and a glimpse into their life.
This month Karla sat down with Khalood to get to know more about her and her work. Khalood joined TNC in April as a Research Consultant, and we are thrilled to have her on the team.
Karla: What’s your favorite thing about working at TNC?
Khalood: There’s a lot of things I really appreciate about working at TNC. But the one thing that has really stood out to me in the time that I’ve been here has just been the culture and approach of the entire team and the way that we basically do things here. I really appreciate the level of flexibility that is offered in our work and understanding and cooperation and the collaboration that is present here, that on any given project usually there’s at least two people working on it together. So you get a chance to think through things together, and it gives you an opportunity to talk things out and also even revise things and not be so dogmatic in our approaches. I really appreciate that we’re always open to re-doing something if we find that it’s not working.
Karla: That’s so great to hear. And could you tell me a little bit about one or two projects that you’re currently working on and maybe something that you’ve learned from them?
Khalood: So one project that I’m working on is the RBC Future Launch Big Possibilities project with Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Canada. I am helping evaluate how the youth who took part in this program have benefited from their relationships with their mentors, and how they might feel more ready for post-secondary education and the workforce. Something I’ve learned there is that there’s an interesting dynamic at play between different sources of data. I’ve been doing a lot of quantitative data analysis and the numbers tell us one thing, but I think there’s often something deeper that can be found through conversation. In other words, discussion with participants or staff members is actually a very important and rich source of data that often complements the numbers. I’ve noticed that when we’re sitting down and talking to staff members, we’re learning new things about why the data is saying certain things and what people’s experiences with that data actually are. And I think those insights are really important for us to think about. It’s important to not just take the data at face value on what the bottom line percentage and result is, but pay attention to the entire process that people are going through to arrive at those numbers.
Karla: And I guess too, we’ve been having a lot of internal conversations at TNC about the different types of data and what we can learn from it too. It’s cool to see it, like really playing out in some of your projects. And so I know you started at TNC at the end of April, but what’s been one of your favorite memories from the time that you’ve been here.
Khalood: I think it has to be the in-person TNC day. It was such a beautiful day and we all met in the park and I got to meet people I had never met before on the team. I thought it was just pretty wholesome to have everybody together and to just share a space and learn about each other in a different sort of social setting.
Karla: Yeah. I loved that day too. I felt like I had a smile on my face the whole time. And it was nice too, because up until that point, even myself, like I hadn’t met some of the other members of the team in person because of the pandemic. It was special for sure. And then what’s something outside of work that made you smile recently?
Khalood: I went to California and I got to see seals and their babies on the Pacific coast. Yeah. That was pretty adorable. There were so many of them and they came to shore to give birth to their babies. It was so cute, I loved that.
Karla: Oh, that’s so cool! And then last question is, finish this sentence when I’m not working at TNC, I’m most likely…
Khalood: I’m most likely to be finding a new trail in my area or in the city to go into, especially in the summer, something outside that I can kind of turn to after work. I think especially working at home, I find it really important to find new places to visit and to just, you know, be by water, or be in a forest or anything like that. It just brings me a lot of comfort and peace.
Karla: Ah yeah that sounds really nice.
Thanks Khalood!