Getting the ‘RIGHT’ Job

Your Work Friends Podcast: Getting the Right Job with James Hudson

Jobs aren’t magic…

And, they’re not always the right fit for you. Jobs are built, banded, and budgeted—before you ever apply. In this episode, we sit down with Talent Acquisition expert James Hudson (Regeneron, Nike, Levi’s, Net-a-Porter) to break down how jobs are created, how pay gets set, and how to land the role that actually fits you. Plus, we answer your biggest job search questions—and call out some wild hiring trends you should probably skip (yes, even that one with the parents).

Listen to the full episode here

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Francesca : 0:00

The fact that you can whisper to Alexa and she whispers back is a little creepy. I'm not gonna lie, it's a little creepy.

Mel : 0:08

Sorry to have taught you that, yeah so me and my son.

Francesca : 0:12

So now it's like yes, Francesca.

Mel : 0:18

I am banned from Portland.

Francesca : 0:36

Hello and welcome to your work. Friends were to HR leaders with no filter, but we're exposing the work stuff you need to know I'm Francesca and I'm Mel and Mel, how are you today?

Mel : 0:48

I'm doing great. It is beautiful morning in Portland. It's been Fantastic to spend a few days with you here, seeing the city, planning our year, so I'm excited for 2024. How?

Francesca : 1:00

are you? Yeah, mel made the truck out from Connecticut to to semi snowy, cloudy Portland Oregon.

Mel : 1:09

I've experienced all four seasons in three days. It's great.

Francesca : 1:12

That is Portland in winter. There you are, yeah. Well, now this week we had a really fantastic interview with James Hudson, who is a talent acquisition leader. He's held executive roles at places like Nike, leave eyes for over 21 netta portet and he's a contributor to Forbes, and I think he's just an all-around rad person. We talked to him this week about Getting a job, and not only getting a job, but getting the right job. Now, what did you think about our talk with him.

Mel : 1:44

I think it's so valuable the information that people will get out of this episode, just the tips, good practices, red flags to look out for and wonderful to meet James. He's fantastic yeah.

Francesca : 1:56

So here's the deal, folks today we're going to give you the interview with James Hudson, a talent acquisition vice president and leader. You'll be able to leave that episode understanding how jobs even become a job and how do you really get the right job For you. And we also asked an answer some of the burning questions you all have, like should you negotiate your offer and is it really all who you know? He answers all of that. We'll come back after the interview with our roast and toast. So here's our interview about getting the right job with James Hudson. We are super stoked to have James Hudson with us today. James, how are you this today? How are you today? What's going on?

James : 2:42

I'm pretty good. Yeah, first of all, thank you for having me on your show. It is an honor to be here. I just got back from a long trip over the holidays to Europe and I'm back in what is supposed to be sunny California and it's rain outside my window. So whilst I'm currently working on my job Outside my window, so whilst I'm grateful to be home, the the weather, it's a little bit of pathetic fallacy, it's yeah like outside and maybe I feel a little bit bleak inside.

Francesca : 3:09

But oh, you get past that today. You got to bring the energy, james. You can't, you can't bring the bleak energy. No, it's so funny. I think I'm just north of you up here in Portland. Mel and I are sitting up in Portland today. We're getting snow, you're getting rain, we're getting snow, we're getting snow.

Mel : 3:24

It's, it's coming. I did read, though, that in 40 days, the sunshine is going to stay out until 7 pm Again, so that's moving us from the sad era yeah.

Francesca : 3:34

I think we all needed to hear that today. I think I think James needs some sunshine in his soul. So there you go. You got 40 days to go, james. 40 days. Yeah Well, friends, we're stoked to introduce James to you today. James is a talent acquisition leader and has been an executive at places like Nike, levi's, netta Porte. He's also a pre-massive contributor on Forbes and an all-around rad person. And, james, you and I Overlapped when we were at Nike.

James : 4:04

We share that very unique trauma bond it.

Francesca : 4:07

We indeed do, and if you know, you know, you know, you know. So Today what we wanted to do is give everyone a survey of how this stuff works. How do jobs even come to fruition? How do they go from a concept to like a job board? How does someone find the right job for them Not just a job, but the right job for them, especially from your perspective? And then there's a lot of burning questions that are out there, so we'll do a quick round robin at the end to see what do you think about some of these burning questions. Everybody wants answers to. How does that sound? I'm gonna do my best to answer all these questions.

James : 4:42

Yeah, there will be a test. We will be grading you and judging you at the end.

Francesca : 4:45

So there you go. I'm just so, James. How did you even come into this space as a talent acquisition leader?

James : 4:55

You know, I've been leading talent acquisition teams for a long time now, for the best part of two decades. My last team at Nike, where you and I worked together, I had a team of our hundred recruiters that the team. Before that at Levi's, I had 60 recruiters working for me. So over the course of 20 years I've worked alongside hundreds, if not thousands, of recruiters and obviously met many more peers in the industry at events. And what have you? Of all those thousands and thousands of recruiters that I met, nobody ever intended to become a recruiter, and my story is no different. I fell into the profession Like everybody else appears to have done. If there's anyone out there that in high school, wanted to be a recruiter, please come and find me. I want to talk to you. So my actually, I actually think my story is pretty interesting in that In college, first time around my undergraduate degree, I worked on the shop floor at Gap and ice Dating myself.

James : 6:03

Here in the late 90s in Europe, gap a was expanding pretty quickly and B had fairly innovative approaches to how they manage their workforce, in that they recognize that a large percentage of the folks working for them would be part-time, transient workers, college kids what have you.

James : 6:25

In the UK, unlike here in the United States, it's pretty common to go quote-unquote out of state to college. Obviously we don't call them states but people. You know, people live in one part of the country and Go to college in a completely different part of the country. Back then the cost model was completely different. Our cost model in the UK now is Getting closer to the cost model here. Well, obviously, more frequently people tend to stay in state because it can be cheaper, cheaper, yeah, anyway, you, I like many people in the UK, my undergraduate degree was far from my home and Gap had this program where during term time you could work in your college store and during vacation time you could transfer your employment to your home store, and so they had this really flexible workforce that you could be employed year round.

Francesca : 7:18

Yeah, Get that discount too. Get that discount at home. Got to be looking right in those genes 1969.

James : 7:25

Yeah, that was cool in the 90s. Yeah.

Francesca : 7:27

I know, I know, I'm so what happened to Gap? Because I'm like, I'm still like is Gap still a?

James : 7:32

thing it's going to be. The new CEO just came over from Mattel and was responsible for the Barbie resurgence, so I'm excited.

Francesca : 7:42

I'm pulling for Gap. I'm pulling for Gap Gap banana. I'm athletic. Well, maybe I'm pulling for him all.

James : 7:47

Yeah, san Francisco hometown. Then in my last year of college I ended up moving to the team that hired the staff for all the new stores. So that was my first taste of interviewing and of hiring at scale, and I really enjoyed it, even though I was like 19 years old.

Francesca : 8:04

Making those decisions. I love it. What did you major?

James : 8:06

in.

Francesca : 8:06

Did you even major in HR, or are we Were you like mechanical engineering, my undergraduate?

James : 8:10

degree was art history. Nice, I didn't go back to business school eventually and get a proper degree in something sensible, but yeah, my undergraduate degree at art school was art history Not very useful at all. So, yeah, that was my first taste of hiring. Then, like very many British people, I took a year out after college and went traveling, and I actually stayed away for a year and a half. I spent six months in Southeast Asia and a year in Australia, and then when I got back to London a year and a half later, I had no money at all because I'd basically been on vacation for a year and a half and I have no idea what I wanted to do. And somebody said why don't you go work in recruiting? Because you've done that before and you'll make a ton of money. And I was like, oh OK, that sounds good. And so I interviewed with lots of different search firms in London, without really even knowing what executive search was, and landed a job with a search firm that operated in the sort of retail, head office, corporate retail jobs space, and so that was my first taste of professional recruiting. I did that for three years and what I learned was I loved the people side of search, but I didn't enjoy the cold calling and business development and sales that comes with agency recruiting, and so I knew that I wanted to make the transition to an in-house role so that I could keep the people side but lose the sales and business development element.

James : 9:37

I had just bought a house in London and one of my clients was at the time. This tiny little website had fewer than 200 employees, less than $40 million in revenue, but I just totally believed in what they were doing. Natalie, the founder, was just so visionary. Naomi, the head of HR, who I'd been working with as a vendor, I just adored her, and every week they would send out a list of all the open vacancies that they had and ask us and their other search partners which we could fill. And one week the list came through and they wanted their first in-house recruiter on a six month contract, and I knew that was it, and so I took a 50% pay cut and left a full-time job, even though I had a mortgage to pay, because I just really believed in what Netaporte were doing.

James : 10:30

And still, 20 years later, it's the best career decision I ever made, because when I joined it was this tiny, tiny company and I was just super fortunate to be right place, right time and to be able to grow with the organization for the best part of the near decade that I was there. We had triple digit year-over-year growth, so complete hypergrowth. We opened offices in New York, in Hong Kong, in Shanghai. We opened distribution centers around the world.

James : 11:02

I got to build out the internal recruiting function. In my first year there I hired 150 people on my own. By the time I left, nearly a decade later, we were hiring thousands of people every year and I established recruiting teams around the world. They sent me to business school and it was just the most amazing experience because I was having practical, real-world examples of everything that I was learning in school, because the business was growing so fast. We went through three rounds of M&A so I got to see both sides of the corporate transaction and I think everything that happened during that first decade then enabled me to make the transition to much larger scale quote-unquote corporate America where I've been ever since Right now.

James : 11:48

I'm resting, but yeah, well-deserved rest.

Francesca : 11:52

Well-deserved rest too. It's interesting, too, when you know you're running towards something right, even though it means a 50% pay cut, even though it means a smaller footprint, but then it turns into something exponential right, and it turns into something that sounds like it just married your gap experience, your agency experience, just from a global perspective too. Even that art history, I'm sure, came into play somewhere. Somehow. Design is design. And then you've gone on to things like Levi's, nike, et cetera too, and just kept on growing your career. It sounds like.

James : 12:28

Yeah, exactly, If Nettaporte hadn't grown so quickly, I don't think I'd have been able to make the transition from dot com to corporate America, just because of the scale and complexity.

James : 12:41

But by the time I left Nettaporte I had teams that I directly managed in Shanghai, Hong Kong, a very large team in London, I had a technical recruiting team in London and then a non-technical SGNA team in London and then another large team in New York.

James : 12:57

So because I'd already been able to have the global experience, the cross-border experience, multi-lingual recruiting experience, that then enabled me for my first big job, which was Levi's in Europe. So I moved to Levi's, moved me to Brussels, and so for two years I was crisscrossing Europe rolling out the workday technology and re-establishing the recruiting function in the region, and then from that job I was promoted to the head of recruiting role in California. So that brought me to San Francisco eight years ago now. And then my most recent job was head of talent acquisition for Nike's director consumer businesses worldwide. So, as you know, Nike's roughly $50 billion in revenue or it was maybe not this year and the director consumer piece was roughly half of that. And so my team worldwide hired 40,000 people a year for all of the satellite offices and stores around the world.

Francesca : 14:01

Yeah, this is the thing and one of the reasons why we wanted to talk to you today, because I think most people that don't sit in HR or sit in talent acquisition, I don't think most people understand how big and complex recruiting organizations, internally at companies, are. So if you're in a fortune, if you're trying to get a job at a Fortune 500, 1,000, 5,000 firm, you're going to be dealing with a very large team of people that are incredibly skilled at trying to find the best person for the role Sometimes, yeah.

Francesca : 14:34

Listen, there are some real dipshits out there. That's actually true in every single team and everybody knows that. But there are systematic tools, processes, procedures in order to find the right person for the role and, a lot of times, some great people and sometimes some dipshits. So one of the things that we wanted to jam with you about, james, was to kind of educate people on how does something go from a concept like we need somebody in this role to a job posting. I'm wondering if you can open the hood for us and just share. How does a job become a job? Almost like how does a bill become a bill. How does a job become a job?

James : 15:11

It's a great place to start, thank you, thank you. It's one of those areas where there's a ton of myth and misunderstanding. Quit. Let me caveat this by saying everything I'm going to say is from the perspective of large scale organizations, fortune 500 size companies and obviously in smaller organizations you know 100 people organizations everything is a bit looser.

James : 15:42

But the second that you get to any kind of scale, there is a huge amount of rigor and guardrails in how the business is run, and especially once that, because that business becomes publicly traded, there are rules and laws around what you can and cannot do, and that bleeds into every part of the enterprise and obviously HR is no different than any other part of the enterprise. There are rules, regulations and, in many cases, laws around what we can and cannot do. So caveat number one In any large organization there is a strategy which is, you know, often a three to five year plan, and there is an annual operating plan or budget, which is the shorter term, you know, six to 12 month horizon plan, and everything is captured in that plan. For most organizations, irrespective of industry, for most organizations the number one overhead is people. Yes, labor.

James : 16:48

The wage bill is the biggest expenditure and therefore subject to the largest amount of scrutiny. Organizations have a very clear idea at every point. So over the next 90 days, over the next 180 days, over the next year and over the next five years, what their wage bill is going to be. This is all a very long way of saying. Jobs are planned way in advance and as recruiting teams, we play a role in how those roles are brought to market. But we do not create those roles, we do not decide those roles. They're decided by at the highest level of the organization, then with the leadership teams within each function, with their finance teams way in advance, so that the biggest expense of the organization can be controlled and measured.

James : 17:49

In any normal established organization, 80% of jobs that are hired are going to be backfill or replacement for people that have left and roughly 20% are going to be net new headcount growth.

James : 18:03

That has been decided as part of the budget and strategy strategy process to decide we're going to grow this discipline or in this market or in this geography and therefore we need to add x amount of headcount so that 20% of headcount is pretty fixed because we've decided we need x amount of people in Germany or India or in data science, for example.

James : 18:28

The 80% is a little bit more ambiguous because obviously we don't know in advance who is actually going to leave, who's going to get another job, who's going to get promoted, what have you? But we know that in any given year, 20% of your workforce will leave one way or another, so you know that you're going to have to backfill 20% of people. So if your organization is 10,000 people, you know that in any given year you're going to have 2,000 vacancies to fill. You don't know exactly where they're going to be, but you can broadly assume, based on the size of the individual functions within your organization, we'll have 200 to fill in finance, we'll have 150 to fill in marketing, and so that's kind of at the highest level. What's going on with like how headcount is created and how roles come and go and exist within an organization?

Francesca : 19:21

Yeah, I think that's important, though, to know, because I just even know that most organizations are looking at like a 20% of the open jobs they have every year net new right we decide we're going to start making paper clips right Now we need paper clip makers, and we've historically been paper makers, for example. I think that's really important to know, especially because when people one of the questions we get a lot is especially around layoffs, for example, like how can people have open jobs and lay people off at the same time, and a lot of sometimes that's because a skill gap right, Because people we still need to hire the paper clip makers and we had to lay off the paper makers, if you will. So I think it's just helpful to have that context of how these things come into bear annually.

James : 20:05

Yeah, totally so. Then let's get into how the business is operating day by day.

Francesca : 20:11

Yeah.

James : 20:12

I'm running a team in finance and I know that for this quarter ahead I've got two net new headcount that have been assigned to my team that I can hire in this quarter. I can't hire them any sooner because the cost of that headcount is phased into the overall operating plan and if I'm the leader of that team and I want to hire those roles early, I can't just open them. I would have to get approval from either the leader of the function or maybe even up, depending on the size of the organization, maybe even up to C level. That's how tightly controlled costs are in most organizations. So even though the headcount exists, the headcount exists from a point in time, from a point in the budget, and if you can't even bring it forward because that would be adding more costs that wasn't planned for. So I think that's an important caveat that new headcount is phased and is hired when it's supposed to be hired Then if somebody resigns from the team and again, depending on the organization, it isn't even an automatic one-for-one approval that we could replace the finance manager that resigned.

James : 21:24

You often still have to go through an approvals process to get that role opened and the leader of your function may decide to reassign that headcount elsewhere and you might not get to backfill that role. But only after all that has happened does the role get passed to the recruiting team. The recruiting team just executes on a plan that has already been set. We're not responsible for creating headcount, for gatekeeping headcount, for deciding on which roles get filled. That is all done at the leadership and at the HR business partnering level.

Francesca : 21:58

Yeah, I think it's really important for people to know too, because a lot of times, when people interview for jobs, there's a difference between the hiring manager, the person that is going to be your boss, right and there's a and your recruiter. And this is why it's because the person that is going to be leading you is not the person that's going to necessarily be finding you and taking you through the acquisition process. Those are two separate people 100%.

Francesca : 22:21

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, the other thing I'm curious about is do you find that in most organizations like, for example, when I've been leading teams before I had $2 million for payroll, that was my payroll budget and I could decide how those roles and that pay was distributed among roles? Do you find, too, that when you have a job rec open that you're given a dollar amount? Like so, for example, you've got a job role open and this role cannot exceed $100,000 a year, $200,000 a year Are you typically also given a dollar amount too when the job rec opens? Just out of curiosity.

James : 22:59

So there's a few different things at play here. As the leader of the organization, it can happen in a few different ways. You can be given a total number $2 million and therefore you can hire 20 people $100,000, or you can hire two people at $1 million each. Yeah, in some organizations you're given both size and shape. You're given $2 million is your headcount budget, but you can only hire one leader, three managers and 10 associates, and so then that $2 million is already portioned out for you.

James : 23:37

Irrespective of how that happens to you as the leader of the organization, when you decide how your headcount budget is going to be spent for net new hires, those roles then need to be graded and leveled, because and again this is in larger organizations there are set bands and steps in the compensation framework and all roles are anchored to those bands and steps, and in a large organization there can there's typically 16 different steps in the pay hierarchy, so the bands run horizontally and then across the bands running vertically are job families, and so a level one role in finance will have a salary range and a level one role in marketing will have a salary range, and whilst they will be similar, they will not necessarily be identical because the ranges are anchored back to the organizational compensation philosophy, which is either tethered to the cost of living or the cost of labor in the market where the organization is either operating or hiring talent.

James : 24:54

So there's a huge amount of complexity in the background as to how roles are graded and priced and so as a recruiter, when you're given a live role, you know exactly where it sits in the organizational hierarchy it's a level five. It's a level five role in finance. So you know the salary band for that role. Roles are typically pegged at the midpoint of the range, so $125,000. So as a hiring manager, you will be told okay, you've got a level five role and it needs to come in at $125,000. But then your HR business partner might say well, actually the rest of your team is pretty legacy.

James : 25:47

And therefore their salary level are all around the sort of $115, $120,000. So you can't even go to midpoint. You can only go to 90% comp ratio for this hire to maintain internal equity. And so as a recruiter, when you get the live role, you get a lot of pieces of information about where this job has to land, whereas recruiters do not decide. We have to execute against what the budget is based on. All of those factors I've described.

Francesca : 26:20

Going back to what you started, this conversation with. This is so complex. It can get incredibly complex in terms of the amount of people in the room making the decisions from top to bottom. All the variables that we need to consider, even from bands that are well established to things like pay equity on a team to make sure that things are equitable and that you're also competitive right in the marketplace from a talent perspective. It's just really good to know, because if you've never been in HR or in talent acquisition or a hiring manager, most people don't know this and would be like well, I just want to make a million dollars a year, can you do that? It's like no, you're a level five in finance and this is the midpoint, and that's why Also good to know that there's just things like bands and pay equity as well, just to understand the lay of the land. I know, mel, you wanted to talk about finding a job, and not only finding a job, but finding the right job for you.

Mel : 27:16

Yeah, I really love earlier how we talked about your story, james, that you ran towards something that had a fire in you, and we want everyone to feel that way right, so want to make sure folks are finding the right job, not just landing a job, and would love your tips and tricks on that.

James : 27:32

A great question and it's, I think, very timely, in that we're living in an information age where we have far more transparency in all areas of our lives than we did even a decade ago, but there is still a degree of opacity around what it's like inside organizations. But yeah, we're also living in a time when we have five different generations in the workforce in some organizations, and the expectations of Gen Z are wildly different from even millennials, and I just think it's really interesting how these expectations and demands of the newer workforces are changing the work landscape and hopefully for the better, because what we have has not worked for so many different parts of society. Right, it's very clear that how we've run things up to now has not been great.

Francesca : 28:42

Yeah, it kind of sucked. I think this is the thing that a lot of people don't think about.

Francesca : 28:47

I was telling Mel this the other day when I first started working. So I'm 44, right when I first started working, my first job was at Accenture and I got a desktop and I remember I loved my time at Accenture. It's not an Accenture, but I remember being in the office and working until 10 o'clock at night and there was not a question of whether or not I was going to work. This is what was expected. You earn your stripes, you labor so you can get to that partner level. That was what was expected and I love the idea. We've been talking a lot on the pot around. Do we have to live like this? Do we need a dream of labor? And I feel like your Gen Z is coming in and being like guys. This blows what are we doing?

Mel : 29:26

Yeah, my favorite tic-tac recently was a young woman who just started her first full-time job and I really had empathy for her because she was like is this, it Is this life? I work, and then I have no time for my friends or any of my hobbies. I work, I come home, I go to the gym, I cook dinner, I go to sleep and it's like Groundhog's Day and she was having somewhat of a panic attack about it. Right, and she made a good point. Francesca, you and I have the same kind of history there. I also had a desktop in my first job in big law, working until 10, and then you get home and you're like just recycled. But we were always told this is what's expected. I really love that.

Mel : 30:06

Gen Z is bringing a different perspective and millennials started it a little bit. I like to see that Gen Z is really kind of demanding more transparency in the workplace, including recent laws around salary transparency, even in job descriptions. I think now it's more important than ever. How can people find the right fit? So one of the things that's an interesting topic to me is the legitimacy about what the culture is like, what you're going to experience in the workplace. How can people find that information out? So if a candidate's going out and they're researching different companies for the job that they're looking for, how do they know that that company is legit about what they're putting out there and it's not just kind of word, lip service, on their website?

James : 30:54

And what's great about? I mean, there are a lot of negatives to living in the information economy, but what's great about the information economy is that it was so much more networked than we ever were before. So my number one tip is obviously start by trying to connect with people on LinkedIn that work at the company or companies where you're hoping to work, and obviously try and connect with a cross section of folks, so people within your discipline. So if you're a marketing, obviously focus on the marketing team. But also, what's great about LinkedIn is LinkedIn will help you find the people that are most active on the platform. So go where it's warm, right? So if you want to work at Nike and actually the people at Nike that are most active on LinkedIn are in supply chain well, start there, right, because they still work at the organization. So target folks at the places that you want to work and start to make connections with them on LinkedIn, and then the more time that you spend with them virtually will hopefully lead to at least a coffee chat where you can ask them what it's really like. Tip number one yeah. Tip number two Glassdoor is a great resource.

James : 32:09

If you take it to the next level, glassdoor is like Yelp, right Right. It's polarized, in that you've got a lot of positive and a lot of negative, because those are the people that are mostly motivated to say something. So you have to be a little bit discerning when you're reading reviews on Glassdoor. Still will tell you that the average user reads six comments before they form an opinion. I would say, okay, read 30. Do you know what I mean? Like this is somewhere you're going to be spending 40 hours a week for the next two, three, five years. Like read as much as you can to get more of a sense of are these just angry people or is this a theme that may or may not be concerning to me? And then where it gets really interesting is last year Glassdoor launched really powerful new functionality, which hasn't had much airtime and I really wish more people knew about it, in that they allow you to slice the data by demographic and so on Glassdoor. Right now, you can see the average company rating for the employees that work there and it's out of five and they might have a 3.5 or a 4.0.

James : 33:30

And then what you can do is slice it by demographic and say well, what do women think? What do LGBTQ people think, what do people of color think and what's really? And I encourage everyone to go and try this. What's obviously really disappointing is that for virtually every company out there the underrepresented folks, their scores are always lower In every organization, even your dream organizations. Women, people of color, lgbtq folk consistently have a worse time than the general population. That sucks, but that's the society that we live in. What I encourage folks to do is look at the Delta. If you accept, rightly or wrongly, that it's always going to be lower for those of us that are not straight white men, look at the Delta and where the number is, particularly where the gap is particularly big. That might indicate not might it does indicate that that organizational culture is not somewhere that you would thrive, irrespective of how you identify. Do you want to work in a place where women, lgbtq folk and people of color consistently have a worse experience?

Francesca : 34:45

No, the answer is no, absolutely not. Don't go there. Yeah, exactly.

Mel : 34:52

Oh, I love that feature because I think it's incredibly important to gain that perspective, especially as a woman. If you're LGBTQ, if you're a person of color, being able to see what that experience is like it gives you that inside look into the culture.

James : 35:09

There's no smoke without fire, right? If there are consistently people saying really terrible things about the place that you want to work, there may be some truth in that. And then my last tip is if you get as far as an interview at your quote unquote dream organization, again, irrespective of how you personally identify, ask if the organization has ERGs employee resource groups and then ask as part of your interview process if you can meet with someone from that group either a group that you identify with or a group that you're an ally to and if they don't have ERGs, red flag number one. And if they have ERGs but won't let you speak to anybody, red flag number two. It tells you that something shady is going on and you don't want to work there.

Mel : 35:58

What other red flags should people look out for in the job description interview process? What are some things that stand out to you that folks can pay attention to?

James : 36:08

There's a ton of click-batey articles about these red flags in job descriptions, and I'm super wary of that because, again, coming from having worked in a side corporate America for a long time, I know that job descriptions can often be literally 10 years old and have been no relation whatsoever on what it's actually A what the job is or, b what it's like to work there, and so, yeah, you never know who wrote the job description or how old it is. So I don't know that there's anything super valuable that you can get from that. It's more what you can pick up on by people that are currently working there either what they're saying on review sites, what you're able to glean from them by networking on LinkedIn, or what you're able to discover during the interview process. I think that's your best barometer.

Mel : 37:05

That leads me to my next question. Around the interview process, you're in the interview, especially since a job description, as you said, it can be old. Sometimes they don't get updated for years, as you mentioned. So what are some questions candidates should ask in every interview to make sure that they understand what their duties will be? What does their day-to-day look like? What does the team look like? What are some things that they should ask, no matter what, just to get a very clear picture of the truth, of what their experience will be like in that position.

James : 37:38

Yeah, and before I even get into specific questions, I think it's about remembering and framing it in your mind that the interview is a two-way street.

James : 37:52

You're interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you and what is scary. But what you have to get really good at is that when you come out of an interview and you think, oh hell, no, then you have to hold on to that. You have to be like no, trust it. Yeah, I have decided no, because, especially in a market like this, where it's so easy to fall into a scarcity mindset, we come out of an interview thinking that, ooh, I've got a bad feeling and then we talk ourselves into it because we need to get a job. Trust your instincts. If you get a bad feeling, there is a reason for that.

Mel : 38:30

Trust your gut. I've had that feeling before. Have you ever walked away from an interview process after an interview and just said no and sent them a note about it?

James : 38:41

I have done the opposite of that. I've done what I've told people not to do, in that, if you look at my career history, you'll see that I'm a tenure guy. I tend to stay around in places for a long time and wherever it's been a short tenure, it's because and there's only two of them it's because I found out too late that my personal values did not align to the values of the organization. And I had a very brief stint at Forever 21, which, since I left it, went bankrupt and is now owned by a VC firm. So I feel comfortable saying this. But when I went to interview at the HQ in Los Angeles, there were Bibles in the meeting room and I was like this is weird, like religion does not belong in the workplace.

Mel : 39:41

Absolutely not. That's strange, that's very strange.

James : 39:45

Yeah, and it's because the family that owned at the time were very strong believers in their faith, which is great. But that does not belong at work and obviously I ignored that giant red flag and was one of the more toxic environments I'd worked in because they were trying to mix their personal views with corporate America and those two things I will tell you.

Francesca : 40:10

That has been absolutely true for me too, like I've had two jobs that I knew in the interview process no bueno and they ended up being no bueno, and it's almost like dating. You know you date somebody and like week two you know week two like the thing that's going to end it. It's like food poisoning as well. Right, you can eat a whole day's worth of stuff, but you knew it was the fish. You know that's the same shit. It's the same shit. Love the advice. Don't do it.

Mel : 40:39

Just say no, just say no.

James : 40:41

Trust your instincts.

Mel : 40:42

I recently read that there's a proposal to pay people for their time in the interview process to avoid this type of thing. What do you think about that?

James : 40:58

I really strongly believe that if you are going to be setting folks any kind of take homework or any kind of lengthy assessment, you should pay them for their time.

James : 41:14

You certainly shouldn't be requiring people to give you their IP for free, right? However, having worked on the other side of the desk in corporate America, trying to bring any of that to life would be such a nightmare, both in America and in Europe, where we have different sets of rules and regulations. Like you're essentially trying to either payroll someone that's not already on the payroll or create, make a new vendor for someone that's not a vendor, and for anyone that's worked in corporate America, you know that doing either of those things is an administrative nightmare. So trying to get to a place where that happens at scale, I just don't see it happening anytime soon, because you know how are you going to pay hundreds or you know, in my case, hundreds of thousands of people that are going through an interview process, and not just the money, how are you going to fund it, which is question one. But even assuming there is a budget for it, how are you actually going to physically pay these people, right? Just, it's not going to happen.

Mel : 42:25

Yeah, that's complicated it can be. It's its own whole department just managing that alone.

James : 42:29

How are you going to ensure that they pay their tax so that they've identified you from their tax, are they?

Mel : 42:33

1099?.

Francesca : 42:36

Yeah, I feel like everybody's getting target gift cards Be happy.

James : 42:40

Even that's questionable right.

Francesca : 42:42

Yeah, there are rules.

James : 42:43

Yeah, yeah, like.

Francesca : 42:45

Oh yeah, you can't go over.

Mel : 42:46

Yeah, there's a lot of complication. It's interesting. I've heard that tossed around a few times now. It's an interesting concept.

James : 42:55

Nice idea. I just don't see it being executed at scale.

Mel : 42:58

Yeah, yeah. In terms of the inner how many interviews? How many is too many? What's what's a red flag a candidate should look out for In terms of you know, now you're on your 15th interview for this role. Is there a magic number or a place where you're like, if you're getting to this many interviews, you should probably hit pause? That should give you that's a red flag that you should look out for.

James : 43:26

I love this question because there is a clear, unequivocal answer which I wish more people knew. Over the course of three or four years, Google did a huge longitudinal study where they looked at tens of thousands of hires and hundreds of thousands of data points, and they were able to conclusively prove that the magic number for interviews is four, Because after four the quality of the decision making process does not improve enough to justify the initial, the further investment of time. The sweet spot for high quality decision making is for interviews, and so any forward thinking and well run TA function knows that because they've all read Laszlo Box book work rules. If you haven't read work rules, I encourage you to go out and read it. It's phenomenal, not just for hiring but just for how Google think about or thought about people back when Laszlo was running HR. So four is the magic number. Most places in corporate America, probably for senior level roles, probably still around six. Anything beyond that is just a joke.

Mel : 44:55

It's a waste. Yeah, it's a time waste. Well, we'll link to that recommendation in the show notes because that's a great recommendation for folks. So we'll do that. For job seekers, I read your post today on LinkedIn about the post pandemic job market, so I'd love to give space to talk about what job seekers should know about this post pandemic job market and finding success and finding the role that's right for them. What advice would you give?

James : 45:21

Sure, I think what's really interesting that's happening right now is a perfect storm that is exacerbating conditions that have been prevailing for a while. What I mean by that is, in the talent marketplace there has always been a signal to noise issue in that a decade ago, a job posting or job ad might receive 100 applications and in every part of the enterprise in every geography that I've worked in, the numbers are always the same. In aggregate, of those 100 applications, roughly 25 of them will meet the minimum criteria for the job and 75 are just not qualified at all. And part of the recruiters job is to separate the signal from the noise right to find amongst those 100 applications the 25 that qualified, to speak to those 25 people and decide of those 25 who were the six or seven that most closely match the brief from the hiring manager and take those into the process At the highest level. That's, you know, a big chunk of the recruiters job for dealing with inbound applications.

James : 46:42

And then we'll move on to today, where we are living in the after effects of the massive structural changes to work and labor that the pandemic created, the macroeconomic tsunami that we've all been through and the significant strides forward in consumer facing tech, which, to be clear, all good things. As a job seeker today, as an applicant, today, you have so many powerful tools that enable you to turbo charge your application process, which is fantastic. What that means, though, is that a because of the macroeconomic situation, be because more people have had a taste for remote or hybrid work and want to pursue that, see, because we've got so much more visibility in the age of information. And D because of the powerful tools that are now in the hands of everyday job seekers, application volume has gone up 10 or 100 X. So a job oh yeah, you could get 100 applications could now get 1000 or 5000. And those ratios are still the same. Of those 1000 applicants, still only 250 people are going to be qualified in 750 and not, but a recruiter cannot speak to all 250.

James : 48:02

No way, and so it's the signal to noise issue has just gotten so much worse. And, yes, you can send out more applications and send out more curated applications and send out better applications, but your chances of the application being seen by the right person have diminished exponentially.

Mel : 48:21

And so, what can they do?

James : 48:23

to navigate.

Mel : 48:24

What? What can candidates do to kind of cut through the noise, especially if they feel you know pretty strongly that they they fit the profile. How can they cut through that noise? I see on LinkedIn all the time you see how many folks have applied for the job, which can be super intimidating. So how can you kind of put yourself ahead of the pack if you're qualified?

James : 48:47

So there's a few things. That number that you see yeah, it's not the number of applicants. The number that you see is the number of people that have hit apply, oh OK, which is different from the number of applicants that are inside the ATS.

James : 49:03

That's misleading yeah well, it's not misleading. Okay, that's the data that LinkedIn have which is valid. That's a number of people that did click apply, but I can tell you from sitting on the other side of the desk that the attrition from apply to applicant is massive. Okay, in that, in a volume environment, so you know companies that are hiring 10,000 people a year or more the average pull through is 16% and in one place I worked that may be a place that someone else on this the pull through was 1%. Oh, wow. So for every 100 people that click apply, only one applicant made it into the ATS, into the applicant tracking system, because the application journey was so cumbersome that 99 out of 100 people gave up. In most places, it's 16 out of every 100 that will come through.

Mel : 50:07

So you do not be intimidated by that number. If it's a high number, that's good to know.

James : 50:11

Do not be intimidated, because most people won't complete the application.

James : 50:14

Okay, and of all the people that do complete the application, only 25% of them are going to be qualified, but, that being said, it can still be hundreds or thousands of people that do all of that Right. So there is still a signal to noise issue. It's just not as bad as it appears on the surface to the everyday user, but I see both sides and it is worse than it was before, and recruiters have this deluge of applications to deal with. So just submitting your application is no longer enough, because if you just submit an application, it might never get seen. So you also need to try to figure out who is the recruiter at the company and get in touch with them, and who is the hiring manager and getting in touch with them, and ideally get a referral from somebody that already works there, because candidates that are referred by existing employees often go into a fast track processing lane and your application is more likely to be seen Not guaranteed to be seen, just more likely to be seen. So you have to go the extra mile.

Mel : 51:25

Yeah, at a minimum if you have a referral. Typically my experience in the past is when I worked in TA2, if it was a referral coming in, at a minimum we had at least a one-on-one screening interview with someone from talent acquisition to meet with that candidate, just as a bare minimum.

James : 51:41

In larger organizations? Sure, in smaller organizations maybe not.

Francesca : 51:46

And you can use LinkedIn to do all of this. You can be using LinkedIn to figure out who the recruiter is, figure out who the hiring manager is, send them an email. Linkedin is a great product, but LinkedIn is your place. Where you'd want to do this, yeah, 100%.

Mel : 52:00

What if the recruiter is not listed on the job rec on LinkedIn? What's a good way to identify who the recruiter may be or to get in touch? What can people do?

James : 52:11

Yeah, and by searching LinkedIn right for recruiters at Nike, for recruiters at Apple and, bear in mind, at large companies, there will be hundreds of recruiters.

James : 52:24

And so then you need to figure out, okay, and recruiters are normally obviously very active on LinkedIn.

James : 52:32

So once you find people that you think are going to be in the right area, then you need to figure out okay, this person's a recruiter at Apple, but do they recruit product managers or do they recruit marketing folks?

James : 52:44

You need to figure out what their area is, and you can usually see that by what they say on their profile, all the types of things that they post, and the closest you're going to be able to get as a normal user is figuring out the recruiter at the company in the broad job family that you're targeting, and then reach out to that recruiter and say, hey, I've applied for this role, and give them the unique reference number or whatever you get from the applicant tracking system, explain in three very short bullet points why you've applied, why you're a fit, and ask them to connect you with the right recruiter.

James : 53:16

If they're not, obviously, just make their lives easier. Now you might still not get a response, but you will stand more chance of getting a response. If you work in supply chain and you reach out to a supply chain recruiter, they're more likely to respond because they'll be able to see that you're qualified for the job that you've applied for. And if you're consistently doing this and consistently not hearing, then maybe it's time to ask yourself are you being honest with yourself and the types of roles that you're applying for?

Mel : 53:46

Yeah, that's great advice. Just don't keep repeating the same thing if you're starting to see a trend for yourself.

Francesca : 53:56

There's a lot of just burning questions around getting a job and telling the acquisition, and so I thought let's do a rapid round with you. You can answer yes, no or a one word answer. Are you ready to play?

James : 54:09

Yes, I'm going to really struggle with one more answer, but I'm going to try.

Francesca : 54:12

Okay, I believe in you. I believe in you. So, rapid round with James about getting a job. James, is it all who you know?

James : 54:22

No.

Francesca : 54:24

Should you put the green banner on in LinkedIn if you want to get a job?

James : 54:28

100%, and let me talk about that later.

Francesca : 54:30

Okay, should you do a cover letter? Do cover letters matter anymore? No, should you customize your resume for each role?

James : 54:38

No.

Francesca : 54:38

Thank you notes Do we write them or not?

James : 54:40

Yes.

Francesca : 54:42

Should you negotiate your offer?

James : 54:43

Yes.

Francesca : 54:46

Should the interview process last no longer than 60 days.

James : 54:51

Depends.

Francesca : 54:52

Should you quit your old job before starting your new job?

James : 54:56

Ideally not All right.

Francesca : 54:59

I want to go back to. Should you put the green banner on if you're looking at LinkedIn, the open to work banner? This is such a hot topic. Thoughts.

James : 55:09

There has been so much clickbait around this and it infuriates me.

James : 55:13

I actually wrote a piece and included quotes from the LinkedIn product managers that built the feature. Let me say unequivocally there are, in fact, two features. There is the open to work functionality, which most people don't know about, and then there is the open to work green banner, and they do slightly different things and, as a job seeker, you may want to do one or both of them. So, first of all, there's the open to work toggle, which, in your settings, you can indicate two recruiters that you are open to work, and you can also detail where you're open to work so both in your hometown or if you're open to relocation and the types of work full-time, contract and job titles that will be of interest to you. If you click that toggle, it is only visible to recruiters, and what all of the data from LinkedIn shows is that folks that do that typically see an uptick of 40% of in-mails from recruiters. That's huge, that's significant. There is no reason, if you're looking for work, why you shouldn't do that.

Francesca : 56:31

Even if you're curious, like, even if you're curious, you're like I don't know if I want to see at this gig, just put it on.

Mel : 56:35

Yeah, Put it on all the time, potentially just to have conversations.

James : 56:39

Yeah, why not Right? And LinkedIn say but do not guarantee that it's not visible to recruiters at your own company.

Mel : 56:50

That's good to know it's only visible to recruit.

James : 56:52

They can't guarantee 100% accuracy. And so what? Even if a recruiter does see that you're open to work like it's not, unless you work somewhere that's really evil, it's not going to come back on you.

Mel : 57:02

Yeah, good work environment. I mean, as a leader, I think everyone should always have their ear to the ground, right? Never know when your dream job might happen. So good work cultures, I think, encourage folks to always keep their ear. You hate to lose good talent, but you also shouldn't deter anyone from having those conversations if you're in a good workplace 100%.

James : 57:24

So that's the open to work feature.

James : 57:25

You should absolutely use that.

James : 57:26

The Green Banner, which has obviously had tons of click baity articles and what's really annoying is that most of the people that have an opinion about it have never worked in HR or recruiting and have no business talking about this Again.

James : 57:39

What the data from LinkedIn shows is that system wide, folks using the Green Banner get 20% more in-mails from the entire LinkedIn user base, so not just from recruiters, but from folks across LinkedIn, and for most users that is going to be a good thing because, even though the in-mail is not coming from a recruiter, the more connections you can make and the more you can bring in broad in your digital footprint and it might be from the hiring manager, it might be from someone that works with the hiring manager that knows that that person is looking for the type of employee that you are. It is a good thing to get more inbound outreach across LinkedIn, especially if we go back to what I said before about the signal to noise issue. If you can be more discoverable to either recruiters or people that can influence the hiring decision, that is a very good thing. So you should unequivocally, in my view, use one or both if you are looking for work.

Mel : 58:42

That's good advice. We'll link to your post on that because I, like you, I hate the clickbait around it or the shaming that, like the weird shaming that was going on around it. It's like don't listen to the noise Do your thing.

James : 58:54

The former Google recruiter who now runs a small business in Salt Lake. I wish we could just say for what it is he runs a small business in Salt Lake. Good for him. He's not the king of recruiting. Right Opinions are not valid Right, right.

Francesca : 59:10

Well, they can be really harmful too, because I think the thing is, I feel like we're going to see more and more upticks on layoffs. Quite honestly, it's just going to be more. There's a running thought right now, quite honestly, around you're one quarter away, potentially, from getting laid off. That's literally how business is operating right now. People will be looking for work more and more. I feel like we're going to be flipping more and more into gig-type work or trading jobs more and more. We have to get used to this conversation that people are going to be open to work and then working, open to work and then working. There's no room for shame in this discussion. It's a marketplace. At this point, 100%.

James : 59:51

Yeah, I'd go back to what I said earlier that, yes, we are increasingly in a world where careers are not for life of course they're not and increasingly moving to an environment where people have side hustles and portfolio careers, and that is all a great thing. But ideally, when you move to your next job, you're hopefully going to be there for two or three years right, maybe four, maybe five, if you're going to be spending the next three years 40 hours a week somewhere. Invest some time in doing your research, doing all your due diligence. Think about how much time you spend researching your vacation or maybe that's just me, but what is the hotel like? All of that stuff? You spend hours and hours, yet people spend no time at all on researching the place that they're going to spend all of this time. Do your due diligence. Reach out to folks at the company, ask to speak to people in the ERGs, read the review sites, make an informed decision and don't be afraid to walk away.

Francesca : 1:00:59

I love that. Sage advice, sage advice. James, thank you so much for joining us today. It has been a pleasure. We'd love to have you back to talk about more subjects around acquisition and talent acquisition, but thanks so much for your time.

James : 1:01:11

Thanks, you're welcome. Thanks for having me, yeah.

Francesca : 1:01:16

So now it's time for our segment called Roast and Toast, where we roast some companies or individuals that need some light roasting and some that need some great toasting because they're doing it and doing it so well. And we're going to start with the toast. Who are we toasting this week?

Mel : 1:01:33

I have two toasts One for candidates, candidates that ask the tough questions and do their homework during the interview process. So toast to you Organizations who streamline the process I'm talking no more than four interviews and those who have a high touch of candidate care and transparency. Toast to those folks.

Francesca : 1:01:58

Love it. Yeah, I think that idea quite honestly of doing your homework. It is so easy to get swayed by your dream company or companies that you think are going to be an amazing employer. But sometimes just because the company is really sexy doesn't mean it's the right company, the right role or the right team for you. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. So doing your homework Huge.

Mel : 1:02:22

Huge yeah. Sometimes it's glitter on a pile of poop, so check it out Indeed it is.

Francesca : 1:02:27

Indeed, it is. That's awesome. Well, and today I am roasting, actually, an article that I saw in Business Insider, which brought up some memories. Here it is. This is it came out this week Some Gen Z job seekers are bringing mom and dad to interviews. Yeah, this is just a hard pass, people and, by the way, gen Z, not the only generation that has been doing that right.

Mel : 1:02:53

It is not just you, I know. Back in the early 2000s, when I was working in TA, I had a dad call me up asking for swag from the law firm I was at because his son was interviewing and he thought, well, I just want to represent like you do for colleges. I'm like not the same thing.

Francesca : 1:03:13

And I just was like candidates trust yourself.

Mel : 1:03:16

You got this you got this.

Francesca : 1:03:18

Yeah, that's my thing. This is not just a Gen Z thing. This is actually going on. It melts here very good for about 10 years a long time. We are seeing an uptick in it. Friends, don't bring mom and dad into the interview process. They're not going to be there with you for work. Don't bring them into the interview process. It's not a good look. It's only a good look when it's bring your mom and dad to work day. Yeah, yeah. That's the only time. That's the only time.

Francesca : 1:03:43

So, yeah, a light roast of bringing the parental units into the interview process.

James : 1:03:47

Just don't do it.

Francesca : 1:03:49

You want to bring them on a date. You want to bring them on an interview, and if you need me to explain that to your parents, have them call me. There you go, follow us, music Mel. How about that interview with James about getting the right job?

Mel : 1:04:04

Yeah, I mean, look, James is a huge expert in this space. He knows his stuff. I think if listeners walk away and implement just one thing that he shared, they're going to find different success in finding not just a job but their right job for them. So just loved it. So thankful he was able to join us and to share these tips with folks. How about you? Yeah, absolutely.

Francesca : 1:04:28

It kind of reaffirms my belief in why we even started the pod is because we really wanted to open the hood on how this stuff works and how you can actually use this knowledge to your benefit. So stoked to have him with us. Friends. Really thanks so much for joining us today. We're stoked to be back next week with New Week, new Headlines. Mel and I have been together this whole week planning out the year of the pod, and so we're stoked to be bringing not only New Week, new Headlines every week, but really rich topics like the one we brought today. Really cool guests like the one we brought today. Thanks so much for joining us. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. If it moves, you come over and say hi on Instagram, the tiktaks or LinkedIn, hit us up on yourworkfriends.com and if you found this episode helpful, please share with your work friends All right, take care, friend.

Mel : 1:05:20

Bye, friend, Bye friend. Also thanks for staying with us today.

Career Pivot: Escaping Corporate

Your Work Friends Podcast: Escaping Corporate with Brett Trainor

Burned out, boxed in, and dreaming of a way out? You’re not alone. In this episode, we’re breaking down exactly how to exit corporate life without blowing up your life. Whether you're plotting a pivot or planning a full escape, this one's your blueprint.

Learn the art of the entrepreneurial leap with Brett Trainor, The Corporate Escapee, and embrace the power of fractional/freelance work that fits into the life you want to have. In this episode, we tackle: 

• What's a Corporate Escapee?

• Who Should Escape? Who Shouldn't?

• The Market for Fractional / Freelance, etc

• The Money in Fractional / Freelance

• Planning Your Pivot out of Corporate

• The First Three Steps You Need to Take 

• And the Biggest Piece of Advice to Make the Leap 

Listen or watch the full episode here

---

Brett: 0:00

seeing the number of solar businesses with seven figures, folks think they need to build the next Google or Microsoft. Like if I leave corporate I've got to start a company. Like not anymore.

Mel: 0:25

Well, hey, friends, this is your work. Friends, we're two HR leaders who have no filter, and we're here to expose all of the stuff that you need to know about work. I'm Mel, I'm Francesca, and with us today is Brett Schreiner, who is the founder of the corporate Escapy. You can find him on LinkedIn. He has an awesome podcast. He also just launched a Slack community. That's pretty rad. I just joined that community myself, and he's from a fun town called Wheaton who has a annual fair called the cream of wheat, in which just made my day last week when I heard this news. So, brett, welcome to the pod.

Brett: 1:08

No, it's great to be here. I'm thrilled that you asked me to come on and looking forward to the discussion. And yes, the cream of Wheaton. Never thought of it as a big event here, but it is kind of clever.

Francesca : 1:18

And they don't serve cream of wheat at cream of Wheaton, which I feel like is a miss, it's a sponsor miss, for sure, right, and they're using the name for it.

Brett: 1:26

Yeah, so funny.

Francesca : 1:27

The cocoa wheat still out there. If you grew up in the Chicago Land area, there used to be the show called the. Bozo show and it was sponsored by Cocoa Weets. You remember Bozo?

Brett: 1:35

I remember Cocoa Weets. Yeah, we went down memory lane that too long ago with some of those cereals that are no longer available, but they should bring them back. I know some people are bringing back those retro brands yeah. They went out of business or bankrupt, but the name still means a lot, so I think we're starting to see more of that.

Mel: 1:53

I just bought Captain Crunch Crunch Berries a couple of weeks ago for the first time in 15 years. Scrape the hell out of the top of my mouth, but it was delicious. It was delicious and worth it.

Brett: 2:04

I'm more of a peanut butter crunch, but I do like the crunch berries. Yeah, remember the old like Count Chocula in Franklin.

Mel: 2:11

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Brett: 2:12

Boo-Berry. Was Boo-Berry a seasonal or was that a? It was at a ongoing.

Mel: 2:18

I think it's seasonal right Boo-Berry with the ghosts.

Brett: 2:21

Yeah, so good.

Francesca : 2:23

So good it's so funny.

Mel: 2:25

Oh, look at on top of that. How do you, how do we get this? Yeah Well, brett, the corporate escapee. I love your mission, which is to help 10,000 corporate Gen Xers escape the nine to five. Tell us more about it. What's the corporate escapee?

Brett: 2:42

Yeah, it was funny because I got to that point about four, four and a half years ago after a 30-year career, mostly corporate, a couple of stints out to the entrepreneurial world and back into corporate, ended it with a year and a half running management consulting Cause that's what you should do at the end of a corporate career is go into traditional management consulting but just realized that I was just done right. It wasn't like where is this going? What am I going to be doing? Right, we don't have pensions. I shouldn't say we, the collective, we just didn't. The right corporate didn't offer pensions. So am I just going to be fighting this treadmill for the next 10 to 15 years or is there something better? And, like I said four and a half years ago, didn't have a plan High inside. I highly encourage folks if you're leaving, have a plan. Don't have to, but it makes the transition easier. And then the last year really there's got to be more of me out there, right?

Brett: 3:34

Cause for the first two years 95% of what I was doing was the fractional work, did some consulting in the B2B space, I was by myself, really didn't tell anybody that I was doing it, and then slowly gain momentum, caught up with some different folks and I'm like, yeah, the corporate escape, be that's, it's more than just work, it's the lifestyle.

Brett: 3:55

And then I just started playing with it. I decided just to have some fun, to get on Tik Tok and test cause. I'm like short attention span at 60 seconds, 90 second, and all of a sudden that took off, no idea why. But what it reaffirmed was that there is a lot of people. I think I've got like 20,000 followers on Tik Tok and to a person that I talked to it's like, yeah, I didn't know I was stuck, I didn't know there was other folks, but man, it really resonates with me. So I decided to make that more my personal mission to say if anybody's out there that wants to get out, there is opportunity, there's a path forward, there's tools, et cetera. So, even though it's been around for probably about a year I was in the last two to three months it's really found its footing.

Mel: 4:41

I will admit I found you on Tik Tok. I am a recent corporate escapee and I immediately was like, yes, let's connect on LinkedIn, join your Slack community, because I think what's really appealing for me to what you're doing is the community that you're building around. It is someone who's new to trying it out, and I think that community is so important just to help you succeed right Lessons learned, sharing. So I really love what you're building over there. Who is this for? Who is this not for?

Brett: 5:12

Yeah, good question. I say I tell everybody that if you've got 20 to 30 years of experience and if somebody's paying you to do a job, you can do it right. The can and should are two different things. I think who it's not for is if you're really risk adverse we're not talking super risky ventures, you're not putting your family's savings into a new business or something like that but what corporate does give you assuming you don't get laid off is a steady paycheck and they pay some form of your benefits, and so there's a floor in corporate that you always know you're going to have that paycheck. But with freelance, fractional what I call the corporate escapee the ceiling is much higher, the utility is much higher, but there could be lows. Right, you could have a zero month where you're not bringing any revenue in, and you have to be comfortable with that and knowing that it's not going to stay that way, but it's not for everybody.

Brett: 6:06

The other thing that I found is important is you have to be accountable to yourself.

Brett: 6:11

I really took that for granted as I transitioned from corporate into the solo space was I own the priorities, I own my schedule and for the longest time I found myself just cramming more work into the day, but I really wasn't getting stuff done until I flipped and scheduled and put some structure into my day. But yeah, if you're not accountable to yourself and you like somebody else's direction, then this may not be for you Everybody else. I think you want more flexibility, freedom, control, opportunity than absolutely you can. I had probably 120 conversations with TikTokers, genxers that have came in and more for my learning to say what else can I do or what can we do to support what I was finding is the nichiest of niches in corporate. There's still businesses that are looking for that help. I call them the SME. Small and mid-sized businesses, startups, nonprofits are looking for that type of help. If you've got experience and somebody's paying you to do a job, there's an opportunity to help free yourself from that task.

Mel: 7:16

What do you think is for folks who are successful? When they do this, do they have a specific mindset, skill set that stands out to you?

Brett: 7:24

I think, open mind, because one thing in corporate it just teaches you to go follow the rules, don't rock the boat. Incremental improvements are good and you just have to have more of an open mind. We use the cliche of Gen X, but it's released back into the wild. We grew up without the rules and the restrictions and then 20 to 30 years in the box of corporate. You have to go back and be okay with experimenting and asking. We talk about can and should and it's will A lot of people. I can do that, I can go, so I do have that experience. I can run this project, I can work for it, but will you do it? It's the people that actually take action are the ones that are successful. I know I mostly work with Gen X, but I've had some 20-somethings that are super curious about how do I do this. I said well, look, if you get your job, you do this. What is the problem that you're solving for this company? There's probably a bunch of smaller companies that have this problem. You can just restructure it. 20 minutes later he's like okay, I got this. Thanks, see you.

Brett: 8:25

He was going to go take action when I think, if we've been around longer, we like to over engineer it, we like to overthink it and we're trying to look for the perfect plan. I'm guilty. One of my colleagues in Mansion Consultant used to tell me Brett done is better than perfect. That was a harder thing for me to transition from. Just go do it, it's okay. If this little experiment doesn't work, you try something else. And it's going to be okay Because at the end of the day, if it doesn't work, you can go back and find your corporate job. If it's not for you but I encourage anybody that's thinking about it just give it a 100 percent and see. If it doesn't work, don't have acid and then, if it doesn't work, go out. Wasn't for me. If you're going to do that, then maybe it's not for you anyway.

Mel: 9:08

If this is your new business, you treat it like a business. Otherwise, it's a hobby. It's just a hobby.

Francesca : 9:15

There's something suffering about going back to thinking about your feralness as a kid or thinking about the world of opportunity that you get as a child. I remember being in college and thinking, wow, anything's possible, anything could happen, and I think you get that when you're creating your own space. I'm wondering if you're seeing that in the landscape now. What is the market for folks that want to do freelance fractional? Do you see it's picking up, it's growing, it's depleted. What do you think?

Brett: 9:45

Yeah, I absolutely think it's picking up, because that's one of the concerns I hear from folks is it's saturated. I'm like we're the farthest thing from saturated when you think about the number of small businesses that are out there and the help that they need. I think we're in the early stages of this. And what kind of opened my eyes is I was on a podcast called the Human Cloud and John and Matthew do a lot of work in freelancing at the enterprise. I have more focus on the small business and part of our conversation was me flipping out of him and asking well, why are you seeing this rise in freelance? And what he told me was we haven't seen. Even three years ago there wasn't somebody with your experience or expertise that was open to fractional work for small businesses, so small businesses have never had access. You two are a perfect example of that as well. If a small business was looking to hire you, they couldn't afford you, and so what do they do? They have to hire somebody junior just to take a chance on somebody new or promote somebody within. Not all bad choices, but if you really need help and your org's growing, this is a perfect solution. It's the rare, perfect, perfect or win-win, especially with fractional. There's other ways you can slice it, but fractional is easiest transition, I think. And so what fractional is? Basically? It's a day per week per client and most of the time it's focused on strategy work, not a lot of the tactical and the doing stuff, because it would be hard to do that one day a week. But what you will be able to do is save that business a third of the cost. If they're going to hire a full-time equivalent for that HR lead, they couldn't afford it, but with you, for a third of the cost, they can. Now they can start to build a team with a couple of other fractionals. That gives them expertise that they couldn't have otherwise had.

Brett: 11:33

And the other last piece that I encourage people to think about the business owner is it minimizes risk. If you make a higher, it's an 18 month mistake if you get it wrong. And if you're hiring a type of role you've never hired before, that's hard. And if you can bring somebody in, that's fractional. Maybe it's a three month to start, but then it's month to month and a lot of what the fractionals will do is work with that business to transition out. If they're ready for a full-time, they can help you find that full-time person.

Brett: 12:02

So I think where the industry or where the overall market's got to catch up is fractional, still in relatively new term. But when you explain it to the business owner, they're like yeah, I get it and we're starting now to actually see hey, we are actually looking for fractional CFO for this role. So you won't find it in LinkedIn job postings yet. But it's not like this is just one-sided, where it benefits the escapees because they can charge a premium for what they do. It gives them more flexibility. But the businesses are actually going to benefit from this as well.

Francesca : 12:35

Yeah, you see a lot of movement in organizations trying to outsource works or work that is not core to their competence, because they don't want to be in that business, and this is one of the ways I think that they could do that either through fractional or contract full outsource. It does seem like we're at this wave of this coming right. Business is understanding the benefit of not holding on to full-time labor because that's so expensive. It's expensive for turnover too if they don't work out and also people wanting a different lifestyle. Work to means different things and still get paid and paid well. Do you feel like in five years this is going to just get bigger, or do you feel like it's going to go the other way? My gut is it's?

Francesca : 13:17

going to get nuts.

Brett: 13:18

It's going to get nuts. I think Every last dollar I had it's going in this direction. Just because a couple of reasons, and think about it from when you were in corporate, what percentage of your week was actually spent on the job that they brought you in to do? 30%.

Mel: 13:34

It's really.

Brett: 13:35

Maybe at a high end. So you're paying 60% of overhead from the business perspective and that's where fractional is there. They're super intentional about using you only for what you're good at, because they don't want you on unnecessary meetings. It just doesn't make sense. So I think just economically it's going to make sense and that's why I think that the small and mid-sized can really take advantage of this, because the bigger orgs they're still trying to figure out sales and marketing alignment. How do we go? Digital Things they probably should have figured out 15 years ago they're still struggling with. So how do they incorporate a more flexible workforce is going to be hard. I think certain organizations or operating units within bigger companies are starting to figure out how to do it, but for the most part it's not there.

Brett: 14:19

I've used a couple of analogies that help people see it. The one is think about it as if you're making a major movie Hopefully it's a blockbuster but you got hair, you got makeup, you got actors, you got film. You got all these different, mostly small entities that come together for 12 to 18 months, build this thing. They go away and this group may work with each other here and they may work over there. And then the other one that's similar to that, if you remember the movie Ocean's Eleven.

Brett: 14:46

George Clooney wanted to rob the casino. What did he do? He needed a make disguise artist, he needed a bomb guy, he needed X-Wines. All specialists that come together, get paid for what they do, drive towards an outcome and then go back to their separate ways. I just think the Industrial Revolution pushed us into offices. There was value in having people side by side because everybody was doing the same job. You can learn now All that side by side stuff is going to be automated, and what are you actually learning? When we did answer Francesca, your question, I think it's fundamentally going to change it and it just depends on how quick. I think we're in the early stages, so it's going to be fascinating to see where this goes.

Francesca : 15:28

That's a thing for employees. I've been hearing from a lot of people that they feel they're stuck in organizations, they're at a manager plus level and they're like I thought I was being brought in for my expertise, but I'm not being listened to sometimes, and or to your very good point the majority of their day is spent on shit that is absolutely not even relevant to their job, and there's something so beautiful about having an agreement that you're being brought in for your skill set, you're being paid for your skill set and all the other minutia goes away. So from a business, this makes sense. From an employee or from someone that this is their craft, this can be a really beautiful way to work too, because you're actually getting paid for your expertise.

Francesca : 16:09

Yeah, and you can do it where you want right?

Brett: 16:12

Yeah, that's what I'm watching. These return to office mandates. I'm like you got to be kidding me. You've been in the workforce for 30 years and this is the way I love your viewpoint on this. We just talked about it, yeah.

Mel: 16:23

Yeah, yeah, feelings. We agree with you wholeheartedly. You hire adults. These are experts You're hiring to come into your organization, but you don't trust them to get the job done, and that's a larger issue we think is happening.

Brett: 16:38

If you don't trust them, they're not going to work any harder in the office and you can argue they're more inefficient at the office. I grew up in it, so I saw the value at times when having colleagues and working. I just think that those days are gone.

Francesca : 16:51

They're gone, they're gone. It's interesting because there's these decision makers that are making really regressive decisions, like we're just going to keep going back, we're going to keep going back, and it's like that ship has sailed and I think the people that are willing to think about a new way will win.

Brett: 17:06

And as long as we're on this, culture is something I've been thinking about from a pure execution standpoint, from a company, and I think culture matters for the ownership group. This is what the vision, this is the thing we want to create. And once you get below a certain level, everybody's just doing it for the paycheck. And you can tell me there's companies that believe in the mission, which I'm 100% sure there are, but I'm saying 80% of the companies, 80% of the workers, and they just want to be paid fairly, treated with some flexibility, right, and then they'll do a good job. I don't want to say culture is overrated, because it's not, but don't think the 10,000 employees are all going to buy into your culture. You're never going to get that, especially with return to office man and all that other stuff. But if you plug in specialists for a lot of these key roles that just love to do this job they like you and the company you're going to get a lot further than trying to force people into a box again.

Francesca : 18:00

My whole thing on companies right now is they are not everybody, but most of them are misrepresenting themselves in terms of what they're offering from an employee experience perspective, because a lot of organizations are we're a great place to work, we're a great place to work for mothers, we're a great diversity, equity, inclusion, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We have all of these benefits, we care about mental health, we care about all this stuff, and the actual working experience day to day doesn't match the brand that they've been sold, and so there's this sense of betrayal, there's this sense of like. What the fuck you know? Excuse my French, yeah.

Brett: 18:37

I get it.

Francesca : 18:38

I'm going to get it out. To me, one of the best relationships you can get into in anything romantic friend, parent, job is when it's honest. Yeah, contracts are honest. Yeah, my dogs are honest. You know what you're gonna get. Oh, I love your point of view on this. I think a lot of employees feel like I thought I was signing up for something completely different. Then what I've been given.

Brett: 19:01

Yeah, the one-way street.

Mel: 19:04

Yeah, we're hearing that from a lot of folks who independently reach out to us to share, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, francesca, because culture is the responsibility of the organization, team and individual.

Mel: 19:15

But it takes all three of those elements for it to be effective throughout. But if at each of those levels you don't have everyone bought into your good point, brett, there there comes a point sometimes when an organization Potentially is just too large where they're not going to be able to manage all of the micro cultures that have now popped up. It's like having a core set of values and making sure that Everyone operates within that core set of values and how they work is so critically important. But if they're not really paying attention to that or have expectations around that or build performance management around those expectations and they're really measuring it, then the culture and the micro cultures get out of control. Into Francesca's point yeah, there's a sense of betrayal from people who were sold hey, this was a great working environment from others. But you know, I joined this team and my direct leader won't let me leave early to go watch my kids soccer game Then that's not a great organization for that mom, but maybe a mom on another team is getting the opportunity to do that.

Mel: 20:18

But, it all depends on your direct team. Yeah, what's?

Brett: 20:21

interesting when I was starting to have these conversations is the the relationship between, as a corporate escapee or an employee employees. Definitely, it's mostly command and control some companies to give you some flexibility. But I heard that command and control. I talked to a executive recruiter friend of mine who told me that there was a CEO, they were hiring a chief people officer and the board was basically dictating who he was gonna hire. I'm like, so he's being micro managed at the highest. And this wasn't a family-owned company. This was a pretty good-sized business and when I started to think through this, this is why I think fractional can start to even that playing field.

Brett: 21:01

So the way I think the old days of freelancer is really transactional Okay, we're hiring you to do this job, we'll pay you this. We both agree, done, done. Where fractional is more of a partnership right, I'm part of that organization just on a part-time basis. I've got to be on the same page as the owner of the sea level. That's bringing me into that organization. We've decided together what's gonna work. Right, you can't tell me what to do all the time because, one, that's not why you brought me in, but two, that's not the way our relationship is. So you got like commanding controls and employee Partner is a fractional, transactional, is freelance and there's some service Businesses in there that are definitely more transactional. But at least give the employee a leg up.

Brett: 21:42

The other thing I encourage folks to think about even if you're staying in corporate, think of it as you are a still the CEO of your own company, company of one, and your product is your expertise, and what this company is paying you to do that job is salary, benefits and the requirement of you being on site three days, five days, one day, just everything that's involved. And would you run your business that way? If this is the way the customer, maybe you would and you're willing to trade off because this is what you need, but for me, I forever I just take it All right, this is what you're paying me, this is what I get, right, this is the vacation and all those things, and just accepted it, versus thinking if I treated this as this was my company and this is my skill, I probably would have done things differently, maybe not have had as many options, but too often I think we're just way too reactive and not as intentional with it.

Francesca : 22:29

I think a lot of people think that that's the only way. I grew up thinking you're gonna go to college, you're gonna go to grad school, you're gonna get a job at Accenture and you're gonna keep on did it, did it did and this is. This is the way, this is the path, and it's not the same thing.

Brett: 22:41

It's the right thing. Right. My plan was I was the first one in my family they actually went to college, so business.

Mel: 22:48

I do.

Brett: 22:49

That was, and so my goal before I started was game warden in Wisconsin. That sounds awesome, yeah. Then, 30 years later, I'm like what the hell happened? You get into that. Somebody called it a treadmill and I think it's the perfect thing. Somebody said that salaries the drug that keeps you going. It's that next level. I just get promoted to that next position. Then I'll end up with enough money to do this. But it's never really enough, and what's happened this last year Is the fear factor against him. Yeah, lay it off. What are you gonna do? There's nothing out there, and they scare you into Staying into a job longer than maybe that you would want to, and times are changing, which is so exciting. There's enough signs that we're moving in the right direction.

Mel: 23:40

I think so. I think the sign of how many folks and younger folks who are looking at exploring this space too and not just going into corporate. There's a real desire, I think, for people to own their time and how they spend it and who they spend it with. And I think that's so beautiful about this type of work too, because you have a bit more autonomy around what you're working on, who you're working with, when, after COVID, I will say my personal experience was really reflecting on how do I want to spend my time and I tell Francesca this all the time I went to work where there's a three-legged stool of Respect, relationships and meaningful work. So in everything I do, that's what I want to do and that that's appealing to me about your messaging and going out on your own, and it seems possible.

Brett: 24:28

It's true, an author, steve Glovesky, australian guy wrote time rich and he's like look, you can always earn more money, but you can never earn time back.

Brett: 24:36

I'm like so true and you think about our corporate careers. We built our lives around those jobs, whatever it was right vacation, school Workouts. You had to get up at 6 am If you wanted to go to the gym. A little more flexibility now, but not Completely so. Our lives really revolved around whatever corporate job that we were doing and not the other way around, which, again, we're gonna look back in 50 years. You know what the heck, yeah right.

Francesca : 25:22

We talk about the money for a second, because I think this might be one of the things that People get nervous about when they think about this. Do you find in general, that the money is like net-net it's better, it's worse. I think it's better.

Brett: 25:34

You've got the risk, because when I left, it was all about the money. What had happened to me was, as a management consulting firm, I saw they were billing me out as, and I saw what I was taking home about that billable rate. I'm like this is crazy. What it did teach me is what my market rate was, and that's one thing I think we all do is undervalue what we have and what we do. Where it's definitely going and I can speak from the fractional and from the service side, because when I say fractional, it's again that on average it's a day per week, probably no more than 10 hours a week, no more than two hours per day, depending on how you spread out per client and the billable range that you can charge is between six and twelve thousand dollars per month and and what I see more consistently is between seven and ten.

Brett: 26:21

Now it's a bigger company that you're doing some work for. Maybe it's a couple more hours. It's on the higher end, so definitely outliers. In either way, this is for sales leaders, marketing leaders, customer success folks, hr Recruiting, anything that needs a leadership or strategy component within those companies. You can transition that to fractional, and this isn't just my experience. You can like voyage, or you, which works with exclusively fractionals and fractionally. United with Karina she's got six thousand fractionals in there and they just had a data Study that came out that showed wages or the hourly rate Amongst different levels of skills and what role on the organization, and it was consistent. If it's more of a less strategic role, you're gonna be down in the $150 per hour or $100 per hour.

Brett: 27:10

One rule of thumb that I think if people at home want to do the math is whatever your corporate salary is, chop off the three zeros and that's what your hourly rate. And if you do the math backwards which I'm not a fan of the public math so if you're making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in corporate, think about it is about a hundred and fifty dollars per hour. You know times that by ten hours you know per week, per client, and it adds up to being able to replace your income with two to three Clients and only working two to three days per week, and that's ideal. That's after you get running. If you don't leave corporate, that instantly happens, but it's definitely more. I wouldn't call it an industry standard yet, but it's definitely becoming accepted. And the other data point I'll share is one of the companies that I was a chief Revenue officer for. They were less than three million in annual revenue and they were still paying in that range, so it's even a smaller company is willing because they need to invest.

Francesca : 28:07

Right, and so if you do worth it, yeah.

Brett: 28:10

So that's what I'm saying, and when people say it's a tree, I'm like do you how many companies that are between two, five ten million dollars that could use your skill set for 12 to 18 months as they figure it out? The other beauty of this is you can start to think about your expertise as a service. I know we're going to level two now, but I think there's that's where I encourage folks at your new CRM specialist, maybe they're not gonna bring you on as a fractional CRM Person, but what do these small businesses need that you do really well that you could do for three thousand dollars a month. They're five thousand dollars a month. One their entire CRM, do whatever it is.

Brett: 28:48

And the other example I'll use from the design sites there's a graphic designer named Brett, his company's design join. He's been super open about publishing his track record. The last year he did two million dollars as a solo company. He does all his own design works. He charges brands, I think between 5k and 7k per month. I think the rule is you can only do one design at a time. You can't send him six design requests at once. Maybe do the math backwards of how many customers he needs he can manage that. He said to get overwhelming at that level but like well, if you don't want to do two million one, bring somebody in which he didn't want to do. We'll just reduce the number of clients you have. So that's why I said, if the rules don't exist, if you can solve a problem and add value to a customer, there's a way that you can structure that that it's gonna make sense for you and for the business.

Francesca : 29:39

I mean in two million dollars a year, is that's kind of livable?

Mel: 29:47

Right in your recent newsletter. I loved the template that you shared around what's problem Are you solving for people? What skills are you bringing to solve that problem? We'll link to that because I think it's super valuable. I'd love to talk about if you're in corporate. Today we hear from a lot of folks in high-pressure industries so think law firms, the finance world's, banking, all of that who are Looking to pivot. For folks who are in these intense industries, they're also highly regulated so you might not be able to start a side gig because it could be seen as sort of competing priorities with what you're doing. What do you recommend for them to be able to make space to plan for this kind of pivot?

Brett: 30:31

Yeah, it's a good question. It's this highly regulated, maybe a bigger issue. There's still gonna be a way around it. It's still gonna come back to what the problem that you solve you solve it for and even if you solve it for free on the side, for a few folks, you can test the idea. Target maybe a different industry.

Brett: 30:49

Because that's one thing I've found is, unless you're specific in, like a healthcare technology or whatever it is that doesn't translate, then you may be a little trickier and you may just have to get yourself set up, build some runway and say, alright, I'm going all in, I see the, the future of this. But short of that, there's no reason why you can't start to have these conversations and do some mini engagements with folks. Right, everything that we're building to go solo. You can build on the side and then just start to have the Conversations one off with people and then you get a sense of is this really a need to solve problem? Is this a nice to solve problem? Hopefully it's really the need to solve that the business has. So I think there's date ways around and that's the number of the folks I'm actually working with and I'm testing a new Offering 60 days, your first customer and it originally had the grandiose plans of you know, end to end of all the things that you should Be thinking about.

Brett: 31:46

What I found was all these folks are really smart and don't necessarily need all the pieces, but when you get down into what is the specific offering look like who is the target customer cut through all the noise because we all like To chase the shiny objects and go too many. But let's pick one path. What's the problem? What is it you want to solve and work on and then build the offer into that? Most of the people I'm working with they're still Incorporate, so it can't be just broadcast to your network that you're open to fractional and contract work. It's not gonna work. So we're gonna have to be a little more targeted with some of the outreach.

Brett: 32:20

But it's absolutely possible I think that's what we talk ourselves into that when nobody's gonna want this or we have to have a full-on marketing plan. I'm like the end of the day, for us to be successful and I say most, if you have ten customers that you're not gonna be able to service ten. So you think about it really to read if you're thinking about replacing that income and still working less. Two to three customers is all you need. That's not very many. That's super targeted and through relationships Referability of John arms talks about all the time and then just solving that problem. You got to Break the ice with the first one, but then it's much more manageable even than it was five years ago when you tried to. You almost Did have to have a marketing plan.

Mel: 33:00

It's just starting the conversation with folks and offering Advice for free to build those relationships. I've also seen this done, where folks start to have the conversation with their employer and they've turned that former employer to a client Once they've transitioned into Freelance. Have you ever seen that happen with any of your I know people have done it.

Brett: 33:20

I wouldn't be comfortable going to my most really recent employer. But if you were like me and worked for three or four or five other companies, maybe there's some folks in the past that know you, the work that you do, and need some additional help to get that going. You can be super targeted with LinkedIn and I'll give you just an example. When the corporate escapee took off, I didn't want to forget about the work that I was doing with the small business, so these corporate escapee work. So everything you see on my social and LinkedIn now is mostly the escapee stuff. But I did some targeted outreach to some clients saying, hey, I've got this full network of Estapies now misses or? Mr Business owner, are you still stuck in your traditional Recruiting ways? Are you only looking at a full-time equivalent? Are you open to ideas around flexible staffing and fractional those types of things? And I was just sending that out to Not direct connections but second-degree connections.

Mel: 34:17

Yeah.

Brett: 34:17

I probably an 80% connection Acceptance rate. Most of them would say, now, that's not my business because I was targeting too small. Then I went up the next level 10 to 25 employees and Most people accept the connection or say no, I'm not in that. But a handful are now saying, yeah, I'm interested in learning more. We're just about to that point. Again, I'm not selling anything on those things, but I've got three or four leads that I'm working. If I was still employed, they'd have no idea that I'm even talking to these companies Can't, don't do anything illegal, but you know they can't keep you from right, trying to to grow you.

Brett: 34:53

Whatever you want to do on your own, you're free time and your own time and what you want to do the future so. So the point is there's ways you can start to Identify customers, even if you're linked in. It says I'm fully employed, just have to be a creative sometimes just building relationships as key.

Mel: 35:10

Yeah, like my name.

Brett: 35:13

That's what I've found with this community. Everybody is super helpful and maybe Great myself.

Brett: 35:19

But yeah, again, everybody realizes we're breaking the mold in corporate. Where it was every person for themselves, it was the political if either be eaten and all that. We're here. Everybody's more than willing to help. And again back to the community. That's really what I want out of this group is to say, hey, this I came across an opportunity. Doesn't make sense for me, but I know somebody that was an IT that this would be a good fit for and we just start referring each other into Opportunities. All of our networks are big or big enough for us to figure out what we need to have. I've never been more optimistic about a path then, if you would ask me this three years ago. I think you get work really hard and figure it out, but now we can eliminate some of those blockers there that the traditional learning curves.

Mel: 36:02

I love your slack community. I'll keep plugging it because being a new Corporate escape me myself joining that slack community. I think it's been an invaluable experience because everyone's just wanting to help each other, learn from one another, help each other grow, and I think that's the beauty in this is that Community piece and you're sort of indirectly creating your own quote-unquote corporate culture through that community Culture of just helpers, people who are interested in helping organizations and helping each other, and it's really nice. I'm so glad you're here. I love you too. I'll see you next time. Folks don't talk about this often, but it's hard to get your first client. But how was it having to fire your first client?

Brett: 37:00

It's usually mutual. Usually If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Usually you get a sense in the first three, six months of it's going to work. And I was working with a client doing some sales but really what they needed was marketing support, some branding. They had a really good tool, really strong, competitive product, but nobody knew them. Less than 3% of the industry knew who they were and I basically said, look, take the money that you're paying me and go invest in a marketing and, more specifically, a product marketer. That's really going to help, because their entire business was contingent upon. If this one product hit the growth targets, you can understand the product from the customer research all the way to how do you position it and move it into the marketplace. Spend your money there, because it's going to be much better than me trying to help you figure out how to cold call our way to that business. And so we agreed to move on just because it didn't provide the right fit. You get a sense of the cultural fits going to be there.

Brett: 37:58

But the way I like to structure my engagement is the first ones a. Don't call it a get to know you, but as we're having a conversation and we're saying, hey, this is what I think my organization needs and I'm saying I think this is what I can deliver. Until you actually get involved into the business and know what you have, it's hard to know, so I always liked the 30 or 60 day. Let's validate everything that we thought we knew and then build the roadmap from there. Even if you're fractional, that's really what you're doing is helping them build the strategy and go from there. So I always build an out after that paid assessment period I hate that term, but I don't know a better way of a paid validation. Right, those are going to be value. We'll build the roadmap and at that point we'll know if I'm the right fit for what your business needs and if not, then we can find somebody else to go in there.

Mel: 38:48

Love the concept of a paid assessment time when everyone gets to test it out and see if you're still in alignment after that 60 day is really nice actually.

Brett: 38:56

There's a few businesses, like one guy that was working on a corporate development and really the work that he needed to do it's a six month right to do the due diligence, so he can't do that one month a month, but almost all of them you absolutely could do a trial one month, two months three months just to make sure everybody's happy. And again it takes the risk out of the business zone. It's an easier sell at that point too.

Francesca : 39:20

It's actually beneficial, Like yeah.

Mel: 39:22

Where there's an out.

Francesca : 39:41

What are the things that you want to avoid when you're getting into this space that you don't need?

Brett: 39:46

Yeah, that's a really good point. I see less of the scammy, right, they're there, right, but I think, yeah, we over complicate what we're doing and you don't need a hundred tools. The thing that I found that would have been helpful would have been how do I reduce the learning curve? Because everything I did was the first time it was on my own. There was nobody to share what was going on, and that's kind of the way I've approached that with TikTok and the newsletter. I'll tell you everything I know you know for free. And then if there's still stuff that you want help with, then fine, and that's the way that I approached with other folks as well.

Brett: 40:23

That said, hey, I really need some help, like, I've got somebody helping me on the community Never done a community. I've got an escapee that does it for me to help eliminate some of those big potholes that I don't need to hit. And so I think that's the biggest thing is don't let somebody sell you on. There is no secret sauce. If you do this one thing, you'll get 10 customers. No, it just doesn't work like that. I think it's the fundamentals. The basics. It's everything you already know, but people will tell you you have to do more than what you know, and that's just just not the case.

Francesca : 40:55

You're talking to somebody the other day and they're like I don't even know how to get started. I'm here, I know I hate my job, I'm in the muck, have the talking heads like this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful life. On repeat, right. What are the first? Like two to three things you just need to do.

Brett: 41:11

Yeah, if you would have asked me two years ago, I wouldn't have necessarily thought of this. But it's what do you really want, right when?

Francesca : 41:20

Best question ever. Best question ever.

Brett: 41:22

It's hard to answer and it might changes, but I've gotten much more settled into it because, if you can answer, that is your number one goal just to replace your double your income Cause that's going to send you down a path of doing X, y or Z. But if it's, hey, if I can just supplement my income or get 50% of it and it. But I only want to work one day or two days. I want to be able to do it from the beaches of Florida in the winter and on a lake somewhere in the summer and really think through what is it you want from this next phase. And there's no wrong answer. But having that answer makes it easier to figure out. What are the next steps that you do to drive that business Cause. Again, if you want to build the design joy with the two million revenue, you're going to have to put a little more work into. I just want to replace my income and work a couple of days a week and I'd be able to do whatever else I want on the other five or four or five days. So in the more macro sense, I think some people probably roll in their eyes and say, trust me, I was that person. But now I always encourage you to go down that path. This is personal work on it. If you've got a spouse, partner or whatever, be on the same page, because if you're not on the same page it's going to make it really difficult not impossible, but really difficult to go through this. And then from there, I would find that problem right. I tell people to go through a skills and experience inventory and if you've done something for 20 to 30 years, you'll be shocked at how many different things you have to do. But from that then think about what is it you like to do, cause you're at it now a point you get a little bit. You may have to take some jobs or a couple of projects that aren't exactly what you want to do to get started. But start to think about what that is, who you want to work with, what type of business? Right, because some of the folks I talk with they could go into sales, so they could help small business with sales. But they're also really good at software, so they understand right, are you getting at the ROI off your current software? So there's multiple paths. You just get it down on paper and say, all right, here's in, francesca. Back to your point. There's three or four main problems that you can probably solve that you've got the expertise and your LinkedIn profile will show you can walk into these small business and say, yeah, I've done this type of thing and then you can start to figure out what does that offering look like?

Brett: 43:44

I think too often we go straight from well, I've got 30 years, I want to be fractional, but make it happen now. Just take the steps to go through it. Did you maybe make it happen Again? That was part of my learning curve. Was in consulting.

Brett: 43:58

Really like man, why did I do this? This isn't even what I like to do. I like the conversations, I like the problem solving, but I don't like project management. I don't like tracking down stakeholders, I don't like recapping meetings, those types of things. So I think it's figuring out what you want, identifying that problem at the most accurate or clearest point you can from a business owner standpoint, whoever you're solving it for in the business, and then the type of work that you want to do, and then you can start to craft options again, because those $3,000 to $5,000 a month engagements add up pretty quickly and if it's in your core expertise, it's probably not going to take you a lot of time to do it either. I don't like to oversimplify it, but it's not as hard as people make it out to be.

Francesca : 44:42

Yeah, those are such important questions and things to define and I'm surprised when I talk to people and they're in these situations and I ask them what do you want, like what is it you really really want? And they don't know or sometimes they don't want to admit what they really want because it's very far from where they are today. These are really important questions to ask yourself, for you to get to a space that you are meant to play in and that it'll be easy to play in as well.

Brett: 45:11

Yeah, I get feedback from folks that said that they took me two days right, they were longer to go through and actually think through what it was. But when you think about what's next for you, we've got a lot of options and flexibility. So that was the time. Like I said, I'm planning on living a while and healthy. So what am I going to do for the next 20, 25 years? Jesse Itzler he's NetJet's guy. He's Sarah Blakely's husband. He's built a really successful business, but one of the things that he had equipped not too long ago. He's like look, I think he's a year younger than me. So, statistically speaking, I've got 23 years left to live, which means I've got 23 summers and I want to do as much in those 23 summers as I absolutely can. I'm like yes, it's so true. And again, I think we get so conditioned that we can't think like that, like that's not for me, that's only for the rich can do this. No, that's the whole point of this exercise is, you can start to define what does that life look like? And then how do you incorporate your business into it? I'll give you one quick example.

Brett: 46:16

And she was my poster child forever. She and I worked in our last corporate job together. She was training and development, just hard charging corporate. She was moving up the corporate ladder. Then after that she's like you know what I'm done? And she wanted to start a business training and development and her whole mission was I want to take the month of August off so I can go climbing it didn't matter where in the world. So when she set up her training she worked with companies and basically said I'm not working in August. So they knew up front that she wasn't available for that. From that point on she grew her business. She hired some contractor to just do some work. She ultimately lived intentionally in her van, the van life, and then I think she's been in Australia now for six months running her company. But the whole point of that is she built this, she built her life and then figured out how to work, actually fits into it and I'm like that's so good.

Francesca : 47:08

Right, we're to do it. Yeah, it's build your life and then figure out how to put the work into it. I think that is the right equation. Right, that's the right stack of that story.

Brett: 47:19

It should be, like I said, better late than never for me figuring that out now. The other thing folks think they need to build the next Google or Microsoft, like if I leave corporate I've got to start a company. I'm like not anymore, I've solo businesses. Seeing the number of solo businesses with seven figures, I mean if you start to do the math and we can do that afterward you can see it's not that difficult. With the right couple of right freelancers or VA's to help with certain tasks you can build that. So I'm like how is it possible that these one person companies are doing one million or two million in revenue but yet there's three and five million dollar companies that have 22 employees?

Francesca : 47:55

There's so much opportunity. It's very exciting to think about.

Mel: 47:58

I love that, the concept of designing your life and then figuring out how work fits into it. That's how it should be. That's a great point. The one thing we can never get back is time. Well, hey, we have something we call a rapid round. Fun questions, yes or no? Are you up for a rapid round?

Brett: 48:37

Fire away.

Mel: 48:37

Okay, have you ever regretted leaving corporate?

Brett: 48:42

No.

Mel: 48:42

Have you ever had to turn down a dream project because it didn't align with your freelance goals?

Brett: 48:48

Not yet.

Mel: 48:50

Did leaving corporate improve your life 100%. Is it easier to say no to projects now that you're your own boss? No, it is TensorFlow. Think of what you needed when you came here.

Brett: 48:59

Yes, ish, Instinct still wants to take jobs, but my getting better at saying no if it does in a line, and usually I've figured that a little bit earlier in the process than I would have before, but yet still tempting right. If they're willing to pay a certain amount of money, it's do. I want to do this, so that's a car.

Mel: 49:24

Do you attend more or fewer meetings now than when you were in corporate?

Brett: 49:30

You were much fewer Good answer.

Francesca : 49:32

Good answer.

Mel: 49:34

Do you think contracting has made you a better negotiator overall?

Brett: 49:39

That's a good question. I would say yes. You go through more negotiations with potential customers, you get much more comfortable. The first couple are like oh my God, I can't you get. You're prepared for three days, right, and whatever they say, you're going to say yes to you because you don't want to jeopardize the deal. But then, as you start to go through a few, you realize it's more of a value based exchange than it is them walking away because you wanted a few extra dollars.

Brett: 50:09

It's good to hear you got nervous on your first negotiations too, oh for sure Common thing the bigger deals that you do get nervous because again, especially if it's a project I want, then it tends to get more nervous. The more you really want something, the more you tend to get nervous for.

Mel: 50:27

Have you ever worked from an unconventional location?

Brett: 50:31

That's a good question. I can't think of what an unconventional would mean anymore. I was actually working at home for a few years prior to the pandemic, so I kind of worked where I've been. So I wish I had a more exotic answer for you Like a treehouse in Costa Rica?

Mel: 50:49

or something.

Francesca : 50:50

Not a closet.

Brett: 50:53

No, I've been on a Zoom call with some guy that was cruising down the highway at 65 miles an hour from Detroit to Chicago on a. Zoom video. I'm like dude. It's okay, you can put it down and sound. I don't need to be seeing you scooting down the highway.

Mel: 51:08

Please don't get into an accident. Do you have your midday naps taken an uptick?

Brett: 51:15

No naps. I haven't figured out the naps, but definitely more. If I want to shut it down, nice, nice, can I give you just one tip?

Mel: 51:24

that I learned from this.

Brett: 51:26

Because when I started it, everything was I'm like ah, it's your contract, I can schedule my day however I want. But what I found was it was chaotic. And again back to that book time rich. It said, hey, if you calendarize and block time, it changed my life. It really did so. If people are struggling with that, I'm not saying you have to calendar or block. Find a system that works for you, because you'll be surprised at how much more time you actually do have.

Mel: 51:53

Time blocking. I also am a fan of the time block and I love that you're building in walks because that's good. Get some vitamin D. Last question, more of like a superstitious thing Do you have a favorite coffee mug or something that you're superstitious about for your work days?

Brett: 52:08

I wouldn't say superstitious, but that's funny. I don't know if you can see, oh puppy yeah, it was unfortunately, she was 18. We had lost her last year, but she was my office mate for like five years, and so my oldest daughter got me this cup as a gift, so I keep that as the good luck cup, so not superstitious, but more of a comfort feeling.

Mel: 52:32

I love that. I love that yeah.

Francesca : 52:53

Right before we adjourn. If you were talking to your kid or a best friend who is contemplating this, what would you tell them?

Brett: 53:01

Yeah, don't wait. Right, If there's a way to take control at the big macro, and it's don't run your life around your job. You may have to in the short term, but figure out a plan to get away from that as soon as possible. Get the skills you need to pay your dues, but always keep in mind that there is another way. You just want to be in control. Easier said than done sometimes, but it comes back to that time factor, and maybe now I'm just more sensitive to it as I'm older. But the earlier you can get that that it's okay to find alternative paths. My daughter's no by now.

Brett: 53:38

That corporate I'm not a big fan of anymore. It served me well, it had its purpose. But I think there's better ways to do that. And just again, take control of your own. Figure out a way to build your life and then incorporate work into it. And the last thing I'll add to that is figure out what you want. You may not know it at 25 to 29. You may not know, but I'd still have a plan. Even if it's this plan changes, think about where you go, Cause if you're not driving towards something, then it's you're just along for the ride.

Francesca : 54:09

And there's a lot of good work to do right and a huge space like wide open spaces.

Brett: 54:13

And people that appreciate that. These business owners and business small businesses appreciate it. They're open to it. There's enough that appreciate what you can do If appreciate your point of view, appreciate your thoughts on something, and I've heard from a number of folks that said that's one of the most refreshing things is somebody's actually listening to me. They're out there and they're hungry for your expertise.

Mel: 54:34

Time to tap into your main character energy.

Brett: 54:38

I like that yeah.

Mel: 54:39

I like the main character of your story, so build the story you want.

Francesca : 55:00

Brad, thanks so much for joining us today. We'll post in the show notes your Slack channel, your podcast, tiktok and your LinkedIn, just so everyone can go out and be part of your corporate escapee community. Thank you for joining us today.

Brett: 55:14

Yeah, that's my pleasure.

Francesca : 55:34

We'll be back next week with new week, new headlines. Thanks so much for joining us today. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriends.com. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends. Thanks, friend.

Salary Negotiation: Earn What You Deserve

Your Work Friends Podcast: Salary Negotiation with Kate Dixon

Stop underselling yourself…

Did you know, if you never negotiate your pay, you could leave almost $1M on the table over your career. Yeah, that's an 'M' -  as in million.

So, we called up our friend, Kate Dixon - one of the leading experts in all things compensation. Kate is the author of "Pay Up" and "Name Your Price". She's also the founder of Dixon Consulting - a compensation and leadership coaching firm.  What we love about Kate (there are a lot of things to love about Kate, including her dog, Jeffrey), is that she consults with companies from Nike to Intel to Silicon Valley Start-Ups to architect their compensation strategies.  And, she also coaches executives and employees on how to get the best compensation package possible.  

We’re talking real-world strategies, how pay decisions actually happen behind the scenes, and what it takes to ask for more—without the awkwardness. If you're ready to own your value and earn what you deserve, this episode is for you.

Listen or watch the full episode here

---

Kate : 0:00

Fundamentally, the way that I look at it both pricing conversations with clients and salary negotiation is you're solving a business problem. That's what you're doing.

Mel: 0:27

We are your work friends, two HR friends who have no filter and are getting you through all the work shit. I'm Mel.

Francesca : 0:35

Hey, and I'm Francesca.

Mel: 0:37

Today we met with Kate Dixon. Francesca who's Kate Dixon?

Francesca : 0:42

She's the principal and founder of Dixon Consulting, a leadership development and total rewards consultancy. She's also the author of two books that honestly, everybody should read. One is called Pay Up Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiations. This is the book that a lot of people use to figure out how do you negotiate your salary. The other, if you freelance or you're a contractor, name your price. We got to talk to her today about how do you go through earning what you deserve.

Mel: 1:10

Yeah, salary negotiations Hot topic. Good for everyone to know here's Kate. Hey, Kate Nice to see you. Hello girl. Good to see you too. We're so excited to talk about Comp with you today. I'm just going to jump right into it. Why does it matter that people know and negotiate their market rate?

Kate : 1:43

Oh my gosh, there's so many reasons. One of the things that people don't realize is that if you don't do a good job of it at the beginning of your career, it can impact you over your lifetime. Studies shows that over the lifetime of a woman's career, she can lose up to a million bucks. If you have that million bucks at your retirement, it's going to be a different retirement than if you don't have a million.

Francesca : 2:08

I have a huge, such a big interest.

Mel: 2:10

Huge, yeah. What assumptions are holding people back here in this space? What do you think holds people back?

Kate : 2:17

I think the biggest one is the assumption that I don't know enough to do it right. I don't want to make an idiot of myself, and so I'm not going to do it. I think that was probably the number one thing. I think that there's also this weird thing that people think about, that they're going to have their offer withdrawn if they negotiate, which is not true. But yeah, two big things.

Mel: 2:43

I believe it because I remember working in talent acquisition I could tell the hesitation to have the conversation and I think good recruiters will push you through that and then you'll have some who don't. They're like okay, that's what you accepted, though that's a great call out. We have this saying explained to me like I'm fine how the hell does comp work here? How does comp work? Walk people through? How does it even work?

Kate : 3:07

Comp went a lot right. So, basically, what happens in most companies is they create a job architecture. This is a leveling kind of a thing where you might have a professional, a senior professional, you might have a manager, a senior manager, director, those kinds of things. That's what we call a job architecture, and a lot of times when we're putting together job architectures, we're also putting together functions and families, and some companies pay differently based on the function and family, some don't. I'm really trying to encourage my clients to have a few differentiators based on function as possible, because we know that function is one of those artifacts of how we always have done things.

Kate : 4:00

There's a reason why finance and HR don't pay the same. It's because finance people used to all be dudes and HR people used to be all chip, and so what you're seeing in those functional differences is really the impact of gender bias in pay. So, anyway, I don't think that it's really worth carving out a lot of functional differences, although I have a client in high tech that's based in the Silicon Valley. They do software stuff, and so they have a specific structure for software engineers and then one for everybody else. So the job architecture has the different levels. It has different functions and families. And then what a comp person would do would be to look at a salary survey and this is a place where companies submit data about how they pay different jobs and then the company that's running the survey basically spits out a report that says, hey, this is about how much an accountant with zero to three years of experience makes in these different zip codes or these different areas, in these different types of organizations and that sort of thing. So what a comp person would do is say, oh okay, we have an accountant one and so we're going to match to this job in the salary survey and bring in all the data.

Kate : 5:30

They'll put together salary ranges either by job or by family and function or by level a number of different ways to do it but they'll come up with those salary ranges.

Kate : 5:42

Then they'll put on top of that some policies around. Here's how we want to pay people within a range. Typically they'll say entry to the bottom third of the range, for example, would be for folks who are new to this level with not a lot of experience doing this particular job. People around the middle would be seasoned folks who've been doing this kind of work for a while and have good, satisfactory performance. And then the top third of the range is typically folks who've been either at the same job for a while or have spectacular performance over time, and typically it's some sort of combination of the two. Sometimes you'll see people at the top of the range who have really unique skills that they're bringing into the organization with the assumption that they'll train other folks. Ai has been likely in recent years right, but it's typically at a new skill, super hot skill, and over time the premium that gets paying for that new hot skill regresses a little bit as more and more people get that skill.

Mel: 6:51

It's helpful to educate people on how is this stuff even determined. It's not a dartboard just to throw at certain ranges. There's a lot of research and thought that goes into it. The overall package of compensation is beyond just the salary. What else is typically included in a comp package that you can negotiate?

Kate : 7:10

It really depends on the level of the job. To be honest with you, most jobs and most companies have base pay and some sort of an annual bonus. Again, in the frontline roles you don't always see a bonus. Sometimes you'll see some sort of activity, commissioning kind of thing. That will happen, but there's usually a base and a bonus kind of thing. There's always going to be some sort of benefits health insurance, life insurance, dental. You might get a gym membership.

Kate : 7:45

As you go up in the organization, you tend to see other kinds of things like equity.

Kate : 7:51

When we say equity pay, equity is one thing, but equity we're talking about compensation can mean stock options or restricted share rights or things like that. In my startup clients a lot of times we'll talk about it as a percentage of ownership of the company and then, as you get even higher into the organization, we see things like long-term cash programs and things like that. So those are the main building blocks With negotiation. Typically we'll see some sort of sign on cash and we'll set sign on equity, depending on the type of organization. Again, high-tech organizations tend to have more of this sign on equity, especially for tech people, and if it's a company that's owned by a parent that's outside of the US sign on stuff is not very common. It's not very common to do sign on cash or sign on equity outside of the United States. Just know it's not kind of part of their lexicon typically. So I do have a company that is a client that is owned by a Japan parent and they are pretty disciplined about offering sign on cash and sign on options.

Mel: 9:09

It's good to know, if you're American and you expect that a sign on bonus would be something you're offered, and if they're not a US company and you're trying to negotiate, that it might be the wrong thing to negotiate, because that might it might be a little harder.

Francesca : 9:23

I've always wondered this and I would love to ask you, because you've seen it all Do you make more money over time going into a private company or a public one that gives you the RSUs or gives you the stock options? What have you found?

Kate : 9:36

I've developed my philosophy of over time on this, but one thing that I will tell you is that a good, strong company that has a history of gross equity that you get from that is probably going to be worth more in the long run than stuff that you get from a startup and people like, no, they told me I'm going to make $1 million. But what is true now that was not true even 15 years ago is that most startups wind up getting investment from PE firms and the PE firm. Their entire mission is to harvest value out of these companies that they invest in. That's what they're there for, that's what they're doing, and so, as a part of that harvesting, what I typically see is that the equity arrangements get changed pretty dramatically, especially for people who are not the founders.

Kate : 10:36

I've had clients who said, hey, I need you to help me negotiate my pay because we sold our startup to mega big fang company and I was told I was going to make millions out of this. And I actually made 20 grand and I worked 80 hour weeks for years to make this happen and we didn't get much of anything out of it, and that's because of the impact of PE firms. There's all kinds of different things that happen. But again, it's not saying don't work for startup, because one of the things that startups do better than any other company is provide boots on the ground development opportunities to learn a ton and get the opportunity to do a lot of stuff.

Kate : 11:21

Most startups that I have worked with, consulted with, they're all like oh, you're going to raise your hand? Great, have that. You want to write our report to our community? Yes, you go do that, and so the opportunity to really build a skill set unmatched, and so that's why you want to do it. Maybe it's to have a big title or have the whole CFO kind of experience. Could you do that at a big company with just a little bit of experience now, but you might be able to do it at a startup.

Francesca : 12:09

How does someone know what their market rate is?

Kate : 12:12

Yeah, there are a number of ways to look at it, and this is not about your worth as a human being. The work that you do for companies is worth Right Again, salarycom, indeedcom, glass door ladders, I mean there's all kinds of different ways your professional organizations that you belong to, alumni associations, all of these places are great places to collect data on pay, and one of the most effective ways to do it is to ask people, and there's a lot of of serving of little ditam池amerses.

Kate : 12:50

And it's hard to excuse making difficult money for them, because you may only use five different ways that you could do it, and one of the ways to find them is that's a new market to lucre fueron steer them to ask for more pay, which is hey, my research shows that jobs like this are getting paid between X and Y in the marketplace. How does that land with you? It's something that you could ask somebody who's doing the job that you're interested in today, and then they could go well, that's really high, or well, that's low, or maybe I should need to ask for a reason. But at least that can give you some of the guardrails around what's normal for what you're looking at.

Francesca : 13:37

Yeah, does it differ if someone's freelancing Freelancing?

Kate : 13:43

pay can be all over the place. Again, professional organizations can be really great. So, if you're a coach, icf does a survey every year and stuff like that. But, yes, do try to gather data because there are data sources out there. But it's really about the value that you're able to sell into the client, not necessarily XYZ dollars per hour, although some people do price stuff that way. I see some people getting big bucks in the consulting, freelance coaching space when they don't have a ton of experience, but there's a pretty good correlation. So if you've got a 20-plus year career in corporate America and now you're going to go out and be a consultant, you're probably going to get paid a lot more than somebody with the newly minted MBA. It's going to be different than somebody with an MBA plus. Yeah, that's super fair.

Francesca : 14:40

Kate, you've written several books Pay Up, name your Price, which I love too, because it also focuses on folks that are contracting in freelance. One of the things you talk about in both of those books and in your consultancy is this idea of mindset. Yeah, and I think about this conversation, especially today, as an international women's day. Today, this is when we're talking happy Friday, happy international women's day, and we're sitting in the year 2024. We're all sitting in the country of the United States and women, especially, are making 16% less on the dollar than men, and we also know pay discrepancies happen across every gender, race, ethnicity, you name it and everybody at some point needs to negotiate their salary. And I'm curious about mindset. When you're going into these conversations Wondering if you can talk about what do you coach people on in terms of getting into the right mindset as you're thinking about earning what you deserve?

Kate : 15:36

Yeah, I think it's really critical and a lot of people go, oh, I don't need that, that's woe was stopped.

Kate : 15:42

But fundamentally, the way that I look at it both pricing conversations with clients and salary negotiations is you're solving a business problem.

Kate : 15:54

That's what you're doing, and especially when you're talking about pay for yourself, it's so hard to get that emotional distance that is important when you're doing any kind of work at work. So creating that emotional distance is really important, and one of the ways that I coach people on doing that is to meditate for even 10 minutes before you get on a conversation with the person you're negotiating with and clear your mind as well as you can, and then, when you come out of that, really be intentional about how you want to show up. What do you want people to notice about you? And chances are pretty good it's going to be like hey, I'm a really valuable person, I bring valuable skills, I'm on it, I'm on my game, I'm cool, I'm great. Those are things that you want people to notice about you and if you can clear your mind of some of the assumptions about yourself and maybe the other person you're negotiating with before you get on that call, you're going to do a lot better.

Francesca : 17:00

Yeah, the energy you show up with will be different and more attractive. Quite honestly, yeah, yeah, I got it. One of the things I think about, too, is that you have the right to ask for something. Yes, and I've talked to so many people where I can't ask for that. What if they pull off the table? What if they say no? What if? Do you find that people are afraid to even broach the possibility that they deserve more, or that they deserve what they're looking for?

Kate : 17:28

Yeah, and there's some people who just think to themselves the person I'm talking with knows more about what I'm worth than I know. What I'm worth and what the person that you'll negotiate with does have more knowledge of is what's going on inside the company. And fair right, they should. But you may have a different take on what your value is in the marketplace. This idea of are we worth it? I don't know and I don't feel like I can ask.

Kate : 18:01

This is really deep-seated socialization. That's happened particularly with women, particularly with people of color, around money stuff. You should be grateful just to have an offer. No, that's not the full story. Yeah, I should be grateful for my offer. They're making you an offer because they see that you have value, and one of the things that I coach my clients on, too, is that sometimes the client company places a different value on the work that's being done than you do, and so in that kind of a case it may not be a match. When you think about a marketing person, where are they going to be most highly valued? I'm going to just tell you, I worked at Nike. It's going to be a place like Nike, they're grown for it.

Kate : 18:51

And if you're a marketing person, you're going to be like Nike. And if you're a tech person, you're going to want to go to Intel, and I've worked for both of these companies and I can tell you that a tech person in Intel is likely going to be more highly valued because the work is more highly valued and more tied to their line function, their intellectual property, than it is in a company like Nike. Again, if you're a marketing person and you're talking to Intel and Intel has great marketing people, don't get me wrong but if you're really thinking about premium package, because you're a premium talent, working for a high-tech company may not be the right match for you.

Francesca : 19:38

It's good to know to not get discouraged. If you go in and someone says we're going to pay you half of what you can get on the market somewhere else, it doesn't mean you're not valuable, it just means that they're not willing to pay that rate. Understanding your market rate in different markets is really important, yeah.

Kate : 19:56

I've had clients. People ask me this all the time. Oh, I saw the range posted. What I want is more than what's posted Generally. They're not going to go above the range, but if you really feel like, wow, this is a great match, and perhaps the potential employer may not be as connected to the marketplace as you are, it's okay to go in and say, hey, I really feel like this is a great match for me and I don't want money to get in the way of a good thing. You should know that my research is showing that jobs like this are paid like this in the marketplace.

Kate : 20:34

I had a client about a year ago who was faced with that and she was like hey, I'm in a good place. They approached me and I don't want to go to work for them for less than a good increase from the thing that I'm doing now. So she actually negotiated a 10% higher than the top of the range. Oh, wow, but I think, too, they hadn't really leveled the job appropriately and she was able to show hey, these are the technical things that you're asking for, and so this is how it should be paid in the marketplace. Is that a common thing to do? No, but it certainly does help. It's worth it.

mel: 21:17

Worth it to have a conversation. We always say that just have the conversation you never, know, you never know. I'd love to talk about the dos and don'ts of having this conversation In your practice. You talk about the four-part recipe on how to have this conversation. What is that? What is the four-part recipe?

Kate : 21:37

So the four-part recipe is pretty similar between internal conversations with your boss and external. The first part is about expressing delight. So thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me. I'm so glad that XYZ Company thinks it's as good of a match as I do. Right Done, express delight because your recruiter doesn't always know if you're going to say yes, you want to set it up? Hey, we got some breadcrumbs out there.

Kate : 22:09

So that's part one. Part two is asking questions, and this is not where you're going to ask for. What you want more of this is you're trying to clarify the offer letter and, psm, by the way, read every damn thing that comes with your offer letter Everything, yes, yes. All the attachments, the policies.

Mel: 22:31

Get out of highlighter. Print that baby out.

Kate : 22:34

Write all over it Because you don't want to waste your time or their time asking stuff that you already actually have the answers to and remember you want them to think good things about you. One of the classic questions that my clients ask is something around 401k match, because a lot of times they'll say we have a very generous 401k match but they don't say what it is in writing stuff and say, hey, I see that you got a 401k match. Could you help me understand what that looks like? And then what the recruiter talk? Let your HR person or the hiring manager, whatever talk about that. And again, there are psychological reasons that we have this recipe in this order. But one of those things is these should be answerable questions that the person that you're talking to should be able to answer off the top of their head or answer with a very quick look up, so that you're making progress toward this conversation. And the number three thing is making your request. Now, a lot of people think negotiation is you start with number three, but do not start with number three. Right, it's a business problem. You're solving the business problem. You want everybody on board, so follow the recipe and make your request, like if somebody wants to ask for more base pay. This is how I ask them to do it. So my research shows that jobs like these are paid between X and Y in the marketplace. Remember that from our previous thing about asking your friends, based on my fill in the blank, some special thing about you. I'm targeting the higher end of the range. How close can we get? And this is important, this whole thing. So my research shows, yes, they want you to have done some research, right, and we want to be basing it based on your research, not on, hey, it might historically been paid lower than the market and so I would like to get paid lower than the market again. No, we want to base it on the research. So my research shows the jobs like this are paid X between X and Y. You want to give them a range of places to be successful right, but you don't want this to be if I can't have a pony for Christmas, I don't want anything. You want them to be able to be successful in different ways and the range should probably be about 10% wide. Maybe it's 55 to 65 or 55 to 62. You could say mid 200s if you want to, but X and Y in the marketplace, based on my special thing about myself, right, based on my directly applicable experience, based on my if you're doing an internal, based on my outstanding track record, if you're just coming out of school, based on the fact that I went to Northwestern, based on my special thing, we're targeting the higher end of that range. Right, okay, we say mid 200s. Well, that's 230 to 270. So I would like to be up at the top and remember, if you're saying mid 200s, 230 to 270 is in your head, you want to make sure that 230 is not your basement. Right, you'd be happy with 230. Based on this, I'm targeting the higher end of that.

Kate : 25:51

This last piece is really important. How close can we get? Now, again, this is a collaborative way, it's not. Can you do this, right? And you're asking how close can we get? Because you don't want to guess, or no question, because that fires off really quickly in the brain. You want them to stop and listen to it. Close can we get? And then the most important piece of this question is what you do when you're done, and that is you be quiet.

Mel: 26:19

Faved you. Yeah, you're like sure.

Kate : 26:21

no, it's for a while they're thinking right, and you've asked them something that they have to think about and it's a multiple part question, and so you want them to have time to process this and chance are very good that they're not going to be able to give you exactly what you want in that conversation. It's not your goal to have them say, yes, you can have $270,000, right, right. Your goal that we offer them, but it's not reasonable. They always have to go back, just like car salesmen. They always have to go back to the manager and have that expectation. So you're making a request to maybe three tops I wouldn't make more than that and rank them in the order of their importance. And that's not just like well, gym membership Okay, good for you, but if you get an extra $5,000, you can pay for that, you can count it. So rank it in terms of like, volume and importance.

Kate : 27:21

So then, once you've made your request, then the fourth piece is ending on an up note, and there are a couple of different pieces of this right, and one of them is we know that the end of conversations is more important than the beginning in the middle. It's stupid, it's true. If you look at Yelp reviews, they're all about like took them 15 minutes to get my bill to me and then I got mad. So one star. Yes, I know making the request it's very hard, it's very emotional, but you're focused on having a good ending this conversation. Thank you so much for advocating on my behalf, did they think?

Kate : 28:00

they were going to advocate on your behalf. Maybe not, but thanking them for doing it.

Mel: 28:05

It's always a good thing. A little bit of thanks goes a long way.

Kate : 28:08

You both know this. We're not getting any love.

Mel: 28:12

No, they're in the middle getting beat up on both sides.

Kate : 28:15

We need help If you're recognizing what they're doing for you and appreciating that it goes a long way. Yeah, it goes a long way.

Kate : 28:22

Yeah, thank you so much for advocating on my behalf. Then you have to figure out when you're going to talk to them again, because people think that doing this negotiation is the hardest part of negotiation. No, it is waiting to hear back from the recruiter. That is the worst. People make up stories and they're head about how it works. You can take the lead on this. When would be good for us to talk again? The insolver recruiters are going to be great and they're going to say, oh yeah, let's talk again on Thursday. But if they don't say that, when would be a good time for us to talk Sounds like you've got some background stuff that needs to happen.

Kate : 29:05

I want to make sure that you have enough time to do that. What about next Wednesday? Does that sound like a good time for us to connect? Sure, I guess we could. I've got nine o'clock free. Can I send you an invite? Take some work off of your recruiters plate, because, guess what, they have 30 to 40 requisitions. You're not the only person that they're talking to, so make it easy for them and then you're done. Right, you've expressed your delight, you've asked your questions, you've made your quest and then you've ended. On an up note it's a recipe for success.

Mel: 29:43

Having a collaborative conversation and you're providing options, just like they've provided you with options, and it shows that you're willing to compromise. And it's a two-way street, go the long way and it's and you're poor recruiters. They're really trying. They do want the best for you and Kate to your good point. They're usually handling 40, 50 recs. They're having this negotiation conversation with a million candidates and going back and forth with hiring managers on what could move. So just a little bit of kindness goes such a long way. I have two follow-up questions. It sounds pretty clear and straightforward from your four-part recipe. This is what you should say. Don't deviate from this, because this is a solid plan. But what should you absolutely not say in these discussions?

Kate : 30:31

I have a number one thing you don't want to say for an internal conversation with your boss, and that is to use the word fair in any way, shape or form, because, even though it may be objectively true that it's not fair the way that you're being paid, what managers tend to hear with that is you, manager, are acting out of integrity and nobody wants to feel like they're not doing the right thing and you need your manager to advocate on your behalf. Just like the recruiter in the external scenario, your manager is going to be the one who's going to be advocating for your behalf in an internal scenario. So you don't want them to be mad at you or to think, oh my gosh, she thinks fair. I'm immediately thinking wasu and we're going to batten down the hatches and not talk about anything. That's not what this is about.

Kate : 31:31

So if you're really focusing on the external market and not, oh my gosh, my friend Mel is making 20,000 more than me and that is not fair. No, my research shows a job like these are being paid between X and Y in the marketplace. Based on my super awesome thing, I'm targeting the higher end of that range. How close can we get? That's a perfect, legit conversation to have with your boss, but it also pulls the focus away from their actions and protecting the company to what really they need to focus on is what's going on in the marketplace.

Mel: 32:12

Follow the formula it works, it works. You talked about gym memberships and getting clear on what you want to negotiate. Are there things you absolutely should stay away from negotiating?

Kate : 32:24

So the gym membership is actually a little foreign my side, because I did have an executive when I was internal to a company that shall remain nameless, who is an executive at a Fortune 100 company, I will say that and who wanted to negotiate every stinking thing in his package, including a gym membership. Dude, you're making so much money. This is worth maybe three grand to you, come on. So, yeah, if you're an executive, don't be negotiating the little things, because everybody will hate you for it, including yourself.

Kate : 33:03

When somebody says, okay, we've had enough, but benefits, you probably won't be able to negotiate anything with benefits because everybody's getting the same thing. You could try, but it's not even worth the effort. To be honest with you, what else do you not want to negotiate? I think that for the most part, work conditions again, some of them, whether or not it's hybrid or work from home situation those absolutely should be negotiated, but negotiate those after you figured out the package, especially if they've hinted through the job description or whatever, that people are part-time, working at home or whatever. Don't be negotiating work conditions before you do your other stuff. What have you all seen that you have with Regis?

Francesca : 33:51

There was an executive he had come from a very large technology company, was going to a smaller technology company that didn't have free food everywhere and asked for $10,000 a year for lunch stipend. And it was like, bro, you're making like $20 million a year, you don't need the $10,000 lunch stipend. Run for the border like all of us. You know what I'm saying.

Mel: 34:14

Get real. It sounds like people should be realistic. Focus on your base, focus on the right stuff. One thing that's come up for us recently and it would be fun to go down a rabbit hole to see what people have negotiated you must have some examples, kate, of like weird stuff you've seen negotiated and included. One of the things Francesca and I were talking about recently with all of the layoffs was can you negotiate your severance upfront? Is that something you can negotiate as part of your starting package? If I'm to be laid off within the first year or within the first two years, I'm given this package, an agreed-a-pound package, is that something you can negotiate?

Kate : 34:54

It depends on your level in the organization. Perfectly frank with you. When I'm working with C-suite folks, even in smaller organizations, that is always part of the conversation that we have. But typically below, I would say, a VP level, I haven't seen that because below the VP level there's usually some sort of a policy that's in place Even at the VP level. A lot of times there is too, but it is more common to negotiate it as part of your employment agreement, if you have one, and those typically don't start until VP level. But the same thing goes with relocation. If you're doing a relocation package, a lot of times there's some flexibility, but not a lot, because with larger companies they typically tier it based on the level of job that you're at. And another reason to do away with levels in my own bed. But until then, one of the crazy things I've seen I know somebody who had two great dates who could not fly because they you can't fly, you can't put them under the belt in the plane.

Kate : 36:07

There's biggest of the plane so you can't. But that person was able to negotiate renting a van. They used that as part of their moving. It seems fair. It seems fair.

Mel: 36:20

You want your pets or your loved ones. What do you do if you've done the research, you've done the four-part recipe, you've shared the research and they come back and say that's anecdotal information.

Kate : 36:36

It depends. One of the things that I advise people to do too, before they even get to negotiate, is figure out whether your bottom line is, and so you know. Sometimes the bottom line, the offer, is already in there, and so it's okay. If you can't negotiate anything, that's not necessarily a loss. But again, think about how the company is treating you through this process. If somebody told me that my research was anecdotal, I'd be a little pissed off. Yeah, do I want to work here. But if they're saying, hey, that's not consistent with what we're seeing in our salary surveys and you don't know all the stuff that's behind what they're putting in and they may be wrong in your opinion and you're not going to be able to come to an agreement, and that's okay. If they don't value the work the way that you want to be paid you feel like you should be paid then again it's not that it's a bad call by the company or a bad call by you. It's just not a match.

Mel: 37:57

Every company also has their own comp philosophy. So who's doing comp right?

Kate : 38:03

Oh, my gosh. I think it depends, and I wouldn't say that any one company is doing a super great job across the board. But my companies that are doing more in terms of salary transparency, pay transparency some of it is fair enough because they wanted to comply with the law. That's always a good thing. But a lot of my clients who are located in California, which is where the big pay transparency stuff is going on, they're being open about it all across the country, even where there's not pay transparency laws on the books, and I think it's just great and people are like oh, that's really simple pay transparency. But what it translates to a lot of different things that really are around health in this area, which is, hey, we're going to be really consistent with the way that we level our jobs, we're going to be consistent with the way that we pay our people. We're going to talk about pay with our employees. Those things are all really great.

Mel: 39:06

Are there any companies today that you're like man? They're really progressive here.

Kate : 39:10

Every single company, even companies that are doing well in this space, I'm sure have individuals that they are paying the way that they probably could, and so that's why I don't want to go. Hey, xyz Corp totally is nailing it, and then there's one person getting paid like crap.

Mel: 39:28

Yeah, they're like wait, I'm paying peanuts over here. You don't know your time. Yeah, I get it. I totally understand.

Kate : 39:35

Are there any companies that you guys would hold out as?

Mel: 39:38

good models in this space. When I think of like good practices, it's not different from what you've already mentioned. It's organizations that are making sure that they're looking at the research, probably in an annual basis, and making sure that people are in their comp ratio and in the market rate and they're really doing that analysis to make sure, if folks are under their market rate, that they're making them whole in some way and finding a way to do that. I think it's hard to get it perfect to make sure that you're trying and in your transparent about the steps you're taking to make it right. I think that's so critically important.

Francesca : 40:17

I've sat at tables where we're reviewing comp and there have been some companies I've worked with where we're not going to talk about things like pay equity, we're not going to have these types of conversations. And then I've also worked at organizations that are very open to that conversation and that might sound really basic, but the ability to even say, hey, we've got a discrepancy here. What can we do to start working towards bridging the gap? I applaud organizations that are willing to have that conversation, because not everybody is.

Kate : 40:45

And, ironically, some of the most transparent with pay organizations that are out there are actually governmental organizations. So, like, my first job out of drug goal was with the sting of Colorado and we had this book and you could look up everybody's spending. And now it's online, because that's how old I am, but we come from book era too. That's the way things work. It's everybody knows what everybody gets paid. There's really a lot of openness about that and people make it their business to know why things are the way they are. It's a really good model and people don't typically go oh yeah, the government. That's where I want to go for my party. They've been doing it and doing it well for years and years.

Francesca : 41:34

Yeah, the best learning and development organization is the military, so they get things right.

Mel: 41:39

They do get things right.

Francesca : 41:39

Yeah.

mel: 41:41

But the way that COMP is structured is also evolving over time. I'd love to understand from your point of view, how do you see COMP evolving and how would you like to see it evolve.

Kate : 41:54

Hmm, interesting, two different answers. I think so. One of the perspectives that I carry is that my company is a B corporation, so we're really all about people and planet and profit. So I work with lots of B-corp. I also work with lots of nonprofits. I also work for other companies too, but my perspective with the nonprofit and B-corp group these are mission focused organizations, purpose driven right, and I am seeing a lot of these companies shifting toward employee ownership, which I think is super cool, and there are more and more tools available for organizations that want to go this route than there have been before.

Kate : 42:41

It used to be a very daunting process and I'm not going to say it's easy now, but again, tons more resources, a lot more specialists consulting in that area. So that's one thing that I'm seeing evolve for purpose driven companies and it's pretty cool and also requires a completely different leadership model. Right, a few employees who are owning the company. They want to know the stuff. Right, it's like taking pay transparency to the next level, right? Not just pay transparency, it's P and L transparency and I just I think that's great, I think it's awesome, and I'm also seeing, with these companies purpose driven companies I'm seeing a trend toward really advancing the pay of frontline workers. One of my clients decided that they wanted a family housing wage to be their minimum wage. They pay over 2x what the market rate is for those jobs. That's amazing and I think it's terrific and appropriate. And our minimum wage has lagged from a federal perspective, even our state perspective. I'm in Oregon and, yeah, it's much, much higher than the federal, but I don't think it's kept pace especially with when you look at how our executive pay has shifted over time. So I'm digging those things and those are things that I would want to see every company shift toward.

Kate : 44:12

Well, another thing that I'm thinking about is how have the systems of bias and oppression contributed to our pay program? So I think about antiprecipate a lot, and what can we do to move away from that? One of the things that I try to work with my clients on is removing individual performance as a factor that's going to determine pay. Do you want to still keep track of what people are doing and how they're doing it? Absolutely, that's fine. But we know that it's bias the way that we look at performance. Performance standards for women are substantially narrower than the most for men. For people of color, it's very dramatically different, that behaviors that are okay in the dominant culture are not okay in some of these cultures that have been marginalized by the dominant culture. How can we make pay less problematic from those kinds of perspectives? So that's what I'm really focusing on these days.

Francesca : 45:17

What would be your definition of anti-oppressive pay structures, because I don't think a lot of our listeners know what that is?

Kate : 45:24

Yeah, Well, it's actually a term I came up with. It's some different avenues that we look at in terms of what determines pay. So levels, so the more levels that you have, the more likely it is going to impact people who've been marginalized by the systems, because at every inflection point where you're moving from one level to another, you have this kind of this filtration system that's built in, this social system that's built in, and women, people of color, differently-abled folks, lgbtqia plus folks, they find it harder to get to that next level and I think that's honestly that's going to be the last one to fall, because we think, of course, ceos should make more than frontline workers, but pay is a social construct. We made it up.

Mel: 46:18

It's not like there's a law about that, yeah, it could be revolutionary and change it and blow it up.

Kate : 46:26

And I sit on a group with a woman who's a CEO of a B Corp who pays everyone in her entire organization the same, including herself. That's right, though, yeah, 100% anti-oppressive right, because everybody gets it right. So levels are one, functions are another one. We talked about that a little bit ago. Individual performance as a determiner of pay that is huge, and that's probably the number one thing that I'm trying to communicate with my clients is hey, you know what? The government does a great job here. They have step stuff, and I get a lot of pushback. But oh, what about performance? Because that we have to make sure our shiny stars get more.

Kate : 47:13

There's some myth around individual performance in my mind, because no person's an island. If you've got somebody who's doing really terrific work, chances are they've got a really terrific team that's surrounding them, and the big archetype of this is sales. Dude, right, and sales are trillion, trillion widgets, and it's like this rugged, individualist thing and it's a myth, right, it's not a real, true thing, because they've got somebody who's vetting all the leads for them. They've got somebody who's arranging their travel, they've got really great products behind them. All of these things are conspiring to help this sales person be excellent, and it's not that they don't have any value, and they may be fantastic at creating the kind of relationships that lead to long-term success. So I don't want to take away from that. Should we be paying that person 3x what other people get? I don't know. I don't think so. Probably not.

Mel: 48:16

Yeah, it makes sense because, to your good point, they're not an island. They have a whole team of people setting them up for success. So, although they help close the deal, at the end, it's all of the steps that led up to that, though, that really helped play into it. So everyone has an equal role in that success.

Kate : 48:32

I really like that concept and there are a couple of other factors too around antipressive pay, things like making sure that people have access, like right now. We talked earlier about the things that are different as you go up the scale and having only executives being able to participate in equity programs or long-term incentive programs. I think that's silly, because people who are on the front line are doing things that are going to impact the long-term success of the company, and LTI tends to be one of the big wealth building vehicles for people, and if you just say, okay, 90% of our population doesn't even have access to that, so go away, that's not great, and when I worked at Intel, they gave every single person stock options and they don't do it anymore that way, but it created this completely different mindset for people who are on the manufacturing floor. That was tremendous and very good for the business. I'd love to see LTI if you're going to use it everywhere.

Francesca : 49:37

Walmart started to do that in terms of options to make their store managers owners in the company. Great, that's the kind of movement we love to see 20K in options which can be, over time, life changing for a lot of people, especially when we think about retirement or having a savings nest.

Francesca : 49:54

The other thing I think about. May I tell a story? I'm going to go on a scenic route and then I'll come back. Mel knows the story. I have two master's degrees. This is not a brag, this is just more funny than anything. I like to be in school. If I won the Lotto I would just go back to school. I love it. But my first master's degree was from Northern Illinois University. My second is from Northwestern. Why am I sharing that? Because when I went to Northern it was if you get a job, you may see this, and at Northwestern is when you're a chief marketing officer. This is what you'll see. And I think the idea of setting a band and saying this is the step, and here's the bar for everybody to hit, here's the bar, as opposed to paying for performance which, to your very good point, can be riddled with bias, and this is a team sport. It's a really interesting inverse, because what I have found is when you say here's the bar and it's an attainable bar, most people will meet it. Yeah, yeah, it gets like.

Kate : 50:57

Everybody wants to come to work and do a good job, right? Nobody comes in and say, hey, I want to be an asshole today.

Francesca : 51:03

There's that one guy the one who's going to come in.

Kate : 51:07

But people love success and they want to get the heart of success and they want to contribute to the success of the organization and they're kept in the loop about what's going on. And again, this is back to some of the things that employee owned companies do. If people are brought along in that venture, yeah, they're going to respond. The problem, like with employee engagement in general and I've done a ton of employee engagement research over my career, which I do like a weird geek about and I love. People need to understand that North Star. They need to feel like what they're doing matters and the more visibility you can create for that, the better it goes. Yeah.

Francesca : 52:11

So, kate, we have something we like to do with all our guests called Wrap it Round. We're going to give you a few questions. What's something that everyone should write into their offer letter?

Kate : 52:21

I don't know, because I work with people at all different levels of the organization. So what's really appropriate for my executive clients? Probably not the same as for my recent college grad, even our recent college grads. I would advise them to ask for a sign-on bonus and, if you don't know what to ask for, 10% of your starting salary, your base pay.

Francesca : 52:44

I like that 10% number, maybe not the use of the company jet, if you're just spitting off, I got it. What's the biggest mistake people make in negotiations?

Kate : 52:54

I think, just accepting the offer on the spot, even if you ultimately accept it and don't negotiate it, because a lot of times what companies will do is try to do what I call the pre-offer. If we said $60,000 right now, could you say yes right now? And it's not a car right? Let me see everything in writing and read about the benefits, because you may find that there's some significant gap that you don't know. So don't say yes on the spot.

Francesca : 53:22

This could be work-related. It could not be. But what do you love to negotiate, oh God?

Kate : 53:27

I love negotiating pay. Now I don't really negotiate my consulting rates or anything, and there's a whole reason behind that, but I just I love salary negotiations so hard and everybody should ask me about it because I will tell you. I will tell you all the things and I think it's super fine. My son is like my hype man and so he makes all of his friends call me and yeah, let's talk about it. So I love paying the compensation.

Francesca : 53:53

I really do. You should have like a ticker tape of how much money you've gotten people Like 70 billion served. I love that.

Kate : 53:59

I should, because, like my top one, I ever did a million and a half.

Mel: 54:05

Wow, get out of here.

Kate : 54:10

I was walking with a little swagger there for a second. We should, oh man.

Francesca : 54:15

Kate, we need to talk. Yeah, the trinities. This might be a very philosophical, perhaps a stoic question, but what should you never negotiate?

Kate : 54:26

in life, never negotiate things that don't really matter. We talked about the little things in an offer. It doesn't matter. Let go, you can use your energy better elsewhere.

Francesca : 54:39

Yeah, I love that so much of life is energy management, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, listen. I think everyone should read. Payup Name your prices are amazing books for everyone to read. Kate got into some of these things today. But, kate, I'm curious what other book would you recommend everybody read?

Kate : 54:57

One that is just on my mind recently because I heard the author speak yesterday is called Career Forward and it's by Christiana Giesmit Giesmit's. She it's terrific. It gives you lists of things that you can do and think about in your career to manage your career better, and it's really good.

Francesca : 55:16

One is you'd mentioned meditating in terms of getting into that mindset. Do you also recommend that folks have a hype song? I know a Nike there there's like the hybril. We get that sort of thing. But should people have a hype song?

Kate : 55:26

So my son was a baseball player and so he always got to pick his walk on song every season, and I love that. I think it's a great idea because we know our neural pathways. Sound allows us to dip into that space pretty easily, so maybe it's a walk on song, maybe it's the song that you play to calm your nerves or whatever, but however you want to show up in that moment, pick a playlist or a song or whatever to play beforehand. I love that idea.

Francesca : 55:58

What's yours If you had a walk on song, what would it be? I think it depends on what it was walking on to.

Kate : 56:04

This was like totally silly, but I love the song Happy. It was one that I played over and over when I was running half marathons and stuff, and so it just has all this good vibe. It's a jam. What's yours? I have to know that.

Francesca : 56:22

I have two. One is let's Dance by David Bowie just a jam. Two is Nas made you look which is a stuff I probably thought. No, what's your theme song?

Mel: 56:35

Oh my God, I was just thinking of Rihanna's bitch, better have my money. That's probably really inappropriate. That's her salary negotiation.

Kate : 56:46

I don't know, I think it's good.

Francesca : 56:52

This has been so wonderful. Let's talk with you today. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us, my great pleasure.

Kate : 56:59

Thanks for having me.

Francesca : 57:08

Thanks so much for joining us today and subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends.

Mel: 57:25

Thanks, friend.

Spotting Trustworthy Employers

Your Work Friends Podcast: Spotting Trustworthy Employers with Adam Horne

Job advertisements sell dreams…

But reality? That’s another story. Job descriptions, interviews, Glassdoor reviews—there’s truth in the subtext. Adam Horne, co-founder of Open Org is on a mission: to build a more trusted, transparent world of work. So, we wanted to get him on the pod to talk about how in the hell do you do that? Turns out, it's not only doable (let's start with employees having ZERO surprises around biggies like compensation, benefits, etc), but, when done authentically - can improve (like majorly improve) hiring, retention and overall health of an organization.  

Our conversation covers aligning internal and external transparency, the costs of cultural mismatches and the unintentional humor (or not) of hiring managers who promise more than they deliver.  Most importantly, this episode is loaded with practical advice for creating genuine, transparent work environments. If you want to avoid the smoke and mirrors and find a workplace that walks the talk, don’t miss this one.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

So we're of the view that there needs to be some sort of level of openness and transparency to call yourself transparent to a degree, and we provide that level of structure, but we don't necessarily prescribe where that transparency should be and necessarily how deep that should go. So the way that I try and talk about it with companies is work on defining it for yourself first. What does that look like? And that for me, starts of understanding, like why is this word important? If you're putting on your career site or your job ads or just putting it out there, there's got to be a reason why you're saying it, and if there's not, it's just an empty word.

Speaker 2: 0:48

Mel, good Monday to you. Good Monday to you, yes. Yes, I'm going to start saying that. It just feels like a thing, it feels like it could be a thing Feels like Shakespeare Good morrow is good morrow thing, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 0:59

I'm making that up.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Good morrow is a thing, that's a thing.

Speaker 3: 1:03

Good morrow Good morrow to you.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Well, I'm stoked to talk about Adam Horn. Adam Horn is the co-founder of OpenOrg, and what I love about the work OpenOrg is doing is they're on a pretty cool mission to rebuild trust by bringing clarity to the world of work, and they're doing that by making sure that people have zero surprises at work, like when you're interviewing for a job. They want you to have zero surprises around things like comp, culture, benefits and career development, and Mel and I were really taken with what they're doing and we had a chance to talk to him. And Mel, what did you think of that conversation?

Speaker 3: 1:40

I thought it was refreshing. It was really eye-opening to hear the perspective from Adam and his experiences working with organizations and truly the benefits of transparency, which feels like a no-duh situation, but not a lot of orgs are doing it, so I'm just really excited by this work.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:02

The other thing I really liked, too, was his twist on this. This is not open Oregon Adam dictating what transparency needs to look like they're really working with organizations to say, hey, what is authentic, what works for them, what works for you? Yeah, it's a really cool way of thinking about the zero surprise game for employees and whether they're coming into a company or whether they're in a company as well.

Speaker 3: 2:25

And the bottom line for your business.

Speaker 2: 2:27

A thousand percent Packed within this discussion are things that organizations can do, what individuals can do and what can you do if you're leading a team and you want to be more transparent, even if your organization might not be. So here's our conversation with Adam Horne. Adam Horne, welcome to the pod. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for having me on. It's awesome.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Yeah, adam, you've had a really interesting career, right. You've started multiple organizations. Now you're pulling into OpenOrg. You're a new father as well too, so you've got like a lot going on, probably trying to get some sleep here and there. Just super curious as to how did you even get into this work? How did you get to where you are today?

Speaker 1: 3:20

Yeah, I gave up on sleep a long time ago.

Speaker 1: 3:23

It's like this way, my latest uh child is my third and I've got three under six now and I've navigated the, the three kids and businesses etc over the the period of having COVID and stuff going on as well. So yeah, it's been interesting the last sort of four or five years, to be honest. But yeah, my, my career as a whole over the last sort of 12, 13 years is is all centered around people and talent. So nine of those 12 years as a founder or co-founder myself as well. So I've navigated the complexities and challenges of being a founder and trying to build and run a business, always bootstrapped, always anywhere between sort of five employees up to 70, 80 employees so that size but challenging in its own way but also a lot of that time actively working with clients externally on their hiring and their people strategy. So over that time I've had a lot of exposure to working with startups or scale-ups all over the world hundreds of them over the years and have, from a hiring perspective in particular, I've seen a very clear difference in terms of how companies benefit from being transparent or not. I've worked with some really open, transparent companies and you just tell when you walk through the door and you settle in that this is a very open, transparent environment. I've got resources, information landing on my lap and your job becomes very easy, regardless of what you're doing, but particularly when you are in that role where you're dealing with bringing new people into the business, being able to offer clarity and depth to candidates and applicants before they join, you see the benefit of that when they walk through the door it's really clear and things like attrition, retention, all of those sort of key metrics that businesses look at to try and point them towards some level of organizational health, feel really clear, really nice.

Speaker 1: 5:09

I've also had the benefit on the flip side, of working with companies that are incredibly secretive, some by design but some just through pure chaos and uncertainty and lack of communication. But as an example, I've been parachuted into businesses before where I've been told I'm not allowed to know what funding round we've just done because it's a bit secretive. So if candidates ask an interview, just tell them. You can't let them know. And I've been given about 10 different values from different employees who don't really know what values the business has.

Speaker 1: 5:39

So that end of the spectrum effectively in terms of the way businesses operate and you can still hire, you can still get people through the door, but I've seen what happens after people join and then, generally speaking, you've got that sort of revolving door type situation in those types of business and you see the struggles and the cost and the time it's been trying to just maintain headcount, let alone grow. So over that time I've had a really clear view on what transparent culture looks like and what that benefit is from being more transparent, and I've been lucky enough, whilst running my own businesses alongside that, to be able to pull that experience into how I build my own companies as well, and I've always defaulted to my own level of transparent, my own level of open, and it's worked incredibly well for me. So that, as a bit bit of a backstory, is where I come to today as regards to launching OpenOrg.

Speaker 2: 6:28

We want to talk about OpenOrg because we've seen this conversation about how transparent organizations are evolved, especially, I feel like, over the last and I could be wrong on the numbers, but it feels like especially over the last four years. Five years. Is you need to put this information out there or this is now the expectation? So I'm loving these conversations around now. Transparency is the expectation from a marketplace perspective. So, Adam, what does OpenOrg do?

Speaker 1: 6:51

The way we come in to it really is. I co-founded OpenOrg with an old friend of mine and we've known each other for 12 years, so we've had this talk track for 12 years, even about the world of work and culture and how it's broken and one day we'll fix it. And we've talked I don't want to name names, but talked about the damage that toxic review sites do to employers and to applicants and so on and so forth and how one day we'll find a new way to rebuild trust in terms of that intersection between you know, applying to a role and starting in the right type of business for you. So that's where a lot of the conversation about open org has come up and that's exactly where we sit. We want to get to the point with open org where we can help companies not just become internally transparent with their employees.

Speaker 1: 7:34

That's a really good, healthy place to be, but it only does so much for us. You've got to mirror as much of that as possible externally. There's some things you maybe aren't comfortable doing and that's fine as a limit, but there's no benefit just to being internally transparent For us. There's huge benefits to opening that door a little bit more and showing people under the bonnet, showing people exactly what they're going to be getting when they come in, because without that, people are coming into your business with the wrong expectations. Without that, people are coming into your business with the wrong expectations. So Open Org operates exactly that intersection of employer brand hiring and both internal and external transparency and trying to help employers get more aligned across that spectrum to build healthier alignment across that entire employee journey.

Speaker 2: 8:21

It's interesting when you look at why you should really think about transparency as an organization. I'd like to take it from the employee side a little bit more and also from the organization side, because one of the things you talk about is really to have employees have zero, zero surprises. When you start a new job and I personally felt that I think we all have right where you thought you were getting into a gig, you thought it was one thing, and then into it you're like, oh hell, this is this is not this at all. You talked about this a little bit earlier, but I'm wondering if you can walk us through what the benefits are to have zero surprises as an employee so much across that entire life cycle.

Speaker 1: 8:57

If you look at some of the sort of stats and the research out there around people leaving new hires leaving roles within the first 90 days or so, I think there's a stat out there and I take them with a pinch of salt because you hear different things and different things, but there's so much research on this ultimately around how many people leave roles. I think it's something like 30% of new hires leave roles within 90 days. Such a waste of time for everyone. Such a waste of time for everyone the money you spend interviewing, hiring, the time you spend in the salaries for paying all of that stuff to get into that. It's such a waste of time for everyone involved. And then you have to start again to rehire all because and most of those people leaving site misalignment on cultural role as one of the big reasons for them leaving. And then there's other studies out there that link to that.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Four in ten hiring managers have admitted to lying to candidates about a role or a culture or how business operates. So lying yeah, they actually these are the hiring managers actually admit to lying about this and this is like a resume builder survey study that you can go out there and find online. That's just the people who admit to it. It there's probably more over and above that who haven't admitted to it, but again, just at that interview stage, in terms of attracting talent, attracting candidates, there's a whole lot of problems going on there. So there's a time factor that is being wasted here. There's cost, there's money. There's also well-being and mental health involved here, particularly for the candidates and the employees, but also for the hiring managers, and my co-founder, john, has had this himself as a hiring manager in a larger corporate business, hiring people knowing that he's selling the wrong version of what people are going to get. But he's in this corporate environment where he's just feeling like he has to hire and grow and his own well-being and mental health took real damage because of that, which led to him leaving because of that situation too.

Speaker 1: 10:49

So there's a lot of reasons why transparency really is important in building trust at that early stage. But then, when you look inside the business internally, day to day, there's so many things that point to the benefits of of being transparent and opening, communicative with individuals when it comes. But once they're in, the benefit of being transparent and communicative with your employees is really important as well when you're thinking about to use layman terms like getting everyone aligned and on the same page. That's a lot of what ceos talk about wanting to get and wanting to see. That's all about communication and getting people aligned and understanding where are we going, what are we doing, and that can boil down to so many different things internally in terms of what transparency does look like, and that will differ for different people, but the benefits are there when it comes to productivity, performance, profitability. The research is out there.

Speaker 2: 11:41

What do you think really drives organizations to not be transparent, because we see this so much, especially as you get in these big behemoth organizations. There are some that do this, okay, but I would argue that most of for us, the fortune 500, I don't know if they do this really well. What is holding organizations back from being transparent?

Speaker 1: 12:04

Lots of different factors that could be founder mentality. Obviously that's probably more prevalent in smaller businesses. But if you have a more traditional CEO founder who doesn't believe in seeing employees is that they're equal ultimately and understanding the power of employee could bring when you think about things like co-creation and just communication, they see them as workers rather than, again, equals. That creates silos immediately in how companies are structured and how hierarchies work and those silos immediately cause problems with communication and what's shared and what's not shared. So there's a founder ce leadership mentality, mindset thing that is really common and we see that so much with the people leaders we speak to.

Speaker 1: 12:48

There are some instances where companies in fairness are operating in certain industries or environments where they can't share certain information and that's completely fair. But I think what I see happen there is, if they're operating in this sort of environment or industry where it's a little bit more secretive or confidential, that stops them being transparent in ways that they still could be. They suddenly put the shutters down and they use it almost as an excuse to say we can't share this, so it means we can't share anything else. We try and find ways of showing them actually there's still some really relevant information you can still share.

Speaker 1: 13:21

That's safe and okay, but the default to being closed and secretive because of that and I guess the other one probably is some companies that have just grown either very quickly or very slowly over time, with a certain mindset, with a certain culture, and it's almost too much for them to unravel now, particularly in a larger corporate sort of environment. You've got problems with pay equality and equity across the entire business. Where do you start? How do we unravel that? What do we do? It's almost easier just to keep pushing on in the direction we're going and hope that it never causes us too many problems or assume that if it does cause us problems, it's going to be cheaper for us than having to rework all of this and rebalance salaries and so that there's some companies that may be too far down the road to care about it.

Speaker 2: 14:08

It's just like that big nod of Christmas lights or something that you're like we're just not even going to handle.

Speaker 3: 14:14

Just walk away slowly. Oh gosh, adam. It's so shocking, as someone who worked in talent acquisition, to hear that hiring managers would lie in an interview. And I would say why? Just why, because people are going to find out as soon as they start the job. So it's just an interesting choice to me.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Yeah, I think there's pressure from above. Particularly when you work in a larger corporate type environment, I think you probably are more likely to just feel this pressure from above to hit targets when it comes to hiring for your team. You just do what you need to do to get people through the door and you probably have more resources around you as well, so you don't think about the cost. And when it comes to time that's invested in hiring, you've got a TA team that will. Yeah, they do. They just do their magic stuff in the background and you don't really appreciate how much work goes into that as a hiring manager sometimes. So there's lots of again reasons why people might do it. But yeah, I was shocked to see that as well.

Speaker 2: 15:14

I think I've lied. I think I've lied. Have you? Yeah, I think I have not. Let me ask you all this Is this a lie? Like when you feel like you're probably out the door anyway, but you're hiring people and you're like, yeah, the culture is great.

Speaker 3: 15:29

I actually won't say that. If someone asks me interesting, I will just what's the culture like and I've been honest.

Speaker 1: 15:36

I'll give you the good, the bad and the ugly, because I think you deserve to know it so I had this conversation with someone recently who's a I won't again name names because it's a bit of a delicate one, but it was a people leader. I think there was an m&a event. Their business has been acquired, everything would change. They were basically checked out and said I'm committed to moving on. Now everything's changed. That's not what we've built anyway, because they're in a people lead a role. They were heavily involved in hiring and interviewing.

Speaker 1: 16:04

So we that touched on that discussion of what should I be doing, and I guess my advice was similar to the. What Melza said there is that the most positive thing you can do now is try and make sure that anyone else that walks through that door and joins that business is aligned, because even though you don't think it's a great place to work anymore for you, it doesn't mean it's terrible for everyone, and there are still people out there who really will align with that culture. Even if you think it's crazy, it doesn't make any sense, there are people who might like it. So do what you can to present facts and, rather than being opinionated, try and talk explicitly about what culture looks like here, which I think actually is what so many companies don't actually understand at the starting point is like what is culture here? How do we describe it and understand it, rather than giving an opinion on how fun it is here?

Speaker 3: 16:57

Either happy hours yeah, yeah understood, yeah we have a foosball table. No, I'm just kidding that pods. No, and it's interesting because the cost I thought I read this week that what they previously thought the cost of making the wrong hire was significantly low to compare, comparing to what the actual true cost of that is. And, adam, I'm sure you must have some number that you know about. What is the cost of that at times? What could it be up to?

Speaker 1: 17:25

Yeah, I again chatted about this yesterday. I can't really give you a figure because I just keep seeing all these different figures out there, in different, yeah, but it's high. The one that seems to stick in my mind is up to two thirds of someone's salary to replace. So if someone's on $90,000 a year, it could cost you 60k to just replace them. And again circling back to the benefits of being open and transparent, the more you can share up front, it's not just about getting people aligned to the right culture. It's not just about getting people aligned and to the right culture. But there's so many benefits around onboarding and ramp up time and getting people to a point where they are more productive in the early days within your business. So companies are always looking at like how can we shorten that ramp up time so that people are effectively making us money sooner, which is completely fair? How do we do that? The more share, the more you provide up front, the quicker that happens.

Speaker 3: 18:37

What does a good open culture look like from your perspective?

Speaker 1: 18:43

that's a really interesting question. It's really hard to answer as well, because people ask us quite a lot like how do you define transparency? And this is the whole world that we're in. So we, we don't define it. We were very keen from the outset to make sure that we aren't the ones trying to define what transparent looks like.

Speaker 1: 19:01

That's part of the problem for me, like some of these awards and accolades out there that you can win about we've got great culture or a great place to work. The problem is you're prescribing to someone else's view of what good looks like You're jumping through hoops and like ticking boxes view of what good looks like you're jumping through hoops and like ticking boxes. So we're of the view that there needs to be some sort of level of openness and transparency to call yourself transparent to a degree, and we provide that level of structure, which I won't dive too deeply into, but we've got an assessment and a framework companies can follow. So we do have some level of it, but we don't necessarily prescribe where that transparency should be and necessarily how deep that should go. So the way that I try and talk about it with companies is work on defining it for yourself first. What does that look like? And there's a very high level journey that, for me, starts with understanding like why is this word important? If you're putting on your career site or your job ads or just putting it out there, there's got to be a reason why you're saying it, and if there's not, it's just an empty word. So where I tend to see it, there's two paths.

Speaker 1: 20:00

Typically, when it does work well is it's either heavily linked to your product, your value prop idea you're doing something that's bringing transparency to your customers or whatever that might be, via a platform or a product, and you can lean into transparency as a business yourself, which works really well or it ties heavily into your values and when you dig a little bit deeper and understand what those values are and why, that's when you can start to work with companies to help them understand what they should be leaning into and what they should be sharing more of.

Speaker 1: 20:28

I'll give you an example. Company I worked with recently talked a lot about they believe their strength is in having a diverse team, but they offered nothing around diversity, no transparency externally around what diversity looked like for them. I talked to them about the fact that they talk about strength and diversity and this is a really core value for them. That's an opportunity to be transparent and double down in that particular area. So, long story short, transparency is going to mean different things to different people, but I ask companies to look at their culture, their values, intrinsically to that, and look at where they can double down. You don't have to share everything across the entire spectrum, but think about what it means to your business, find ways you can double down and over index in certain ways, and that starts building a little bit of meaning behind the word for you as well.

Speaker 3: 21:13

So it's more personalized, depending on your business. I know at OpenOrg you're going in. You're taking a look at this with them, so it might not necessarily be like this is what good looks like. But in terms of leading practices, for example, what would something like open compensation what's a leading practice you might recommend, regardless of that company's personal mission? What advice would you offer?

Speaker 1: 21:41

We've still got some like minimum standards that we would say people should try and attain and get to, and then the optional. This is how you elevate it if you want to go crazy and go for it basically buffer style but for us, the minimum expectation, ideally, is to get to the point where you can comfortably put a salary or a salary band on a job advert when you're hiring. Now that, for us, is really important because you're then providing some external transparency, building trust with talent, reverse engineering that. How do we get to that stage? There's a lot of work that goes into that before you can get to that stage. So you've got to work on your compensation philosophy, your bands and your levels.

Speaker 1: 22:19

How do we benchmark our salaries? Where do we get that data from? We encourage companies to share that internally as well, as much as you possibly can, and if you can't, that's okay, but as an absolute minimum, what people really want to see is how is this decision being made? Whatever I I'm being paid, that's fine.

Speaker 1: 22:38

How have you come up with that decision? What data have you used and where have you got it from and how has that been assessed? So it's the why and the how behind the decision is actually really key for me as a minimum requirement. People don't care about what their colleagues being paid, necessarily, as long as they can see what they're being paid is fair and they feel that that lines up with what they should be getting paid. That's really key. So again, minimum expectation provide the how and the why behind the decisions with the things like pay and hopefully get to the point where you can comfortably put a salary on an advert and not have chaos ensue internally where people are reapplying for their own jobs because they see that you're paying someone else 30k more.

Speaker 3: 23:18

I never really understood why that isn't public information, because people are going to find out anyway, because they talk about it. So it's interesting to me that they don't share the process, because it is an in-depth process to go through salary band review each year and it's good for folks when they're talking about their year end and bonus and seeing where they're at and if they have room to grow. It's a good discussion to have with your people.

Speaker 1: 23:43

It's hard work and it takes a long time and that puts a lot of companies off and it won't suddenly mean that everything goes perfectly. You're still going to have some really tough, awkward, tricky conversations with employees who are unhappy about what they're paid, why they're paid it. It's not going to make everything go away, but it builds so much trust as a starting point so that when you have that conversation, people feel like they trust you. They can see it, it's open and it's a starting point for a conversation effectively. And you've got that backup. Most businesses have done their working out. They've got some data source behind them. That should build some confidence in you to have that conversation and say, look, we haven't just plucked this from thin air, this is what we've used, so share it.

Speaker 3: 24:24

It's honest and it helps others really understand the process, because I think if you're not in comp, it does feel like a mystery. Did you just throw a dart at the dartboard and pick this number? So it's good to include that. What about some leading practices in terms of company culture?

Speaker 1: 24:40

yeah, so we culture is one of the pillars under our framework and it's probably like one of the broader ones. What we try and get companies to do is really think about what does culture mean here? What does it look like? Because I think the default for a lot of companies when you look at career pages is like we've got great culture and then there's like a picture of a team playing like crazy golf or whatever they're doing on a team social and that like sums up culture on the face of it. And we're trying to get companies to start moving away from that.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Don't start sharing like all the positive employee stories of it's fun to work here, it's great. Start sharing some facts and reality around, like how do we succeed as a team? What is the sort of unique DNA or blend of how we work, our ways of work that enable us to work well together and succeed? And how do we learn? How do we fail? How do we thrive? How do we like communicate?

Speaker 1: 25:28

There's so much you can gain from understanding how a team communicates day to day. Is it synchronous? Asynchronous Boundaries have reset to communicate. Communicates day to day. Is it synchronous? Asynchronous boundaries have reset to communicate. It might seem like a lot of information, but you can get that across to people really nicely on on wiki or careers page or a job advert.

Speaker 1: 25:46

The companies that do this well do really well and they hire people who succeed really well in their business. So for us, that's culture. It's thinking more about operational excellence rather than that word culture. And when you start breaking it down like that and thinking in that way, you can actually look at some of those areas around communication and documentation and meetings. That's one of the areas under our culture pillar is encouraging companies to talk more about their approach to meetings. Engineers in particular, and others as well. Now, to be honest with you, really benefit and enjoy having blocks of time for like, deep work and focus. They don't want to be sucked into six hours of meetings a day. So start talking to people more about your approach to meetings as a business and people have the opportunity to opt in or out. That's like what we refer to as culture, rather than the coffee, the beanbags, all the other stuff.

Speaker 3: 26:38

Yeah, that's how we work around here. Right, that's all good stuff to highlight. What about benefits? How do you feel about leading practices there?

Speaker 1: 26:46

Yeah, another bugbear, and this is hard right. Like you can only get so much information on some careers page, for example, or a job advert, but they have defaulted over time to just being a little bit vague and shiny and like you can't really see much. So you see, like competitive salary mentioned, like just go a little bit deeper, even if it's an extra line to say we benchmark and pay on the 75th percentile. You can't just say it's competitive and that's going to suddenly mean it's competitive to everyone. Someone could be working for the you know business that pays 90th. Someone could be working for somewhere that's 30th.

Speaker 1: 27:20

You can't just say that and have it apply to everyone. So just add some meaning. So, generally speaking, best practice on benefits when we work with companies and look at this is just really I don't want to say tearing apart, that sounds a bit aggressive but like line by line, going through each benefit that they've listed and actually looking at how can you elevate that and add a little bit more clarity to what that is. And I think maternity leave, paternity leave, is a big one. So many companies write enhanced parental leave.

Speaker 3: 27:48

What does that even mean?

Speaker 1: 27:50

A week and if so, how much? Buy or would you offer 12 months full pay? Just tell people what it is. Actually, it's not a deal breaker for most people. It just helps them understand and plan ahead and think what does that mean for me financially if I do join here and I do decide to have a child? And it's not a deal breaker, but it helps set expectations and it's one of those things, famously, that's always been really hard to find out before you join a business.

Speaker 3: 28:14

Yeah, it's so interesting to me because my experience in organizations one that I was interviewing with or to have worked with although there's information provided, it's so high level and so vague and usually it's not until you get to the offer stage where someone will finally meet with you to get into the details. And I always think that's a disservice, Because if you're just exploring an organization, you want to be able to say what does this exactly look like, so everyone's happy in the end, You're not waiting all the way through.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Six interviews have happened, You've wasted five hours of everyone's time, You're at the offer stage and you lose that candidate because they didn't like the benefit package that they're getting Another example and one company that does this really well and you some might argue it's a bit overkill, but health insurance might work differently in the uk to the us. I don't know whether it's a little bit more comprehensive and everything's covered regardless, but absolutely not over here, like even if you have insurance.

Speaker 2: 29:11

It's absolutely like it's garbage. It's garbage.

Speaker 1: 29:14

I don't want to say I made the assumption. But it's the same here as well. There are some companies that say we offer health cover. Great, on the face of it, brilliant, I'm excited. But then you join and you realize, okay, it's just for me, it's not for my family. I didn't realize that. Or you realize, okay, I've got a very specific, rare condition that's not covered by this particular policy, so that's not a benefit to me. Now, and there's a company called Juro and others do this as well, but I know about Juro. You can, on their notion, you can dig deep on their benefits, click into their health cover and actually look at the exact policy document that they've got for their business. And it's long, it's in depth, but you can actually go and find out.

Speaker 1: 29:51

Is my specific condition covered, which is great.

Speaker 3: 29:54

Yeah, that's fantastic because that's the stuff people need to know when they're moving, especially when it impacts your family, as you mentioned, if you find out after the fact. Oh wait, that actually happened to a friend of mine where she found out with her new job, it only extends to her, it doesn't extend to her family.

Speaker 2: 30:10

So, yeah, I think a lot of organizations are doing really cool things too. I worked for an organization where, after I had my son, they flew my breast milk like overnight yeah Back to my house, which was like $800 a pop, and they did that for every single mother. And that, to me, is I don't know why you guys aren't screaming this from the effing rooftops. Yeah, there's also stuff that the organization could be screaming from the rooftops and they're not. Yeah, there's also stuff that the organization could be screaming from the rooftops and they're not.

Speaker 1: 30:39

Yeah, and this is again it's personal choice in terms of how much effort you want to put into it, but there are companies that will have. You know that we call them handbooks in the UK and try not to refer to it too heavily as handbook in the US, because it's a slightly different, slightly more legal document in the US, but like a wiki or a resource hub for employees effectively to be able to go and dig deep and look at this stuff. And you can keep it high level and say we offer enhanced parental leave. Or you can really provide a heap of depth on parental leave and not just like what do we give parents, but what does returning from maternity leave look like? How do we help you and support you and all that entire journey? There are some companies that do incredibly well, so it's not like to disparage everyone, but the majority don't scratch the surface.

Speaker 3: 31:27

What about with professional development is typically it's not something people think of as falling under benefits, but it's also something that you hope, as an employee, you continue to get, because then you feel that organization is invested in you, they're invested your growth. They want you to succeed. What does a good leading practice look like in terms of transparency around how much an organization is investing in your career development?

Speaker 1: 31:51

yeah, this is again. This you've just said those words as well. I think is like there's such a standard phrase on career sites of like we invest in people and we've got world-class career. If you're going to say that you've got world-class like career investment, whatever that might look like, show it like don't just dangle a carrot and then don't offer anything over and above that.

Speaker 1: 32:12

Really show what you offer people and give some clarity as to what that looked like on a a couple of levels. There's a few things on that. If you're going to list it as a benefit, again, something that we see a lot of companies do is dangle a carrot to say L&D budget, but again just a few more words to say what that budget is. It takes no effort and really helps people understand what they're going to be getting here. So there's tiny little tangible changes companies can go and make that really make a big difference to people. I think the deeper work and the work behind the scenes to really elevate that is looking in depth at how you progress and promote and keep people growing within your business. So career development frameworks is something that seems to be missing in the loss of companies, I think, probably for a reason. It's often it's hard to build. Sometimes if you're a bigger company and get everything in place and something that works and it ties heavily into performance, calibration and compensation and again you've got that big ball of christmas lights whatever we're talking about earlier that you can't unpick.

Speaker 1: 33:14

So career, when we look at the data of all the companies that take our assessment to understand, almost like a heat map of what companies do and don't share.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Career development uh, frameworks are always in the red, but for the large majority of companies they don't even share anything internally.

Speaker 1: 33:30

So there's a lot of companies out there saying we invest in people, but then you walk through the door and you don't have visibility of what's my next step look like or how can I move internally. So, again on our framework, one of our 35 areas that we zone in on and talk with companies about is sharing more information around internal mobility. So can you even share some basic data with people to say that this x percent of people moved internally last year, whether it's latently or vertically for promotion? That gives you a real indication as to like how people move within your business and how people can grow. So anyway, there's a lot of deeper work in depth you can go into there, but I think getting that internal clarity is helpful to people. And then, once you've got it, why wouldn't you share it? There's a few reasons here and there, but you should. And again, there's a couple of companies out there that do really well at just flipping their their internal documentation external.

Speaker 1: 34:26

And then, and it's amazing, who's doing this really well there's a company called cleo in the uk who I don't know. If you've come across a platform called progression fyi really cool, check out progressionfyi. They have their whole platform is about helping companies to build career development frameworks and using their platform. But progression fyi is also like a collective open source career development frameworks that companies share publicly. So clio have got theirs on there. They've shared it publicly and you can go on and look at all their engineering pathways, the salary bands attached to every single role, criteria for progressing.

Speaker 1: 35:04

They've got such a great name, particularly in the UK, for this stuff. And another one is Learnably, who again might not be well known outside of the UK because they're relatively small tech startup scale up, but Learnably are like an LMSms platform, so they major on development and growth for employees and they really drink their own champagne because of that. Going back to what we were talking about earlier with defining what transparency means to you, that a huge part of their value prop is about lnd and growth. So they've decided to major on being transparent about career development at learnably. If you're going to join us, we're going to make sure you know what you're going to get and how you're going to grow, and everything they've done has been crafted around that whole idea of lnd, because that's fed into their, their entire value prop as well where do you see this going in the next five years?

Speaker 1: 36:15

yeah, I am in a bubble. I have to admit that we operate a lot more at the startup scale up end of the spectrum. So companies anywhere from 20, 30 employees up to a couple of thousand starting to get larger. But we don't work with many 30, 40, 50,000 employee businesses and I get they're probably not going to be making the drastic changes anytime soon to how they operate and how they communicate. That's a lot harder. But certainly there's so many earlier stage businesses coming through. It precede stage.

Speaker 1: 36:45

I know a lot of founding teams who support what we're doing. They're a bit early stage to fully embrace and have a lot of this work verified because they haven't started hiring yet. But you see the mindset and the passion and the belief there and I'm not saying every founder coming through is like Gen Z. A lot of them are. A lot of them are coming into this world of work setting up their own companies now and then we will talk about the fact that Gen Z have. Everyone cares about transparency and trust, but Gen Z are more demanding. They care more deeply about it. It's a really important part of how they work, deeply about it. It's a really important part of how they work and they're building their own businesses now with this as a core value. So five years time I'd expect to see, particularly in the startup scale up world, businesses that do default more to transparency, whatever that means to them. They're at least able to say we're transparent and we've defined what that means, and if that's okay, because if it doesn't align with you, then fine, but it will align with certain people and and we're healthy and etc. Etc.

Speaker 1: 37:41

I'd like to see, hopefully, some good progression around pay transparency in particular. There's obviously a lot of movement in the US legally, so that's going to make some sort of change, I'm sure, and then there's some incoming changes across the EU as well. So what's sad is that either side of the UK right now we've got some legal waves happening, which is really enforcing some change, which is great, but nothing in the UK at the moment. So we'll see if we follow suit. But certainly on the pay front, that will change and I think as a knock-on effect to that, going back to what we talked about earlier, I'd heavily to. Pay is performance in career development. You can't suddenly become transparent about pay without giving people some context around how that ties into career development and levels and and how, then, they're going to be assessed to get to that next level, so that, as a trio is going to have to advance together? For me, um, as best as possible anyway yeah, that makes total sense.

Speaker 3: 38:38

I know you're as you say, you're in this the bubble, but with the, the gen z, really coming in and leading the wave of this bubble, those startups could become either clients or partners to these larger organizations. Do you think their approach to transparency may have an influence on some of these large organizations in the future?

Speaker 1: 39:01

I hope so. I hope so. As much as I don't operate so heavily in the large corporate world. As much as I don't operate so heavily in the large corporate world, I have to say some of the larger organizations out there are the ones actually doing better when it comes to things like pay transparency and visibility on career development, probably because they've got the resources there as well to do it from like a people team perspective. But particularly in the UK, the public organizations you like the NHS and you can apply to jobs and you know exactly what grade you're going to be at, what salary you're going to be at. Everyone's on the same, salary gets paid the same. There is visibility in a lot of the public organizations here which I imagine is maybe similar in the US.

Speaker 3: 39:40

It's similar. Yeah, the US government actually does transparency well.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Exactly, yeah, and there are things that you can give a little bit of a hat tip, so you just actually you know what, that there is the structure in place and similarly big consulting firms in the uk and imagine it maybe again similar in the us, like your pwc's, your ey's, etc. They've been around so long, they've got their structure so firmly set that, whilst they may not have the perfect culture for everyone, that's okay. People know what they're getting when they join. They know what they're not going to get and also the grading and the pace is like how you progress in those types of businesses is fairly clear to people and well known because they've been around for so long. So I'm I'm always wary of disparaging like large companies too much, because actually there's some things that they do really well that actually startups and scale-ups could learn from as well. Where they tend to get things wrong maybe is things like communication and day-to-day internal culture starts to get go wrong there because they become this sort of size where things start falling apart.

Speaker 2: 40:38

From that point of view, so funny with this conversation around transparency and even just like your relationship with work. I can't help but think about it like a really any relationship you have with a person, Meaning and I know we've talked about this. But when I think about dating or getting into a relationship with someone, if you're not honest or if you misrepresent yourself from the jump, you're going to have a problem. And when we think about any kind of dating scenario, if you would be like, yeah, they said that they really wanted to have X, Y and Z, but then they didn't, and we talked about how how can people start to get more transparent up above right, Especially at the org level? But I'm thinking here about where this really comes down to is individuals, how individuals are feeling as they're moving through these organizations. I'm thinking here about where this really comes down to is individuals, how individuals are feeling as they're moving through these organizations.

Speaker 2: 41:31

And I'm wondering if we can really double down on if you're a manager or if you're an employee and you're sitting in an organization that may have some opportunity. Everybody has some opportunity Individually. I have some opportunity, have some opportunity for transparency, but you really want to be this person that shows up well for your team or shows up in a way that you feel you need to as a manager. What can a manager do, agnostic of the organization, to drive transparency and drive that kind of honesty on their team?

Speaker 1: 42:06

Yeah, it's very tough. I think in some respects in smaller organizations it's more down to mindset of founder CEO. They're probably still close enough to the individual employees day to day for them to be the driving factor here. I think maybe when you get into larger organizations and most people have never ever met the ceo or know really what they look like or who they are, there is more of an opportunity possibly for managers, middle level managers, more senior managers, to try and direct and formulate some level of team level transparency. Everyone knows that as companies get larger, culture and values becomes lost on a broader level because you end up with your microcultures and across the entire business. You do have this opportunity to form your own microculture, microverse within your team. So if managers do care deeply enough about it and not to say that they're going to suddenly change the entire business and how the business operates, but there are steps that they can take to start understanding how they can build more trust with their team.

Speaker 1: 43:04

And again, this is a whole nother podcast episode, I'm sure, but managers are highly underdeveloped, under supported, under trained.

Speaker 1: 43:12

I think the latest stat that's flowing around now is like 82 percent of managers are accidental managers, like it's completely broken in terms of how management even works itself, and so most managers don't know where to start when it comes to how to manage a team and how to communicate with them, and et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 43:30

So, in terms of like steps you can take, we're building an open manager handbook with our community now building it together like a building public community exercise, which is really cool, but that's going to be filled with a heap of like resources, guidance on like how to build trust with the team, how to communicate with the team, how to run effective one on ones, but all with a lens of how to build trust with the team, how to communicate with the team, how to run effective one-on-ones, but all with a lens of how to do it in an open, transparent way.

Speaker 1: 43:54

It's tricky because some of it will go against the grain a little bit, potentially with what you're being told you are allowed to share and aren't allowed to share. But if you're not able to be transparent ie share the reality you can at least be clear with what you are and aren't allowed to share. So there's a bit of a difference between clarity and transparency. So even if you don't have the information to share with them, you can tell them what you can share and what you do and don't know, and that in itself is at least building some trust with your team.

Speaker 2: 44:21

I've been in. I think most of us have situations where you're leading a team and you're going through something really tumultuous layoffs, budget cuts, the business isn't doing well, et cetera and I've worked with people, colleagues and peers that have been like all you need to say is that you absolutely trust the direction of the company. You're behind this 100% and we're going to move on, and I have found that when I've tried that tactic earlier on in my career, it goes over like a fart in church because people, what they want to know to your very good point is I don't need you to tell me everything, but I need to trust that you're going to tell me what you can and you're going to keep me updated and we're going to go through this together. Yeah, people don't expect you to tell them everything. They don't even expect you necessarily to tell how you're feeling about it, but they need to be able to trust that you've got their best interests and that you're going to keep them updated as they go along.

Speaker 1: 45:17

Yeah, and you've got two examples of companies that do a relatively good job on this. Again, in terms of again, this probably has to be something that is ideally fed from higher up, but maybe it could be implemented in a larger organization by a middle manager. There's a company I mentioned earlier called euro. They're really intentional as a leadership team as how they will approach crisis types scenarios, whatever that might be. Layoffs interestingly, an interesting one, because you can see a layoff coming so you can plan for it. You could think about our comms plan how we're going to approach it. Weirdly, there's no argument real argument for companies doing a really bad job on this because they they always see it coming, they always have time to plan for it and they have the opportunity to communicate it if they want to. But there are things that happen that you can't control and euro was one example. They were backed by, if you remember, the silicon valley bank issue that happened a while ago.

Speaker 1: 46:06

Yeah, everyone sort of just forgot about that a little bit. So sorry if I've given anyone ptsd, but that happened and that affected juro and within minutes of that news being announced, juro's ceo was on slack. The entire business couldn't give them an answer as to what's coming, but there was at least communication there immediately to say this has happened. We could be affected. We will keep you posted and I can't remember exactly how many updates they were given, but there was continual updates very regularly throughout the entire weekend. No expectation for employees to read this, but it all happened over a weekend, didn't it? I think from memory and yeah, that's do committed to slacking the entire business all weekend about what was going on that that sort of level of intentional communication calms nerves, makes people feel involved, looked after as safe as they possibly can be and informed, and they're an incredible business. You have to work hard at that, but that's really great.

Speaker 1: 47:01

Another example, slightly different, is someone like gitlab, who a lot of people know and accept as the most transparent company in the world. If you go on their handbook, when they talk about transparency as one of their values, they're very clear about why it's a value. They're very clear about what they do share and they give you examples of the things they share. But interestingly, there's a line in there that says there are some things we don't share and when we don't share them, we publicly document what that is and why. So you can click a link and they'll tell you exactly what they don't share with people and the reasons for not sharing that information as well. And that is like perfect scenario, like defining transparency but building expectations with employees to understand and get some context for why certain things aren't being shared.

Speaker 2: 47:48

I think that education is equally important. Right, there are some things that it is in everybody's best interest not to share at a certain point in time. Right, there just is in business. But I think the ability to say this is it and to be very upfront about it again, it's so. People know what to expect, they know what they're getting into. Yeah, it's really that. Know what to expect, they know what they're getting into. Yeah, it's really that clear yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:10

It's also just acknowledging going back to the example about the Silicon Valley Bay, it's acknowledging something is happening. We know what's happening. We don't have all the facts, but we're going to communicate to you. So people aren't like trying to fill in the blank. That's what always happens, right? They fill in their own blanks. Conspiracy theories spread throughout an organization, and then it just now you're fighting that and the real information, and then no one believes the real information when you finally give it. So I love these examples.

Speaker 1: 48:38

The comfort it must build of thinking okay, my CEO is on it, like you don't communicate anything. If an employee sees it, that news, and they haven't heard from their CEO on the weekend, they might sit there and think should I tell them about this? Do you think they've seen the news yet? Or, knowing that your CEO is slacking you on the weekends about something like this, I think yeah, the trust in that leader must just be through the roof.

Speaker 2: 48:59

Yeah absolutely, absolutely. One of the things that I think is really important is being able to control what you can control. Is being able to control what you can control and, as an employee, you're either interviewing for a job. Maybe you're sitting internally at an organization and you're wondering what could I be looking at in terms of this organization? And I'm wondering what would you tell people You're best friends interviewing for a job? What would you tell them in terms of figuring out what that company really is?

Speaker 1: 49:26

Yeah, I haven't ever had to answer that. To be honest, we do a few things to try and help folks a little bit as much, as our advice usually is trained more on helping the companies rather than because we think if we can help the companies do better, that will automatically help employees and candidates. But I spend a lot of time personally looking at career sites and job adverts and I think I've gotten very good at just cutting through the rubbish. Basically, that's there, the buzzwords, the vagueness that actually a lot of people maybe read and take for granted and take as accepted. So encouraging people to not just see the words transparent on a career page but actually, if you see that, take that as a signal that you should be looking for some level of openness or something further that gives you an idea. Or, if someone's got a core value of diversity, start understanding whether they share anything about diversity or the commitments, failings, whatever that might be. So just try and think a bit deeper and go a bit deeper on that. That's like the high level stuff. There's basic things on the job adverts that people should be looking for some clarity on and most people do, frankly, is like thinking about like compensation and flexible working, like when will I be working? Where will I be working and can you think deeper around like policy on?

Speaker 1: 50:36

Someone just says hybrid three days a week. What does that actually mean? Their questions you won't have answered pre-application, but taking that into an interview to actually like really dig deeper on that and understand is it just three days a week or is it a monday, tuesday, friday, like whatever that might be? We built and shared what we call like our interview question index and which is like an open resource on our website and it's I think it's 60 or 70 questions. We just we did it for fun, to be honest, but like opportunity for people to understand that the tougher questions they could ask employers and interview to dig deeper on things like culture, like understanding, like, and what one of the questions on there is like why did the last three people leave this team?

Speaker 1: 51:14

Or what was the last mistake your ceo admitted to which I got some flack for and people said you should be a bit softer with that like and maybe like. So maybe someone could ask what was the last thing your ceo shared you that they learned, which for me became a bit fluffy. It could be like I've read a book and learned this, so I want to understand how open are CEOs and leaders about their own mistakes, their own vulnerabilities? It gives you a real indication of psychological safety and how people communicate and share information, and if an interviewer can't give you certain information, it's not necessarily that you should run for the hills, but it might give you a bit of an indication as to how communication and information is shared in that business. If they haven't even genuinely been given the information themselves. As a recruiter of 12, 13 years, that would signal some alarm bells in my head alarm bells in my head.

Speaker 3: 52:08

Yeah, I always tell people to ask the question what brought you here and what keeps you here? Because it's the what keeps you here, where the honesty starts to come out for folks, or if you see them. Oh, I don't know yeah, yeah, that pause tell is telling yeah, there's.

Speaker 1: 52:20

Sometimes I have to, like really work hard to find out why I'm still, why I'm still in this business is, but then and even the danger with that is there's almost very opinionated. So what, what's keeping someone else in the business might not be the thing that keeps you there as well, but understanding it's hard, because so many of these things could be linked to opinion. But again, understanding, like, who is the last person that failed to thrive here and why? Like what are the factors that leads to failure in this company, rather than always saying, like, why am I going to love it here? What do do you do for fun? Like always trying to find all the fun stuff. Understand who doesn't thrive and help you understand whether that might, you know, connect the dots for you as well.

Speaker 2: 52:59

I think it's really important to dive way deeper than most people do in their interviews and to not be afraid to ask those questions. I've had many conversations with people that they really want to know X, y and Z, but they're afraid to ask or they feel like if they ask then they're going to get penalized somehow in the interview process. And I feel like these are questions that you should be asking to really get a sense of what is the organization like, but also if you're getting any kind of pushback about those questions or even asking those questions, that's also information as well.

Speaker 3: 53:33

That's when a rejection is protection. Yes, ultimately.

Speaker 1: 53:39

The hard thing right now, at this moment in time, is it's such a hard thing to advise on because they're ultimately braver questions for people to ask, slightly scarier ones, and the mindset that so many people are in right now is I've just got to find a job.

Speaker 1: 53:53

So, like at the moment, people are just trying to find, prioritize finding jobs, even if they're not perfect, and it was a similar back in 2020 with, with covid, people were joining companies as a stepping stone, knowing I just need security for now and when the market improves then I'll move. So right now, this stuff isn't always a priority for people, but I've known a good few people in the last number of months who have jumped to jobs just for a job's sake and they've left them in weeks. There's no point in joining a business and going through onboarding and ramp up and hope if your gut is telling you that this is not the right place, because nine times out of ten it won't happen and you're better off still investing your energy and your time into trying to find the right place. But it is hard.

Speaker 2: 54:35

It's a really tricky time to be doing that and I hate to put it on an employee to say you've got to go through this journey, but I think it's really great, though, that people have these tools and these questions to ask to see what situation are they getting into, what's?

Speaker 1: 54:47

really sad is it's often the TA teams and the recruiters who get the flack for this. They're useless at giving me the information I need. They're really vague and the poor recruiter that's nine times out of 10, they just haven't been given the information. I've had this myself, like not being told what funding round we just done. How am I going to do my job properly if the leadership team won't give me the basic information I need to interview? So it's not usually the TA team's fault. Honestly. They don't sit there openly trying to hide things. It's just we're working with what we've got. But again, it's a huge indication really of like how does communication happen in this business?

Speaker 2: 55:20

A thousand percent, yeah, and quite honestly, most TA teams are armed with the sexy ass information and all the information they can have so they can get those folks through the door. So if they don't have it, again I think that's a really great call out that it might not be as clear in the organization. The other thing is, if the hiring manager we talk about this sometimes there's a difference between talent acquisition, like your recruiter, and then the person that's actually going to be quote, unquote, your boss, and if either of those people don't have that information, or I think it'd be very interesting if they give you different information as well, again, I think it's just, it's a big archaeological dig.

Speaker 3: 55:56

Put on your curiosity and critical thinking hat during the interview process the rapid round, here we go adam, no pressure, by the way, try to make this as fun as possible and not terrifying. So terrible, at least yeah, all right, I going to dive right in. Some of these could be yes or no, or true or false, and some might have broader explanation, and that's totally okay. I wanted to ask of the open org companies that you are working with, are there similar characteristics that you see in their leadership teams?

Speaker 1: 56:44

yes, I can divulge a little bit more if you want yeah of course. Relatively progressive, a younger generation less precious about titles and flatter hierarchies and structures in their business.

Speaker 3: 56:58

Okay, what is the next lever being added to the list above? We talked about comp benefits, career development, culture. What else might get added?

Speaker 1: 57:10

Flexibility is another thing that I think is just such a big topic at the moment the lack of clarity on are we working from home? Is it return to office? How does that look? Is it different things to different employees? There's a lot of problems around that at the moment. So, like clarity on that should be really simple, but it's terrible at the moment, so that should be a big one.

Speaker 3: 57:34

Okay, okay. We see a lot of large organizations today talking about social impact, environmental impact. Do you think, given the age of climate change, that companies should be transparent about their environmental impact, even if it's not flattering?

Speaker 1: 57:45

Yeah, I do so. The gen z, gen z, sorry big topic for them around, like esg and environment and climate. So it's a big thing that a lot of them are looking for, apparently, from employers when they join companies. So it will signal to me that the longer that it goes on and the worst things get out there, the more important this is for companies to talk about. The downsides is the pressure of greenwashing, etc. And everyone's talking about just doing something or trying to make it look as good as possible, and that's happened with diversity over the last few years. Definitely is like huge calls to do more on diversity, but it's become very performative. So yes, definitely, but but be careful okay, okay.

Speaker 3: 58:25

Do you think social media is going to make companies be more transparent or just more cautious?

Speaker 1: 58:31

hopefully both, hopefully both. So a trait I see from the really transparent companies that I follow and watch is very vocal ceos. On linkedin, for example, they post regularly. They post about whatever they want and they're not afraid to to either be vulnerable and share failings but also like really celebrate stuff. And it's interesting the the slightly larger or secretive companies. You never hear from a ceo and the fact that they don't post about anything starts making you think are they waiting for someone to comment on a post and call them out? And this happened with bupa very recently. The ce CEO posted about an award they won for women in their leadership team and there was a comment made that went viral and it all blew up. So more cautious if you're not able to be fully transparent, but hopefully that transparency will remove the need to be cautious.

Speaker 3: 59:22

Okay, true or false? Every company should have a public fact sheet about how they operate, true, okay? And is there such a thing as too much transparency?

Speaker 1: 59:37

There could be. Arguably no, but in certain instances there could be. And again it's a bit like the greenwashing example just now. Don't make it become like a performative exercise just for pr. Make it like embeddable. Don't overreach.

Speaker 3: 59:51

As soon as you can't model certain behaviors, it will start to fall apart what's one organization either one that you're working with or one publicly that you've seen do this really well, like you think they're a pillar example of good transparency.

Speaker 1: 1:00:14

A company called PostHog. Posthog is a small-ish tech business in the UK. I won't drone on because I'll talk about it for hours, but check out PostHog. They've got a public handbook. They share their roadmap. Their CEO is posting on LinkedIn all the time. That's so open, so transparent. They're amazing.

Speaker 2: 1:00:26

Adam. I love the work you all are doing. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriends.com. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends.

Hire Your Next Job

Your Work Friends Podcast: Job Moves with Michael B. Horn and Bob Moesta

Career paths change…

The climb isn’t always up. Sometimes the best move is sideways, bold, or completely unexpected. In this eye-opening episode, we sit down with Michael B. Horn (Co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, Harvard Graduate School of Education) and Bob Moesta (Founder of Rewired Group, Kellogg School of Management) to discuss their groundbreaking book "Job Moves" and revolutionize how you think about career transitions.

Discover why the traditional job search process is broken and learn how to take control of your career path by "hiring" your next job. Our guests break down the four primary career quests that drive job changes, debunk the myth of "getting lucky" in job searches, and reveal why money isn't the real motivator behind career decisions.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

Just because you're good at it doesn't mean you like to do it. Yeah, part of it is being able to actually know who you are and know what you're good at.

Speaker 2: 0:22

I almost wore that same lipstick today that would have been hilarious.

Speaker 3: 0:25

Sometimes you just need, like a, just a boost you know, yeah, so really it looks really beautiful. Thank you Honestly. There's just so much schmutz going on in the world right now the news cycle I cannot I cannot, I can't keep up with this news cycle Listen. We had a pretty kick-ass conversation last week.

Speaker 2: 0:43

This has been one of my most favorite discussions in a long long time. I mean, I love all our guests, but this has just been a really. It was just a rad conversation.

Speaker 3: 0:54

Yeah, I thought so too. We talked to Michael B Horn and Bob Moesta.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Yeah, Michael Horn is the co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute and he teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Education. And Bob is the founder of Rewired Group and also an adjunct lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management for Northwestern University and also a fellow of the Clayton Christensen Institute and just all around amazing human beings to talk to us about their new book, Job Moves, Job Moves. As someone who has been deeply involved with talent acquisition and now I do career coaching for individuals, I just think the tool that they've pulled together on their website and understanding the quest that you're on which, by the way, we all have four quests that we typically are on to decide what our next move is going to be Highly recommend reading the book just to understand that.

Speaker 3: 1:53

This book, honestly, is giving people permission to hire their next job. We are all in that position. This is not where you're at the mercy of employers. This is really permission and an amazing opportunity and, honestly, the data to tell you no, what you really need to do is be honest with yourself about what you want, what your strengths are, and then go out there and hire your next job. This conversation was so fun for me just because a they're just so well-researched, great conversationalists and, honestly, gave a lot of really great tips on how do you really think about hiring your next job.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Yeah, if you want to feel empowered with your career and the decisions you're making around your career, this is the book to read and this is the episode to listen to. So with that, here's Michael and Bob. Let's just get to the point real quick. What's the biggest myth that folks tell themselves about their career, growth or progress?

Speaker 1: 3:00

The one that surprised me the most was how much they thought they got lucky to get their next job, and when you really kind of unpacked everything they said and how they did it, luck is more the fact that they were prepared and the opportunity appeared and they were able to actually seize it, and so I wouldn't call that luck, but they wouldn't assign any kind of causation to it. And what we found was that there are very simple things that actually have to happen to you to make you ready for the next job and then all of a sudden, you only see them when these other things happen to you.

Speaker 4: 3:30

So that's one of them. Bob, you stole mine. I was going to say the exact same thing, so I agree. The only other thing I might add is I think people discount the role that their network plays for them when they're looking for a job. They think it's a very solo like. I applied online to hundreds of jobs. These days, increasingly, AI supported me and they don't realize the importance of their network as part of that process that Bob alluded to. Coming in, making them aware of opportunities, helping them get the job, being the trusted broker right so that I will trust and actually hire you. Most jobs are filled by someone that you know in network. They're not filled by anonymous, random things. So that's the second one I might add is people discount the role of their network around them.

Speaker 1: 4:20

I'm going to add a third. The third thing to me was money. Money is a means to an end, so money turns out to be about respect, or money turns out to be I have to provide for my family. More Like. There's like five or six different definitions of why people want more money, not one. And you start to realize like people are mixing them all up and they're just using that lever of here. Let me offer you more money, and it's it's not just more money that makes job the work satisfying.

Speaker 2: 4:45

I love to hear you say that, because I just had a conversation with a friend who was feeling so down on themselves because they hadn't reached what they felt was success in terms of salary. And she's worked with incredible people, incredible organizations, but somehow that was the sole thing telling her or at least her own narrative that she has not been successful because of that one element. So it's good to remember that doesn't define your true success.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Well, but the fact is it's one of the wrong metrics, but it's a metric of how what success or progress feels like for them, and so when you start to put that there, you don't have the why of like. Really what I want is respect, and ultimately there's other ways to get respect, and so this is why, for example, sometimes a position change will actually help people feel that progress, and without a salary increase. There's many variables here at play and ultimately it was very fascinating because we did almost like the exit interview but the real exit interviews. We did over a thousand of them and it was so fun to hear the stories and what had to happen to them to make them ready to look and then ultimately how they found it. It was kind of what the book is all about.

Speaker 2: 5:50

Yeah, I love it. What gets in the way of true progress? What? How do we remove it?

Speaker 4: 5:57

Part of it is. I mean, starting with that, we don't actually know what progress looks like for us, right? So we'll tell ourselves these storylines. Money is a great example. I want more money, and once you want more money, you want more and more. There's no limit to that, right, without understanding underneath causality of what's actually driving me to say these are the things that are not good enough in my current role, these are the priorities that I really want to get in my next role. And so not really understanding what progress looks like for you, I think is actually a big thing that gets in the way of progress. And then the second one that's maybe sort of goes in concert with that is I don't actually know how to make the trade-offs for that next role to get the progress that I really desire.

Speaker 4: 6:42

And the thinking behind that is a fewfold One. There's no perfect job on every dimension. Every job is going to have some suck in it, it's going to have some things that I don't love about it. But what are the things that I'm going to consciously choose, not settle for, but say like, hey, I'm going to take the lower salary so that I get the basically non-existent commute, I get to have the title I get to be around my kids, whatever the set of things are. We could drill down deeper into all of those, but how do I make those trade-offs? Most people, I think, don't know how to make those and as a result, they get caught up in roles that sound good in paper. They're quick returns to ego, but they're not actually helping them make that progress.

Speaker 2: 7:24

Yeah, I believe it. I think I've definitely found myself in that position, right. And then, when you don't measure the trade-offs and what's really important to you, you find yourself in the same position just two years later, like here I am again.

Speaker 4: 7:39

The yellow brick road was supposed to lead somewhere, but somehow I just looped back and we're right where we started.

Speaker 1: 7:44

I have one more to add on this. I think one of the other things is people don't have a realistic or real understanding of what they're good at, what they suck at, what gives them energy, what they don't really know who they are and how they're driven. They haven't taken the time to study themselves, and so that's part of this is having people reflect back and find those moments where they got energy and find out those moments where the energy got sucked out of them. And just because you're good at it doesn't mean you like to do it, and so part of it is being able to actually know who you are and know what you're good at. But I always think for me, the thing to learn most is what do you suck at and how do you actually realize like you don't need to get better at that?

Speaker 4: 8:27

You need to find a teammate who's actually who loves to do this stuff you suck at, yeah, and actually, mel, just stay on that for a moment, cause Bob put me on the hot seat in the last week or two on this, where he was like saying but you're so. I stopped wanting to manage people when my twin girls were born in 2014. And Bob was like but you're really good at managing, like that was something that was like a superpower of yours, and I'm like. It was like but you're really good at managing. That was like a superpower of yours. And I'm like it's the last thing I freaking want to do. And he was basically like right, because just because you're good at it, the context changed doesn't mean you get energy from it anymore.

Speaker 4: 8:56

You did Right, but here's the thing. It goes back to your friend who was telling themselves the narrative of like I need to make this much money or whatever it is. We often say like, oh, success is then I'm going to be a manager and I'm going to have this big team and I'm going to measure based on the direct reports and their direct reports, and et cetera, et cetera. And like maybe that isn't what gives you energy at this stage, even if it is something that you could do, but we don't pay attention to the context and those signals about ourselves.

Speaker 2: 9:25

Yeah, Just because you can doesn't mean you should always right. Just a good rule of thumb and your, our priorities and our values change over time, so that's constantly like you have your twins and so that's right.

Speaker 2: 9:38

Things change. Okay. Something I loved I'm going to pivot really quick. Something I really loved in the book because, as a career coach myself and a former recruiter, I always tell people you're interviewing your employer just as much as they're interviewing you as a reminder. And what I really loved was you both said it is critical to hire your next job. Why Tell our folks why?

Speaker 1: 10:04

So this is one of the things that we flipped the lens on, and we used a theory that I built with Clay Christensen called jobs to be done, and the whole premise is people don't buy products, they hire them to make progress in their life.

Speaker 1: 10:16

And so part of this was to realize, at some point in time, when you talk to people around hiring, you start to realize actually the lens is flipped. And the fact is, know people around hiring, you start to realize, like it's actually the lens is flipped and the fact is we, as an employer, you think you hire somebody, but the fact is everybody's an at will employee, or most of them are at will employees and they choose to come to you or not, and so it's actually they're hiring you more than their, than the employer is hiring the employee. And so you start to realize when that's the case, you actually need to study the employees and say why, what causes them to say today's the day I'm going to leave and what causes you to say today's the day I'm going to move to this thing better? It's really, ultimately, we're trying to get employees to hire better because once you find the place, it's the right place. It's not work anymore.

Speaker 4: 11:12

Yeah, Right, yeah, I was. I was thinking, mel, when you, when, when you said that like of of how you're coaching people to interview just as much as they're being interviewed. That really changes the agency, it really changes the equation, and I think it goes back to what Bob said in the beginning around luck is, the reason people don't do it is they think that I'm going to cross my fingers and just hope that this works out and I'll be lucky enough to be the one chosen for this job, and they're not thinking about what their priorities are. What does progress mean for me and that I get to choose? Is this the job I'm going to do in exchange for the benefits around, and not just around money, vacation, et cetera, but also the work I get to do on a daily basis and who I interact with, and so forth.

Speaker 2: 11:59

Yeah, I was equating it to being an adult and realizing you still have free will to make choices. Like I want a piece of cake, so I'm going to go have one for dinner, and you sometimes forget, in all of the everyday schmutz of life, like, oh, I do have agency and free will in these choices.

Speaker 4: 12:17

So we're the social contagion right Of like. We tell ourselves these narratives of how we think we want to be for others and how we think we're supposed to show up as opposed to. Well, what do you want and how do we understand that?

Speaker 1: 12:30

The other thing to me is the fact is is that when you study kind of the employee, employer side of this and you learn about the job description, you realize that the job description is just made up.

Speaker 1: 12:41

It's just made up and so everybody's trying to morph themselves to fit this unrealistic ideal situation of like make the people fit the job, when the reality is is what we should be doing is actually shaping the work that to fit the people. Because when you actually do that intentionally, you start to realize like okay, I suck at these three things, so, and it's part of my job, so how do I actually figure out how to get rid of that and do more of the stuff I'm really good at and find somebody to do the stuff that I suck at? And so it's this notion of like. At some point, if you really study how people make job descriptions, it's either they copy it, they do chat, gpt, they then take all the things that they don't want to do and add it to the list and it's just, and so as an employee, you don't realize that that's actually all made up and very negotiable in some cases on certain dimensions.

Speaker 3: 13:33

I want to back up what you're saying because, having led a lot of talent organizations, I can tell you that most people don't even know what they're hiring for or what they want people to really do. And the idea of opening up the opportunity to have that conversation and figure out how could this fit together, I think is really on the table, because it is shocking how many hiring managers and, honestly, how many like talent organizations don't really know what they want their people to do.

Speaker 1: 13:58

By the way, the notion of a hiring manager. I got confused by the whole process because I'm thinking, well, the hiring manager is the person inside the HR. I'm like no, no, that's the person that actually they're going to work for. I'm like, yeah, but who teaches them to write a job description? Nobody.

Speaker 2: 14:12

Nobody.

Speaker 1: 14:13

It's compliance cut and paste For half the time you're not even trained to be a manager. You're trained to be a leader, but nobody teaches management skills anymore right. You're just left out on that.

Speaker 4: 14:24

And this is why the job description has been so enduring, right? Is it's really a legal document to give me justification for my hiring and firing down the road as well, More than to your point, Francesca, like an actual set of what's this person going to do? How do I want them to contribute? What's the outcomes right? What's the work?

Speaker 2: 14:42

Yeah, we need a whole revamp on the job description. Yes, indeed.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Michael and I are going down that road. It's like we wrote this primarily for employees, to empower employees, because a billion people a year switch jobs. Most of them don't actually switch jobs in a positive way, and so part of it is how do we actually help them make better decisions so they can actually feel like they've made progress in their career. But along the way we've realized like there's so much about the employer around, kind of how do you manage, how do you do performance reviews, how do you think about fit, how do you actually rethink the hiring process and all those kinds of things, and it's really helping us kind of rethink a different way of kind of seeing it from that perspective.

Speaker 2: 15:23

We love to see it. So do we of seeing it from that perspective. We love to see it In the book. You touched on the great talent shortage and what's happening by 20, that it could exceed 85 million people. And we hear stories from folks all the time how they're applying to a thousand jobs and they have no luck, or they've been out of work for a year, right. But when you hear this one story, there's this massive talent shortage, and then you hear this other narrative that nobody can find a job. These two things are conflicting, right. So I'm hoping I can do some myth busting with you both here. Do employees actually hold the card.

Speaker 4: 15:59

So I think it's interesting. And let's just go deeper in the paradox, because the other piece of this is, if you looked at the job market, you'd be like it's actually really healthy what economists consider full employment, and people are coming off long-term unemployment and coming into the job market, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and yet it's taking longer and longer to hire. There's articles like in the Wall Street Journal even Harvard MBAs can't find jobs, and so there's all this anxiety on all sides of the market and I think what's happening is that there's a lot of paralysis because of that lack of clarity that we were just talking about of what do I really want? How would I know someone can actually do the things that I want them to do, and do they really know what they want to do and the trade-offs they're willing to make to go get it? So there's like a lot of lack of clarity on all sides. Might there be a skills gap? That's contributing Absolutely, but might it also be that we just don't have clarity about what work looks like and should be and so forth?

Speaker 4: 16:59

I think also the case, and in terms of this talent shortage. Look, all these are projections based off of a lot of macro stuff, so I think, believe it as far as you can throw a piece of paper, but I think the bottom line is that we know that there's a lot of change in skills. Ai is certainly changing the job market. The baby boomers are leaving, millennials are starting to retire, there are lower birth rates of people coming up underneath, and so that's sort of the dynamic in which you have this maelstrom we just described.

Speaker 4: 17:31

But from my perspective, employees do carry a lot more cards than they realize or would be employees. But it's not through this anonymous online posting pray for quote, unquote luck right Approach. It's instead getting clarity about myself what are my priorities, what's the work I want to do, and looking for fit, rather than just hoping someone hires me and me being able to go to the employer and be like this is what I can do, this is what I suck at. This is how I can help you and have that conversation, because I think it's a very different dialogue when you're coming in with your cards, so to speak.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Face up that way, market has been automating the insanity because at some point it starts at what I call there's three layers of language. There's a pablum layer of language where we can, hey, how was your day? Oh, it was great, right, but it really wasn't great. Or if it was great, what made it be great right? And you start to realize that you have to get down from the pablum level to the fantasy level, past the fantasy down to the causal level, like what caused it to be a great day right? And so part part of it is what they did is they literally are taking everybody's resume. They're filtering it in certain ways. They're basically doing all these words Like I was trying to be on a public board and one of the things that they said is I had to have the word business leader in my CV like four to eight times, or I wouldn't even get past the filter.

Speaker 1: 18:51

I'm like what's that? Like, how does that work? I'm an engineer and I was taught to simplify and then automate, and so part of this is what we're trying to do is like how do we get this down to? What is a good job look like for me as an employee? What's the work that I need to get done. That helps me as the corporation. And how do we? Actually it's fit. It's just like product, market fit, but it's employee, employer fit, and so it's this notion of being able to do that and I think, like you said, if we stay at the pablum level, it's going to look like employment's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

Speaker 1: 19:20

Because when your answer to the question is what's your greatest weakness? Oh, I work too hard. That's just not like. Come on, everybody sucks at something and you have to be able to actually be very articulated. What we found from the book is that when people can talk about look, I love to do these things, I get energy from doing this and oh, by the way, I can do these things, but they really suck the energy out of me. It allows people to actually be humble and become real. Which the pieces of paper?

Speaker 4: 19:47

don't do If we can just stay on it for one second right. Essentially, the employers we've already established are looking for unicorns, like these huge job descriptions with all these skills and whatever else. So the individuals on paper are then constructing themselves to look like superheroes, which the employers don't believe. And so if you come in there with an articulate conversation around, this is where I get energy, this is what I'm awesome at, this sucks my energy, this is what I suck at, etc. Etc. You're being honest and now we can talk about fit and you go from one of a thousand applications to one of three or four people who actually are going to fill what I need to make progress on the employer side. But it's because we've broken out of this game of like unicorns and superheroes that we all know is a lie.

Speaker 2: 20:33

Oh, agreed, it sounds like you have another book in your back pocket with the clarity shortage going on on both sides. So the unicorns. As a former recruiter, oh yeah, working with folks wanting the unicorn.

Speaker 1: 20:45

I think the other part is it's what the resume has, is what you did, it's not what you do, and just because you did, it means you don't like to do it. And so again it's this lack of clarity around what do you want to be doing and what are you actually good at and what gives you energy?

Speaker 3: 20:58

It's like this massive search for honesty on both sides. I feel like if the job market was dating, this would just be like. You know what I'm saying. You know it's like. This is how you mentioned. A million people change jobs every year. That's 30% of the workforce, which I think most people don't think that many people change jobs, but they do. And the reasons why you outlined in the book. You talk about four quests. What are those reasons why people leave?

Speaker 4: 21:47

First, as a sort of prelude, we found 30 forces that are pushing and pulling people to say, today's the day I might want to switch, and when certain combinations of them come together, they overwhelm the anxieties and the habits that are sort of holding us in place. And so the four quests for progress are essentially looking at the clusters, or closest to each other, if you will. That comprise a quest, or what Bob earlier would have called the job to be done. And so the first one we saw is what we call get out. So these are people I don't like the way I'm being managed. This is a job to nowhere. The company's going nowhere, fast stuff like that. It's a lot of push right and they're like I got to get out and fast.

Speaker 4: 22:29

On the flip side of that, there's what we call the take the next steppers, if you will, and these are people like hey, career, personal, whatever life milestones hitting, I'm ready to take that next step in my career. It feels almost like the logical next thing I would do. This is the closest to the career ladder, although it's not synonymous with it, and sort of it feels like I'm going to build on what gives me energy. I'm going to build on my current capabilities and let's keep on margin. Those are sort of the two poles, if you will. And then we have folks that say I want to regain alignment. And so these are people who say I actually like how I'm energized at the moment, but I don't like what they're asking me in terms of my capabilities to do, or I feel fundamentally disrespected on the what I do, and so these are people that I want to regain alignment in terms of the skills assets that I get to use on the job.

Speaker 4: 23:23

And then, on the other side of it is the regain control folks, and they're basically saying I actually, in this case, like what I get to do, but I don't like how it engages my energy or my time and things like that. I feel fundamentally out of whack. This might be the work-life balance folks, as an example. This might be people that say I'm being micromanaged. This might be people saying God, they're telling me I have to come into the office five days a week when I know I do the job well, when I get to work two days at home, what the heck's going on here? So these are the folks that are looking to regain control.

Speaker 4: 23:56

And basically these are four quests. They're not absolute. As you probably saw when you take the quiz. It gives you sort of a most likely fit score for each of them, but it helps you understand what's progress for me right now. And I'll give you a classic example. If you're like regain control and you're just going to march up the totem pole and take the next logical job right on the mythical career ladder in your current employer, that's probably going to be a fundamental mismatch for the things that you're actually looking for, and so you really want to understand what's driving me, what's causing me to say today's the day and then start to use that as a sorting mechanism.

Speaker 3: 24:37

Yeah, the assessment is really powerful and I consider myself someone that is savvy when it comes to my career or even knowing myself. I feel like I try to be very introspective and I will tell you, when I read the book, I realized that I haven't been as introspective as I could have throughout my career. I was just like go to whatever was paying more or the next step up. It was one of those two things. That's how I made my choices, even though it wasn't necessarily the work I liked to do, or even putting myself in a healthier situation. And I'm wondering, flipping this from, like, an employer perspective, why should employers care about the four quests?

Speaker 1: 25:16

The reason is twofold is like, at some point the current employees are going to want to make progress and if you don't have opportunities that actually match the quests of where they want to go, the reality is that they're going to have to go somewhere else, and so that's the first aspect here is that when we talk about trying to have company loyalty, it really is. It's not company loyalty like brand loyalty. This is literally like I'm willing to stay because you're actually looking out for me. Most people, they end up having to take a job because there's a vacancy in the job and the fact is it's not part of their career path, and they end up having to slot in because, oh, we have this opportunity for you, but it's not with any respect to who they are necessarily or what they want to do.

Speaker 1: 26:02

It's so we can actually keep the business going. So I think part of that is one. I think the second part is that to realize these quests, you can actually recruit completely differently. Go find people who are actually wanting to get out, Because at some point in time right now, when we put a job out there, we're only looking for the people who've already raised their hand. But I know that he's got these pushes I can attract and say, hey, don't want to be micromanaged anymore, Want to actually have a place where you can do these kinds of things. Come, come, talk to us.

Speaker 2: 26:25

My favorite recent example of a recruiter doing this really well was on LinkedIn this week where, in response to Zuckerberg's recent interview with Joe Rogan, an interview called out hey, if you don't want to work for a guy like that in an aggressive environment, come work for us, and it was flooded with comments. So I just think it's interesting for companies.

Speaker 1: 26:46

you know they'll win if they get ahead of it, and that's the thing is. But I think the employers have to realize they have to talk about.

Speaker 3: 26:53

What's the work you want me to do Is it the work you want them to do and is it also kind of tapping into that emotional need around, what they need to see in the quest, for example? You mentioned like if you don't want to be micromanaged, but is it tapping into that quest language?

Speaker 1: 27:08

Yes, and it's using that language we talk about. There's things that push you to leave and there's things that pull you to the new job, and it's ultimately the trade-offs you make that actually make it happen. For example, who's thinking about leaving? We talked to people who really left their job and went somewhere else, and so there's a big difference between wanting to do it and doing it, and so ultimately, there's a certain amount of energy that has to be part of it, and we have to understand both sides of that.

Speaker 4: 27:32

I think it's a really cool hack also right If you're a marketer or if you're trying to attract and understanding who you're trying to attract the pushes and pulls that cause people to leave. This is ultimately like their language, lived experience. This is like actually what's happening to them. It's not invented from what we would call the supply side. The company is imagining why someone might want to come to them. Companies imagining why someone might want to come to them. This is the real energy that causes someone to say today's the day and you get to use that to get the people that are right for your role. And, by the way, you get to continue to use that information on the day-to-day.

Speaker 4: 28:09

Because here's the third thing I would say we know that roughly two-thirds, depending on the survey of workers are completely disengaged. Call it quietly quitting whatever you want to do from their current role. That's not an employee I want to be hiring on my team. That's not someone I want. I want someone who's engaged, hard charging, doing a great job. So how do I make sure I understand the forces acting on them right now so I can better engage the people that I actually want to keep on my team?

Speaker 1: 28:40

I work mostly in the startup world and so I have some people have taken this and they've taken the pushes, which are, you know, do you feel micromanaged? Are you pushed across your billies? Are you bored? Do you not know where to go next? Like there's a list of 13 kind of things that have to happen, and if any four of them happen, that's when you start to get activated. But they're using that as part of the sit down and the quarterly review to say are any of these things happening? If they are, let's talk about them, because if there's no push, there's no way they're going to start thinking about anything else, and so part of it is to realize that the pushes are the things that actually create the space in the brain for you to kind of go like all right, I got to look somewhere else. So there's these little things, but those little things then accumulate into two things, and then three things, and then four things is where you go all right, it's time for me to look.

Speaker 3: 29:24

Yeah, I think, organizationally doing those kinds of audits as a team or even as an org I'm thinking for my own work and doing like culture strategy looking at those things and seeing is this true in our organization, is this the type of culture we have? And then we can get into the marketing exercise of saying, if you want this, this is where you can come in terms of us. So that's awesome. I want to go back to the employee side, because in the book you also talk about things like progress versus progression and I'm curious if you can talk through that.

Speaker 4: 29:52

So progression is that career ladder, the supply side right, we have our org charts. Career ladder, the supply side right, we have our org charts. You come in as an entry-level worker, probably an individual contributor. We imagine that you start to move up, you become manager, director, right, on and on and on, and it's sort of that climbing of the career ladder, the next step. We just keep on this progression. It's the thing that drives. Frankly, mel, like your friend who's like I had to be making this amount of money right, because that's progression, whereas progress is all the things we've been talking around, these quests and what is driving your energy and getting more of that in the next role, in the current context you're in, and so forth, and those things sometimes line up Progression as an organization or employer would think about it and progress as an individual. But our research suggests that at least 75% of the time they're not lining up that there's actually divergence between the two.

Speaker 1: 30:46

That's huge. I think the other part, though, is that as you start to think about it is when you get to progress. Most people feel like they have two lives. I have a work life and I have a home life. The reality is we have one life, we don't have two and two lives I have a work life and I have a home life. The reality is we have one life, we don't have two, and the fact is is we have to learn how to merge the two, and the reason why somebody might be great for the position but something happens at home, got to take care of the parents, have babies, whatever it is, the fact is, life changes and then, all of a sudden, what you want to make progress on before is very different than now, and nobody takes into account that we have one life and we have a whole bunch of things we have to move and, ultimately, how do we make of these spheres as very separate you?

Speaker 4: 31:21

jumped on your career track. You stayed there and that was it, and then you had your life and that was going on. I don't think that was ever really true to Bob's point. But now individuals are living increasingly in a way that shows just how much of a lie that is and how interdependent our careers and the rest of our lives are. And it's one of the reasons Bob will tell someone when he's coaching them he's like look, you don't have to get it all in the job. You can have a side hustle and then you can volunteer here and then make sure you're doing this there and together you get the things that are most important to you. But you look holistically and organizations need to sort of recognize that that's true for their employees. They can put their head in the sand and pretend it's not, but that doesn't mean the individuals aren't going to live their lives that way.

Speaker 3: 32:23

This might be an obvious question, but why don't you think people have done this type of introspection before, like why it's hard, it's hard, it's hard.

Speaker 1: 32:32

I mean, one of the things is we wrote the book, we have nine steps, like, and if you do all nine steps, you're gonna be like amazing, but the reality is not everybody's gonna do every step and but there are there's three or four of these steps are really really essential. For example, energy drivers and energy drains. You need to start to pay attention to where are those moments where you walk into a situation and you get energy. That's a thing you need to actually pay attention to, and the fact is is most people don't pay attention to that, or they know it but they don't account for it and they don't actually think about, like, what is it about this situation that gives me energy? Is it the people? Is it the topic? Is it the pressure? There's variables in that situation that does that, and so it's making people way more mindful about where do they get their energy from and where does their energy go when it gets sucked out.

Speaker 4: 33:19

I, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. The biggest question we often get when we show the pushes and pulls to audiences, they say, like money's not on that list or like the surface level thing, and I think the thing is like we've been telling ourselves a story. Bob would call it at the pablum level, I would call it. You know, we're not yet at causality right, and so what I think this book and the research frankly does is we drill down into real root causes and then we gave language to that causality. That hopefully makes it I don't want to say it's easy, it's not, but easier so that more people can start to identify what really is driving me at this point in time.

Speaker 2: 34:22

I know we can't cover the full nine-step journey and I think folks absolutely need to read your books, but one of the pieces of the journey that stood out to me was the experiences, not features. Part of that.

Speaker 4: 34:35

Yeah, absolutely. I mean features. Right are the things like the money, the vacation, the title, all those sort of surface level or problem level that we were talking about before. Experiences are what do I actually do on a day-to-day basis in the role the doing right and, as Bob would push us, what will you do as opposed to what have you done, and what is this going to look like and how is it going to integrate with the rest of your life on a day-to-day basis?

Speaker 4: 35:02

The analogy we use in the book is thinking about real estate listings where they tout lots of features natural light, granite countertops, bob's built homes so he can talk more about this and the reality is they all start to blend into each other and it's not until you actually think about how am I actually going to live in this space, what are the experiences that I want, that then features actually start to take on meaning around. How will it or won't it work with my life? Right, in my case, any house I live in. I need a quiet space where I can do my work, where the kids are not going to interfere and run around as they come home from school and the like. That all of a sudden gives definition to what is a good or bad choice for me, not whether there's natural light and granite countertops in the abstract.

Speaker 1: 35:49

The reason why I love the house one is you can look at a listing, but you don't know what it's like to live in that house until you go there. And so part of it is this reality is like where's the grocery store and who are the neighbors and where's school. And you start to realize at some point they tell you all about the house but you don't even get a feel for like how to live in it. And so it's this notion of, well, we'll get you a virtual tour. That's not the thing, man tour.

Speaker 4: 36:14

That's not the thing, man. No right. My mother-in-law right now is looking at downsizing and she sent us a place that she clearly had never been to and I was like, oh boy, that's a busy intersection, there's no way that's going to work. But she had to go. She went and she emailed me. She's like, wow, that's a busy intersection, no way that's going to work. And I'm like yep.

Speaker 2: 36:28

There's an airport nearby or a church bell goes off.

Speaker 4: 36:32

every Sunday it's like a Burger King on one side and a McDonald's drive-thru on the other, and I was like I already know the answer to this question, but go for it. But part of it is they have to experience it?

Speaker 1: 36:40

No, the experience is important.

Speaker 4: 36:42

Right and her imagining oh wow, what's my day-to-day going to look like? Against that, there's nothing that replaces that.

Speaker 3: 37:00

Yeah, yeah, got to do your homework, got to do your homework. I want to flip over to where work is going, because I mean I'm excited to be alive right now, but there's just a ton of shit happening either politically with AI, yada, yada. Where do you see work going in the next two to five years, especially as it relates to job movement?

Speaker 4: 37:12

Look, obviously the velocity is high right now and the anxiety around it, I think, is higher. I think the reality is AI at the moment is more of an efficiency innovation. It's sort of automating and allowing us to do what we already did a little bit better. I think the evidence is suggesting it actually helps those who are lowest performers be better. I do think the reality is it's taking out a lot of entry-level work right away, a lot of employers, the jobs that they had open as entry-level roles. They're taking them off the table, and so that's, I think, where it's maybe making the biggest immediate impact because they can imagine how AI allows that next person on the rung to quickly use that tool to do it and then actually become more productive. For people starting their careers or switching industries or whatnot, getting experiences when you're out of before the job market, in schooling, internships, entrepreneurially, side hustles, whatever it is is going to become more and more important to show you know what to do and you can actually do the work.

Speaker 4: 38:14

I think the bigger term transformations that people love to sort of dream and speculate about. My own belief is that that's not going to come until new business models and organizations are built around these technologies sort of organically and it goes to how every technology has made its biggest impact, whether it's electricity, where people realize, oh, we can distribute, we don't have to put everything around the watermill anymore and things like that, and we can do factories differently, or I mean even frankly, digital advertising, when it's sort of a P&G brand that wants everyone to come in the store because of the way they've thought about consumer packaged goods, versus a startup that's thinking much more targeted, performance-based advertising. Technologies, I think, are most transformational when business models are actually built around them as an enabler, as opposed to trying to cram it into the existing models. I think we're a few years away from that still.

Speaker 3: 39:07

Yeah, we're just starting to see people think about AI-first organizations.

Speaker 4: 39:11

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 39:11

Yeah, I look back to history on this. When I was early in the workforce, I worked at Ford and they had something called the typing pool. This was just a bunch of people who wrote, who typed, and they had carbon paper the whole. You guys have no idea that this existed, but the big thing was like, what is word processing going to do to the typing pool? And you started to realize that it's somebody. Everybody was against it because the typing pool is going to go away. Where are they going to work? Well, it turns out those people could actually write copy and they could do all these other things and do much higher level things.

Speaker 1: 39:42

And so, channeling Clay here, clay would say what we want to do is have people work at the top of their profession, and the work that sucks is the work that we want AI to be doing for us. The thing is, we will still think more than AI, but AI can actually provide us the input to actually help us think better. I think that what's going to happen is it's going to force people to be kind of again. You know, my children ask me when they're like, what's going to happen to all the cab drivers when we have self-driving cars, they're going to figure out something else to do. They don't get to retire and they don't get to move out of that thing and they'll always be somebody who wants to actually have a human in the cab.

Speaker 1: 40:19

But the reality is it's changing the market and basically being able to say but how do we get humans as a whole to basically step up to the next level? Because we got some technology that can take care of things at the lowest level that we don't need to worry about. I'm very bullish on where it's going to go. The question is do people really want to work differently and think better and harder?

Speaker 3: 40:39

I think that's the thing, because it's like, when you think about, we can do this higher level thinking, this higher work as well, that does take work, because it's breaking out of what we've been doing I mean, we're talking about knowing thyself in this whole conversation and then it's like how do you get to that higher level? But I think we'll get there. We have gotten there before, we'll get there, it's just the next.

Speaker 4: 40:59

And there'll be dislocation right as we go through it, like there's going to be a whole bunch of people in the moment that it's stressful and they're going to have to work through it and we'll figure it out. But I think over time Bob's right, that's the direction it goes and the pathway at the moment, frankly, is those people who help people make progress on that journey. They're going to become employers of choice as well, in my mind.

Speaker 3: 41:21

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. Anything you would recommend employees do now.

Speaker 4: 41:26

I think having a clear sense of your strengths but maybe equally what you're not strong at and you don't want to do and what you are going to choose to sort of say I'm going to suck at, so that you know what to build on and you know what to let others do, or let AI do for you, or whatever it might be, I think is a really important step. And then the second one comes from the book. It's this career balance sheet idea. This is where I think this idea is powerful is understanding the useful life of your current assets and where and how am I going to have to invest to make them still relevant in the future and have some sense of? Are those trade-offs that I want to make in terms of my time and money to keep those things current, or are there other things I want to invest in?

Speaker 1: 42:07

The thing to me, is the energy drivers and energy drains. Like the fact is is just being able to know what are the things that have to come together to enable you to have energy is when I'm coaching people. What I'm doing is I'm like I want you to go through the next week and just start to write down when it happens because I don't think people are actually aware of it and then start to then parameterize it to understand, like what's going on Well, oh, I get to learn a lot of new things, okay, or, or it's I get to organize things. Like my wife is in finance and the thing is my wife loves to balance. Like when it balances, it's like I hit a serotonin. Like, oh, my god, I just like that balance is perfect.

Speaker 1: 42:44

I'm like, yeah, I I get nothing from that, but she gets a lot of it's knowing where it comes from, but then all the conversely, knowing when the energy gets pulled out of you, because a lot of times you're so caught up emotionally that like it's almost like you need to step back from yourself and look at the situation and go like why is this basically draining all my energy? What's going on here? And it's like it's people, it's, it's situations, it's time of day, it's like a whole bunch of things and start to see those patterns. I it's like a whole bunch of things and start to see those patterns.

Speaker 4: 43:13

I think that's, to me, the biggest advice I'd give people and, by the way, I don't want this to be said the wrong way, but I think it's actually the easiest step you can reflect on in the book in many ways, because, as Bob said, it's not something that I have to lock myself into a closet and think three hours. It's literally I'm living life. When am I in flow? When did that suck? Okay, start to notice the patterns, start to interrogate it.

Speaker 3: 43:38

Right, just keep a sticky right and start noticing and unpacking them. I did it on my cell phone.

Speaker 4: 43:46

It's kind of like keeping a food diary it's not, and it's just you know, you just get it in the habit.

Speaker 3: 43:48

It's an excellent exercise.

Speaker 4: 43:49

And the cool thing is, you don't have to then figure out how big was that portion and how do I measure it, because that's the part about the food diary I could never figure out.

Speaker 2: 44:07

We like to do rapid round because we want to know you as human beings, aside from just your work and your book. Does that sound okay?

Speaker 4: 44:13

Yep, let's do it.

Speaker 2: 44:14

All right. What music are you listening to right now?

Speaker 4: 44:17

I'm eclectic on music tastes. I've been really into the Merrily we Roll Along soundtrack, though the last week and a half I have not been able to get it out of my head. We saw it on Broadway a few months ago at this point, I guess, and it all of a sudden came back into my subconsciousness. So I've been really enjoying that.

Speaker 1: 44:37

So I'm listening to mostly I don't know the kind of music, but it's basically Bobby Alua and Matt Duncan. It's a little bit of reggae, a little bit of beach vibe, a little bit of background beat, but it's just. It's one of those things where, because I'm ADHD, like I like to have the same music play over and over and over again, and so it's one of those things I'm deep down into that one where it's like I've probably listened to the same playlist now 50 times. So that's where I'm at Nothing wrong with that. It just it just makes it lighter. It's a, it's light and airy. That's all I can tell you.

Speaker 2: 45:10

And does it make you feel warm, even though it's five?

Speaker 1: 45:14

degrees it reminds me of going to Mexico is what it does and it's like okay, here we go.

Speaker 2: 45:19

Yeah, love it. Okay, what are you reading right now?

Speaker 4: 45:24

I'm currently reading a draft of my father's book that he thinks he's writing for publication.

Speaker 2: 45:33

He thinks Well based on what I'm reading, so you're getting the feedback before.

Speaker 1: 45:41

I'm giving it to him, so maybe I should just leave it there. Does he know our podcast? Probably not.

Speaker 4: 45:43

He's got some more work to do. If he thinks it's ready for primetime, okay.

Speaker 1: 45:49

How about you, Bob? So for me I'm listening to. I have a couple of books I was listening to. One is called Radical Humility. It's very interesting. I would say I learned my humility from the best, who was Clay Christensen, but ultimately I didn't understand kind of like the components of how it works and what it is and the reality is. It's very interesting to kind of see how this person has basically broken it down and figured it out. The other book I'm reading is Fingerprints of the Gods. I'm very deep into basically electromagnetic waves and basically geometry and how the two work together, and so it's just this notion of a lot of things in ancient history. Take into account this notion of geometry and frequencies and just I don't know why I'm down there, but it's very fun, Very fun for me.

Speaker 2: 46:32

You know, in Chichen Itza, where if you clap it makes the sound of the bird in Mexico. Is that related to this?

Speaker 1: 46:39

book. The notion is that frequency, like everything, has a frequency and everything actually generates a frequency. And when you start to see natural harmonics happen, it's kind of when you get those moments where you get energy. It's related back to energy drivers and drains. But it really is this notion of like, where does that emotion come from and how do you actually get it? And it comes from, I believe, electromagnetic waves and basically geometry. So it's very deep, very deep down the rabbit hole. Sorry, no, don't apologize.

Speaker 2: 47:08

I have a million more questions, but yeah, who do you both really admire?

Speaker 4: 47:13

Am I allowed to say Bob? I feel like Bob is someone who has superpowers, who sees around corners before things happen because of his superpowers and knew we would be friends and colleagues and get to collaborate with each other Well before I understood this fact. And the reality is it's like it's come together because he understands causality in a way that I'm constantly aspiring and learning from. So I'll say you, bob, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to say you, no, I have a feeling I know who you're going to say yeah, I have to say my wife.

Speaker 1: 47:46

I most admire my wife. So I'm a neurodivergent person. I've had three close head brain injuries. I can't read, I can't write. I've done seven startups, I've worked on 3,500 products. I've had four children in five years, but my wife is the one who holds it all together. And that is just one of those things where I'm working on a book now around relationships and finding your life partner. And one of the things you realize is I thought when I got married I could not possibly love my wife anymore and I realized it was actually the lowest point of how much I love my wife. And it's just grown so much that we've been married to 35 years and it's just one of those things where we've been able to kind of just move. And it's one of those things where who are opposites don't get along well or there's there's always friction, but we know how to actually dance together very well and so it's it's it's just, it's just a joy to spend time with her and be with her oh someone cutting onions in here.

Speaker 2: 48:43

Yeah, I'm like, oh shit, I'm getting teared up I knew he was gonna pull at the heartstrings all right last question what's one piece of advice you want everyone to know, and it can be related to the book or just something personal that you want to share?

Speaker 1: 49:04

I will tell you that I think that people should be much more cognizant, explicit, intentional about the progress they're trying to make in their life. Every time you buy something, every time you change something, it always has an intention, and the more you can actually become intentional about it, that one is the less change you'll make and the more meaningful changes you'll make. And so this is just one example in your career. But like finding your life partner, buying a new pair of socks, Like I know it sounds crazy, but the fact is is all of them have that same thing of like. Do I really need a new pair of socks? And why do I need a new pair of socks? And how are these socks better than the socks I had before? And so being intentional about the changes in the purchases you make is probably one of the most satisfying things you can do, because it allows you to actually be explicit about the progress you make and take control of your life.

Speaker 4: 49:55

Far be it for me to try to build on that, because I've tried to take this into my own life, as Bob knows, with every decision I make. Now I'll say something totally different, which is a motto that I always live by, which is a kuna matata from Lion King. But no worries, I think we overstress and have a lot of anxiety that are about things that we can't control, and we should focus much more on the things that we can and worry less about the details and keep the big picture in mind.

Speaker 2: 50:25

I love it. This episode was produced, edited and all things by us myself, Mel Plett and Francesca Ranieri. Our music is by Pink Zebra and if you loved this conversation and you want to contribute your thoughts with us, please do. You can visit us at yourworkfriends.com, but you can also join us over on LinkedIn. We have a LinkedIn community page and we have the TikToks and Instagram, so please join us in the socials. And if you like this and you've benefited from this episode and you think someone else can benefit from this episode, please rate and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care, friends. Bye friends. Bye friends.

The Courage Gap

Your Work Friends Podcast: The Courage Gap with Dr. Margie Warrell

Women are still being told to “lean in,” “speak up,” and “prove it”—but what if the real power lies in owning your value from the start? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Margie Warrell—global authority on courageous leadership and author of The Courage Gap—to talk about how women can stop shrinking, start leading, and close the gap between fear and action.

From micro-challenges that build your courage muscle to leading with authenticity, Margie brings 25+ years of real talk, bold strategies, and personal insight to help women thrive in today's corporate landscape—without waiting to feel ready.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

And that is this courage gap I talk about. It's the gap between who we are and who we could be if we risked being brave and backed ourselves more often. What's going on, mel? Not much. You remember that movie, field of?

Speaker 2: 0:14

Dreams? Yes, oh, mel, not much. You remember that movie. Field of Dreams? Yes, oh, I love that movie. It's such a good movie, yeah, and I rewatched it, balled my eyes out.

Speaker 3: 0:36

It gets you in the feels. It gets you in the feels. It's such a great movie. It's a great movie, it's an inspirational movie, it's a very inspirational movie. Different feeling when you watched it the first time to now.

Speaker 2: 0:52

I think I watched a movie like every 10 years randomly and every year I feel like I've taken something completely different from it. This time I got super repped when the doctor crossed the line to help the kid and then Ray Liotta's character was like hey, kid, you were good kid. And then Ray Liotta's character was like hey, kid, you were good. I fucking lost it. Jeff and I were like, and Enzo's like where's he going?

Speaker 3: 1:11

Like it's just, yeah, it's so good. I love that you're showing all these classics to Enzo too, all right, well, hey, friends, this week we had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr Margie Worrell, a leadership advisor and executive coach, a keynote speaker, a bestselling author. She wrote the Courage Gap, which is out now, and also You've Got this. She's the host of Live Brave podcast, guest lecturer at Georgetown University, and a courage catalyst is what she likes to say. And we were introduced to Dr Margie through her recent article in Forbes letting women know, as DEI is canceled, more women need to own their worth and not prove it. And the courage gap talks about five different steps that you can take to take braver action in your life, and that's what we talked about. Francesca, what did you love about this episode?

Speaker 2: 2:08

I feel like, for all the strides women have made and women before us, women before them we still have a lot of gaps that we're trying to close. From CEO titles, VP titles, pay you name it we're still on this journey. Some of that journey comes down to big changes like policy, but a lot of it comes down to these daily interactions or these daily moves that you make for yourself. That can be really courageous, and so I was really interested in talking with her about it and I loved what she had shared with us.

Speaker 3: 2:39

One of the biggest takeaways for me in the discussion was we all have these goals and things that we're aspiring to do, and it's hard to dream sometimes or express your dreams, and my favorite quote from her was be selective in who you share your dreams with, because some people might throw a cold bucket of water on it and you don't want that to happen.

Speaker 2: 3:01

I also love that she shared the five key things to have more courage for women and for men. They're very hyper practical. I'm not going to I'm not going to spoil it for folks. You have to listen to the episode. There are things that we can all be doing now to have more courage, especially at work. Right, it can feel very hard to speak up Sometimes. It can feel hard to stand up for yourself or to dream big, like you talked about, and those are those exact moments when you should.

Speaker 3: 3:30

You should. That's what I loved about her article and that's what I loved about this episode. It's really getting us through, overcoming our fear. When we make fear-based decisions, and especially as women, we probably feel like Ooh, we're, we just took 20 steps backwards, so now we need to work even harder. But that's not what we should be doing. According to Margie, we need to own what we already bring to the table. So with that, here's Dr Margie, good to be with you, good to have you with us. Recently, you wrote an article in Forbes noting that, as DEI is getting canceled everywhere, women need to own their worth and stop proving it. So we'd love to hear from you why it's more critical than ever to discuss this topic.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Oh, I wrote that article because I have always believed that, as women, we are our own greatest source of strength and elevation, even when the systems around us aren't supporting us. And as we've seen the kind of the firing or the cancellation of DEI in many spheres, I think that women are finding themselves feeling a little disheartened and demoralized and some feel like they're having to prove themselves all over again. So we can't wait for systems or other people to elevate us. We have to elevate ourselves. And yeah, we could point fingers and we can lay blame and we can complain about it, but I think, at the end of the day, the most effective thing we can do is starting with ourselves and backing ourselves and operating from a place of owning our value fully.

Speaker 3: 5:17

Yeah, yeah. I was just reading another article today in Inc Magazine I don't know if you've seen that one yet where someone just recently did a deep dive of Google searches. So what people do in the privacy of their own home when they're researching male CEOs versus female CEOs. And for male CEOs, it's all about compensation all the keywords that come up and for female CEOs, compensation is one keyword, but the remaining keywords by 1,650% is related to who is their husband, who is their family? Are they a mother? Which I found really interesting. What do you think about that?

Speaker 1: 5:53

I just think it shows that there's a long way to go until there's a genuinely level playing field. I think another one is when we get to the day when we don't blink for a man to be the caregiver at home and that's not anything to be. Oh, she's got a house husband. That's actually something that we raise our eyebrows about, and I was just with someone the other day and she is out in America from Australia, taryn Bromfitt and she was saying how her husband is at home with their four teenagers, and we sat there as women having dinner this is two nights ago saying good for him, that's great, how's he going? How's he managing at all? And she's going. Good job.

Speaker 1: 6:33

And I had four children too, and whenever my husband was left with four children, we would go good for him, he's managing. Okay, that's great. But never in the history of ever did anyone ever say to a man whose wife was at home with four kids going oh, how is she managing? That's good that she lets you go away, that's great. So there's just such this double standard and so, yes, when it's a woman, we're like oh, what's her situation? Does she have children? And I just think it speaks to the double standards, but also our own curiosity of how women who rise to senior ranks manage to do Do they have children, do they have a husband at home? And just recognizing that we all bring some level of sometimes our own bias and fascination with that, because I think we've just got a long way to go until that's just not something that's of any more interest.

Speaker 3: 7:30

Yeah, I can't wait for the day. Dei is just under a microscope right now, unfortunately. How do you feel this is specifically impacting women in the workplace you touched a little bit on. Now I feel like I have to prove myself all over again. I can relate to that. I'm sure we all can. How else is this impacting women in the future?

Speaker 1: 7:50

Look, there's some women who say and some responded to my Forbes column saying I don't feel I have to prove myself and I'm good and I don't honestly feel this has affected me. So I want to just say that out the front. But I also know, because I get to work with a lot of women in my work, who are saying, yeah, like there's been a shift in the winds, even unspoken, as there's this shift in the winds and there is a little bit of did you get to this place because you're a woman? How much of that was because of your gender? And if you're a woman of color, even more so. Are you only here because? And if you're a woman of color who is LBGTQ, even more so oh, is that why you are where you are?

Speaker 1: 8:33

And so I think any woman who already has a little self-doubt, whoever has a little imposter syndrome and I rarely meet a woman who doesn't have moments of that I think it just adds like water onto the seeds of doubt. Am I here because of that? Now, I'm not saying everyone feels that. I don't feel that at all. I have never thought I've got anywhere because I'm a woman. But I know there are some that do feel a little bit like they have to prove themselves to be more than worthy of that spot. They have to work extra hard and do an extra good job. And, let's face it, there are real biases. We know women are judged more harshly on performance and when women make a mistake it costs them more than when men make a mistake. So it's not like this is all just made up and in our minds. There is realities there too. It has left some women feeling like they do have to prove themselves and maybe they're doubting themselves a little more too. Okay.

Speaker 2: 9:34

Your article struck me. I consider myself a relatively confident person and honestly, it's a very interesting to feel like 45 and I'm still feeling this sense of am I worthy? I have to continually prove myself constantly. You're only as good as your last success and I am curious about why you think women feel this way.

Speaker 1: 9:55

I think there's multiple factors that contribute to women feeling that way. But I think, if we just go all the way back to our childhoods and where we were raised, when I did my PhD dissertation, I did it on women who had reached the C-suite in multinational corporations and so I did a lot of interviews with women who had reached these positions of significant positional power and authority and influence. And what was really interesting and I was looking at, what are the defining features, what are the defining characteristics and mindsets of women who've reached that spot and there was a host of them reach that spot and there was a host of them. But often they came from an environment where they had someone who believed in them and said you've got what it takes. A lot of them said they never, ever vaguely thought about being in the C-suite. That wasn't on their horizon, but they also had someone who they had. Experiences that helped to build like a little bit of grit and resilience up in them and they didn't let what other people said be overly defining of them, like when people would say, oh, you're just there because you're pretty or whatever. Like they were very, pretty resilient and what I would call anti-fragile. But I think we've got to recognize not everyone grows up in some environment where they do feel empowered and they're emboldened and they develop real grit and resilience and anti-fragility.

Speaker 1: 11:26

And a lot of women grow up environments with a lack of female role models, without people who are championing them, saying absolutely, you can do anything you want. You're 45. I'm 10 years on you. I grew up without any female role models, without anyone saying you can do anything you want. You're 45. I'm 10 years on you. I grew up without any female role models, without anyone saying you can do anything you want. And so I was way in my 30s and even 40s where I'm like, oh, I'm just as capable as these people over here, with that lack of belief.

Speaker 1: 11:51

And so I think we don't always grow up with the same surrounded and immersed in the same belief systems that we can do and be anything we want. We may intellectually know it's not true. We may intellectually know that we are just as capable and just as clever, but there's often these little lingering doubts in the back of our head that are going who do you think you are? And when are people going to realize you're not that good? And that's not to say that men don't also sometimes experience that, but it's more pervasive among women.

Speaker 1: 12:30

And while I'd like to think the needle has changed in the last 30, 40 years, I have a daughter who's 25. She has entered the workforce at a time that's really different to when I entered the workforce, but I still sometimes see it like oh, I don't know if I should do that. I'm thinking, why not? Of course you can, and I find myself saying that. Mind you, I sometimes still say that to my sons as well. So I'm not sure that she's got more doubt than my sons, but I still see women sometimes holding themselves back more than the barriers around them.

Speaker 2: 13:04

Yeah, those tapes that we have, those are hard ones to take out, especially the voices in your head. I am curious, if you don't have somebody that's saying you do have what it takes, or having a mentor that brings you along, that sees something in you, what can somebody do on their own to start feeling that they can own it or they do have value, that they shut off those tapes? What are some things that really help?

Speaker 1: 13:28

I would say seek out people who inspire you. Whether you get a book and read about Madeleine Albright, get a book and read about. Whether you get a book and read about Madeleine Albright, get a book and read about. Insert some woman that you find just fascinating and inspiring, whoever that may be, whether that's Angela Merkel or Oprah or whatever, because when we read those stories we can see a little of ourselves in their story and, man, they overcame that Like gee, yeah, they've got strengths and gifts that maybe are different to yours.

Speaker 1: 14:00

But I think just that one seek out in person the kind of women that you'd like to get to know better. Surround yourself, go out and go to a conference where you're going to meet those people and connect with those people. Join an organization where you get to meet those people people and connect with those people. Join an organization where you get to meet those people. I have to say myself time and time again it has been the example of other women who go oh honey, you got this, or like they'll say stuff and they don't have to know me really well, but I'm like I love what they see and they may be 15 or 20 years ahead of me or maybe they're 10 years younger than me, but it's still affirming. I would also say to be really intentional about the relationships that you invest in, but also those that you don't invest in, those that may be playing you small and sometimes that can be friends.

Speaker 1: 14:52

It can be our frenemies, it can be our family and you might not just be able to cut yourself off from family, and I'm not suggesting for a moment that you should. I've got family members who I'm like you know what. I don't even tell them about some of the things I'm up to because I know they will just pour a big bucket of cold water on it. They are only going to feed my doubts. When I told my family I was writing my first book, which is quite a few years ago, and I was nervous about doing it because my family is in Australia, there's something called the tall poppy syndrome and it's this cultural phenomena where, if you aspire to raise too far above your current level, you run a significant risk of being cut down like a tall poppy that's standing out from all the rest and the culture I grew up in in rural Australia was strong with this, and I remember sharing with my family.

Speaker 1: 15:46

It was Christmas and I said to everybody what's something everyone wants to do in the next 12 months? And one sister said I want to go into South America and my brother wanted to do his MBA and my mother said she'd like to volunteer more For her. That was a big, bold thing, I'd like to volunteer more. And then I got around all my siblings there were six siblings and parents and they said what do you want to do in the next 12 months? And I said I'd like to write the outline for a book. I didn't even say I wanted to write a book, I just like to write the outline. I had four kids, six and under at the time, and my brother. I have three, so I'm not going to name which one.

Speaker 1: 16:30

He immediately said what are you going to write a book about? And it was just like I didn't need that, like I did, I already had that going in my head. Who am I to write a book? And I didn't need him to go what are you going to write a book about? And I said, oh, like how to be, how to like be more confident and to go after what we really want to go after in our lives. And I could just see him like going, oh, okay.

Speaker 1: 16:54

And the conversation moved on, and so I would just say it could be family that you need to set some rails on. Don't share with them your little seedlings of ambition if you think they're going to jump all over them. And it could be your mother and it could be actually your best friend, because maybe that's threatening to her because she's not doing it. So just be careful who you share your aspirations with, particularly in the early days, when it's just a little tiny seedling that's still germinating and you're like you've got so much doubt yourself. You don't know yourself whether or not you have what it takes. So the last thing you need is someone else to jump on that wagon and go. But how are you going to do that? That could be really hard. 60% of small business owners fail. Like how are you going to manage that? That could be really hard. 60% of small business owners fail. How are you going to manage that with three young children or whatever it is?

Speaker 1: 17:42

As I said, I have four children. I remember thinking about having a fourth child and how can I ever have a fourth child and pursue a career? I did not know one woman who had four children in a career. It just speaks to that. I had a pretty limited environment and I didn't know anyone. And I had one girlfriend who said you can totally do it. I know a woman has four children. And then she started like finding examples for me of others and I clung to those examples oh, it can be done. And to give myself permission not to know exactly how I do it, but to figure it out as I went along. That was very empowering for me to go okay, I'm along. That was very empowering for me to go okay. I'm going to now allow the possibility for it to happen, which to me actually was an act of courage, because I was a little terrified that I would not manage the juggling act.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Yeah, I love that. It's an act of courage to move forward and keep on moving forward. I also like the inverse of that is the friend or the person that's going to be like yeah, go, you can do this, you've got this. Listening to those stories, especially from women, that are telling you to go and keep going is huge.

Speaker 1: 18:45

Yeah, yeah, no, yes, and I think sometimes we give away our power to the opinions of others too quickly, too readily, too often, and when I say give away our power, we let what other people might think matter way more than is serving us. Do you think this is a good idea? Do you think I can do this? What will people think if I try this? Maybe they'll think I'm a little crazy. Who am I to do it?

Speaker 1: 19:17

And I say hold your own opinion in higher esteem than you hold the opinion of others. That doesn't mean you shouldn't seek out counsel and you shouldn't seek out other people's perspectives, but don't let anyone else's opinion override your own opinion. They've got their opinions and maybe there's some value in them and maybe they have some things that will broaden what you're considering and help you think about things a little more rigorously or consider things you mightn't have considered. But at the end of the day, you've got to trust yourself and trust your gut and trust your own intuition. Just be careful how much power you give to what other people think you should and shouldn't do.

Speaker 3: 20:19

What I'd love to talk about are the unique strengths women do bring to business, because I think there are unique strengths we bring, like intuitiveness. It's not to say men don't have that, but I feel like women might have that unique strength. One of the organizations Francesca and I follow is Pink Chip, which follows the success of female CEOs and how they're significantly outperforming male CEOs in terms of business success, for varying reasons. So when you think about the leadership strengths or the unique leadership strengths women bring to business success, what are those unique strengths that we bring?

Speaker 1: 20:46

Women obviously have a strong our brains are wide this way but just to be able to empathize with what's going on for others, not just intellectually understand what they think, but to be able to really sense and feel what they feel.

Speaker 1: 21:00

And we know that emotions drive action, not logic. And I think women bring a real gift and strength and some more than others, obviously at being able to empathize with what's going on for others so they can form really authentic connection with people at that deeper level, really authentic connection with people at that deeper level. I think women often aren't as settled with a sense of needing to prove their strength and be tough I'm generalizing but so there's less ego often running the show. It's what is it that it feels like the right thing to do here versus what's going to make me look strong and look tough. I think women are naturally good at building bridges and gaining collaboration and because I think we're less captive to an ego that has to prove how good we are and how strong we are, we're able to get around defensiveness at times and get underneath it and to connect with people at a meaningful, in an authentic way that sometimes men can't, because there's a little more posturing and proving, and I call it pissing competitions, without getting too crude.

Speaker 2: 22:09

I'm bigger than you.

Speaker 1: 22:10

My shoe is bigger than your shoe and I'm like, seriously, what's the outcome you're trying to achieve here and how can you go about working together to get a better outcome, versus making it about you and your big ego and needing to prove that you're trying to achieve here? And how can you go about working together to get a better outcome versus making it about you and your big ego and needing to prove that you're better than that person? I think on multiple different ways, women bring a great many strengths. Another in the research shows yes, men tend at times to be more willing to wing it, so they can be quicker to sometimes just jump in and take a risk. But they also can do more dumb, stupid things faster as well. And so women tend to be a little more considered, a little more thoughtful about is this a good? It doesn't mean women won't take risks, but they'll go about it a little more thoughtfully. They won't jump in. Test the water with two feet. They'll go. Okay, let's test the depth of the water with one foot before we jump in with two feet, and so on multiple different areas. The study that came out of Harvard of the 19 key strengths of leadership, women were stronger on 17. So I'm not going to list 17, but there is many ways that women bring those strengths to the table, and that's not to say that men don't bring a lot of strengths too.

Speaker 1: 23:23

To me, this isn't about women are better than men. I feel really strongly about that. I don't like the saying the future is female. I hope not. I really hope not.

Speaker 1: 23:28

I hope that the future is just more collaborative of men and women on an equal playing field, partnering to make better decisions and get better outcomes, because we need the strengths the feminine leadership strengths, masculine leadership strengths and we need them to be in collaboration together, and so I think it's important that that gets recognized, and this isn't about one or the other one. Better than worse than I do think there's situations where men's strengths may be more suited for that specific situation. Maybe that company in this industry in this moment in time, but yes, as you're talking about pink chip companies, obviously women are exceptionally good at what they do and make excellent leaders and can produce excellent outcomes and really good at being inclusive and, I think, harnessing the diversity within teams and diversity on all measures. Diversity isn't just about gender and it's not just about race. It is on all measures. Women are really good at being able to harness that value of diversity in all forms in the teams that they are leading, that they're part of.

Speaker 3: 24:34

Yeah, it sounds. Ideal state the future is balanced across it all.

Speaker 2: 24:39

I get your opinion on this, because this is not a political statement. I'm going on objective reporting here. There's a lot of talk in ether around masculine energy and I'm curious about when it feels like in a lot of corporate America the masculine energy is taking over. What's your point of view on how women operate now in corporate America? What's the move?

Speaker 1: 25:05

Stand your ground, stand tall in your power and your worth and, given there may be a sense that the winds are shifting a little bit, don't let people play you small. We teach people how to treat us and I think at times that means we need to push back and call things out, and that may not be natural. I know for myself. My natural state is not combative, it's not argumentative. It tends to be very accommodating and maybe a little bit too acquiescent to other people's, what other people would like, et cetera. But I know at times when I've been in a situation where I feel like someone is trying to dominate here, they're trying to claim an idea that's mine, they're trying to maybe take advantage of my agreeableness that sometimes I need to lean in and speak up and act in ways that aren't my natural. It's not my default and go sorry, excuse me, I haven't finished what I was saying. If you would just give me a moment, we can go over to you once I finished and like, versus just letting someone cut in right or someone's taking your idea going, I just want to just step back a bit for a moment. I actually suggested that yesterday and not doing it in a way that's derogatory, but we stand firm in our own power and our own value and our worth, and we make sure people know that we won't be pushed over, because I think we do get what we tolerate. And sometimes we tolerate things to avoid conflict, to avoid an awkward, difficult moment, to avoid coming across as being God, she's hard work or she's sensitive, and yet over time you're like okay, people will take advantage of that. As I wrote about in this book, the Courage Gap, how do we cultivate our capacity to take brave action? Fear constricts our actions that we take and courage expands the actions that we take, and it's about expanding your behavioral repertoire.

Speaker 1: 27:05

No, I'm not a naturally combative person, but can I be combative if I need to be? Can I be strident and really assert myself into something? Yeah, you bet I can, and I don't want to do that all the time, but I can lean in and do that when I need to, or ask for my worth or make sure my voice is heard and speak with the authority that's needed. And so practicing that and I do think it takes practice. If you're someone who tends to be a little bit more diminutive, you don't need your voice heard. You're happy not to say anything in a meeting unless you have something compelling to say. I would say no. Practice injecting your voice into that meeting. Practice speaking up with a little more volume or a little more depth. Practice standing a little taller. Practice you being first to ask a question or to put forward an idea, even though you're not 100% sure how it's going to land. Practice that it's a muscle that you build and you've got to put in those reps.

Speaker 2: 28:01

Yeah, Very true, very true, and I love it's those moments where you need to stand your ground.

Speaker 1: 28:06

And I actually think, in these times when you could rationalize why, oh, pull your head in and don't do it, I believe it is in times like this, when we can find the most reasons to be a little timid, a little cautious, to play it safe, that our voice is most needed and we are most called to step up, speak up and really claim our place. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 28:39

Yes, absolutely yeah. We've talked a lot about this, but when you say bet on yourself, like in one sentence, what does that truly mean? You could do two sentences. I don't want to give you limits.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Act in ways that affirm that you have everything it takes to achieve your wildest vision of success.

Speaker 3: 29:11

Okay, I want to put that on a mug. No.

Speaker 1: 29:15

When I say back yourself, like back yourself and not your doubts. Act in ways that show that you expect good things to come your way and that you're going to do your part. If the universe is conspiring for you, are you doing 100% of your part to set yourself up for those great things to happen? Like? You've got to do your part, you've got to be putting yourself out there. You've got to be taking the risks. You can't expect amazing things to happen while you're playing it safe. You've got to take the risk, take the chance and make that bet on yourself. I had curiosity.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Do you feel like most people need to be grounded in, like knowing that you have a higher self or knowing that you're here to do something? Is there a higher purpose thing going on here?

Speaker 1: 30:03

as well. You're saying does belief in something that's bigger than ourselves help us show up in the world as more of who it is, who we can be? I think that's something.

Speaker 2: 30:21

Much more articulately, steve. Yes, thank you.

Speaker 1: 30:25

Look, I get it. There's some people who go I don't believe in God, I'm not religious, I'm not spiritual whatever. And I would just say this If you ever say, oh, I believe in karma, then you're believing in some force that's bigger than yourself. If you say the universe, you're believing in some force that's bigger than yourself. If you believe in what goes around, comes around, you're believing in something that's bigger than yourself. I actually am a Christian, so I absolutely believe in something that's bigger than myself.

Speaker 1: 30:53

But regardless of whether you have any religious belief at all, you can still believe that who you are is more than the body that you're in and more than the brains that you've got, and more than your current emotional state.

Speaker 1: 31:08

And, yes, I believe that we are all here to fulfill a purpose that leaves the world a little bit better off, because we lived, walked on it for 80, 90 years. I believe that. Does that compel me to be brave at times when I really don't want to be? Yes, it does. But even if you don't believe that, there is something that is immensely empowering to believe that you are innately worthy by the virtue of the fact that you are in the world, and that you have innate worth to bring to others around you, and you cannot bring that in all its force and all its glory if you are second guessing yourself, because when you doubt yourself, you don't only do yourself a disservice, you shortchange, I believe, the whole world, but you certainly shortchange all those people around you of who it is you can be. And that is this courage gap I talk about. It's the gap between who we are and who we could be if we risked being brave and backed ourselves more often.

Speaker 2: 32:28

How can we enable people to close that courage gap, especially women? What can we be doing as bosses, as peers, I think organizationally. What would you say to that?

Speaker 1: 32:33

When I look at leadership and I think of it as three domains of the either we and the it, personal leadership, interpersonal leadership and enterprise leadership, our organization, our business, our team, et cetera, you know what can we be doing? I just wrote a book on that, so find my book Courage Gap Shameless plug. But hey if you're going to do it.

Speaker 1: 32:52

That's what I wrote the book about. Number one I'm just going to really quickly just say five quick things. Number Number one I'm just going to really quickly just say five quick things. Number one focus on what it is that you want. What's the outcome you want for yourself? What's the outcome you want for others? What's the outcome you want for your team, your organization? Get really clear about that. And what are the values that underpin who you need to be, how you need to show up to move toward that vision of what you want? Because your vision for what you want, your commitment to that, has to be bigger than the vision of what you want. Because your vision for what you want, your commitment to that, has to be bigger than the fears of what you don't want. Otherwise, fear is going to govern.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Number two challenge the story that you're telling yourself. Our beliefs are the software of behavior and so often we're operating from a narrative oh, I don't think I've got what it takes. Oh, I'm not sure I'm ready. Oh, I need to have a bit more skill, knowledge. Oh, what will people know? What is the belief that you need to operate from for you to achieve what it is you want to achieve? To become the woman that you know you have it within you to become. What is the belief system? So re-script, what's keeping you stuck or stressed or having you living a little too safely?

Speaker 1: 33:57

Number three embody courage. Take a breath, stand tall, put your shoulders back, like how we hold ourselves physically matters. In fact, there was a study out of Kellogg Business School that found that how we hold ourselves physically shifts our perception of our own power and agency, but it also shifts how others see us. When you walk in a room like you own that room and you sit down like you absolutely belong there, it shifts how other people perceive you, but it starts with how you perceive yourself. Number four make friends with discomfort, and if you can't make friends with it, at least make a truce with it that you are going to get uncomfortable as often as need be because you cannot become who you want to be and do what you want to do and create a psychologically safe environment around you.

Speaker 1: 34:45

If you're only ever being comfortable yourself, you've got to be willing to do the very awkward things, and from a management and leadership perspective, when it comes to fostering what I call a culture of courage and I have spoken to Amy Edmondson, who coined the term psychological safety on my Live Brave podcast a few times. The two go hand in hand. They're the two sides of the same coin. We cannot foster a psychological safety if we're not willing to be vulnerable, if we're not willing to say I messed up, I don't know, or what might I have got wrong here, or invite feedback. So you've got to be role modeling that.

Speaker 1: 35:21

But start with making friends with that discomfort and doing the very things that scare you Every day. Do a little thing. I'm going to do something every day. That's a little uncomfortable, and the more often we do that, we build that muscle.

Speaker 1: 35:33

And number five be a little kinder to yourself when you mess up, because you're human.

Speaker 1: 35:40

Because you're human, you're human.

Speaker 1: 35:42

And without knowing you really well, mel or Francesca, I'm going to guess that today you were not as brilliant and brave and wonderful and organized and disciplined and patient with your children or whatever, as you'd love to be.

Speaker 1: 35:59

And that is the human condition. We are never going to be all things all the time. But when we can be a little kinder to ourselves and extend a little more grace inward, when we either try something and we balls it up or when we hold back and we're like, oh shit, I know I should reach out and have that conversation. When we hold back and we're like, oh shit, I know I should reach out and have that conversation, but oh God, I can't, I just can't, I'm just not doing it today, like when our inner chicken little gets the better of us, just be kind to yourself and go. Okay, because we're not going to risk being brave if we beat up on ourselves every time we fall and we are a lot braver and we show up as a bigger version of ourselves when we can embrace that we are fallible and we are flawed and we are not always going to be fearless.

Speaker 2: 36:46

That's a good vibe though. Yeah, that's a good vibe.

Speaker 3: 36:49

All right, all right, we are closing things out with rapid round. So, margie, this is what we like to just get to know you a little bit better one-on-one, get your thoughts outside of just this topic. Are you game for us to dive right in? Yeah, go for it. Okay, it's 2030. What's work going to look like?

Speaker 1: 37:09

I think we're going to see more fluid, purpose-driven work environments. I think the need that really was underscored during the pandemic that people are looking for meaning. They want to work for organizations that reflect their values. I think we're going to see more and more of that people prioritizing purpose and meaning over titles, that also value flexibility over formality. I think we're going to see more of that and a greater desire for real authenticity, as distinct from that sort of posturing and looking good, that people really want to see people being really human. As technology and gen AI takes on a bigger role, that human touch is going to be even more sought after and valued.

Speaker 3: 37:53

Okay. Totally agree, yes, we're on the same page. What, what music are you listening to right now?

Speaker 1: 38:00

oh, my goodness, I have a fairly broad repertoire. I I have to listen to just 80s classics. Yeah, yes, I go back. I still love john denver and neil diamond, but I also I love ederan and I love Pink, so I just got this broad one. I love Lauren Daigle. I just there's a lot of people I like listening to. I love Kelly Clarkson, so needless to say, I'm broad.

Speaker 3: 38:27

What are you reading right now? Or listening to podcasts yourself?

Speaker 1: 38:33

Ah, podcasts. I really like Ezra Klein. I listen to him, but I actually listen to a broad spectrum of people on podcasts. I like 10% Happier. I feel like this is a weird one to say Joe Rogan I listen to Joe Rogan. I find him really interesting, though I do often fast forward through it and I do little bursts of Mel Robbins.

Speaker 3: 38:51

Okay, all right. Who do you really admire?

Speaker 1: 38:58

Who do you really admire? Who do I really admire? I did admire my mom, who passed away 18 months ago, because she had such a beautiful, humble gentle, serene way about her. She was all about service and never about ego. So I'm just going to stop there.

Speaker 3: 39:13

Okay. What's one piece of advice you want everyone to know oh, do not wait until you feel brave to do the brave thing. I love it. Thank you for being here, dr margie. We really appreciate it and we do want to plug the courage gap five steps to bra Action because that just came out. So please do check it out. And, margie, how can our listeners connect with you for ongoing insights and resources on this topic?

Speaker 1: 39:50

Oh, thank you. They can find me on social media, LinkedIn, anywhere though I'm not very active on TikTok, but Insta I am there. They can go to my website, margieworrellcom, and take my courage quiz on the book page, sign up for my newsletter, and I also have my own Live Brave podcast. That is everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 3: 40:04

Yes, we are following it, by the way. So thank you, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate you being here.

Speaker 1: 40:14

It was awesome to speak with you both and I just want you two to just keep backing yourselves because you're doing great work in the world. To just keep backing yourselves because you're doing great work in the world.

Speaker 3: 40:19

This episode was produced, edited and all things by us myself, mel Plett and Francesca Ranieri. Our music is by Pink Zebra and if you loved this conversation and you want to contribute your thoughts with us, please do. You can visit us at yourworkfriends.com, but you can also join us over on LinkedIn. We have a LinkedIn community page and we have the TikToks and Instagrams, so please join us in the socials. And if you like this and you've benefited from this episode and you think someone else can benefit from this episode, please rate and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care, friends. Bye friends, bye friends.

The Ego Equation for Leadership Success

Your Work Friends Podcast: The Ego Equation with Dan Springer

Impact over ego, thats the mantra for true leadership success.

What if the key to great leadership isn't confidence or charisma, but checking your ego? Former DocuSign CEO Dan Springer shares his Ego Equation and how humility, hard work, and self-awareness drive results that actually last.

So, what makes great leaders different—and how do you measure it?

(Skills ÷ Ego) ^ Work = Success.

Dan shares leadership lessons from decades in tech, including how ego almost derailed his career and what changed after a layoff turned into a leadership awakening.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

I try to define ego as

Speaker 2: 0:02

High ego is putting yourself as the primary, putting yourself first, and low ego, which is preferred in this context, is someone that puts the organization or the greater goals or family. It could be. Any type of organization you're involved with puts that first.

Speaker 1: 0:32

We brought Dan Springer on to talk about leadership and ego, and he's probably one of the best people to talk about this with, because this guy has ran mega organizations as a CEO, as a board member. He's genuinely a really nice guy and, more than that, he knows how to get returns in a business and really create these workplaces that people love to work at. If you ask anybody who's worked under Dan Springer, they loved where they were working, and so we wanted to figure out what was it that made him who he is and what did he attribute to his leadership success? And what he talked about was ego.

Speaker 3: 1:12

Yeah, he was such a great example of somebody who can focus on the human in the workplace while also having very successful business results, and how those two things went hand in hand together. Yeah, there is some secret sauce that he shared with us. That's pretty awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Totally agree. Dan Springer is the former CEO of DocuSign. He's also still on the board. He's an incredibly seasoned tech leader with decades of experience scaling some of the biggest names in SaaS like Responsys, teleo, nextcard, and. He began his career at McKinsey was a partner there. He's led billion-dollar exits, built high-growth teams and knows firsthand how ego can make or break great leadership. And you're right, mel. He brought this refreshingly honest take on what it really takes to lead well.

Speaker 3: 1:59

I think this is one of my favorite episodes so far and one of my favorite guests. The insights he brought were really valuable and others will get value out of this too.

Speaker 1: 2:07

It wasn't his Dave Matthews story.

Speaker 3: 2:10

I did love Dave Matthews as a fellow DMV. The fun fact in Connecticut I was at the Meadows with my friend for a DMV when there was an entire flipping of the cars and arson back in the 90s what the hell? At a Dave Matthews concert. It got out of control. I don't know what happened and we parked in a McDonald's parking lot. This is just a side story you can take out, but it got towed and we hitchhiked with some randos to go find our car at the Impel lot.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Listen my favorite Dave Matthews story, can I tell you, yeah. So there is something I celebrate every year, which is the anniversary of the Dave Matthews Band tour bus. Oh, the bridges in Chicago. And if you don't know this story, Mel, can I tell this story? Yes.

Speaker 3: 2:56

They're probably like please not again, just when we're not brought up, so I've never been in Chicago.

Speaker 1: 3:02

There's the river in Chicago and then it dumps out into the lake and over the river are a series of bridges that are grated and they can lift up and down so tall boats can go through to the lake Keyword grated. The other thing I want everyone to know about Chicago is it's a massive architecture town, so they have these wonderful architectural cruises. If you ever go to Chicago you have to go on them. They're fantastic and you can see all of the different buildings and the stories behind them, etc. They are typically open boats, so think about massive kind of pontoon boats looking up and admiring all the skyscrapers.

Speaker 1: 3:37

On this very warm summer day there was an architectural boat cruise cruising down the river looking at all the skyscrapers and at the same time the Dave Matthews Band tour bus was going over one of these graded bridges and the bus driver accidentally decided to dump the toilet out and it dumped all over this architectural horror boat. So it is one of the most disgusting stories, but also one of the funniest stories on the planet. I love to tell it just because it's so man dave matthews, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3: 4:11

If you were on that boat, the universe was just like f you, in particular today. What like?

Speaker 1: 4:18

but you've got some explaining. I love talking with dan, not only about the dave matthews story, but about his experience and how he's really looked at ego in this equation. If you don't know, dan, he's also a mathematician back liberal arts major, which I love, but he has this idea of how do you manage ego with skills and hard work. How do you pull that into balance to really set yourself up for success and to set your team up for success as well?

Speaker 3: 4:42

And you can do this equation yourself tomorrow to gut check your own ego. Yep, good tool, right away, great tool, and with that here's Dan Dan.

Speaker 1: 5:04

how are you today?

Speaker 2: 5:05

I'm doing great Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Great, absolutely All right. I want to get you right into this. We're here to talk about ego and leadership and your background. I'm so excited for it.

Speaker 3: 5:14

All right, we want to start in understanding your origin story around the whole concept of so and ego and the role ego has played, and so I'd love to understand how your own relationship with your own ego evolved throughout your professional career.

Speaker 2: 5:29

I've been called by many, particularly as a young man, to have prodigious ego, so I guess this is a good topic. The simplest construct around that I try to define ego is high ego is putting yourself as the primary, putting yourself first in the context. It could be your family, it could be your office, it could be your company, it could be your sports team, whatever it is. And low ego, which is preferred in this context, is someone that puts the organization or the greater goals. Or, again, it could be family, it could be any type of organization you're involved with puts that first.

Speaker 2: 6:01

And my own origin story, I think, is a good, healthy, I mean growing up with the world being presented to me.

Speaker 2: 6:10

In a certain way. It was when I was growing up I was pretty egocentric. I think I was pretty focused on Dan, and although I had wonderful role models like my mom, my hero, who demonstrated to me by putting me first, been really dedicated to whichever life to me, I probably should have seen that sooner, but I was a little slow on the uptake and somewhere, probably in my late 20s, I at least became aware of the fact that I was a little bit of a selfish person or a selfish SOB, maybe it would be more accurate. And then professionally I started to figure that out a little bit in leading people. But it wasn't until I had my first son that I think I really figured out that it wasn't about me. And once you have that ability to love someone more than you love yourself, it opens up your ability to just be much less egocentric in everything you do. So that was probably my. So I was. I'm embarrassed to say that now, but early thirties before I probably got to a reasonably evolved sense of ego.

Speaker 3: 7:13

Yeah, that makes sense, right, our brains aren't even fully formed until we're about 24, I think so to make good decisions and things like that. So it's totally understandable. We're in the non-judgment zone, by the way.

Speaker 2: 7:22

All right.

Speaker 3: 7:22

So having your son obviously major pivotal moment. What other kind of pivotal moments did you have that really transformed your understanding of ego, especially in leadership?

Speaker 2: 7:33

Yeah, so two, actually One before I had my son in my first job managing people. So I worked for the phone company. I was a forecaster, a econometrician, I did modeling and I showed up and they didn't have sophistication at Pacific Valley at that time. So I quickly got promoted less than a year in my first job as a college and I was now managing people. My parents' age that had been professional forecasters but didn't have some of the technical skills I had, and I quickly realized how bad I was at the job.

Speaker 2: 7:59

But I couldn't figure out for the longest time why. And it was because I was a little jerk. I couldn't figure out for the longest time why. And it was because I was a little jerk. And who's this little jerk telling me he's experienced and good people with probably a condescending ear if we want to be honest about it. But I eventually got that feedback so I did get a snippet. Being a jerk is not the best archetype of manager that you probably want to have. Then I think fast forward to probably having a son. But the it was one period that I think was really powerful for me, where I started to respect how wonderful some of the people we work with are and I ran a company you've never heard of called Tellio. It was my first time as the CEO and I ran it into the ground.

Speaker 2: 8:38

we sold it for 50 bucks to our Donnelly maybe a little more, not very much money, and so that's why you've never heard of it and I will bury the details of the company. It's important to me but it won't be to your audience. But something happened is right after I joined. It was like it was a dire situation and we had to do a slight restructuring. It was a small company but we had to do a layoff and I had never done that in a role, in a manager role, in a manager role. I've been a consultant at McKinsey, so I've been around a little bit of cost cutting. And that night after the layoff I was in my office late and four of the guys that had been laid off were standing outside the doors like a glass door looking in and they knocked and they came in and for a minute I had this thought are they telling you to beat the crap out of?

Speaker 2: 9:19

me, I can figure out why they don't want to stay around and these four guys sat down and they just asked to check in on how I was doing and they said they could tell how difficult it had been for me to go through the layoff their layoff, not my layoff, their layoff that they were worried about me and I'll tell you for the next couple of years.

Speaker 2: 9:40

That was this incredible strong feeling.

Speaker 2: 9:42

Every time I thought about it it made me feel worse, obviously, because these are the greatest human beings that could get laid off and they're worried about the guy that just came in to be their boss, that had to carry out the action.

Speaker 2: 9:53

And two, it just made me realize how wonderful people can be and it's just always stuck with me as a message that we have a responsibility when we lead an organization for those people, a responsibility when we lead an organization for those people, and I vowed I would never it hasn't happened yet, but it could never have a layoff of people who were doing their job well and were losing their opportunity because leadership in this case me failed to provide the opportunity. So don't overhire, don't get into that situation and when you have it. It's a painful lesson, but it was hugely eye-opening for me against the quality of people and the really serious responsibility we have as leaders for the people that work for us, and not everyone feels that way. I think it's really important If you're not feeling that way, not caring that much about your people, what are you doing in management?

Speaker 3: 10:40

Yeah, you have to think about the whole person and get down to humanity. At the end of the day, we are bigger than our jobs, so life is bigger than that.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Yeah. So Mel and I didn't go to math school. Dan, we did not go to math school. I know you did. I know you were being a jerk to the Yellow Pages people. Let's talk about how you were a jerk, dan. No, I'm just kidding. I was sitting there thinking like you were 30. I think I was like 35 before I got that that lesson around. Don't be a total asshole to people. But one of the things that I love about what you've come up with is an ego equation or an equation how to think about ego, because we have all these stories around. It's about how smart you are, it is about your strategy and you're playing five degree chess over here. Or maybe it's about the fact that you work your ass off. I'm wondering if you can talk about the mathy equation. You have to think about ego and work and skills as it relates to success.

Speaker 2: 11:39

It's a little bit geeky. Sure, it's only geeky when you put numbers to it. Conceptually, even liberal arts majors like myself even though I was a math and liberal arts college people we can really grasp these concepts. The simple expression which I've used in this so like sewing needle and thread is you have your skills that are usually highly correlated to the fortune you were given with your smarts and your ability to build skills. And then you have your ego.

Speaker 2: 12:04

As I mentioned earlier is your ability to control your focus on yourself versus to the broader organization, and then, as you said, how hard you work. And the equation for the geeks out there like myself is you take those skills that you have, the S, you divide it by your ego, so you want to have less ego, obviously. Then you take that and you raise it to the power of how hard you work. And if you do play around with little numbers I generally use one to five and you assess yourself. I'll give you my own self-assessment, so yeah, and then we're, we're on this spectrum think of this bell curve spectrum, not a one to five.

Speaker 2: 12:38

When it comes to skills that have been built, I think I'm a four. Most of my life asserted I was a five, but we can get to the ego point. I just had a lot of good fortunes. It's not so much that I'm smarter than other people or more skill, I just showed up in some really good situations that made me look good. So I've had a lot of serendipity. And then the ego. And again I don't think I was ever a five.

Speaker 2: 13:02

On the ego, Maybe I was a four. There's a distribution curve and there's other people out there that could be pretty condescending, jerk like two, but I was probably in the four zone. I'm down to about a two in my self-assessment. So I'm pretty good not the best, but I'm pretty good at trying to really put the organization first and get out of my own ego and then on how hard I work. It's four or five. I've been a five at times. Sustaining five is very difficult but I think I'm a good, solid four.

Speaker 2: 13:27

So if you use the four, two, four, you say four divided by two is two. You raise that to the power of four and you get two, four, eight, 16. And that's pretty good. And, of course, when you're a competitive person, like I am, you play this game and you go. Okay, what I really want to do is be a five over a one. Raise it to the it. Just, it really probably doesn't happen very often and, quite frankly, if you have people operating with a high ego, you do the math. If you're around a one, it doesn't matter how hard you work. You're not going to get the number any better. If you're below one, it's effective. A person working really hard has all focused on themselves could actually be a detriment to an organization. So that's how I think about the formula and have to chat about each of the elements more, but I use that in evaluating people and thinking about how effective they can be in our organization.

Speaker 1: 14:17

Let me ask you this so you're 16 and you're so score. Is there a range? Let's say you're building out a C-suite, for example, or you're building out whatever and you're trying to gauge where people are at what's considered like a good score.

Speaker 2: 14:32

16 is good and again, it's my form. I'm not going to create a system that I have a terrible outcome in.

Speaker 2: 14:38

And you're like, wow, I really need work, I have to change the model. But 16 is good, have to change the model there. The 16 is good and the real challenge is it's the most of us, of course, most situation. I'm talking about me as a software exec to 16. Um, by the way, the only place I've ever been better is actually in in in sports, and the reason is and this is that you're really fortunate if you have this makeup my whole life, life I played sports all through college, division III college, but still some of my college soccer and lacrosse teams.

Speaker 2: 15:09

But all through school, all through every team I ever played on, I don't think I was ever the most skilled player on my team and I had just enough self-knowledge to know. I think sometimes I was one of the better players I knew. I was never the most skilled player on any, whether it was football, soccer, basketball, cross, whatever but nobody worked harder.

Speaker 2: 15:31

I don't believe anyone on any team I was ever on. I know it was a pretty aggressive statement to make, but I can't. How are you going to know? How are you going to refute it?

Speaker 3: 15:38

anyway, Ever Sounds a little like. Ego Sounds a little like ego.

Speaker 2: 15:43

Yeah, I hadn't thought about it that way. Can you have ego about how hard you work? Maybe, and I do think if you look at the stats score you'll always see not as many points but a lot of assists from Dan's work, and that was the joy I had as being a playmaker and trying to make other people score and succeed. So in sports it's the only time I've ever been ever better than I have as a profession. But I would just clearly say 16 is taking me a career to get to. I was realistically a one-two, probably most of my career because of the ego that suppresses the ratio of the smarts, and so if you had a team of 16s, that would be a killer team.

Speaker 2: 16:22

Everyone could get their egos down. Some people might get it by a five and a three. You're playing the different modes, but yeah, it's all about getting that balance right.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Is there ever a situation where you need to have hot ego?

Speaker 2: 16:34

Yeah, and again, the problem with the definition of the word ego in general. There could be a lot of different nuances and interpretations of that, and I think they can be healthy ego for sure, in the construct that I'm defining. I don't think so. I think it's optimal is to be a team player, because not only does it help the team's output, but then it forces other people, because of that behavior you exhibit, to do the same. People want to be drawn, I think, to something bigger than themselves, and if other people lead that way, it makes it easier. So you have a knockoff effect on other people when you bring down your ego and some cultures can get to the place where that happens. But just to be clear, there's high-performing cultures that have high ego.

Speaker 2: 17:12

I worked at McKinsey. There are investment banks, I would tell you. Most of them is a model where people are fighting, particularly in banks, for their compensation. It's a big thing, it's a let me show you how great I was and the deals I got done. Therefore, I deserve more compensation in that model. By definition, I think you should answer your question. That's supposed to be a high ego place. Now, over time, that can have become destructive, and yeah, but I think that's the balance. Leadership and that kind of organization has to figure out a way to maintain that competitiveness around individual performance and at the same time still figure out how do we have some collegial nature that we can build a firm together.

Speaker 1: 17:53

You've taken your career where it is based on this model. You see it and evaluate your teams based on this model. We doubled down on ego, but I would love to understand what do you think about skills? And when you think about hard work, what would you recommend people consider when they're looking at upping those potentially? Just to balance out the equation.

Speaker 2: 18:14

One thing I tell you about the skills side, the hardest part about skills, it's the one I think we can do the least Now it doesn't mean you can't take classes and get training things, but core thing that drives and in fact you didn't ask if I stole this idea. There's no SEW, quite like the way I do it. But this construct of these sort of three forces in determining how effective people are in their work was stolen from a guy I worked with at McKinsey years ago, an Australian guy, clemenger, and he actually initially his thinking was it wasn't skills, it was smarts. It's also smarts are trainable. It's a very McKinsey way to think about it. Right, and he'd been a career McKinsey Was we just want smart people, because smart people will figure out problems, but they'll also figure out how to learn and grow To some extent your clock speed.

Speaker 2: 18:59

You can work on it. You're born with what you got. Thank or don't thank your parents, but you got what you got. So that one is much harder for people to control. And I would tell you the best thing you can do to either quote unquote improve your smarts or your skills it's the learning you get, it's taking wisdom from your experiences. So what makes you smarter, effectively or more skilled is the fact that you have ability to take feedback and say, oh, I got to move a little bit over this way, so that's probably the most important piece, except that a lot of it is going to be.

Speaker 2: 19:28

You're given processing capability and then the one is applying yourself, and if you just do more and you're active, it goes back to the work. How hard you work. If you take on opportunities. Every time you have a chance to do something new and different, you do it and then you listen and learn about how you did. That's the best thing I think you can do to improve your sort of smart skills and on work, that's probably the least complex, right?

Speaker 2: 19:51

And it's just how will you apply yourself? It's definitely about working smarter, not just harder, although I sometimes think we use the excuse of working smart, not hard, to not fully deploy ourselves and really invest ourselves in the things we're working on. But that could be personal, professional, across the board. We often know when we're just showing up and there's days sometimes where that's all you can muster, just showing up. But if you find yourself only just showing up a lot of the time, you're probably not in the right place, because you just don't have that enthusiasm for your work to allow you to get up to a four or maybe even a five on how hard you work.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Yeah, it's interesting when you have those where you. Is it context you know what I'm saying Like when you're in a situation I know when you were at DocuSign or Responsys, for example, too, it felt like that was like these magical times, right, these magical cultures where you wanted to show up, right, it's the context of it, or is it the individual that's always going to have that lens, or is it a combination of both? I think it could be situational, right.

Speaker 2: 20:52

Yeah, but your point about the magical times what makes people remember times as magical is because they work really hard with a group of people they respect and care for and built a great album, and when you do that, it bonds people. I think we were chatting the other day and I told you that there was this 10-year reunion of people from when we sold Responses to Oracle and I thought the whole idea was a little wacky in the first place, to be completely honest with you, and then, when hundreds of people showed up and said it was a really special way for them to be back with people, it felt more like a college reunion than a company had been part of. You had something special and that culture that you were part of will always be important to you.

Speaker 1: 21:37

It's the power of when you have this in masses, right, when everybody is pulling in their weight or has a high SO score, right. That's the power of that too. Come to think about it, I don't think I've ever had a magical work experience where I phoned it in or where I was very egocentric, or like I was the smartest person in the freaking room, like that never, ever happened. I think that's common.

Speaker 2: 21:58

I think that experience you're describing is probably common and I would say there are times, particularly in technology industry, where you get on a wave and you probably could continue to have great success with phoning it in a little bit, although be careful, because when you're riding that kind of wave it's going to crash at some point. But I would tell you, I bet it's not a magical experience. I think it's very difficult, if you didn't really work hard at something, to truly enjoy the success and the outcome, because it's not as important, it's not as special to you as if you know that you really applied yourself fully.

Speaker 1: 22:32

Yeah, you got to be invested.

Speaker 3: 22:46

Something that really resonates with me with what you said, because, as another former athlete but I will say I was D1. Just rubbing it in a little, just a little, but I was a rower, so it doesn't really count as a former athlete, throughout my life, one of the things that I heard time and time again from my coaches and like you, I was never the best, but what I always got was the heart award. Because when you're the one giving heart and in my mind, when I keep hearing you say hard work, that's what I keep hearing.

Speaker 3: 23:12

Oh, the people who give heart, like you have the heart in it. Is that what you mean when you say hard work absolutely?

Speaker 2: 23:18

and in fact it's funny. I was thinking about your point about crew. It actually is a great example because, if you think about again, I never rode crew in any close to semblance of a real way, but oddly enough, I went to a strange high school in Seattle that happened to have crew, which is unusual, particularly unusual. Then on the West Coast, I'm going to start and for the next six, about six minutes, I'm going to get increasingly uncomfortable to the point that my body's going to hate what I'm doing and I'm going to collapse in exhaustion and you go and that's what we do every time and that's our form, and there's probably some track and field things that are like that a little bit, and it's the only one you do in unison, depending on three other, seven other I guess, four and eight if you count. But what a crazy bond that people must have with the team when you go through that.

Speaker 2: 24:17

You've probably seen it, but you see the boys in the boat. There's a movie from the book the Boys in the Boat. The book was better than the movie. Usually Not always, but usually it's the University of Washington men's crew that won the Olympic gold medal in 1936. No-transcript.

Speaker 3: 24:53

Oh, I loved crew. By the way, I think when I talked to any of my teammates, most of us did it so we could watch the sunrise before class, because it was just a fun experience at 5 am.

Speaker 3: 25:03

I wanted to go back to those high-performance work cultures, because we've all worked in them, right, like I worked in big law. We work cultures because we've all worked in them, right, like I worked in big law. We've worked in the big four, all of those things. Do you think something has to happen in terms of, like performance management? Performance management set up in a way to be egocentric or to build ego, because there's always this kind of back and forth? Do you brag about the work you've done and that impacts your potential bonus and your raise or your opportunities for growth, but none of us get our work done, necessarily as individual contributors. Even when you're an individual contributor, you still need others to complete your work, and so do you think there's an opportunity for organizations to think differently about performance management and how you brag about the things you've done while also bringing along everyone else who helped you get there?

Speaker 2: 25:50

I think so. Yeah, and I'll tell you the first thing. There's certain things in business life that are close to universally. True. There's probably none that are quite, but there's two I want to talk to One related to your question, but first I'll do the other one.

Speaker 2: 26:03

It's amazing how what we learned in kindergarten is so important for what we do in life. Saying please, saying thank you and saying I'm sorry when appropriate is the simplest thing to do, and when we don't do it oftentimes it leads to fairly significant conflict and problems. I'm not saying it always solves everything, but at least creates the opportunity and the space to be successful. And one of the things that I think is really corollary to that is about teams that you described. And if you say we instead of I, first of all people know.

Speaker 2: 26:40

So if you're so worried that you have to be clear that you did something, the detraction that you're going to get from your colleague to everyone else I need you to point out that it was you Way swaps, any extra benefit you might get in bonus time or what you're just got, is my opinion.

Speaker 2: 26:55

But if you do that chest beating and you do it around a wee, it's amazing how everyone gives you license to brag all you want because it's about wee, and if you figure out a way to try to give the credit in a credible way to other people, because we've all seen the bullshit, the fake oh, thank the little people, because it wasn't me and you just look and you're like, okay, that not only gets you the credit for having delivered the great results that your team's done, but, more importantly, that we language makes everyone else feel great and it sets us up for another success, because now everyone wants to do it again. So you're also building followership from teams. So I think that's the answer to the question is just be a we oriented and get away from needing to point out what people probably already know when you've done something great.

Speaker 1: 27:55

Yeah, I'll tell you too, where I've seen people be really successful is with that we language and that authentic we language like you talked about, with their team, and also cross-functionally as well. When you can be we, when you're reaching across the aisle with finance and HR and marketing and you're going at it we as one, that is hugely powerful, especially as you're going up in the ranks.

Speaker 2: 28:17

And I would also tell you I think it's powerful when you're the hardest grader on yourself. A lot of people say they're the hardest grader on themselves, they're toughest on themselves. I don't always find that to be the case and I find if you can do that and get a reputation amongst your colleagues for being tougher on yourself than you are on them, it's a really exponentially improving opportunity. I'll give you one sort of dumb example. But at Responsys I had this thing where I tried to change the way we thought about performance reviews. So we did everything out of 100. It's just just like a hundred. But a hundred was perfect Pretty hard to be perfect and I was CEO for 10 years at Responsys. I had twice a year had a review and I would submit my self-assessment, just like I would have all my managers first submit a self-assessment, and I never had a hundred. I never got above low nineties and we had a couple of quarters that led to a half year performance that you would say those were pretty good and I had a board that would push back and say come on, this has got to be a hundred percent and I'm like a hundred, how can you get a hundred? But what would happen is I'd come in and say, yeah, I think I had an 82. And they'd be this is crazy. You at least have a 90. We have to argue this up to a 90. Think about that.

Speaker 2: 29:28

Normally my experiences before that was the other way around. I think I'm about 115. And then someone else has to say, god, we really think he's about a 90, but now we've got to say he's an 80 to try to compromise. So it just totally changes that. Every single executive my direct reports at responses but one and I'll get to the one in a second Over time grasped that and said this is the way I want it to be.

Speaker 2: 29:54

I want to be in a situation when I come in tougher on myself and my manager was me says no, I think better than that. Those conversations are so rewarding and I did. One executive who was very talented and a great executive and he had grown up in a sense of I'm above 100%, everything I do is above 100%, and the math major in me says there is no above 100%. It's impossible to be above 100% Asymptomically. Approaching 100% on most things is almost impossible, and so that mentality to get out of that I got all Ben Antonio, but I got everyone else there and it was I think it was a big part of our culture that then went down and trickled down wherever what it was saying like. Let me be tougher on myself.

Speaker 1: 30:39

Let me ask you this In those moments, did you want to rate yourself 100? In the back of your mind, were you like I actually was 100, but I'm going to put it in myself at a 91? Or were you like, no, I was genuinely in 91, you wasn't you can't what's truth I think there's times where I thought I was pretty damn good.

Speaker 2: 30:56

Yeah, we had a lot of challenges too, but the early parts of the company was a complete turnaround. There was some, I think. You know I often talk I'll give you a. Let me answer your question, then I'll give you them. Yeah, there were times when I thought I was great, but because I defined it it as 100%. It's just yeah, you can't.

Speaker 2: 31:12

One of my pet peeves when people say I gave 110%, you don't have 110. There is no 110. And I appreciate what the construct they're trying to say pushing yourself. No, it's like the crew thing, like my 100% is to get us there in six minutes. I got us in five minutes and 55 seconds. I did more than a hundred percent. Well, you just reset. What a hundred percent is? That's new love.

Speaker 2: 31:32

But but that concept, yes, there are probably some times when I might've been a little bit I don't know too cute by half about saying no, the IPO was great, it just wasn't really the accomplishment I wanted for the company. I think we could have done better. Or my last time I sold the company at the highest multiple SaaS offer company I'd ever had. That was a pretty good outcome. Ceo should feel good, the whole team should feel good about that. But there were some things that just weren't quite optimized in those periods and I think it's important to always tell yourself that the grade you would give yourself is lower than the grade you'd give the company If you're the CEO or general manager for your business, because telling people I'm better than you are and I'm pulling us up, it's a hugely odd message to send, and you and I have talked about this before.

Speaker 2: 32:21

I think the leadership model I try to think about is the inverted pyramid. Instead of a CEO at the top and then all these people coming down, I say the job of a leader is to make everyone else on the team successful. So you should think about it as an inverted leadership model. And the simple example is that if you think about a company, particularly if it gets to scale, even if you have a lot of self-confidence, managed ego I have a lot of self-confidence. The best I could be at a company of scale let's say there's a thousand employees maybe I could be as good as three or four people. I would have to just be in my A game constantly. Best case, I could be as good as three or four actually, but if I could make each of those thousand people 10% better, that's like hundreds of people you've added of good work, so it just swamps it, and so if you get your mindset to think like that versus to think top, down ones, so it just swamps it.

Speaker 2: 33:09

And so if you get your mindset to think like that, versus to think top down, I think it helps you to achieve.

Speaker 3: 33:15

I like the we, not me, concept over there. Yeah, when you think about how leaders can accurately assess where they fall on this scale, can they accurately self-assess, or does it require some external measurements? I'm the only one that can self-assess.

Speaker 2: 33:32

You're the only one Awesome, sorry, sorry. Of course, everyone can do your own self-assessment. In fact, doing a self-assessment is great. More valuable for most of us probably two is to ask the people you work with, ask your colleagues, ask the team you manage, ask your manager hey, how do you think about me? In this format, and that would be the fun exercise. If you're doing it as a management team, I should do this actually my next gig. You should actually just ask everyone to do that assessment for everyone on the team and then you give people the sense of here's what you said about you and here's what the rest of us said about you.

Speaker 2: 34:04

In each of these dimensions, I think it could be really powerful way, and I'll tell you that the hard part about it is assessing. You try to think about assessing people when you don't have a lot of data. Most people, if you work with colleagues and you ask people oh yeah, francesca, usually people have a pretty similar view. The hard part is like when you're interviewing someone and you meet them and you say, hey, should we hire this person? You're trying to assess how successful they'll be. It's much harder to figure out some of these things. There's some things that are typically around the smarts and skills. People have degrees and things, or people have a track record where they've delivered tremendous performance. So you see some areas where you can get that.

Speaker 2: 34:41

The ego one, of course, is the hardest one, although the work one is interesting because a lot of people tout how hard they work and again they're just about working hard. It's about working smart. Sometimes you can't completely rock that. You get a better sense from other people, but the ego one is the hardest one and the way I'll give you my fun interview question. I love to ask people. If it were you, mel, I would say hey. So, mel, if I had in the room everyone that you've been working with for the last five years, but you weren't there and I said to them what's really great about what Mel does? What would they say? And then you answered that question and then, when I'm finished, I said, hey, if I asked that same group, what are the things Mel should be working on? What are some areas where you know Mel could be a little more effective?

Speaker 2: 35:27

What would they say to that? And of course, everyone loves the first question. First of all, they'd say I'm the smartest person. They give you, as they should. You're giving them a softball to say what's great about you, yeah. But the second question is interesting because there's basically three buckets of answers and some people are in tune with issues that they're working on and they've gotten feedback in the past. Maybe they've made some improvement, they know there's more, and that's a really thoughtful and great answer. Another answer is I don't think they have anything to say. Look, that would be it.

Speaker 3: 36:01

Look at what we're saying. Such a weird response.

Speaker 2: 36:02

Really they just have. No, they actually just they've never dawned on them that people might not think they're perfect and they may be great but just like. That's an indication that we ought to be probing further how effective they are in teams if it's never sort of done. But the worst answer of all is what I call the faux answer. And the faux answer is let me tell you what they'd say Now. First of all, they say I work too hard and carrying the load of the whole team makes everyone feel terrible because I do so much more than everyone else, and that's a real problem for people.

Speaker 2: 36:38

And they give two or three things that you're like the most ridiculous fake critique of all time. Then you actually realize this person's smart. They probably have some awareness of things that they could work on and be better, but they're manipulative and they're full of shit and they're basically going to say let me tell you how I can smooth that. That's actually indicative to me. They could be skilled and there might be certain roles where that sort of ability to communicate and feel if they're going to be an actor or something you might say that's a great skill, to be able to have right To improvise that answer. But to be a colleague, that's a person that's I'm going to be wary, I'm going to be wary. Can they really dedicate themselves to a mission to work with other people? So that's a great question to ask.

Speaker 3: 37:17

I love that question, Someone who worked in talent acquisition. I think it's such a smart question to ask because I've heard also those rehearsed answers and you're like, oh OK, yeah, I don't know about that. What are some ways? I guess, when you think about warning signs Because I would see that as a warning sign, just as you did but when someone's in the job, what are some of the warning signs that indicate ego might be creeping up or interfering with their leadership effectiveness?

Speaker 2: 37:43

Core issue of where an ego is a problem is usually not in someone's self-led efforts around their interactions with the team, and so I think where we see people who are less effective team members and aren't able to the company or the team first, that's where you see it and you see it from their colleagues. And what do I be careful about? I'm a big believer in things like 360 feedback. I'm not actually a huge believer in massive programmatic you have your talent, background, sort of solutions but I think the discipline of getting feedback in a thoughtful, targeted way, as opposed to just lots of forms that people start filling out in a shitty way, is not, honestly, the key to success. It is in a thoughtful way, given the person and the individual. You as a manager do work, but getting that feedback from folks is great. One thing to be careful about is just because other people are unhappy with someone or complain about someone doesn't mean they're the problem. Are unhappy with someone or complain about someone doesn't mean they're the problem. A lot of times we ask someone to carry some pretty heavy water and drive some pretty aggressive performance and some people might not like that and they might say that's a bad person. A lot of times. Let's get this at.

Speaker 2: 38:45

Docusign or CPL would say they're not living the DocuSign values. They were very important. We had this really strong set of values. Docu DocSend's an amazing company and it's got some things that are really strong. By the way, we've had some challenges last couple of years. Some of those values have allowed us, I think, to maintain more success. But it's really easy to pull the values card and say I don't like the way Mel's doing that and so I'm going to say throw the value set. I'd be really careful that the person that's willing to throw that might not just be doing well, they might be actually saying the scrutiny and management I'm getting is making me uncomfortable. And the person is trying to give me aggressive feedback and somehow I missed the memo that said feedback is a gift and since I didn't think feedback was a gift, I think the person's riding me really hard, but actually they're trying to make me better. So get feedback but make sure you're triangulating and then get observations yourself. That's how I'd propose attacking that role.

Speaker 1: 39:41

Okay, here's a question. I feel like we have a lot of representations of ego in the extreme. I've seen very high up leaders, board members, ceos, it could be even a manager. I've seen individual contributors and they're so egocentric they're bordering on narcissistic or maybe they are or just a straight psycho. We've all worked for them. What do you like? Some of those environments incent that, incent that behavior, reward that behavior. If you're in an organization that you feel like that's happening, or you're walking into a culture where that day that's happening, how do you start to advocate for more of this balance? How do you operate as yourself? If you're someone that isn't that way and likes to operate with more of the balance, do you go? What do you do? What's the play there?

Speaker 2: 40:29

So, the first thing is why? Why do you want to do what you're describing you want to do? Do you diagnose that there's a problem in the company? You see a performance challenge happening at some point, or we have a nutrition problem because we have some people's behaviors driving good people out. I'd like to try to understand what the thing I'm trying to fix is before I take my remedy. But in general, I'm a big believer in we motivate people with incentive structures. Some of those are financial incentive structures, some of the praise, all sorts of levels that we have for incentives for people. And so if you're driving behavior and you're seeing it not just one individual, but you're seeing it more creep into your business in a way that you think it's not healthy, I'd look at your incentive structure.

Speaker 2: 41:08

And so one of the phenomenas is you might say we have a lot of individual achievement awards. Let's go to a team award and a company could take a bonus approach and say it's subjectively based on each individual's performance. Or you could say we're going to have a total team outcome. These are our top three goals, and if we achieve them we all win in that award, and if we don't, that's one lever. But I think that kind of concept is thinking about what you've put in place in your organization to drive the behavior you're driving. And the other one and this is one that I don't understand why more people don't do it other than you know. I have some conflict avoidance in my own nature, so I understand it's a human phenomenon. We often avoid conflict, francesca, less you than the rest of us. You're so nice.

Speaker 2: 41:52

You spiked on that in a good way, but the answer is talk about it. I don't know. We have this thing where everyone's in a closed room secretly saying, oh, Billy's doing this and Susie's doing this. Hey, Billy, Susie, people think you're being a jerk and I don't know why. That's not who I think you are. So let's go show them that's wrong and what are the things we're going to do together to have it? And I think, same thing Not everyone accepts feedback as a gift at the beginning, but you have to explain to them.

Speaker 2: 42:18

You want to be successful here. You're going to work with me in addressing this feedback and I think you would find most people 90%-ish people if they know that you care about them and they know that you respect them, they will take that feedback and they will want to be better. And there's some people who just can't take it or see it feels too personal and they have to say it's not me, it's the person that's complaining. Understand that there's a cycle. You go through that process. Past that, I think most people can say you know what? I want to be better, I want to be more effective, so I want to work on it.

Speaker 1: 42:52

Yeah, Mel and I are. We're writing a book and we just came out of research and that's the number one thing around being feeling like you're being respected and valued. You cannot have feedback, trust, development, conversation, anything without that. That is the base, for you have to have that mutual respect and that mutual value, and I think it's something that we overlook or we assume it's just there yeah, right and we've never had a goddamn conversation about it.

Speaker 2: 43:20

Yeah, and I'll, yeah. Um, and you have data. And so what happens when you have data? You sometimes that ad is just nobody cares what you know until they know that you care. And so if you're there, you say I got all this information, make you better. I'm like, are you trying to make better? If you're there and you say I got all this information to make you better, I'm like are you trying to make better? Are you setting me up for failure? Like when I understand that you're. When you show up to tell me something, it's because you care about me and you care about the success of what we're building together. Yeah, then I really do want to know, I want to understand, I care about this feedback that's going to make me better.

Speaker 1: 43:49

Yeah, I think starting with care is such a huge thing. Starting with care might be your answer to my next question, which is I'm dead. It's a little crazy out there these days, but it's a little uncertain. Yeah, hashtag tariffs, speaking of incentive structures as opposed to sticks. I am curious, though if you're a leader, especially if you're a C-level executive, and you have the entire company on your shoulders and you're trying to navigate uncertainty it could be now, it could be in the future, I don't care, but I am curious about how you protect that balance of your ego as you're going through that, because I have to believe that it might be up and down, depending on what situation you're in, what win you have, what punch you just took in the phase. How do you maintain and balance that ego when you are just in a blitzkrieg of bullshit?

Speaker 2: 44:40

Yeah, two things. One, it was harder for me to insightfully answer that question today because I'm at a place where I've had so much good fortune in my career and I've gotten a lot of boost. That makes me feel good about myself professionally, and not that I don't have things I'm constantly working on, for sure, but I've been so fortunate that I don't walk around with a chip on my shoulder that I, you know, because of this crisis or some other, I either need to prove myself. I do feel like I need to prove myself every day, but I don't feel like I'm coming from a defensive way of doing that and proving myself. So that makes it easier. But if I go back a couple IPOs ago, yeah, I think it's a real challenge.

Speaker 2: 45:20

I think what you're describing is absolutely a challenge, and the more that the market gets crazy your market, whatever that is it's easy to feel like it's unfair and lashing out and attacking, and then sometimes even the people that are close to you. You should be pulling together. Some people are critical of them. We're blaming. You know the blame game. If you just sold more, we wouldn't have this problem. So it's your fault.

Speaker 2: 45:42

Sales is fault, which has been a huge issue, by the way, in enterprise software the last couple of years, the number of companies, because I spent a lot of time talking to people about running more software companies that say a company is great, the only problem is our sales team. If we just had a new head of sales, it's going to be great. I'm like really, because every software company is saying the same thing. Is it really just the sales leaders? I don't think so, and so I do think the hard thing when everything is going crazy like that is to just go back and say what can I control and what can I not? I can't control tariffs, I can't control any of these things. I have to make decisions based on the fact that some externalities are there and those external factors are happening. But I have to go back to our team and say I don't know what the outcome is. I just can't tell you what the outcome is going to be, but I can tell you what the inputs are and we're going our very best at doing it in the way we believe and at the quality that we believe we can deliver for our customers, for employees, whatever. And let's just do that, because that's what we can control, and I know it's the same thing like stock price is a phenomenon.

Speaker 2: 46:41

Companies go public and every CEO gives the same speech, or pretty much every CEO. Guys, we can't control the stock price. You shouldn't be spending time looking at the stock price. That response is early on. I made this thing. I said I'm not going to look at the stock price except for Friday afternoon every week. I will not look at the stock If you ask me about it. I don't want to know. I don't care. I don't want to know what the stock price is. What am I going to do on any given day? How are you.

Speaker 1: 47:06

This is a backward.

Speaker 2: 47:07

This isn't that. Leaving is a backward indicator. We got to be focused on our business and getting people out of that mindset. Actually, one thing we did response is we had the IPO and we didn't go ring the bell in New York. We did the IPO. We came back to the office and we were with the office and the people and the day after IPO we said let's play Sales to do. We got product to build. We got customers to take care of. We said what happened to go public yesterday? It's fun and Our customers take care of it. What happened to go public yesterday? It was fun and we should all feel good about it. It was a nice accomplishment. Back to work, because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter in the context of what we have to do every day. I'm sure we care about it and create liquidity for people. Lots of wonderful things that happen. I'm not against celebrating. I'm all about celebrating. Why do we have the opportunity to celebrate?

Speaker 3: 48:03

Because, because we did these other things really well for the last several years, so let's keep doing those things. Looking back at your younger self and what you know now, what do you wish you could tell your younger self?

Speaker 2: 48:10

I think probably a couple things. One is I didn't have a lot of patience, I was in a hurry and I think it's okay to be moving fast, but I think I would tell myself as part of that smell the roses, enjoy the time, enjoy the experiences you're having, and I sometimes skip things to get on to the next, and sometimes I think that's a mistake a lot of us make. And life it's not the end, it's the journey and really making sure you enjoy the journey. And that probably is mostly then around investing in relationships, and not necessarily just like your most important relationship, but the people you know that are just wonderful. It could be colleagues, could be friends, any number of places. Really take advantage of those personal relationships. That is what life is fun to do. So that'd be number one.

Speaker 2: 48:59

Number two, and there's no question, after the practice speech I gave you on this topic earlier, I would tell myself to chill, cool my jets a little bit about then and realize that the joy I was going to get in life, the real joy I have, comes from seeing other people being successful, and I had to accumulate a certain amount of professional success and personal success before I could start to do that. So I missed a lot of years of a lot of joy I could have had. I think I had little snippets of it. I'm not a total jerk. I did care about the people I worked with but it was all in the lens of they could be successful to make me more successful. And if I think I could have just appreciated them more for them and been better for them, starting that sooner I would get a lot more joy. So those would probably be the two things. There's probably a lot of things I would tell myself, but those would be the. Those would be the.

Speaker 3: 49:52

I like it. The second one, especially when you think of giving their best advice to emerging leaders, that's like a big takeaway that they can start today. Okay.

Speaker 1: 49:59

Rapid round questions. You can answer these with one word or a sentence, or however long you want. Sometimes these are our most interesting questions. Are you ready to play? I'm ready to play. Okay, it is 2030. What does work look like? Work will be very similar to what it is today in the post-COVID world Very similar.

Speaker 2: 50:25

All right, interesting. No, I should elaborate. I thought I was supposed to do rapid fire.

Speaker 1: 50:28

Wait, now, I want to know the answer. Wait, why do you think it's going to be similar? Why do you think it's going to be similar?

Speaker 2: 50:35

I think we've had a lot of transformational change going into and coming out of COVID and I think the amount of change in the way we work, assimilate is limited. We're humans and we have our patterns and we have our trends. So I think we've gotten to this place. I don't think it's exactly equilibrium, but in terms of our people going to be in the office, are they going to be remote, I think we're getting to that zone of where we're going to be. I would add, I think artificial intelligence will change the way we work, but I think it's going to be less impact. It'll be massively impactful on business, less impactful on people than I think we realize, because we're adaptable and the things that get automated and then we do things as humans that can't be automated. So I don't think that will change as much as some people are forecasting in the next five years.

Speaker 2: 51:15

Are you an AI optimist? I'm an optimist, for sure. Yeah, I definitely. I have my I call it terminator awareness of what's happening. I just don't see it. I really don't. Maybe it's my. I'm an optimist. I'm also. My faith in humanity is pretty high. Yeah, I'm pretty optimistic.

Speaker 1: 51:31

That's good. There's a lot of really awesome possibility there. I'm stoked for it. I'm stoked for it. Yeah, what music are you listening to right now?

Speaker 2: 51:39

I've been listening to Dave Matthews almost nonstop the last 10 days. Nothing wrong with a little DMV. We had Dave come to an event. Jane Goodall introduced him to me. We did an event at DocuSign. He is the funniest person I've ever been on stage with. If he was an actor, I don't know if you know this before he became a musician he was an actor.

Speaker 2: 51:59

He's been in a number of films since he's become famous, but he is just the funniest. He has the driest, quick-witted sense of humor that I never would have fully understood, even though I've been a fan for years and then joined C&M on stage, so Dave was the bomb Best session ever. At any event, Get out. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:18

I always read him as like either really awkward to talk to or making like really uncomfortable jokes period.

Speaker 3: 52:26

Yeah, I got the impression. He seems like a good call.

Speaker 2: 52:29

So he roasted me in front. He had the DocuSign employee base and customers and he was constantly making fun of me in a way that the docuside employee based and customers and he was constantly making fun of me in a way that, of course, that audience love oh sure so you know he knew his audience.

Speaker 2: 52:40

Um, yeah, he's a musical genius. So you're right, sometimes there's oddities with people who are creative geniuses. Uh, there's some of that awkwardness. He's so genuine. I'll just say one little snippet. We should move past dave matthews, but he moved to seattle from charlottesville where they really got going. So he lives in in the seattle area and up until this is about five years ago, he just moved out of a one bathroom house with his three children and his wife and he was just like, yeah, and driving his 1970 something volvo, he's just a guy, that's like.

Speaker 2: 53:13

I don't have any heirs. He's just the same person that I think he wanted to be ever since he was probably 20 or something like that. Yeah, he's a treasure.

Speaker 1: 53:22

See that story restores my faith in humanity. Honestly Like that's it. Okay, what are you reading? What are you reading?

Speaker 2: 53:29

So I just finished reading something I half read. It was embarrassing Principles by Ray Dalio, which is a tome of a big book. But the exciting thing that I just started reading again and I think I read it before. But I'm embarrassed. I can remember his Profiles in Courage. It was a Pulitzer Prize winning, jfk wrote it and it's one of those books that everyone knows about, but then you just maybe never read. And anyway, jillian got it for me and I saw it at a bookstore. He's a bookstore and I'm reading it and he's a gifted writer, in addition to being such a special politician.

Speaker 1: 54:05

It's also interesting to go back, even if you have read something way back, to go back and reread it. All right, here's my last question for you. What piece of advice would you give someone? What's your best piece of advice for them?

Speaker 2: 54:15

Oh, if it's mildly professional advice I suppose there's other realms, but I guess this would fit more broadly is in life the key is to find I used to be a consultant, so I like to do everything in two by two matrices. It is to find the combination of the things that you're good at and the things you like doing and get into that upper right corner. And I think the biggest thing that people sometimes forget is the things you like, and I think we're naturally drawn to. We get positive feedback on the things we're good at, but finding that intersection of the things you really love doing, that's the thing that you need to focus on.

Speaker 1: 54:48

It makes it really enjoyable, right? I look forward to it.

Speaker 3: 54:50

Cool, love it. We appreciate you being with us today. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2: 54:53

Me as well. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3: 55:00

This episode was produced, edited and all things by us myself, Mel Plett and Francesca Ranieri. Our music is by Pink Zebra and if you loved this conversation and you want to contribute your thoughts with us, please do. You can visit us at yourworkfriends.com, but you can also join us over on LinkedIn. We have a LinkedIn community page and we have the TikToks and Instagrams, so please join us in the socials. And if you like this and you've benefited from this episode and you think someone else can benefit from this episode, please rate and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care, friends. Bye, friends. Thank you.

Overcoming the Broken Rung

Your Work Friends Podcast: The Broken Rung with Lareina Yee

The Broken Rung isn’t just a metaphor—it’s the career barrier keeping women from advancing from day one. We sat down with Lareina Yee, Senior Partner at McKinsey and co-author of The Broken Rung, to talk about why fixing this early career promotion gap could close the gender equity gap in a single generation.

We cover the data, the hidden career tax women face, the power of experience capital, and why sponsorship—not mentorship—is the game-changer leaders need to embrace now. Whether you are navigating your own career or leading others, this is a must-listen playbook for how to advance, advocate, and unlock opportunity at every level.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

I'm Mel Plett, talent strategist coach and someone who survived big law, big four and more than a few broken org charts. I'm Francesca.

Speaker 2: 0:07

I've led people strategy at Nike and Deloitte. I like my advice how I like my coffee strong and no bullshit.

Speaker 1: 0:11

We host your work, friends. The podcast that breaks work down, so you stay ahead.

Speaker 2: 0:15

We talk work stuff, the human stuff, the awkward messy, what the f*** is actually happening stuff. Each week we drop new episodes with real talk, smart guests, fresh insights and straight up advice. Hit play. We've got you Ahas and ahas and, yeah, the occasional F-bomb or two. We had a really interesting conversation, we did.

Speaker 1: 0:48

We were able to speak with Lorena Yee, one of the co-authors of the Broken Rung. Lorena is a senior partner at McKinsey Company and she advises companies on growth technology and transformation. She also co-founded the Women in the Workplace Study with leaninorg. That's what made us reach out to her, as we were fascinated. We covered that a few months ago in New Week New Headlines and then, obviously, the Broken Rung book came out and in that report they're highlighting all of the challenges that women are facing in corporate America.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Lorena also chairs McKinsey's Technology Council and hosts the podcast At the Edge, where she talks about technology trends. And then, beyond her professional role, she's a mom of three and she serves on the board of San Francisco's Ballet. But this was an awesome episode. She is talking about one of the earliest career barriers that women face, which is this broken rung and ways that we can overcome it together. In this book I think you and I both said it was covered cover to cover with yellow highlighter from all of the stats that we were reading- yeah, I ran out of highlighter while I was reading this book.

Speaker 2: 1:56

The thing for me is we've had the glass ceiling. We know pay parity is not there yet and probably won't be for our lifetime, and what was so interesting was this early career issue that they have really nailed on. Even if you're not early career, even if you're not a woman, the thing about this book is it is a playbook for how to get ahead in your career If you're a woman, if you're a man, if you're gender non-binary. This book is absolutely packed with how do you get ahead when you have everything against you, and it is a must read for anybody, especially in corporate America. We love talking with her. We focus a lot about women here, but I think it can apply to anybody.

Speaker 1: 2:42

One of the things that really stood out to me is this isn't just a playbook. If you're in your early career, it's identifying when this starts, but it is. It does give you information, no matter where you are, whether you're just starting out, you're in the messy middle or if you're like towards the end of in thinking about your next move. She gives you ways that you can think about how to level up. The other thing for me that was so interesting was the concept of if we were able to fix this broken rung at the start of a woman's career, then we could have parity in a generation versus 150 plus years. So that, to me, was super powerful. I'm just going to read a quote from the book Lorena mentioned was this is not just a women's issue, as you point out. It's an issue for our whole society and the global economy. So read the book, listen to the episode. Here's Lorena.

Speaker 2: 3:46

All right, loretta. For those of us that haven't heard about this concept of the broken run, I'm wondering if you can explain it to our listeners, like a five-year-old. What?

Speaker 3: 3:55

is the broken run. You start work, you landed the job and you find that pretty much men and women are pretty equal. When you look around the room, right, 48% women entering the corporate pipeline in the United States, for example, and similarly globally. But guess what? Time for the first promotion. And here's the rub For every 100 men who have the odds of getting that promotion, only 81 women see those same odds of advancement. And that's the broken rung. That very first step on the career ladder is broken and it comes up fast.

Speaker 2: 4:33

What was so interesting to me so much of the time we're thinking about women, advancement, we're thinking about it manager on up, how do we get people to a C-suite or a VP? Because it's happening at this manager level. We're not getting people into these upper echelons. And I thought what's so interesting about your research is that this is happening very early and if you don't nail it early or don't look at it early, it has this kind of compounding effect on your career. What about that keeps you up at night?

Speaker 3: 5:05

your career. What about that keeps you up at night? All of it. By focusing on the broken rung, I wouldn't want to take attention away from the fact that people will call that middle layer, francesca, like the messy middle, the frozen middle, that piece of it or the glass ceiling. Let's be clear that still exists, and whilst we've made progress in corporate America, as an example, when I founded Women in the Workplace, we were 19% women reporting to CEOs at the C-suite. Now we're at 29%, so we're really close to 30. So that's great, but we're all really good at math. That's not parity, that's not 50%, that doesn't represent the population. So we've got challenges across the whole talent pipeline or ladder, however you want to visualize it.

Speaker 3: 5:49

I think the challenge with the middle, though the math, is that you've already lost a lot of women, or they've gotten stuck or they're stalled. It's not entirely clear exactly what happens to all those women, because some of them don't leave the workforce altogether, but let's just say largely stalled and stuck. So you are already in the middle, dealing with probably something around 37% women. You're already dealing with a smaller population, trying to put it in slates, so you're just so many steps behind, and I do think to the early broken rung.

Speaker 3: 6:25

I do think it catches women by surprise and it may even happen and they didn't even realize it, because it's not like an exam where they publish the results. You don't know where you are on the curve and it may have been a delay by a year, six months, two years, or maybe you decided to go somewhere else and so some of these types of things may not be completely perceptible, but I think when you talk to women over the course of 20, 30 years in work and they think back, they're like huh. And when we look at the data year over year, it shows that same phenomenon. Maybe it's 84 women, maybe it's 81, maybe 79. It's bouncing around a little bit, but it's nowhere near parity.

Speaker 2: 7:06

I want to dive into that. Why that first promotion? Why is that so critical for people to really focus on?

Speaker 3: 7:15

There are a lot of things. One, if you just think of a merit-based view, you want to actually be rewarded for the work you do. So there's a simple thing. There's also financially. You're not just working to work for the benefit of society and you may feel very mission oriented, you may feel very purpose filled and you may feel incredible pride for what you do, but you're also there for your economic earnings. And to earn less through differences in promotion is another type of tax on top of a general phenomenon we see in terms of a wage disparity between women and men. It's another form. But the other thing is let's just think about a talented woman who, by and large women graduate at higher rates than men for undergraduate degrees and by and large, with higher GPAs. And so you've got a talented woman. She's doing all the right things and missing maybe by a year, maybe two or three years, that first promotion is missing her ability to reach her full professional potential, and careers in life are long and those delays have almost compound effects over time.

Speaker 2: 8:32

And we haven't even hit motherhood yet. This is the thing that I read in the book the idea of the motherhood tax, where we'll talk about it a little bit longer. But for every kid that someone has, they get taxed. More and more Theirathers get a bonus for having kids. It's phenomenal, it's absolutely phenomenal.

Speaker 3: 8:50

I mean, we've all been in the meeting where the mom is rushing to go to the soccer game and everyone's like okay, fine, maybe even non-event, not even like eyebrow raising. And then the guy is I've got to go. Same thing, I've got to go, I've got to get to the soccer game at 430. And people are like high five, you're amazing. And, by the way, do I think it's amazing that dad is leaving for the soccer game, a hundred percent, I'm just saying that. I equally think it's a high five moment for the woman to leave as well.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Yeah, it is. Eye roll for the woman oh, gotta go again. And then for the guy it's good for you, you're such a good dad. Yeah, you're a leader. You're a leader. I want to talk about experience capital. That was one of my favorite parts of the book because I agree it's totally needed. But can you share with our listeners what is experience capital?

Speaker 3: 9:40

What's that concept?

Speaker 3: 9:41

So the punchline is 50% of your lifetime earnings come from what you gain on the job, and the reason this is important is you look at many women and, as I mentioned earlier, women outperform in school, they graduate at higher rates, particularly in the United States, and oftentimes they're graduating with higher GPAs and so they have done the first part really well.

Speaker 3: 10:06

But when we just look at representation nevermind how the experience feels, which we have a lot of data on as well, it's women are not succeeding to their potential in the workplace, at least if you look at representation, right, and so the idea of experience capital is if you were really great at school, how do you apply what helped you be wonderful at school to managing intentionally your portfolio of experiences that drive both the economic outcomes for you, your livelihood, but also your professional opportunities, and so you think about choosing your major, choosing your classes, getting an A. How do you be purposeful in making those decisions, in accumulating the experiences that matter, not just the job in front of you, which certainly is important, but what is the accumulation of experience over time, and can you get it earlier? Because it pays to get it earlier often, and bigger.

Speaker 1: 11:13

Can you do that in a way that sets you up really well for a lifetime of work? One of the things that you called out that I really love too was, as part of gaining that experience capital, was making sure you gain some of that experience capital, unlike the P&L side of the house and like really being deep into the business. So for anyone listening, p&l, profit and loss, that's one example. But what are some of those examples of like business side? So, say you're, I have a very strong HR background, by the way, but to be in strategic HR, I had to get that experience pretty early. So how can folks who aren't traditionally like on that business side, how can they gain that very important business experience capital and what does that mean? How is it different when you think about the experience capital you do gain? How does that differently set them up financially down the road?

Speaker 3: 12:00

Sure, Well, let's take your career as an example, and I might be getting parts of that wrong, but you have a passion for HR and a lot of women will connect with work to where they feel purpose, where they feel talent and being an aspiring alley, which is a P&L role maybe sales, maybe product, maybe in a business unit. That experience GM. But it is to say that having that experience short long at some point will make you better at whatever you want to do. The other thing is if you aspire to be a CEO to the chip tracker idea, the pink chip one year we looked at it, 95% of the CEOs that year we looked at it all came from P&L. So like virtually impossible, very unlikely, that if you haven't had P&L experience and you realize, understandably, halfway through your career that you aspire to be a CEO, this is going to be a central part. So that's one experience. Another piece of experience capital is entrepreneurship and people think that's just being a founder and yes, that's amazing. Both of you have founded this. That's entrepreneurship. But I bet both of you also were entrepreneurs in the companies that you were in before and it's a huge skill that makes a difference. How do you take initiative, how do you lead? How do you invent Versus? Here's the thing that I was given and I've checked all the boxes, so entrepreneurship is a huge piece.

Speaker 3: 13:50

The other thing that we talk about is skill differentiation. We call that bold moves, and so if you look at one job to a next job and it could be within the same company right, You're doing different roles. Bold moves are where you do a 25% or more skill difference between your former job and your new job, and women who take two, three big bold moves over their career have outsized impact, both economically as well as their ability to progress. So there are more, but just maybe to pause, take a deep breath. There are a lot of things we can do that are super concrete that help us build experience capital. And if you're young in your career gosh, you got to build that early and often. And if you're a little older in your career you know me, or like middle age, think about the experience capital you need to maybe pivot or do something new or to expand even more opportunities. It's a huge piece.

Speaker 1: 14:47

I appreciate that because I think a lot of folks forget that you can have an entrepreneurial experience while you're in an organization. It's like looking for those project opportunities where you can gain that skill set. For somebody who might be more of an introvert I'm an ambivert right, so it takes a lot of effort to reach out for those experiences and that sort of thing. Maybe they don't have a flashy or visible role. What's a way that they can start to advocate for themselves, to begin to build that experience capital?

Speaker 3: 15:19

I think, first of all, you've got to play to your strengths. So you may see someone who's an extrovert, very charismatic, maybe an athlete, so she happens to play golf which tends to be helpful in a male world and you're not in all cases. She's out in the golf course and you're just like that's not me and first of all, good for her, she should go with all those strengths. But you're like that's not me and first of all, good for her, she should go with all the strengths, right. But you're like how do I meet other people if I'm different? So I think there's one thing which is to know yourself and build off your strengths.

Speaker 3: 15:54

I remember early in my career being in consulting. My strength was the data and the analysis that I was doing and part of the credibility was really just the work itself. But the work is a basis to have a conversation with others and a basis to build trust. And then you start maybe building a relationship and entrepreneurship is following up. I remember meeting just this amazing executive and I was like you're just so like you're a role model, and I didn't say that. But then I remember just keeping in touch with her over time. Not a ton, I was whatever, maybe 10 levels more junior to her, but I remember when I was leaving Asia, moving back to the US, she was the last person that I had kind of coffee with who was a client, before I left. You've got to do it in your own style, but I think you do need to be purposeful and, for those who are analytic, write it down. Write down who do you work with, who you have a connection and network with, who have you worked with before that you could rekindle. If you're kind of customer or client facing, or if you're supply chain facing, who's outside of your organization and also maybe people from school. So how do you think about building those networks? And just make sure that we know that women tend to have more narrow, more junior networks. Just make sure that over time it's not going to happen overnight, but over time you invest in building some more senior networks.

Speaker 3: 17:28

I know one guy that I talked to joined this nonprofit board and I invested my personal time and I spent time and had lunch with every single board member, all of which were at least a decade more advanced in their career than me, and I built this local network. He said so when you join a board, you join a nonprofit board. This is what you should do, and I was like I didn't even think about that. I'm so busy just trying to get through my day. It didn't occur to me to like schedule lunch with each person on the board, get to know them, build a relationship. And it was true. I looked at the list and I was like I am the most junior person from a professional person on this board, so there are lots of ways you can do it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:10

I think it's. Yeah, finding your little avenue is going to be the most important. What works for you. I think folks sometimes can equate being outgoing as the folks who get the opportunity, but you don't have to fit that niche to get the same kind of experience capital you're talking about.

Speaker 3: 18:24

And some really senior people are quite introverted themselves, right? So that's not, you would find a connection.

Speaker 1: 18:34

Yeah, you'll find some kinsmanship in that, for sure. I wanted to talk about the sponsorship versus mentorship because something that really stood out to me in the Women in the Workplace report was that women are overly mentored and we're undersponsored significantly. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Speaker 3: 18:56

Yeah. So one thing is maybe just to define the difference, because sometimes I just feel like we don't have the facts to make the decision. So mentorship is Francesca, you're my mentor, I identify with you. You go to coffee. If I have a bad day or something didn't happen quite right on a project, you empathize and you give me some suggestions on how to think about it. But, mel, if you're my sponsor, you do everything Francesca does. But you also open windows and doors for me and that may be as explicit as you are actually putting me up for promotion, but it could be more everyday actions. Like Mel, you say Lorena, I know you've been working really hard on this. Why don't you come to the meeting and why don't you present? And I remember there's this really amazing sponsor we do a sponsor award at McKinsey and one of the winners.

Speaker 3: 19:54

There's this story that he faked a bloody nose because he knew that the client was like, wanted him to be there. He faked a bloody nose and he wants her to go so that the woman partner who is up for senior partner would present but also be seen as like super senior. It's like he was an actor. Everybody thought he had a bloody nose, medical reason to leave, but no bloody nose. He actually was just creating truly an opportunity for her to shine. By the way, she became one of the co-leaders of the client and all these great things happen.

Speaker 3: 20:29

You can do that on a Tuesday at four, on a Friday at nine. These are not hard things and so when you think about, and if you're senior and you're listening to this, how do you open doors and windows for others? But it can be very subtle things that help and it can be really being there in the moment to say this person should be on the slate and really helping you get promoted or keeping in touch with you and offering you an opportunity somewhere else. Women are just under-sponsored and maybe also it's not as clear how to develop sponsor relationships. But I think it's like women. If you put your mind to it, you can do it.

Speaker 1: 21:07

If you realize this is something that's as important as delivering your quota or whatever your MBOs are or OKRs, and you think about it as something you do a little bit every quarter over time you'll have a really powerful senior network something that stood out to me in the book was and I'm paraphrasing, but it was essentially the biggest issue with this broken rung is, once the first rung is broken, it just has this compounding sort of domino effect, right, because now there's less women at each stage to continue to sponsor other women up. But men can be sponsors too not trying to leave them out of the conversation, right? And the other powerful thing that you said in the book was that if we can repair this first rung, it'll help us repair all of the subsequent rungs, which could help us really fix this issue or bring parity within a generation, which is huge because that within one generation is 10 years versus 150 years. But how important is sponsorship, or what level of does sponsorship play, and the importance of fixing that first rung?

Speaker 3: 22:23

All of the above. So if 70% of the C-suite are men, then it's really important that men are sponsors in your network to percent women at the starting gate. And then we dropped down in the middle and the VP layers down to 38, et cetera, et cetera, and at the top for the SVP layers and the C-suite, we are at 29%. So it's almost like a math thing because you just have fewer women in the talent pool overall. So if I were to say I'd like to see equal men and women on the slate, that's actually something that is a little hard to accomplish because you actually have maybe a third, maybe 40% each level. You have fewer women. And so I think if we sometimes what we talk about for companies that are trying to work on this is you have a funnel, you need to have a pipe. So a really healthy company starts with a percentage of women and you would have that same percentage mirrored across all the talent levels. That would be really healthy.

Speaker 3: 23:47

Many years ago I met a tech company who was like it's just so hard, et cetera, et cetera. The classic we don't have engineers. But one thing we told them that really surprised them. I said you have a top beginning funnel problem. Yeah, you're at something.

Speaker 3: 24:00

I think they were maybe 38, 37% women at the entry, so that's not good, but interestingly enough, they had that pipe. I said so you're doing something right really well, which most of your peers are not, which is you're able to retain them. You do have a bit of a drop off at the top, but that's really amazing. So for you, if you actually could fix the entry level, you clearly have a culture that supports women in a very natural way. You are in great shape and they were like gosh. I thought we were going to have this meeting. You're going to be an awful report card and I said, yeah, I mean you're starting out ranks not so good, but actually there's some really good stuff there. For companies that want to change, you have to just take a look at your data and say, just as you would any kind of business problem, where would be the two or three most important interventions? Where, if I fix this, it would really change in one generation? And I think for companies who are very determined to do this, it's possible.

Speaker 1: 25:02

It's interesting too, speaking of what companies can do, because you mentioned, mckinsey has their sponsorship award, which I love to hear, and we've worked in talent forever, so you always hear about the mentorship program, but rarely do I hear about a formal sponsorship program. What have you seen work really well in terms of programs that support the sponsorship for this kind of success?

Speaker 3: 25:25

I think, a couple things. It's important to say that whilst women tend to feel over-mentored, under-sponsored, there are men who also feel this way. If you de-average it, maybe the men who don't have the classic archetypical attributes or men of color. So there can be, when you de-average, lots of people need this. So a couple of things. One is going from a spiritual agreement that sponsorship is a good idea to actually creating a program. So program means that you actually define mentorship, sponsorship. Program means that you actually track the data. For some you may actually hold them accountable, not like a quota, like you have to have X number of sponsor ease or mentors, but as part of how you think have to have X number of sponsorees or mentors, but as part of how you think of good leadership, as part of the equation. If you have the data, if you have the qualitative and what you value gets measured in some way.

Speaker 3: 26:19

So I'm not suggesting like a one for one. You only get promoted if you're a sponsor. We all know that and you all both know very well. Like when you think about leadership, there's a way that kind of goes into your reviews and potentially your compensation, your feedback, how you're viewed. I think you build it in yeah, you built it in a hundred percent and then you may have some programs that kind of activate it.

Speaker 3: 26:43

But I think you really commit to a culture of sponsorship, which the insane thing to me is it helps. It's like your classic all boats rise, everyone benefits everyone. And if there are women, as the human population will have, who are not good sponsors, it's good. They will, as leaders, learn to be good sponsors. Men will learn to be good sponsors and sometimes for men and I've seen this when they see their data and they realize they don't have a single woman that they sponsor, they will autocorrect that themselves. It's not like they woke up and said how can I not have any women as sponsors? Sometimes data is like an incredible amount of sunlight for people to do the right thing.

Speaker 2: 27:42

I want to talk about motherhood and navigating career transitions with motherhood. You mentioned in the book that motherhood could actually be a boost to your career, and it's not something we typically hear. Can you talk a little bit more about how it can boost your career?

Speaker 3: 27:58

Yeah, so that's not an easy thing. In the chapter we do really spend a bit of time on Claudia Goldman's Nobel Prize economist. We do want to make sure that a lot of the research that she's done gets proper understanding in terms of biases towards women and terms of a motherhood penalty and all of those things. With that said, it is hard. I think part of it was squeezing out and looking at stories where women can succeed inside of it and, for me, also a little bit of a search for the urban legend to see if it's true. So one of the stories that you saw was a woman.

Speaker 3: 28:38

The phrase that I've always used is make sure you pack a round trip ticket, not just to leave to go on parental leave, but also to come back and to come back with intention. Leave to go on parental leave, but also to come back and to come back with intention. Part of that would be building your network and thinking about your skills, moderating your time, all these types of things. And one of the stories in the book is a woman who was a rising star lawyer. As she had her first kid, she made the decision to actually be a full-time mom. She's an amazing mom raised three boys. 14 years into that, she exercised her round trip ticket. She went back and she did a reboarding program. Some companies, not all, offer this, but LinkedIn offered it. She got back into the workforce and is a rising star lawyer at LinkedIn and I just think this concept that we measure it in very zero one ways Okay, I had the baby, I'm having the baby, I take my paid maternity or parental leave, I come back. I think there are variations to make that work for you. So that's one story that I was very inspired by.

Speaker 3: 29:45

The other thing is would you use the policies as ingredients to bake your own cake, would you say? Look, in my company there's the parental leave and I see a lot of mostly dual career couples. We see a lot more of women and men under 40 are dual career, whereas baby boomers tend to be more like a single person leading the household. Let's use the woman and the partner's parental leave to maximize it. How do we, how do we go slow, go fast across that portfolio? Like really sharing with your partner the chutes and ladders of a career? We see also like how do you use some of the part-time? How to use rotations to kickstart your next bold move, like maybe you're like, okay, I'm going to do the thing that I really know how to do in an excellent way and I'm going to do it at 80%, but then actually, when my littlest one is in school, hits three, I'm going to take a bold move and I'm going to do this. Or, by the way, I'm going to actually invest in a bunch of technology skills and pilots and things because I'm going to make a bold move.

Speaker 3: 30:54

And these are just like excessive examples. How do you apply really intentional thinking to that time as opposed to gosh? This is just the discount time. And also back to the network point, I think and I don't think this is as much in the book, but I think having a peer network when you're a young mom at least for me personally I see you nodding, being able to call someone who was working full time, who had kids under 10, like me, and just to say I've had the hardest week in that time. I didn't need a sponsor, I didn't need a mentor, I just needed a friend to say, yeah, it's really hard with you.

Speaker 2: 31:41

Yeah, it's tough, right. I remember this is a little bit maybe TMI, but I always go there is. I remember I was at the point where I was breastfeeding and I was still working and shipping my milk back until it was really great about that, like freezing it and shipping it back home, which is amazing and lovely. But I remember just feeling touched out, vultured because I was getting it at work and I was literally having the call with her while my pump was going and I felt totally okay with it.

Speaker 3: 32:06

But she knew both of my lives and you really do need that, that feeling of someone gets you A little grace Like I think you have to set the pace of your own career versus expect others, and both of you have done that in your careers. But there may be times where you're like I'm going 60 miles an hour and by the way I've structured it and my expectations are that, and then there are times I'm doubling down and going super fast and I'm going to do a bold move and a this and a that, and so I don't. I don't think it's a linear climb and actually when we look at men who are very successful underneath it, it wasn't so I just. When we look at men who are very successful underneath it, it wasn't so I just I think it's. We try. Sometimes perfection can be the enemy of progress. That phrase and maybe redefine what perfection is.

Speaker 3: 32:58

At certain moments of your career, I took a really long first parental leave and I was really fortunate to be in a dual career situation so I could afford to. But I was really young, I wasn't even 30 yet and I really I just wanted to learn how to be a mom for a while. I wanted to take nine months off and at that time paid leave was not six weeks, single digits or something like that that's also betting on yourself and taking a risk. It's saying I'm confident that when I'm ready to go back, that job will be there and I may have missed something. But I actually, as a gift not just to my child but also to myself, would like to learn how to be a mom for a bit and enjoy it.

Speaker 2: 33:47

The beautiful thing about the book, though, is it does give you the playbook, for if you're going to make those choices which are totally great to make that there are other moves you can make that won't make that choice, just like a lifelong decision to write. I feel like this idea of these are your options, these are the ways you can put it in sixth gear, pull it down to third gear, make a right turn, make a left turn and create a beautiful career for yourself and a great life too, because I feel like I'm not saying you can balance everything all the time and have everything you want, but you can sure as hell be way more intentional about it and get to where you want to go in a way that maybe was linear to your point.

Speaker 3: 34:34

And some of those basics matter. I remember we talk about negotiation. People always think negotiation is just your pay, by the way, women tend not to negotiate. So, hi, pro tip, do negotiate. But negotiation is also other types of things.

Speaker 3: 34:46

So I remember because we didn't have at the time this was 22 years ago we didn't have the type of programs and I was actually not even in the United States, and so I remember talking to the office manager and saying look, I know that this isn't the typical thing, but I'd really like to take nine months, maybe more off, but I actually am super committed to coming back and I will stay in touch. And when I came back, they were like that's hard and consulting, and you were flying out. And I said, look, just for my first thing, back for my first month, can you just help me do something local so that I just don't get straight on an airplane and whatever that is, I'll do it. Any industry, any team, that would be such a gift and that's part of negotiating how you come back. He said got it, let's do. That Turns out to the entrepreneurship we were working on something that became a huge local client and because I worked on it and worked really hard with all these other folks, some of which I didn't know already.

Speaker 3: 35:54

We actually had all these sort of. I had a year where I didn't get on the airplane, and part of it is a little bit of a little bit of luck, a little bit of negotiating, asking that's. That's a positive negotiation. I will work really hard, but could you help me not reduce travel just for a little bit, and then we'll sort it out. Just give me a sec to rebase. I'm still the person that you loved and valued before. I didn't think at the time. It takes courage to do that, but it does take some courage to have that conversation and you do need to work in an environment where that conversation would be received well, not to make too much of the example, but I do think in the book there are all these women who make it work in spite of, and so there's a lot of data, mel, as you mentioned, but for me I think the stories are just really inspirational about what are the tactical things they did to get from A to B.

Speaker 2: 36:49

Yeah, a lot of great moves. I think it's required reading, quite honestly, to think about how do you really own your career, and own your career as a woman? Just you got to read up.

Speaker 1: 37:00

You got to read up. Keeping it simple for our listeners, especially those who might be like am I already part of the broken rung? Do I need to address this? What's one thing they can do next week to get back on track?

Speaker 3: 37:16

reframe. You're not off track. You are always on track and there's always opportunity in front of you, and betting on yourself is always a good bet. So look ahead and what's your next move? Do you want to go to the power alley? Do you want to exercise entrepreneurship? Do you want to build in the skills that matter for the future, the 12 million occupations that we know will shift by 2030. Do you want to increase your network? Pick one, pick one, just pick one and get started.

Speaker 1: 37:53

I love that. I love that concept that you're never off track. You're never off track. Yeah, we're just all taking fun side quests.

Speaker 3: 38:04

How much you have already. Yeah, I, your portfolio just may look a little different than that guy next door to you, and that's okay. Really, what are you good at? What do you have? Where does that point you? And then start opening the windows and doors yourself. Go get people to help you. Yeah, I love it. You can do it.

Speaker 1: 38:28

What about leaders? If you're a leader leading a team and this is information new and for maybe it's new information for somebody listening today what's something that they can take away or start to do to analyze and make sure that they're being a good sponsor or they're recognizing that they might be holding people back. How can they support not holding them back or pushing them forward?

Speaker 3: 38:54

The first thing is to maybe just mark a couple of like a piece of data or story that that honestly struck you very authentically. Doesn't need to be many, just one or two. And I would go share that with a man and a woman on your team and just say I was reading this since stopped me in my tracks. What do you think? Do you think we have a fair workplace? Do you feel the opportunities are the same? And the man might say I feel over-mentored, under-sponsored. You're like that's good feedback, but pro tip, does any of this resonate with you? I just start with that. Just start locally, in your own community and neighborhood.

Speaker 1: 39:40

Starting the conversation. Let's just have the conversation.

Speaker 3: 39:50

Yeah, and I think the other thing a leader can de-risk what feel like high stakes conversations, and opening to have the conversation, to listen, to learn, is huge. There's a story of a woman who was in the creative arts. She was in performing arts in New York and she had an underlying mindset that if you are creative it's okay to be disorganized, because that kind of comes with being creative. And she didn't even know that this was an underlying mindset. But she was super disorganized and she had her baby a couple months old and for women who remember or who have had babies in that early stage, there's very few windows. If you live in New York City, you can get that baby outside and take the baby for a walk before the baby needs to eat and nap. And so she missed the whole window because she was so disorganized. She was like, oh my God, where's the diapers? Where's this, where's that? She missed the window and she was so disorganized she's like, oh my God, where's the diapers? Where's this, where's that? She missed the window. And then the baby's crying and she describes and I've talked to her about this also personally she describes looking at this wonderful child's face and saying, kiddo, this isn't going to work.

Speaker 3: 40:53

So not only that's a point of deep failure, like I think for me.

Speaker 3: 40:57

I'm like, oh my god, I would have been in a ball and tears and like that just sounds awful and we've all been there.

Speaker 3: 41:04

Anyway, the reason I mentioned this is because it's a very relatable moment. But from that moment, not only does she become really good at organizing, she builds a business to organize other executives, both men and women. She writes two New York Times bestseller books or more, and she has this whole career where she actually helps people with their operating models, with their leadership. But it starts with the wedge of what was a point of failure became a point of strength, became a point of building a business, became a point of giving to others and helping others not organize how they get their walks for their babies, but like thinking about how the softer skills help you be a better leader, the full set of softer skills. And she's no longer in performing arts, she's in corporate America and I just I also just wanted to share that sometimes both men and women are so afraid to make a mistake and there's a lot in the zeitgeist about that. But I do think you never know, like, how do you take that in as a pivot point to something else we'll run on.

Speaker 1: 42:26

I'm gonna start with some high-level questions. They can be one word responses, or one sentence, two sentences, whatever you feel most confident with, but the whole point is just to get your immediate reaction to the question. Okay, ready to dive in, ready? Okay, it's 2030. What's work going to look like? It will be AI powered. Okay, what's one thing about corporate culture you'd like to see disappear for good? Bias, thank you. What's the greatest opportunity that most organizations are missing out on right now?

Speaker 3: 42:57

Women, young women, even better answer.

Speaker 1: 43:02

What music are you listening to right now?

Speaker 3: 43:05

Oh, I really like Bruno Mars and his collaborations, many of which are women artists, but I do really love the collaborations.

Speaker 1: 43:13

I like his new stuff too. It's like fun, yeah, so good. What are you reading, and that could be physically reading or listening to an audio book right now?

Speaker 3: 43:25

I am obsessed with AI podcasts, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:29

What's your favorite AI podcast? What do you recommend?

Speaker 3: 43:32

Oh, I really like no Priors and Training Data from Sequoia and the Possible podcast. And of course, I think everyone in tech listens to Hard Fork. I'd be remiss not to mention Hard Fork, but that's kind of obvious.

Speaker 2: 43:47

Love that.

Speaker 1: 43:50

Perfect, who do?

Speaker 3: 43:54

you really admire the 11% women CEOs of the world Each and every one of them. For everything that they're doing and for being a pioneer Awesome.

Speaker 1: 44:07

We recommend all the time on this podcast that people start to follow. I'm sure you do, but the organization Pink Chip that's tracking all of the global female CEOs and their success. So, yeah, any chance I can to plug it, I like to bring it back up. Good plug. Yeah, what's a piece of advice you want everyone to know?

Speaker 3: 44:26

Build your networks make sure they're powerful networks and people who are going to be your personal board of directors. I love that.

Speaker 1: 44:34

All right. Last thing, where can listeners follow? You stay abreast of all of the goodness and new research that you have coming out on this topic. What's the what's the best? Obviously, read the book. We're going to link to that but how can they continue to stay informed beyond reading the book?

Speaker 3: 44:53

All of our gender and research. On mckinseycom, you can search under my name or just search under the topics. We have 10 years of women in the workplace, so there's a lot of data in there. And I'm on LinkedIn and I've been trying to be better at posting thoughts and sharing things that are interesting. You all can give me the feedback. You're like, nah, it's not really working, but it'd be good if you were more. But I'm focused on LinkedIn me the feedback. You're like nah, it's not really working, but it'd be good if you were more but I'm focused on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1: 45:26

This has been so lovely. Lorena, thank you for joining us. Oh, thank you. Both Appreciate you. This episode was produced, edited and all things by us myself, mel Plett and Francesca Ranieri. Our music is by Pink Zebra, and if you loved this conversation and you want to contribute your thoughts with us, please do. You can visit us at yourworkfriendscom, but you can also join us over on LinkedIn. We have a LinkedIn community page and we have the TikToks and Instagrams, so please join us in the socials and if you like this and you've benefited from this episode and you think someone else can benefit from this episode, please rate and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care, friends. Bye, friends.

The Work of Your Life

Your Work Friends Podcast: The Work of Your Life with Joan Burke

Culture isn’t a checkbox, it’s the secret weapon behind every high-performing organization. Join HR visionary Joan Burke as she unveils her ‘Work of Your Life’ blueprint from DocuSign to Responsys, showing you how to transform managers into master coaches, ignite engagement, and make retention your ultimate growth engine.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

So if you really care about the success of your organization, if you care about revenue, then you got to care about the people who are leading the organization and your talent. It is a no-brainer.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome to your Work. Friends. I'm Francesca and I'm Mel, and we're breaking down work so you get ahead. For those of you that don't know, every year, mel and I sit down and think about what are the topics that we want to talk about, and then we think about the guests we want, and we're always looking for people that are actively in it. They're either a really deep subject matter expert, they're on the line in the seat doing the role and they're really able to think about how you get some of this stuff done. So we can always make work better, and one of the things that we were always wondering about are how do you create these cultures where people feel like they can really do their best work? And that brought us to Joan Burke.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Joan, if you don't know, her is just a real deal CHRO. She is now a board member, she's an advisor. She's been a chief people officer at places like DocuSign, marketo Responses. She's been a CHRO at small companies, major companies, in multiple different industries. She's been there, she's done that and she's been able to create these cultures where people can do the work of their lives, and we wanted to talk to her about how she did that. What did you think of this conversation, mel?

Speaker 3: 1:34

I loved it because as an HR person lifelong HR person like Joan I really appreciate the hard line that she took in every interview, which was she's human-centered and it's human first and if that doesn't align then it's not the right fit for her. And because of that alignment she's been able to go in and build these beautiful workplaces. I'm just really inspired by the legacy she leaves behind and the message it leaves for others.

Speaker 2: 1:59

It takes a whole village to create a culture where people feel like they can do the work of their lives. Joan gives you the playbook for how she did this, what needed to be in play at DocuSign, at Responsys. She's. Also gave us some tips If you're not in these types of companies, what you can do yourselves to create the work of your life and if you're interviewing, what you can look for and some questions you can ask to see if a company is going to enable you to do the work of your life. This conversation, to me, was just fantastic. Joan's the real deal, and with that, here's Joan.

Speaker 3: 2:41

At DocuSign, you really created something super special, right? It was a culture where that employee experience enabled a lot of folks to, as you call it, do the work of their lives. In today's environment, things are changing. How do you make the business case to do that today?

Speaker 1: 3:02

So the business case is the same as the business case was when we did it in DocuSign. I joined them in 2017. Even though it's an employer's market, the best talent always has options. You should never walk away from that or feel as though I have to prioritize revenue. I have to prioritize this and I don't have time or this isn't important. It is as important now as it was when we were doing it.

Speaker 1: 3:26

Now, when we were doing it hyper competitive, the market was crazy. Everybody's trying to get good talent. Now. I would say it's important to do that because you need to keep your good talent. The pendulum will swing. It will go from being an employer's market to being an employee's market at some point in time, and the companies that invest in their people now, when that happens, they're not going to see them walking out the door. They're going to have an increase in retention and I think it's a false narrative to say it's an either or. If you're going to prioritize a business, you're going to prioritize people. So it's absolutely as important now as it was seven years ago, when the market was very different than it is today.

Speaker 3: 4:07

Francesca and I often say people fuel your business. So absolutely Both are so super important right Well, at the end of the day, if you think about it, revenue happens because you've got great talent.

Speaker 1: 4:17

These things do not happen on their own. It always is people that are responsible for that success in organizations, always.

Speaker 3: 4:24

Oh, and they're the base of the business.

Speaker 2: 4:26

Yeah, so you have a very good point. I think the thing that won't change is that people want to be able to do work and do the good work and to do the work of their lives. I don't think that's going to change. I really don't that intrinsic need want desire. At DocuSign. That was what you were really striving for people to have is had some great partnerships in the leadership team there.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Certainly Dan Springer, the CEO, scott Ulrich, who was initially the CMO, became the COO. These are people who totally got it and we thought really long and hard about how do we differentiate DocuSign and so candidate is going to be looking at a number of different companies. What is going to make them want to come to DocuSign? If a candidate is going to be looking at a number of different companies, what is going to make them want to come to DocuSign versus go to Adobe, go to Google? How do we make sure, also, that the values that we stood for authentically DocuSign and not ones that you could go to any website and pick up the words and they're fine, but there's nothing special about it? This is where the working life came in. This is what we said. People, as you just said, francesca, people want to do great work. Employees do not come to work to do a crappy job. They don't. They don't come to work to do a boring job. They come to work because they want to succeed, they want to contribute and they want to do a great job. So we thought, looking back, when people view their career, what we hoped is that people would say donkey, sign. That's where I did the work of my life. This was a marketing thing, because Scott is a great marketer. We intentionally didn't say the best work of your life, because you don't need best. It's like the work of your life. That vacation I had the time of my life, so we had to operationalize it. We had to bring it to life and we talked about it as being actually really important and, in many ways, a personal statement. I, joe, wouldn't know what one of my employees' work of their life was until I spent time with them and we understood how we were going to help that person get there and what were the opportunities, what was the development? And then, when it came time to do our low engagement surveys, one of the questions we always ask is are you doing the work of your life? If you're not doing the work of your life, what do you need from the company? What do you need from your manager to do the work of your life? We put it into self-evaluations. We put it into feedback. It was an employment brand for us. Your recruiters are going to go to job fairs, they're going to have a booth, they're going to have a banner. It might as well be something cool that makes some sense, and it did. Our recruiters would say people would go by and say, whoa, work your Life, what's that all about?

Speaker 1: 7:18

There were a lot of components to the work of your life. We also invested very heavily in our managers in terms of developing and training them. We had a work your life management program that was based on four pillars. That were pillars that we believe were unique to DocuSign, that we want to help be our managers. So it was very real and I'll give you an example. I was on LinkedIn the other day and there's a woman who I hired, probably about six months before I left DocuSign day, and there's a woman who I hired probably about six months before I left DocuSign. She just left now. So we're talking three years ago. She was talking about going into the organization, but when she was talking about DocuSign, she said I did the work of my life. So I thought, wow, it stuck. It stuck, at least for people who were there. I think when we created that program, the work your life starts up.

Speaker 2: 8:04

That, to me, is a real test. It's one of the real tests of how do you have a brand that you know sticks, and one is just people using the language, which is huge. And what I love about the work you did, whenever I think about a brand and thinking about if you're going to say we want you to be able to do the work of your life no-transcript DocuSign stood for, which is an environment and the climate.

Speaker 1: 8:59

And we say DocuSign helps people, it saves paper, paper saves trees. So we're all about DocuSign for forests. And I would talk to candidates and I could see the excitement, enthusiasm when I would say let me tell you what we're about, let me tell you about this work you're doing, let me tell you how much we care about the environment in the world. There were a lot of really great components of the DocuSign culture that kind of came together in a way that I think made people feel really good about the organization. And one of the things you might ask is how did you know that it really delivered results for the company? And I think it's hard to take up one program and say, okay, I could connect the dots and this is the exact revenue we got from this because of that. But I can tell you that every time we did anything around this, anytime we talked about the work-year life and when we would fortunately for us get great reviews from our employees on Glassdoor, we saw an incredible spike in the number of resumes that were coming in. People want to work for a company that they feel good about.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Dan Springer is the CEO. His approval rating on Glassdoor was 98. We were always in like the top 15 companies in technology. That's how we can say it made a difference because our employees cared about writing great reviews, and those are the only reviews we cared about. Docusend was not a pay-to-play company. We were not going to ever be informed. We were never going to pay to be part of some sort of a best place to work. That's what we felt the real value was.

Speaker 2: 10:30

That's what our employees really said. Yeah, out of curiosity, the day-to-day feel like the vibe. I am very much on vibes lately, joan, when you think about the vibe at Dacusign when the work of your life was hitting on all pistons After launch.

Speaker 1: 10:50

It's embedded in the DNA. What did it feel like, just as a leader and an employee? Once they got it and that was a more from an employee communication perspective we would do mid-year feedback sessions. So it wasn't about evaluations, it was just feedback, and they were having conversations with their managers and we would really target those disingenuous about work your life, figure out whether this is working for people. So there was some excitement, enthusiasm. We went into a pandemic and the world changed overnight in March of 2020. Now, I would say, because we had built such a foundation with our employees about caring about them, about their development, about work your life, we were able to carry that through during the pandemic.

Speaker 1: 11:32

For any sheep people officer, I will tell you that in that 47-year career I had the hardest work I ever did was running a people organization during the pandemic. Yeah, trying to figure out how do we best support our employees through their mental health, through daycare. Hiring managers get comfortable around hiring people over Zoom, where they're like I never hired somebody I didn't meet in person. You better do it because somebody else is going to hire them. So I think we took the same level of care during that period.

Speaker 1: 12:04

It looked a little different. It was around support. There was a lot of different things we did to help our employees be successful and it paid off, I would say, in states. So the work shifted a bit and I used to say the companies that are win when this pandemic is over are the companies where the employees feel really good and felt very taken care of during that period. And DocuSign did it. And the reason why DocuSign did it it was a leadership team that actually believed that this was ultimately what's good for the employees. It's going to be good for the company.

Speaker 2: 12:38

Yeah, it sounds like, even in, I would say, a crisis situation, which COVID, especially in HR it was. I'm just going to say bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Right, but I love the fact that lens to enable people to do the work of your life, to truly care for people. It sounds like you're making decisions through that lens. It didn't change just because we were going through a very traumatic time.

Speaker 1: 13:00

You feel like you turned the volume up on that care during that time turned it up and we saw the feedback that we got in our employee engagement surveys, which we did at least two a year or more. The last survey that we did, we got 6,000 comments in that survey 6,000 comments and Dan and I would read every single one of those comments. He'd read them. I was going to read them. There was no way I was not going to be a patient animal reading those comments. But they actually produce so much more richness than really just the raw data and we heard people talk about how well they felt supported by their manager, and not just from a corporate perspective, and not just the programs and the benefits that we put in place, which were all new.

Speaker 1: 13:47

During that period we were able to really pressure test that the work we were doing and the decisions we were making and the investments we were making in again these benefits and trying to make it easy for people to take care of their kids and work from home and have Zoom and parents who were ill, and it was thank you, Francesca. It was a bonkers period, there's no other word for it. And then, if you think about it, we went from that to the great resignation right which can I say something that lasted about 15 minutes, Like really that was done and now the pendulum has swollen completely the other way. So one of the things I would say is think about the time you're in and what you need to do, but know that things change and can change very quickly. You don't abandon all the things that matter to you, that are important to your organization, just because you can and you can.

Speaker 2: 14:46

Out of curiosity, how important is it to have your peer group, the CMO, the CTO, any of the C's your CEO or your board? How important is it to have them on board when you're trying to make these kind of decisions and, probably more importantly, stick to the plan when shit's hitting the fan? How important is that so?

Speaker 1: 15:05

well, I critical. If the only people who are enthused about these programs that are willing to keep them alive, as the HR team, that's doomed, it's just never going to work. But having that consistency when the shit hits the fan, you're still not going to walk away from your principles and your values as an organization. You're still going to invest in employees, you're still going to care about the development, you're still going to give them feedback. You cannot do that without the leadership involved. The reason why I think we were so successful at DocuSign is because Dan was so authentic in both belief in these programs and talked about it. We did all hands meetings every quarter and during COVID we did a lot more of them just to make sure we stayed connected to people. He never abandoned the things that were like the pillars of who we were as an organization.

Speaker 3: 16:04

You've done this several times over now DocuSign. You did this at Responsys. What was the secret sauce? You have to have the CEO.

Speaker 1: 16:11

If you don't have the CEO, then it's going to be lips of risk, because that's who people look to, that's their coming to door, that's where they're getting their insight and their messaging. And it has to be authentic. It cannot be lips of risk because people see through falsehoods and I always say the most important leadership is authentic leadership. It's be who you are and with all those organizations I've had really authentic leaders who would speak to the programs, who would talk about the importance of employees in the team and helping them be successful. It worked. But if you don't have that, I would say it's running uphill Everything dies If HR is running it.

Speaker 3: 16:49

you have to have that buy-in. Let's say your CEO is a skeptic. How do you fight through that skepticism?

Speaker 1: 16:57

You kind of build a business case right and the business case is talent drives success. It just does. And even in a bad job market, which we're in right now, the best talent always has options, always has options, how bad it is, they always do. So if you really care about the successful organization, if you care about revenue, then you got to care about the people who are leading the organization and your talent. It is a no-brainer in some ways. And here's what I am excited about.

Speaker 1: 17:25

I feel like in many organizations and particularly I'm working with some VCs they get it, they totally get it, and where a lot in the past you might say, oh VCs, I don't want their portfolio companies to spend a lot of money on marketing and HR, I'm seeing VCs actually pushing their portfolio companies and these are companies of maybe $30 to $50 million of revenue to hire that cheap people officer sooner than a lot of founders are ready to do, because founders, by the most part, they don't want to spend money. So I am extremely encouraged about that. I'm also seeing a lot of enthusiasm for people going to these smaller private companies and not so much like the big companies the Googles, the Metas that people went to. They're feeling like they're getting an opportunity to really be very hands-on, to be part of a successful organization, to see where their contribution is actually making a difference on a daily basis, with less bureaucracy, maybe less politics. So I think that there's a lot of opportunity for people to seek out these smaller private organizations.

Speaker 3: 18:34

I coach a lot of folks who are being impacted by layoffs right now, so I'm seeing that trend as well. Even if they came from these big megas, they're looking at smaller orgs where they can actually feel the impact that they have. So that's tracking. When you think of pushback on budgets, we hear a lot around. Budgets are tightening up with everything that's happening with AI. Leadership's very focused on short-term results. Someone making the business case. What advice would you give to them?

Speaker 1: 18:59

I would say that the Work of your Life program at DocSign it was not a heavy investment at all. These were things we were already doing. We're already doing performance reviews. We were already doing employee engagement surveys. We already cared about what people felt on Glassdoor. We were already going to job fairs. It's not true that these things cost a lot of money. Get that off the table. Just say it's bullshit. Right here there is investment, for sure is when you're investing in developing people and particularly leaders. So when we created the Work your Life Management Program, that was an investment. We again decided that it was really extremely important to us to have great managers in the company. We needed to put together programs, we needed to design them, we needed to facilitate them. So there were certain places where you may be able to say, okay, I'm going to cut back a little bit on this one and maybe use some different approaches where I don't spend quite the same money, but caring about your corporate culture, being articulate about your corporate culture and reinforcing your corporate culture it doesn't cost money.

Speaker 3: 20:02

Those human components, those day-to-day interactions. That's free. You can change that tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 20:09

One of the things that we did at DocuSign is we had a mentor program and everybody wanted mentors, right. So we're like, all right, how are we going to make this, operationalize this and make this make sense? And we realized, when you ask somebody to be your mentor, it's a big deal right, and it's time this is going to take. But one of the things that we did, which is like a skinny version of a mentor program, is we said anybody will go and have a cup of coffee with you Half hour Well, great. So if somebody called me up and said, john, I was watching the all-hands meeting last month, I think you did a great job with the presentation. I'm really trying to work out skills. Can we have a cup of coffee in half hour and just talk about that? It's like absolutely so. There are ways to just skivvy back certain programs and things that are less intense or maybe not so time consuming and not so expensive. You just gotta be a little bit thoughtful and creative about it.

Speaker 3: 20:59

If your budget's tight, what are the three areas? You'd say? This is where you double down.

Speaker 1: 21:05

It's really about helping grow people. Managers we always cared about how we help individual contributors grow and succeed too. But at the end of the day, if I had a dollar of investment, I'm going to put 75 cents of it against managers and 25 cents against the individual contributors, because I know that ultimately the value that those individual contributors are going to get is because they've got a better manager who cares about their development, who cares about their career, who thinks about not just job opportunities but actually assignments that are going to help them grow and develop. And I always say that the most powerful thing we can do to help people grow is put them, give them on-job assignments to see how they stretch, see how they grow. The investment you make on the individual contributor side pays off by really overinvesting, maybe in the managers.

Speaker 3: 21:51

I love to hear it because I was just at a conference where a room full of people, when we asked how many people invested in their manager's training and development, maybe 5% of the room raised their hand, which was really disheartening to see. So you heard it here, folks 75 cents for your managers.

Speaker 2: 22:09

It's nuts to me. I'm going to make a Catholic Italian reference here, but you can cut this. So in Italian cooking, a lot of dishes start with the trinity, which is the onion, the carrot and the celery. It is the substance that makes everything right, it's the base, mirepoix, if you will. And I always think the trinity of talent development is onboarding, manager development and coaching. If you had to pick three and manager development, you're very good. Point, joan, 75 cents of that, right. The biggest onion little bit of carrot, little bit of celery. The onion is the manager development. The data's there, the results are there. You could do absolutely no formal training whatsoever, but if you had an amazing manager, you're set.

Speaker 1: 22:54

I love that. I've never heard about the Trinity Battalion cooking. I'm going to use that. Seriously, no gosh, God, really no. We grew up Irish. My mother was Italian. That's great.

Speaker 2: 23:04

There you go, there you go. We're big fans. We're big fans. Let's say you're an employee, you don't have this. What can somebody do as an individual contributor, no matter what their circumstance? Create the work of their life for themselves.

Speaker 1: 23:16

Oh man, that's a tough one. Yeah, I know they're not in a powerful position to be able to do that, which many people are not. Sometimes I say find it elsewhere, and I'm not saying leave your job right. For some people it might be leave your job, but for many others that's unrealistic. It just is not the right market for people to do that.

Speaker 1: 23:39

But find your tribe right. Find the people who are like-minded, who have the same sets of values. Find that network where, through connection and through conversations and through learnings about how people are dealing with those challenges inside their organizations, that you can take back for yourself to be able to say I'm not getting from my company, but I am getting what I need from this group of people up there. One of the things that's difficult is developing a network is hard, it takes a lot of work, but it can be so rewarding. I remember during the pandemic I had this network of about 20 chief people officers and we met every week for like just an hour and it was the good, bad and the ugly advice in terms of the thing that was working, the things that weren't working. It was so important, it was so powerful that if you don't have that if you can find a way to create that, I'm just, I have just always thought that could be incredibly rewarding to just have whatever mind appears.

Speaker 2: 24:44

It's interesting to see what other people are doing commiserate on the good, bad and ugly, because that's every job. There's always things. There's something so important about being part of a community. Just like, you're not alone in this, no matter what stage you are in your career, because there's a lot of human messy feelings that go along with every single stage in your career.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Absolutely. I could go into depth with DiWalt on this call about those crappy jobs I had and how hard they were and the lesson I learned and how I hoped during that period. And that's like experiences, right. The other thing I would say is you can create a network of people who have similar values at you but are at different stages of their career, so have seen the work and experienced it and can look back and say, all right, let me tell you, when I was in my 30s, the world was different, but a lot of the experiences and the challenges that you have there's definitely similarities. So here's how I cultivate people for all different generations and I think you'll find it very worthwhile. Best advice.

Speaker 2: 25:48

Curious about. On the flip of this, where you're interviewing for a company, what are the tells? What are the tells that say this is a great culture, this is a culture that's going to support you in doing the work of your life? Are there tells people can see from the outside?

Speaker 1: 26:02

There are. You want to make sure that it's not just the recruiters who are telling you that story. Their job is to serve a certain organization. You need to drill down. So when you're talking to an organization and hopefully having a number of different interviews with people so you get a good sense of that company and some of them would be peers, some of them would be a manager is that you're paying very good attention to what they're saying and you're actually teasing out from them whether or not what you're hearing from these recruiters if in fact they're real McCoy.

Speaker 1: 26:30

And then you check out Glassdoor, you check out Blind, you look at what people are saying inside the organization to know whether it's for real or whether it is just give talk. So you got to do your own homework and it does help, as I said, if you know your why and you can actually articulate your why, to have the people sitting across from you, from the company, explain why your why is either going to work or not work in this company. You should put them on the spot a little bit in a nice kind of way. That's how you tease this out, right.

Speaker 3: 27:02

What were some of your go-to questions? To tease it out.

Speaker 1: 27:05

Well, I think the biggest thing would be to say tell me what people three layers down this organization are saying about this company. Tell me what you're hearing from your teams. And if I was to just go around right now and go from desk to desk and just kind of casually stop and ask people questions what is it like to work here? What would they tell me? Would they tell it to? What would they say? And ask those questions and say what are your employee engagement scores? What are people saying about the employee experience here? Have you seen progress or are things going backwards? So it's just doing a lot of due diligence and interviewing the people in the company as much as they're interviewing you with you.

Speaker 3: 27:53

There's what you ask in the interview, but then there's what really happened when you get there on day one, your first 90 days in a company. How do you further tease this out? Like, how do you figure out who are the secret decision makers? What are the things that are going to make it a better experience? What are your questions in those first 90 to help you?

Speaker 1: 28:08

Who are the savvy insiders? You got to figure them out and some of that is asking. Again, it's asking a lot of people, a lot of questions and owning your own onboarding right. So it isn't just I'm the manager, here's the playbook, you have the free people to talk to. It's like all right. I got to drill down even more. I want to speak with these four people over here. I want to know more about what's going on in the IT department, not relying on a routine onboarding process, but create something for yourself that's robust.

Speaker 1: 28:43

And I would also say, as an insider from Chief People Officer perspective, onboarding is so important. Those first 90 days, those first six months, it's how you show up, because you want to know what's going on, but you want people to know you. My mother used to say it's not who you know, it's who knows you that matters. And that's really right, mom, that's what I would do. I would be really thoughtful about who I wanted to meet with and just make it happen. Just make it happen. And people don't say no, they really don't, you're new to the organization, they want to meet the new person.

Speaker 2: 29:17

I'll tell you I have a few regrets looking back on my career, A few. There's times where I'm like I should not have handled that the way I did I did. Life goes on. You learn right, you live, you learn. But one of the red thread regrets or if I could do it over again is I wish I would have done what you just suggested, which was get out there and meet people, Ask for the coffee, Get a habit of just asking for the coffee. Even when I was an individual contributor, I wish I would have done that, because it makes it so much more easy and enjoyable to get work done.

Speaker 1: 29:50

Absolutely, absolutely. That is part of working your life right. It's just feeling like you're part of an organization that you're connected to. Connections are so important. At the end of the day, we look back and say, did I feel like I made a difference here and who are the people that I can look and say, oh my God, look at the tribe. I was able to be part of that built up, part of something. Completely agree with you, francesca. Very important.

Speaker 3: 30:11

What you created super valuable and, I think, unfortunately a lot of ways, unique, and I hope you get to a place where this is more the standard and not the exception. How can we get there?

Speaker 1: 30:23

Back to what I was saying earlier about the pendulum swinging.

Speaker 1: 30:26

People and leaders could be mindful of the fact that things are going to change and the companies that continue to be committed throughout a sluggish job market and challenging competitive environment, they stay true to who they are. They're the ones who are going to win at the end of the day. They're the ones who are not going to lose their talent. Let's think about this. On the other side, all of those law firms that capitulated to the administration and actually in many ways destroyed their brand, hurt their culture and their values, and they've had some of their top lawyers who are walking out the door saying I'm not going to be part of this Law students who got out of law school. They don't want to interview with those organizations. So there's a big price to pay for abandoning what managed you as an organization just because you can or because the times are tough. In fact, when the times are tough is when you really need to double down and just be even more vigilant about what matters to you and how you want to run your organization.

Speaker 3: 31:41

Joan, are you up for some rapid round questions?

Speaker 1: 31:46

I am ready.

Speaker 3: 31:48

This can be one word answers. This can be as long as you'd like to take it, but really quick. Whatever comes to top of mind, Okay jumping in. It's 2030. What's your prediction about what work looks like?

Speaker 1: 32:03

One exciting thing is, I think we're all going to have AI agents who are going to be reading our emails for us and making our travel plans and maybe scheduling our doctor's appointments. So those are things I'm super excited about. But I want to answer that question by saying here's what I hope. I hope that by 2030, the human-centered jobs are more valued and are higher compensated, and by that I mean the teachers, the EMTs, the caregivers, the therapists. I hope that AI will have helped automate so much of the roles that can be automated that we will really see the need for these people to be doing the great job that they do. That's my hope. I like that.

Speaker 3: 32:46

That's a good one. What is one?

Speaker 1: 32:51

thing about corporate culture that you'd like to just see die already. Personality assessments, color, myers-briggs Dis I like to see them all go far away. I believe that they label people, and I have seen them do more damage inside an organization than them.

Speaker 3: 33:08

I agree with you. I think they're fun and it's interesting if it's like personal introspection. But too often they can be weaponized and people make them their whole personality when that's not the intent.

Speaker 1: 33:19

Let me just tell you I was talking to somebody who was leaving the organization and they were looking for their next role. We were talking and they said they did colors in their organization. This person said every single person on the HR leadership team was a red. So that kind of said you're not a red, you're probably not going to be on the HR leadership team. Anyway, that is a bugaboo of mine which I've actually had for some time.

Speaker 3: 33:39

Okay, what is the greatest opportunity that orgs are actually missing out on?

Speaker 1: 33:45

So I think it's cross-functional data. Data exists in silos inside organizations. First of all, we know it's not pristine and I think part of this whole going to AI is going to be like cleaning up data and making it good. But if companies can use the power of cross-functional information, they're going to be able to streamline decision-making, become way more efficient as organizations.

Speaker 3: 34:12

How many times have we all worked in an organization and found out three other departments are working on a similar project Exactly? A little more personal. What's on your playlist right now? What music are you listening to?

Speaker 1: 34:24

So I'm listening to a guy named Leif Volderweck Okay, check him out. One of his songs I really like Transatlantic Flight. I also love Kim Petraeus. She does a version of the old Kate Bush song Running Up that Hill, and if you like that song and there's many different versions of it I would say check out her version of it and her video of doing it at Outside Lands in San Francisco in 2022. She's so cool and it's just completely joyful. And then I'm a big fan of Florence, yeah.

Speaker 3: 34:57

I love her. You did a really beautiful collaboration. Do you know the artist Blood Orange? Yes, have you heard her collaboration with him? I have not. So this is a great tip. Very good, put that in your as Francesca says, be in your bonnet for this weekend. Go look it up, it's really good. What are you reading right now?

Speaker 1: 35:16

It could be audiobook or old school pages, so I'm an old school pages person, so right now I'm reading the Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich person, so right now I'm reading the Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. I stopped on the Pulitzer, I think, in 2020. But I would say that the book that I've loved the most that I've read in the last eight months has been James by Percival Everett, and I would highly recommend that book.

Speaker 3: 35:36

What do you really admire? Could be personal, professional.

Speaker 1: 35:40

There's so many people in my life and historically I admire, but I'm going to pick one person Right now. I'm going to pick Laura Steinem. We need to stand on the shoulders of the people who came before us talking about and reporting on women's issues, on reproductive rights, on equal pay, on health care. And the thing I love about her, she's 91 years old. She's still with us. She absolutely never sold out. She's my shout out, she's my hero right now.

Speaker 3: 36:15

What's one piece of advice that you've received, or just something that's your personal piece of advice that you want someone to know you would give everybody today?

Speaker 1: 36:24

If I could pick a couple, because there's career and then there's personal. So if I think about career advice, I want to say careers are long. Mine was very long, was 47 years long, and that means that you're going to have some jobs that are crappy jobs, and, rather than running away from them, a lot of those crappy jobs are incredibly important and meaningful. They're either the lessons you needed to learn, they're people you needed to know, or, in one case, it was a ticket I needed to punch. It was experience. I needed to get that next job, which was my goal, and so embrace the crappy jobs. They're going to happen the way of life.

Speaker 1: 37:07

The other thing I would say, though, from a career perspective, is know your brand and who you are. Know your why, know what is important to you. So let me give you an example. When I would meet with CEOs and I was doing job interviews for chief people officer roles, I would always say to them I believe the best human resources, I believe my job as the head of human resources is to help managers be the best managers they can be. Only people who work for me at HR is my team, the rest of the people who work for managers and how they feel about the organization is oftentimes how they feel about their managers. Do they feel like they're getting feedback and they're being coached and they're being developed? So I would say, if you don't agree with that, perfectly fine, but that means I'm not the right person for you, I'm not right for the role. Go hire somebody else. So that's just an example of a philosophy that I developed early on that stayed true for me throughout my career and I would use it as an evaluation tool as I was deciding where I was going to go next. And then the personal advice and this is not profound. Everybody on this who's listening to this has probably heard this, but it's a lesson that we don't always take to heart, and I can even give you a recent example that I did not, and I regret it. Make sure you tell the people in your life who have been meaningful to you, who you've learned from, what they've done and how they've helped you, and be specific.

Speaker 1: 38:36

When I was starting my career many years ago, I was at a large financial services company in Boston and as a very junior person, I had the opportunity to work with the CEO of that company, and it was remarkable that I had that opportunity because he was here and I was like and I got to know him and we worked on a few projects and I learned so much from him and I had so many great stories about this person as a human, as a leader. Two months ago he died at 98 years old and I wrote his wife a note and I said I want to tell you stories about your husband that come from a young professional. And I told her these stories. She wrote back to me and she said it was very profound for her to hear these and she said they were so jizzing with Jim.

Speaker 1: 39:22

The stories were so Jim and she said I wish he could have read this. And I'm like I wish I could have written it. I wish I had written it. So don't wait till that person's gone and you're telling their spouse. It's great to tell their spouse, but let them know when you have the opportunity.

Speaker 2: 39:37

What a gift to give someone to bring the spirit of their loved one back through the story. That's a really beautiful gift to give someone. Joan, it's been awesome to chat with you today. Tell us where people can find you.

Speaker 1: 39:51

I'm on LinkedIn Also. I'm part of the Chief People Officer Forum, so if there's anybody who is a Chief People Officer and wants to join a network, to build community and wants to quarter, have topics of interest and experts who are going to be able to talk about topics, we've got one coming up next week and it's all like AI. What is this going to mean for you people, officers?

Speaker 2: 40:10

We will link to your LinkedIn and the CPO forum. There's nothing stronger than community, so definitely check that out, joan. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you, joan.

Speaker 3: 40:19

It was great to be with you. This episode was produced, edited and all things by us myself, Mel Plett and Francesco Ranieri. Our music is by Pink Zebra and if you loved this conversation and you want to contribute your thoughts with us, please do. You can visit us at yourworkfriends.com, but you can also join us over on LinkedIn. We have a LinkedIn community page and we have the TikToks and Instagrams, so please join us in the socials. And if you like this and you've benefited from this episode and you think someone else can benefit from this episode, please rate and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care friends. Bye friends. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care, friends. Bye friends.