December 13, 2023 • 47 mins
Episode includes:
🎙️ The #1 most important operating principle
🎙️ To thine own self be … ENTJ?
🎙️ When to switch jobs, and why
🎙️ How inclusivity makes us better
🎙️ Self driving cars are here! (Almost.)
If you’re an operator, or aspire to be one, this is the episode for you!
Go Deeper
📚 Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Johnson
📚 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
Find links, plus Mike's full reading list, and other resources here: www.mikesteib.com
Next Week’s Guest
🚨 Tune in for our next guest, Michael Stillman, CEO of Quality Branded Restaurants. DM your questions on LinkedIn or call 213.419.0596.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome Office Hours, where we sit down with the chief
executives shaping the world and answer your most pressing questions
about leadership, careers, and life. I'm Mike Steibe and today
we are hanging out with my friend Claire Hughes Johnson.
Claire was most recently chief operating officer of Stripe, the
payments platform that, during Claire's tenure, became one of the
(00:25):
most valuable privately held companies in the world. Previously, she
spent ten years at Google, where she oversaw operations for YouTube, Gmail,
Google Apps, online sales, and served as vice president of
Google's self Driving Cars division. She is the author of
Scaling People, Tactics for Management and Company Building, a lecturer
(00:45):
at Harvard Business School, and a board director at Hallmark Cards,
The Atlantic, Amaresco, HubSpot, and the Milton Academy. She is
an operator's operator and if you want to learn how
to make a company run well, or how to make
your life and well, this is the episode for you. Claire,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thanks Mike, it's so good to see you.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm really to have you in town and have you
in the studio. I've been looking forward to doing this
for a while. Now, So, Claire, in your book, which
I loved, Oh thank you, you quote Picasso. You said,
when our critics get together, they talk about form and
structure and meaning, and when artists get together they talk
about where you can buy cheap turpentine.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
That's true, that's today's favorite quote. At Strike.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
We are talking turpentine today. So the questions we got
from the audience are about management, operating principles, hiring people, budgeting, productivity,
all that kind of stuff, the brass tacks. So if
that's all right for you, we'll roll right into the
first question.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Awesome. Dina in South Brunswick, New Jersey, my hometown, says,
can you both.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Talk about your past to senior management and what experiences
made you an effective leader?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, Claire, you did politics, I held and then big
formative experience at Google and then strived it.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I think I would say I had a very diverse
early career. I kind of tried a bunch of different
things I didn't follow. Maybe that's the real headline. I
did not follow a traditional path. A lot of my
friends in college were applying for consulting jobs, banking jobs.
I went and tried to get a job on a
political campaign and did and probably made about five cents
(02:25):
an hour. But I ended up in like I mean,
I wasn't making a lot of money, but I ended
up with a lot of responsibility because campaigns have trouble
hiring talent and keeping them, and it's a job where
there's an end date, so some people find that risky.
I wasn't afraid to take some risks, so I was
like the deputy campaign manager, So I'd say early career
(02:45):
responsibility and frankly giving up the reward and the monetary
reward side, but taking it in responsibility and scope. And
then at Google, as you said, I joined, I guess
before you I joined before the IPO, Google was about
eighteen hundred people. When I left, it was maybe fifty
seven thousand.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It was about five or ten thousand when I got there.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, host still you saw a lot of that growth.
I mean, But for me, I think that early management experience,
combined with some skills I got in business school and consulting,
was a good combination for what was a very fast
moving entrepreneurial environment. And at Google, without naming like too
many specifics, there was a few times where I ended
up being the manager of my peers. You know, you
(03:28):
get elevated sort of into the role tapped on the shoulder,
and that's a real make it or break it moment.
Are you going to be able to step up and
lead the people who were your buddies or are you not?
And it took me. I had some false starts, but
eventually I figured out how to do that and make
an opportunity work for me.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And your advice for my friend Dina then would be
go to Google when it has twelve hundred people. But
Google doesn't anymore. So how if somebody's looking to do
that in their own career, what's the move?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I think one principle is earlier in your career is
a good time to take risks. So whether that's a
really early stage company or a sort of passion project,
but be thoughtful about it. Yeah, as you said, don't
go to the thing that is the hotness for everyone.
Think about where's the world going, Where in the environment
can I have an impact that I'm interested in? Uh,
and take a risk? And that's number one. I think.
(04:16):
The other is when you are offered. Someone said to me,
luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And I think, really
watch for those moments when you're getting tapped on the
shoulder and take it seriously. I'm being asked to prove myself,
and I'm going to double down take a bet on yourself.
But you're gonna have to work hard.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
On the preparation point. My two cents are, by the
time I was asked to manage a sizable team, I
had already read all the books, I had watched all
the YouTube like I had been preparing for this exactly
in great frustration that I wasn't being asked to lead lead.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
All the world.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
But when the moment came, you know, folks are always
like asking, like you know, and they're developing conversations how
do I get more senior? And the question that I
should be asking is how do I get more capable
so that when the moment comes, how am I ready
I deliver exactly when I'm more senior. My move to
Google came at a different time, But there was something
that I would I'd note for Dina and any of
our listeners, which was it was clear that the world
(05:12):
was moving aggressively toward technology. Google was where the world
was going.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I was.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I was on the fifty first floor of Rockefeller Center
in a huge office with a door that closed and
locked with an assistant, and the person one senior to
me had an assistant with an assistant. And when I
came to Google, it was a pay cut. It was
it was a four person office with a little.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
My desk was in a hallway.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, joint it And it felt like and I remember
there's somebody somebody who like runs a lot of the
media industry now said to me, like, you're going to Google?
That was like, that was last year. That was a
trend last year. What are you doing? And there was
this moment where even though I mean Google was probably
doing ten million a cash flow a day when I
got there, wasn't heroic but to take what might be
perceived at as a prestige step down, but that is
(05:56):
a step up and learning growth and a company that's
growing as the company is creating more opportunities for you.
That was a big important move.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
But also seeing where's the puck going to go? Macro
macro I mean, look in those days, you could look
where are consumer consumers were increasingly online? AD dollars were
not period like, It's pretty obvious the ad dollars is
a huge sector of the economy. Don't kid yourselves, folks,
trillions of dollars on advertising that you if you saw
(06:25):
that and you said, where am I going to go?
That's going to be able to take advantage of that.
But it's a company like Google, consumers online and a monetization,
and you.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Went to Google before the IPO. It scales up. You
did all the fun stuff you worked on, like self
driving cars. There's a lot of products and not it's
nothing against you. I'm still driving my own car, but
like you worked on all these super cool things, and
then you left for another early stage when a lot
of people when they if they're if they're lucky enough
to pick a winner, they just ride it. And you left.
So what's the lesson from that? Why do you leave?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think you know we I know you care Mike
about this. We talked about personal values, right, I think
one of my I have sort of two values that
have always come up for me in my life. The
first one is about learning. My parents are teachers. If
I'm not learning new things, like being challenged, I start
to get Yeah, I get itchy, but I also I
get a little depressed. I'm like, what am I doing here?
(07:14):
I'm not getting better. That's one. I think the second
one is impact. And I heard you say in a
previous episode that, like, if you didn't show up at Google,
no one was going to really notice.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I think exactly says when I left, the stock didn't
go down, which is even more It was sad if
you think about it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
But I was loving learning the new space of self
driving cars. And I'm actually on the board of a
company called Aurora also, which is founded by the guy
I was working with the engineer on self driving cars
because I believe in him so much, and the technology
is so interesting and it is going to happen folks.
It's an autonomous vehicle company, because we're working on trucks too.
But I would say I wasn't having the same impact.
(07:54):
I wasn't learning at the same rate. I kind of
felt like I was just getting better at managing Google
versus leading, right, like being a really proven leader. And
you also, you have a point. It was starting to
feel a little mercenary, like I was getting paid to
kind of stick around and manage the system as opposed
to do something better for people, Like you get a
(08:15):
product out there that mattered. You know, it was time,
which and it was time and and you also have
to ask yourself at that point in your career a question,
which is when I look back, am I going to
regret not having sort of tried something? And for me
getting in earlier and seeing if I could be at
the head table building a company. I think I would
have regretted not giving myself.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
A shot had we had an Julie sued from to
Be on a few episodes ago, and she noted that
in her career, when she took on the thing that
was more niche and smaller, even in a bigger operation,
it's what created the opportunities for too. So once the
company is fifty thousand employees, it's just hard to really
really matter to the outcomes.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yes, some to be able to say like I did that,
I'm I directed that outcome.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And some of it's your personality too, like some people
do better in captivity.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
You were here, yeah it Now, I've never been a
big company person, let's be honest, Mike.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
There we go. So you are a big book person.
The book is enormous.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
It's all the things.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
We're going to talk more about the book. It's really,
really good, And I think the next question starts to
get into it. So Liam in Berkeley says.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I'm part of a startup that just raised our first funding.
You've seen companies grow quickly from early stages. What do
companies get wrong when they're scaling? And what do the
great companies get right?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
This is the thesis book.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Well, the book has sort of two main sections. One
the first part is company building. So what does it take?
I mean, my answer to this question is you've got
to notice what stage you're at and start to adapt
in the just and if you don't, you're either going
to fizzle out before you can get the traction and
start to scale, or you're going to There's a quote
(09:56):
from I forget if it's Hewlett or Packard, which is
after a cert and point companies dive indigestion more than starvation.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Right, probably true?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Right, probably true? So really recognizing there's an expression I
think why Combinator uses, which is do the unscalable thing,
which is true when you're building something, you do it manually.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
What you don't know what the process in marketplace where
I spend a lot of time, Yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Don't, you don't know. You got to do it, blocking
and tackling, hand to hand combat. Figure it out. But
if you don't notice that it's time to start automating
that slash, scaling it, bringing in people to do it, specializing,
you're going to start to dive indigestion. So I think
some companies really lose that. The great companies, you know this,
they care about the culture, They care about the value,
(10:41):
like they build a system of trust that frankly holds
the center when all the chaos. Like, it's a great
problem to have to get in high growth. You and
I have both worked in high growth environments. But if
you don't have some foundational stuff in place, the thing
can break.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And that when I when I win in at Artsy
where I'm today, the business needed someone who comes with
the scaling people mentality. Like there was just a lot
of talking that wasn't leading to the right action. There
was a lot of goals that didn't necessarily tie into
the revenue, drive train and all that stuff. But the
culture was so good, and to the credit of Carter,
(11:17):
my predecessor, there was a trust and a vulnerability and
openness and an attachment to the mission. And that part's
so hard to build So for Liam, you know, if
you just raised your first round, if you don't get
your applicant tracking system nailed for your recruiting team in
the first year or two, it's okay. But getting the
kinds of people who are missionaries, who are really driven
(11:38):
by the mission of the company and a right for
the culture that you want to create for the long term,
that's that's the set of ingredients and the stew that
that that last for.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And that early talent really matters. But I talked in
the book about writing founding documents. Why do you exist?
What are your values? Why are those your values? Don't
just write obvious motherhood apple pie values?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The real stuff that differenti you, differentiates you as a
company and a culture.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Let's talk about values for a little bit. Because someone
had me find the question because someone had actually hit
me up on LinkedIn. Simon in San Francisco said, I've
recently taken over a team whose core values are stale
and not very memorable. I would like to redo them.
And I'm struggling a bit with the exercise. Can you
share how you've developed yours in the past at any
best practices? Yeah, so we'll throw to throw, right, to
(12:25):
someone's question.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Sure, there's personal values. There's actually a lot of great exercises.
I have one in my book in one of the appendices.
The book has a lot of templates and practical sort
of exercises, which is just about taking this list of
fifty values, narrowing it down and then really pushing yourself
to kind of get down to three.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So it was.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Then five and three, and then really be able to
get hard one who knows you well and sort of say,
you know, when when the chips are down, what is
going to matter to me more in a decision I'm making,
you know, like a major career decision, a major family decision,
what's the value that really shows up? So the personal
values I think actually similar to companies, which is unfortunately
(13:06):
companies or teams often write aspirational values, like a lot
of people want to be customers first. That's because customer centric.
We're customer centric. I mean you and I both Google
not actually that customer centric, very technology centric and and getting.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
There was no phone number you could call.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, and shape to the other hand, we have a value.
Our number one value is users first, and man, you
see it in how the company is operating, which can
be tough by the way sometimes user calls and complaints,
people are jumping all over it, roadmaps going out the window.
But it's like, we take this feedback seriously. We are listening,
but it's got to be real. There was a there's
(13:46):
an old acronym I love from some brand expert our bed,
which is is it relevant, believable, enduring and deliverable. So
does this value actually feel real, not aspirational to how
the company makes decisions, how the team operates today. And
the way to test it is write the value and
be like, can I tell some anecdotes of that value
(14:08):
in action?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I'm also I'm a big fan when we've done it.
I seek to make the values verbs, not nouns or
adjic tests, and as a result, what you can do
is you can put the core value to ord. Probably
the most important one I've had professionally is make fast decisions.
And there's this moment in every meeting and every meeting
if you don't get this right, where people oh, it's
a good point, we should take this offline. It's the schedule,
(14:33):
and then someone once we got everyone with the comp
saying to make a fast decision.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And that's when you know it's working. People are actually
saying the words in the meeting, and I will say that,
I mean Google people made fun of don't be evil,
remember that as a value at Google. But I was
in some early Gmail. Gmail had just launched when I joined.
This is a lot of data in your email and
there was a meeting. A lot of law enforcement agencies
were requesting data from Gmail to investigate things. And we
(14:59):
had a whole meeting with legal policy engineers. Very young
company then, which is how do we be compliant with
the law but not evil, Like you can't be just
letting users data out to anybody who asks. And I
was like, this is real, like this fact people are
using the words don't be evil. They're arguing about really
difficult choices you make when you have a product like that,
(15:22):
and they're trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
We have a voicemail from Zara and Boulder, Colorado who asked,
what is.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Your number one most important operating principle? How do you
make it stick with your team?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
So there are you have like five hundred pages of
operating prints. There's four in the book.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
There's four in the book. The first one, the first
one is build self awareness to build mutual awareness. A
lot of management books, you know this, are all about
the team and the organization, and my thesis is actually
it starts with you. Who are you? What are your
(16:13):
blind spots, what are you grade at? What do you
need around you to be successful? How do you then
build a team that can operate frankly, make you operate
better as a leader, because I think you and I
are both people who are more oriented toward what does
the team do? And so it's really about taking the
time to introspect, ask the questions, take the work style analysis,
(16:34):
understand who you are and what kind of leader you're
going to be.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Mine is we stole it from Apple, but it's the
concept of directly responsible individual. I probably say four times
a day, who's the deal?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
The DR We use that at strike too.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
We love DRIs and it is so just as you
were walking in I was commenting into Google docs, someone said,
you know, what's the is the supply impacting that in
the marketplace? And I said, what is your path to
finding this out? And the person replied, we could do
this or we could do that, and I said, we
have never done anything the DRI does it? Are you
the DRI? Am I the dri and then the part
(17:09):
of the question from Zara was how do you make
it stick? I'm fond of finding any notable way you
can as a leader to make it stick. We do
an annual art exhibition at Arteaks. We have so many
people who are artistic in our company, and I create commissioned,
created in partnership with an artist, a huge neon sign
that just says directly responsible individual. People knew the second
(17:32):
they came in it. Who did that piece of art
for the You remember it? You remember so, Zara, you
know that for my money, de is a good one.
But this next question was texted to us Elijah and
Syracuse New York said, Claire, your book talks about self
awareness as a foundation of good leadership, including Meers Briggs
(17:52):
personality types, Mike, and your book you use a happiness
matrix to direct folks to their right career path. Can
you talk more about these exers and how they helped
you find your career path and find the right place
for you. So yeah, right there, all right, I'll stop,
and I'm interested in number one.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I want to hear about the happiness matrix. So what
I what I do in the book is a simplified framework.
You know, I've taken a lot of these assessments my Myers, Briggs,
disc Insights, Discovery, Niagram. Anyway, I think they're interesting. I
take the feedback, especially when I do three sixties.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
What are your letters? You're like an E.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I am a really strong in anytime I take it,
but and I'm a t E. But I used to
be more Ian FP, and then later in my career
I became Ian TJ. For anybody who's a lot of
CEOs or I.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
You can take these quizzes online.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
But I definitely adjusted from my more feeling perceiving to
more thinking uh and with judge right, with experience and
with business training, let's be honest, like and which kind
of fits with the self awareness. So anyway, let me
boil it down for you. There's this very easy framework
that I was, which is if you think introvert to extrovert,
And the best litmus test for that is do I
(19:02):
talk to think which is an extrovert? Which is what
I am? I think you are my or am I
an introvert?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Which I need to podcast obviously.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Exactly look at us? Or am I an introvert? Which
is I need to think to talk, right, that's the
litmus test. And then the other axis is am I
more task oriented? Or am I more people oriented? And
there's no judgment. So then you've got these quadrants, which
am I am an extrovert who's people oriented? Extrovert who's
task oriented? You get the idea and then you think, okay,
let's be honest with me. Where do I place myself
(19:33):
on that? And you can put yourself on the line,
you know. So for me, I'm extroverted, but I'm not
extremely extroverted, but I'm over the line, over the midpoint,
and I'm actually pretty balanced between task and people. But
I kind of say, and then I look at myself
and I say, okay, where's my blind spot? My blind
spot's the opposite of where I am. Usually I need
someone around me. I am not the first person in
(19:53):
the room to say, where's the data that supports this? Right?
I'm an a thinker, but I'm not as data driven.
I am more intuition driven. I'm very intuition driven. I'm
very pattern in system match person. And so I need
to hire people who are like, Nope, don't agree, don't
like your decision, where's your data? They need to check
(20:16):
me and and I have learned over time that self
awareness has made me better one because I've learned I
don't have that and two when there's people in the
room with me who are like that, they make me
I make a better decision. Right.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
As long as there's the kind of people who are
willing to disagree with you, then you've got the perfect yes.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And you got to create an environment where people are willing.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
To that's where for you. That's so, that's where self
awareness to help you find the right place for you
in the world and the right the right teams to build.
So I'm for sharing, I'm I'm telling me about that,
I'm the n T TJ. And I'm House Scryffindor. So
those are like two quizzes you can take online and
they tell you very critical right and there and and
and I'm a Gemini. All three of those are obviously
(20:54):
scientifically sound. Yes, and my book was it's more about
trying to find your specific career path, and so it
asks you to find design principles for your career. Everyone
says money is not important, and they're lying. Everyone wants
more money, but they're not clear about how and what.
And one of the exercises we do in the book
(21:16):
is how much equal security? What are the kinds of
things that would be important to you at different stages
of your life. What's the number? And then once you
know the number, you can start to narrow down industries
and rolls and functions.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And so that is what I mean about early career risks.
Think about the calculus and then take the risk in
that direction.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
When I was twenty five, what was I risking? I
had an air mattress. I was like, but who's the
air mattress? But you want to pick a career where
it's going to get you to a place where it
adds up to what it is that you feel you
need to and then more is nice if that's important
to you. But those kinds of design principal exercises. I
remember I had an opportunity once when my kids were little,
for a big job that was going to be probably
(21:56):
one hundred and fifty plus days a year away, and like,
at that moment, it just it didn't. It didn't align
to my happiness matrix. It wouldn't have it wouldn't have
been the things that are important to me at home
and work at the same.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Time, it's not all financial, it's about it's about the
rest of your value system and then getting that balance right.
And I think that is self awareness, by the way,
that's introspection, but you got to be honest with yourself.
What are these things that really matter? And how do
I design Twitter. The other thing I talk about in
the book is it's an easy mistake to make, and
I have made it in certain moments in my career,
which is there are some things, Mike I'm quite good at,
(22:29):
but I don't love you, you don't like Dona, and
so don't get trapped in a job. Everyone's like, oh,
you're doing great. I'm promoting you. You're great at this thing,
and you're like, yeah, but that's actually not what I
want to be doing with I actually make.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
The case that if you're not good at something, you
should disregard that because if you care about it, you
will figure it out. If there's nothing we do professionally
that is that hard that you couldn't possibly learn it,
you must feels like, yeah, you brain surgery. I mean
you probably figure out brain surgery. You cant figure out
how play for the Knicks. That's probably one where I
can't just believe in myself so much. But within the
(23:05):
range of the target audience for this podcast, I generally.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, you can figure it out. That's very growth mindset.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
There we go. So for Elijah who asked about it,
I'm here the intersection here of know yourself and what
you enjoy, and then also the intersection of that is
know what your needs are in life. You are your
personal design constraints, and within that you can craft a
career that's impactful and fun and wardelling and fulfilling.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And we wish and you cant. I mean, I think
my advice is also start on a path, use those
design principles, and then gut check every twelve to eighteen months.
Am I still on a path? That's am I learning?
Am I getting there? Am I not? What do I
need to course correct?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
That's right, it is. It is constantly evolving. And if
you missed it, Elijah, we had a good we had
a good episode with Jim Sitter in a couple of
weeks ago where he talks a lot about finding the
finding that career path and I recommend that one. I've
got the next one from Luna and Palm Beach. He says,
you've been.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Part of led some highly regarded teams. What are the
keys to building and forging three teams? You know, I
think this is going to sound egotistical, which is not
my general mode. I do think great teams need a
great leader. Like just like young companies are like a
(24:20):
mirror to the founder. You know, you see a lot
of the founder values and their strength and their weaknesses
in a young company, because it's like you're holding up
a mirror. I think great teams is a little bit
of a mirror of the leader, and so is that
person doing it for the right reasons? Accessible, open, direct,
building trust every day close.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
One of the favorite stories I've heard recently, I was
in a round table discussion, and I don't think they'd
mind me saying this with the founders of Wayfair, which
is this really successful online retail company and it's it
was founded in the Boston area where I'm from, and
they have operations all over the world now, and they
talking about their early days and how they didn't have offices.
(25:03):
They sat with the team, they did a lot of
the customer service, they were very close to the business,
and then someone asked them, like, how did you get
comfortable building trust and scale, and they would say, well,
well we always did is we tried to stay close
to the truth but recognized we needed to not do
the job anymore. And someone said, you know, what I
recognize in you is like you guys figured it out
(25:24):
a way. What they did is we had three things
that mattered to us, you know, and we just stuck
to those three things, those metrics, and we watched them
and we got on the ground whenever we could, and
we stayed close to the truth. And I think great
leaders do that and build trust along the way.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
So step one, be a great leader to get a
great team. Yeah, Luna, I would add, the majority of
people I've worked with are bad at hiring. Oh yeah,
And I don't mean that about anyone I've worked with.
I mean most people are bad at hiring. And people
are bad at hiring in my experience for three reasons. One,
(26:00):
they fall victim to believing in the brand signals. So
you went to Princeton, Then you went to Wharton, Then
you work to Google. Then you must be smart, and
you're good at interviewing. There's an a. And by the way,
there's here's an alternative. You went to Princeton because your
parents went to Princeton. That almost got you in Harvard automatically,
that almost got your first job automatically, and since then
(26:22):
you've been living off of the oxygen from that first move. Like,
those are also potentially true statements about the candidate, So
now you have to put aside the personal branding that
made the candidate attractive to you and assume that they're
not competent and they're hiding it. And then you have
to interview them in a way that they still like
you and still want to work there, and putting aside
(26:44):
those biassaults.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Being actually to know until you're convinced otherwise.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
And do it in a consistent way with every candidate.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
This to me is the key. It is and everyone's like,
call it's an art. There are people who can pick
talent and people who can't. You're like, actually, if you're
more scientific about it, meaning you ask the same questions
to every candidate question, you develop a corpus yes of
great answers and not great answers, And believe me, you're
going to get better at the science of hiring. I agree, Mike.
(27:10):
I think spending time on team composition formation, who are
you hiring? Who are you putting in the roles. One
of my favorite interview questions actually for leadership roles is
tell me about your current team. Map it out for me.
How did you come up with that structure? But how
did you get those people in those jobs? Ask and
they reveal a lot about who did did they develop internally,
did they hire externally? Did it work out? Did it
(27:32):
not work out? You know, what did you do about it?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
My favorite thing to asks when somebody's being hired, as
I asked the hiring manager is she intelligent? And then
the hire manager says yes. They always say yes, And
then I say, prove it. What were the questions that
you want? What did you ask? How did you test
the person? And when they say back, there's always somebody
who'll be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she went to Dartmouth.
(27:55):
I'm like, caught you right, you're falling for the brand signaling.
You should be able to, over the course of a
few interviews with someone really dig into hard questions and
see how the person processes it. And it's not an
IQ test, it's a but it's a problem solving and
curiosity and discipline thinking test that for most jobs is
really important. And I'm just shocked that people don't stop it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
By the way, also, people don't use reference calls. They
use they do the reference call, they have the recruiter
do the reference call, which is usually the reference things. Well,
I'm just supposed to say nice things, but if you
pin them down, so you say either the to the
referee in this case, you say, are they on a
one to ten of all the people you've ever worked with?
Where does this person fall? And someone's gonna well, if
they say ten, great, but they're gonna say like eight
(28:38):
because they're trying to be nice. You say, well, why
didn't you pick nine or seven? Or are they gonna say,
you know six? You're like, oh, you know? Or I
say are they in the top ten percent of people
you've ever worked with? And people don't like to lie,
so they're gonna no, top twenty or if they say yes,
top five? Why you know? You really have to nail
down the reference with a very specific, uncomfortable question. And
(29:00):
I know it sounds like you're ranking and rating people,
but you're not going to get a truthful reference if
you just say, well, you know, what are they great at?
What could they work on?
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Have you read all the Patrick lindsay Oni books, you
must have the five dysfunctions of the team. I have
found that the one concept of who is your first team,
which is to say you think that their peers as
your first team, not your department as your first team.
Critical to me that is that is if I just
hire really good people, that can be an a team.
(29:30):
But when you hire really good people and teach them
to run the team as if we all are, you
build that culture, that's when you get an A plus.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Team completely agreed. And you know when you see people struggling,
it's often because they don't have that team. You hire
someone and maybe your org structure is in a certain
way where they're sort of off on their own and
they have no first team. Naturally I offer, especially a
more senior hire. Often they're struggling because they're not part
of a thing.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Or a lot of times if you hire people who've
spent too much time in big companies, there the incentive
structure is sort of against it. It's more political than
it is, like there's not a lot you can do
to make the big companies succeed on your own. To
our earlier conversation, so you have to back to the
interviewing point. If you're hiring people who've spent a lot
of time in a lot of big places, you have
to really drill into how do they transcend that that
(30:20):
incentive structure to one where they were good they're a
good member of the team. Ava and Santa Cruz says.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Writing a book is on my bucket list, but I
never seem to have time to do it.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You each wrote a book while.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Presumably being super busy. How did you pull it all?
What was your process?
Speaker 1 (30:47):
By the way, if we've had eleven execs now on
the podcast, four had a book, Yeah, I think now five.
I think you're number five, so it can be done.
How'd you get it done?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
It? It was not on my bucket list. The Stripe
co founders Patrick and John Collison really felt strongly that
there was not a tactical enough book on company building
and management. They're both they're autodid acts that very well read.
They've read all their writings.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
We know we needed this book.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
And I then did some my own research and I said, okay,
that's a fair point. I don't know that I'm the
person to write it, but they seem to have decided
that I was the person to write it. So that
was so this was a weird one for me, and
that it almost became part of my job in that
my the founders I worked with were like, we want
this for you and us and stripe to put these
(31:37):
thoughts you have down on paper. But I'll be honest
and say it was brutal. I was like a year
or more than a year behind my schedule because I
did have a day job. I started when I was coo,
I mean, and then the pandemic hits. And I guess
the pandemic is the reason. By the way, it didn't
get written quickly because at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Of that we had to I really pandemic.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
I had to reset some things. But then it's the
reason it was written because I was traveling, I wasn't
had no social life. I was trapped in my house.
So I'm going to be honest. It's hard. I mean,
I don't know about you, but I needed to really
be like locked in a room a couple of times
on a deadline, and you're.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Done by two personality matrix. You are extroverted or extroverted.
You need to talk it out loud exactly, and you
need to be with people and writing a book is
there is only a lonely solitary actually started.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Patrick fooled me and he said, here's what we're going
to do. We're gonna have someone interview you once a
week and transcribe the interview and that will be the book.
And I believe, which, by the way, does not work.
It works for like a blog post does not work.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I also tried. I hired a ghost writer.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, that doesn't.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That lasted for one chapter and I was like, I
would never write this in And so people ask me,
who was your labor? It is a labor of love.
You have to do it yourself.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, And then I think I got into it obviously,
and I think, you know, and it became something that
I mean, I shared some chapters with the sort of
the target audiences, sort of founders of early stage coming,
and they really valued it. People didn't, who weren't even
my butts. They were like, yeah, can you write more?
And so it started to become important to me.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I like the way our Friendchis shares doing his which
is doing it publicly so you can if you can
log in and comment on the book as he's been made.
That's I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
But you you just really wanted to get it done well.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
So no, I struggled with it as you did. Ava
I would first I note I met Michael Lewis one
time and he was asked this question. He's a better
answer that than I did, he said. He said, very
everyone wants to have written a book. Very few people
want to write a book. And so sort of the
first question for you is do you really do you
(33:39):
want to just be able to say I wrote a book,
or do you have something really important that's so important
to you that needs to be said that you you
have an urge to do the work.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's a great point.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
And if the thing you have to say is that
really is really that important it needs to be brought
into the world, you'll you'll find the motivation that you
will need. And then the process for me was three
hours every Sunday for two years. I carved out that time.
I got up early before the kids. Everyone knew, Daddy's
in the office. Don't go in. It was working on
the book that I actually wasn't even office, it was
(34:11):
an attic. I was in the attic. I wrote a
book in the addict.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Like many great writers, I feel like Victor Hugo was
in an attic anyway.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
That's he and I are actually used. We're compared very often. Actually,
that's I'm glad you brought that. I was afraid that
wouldn't come up in this conversation. But ava, if you
find a thing that you really need to So my book,
The Crimin Festival was I wrote a memo for my
team because they kept asking questions about what to do
with their careers. Actually, they would all come to office
hours and say why wasn't I promoted? And I say,
(34:39):
what do you really care about? Like, it's not being
a senior account manager level three, it's something more important.
And it would reveal that there was this, this, this
thing that they weren't satisfied about professionally because they had
an urge to do something more or different, but they
didn't have a plan. And I wrote like a short
document on how to do a plan, and everybody got
a lot out of it and had a lot of
follow up questions, and I was like, Ah, this is
(34:59):
a I think I should that's like working with I wrote.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
This thing and Eli Gill publishes it through his book
and on the web, and all of a sudden people
are like, well, we'll give us more examples, tell us
more about it. So it's just I actually took it
from Ors at Google and I facilitated this great manager
panel and someone on the panel said, hey, you know,
Ors has this user manual to him as a manager,
so for new team members they can just read this
(35:23):
is how you know. I think, this is what I
think it's like to work with me, how I like
to be communicated with, how I make decisions, how I
prefer you know. And it sounds a little narcissistic, I admitted,
But actually the exercise of writing a working with me
doc was very good for my self awareness. I was like, yeah,
how do I make decisions, What is the preferred way
of communicating with me when something's urgent not urgent? How
(35:43):
do I like to use one on ones? How do
I want you to show up on the team meeting? Whatever?
And so I wrote an initial draft when I was
at Google. I brought it with me to Strike and
I workshopped it. I sent it to my team. I said,
is this legit? Sounding like, is this what it's like
to work with me? I got some great comments, and
I brought it to Stripe and when I first got straight,
you know, when companies are growing quickly, your team changes
a lot and there's a lot of anxiety. You have
(36:04):
a new manager, like I got to figure this person out,
what's it like to work with them? And so actually,
my whole initial team, it's straight. We all ended up
writing them and sharing them with each other, which was
a great exercise.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
User manual.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, user manual, but that that kind of you put
your memo out there. I put my you know, working
with Me doc out there, and you see there's demand,
there's demand for more information like that, more examples of
how you do things, and that that inspired me certainly
to keep going. I said to Elot, I'm like, really,
people aren't going to read a working with Claire document
and he said, you're wrong. So people will find because
(36:37):
it's because a lot of especially company builders, it's easy
to describe the thing, but seeing an example of it
much more valuable. They're not you know what I mean,
Like it's also the right a user manual, but like,
actually I want to see an example of what does
yours look like? What is mine?
Speaker 1 (36:53):
And there's a technical thing about it that is a
real kindness to your team on basic stuff like I
email all weekend, but I don't expect you effect you too.
And if I haven't sent that accent brestly to everyone,
then they don't know.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Or if I don't respond to your email and you
need a response for me, you're please right back with
twenty give me twenty four hours, is what I say.
And I if I don't respond, it means I think
you didn't want need one and you need to write
back and say, actually, no, I'm asking you a question.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, I say, it's it's first Gmail then text, never slack.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah, slacks.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
The slack is like a new inbox. I have like
seven thousand inboxes now, so many, but it's one.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Where people only reply all.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I think you know you're in my book, right, so
are we going to talk about this?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
So? I know, but the audience so so.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Mike and I I think, true to both of our
our our forms worked on some new products at Google.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I was in one others.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, it was a mixed bag of getting some new
new products after your products work. The funniest part of
it was bringing traditional media into an Internet company, which
we both enjoyed the roller coaster of that that's another story.
And there was an individual on my team who was
really the point person who was sort of dotted line
(38:12):
reporting to Mike. He reported to me directly, He ditted
line reported to Mike. He was responsible for sort of
our channel, if you will, and didn't show up to
work for a few days, no sign, no communication, no
sign of him. And I started to be like, what
am I going to do? Mike's going to wonder where
this person is. And so I got in touch with
(38:34):
you and I said, look, I have this situation on
my team and so and so has not come to
the office for a few days, and I don't know
where they are. And you said to me, you said, Claire, Wow,
I mean they tell you about management, you read books
about management, you prepare, but does anyone ever say to
(38:55):
you people go missing. And I was like, no, well
I was not prepared for this. But it was very
empathetic of you, like you you didn't. I mean, I
thought you were going to be upset because there were
some work this person owed you and and and you
were empathetic in that way. You said, this is hard.
You have a hard problem right now. And I really
(39:15):
appreciated it. It was very Mike because it was kind
of funny but also empathetic and what can I do?
You know, and I had reached out. We found the
person just so everyone knows. But you know, they were
in a tough place.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Most importantly, the person ended up being Okay, it was.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
But they were in a tough place and that happens humans.
Guess what that's that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And you talk about in your book the difference between
management and leadership. Yeah, and this, I think this sensitivity,
the human element is a bit is a big part
of the of the distinction.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
It's actually the bridge part in a way. Right. Management
is sort of organizing these humans to it. I'm going
to get you from A to B, and leadership I
think is inspiring those humans to get farther than be.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
There's a there's a question adjacent to it from Marcus
and San francisc Go Claire.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
You teach a course on inclusion at Harvard Business School.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
What's the most important thing we can all do to
create a more inclusive environment at work?
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah? Inclusion is really tactical. I think it becomes this
sort of buzzword that becomes meaningless, like, let's be inclusive.
What does that even mean. The first part of what
everyone to do is realize that whatever room you're in,
not everyone in the room feels equally included. And you
should just know that. And you if you're someone like
(40:32):
I grew up in an environment my parents are teachers.
I was very lucky to attend a school where my
dad was a teacher, where the classes were very small.
I was expected to contribute right. I was expected to
speak up with my opinion. It was part of how
I was developed and brought up as a child. And
in my educational environment, you put me in a room
with ten people, I'm not afraid to contribute right right,
(40:55):
DNA right there with me. And I operated early in
my career believing that's true of everyone. Doesn't everyone show
up and they're invited into a meeting and they're like, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna give my opinion. No, no, Claire, they do
not feel that way for whatever reason, by the way,
and I'm not going to start to you know, we
don't know everybody's story, but not everybody in that room
feels included. And so number one is recognize that and
(41:18):
realize if you're the manager or you're the team leader
of that meeting. Your job is to get everyone included
because you're going to get a better outcome. By the way,
this is about business results. Why are they in the
room because they know something, because they have value, and
if they don't bring it out because they don't feel included,
you're failing. You're failing to get the best product. And
there's a lot of studies actually that inclusive teams will
(41:40):
outperform regular teams three to five x because they're stuff
that's being raised that makes the product better, whatever the
decision is. And so that's number one. And then the
stuff is tactical, like literally noticing.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Hey, someone's not contributing, someone's not contributing, someone keeps opening
their mouth and somebody else talks before they do, like
call that.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Someone takes a credit for the thing they said, and
you say, oh yeah, thank you for repeating. Can you
say more, you know, Janey, because it was your original point, right,
Like sometimes I just catch them like come on, I'm
glad you do that, But but I think it's really
it's about that. How do you how do you get
them talking? How do you get them engaged?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Have you read Joan Littmann's book, That's what she said, no,
it's I mean, it's it's like a full list of
all of the ways that that happened specifically to women
at work, any ways that they're not included or not
giving credit and so on. It's good you. I try
to be sensitive to it too. One other thing that
we do is we start every meeting, every meeting check
in with five minutes of chit chat.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Good, and chit chat is like it's a little more casual.
It's okay if you're a minute or too late, and
if you as the meeting owner at your job, to
sort of go around.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
And get everybody, get everybody a little warm, to check in,
have everybody say something at the beginning so that they're
in the mode, so.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
That they're in we're talking. This next question came directly
to me on LinkedIn and it was Sanjay and Detroit,
says Mike. You had Jeff Brown from Ali Financial on
the podcast and talked a bit about electric vehicles and
self driving cars. JB said, self driving cars are a
long way off in the distance. Claire, you're an expert
in this topic, oh, expert us, it's generous, But about
(43:12):
autonomous vehicles.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
So the thing about autonomous vehicles. Is there's this quote
which is we've been saying they're coming in ten years
for forty years, so completely legitimate from our listeners. That's true.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
A lot of technology, that's right.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
It was coming in the next five years, for fifteen years,
and now hey what guess what it's here. It's happening
fast autonous vehicles, same thing. You know. It's interesting to
me to get the chance to work on this again distantly,
but now as a board member is to see the work,
to see humans innovating within machines and computers and light
(43:49):
ar and it's just really inspiring. But I will tell
you it is happening. You know, how does change How
does technological change happen? It's not like we all wake
up and now it's different. It's rolling out and there
are you know, it's not all going well. You know
this there's San Francisco has a few companies that have
got autonomous vehicles on the road picking people up, driving
(44:11):
them around Waymo Cruise. Cruise has had some challenges recently.
Aurora of the company I'm involved in, has autonomous trucks
on some trucking routes. They're not anywhere near where you
and I live so we don't see them. They currently
have the safety driver in the vehicle. But but the
goal is to pull that driver next year, and we're
on the road map.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
That's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
It's and they've announced that to investors. I'm not sharing
any news here, but you've got to be pretty confident
in your technology if you're saying we're getting towards pulling
the driver the safety.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Tey, especially because you're not doing it with a moment you.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Know, yeah, yeah, you're doing that with a very serious,
uh serious vehicle. I have actually been inside some of
these trucks.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Now they are so sick, so cool, what it's time
to be alive. So it's so it's right around it.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I think, uh yeah, I think that the expression it's
going to happen in the next ten years is now
actually it's now accurate.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
I would say maybe five Claire, this was amazing. What
a pleasure it was ketch up with you on all
these topics. And I enjoyed your book so much. I'd
enjoyed talking about about it with you, and I'd encourage
all of our listeners, especially now that you know that
I get a reference in the book.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Yah Scaling Your and Mike stive Band find it.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Scaling People by Claire Hughes Johnson. Check it out. It's
amazing and Claire, thank.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
You, Thank you great to be here.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Well, friends, I really enjoyed that. I hope you enjoyed
it too. Claire's fantastic and the conversation with h With
Claire both reading her book and spending time with her
in person, it reminds me of this James Clear quote
that we don't rise to the level of our goals,
but we fall to the level of our systems. And
a lot of what you heard here today were systems
for better understanding yourself as a leader, systems for managed
(45:54):
building teams and managing people, for managing budgets and so on.
And I guess to sort of as you as you
go about the rest of your week, I'd encourage everybody
to think about where in your work and where in
your life personally, do you find that you sometimes struggle
to achieve your goals, especially when things get hard, and
where might a system help, Whether it's a system to
eat write, or system to go to the gym every day,
(46:17):
or a system to get your team together for better
communications at work, system to track KPIs, and we talked
about how more systems is not necessarily better, but the
minimally of necessary set of systems to help you achieve
what you need is something that you might find as
an addition you want to make this week to your
work and your life. So with that, I thank Claire
and I also want, of course thank Jen Jada and
(46:40):
the team at Blue Duck Media for pulling this all together.
I think Baheed who does all the magic in the studio, Dylan, Sasha, Gay,
Nathan and Christine at iHeart Ben In the team at
William Morris Endeavor for all their support. And I'll remind
you that Office Hours is a production of Blue Duck
Media and distributed by iHeartRadio. I'll see you next week. Everybody,
stay on your gard where
Welcome Office Hours, where we sit down with the chief
executives shaping the world and answer your most pressing questions
about leadership, careers, and life. I'm Mike Steibe and today
we are hanging out with my friend Claire Hughes Johnson.
Claire was most recently chief operating officer of Stripe, the
payments platform that, during Claire's tenure, became one of the
(00:25):
most valuable privately held companies in the world. Previously, she
spent ten years at Google, where she oversaw operations for YouTube, Gmail,
Google Apps, online sales, and served as vice president of
Google's self Driving Cars division. She is the author of
Scaling People, Tactics for Management and Company Building, a lecturer
(00:45):
at Harvard Business School, and a board director at Hallmark Cards,
The Atlantic, Amaresco, HubSpot, and the Milton Academy. She is
an operator's operator and if you want to learn how
to make a company run well, or how to make
your life and well, this is the episode for you. Claire,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thanks Mike, it's so good to see you.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm really to have you in town and have you
in the studio. I've been looking forward to doing this
for a while. Now, So, Claire, in your book, which
I loved, Oh thank you, you quote Picasso. You said,
when our critics get together, they talk about form and
structure and meaning, and when artists get together they talk
about where you can buy cheap turpentine.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
That's true, that's today's favorite quote. At Strike.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
We are talking turpentine today. So the questions we got
from the audience are about management, operating principles, hiring people, budgeting, productivity,
all that kind of stuff, the brass tacks. So if
that's all right for you, we'll roll right into the
first question.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Awesome. Dina in South Brunswick, New Jersey, my hometown, says,
can you both.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Talk about your past to senior management and what experiences
made you an effective leader?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, Claire, you did politics, I held and then big
formative experience at Google and then strived it.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I think I would say I had a very diverse
early career. I kind of tried a bunch of different
things I didn't follow. Maybe that's the real headline. I
did not follow a traditional path. A lot of my
friends in college were applying for consulting jobs, banking jobs.
I went and tried to get a job on a
political campaign and did and probably made about five cents
(02:25):
an hour. But I ended up in like I mean,
I wasn't making a lot of money, but I ended
up with a lot of responsibility because campaigns have trouble
hiring talent and keeping them, and it's a job where
there's an end date, so some people find that risky.
I wasn't afraid to take some risks, so I was
like the deputy campaign manager, So I'd say early career
(02:45):
responsibility and frankly giving up the reward and the monetary
reward side, but taking it in responsibility and scope. And
then at Google, as you said, I joined, I guess
before you I joined before the IPO, Google was about
eighteen hundred people. When I left, it was maybe fifty
seven thousand.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It was about five or ten thousand when I got there.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, host still you saw a lot of that growth.
I mean, But for me, I think that early management experience,
combined with some skills I got in business school and consulting,
was a good combination for what was a very fast
moving entrepreneurial environment. And at Google, without naming like too
many specifics, there was a few times where I ended
up being the manager of my peers. You know, you
(03:28):
get elevated sort of into the role tapped on the shoulder,
and that's a real make it or break it moment.
Are you going to be able to step up and
lead the people who were your buddies or are you not?
And it took me. I had some false starts, but
eventually I figured out how to do that and make
an opportunity work for me.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And your advice for my friend Dina then would be
go to Google when it has twelve hundred people. But
Google doesn't anymore. So how if somebody's looking to do
that in their own career, what's the move?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I think one principle is earlier in your career is
a good time to take risks. So whether that's a
really early stage company or a sort of passion project,
but be thoughtful about it. Yeah, as you said, don't
go to the thing that is the hotness for everyone.
Think about where's the world going, Where in the environment
can I have an impact that I'm interested in? Uh,
and take a risk? And that's number one. I think.
(04:16):
The other is when you are offered. Someone said to me,
luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And I think, really
watch for those moments when you're getting tapped on the
shoulder and take it seriously. I'm being asked to prove myself,
and I'm going to double down take a bet on yourself.
But you're gonna have to work hard.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
On the preparation point. My two cents are, by the
time I was asked to manage a sizable team, I
had already read all the books, I had watched all
the YouTube like I had been preparing for this exactly
in great frustration that I wasn't being asked to lead lead.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
All the world.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
But when the moment came, you know, folks are always
like asking, like you know, and they're developing conversations how
do I get more senior? And the question that I
should be asking is how do I get more capable
so that when the moment comes, how am I ready
I deliver exactly when I'm more senior. My move to
Google came at a different time, But there was something
that I would I'd note for Dina and any of
our listeners, which was it was clear that the world
(05:12):
was moving aggressively toward technology. Google was where the world
was going.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I was.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I was on the fifty first floor of Rockefeller Center
in a huge office with a door that closed and
locked with an assistant, and the person one senior to
me had an assistant with an assistant. And when I
came to Google, it was a pay cut. It was
it was a four person office with a little.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
My desk was in a hallway.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, joint it And it felt like and I remember
there's somebody somebody who like runs a lot of the
media industry now said to me, like, you're going to Google?
That was like, that was last year. That was a
trend last year. What are you doing? And there was
this moment where even though I mean Google was probably
doing ten million a cash flow a day when I
got there, wasn't heroic but to take what might be
perceived at as a prestige step down, but that is
(05:56):
a step up and learning growth and a company that's
growing as the company is creating more opportunities for you.
That was a big important move.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
But also seeing where's the puck going to go? Macro
macro I mean, look in those days, you could look
where are consumer consumers were increasingly online? AD dollars were
not period like, It's pretty obvious the ad dollars is
a huge sector of the economy. Don't kid yourselves, folks,
trillions of dollars on advertising that you if you saw
(06:25):
that and you said, where am I going to go?
That's going to be able to take advantage of that.
But it's a company like Google, consumers online and a monetization,
and you.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Went to Google before the IPO. It scales up. You
did all the fun stuff you worked on, like self
driving cars. There's a lot of products and not it's
nothing against you. I'm still driving my own car, but
like you worked on all these super cool things, and
then you left for another early stage when a lot
of people when they if they're if they're lucky enough
to pick a winner, they just ride it. And you left.
So what's the lesson from that? Why do you leave?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think you know we I know you care Mike
about this. We talked about personal values, right, I think
one of my I have sort of two values that
have always come up for me in my life. The
first one is about learning. My parents are teachers. If
I'm not learning new things, like being challenged, I start
to get Yeah, I get itchy, but I also I
get a little depressed. I'm like, what am I doing here?
(07:14):
I'm not getting better. That's one. I think the second
one is impact. And I heard you say in a
previous episode that, like, if you didn't show up at Google,
no one was going to really notice.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I think exactly says when I left, the stock didn't
go down, which is even more It was sad if
you think about it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
But I was loving learning the new space of self
driving cars. And I'm actually on the board of a
company called Aurora also, which is founded by the guy
I was working with the engineer on self driving cars
because I believe in him so much, and the technology
is so interesting and it is going to happen folks.
It's an autonomous vehicle company, because we're working on trucks too.
But I would say I wasn't having the same impact.
(07:54):
I wasn't learning at the same rate. I kind of
felt like I was just getting better at managing Google
versus leading, right, like being a really proven leader. And
you also, you have a point. It was starting to
feel a little mercenary, like I was getting paid to
kind of stick around and manage the system as opposed
to do something better for people, Like you get a
(08:15):
product out there that mattered. You know, it was time,
which and it was time and and you also have
to ask yourself at that point in your career a question,
which is when I look back, am I going to
regret not having sort of tried something? And for me
getting in earlier and seeing if I could be at
the head table building a company. I think I would
have regretted not giving myself.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
A shot had we had an Julie sued from to
Be on a few episodes ago, and she noted that
in her career, when she took on the thing that
was more niche and smaller, even in a bigger operation,
it's what created the opportunities for too. So once the
company is fifty thousand employees, it's just hard to really
really matter to the outcomes.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yes, some to be able to say like I did that,
I'm I directed that outcome.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And some of it's your personality too, like some people
do better in captivity.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
You were here, yeah it Now, I've never been a
big company person, let's be honest, Mike.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
There we go. So you are a big book person.
The book is enormous.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
It's all the things.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
We're going to talk more about the book. It's really,
really good, And I think the next question starts to
get into it. So Liam in Berkeley says.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I'm part of a startup that just raised our first funding.
You've seen companies grow quickly from early stages. What do
companies get wrong when they're scaling? And what do the
great companies get right?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
This is the thesis book.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Well, the book has sort of two main sections. One
the first part is company building. So what does it take?
I mean, my answer to this question is you've got
to notice what stage you're at and start to adapt
in the just and if you don't, you're either going
to fizzle out before you can get the traction and
start to scale, or you're going to There's a quote
(09:56):
from I forget if it's Hewlett or Packard, which is
after a cert and point companies dive indigestion more than starvation.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Right, probably true?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Right, probably true? So really recognizing there's an expression I
think why Combinator uses, which is do the unscalable thing,
which is true when you're building something, you do it manually.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
What you don't know what the process in marketplace where
I spend a lot of time, Yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Don't, you don't know. You got to do it, blocking
and tackling, hand to hand combat. Figure it out. But
if you don't notice that it's time to start automating
that slash, scaling it, bringing in people to do it, specializing,
you're going to start to dive indigestion. So I think
some companies really lose that. The great companies, you know this,
they care about the culture, They care about the value,
(10:41):
like they build a system of trust that frankly holds
the center when all the chaos. Like, it's a great
problem to have to get in high growth. You and
I have both worked in high growth environments. But if
you don't have some foundational stuff in place, the thing
can break.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And that when I when I win in at Artsy
where I'm today, the business needed someone who comes with
the scaling people mentality. Like there was just a lot
of talking that wasn't leading to the right action. There
was a lot of goals that didn't necessarily tie into
the revenue, drive train and all that stuff. But the
culture was so good, and to the credit of Carter,
(11:17):
my predecessor, there was a trust and a vulnerability and
openness and an attachment to the mission. And that part's
so hard to build So for Liam, you know, if
you just raised your first round, if you don't get
your applicant tracking system nailed for your recruiting team in
the first year or two, it's okay. But getting the
kinds of people who are missionaries, who are really driven
(11:38):
by the mission of the company and a right for
the culture that you want to create for the long term,
that's that's the set of ingredients and the stew that
that that last for.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And that early talent really matters. But I talked in
the book about writing founding documents. Why do you exist?
What are your values? Why are those your values? Don't
just write obvious motherhood apple pie values?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The real stuff that differenti you, differentiates you as a
company and a culture.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Let's talk about values for a little bit. Because someone
had me find the question because someone had actually hit
me up on LinkedIn. Simon in San Francisco said, I've
recently taken over a team whose core values are stale
and not very memorable. I would like to redo them.
And I'm struggling a bit with the exercise. Can you
share how you've developed yours in the past at any
best practices? Yeah, so we'll throw to throw, right, to
(12:25):
someone's question.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Sure, there's personal values. There's actually a lot of great exercises.
I have one in my book in one of the appendices.
The book has a lot of templates and practical sort
of exercises, which is just about taking this list of
fifty values, narrowing it down and then really pushing yourself
to kind of get down to three.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So it was.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Then five and three, and then really be able to
get hard one who knows you well and sort of say,
you know, when when the chips are down, what is
going to matter to me more in a decision I'm making,
you know, like a major career decision, a major family decision,
what's the value that really shows up? So the personal
values I think actually similar to companies, which is unfortunately
(13:06):
companies or teams often write aspirational values, like a lot
of people want to be customers first. That's because customer centric.
We're customer centric. I mean you and I both Google
not actually that customer centric, very technology centric and and getting.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
There was no phone number you could call.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, and shape to the other hand, we have a value.
Our number one value is users first, and man, you
see it in how the company is operating, which can
be tough by the way sometimes user calls and complaints,
people are jumping all over it, roadmaps going out the window.
But it's like, we take this feedback seriously. We are listening,
but it's got to be real. There was a there's
(13:46):
an old acronym I love from some brand expert our bed,
which is is it relevant, believable, enduring and deliverable. So
does this value actually feel real, not aspirational to how
the company makes decisions, how the team operates today. And
the way to test it is write the value and
be like, can I tell some anecdotes of that value
(14:08):
in action?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I'm also I'm a big fan when we've done it.
I seek to make the values verbs, not nouns or
adjic tests, and as a result, what you can do
is you can put the core value to ord. Probably
the most important one I've had professionally is make fast decisions.
And there's this moment in every meeting and every meeting
if you don't get this right, where people oh, it's
a good point, we should take this offline. It's the schedule,
(14:33):
and then someone once we got everyone with the comp
saying to make a fast decision.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And that's when you know it's working. People are actually
saying the words in the meeting, and I will say that,
I mean Google people made fun of don't be evil,
remember that as a value at Google. But I was
in some early Gmail. Gmail had just launched when I joined.
This is a lot of data in your email and
there was a meeting. A lot of law enforcement agencies
were requesting data from Gmail to investigate things. And we
(14:59):
had a whole meeting with legal policy engineers. Very young
company then, which is how do we be compliant with
the law but not evil, Like you can't be just
letting users data out to anybody who asks. And I
was like, this is real, like this fact people are
using the words don't be evil. They're arguing about really
difficult choices you make when you have a product like that,
(15:22):
and they're trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
We have a voicemail from Zara and Boulder, Colorado who asked,
what is.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Your number one most important operating principle? How do you
make it stick with your team?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
So there are you have like five hundred pages of
operating prints. There's four in the book.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
There's four in the book. The first one, the first
one is build self awareness to build mutual awareness. A
lot of management books, you know this, are all about
the team and the organization, and my thesis is actually
it starts with you. Who are you? What are your
(16:13):
blind spots, what are you grade at? What do you
need around you to be successful? How do you then
build a team that can operate frankly, make you operate
better as a leader, because I think you and I
are both people who are more oriented toward what does
the team do? And so it's really about taking the
time to introspect, ask the questions, take the work style analysis,
(16:34):
understand who you are and what kind of leader you're
going to be.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Mine is we stole it from Apple, but it's the
concept of directly responsible individual. I probably say four times
a day, who's the deal?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
The DR We use that at strike too.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
We love DRIs and it is so just as you
were walking in I was commenting into Google docs, someone said,
you know, what's the is the supply impacting that in
the marketplace? And I said, what is your path to
finding this out? And the person replied, we could do
this or we could do that, and I said, we
have never done anything the DRI does it? Are you
the DRI? Am I the dri and then the part
(17:09):
of the question from Zara was how do you make
it stick? I'm fond of finding any notable way you
can as a leader to make it stick. We do
an annual art exhibition at Arteaks. We have so many
people who are artistic in our company, and I create commissioned,
created in partnership with an artist, a huge neon sign
that just says directly responsible individual. People knew the second
(17:32):
they came in it. Who did that piece of art
for the You remember it? You remember so, Zara, you
know that for my money, de is a good one.
But this next question was texted to us Elijah and
Syracuse New York said, Claire, your book talks about self
awareness as a foundation of good leadership, including Meers Briggs
(17:52):
personality types, Mike, and your book you use a happiness
matrix to direct folks to their right career path. Can
you talk more about these exers and how they helped
you find your career path and find the right place
for you. So yeah, right there, all right, I'll stop,
and I'm interested in number one.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I want to hear about the happiness matrix. So what
I what I do in the book is a simplified framework.
You know, I've taken a lot of these assessments my Myers, Briggs,
disc Insights, Discovery, Niagram. Anyway, I think they're interesting. I
take the feedback, especially when I do three sixties.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
What are your letters? You're like an E.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I am a really strong in anytime I take it,
but and I'm a t E. But I used to
be more Ian FP, and then later in my career
I became Ian TJ. For anybody who's a lot of
CEOs or I.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
You can take these quizzes online.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
But I definitely adjusted from my more feeling perceiving to
more thinking uh and with judge right, with experience and
with business training, let's be honest, like and which kind
of fits with the self awareness. So anyway, let me
boil it down for you. There's this very easy framework
that I was, which is if you think introvert to extrovert,
And the best litmus test for that is do I
(19:02):
talk to think which is an extrovert? Which is what
I am? I think you are my or am I
an introvert?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Which I need to podcast obviously.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Exactly look at us? Or am I an introvert? Which
is I need to think to talk, right, that's the
litmus test. And then the other axis is am I
more task oriented? Or am I more people oriented? And
there's no judgment. So then you've got these quadrants, which
am I am an extrovert who's people oriented? Extrovert who's
task oriented? You get the idea and then you think, okay,
let's be honest with me. Where do I place myself
(19:33):
on that? And you can put yourself on the line,
you know. So for me, I'm extroverted, but I'm not
extremely extroverted, but I'm over the line, over the midpoint,
and I'm actually pretty balanced between task and people. But
I kind of say, and then I look at myself
and I say, okay, where's my blind spot? My blind
spot's the opposite of where I am. Usually I need
someone around me. I am not the first person in
(19:53):
the room to say, where's the data that supports this? Right?
I'm an a thinker, but I'm not as data driven.
I am more intuition driven. I'm very intuition driven. I'm
very pattern in system match person. And so I need
to hire people who are like, Nope, don't agree, don't
like your decision, where's your data? They need to check
(20:16):
me and and I have learned over time that self
awareness has made me better one because I've learned I
don't have that and two when there's people in the
room with me who are like that, they make me
I make a better decision. Right.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
As long as there's the kind of people who are
willing to disagree with you, then you've got the perfect yes.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And you got to create an environment where people are willing.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
To that's where for you. That's so, that's where self
awareness to help you find the right place for you
in the world and the right the right teams to build.
So I'm for sharing, I'm I'm telling me about that,
I'm the n T TJ. And I'm House Scryffindor. So
those are like two quizzes you can take online and
they tell you very critical right and there and and
and I'm a Gemini. All three of those are obviously
(20:54):
scientifically sound. Yes, and my book was it's more about
trying to find your specific career path, and so it
asks you to find design principles for your career. Everyone
says money is not important, and they're lying. Everyone wants
more money, but they're not clear about how and what.
And one of the exercises we do in the book
(21:16):
is how much equal security? What are the kinds of
things that would be important to you at different stages
of your life. What's the number? And then once you
know the number, you can start to narrow down industries
and rolls and functions.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And so that is what I mean about early career risks.
Think about the calculus and then take the risk in
that direction.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
When I was twenty five, what was I risking? I
had an air mattress. I was like, but who's the
air mattress? But you want to pick a career where
it's going to get you to a place where it
adds up to what it is that you feel you
need to and then more is nice if that's important
to you. But those kinds of design principal exercises. I
remember I had an opportunity once when my kids were little,
for a big job that was going to be probably
(21:56):
one hundred and fifty plus days a year away, and like,
at that moment, it just it didn't. It didn't align
to my happiness matrix. It wouldn't have it wouldn't have
been the things that are important to me at home
and work at the same.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Time, it's not all financial, it's about it's about the
rest of your value system and then getting that balance right.
And I think that is self awareness, by the way,
that's introspection, but you got to be honest with yourself.
What are these things that really matter? And how do
I design Twitter. The other thing I talk about in
the book is it's an easy mistake to make, and
I have made it in certain moments in my career,
which is there are some things, Mike I'm quite good at,
(22:29):
but I don't love you, you don't like Dona, and
so don't get trapped in a job. Everyone's like, oh,
you're doing great. I'm promoting you. You're great at this thing,
and you're like, yeah, but that's actually not what I
want to be doing with I actually make.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
The case that if you're not good at something, you
should disregard that because if you care about it, you
will figure it out. If there's nothing we do professionally
that is that hard that you couldn't possibly learn it,
you must feels like, yeah, you brain surgery. I mean
you probably figure out brain surgery. You cant figure out
how play for the Knicks. That's probably one where I
can't just believe in myself so much. But within the
(23:05):
range of the target audience for this podcast, I generally.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, you can figure it out. That's very growth mindset.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
There we go. So for Elijah who asked about it,
I'm here the intersection here of know yourself and what
you enjoy, and then also the intersection of that is
know what your needs are in life. You are your
personal design constraints, and within that you can craft a
career that's impactful and fun and wardelling and fulfilling.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And we wish and you cant. I mean, I think
my advice is also start on a path, use those
design principles, and then gut check every twelve to eighteen months.
Am I still on a path? That's am I learning?
Am I getting there? Am I not? What do I
need to course correct?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
That's right, it is. It is constantly evolving. And if
you missed it, Elijah, we had a good we had
a good episode with Jim Sitter in a couple of
weeks ago where he talks a lot about finding the
finding that career path and I recommend that one. I've
got the next one from Luna and Palm Beach. He says,
you've been.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Part of led some highly regarded teams. What are the
keys to building and forging three teams? You know, I
think this is going to sound egotistical, which is not
my general mode. I do think great teams need a
great leader. Like just like young companies are like a
(24:20):
mirror to the founder. You know, you see a lot
of the founder values and their strength and their weaknesses
in a young company, because it's like you're holding up
a mirror. I think great teams is a little bit
of a mirror of the leader, and so is that
person doing it for the right reasons? Accessible, open, direct,
building trust every day close.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
One of the favorite stories I've heard recently, I was
in a round table discussion, and I don't think they'd
mind me saying this with the founders of Wayfair, which
is this really successful online retail company and it's it
was founded in the Boston area where I'm from, and
they have operations all over the world now, and they
talking about their early days and how they didn't have offices.
(25:03):
They sat with the team, they did a lot of
the customer service, they were very close to the business,
and then someone asked them, like, how did you get
comfortable building trust and scale, and they would say, well,
well we always did is we tried to stay close
to the truth but recognized we needed to not do
the job anymore. And someone said, you know, what I
recognize in you is like you guys figured it out
(25:24):
a way. What they did is we had three things
that mattered to us, you know, and we just stuck
to those three things, those metrics, and we watched them
and we got on the ground whenever we could, and
we stayed close to the truth. And I think great
leaders do that and build trust along the way.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
So step one, be a great leader to get a
great team. Yeah, Luna, I would add, the majority of
people I've worked with are bad at hiring. Oh yeah,
And I don't mean that about anyone I've worked with.
I mean most people are bad at hiring. And people
are bad at hiring in my experience for three reasons. One,
(26:00):
they fall victim to believing in the brand signals. So
you went to Princeton, Then you went to Wharton, Then
you work to Google. Then you must be smart, and
you're good at interviewing. There's an a. And by the way,
there's here's an alternative. You went to Princeton because your
parents went to Princeton. That almost got you in Harvard automatically,
that almost got your first job automatically, and since then
(26:22):
you've been living off of the oxygen from that first move. Like,
those are also potentially true statements about the candidate, So
now you have to put aside the personal branding that
made the candidate attractive to you and assume that they're
not competent and they're hiding it. And then you have
to interview them in a way that they still like
you and still want to work there, and putting aside
(26:44):
those biassaults.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Being actually to know until you're convinced otherwise.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
And do it in a consistent way with every candidate.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
This to me is the key. It is and everyone's like,
call it's an art. There are people who can pick
talent and people who can't. You're like, actually, if you're
more scientific about it, meaning you ask the same questions
to every candidate question, you develop a corpus yes of
great answers and not great answers, And believe me, you're
going to get better at the science of hiring. I agree, Mike.
(27:10):
I think spending time on team composition formation, who are
you hiring? Who are you putting in the roles. One
of my favorite interview questions actually for leadership roles is
tell me about your current team. Map it out for me.
How did you come up with that structure? But how
did you get those people in those jobs? Ask and
they reveal a lot about who did did they develop internally,
did they hire externally? Did it work out? Did it
(27:32):
not work out? You know, what did you do about it?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
My favorite thing to asks when somebody's being hired, as
I asked the hiring manager is she intelligent? And then
the hire manager says yes. They always say yes, And
then I say, prove it. What were the questions that
you want? What did you ask? How did you test
the person? And when they say back, there's always somebody
who'll be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she went to Dartmouth.
(27:55):
I'm like, caught you right, you're falling for the brand signaling.
You should be able to, over the course of a
few interviews with someone really dig into hard questions and
see how the person processes it. And it's not an
IQ test, it's a but it's a problem solving and
curiosity and discipline thinking test that for most jobs is
really important. And I'm just shocked that people don't stop it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
By the way, also, people don't use reference calls. They
use they do the reference call, they have the recruiter
do the reference call, which is usually the reference things. Well,
I'm just supposed to say nice things, but if you
pin them down, so you say either the to the
referee in this case, you say, are they on a
one to ten of all the people you've ever worked with?
Where does this person fall? And someone's gonna well, if
they say ten, great, but they're gonna say like eight
(28:38):
because they're trying to be nice. You say, well, why
didn't you pick nine or seven? Or are they gonna say,
you know six? You're like, oh, you know? Or I
say are they in the top ten percent of people
you've ever worked with? And people don't like to lie,
so they're gonna no, top twenty or if they say yes,
top five? Why you know? You really have to nail
down the reference with a very specific, uncomfortable question. And
(29:00):
I know it sounds like you're ranking and rating people,
but you're not going to get a truthful reference if
you just say, well, you know, what are they great at?
What could they work on?
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Have you read all the Patrick lindsay Oni books, you
must have the five dysfunctions of the team. I have
found that the one concept of who is your first team,
which is to say you think that their peers as
your first team, not your department as your first team.
Critical to me that is that is if I just
hire really good people, that can be an a team.
(29:30):
But when you hire really good people and teach them
to run the team as if we all are, you
build that culture, that's when you get an A plus.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Team completely agreed. And you know when you see people struggling,
it's often because they don't have that team. You hire
someone and maybe your org structure is in a certain
way where they're sort of off on their own and
they have no first team. Naturally I offer, especially a
more senior hire. Often they're struggling because they're not part
of a thing.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Or a lot of times if you hire people who've
spent too much time in big companies, there the incentive
structure is sort of against it. It's more political than
it is, like there's not a lot you can do
to make the big companies succeed on your own. To
our earlier conversation, so you have to back to the
interviewing point. If you're hiring people who've spent a lot
of time in a lot of big places, you have
to really drill into how do they transcend that that
(30:20):
incentive structure to one where they were good they're a
good member of the team. Ava and Santa Cruz says.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Writing a book is on my bucket list, but I
never seem to have time to do it.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You each wrote a book while.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Presumably being super busy. How did you pull it all?
What was your process?
Speaker 1 (30:47):
By the way, if we've had eleven execs now on
the podcast, four had a book, Yeah, I think now five.
I think you're number five, so it can be done.
How'd you get it done?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
It? It was not on my bucket list. The Stripe
co founders Patrick and John Collison really felt strongly that
there was not a tactical enough book on company building
and management. They're both they're autodid acts that very well read.
They've read all their writings.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
We know we needed this book.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
And I then did some my own research and I said, okay,
that's a fair point. I don't know that I'm the
person to write it, but they seem to have decided
that I was the person to write it. So that
was so this was a weird one for me, and
that it almost became part of my job in that
my the founders I worked with were like, we want
this for you and us and stripe to put these
(31:37):
thoughts you have down on paper. But I'll be honest
and say it was brutal. I was like a year
or more than a year behind my schedule because I
did have a day job. I started when I was coo,
I mean, and then the pandemic hits. And I guess
the pandemic is the reason. By the way, it didn't
get written quickly because at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Of that we had to I really pandemic.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
I had to reset some things. But then it's the
reason it was written because I was traveling, I wasn't
had no social life. I was trapped in my house.
So I'm going to be honest. It's hard. I mean,
I don't know about you, but I needed to really
be like locked in a room a couple of times
on a deadline, and you're.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Done by two personality matrix. You are extroverted or extroverted.
You need to talk it out loud exactly, and you
need to be with people and writing a book is
there is only a lonely solitary actually started.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Patrick fooled me and he said, here's what we're going
to do. We're gonna have someone interview you once a
week and transcribe the interview and that will be the book.
And I believe, which, by the way, does not work.
It works for like a blog post does not work.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I also tried. I hired a ghost writer.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, that doesn't.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That lasted for one chapter and I was like, I
would never write this in And so people ask me,
who was your labor? It is a labor of love.
You have to do it yourself.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, And then I think I got into it obviously,
and I think, you know, and it became something that
I mean, I shared some chapters with the sort of
the target audiences, sort of founders of early stage coming,
and they really valued it. People didn't, who weren't even
my butts. They were like, yeah, can you write more?
And so it started to become important to me.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I like the way our Friendchis shares doing his which
is doing it publicly so you can if you can
log in and comment on the book as he's been made.
That's I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
But you you just really wanted to get it done well.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
So no, I struggled with it as you did. Ava
I would first I note I met Michael Lewis one
time and he was asked this question. He's a better
answer that than I did, he said. He said, very
everyone wants to have written a book. Very few people
want to write a book. And so sort of the
first question for you is do you really do you
(33:39):
want to just be able to say I wrote a book,
or do you have something really important that's so important
to you that needs to be said that you you
have an urge to do the work.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's a great point.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
And if the thing you have to say is that
really is really that important it needs to be brought
into the world, you'll you'll find the motivation that you
will need. And then the process for me was three
hours every Sunday for two years. I carved out that time.
I got up early before the kids. Everyone knew, Daddy's
in the office. Don't go in. It was working on
the book that I actually wasn't even office, it was
(34:11):
an attic. I was in the attic. I wrote a
book in the addict.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Like many great writers, I feel like Victor Hugo was
in an attic anyway.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
That's he and I are actually used. We're compared very often. Actually,
that's I'm glad you brought that. I was afraid that
wouldn't come up in this conversation. But ava, if you
find a thing that you really need to So my book,
The Crimin Festival was I wrote a memo for my
team because they kept asking questions about what to do
with their careers. Actually, they would all come to office
hours and say why wasn't I promoted? And I say,
(34:39):
what do you really care about? Like, it's not being
a senior account manager level three, it's something more important.
And it would reveal that there was this, this, this
thing that they weren't satisfied about professionally because they had
an urge to do something more or different, but they
didn't have a plan. And I wrote like a short
document on how to do a plan, and everybody got
a lot out of it and had a lot of
follow up questions, and I was like, Ah, this is
(34:59):
a I think I should that's like working with I wrote.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
This thing and Eli Gill publishes it through his book
and on the web, and all of a sudden people
are like, well, we'll give us more examples, tell us
more about it. So it's just I actually took it
from Ors at Google and I facilitated this great manager
panel and someone on the panel said, hey, you know,
Ors has this user manual to him as a manager,
so for new team members they can just read this
(35:23):
is how you know. I think, this is what I
think it's like to work with me, how I like
to be communicated with, how I make decisions, how I
prefer you know. And it sounds a little narcissistic, I admitted,
But actually the exercise of writing a working with me
doc was very good for my self awareness. I was like, yeah,
how do I make decisions, What is the preferred way
of communicating with me when something's urgent not urgent? How
(35:43):
do I like to use one on ones? How do
I want you to show up on the team meeting? Whatever?
And so I wrote an initial draft when I was
at Google. I brought it with me to Strike and
I workshopped it. I sent it to my team. I said,
is this legit? Sounding like, is this what it's like
to work with me? I got some great comments, and
I brought it to Stripe and when I first got straight,
you know, when companies are growing quickly, your team changes
a lot and there's a lot of anxiety. You have
(36:04):
a new manager, like I got to figure this person out,
what's it like to work with them? And so actually,
my whole initial team, it's straight. We all ended up
writing them and sharing them with each other, which was
a great exercise.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
User manual.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, user manual, but that that kind of you put
your memo out there. I put my you know, working
with Me doc out there, and you see there's demand,
there's demand for more information like that, more examples of
how you do things, and that that inspired me certainly
to keep going. I said to Elot, I'm like, really,
people aren't going to read a working with Claire document
and he said, you're wrong. So people will find because
(36:37):
it's because a lot of especially company builders, it's easy
to describe the thing, but seeing an example of it
much more valuable. They're not you know what I mean,
Like it's also the right a user manual, but like,
actually I want to see an example of what does
yours look like? What is mine?
Speaker 1 (36:53):
And there's a technical thing about it that is a
real kindness to your team on basic stuff like I
email all weekend, but I don't expect you effect you too.
And if I haven't sent that accent brestly to everyone,
then they don't know.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Or if I don't respond to your email and you
need a response for me, you're please right back with
twenty give me twenty four hours, is what I say.
And I if I don't respond, it means I think
you didn't want need one and you need to write
back and say, actually, no, I'm asking you a question.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, I say, it's it's first Gmail then text, never slack.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah, slacks.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
The slack is like a new inbox. I have like
seven thousand inboxes now, so many, but it's one.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Where people only reply all.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I think you know you're in my book, right, so
are we going to talk about this?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
So? I know, but the audience so so.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Mike and I I think, true to both of our
our our forms worked on some new products at Google.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I was in one others.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, it was a mixed bag of getting some new
new products after your products work. The funniest part of
it was bringing traditional media into an Internet company, which
we both enjoyed the roller coaster of that that's another story.
And there was an individual on my team who was
really the point person who was sort of dotted line
(38:12):
reporting to Mike. He reported to me directly, He ditted
line reported to Mike. He was responsible for sort of
our channel, if you will, and didn't show up to
work for a few days, no sign, no communication, no
sign of him. And I started to be like, what
am I going to do? Mike's going to wonder where
this person is. And so I got in touch with
(38:34):
you and I said, look, I have this situation on
my team and so and so has not come to
the office for a few days, and I don't know
where they are. And you said to me, you said, Claire, Wow,
I mean they tell you about management, you read books
about management, you prepare, but does anyone ever say to
(38:55):
you people go missing. And I was like, no, well
I was not prepared for this. But it was very
empathetic of you, like you you didn't. I mean, I
thought you were going to be upset because there were
some work this person owed you and and and you
were empathetic in that way. You said, this is hard.
You have a hard problem right now. And I really
(39:15):
appreciated it. It was very Mike because it was kind
of funny but also empathetic and what can I do?
You know, and I had reached out. We found the
person just so everyone knows. But you know, they were
in a tough place.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Most importantly, the person ended up being Okay, it was.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
But they were in a tough place and that happens humans.
Guess what that's that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And you talk about in your book the difference between
management and leadership. Yeah, and this, I think this sensitivity,
the human element is a bit is a big part
of the of the distinction.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
It's actually the bridge part in a way. Right. Management
is sort of organizing these humans to it. I'm going
to get you from A to B, and leadership I
think is inspiring those humans to get farther than be.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
There's a there's a question adjacent to it from Marcus
and San francisc Go Claire.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
You teach a course on inclusion at Harvard Business School.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
What's the most important thing we can all do to
create a more inclusive environment at work?
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah? Inclusion is really tactical. I think it becomes this
sort of buzzword that becomes meaningless, like, let's be inclusive.
What does that even mean. The first part of what
everyone to do is realize that whatever room you're in,
not everyone in the room feels equally included. And you
should just know that. And you if you're someone like
(40:32):
I grew up in an environment my parents are teachers.
I was very lucky to attend a school where my
dad was a teacher, where the classes were very small.
I was expected to contribute right. I was expected to
speak up with my opinion. It was part of how
I was developed and brought up as a child. And
in my educational environment, you put me in a room
with ten people, I'm not afraid to contribute right right,
(40:55):
DNA right there with me. And I operated early in
my career believing that's true of everyone. Doesn't everyone show
up and they're invited into a meeting and they're like, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna give my opinion. No, no, Claire, they do
not feel that way for whatever reason, by the way,
and I'm not going to start to you know, we
don't know everybody's story, but not everybody in that room
feels included. And so number one is recognize that and
(41:18):
realize if you're the manager or you're the team leader
of that meeting. Your job is to get everyone included
because you're going to get a better outcome. By the way,
this is about business results. Why are they in the
room because they know something, because they have value, and
if they don't bring it out because they don't feel included,
you're failing. You're failing to get the best product. And
there's a lot of studies actually that inclusive teams will
(41:40):
outperform regular teams three to five x because they're stuff
that's being raised that makes the product better, whatever the
decision is. And so that's number one. And then the
stuff is tactical, like literally noticing.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Hey, someone's not contributing, someone's not contributing, someone keeps opening
their mouth and somebody else talks before they do, like
call that.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Someone takes a credit for the thing they said, and
you say, oh yeah, thank you for repeating. Can you
say more, you know, Janey, because it was your original point, right,
Like sometimes I just catch them like come on, I'm
glad you do that, But but I think it's really
it's about that. How do you how do you get
them talking? How do you get them engaged?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Have you read Joan Littmann's book, That's what she said, no,
it's I mean, it's it's like a full list of
all of the ways that that happened specifically to women
at work, any ways that they're not included or not
giving credit and so on. It's good you. I try
to be sensitive to it too. One other thing that
we do is we start every meeting, every meeting check
in with five minutes of chit chat.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Good, and chit chat is like it's a little more casual.
It's okay if you're a minute or too late, and
if you as the meeting owner at your job, to
sort of go around.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
And get everybody, get everybody a little warm, to check in,
have everybody say something at the beginning so that they're
in the mode, so.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
That they're in we're talking. This next question came directly
to me on LinkedIn and it was Sanjay and Detroit,
says Mike. You had Jeff Brown from Ali Financial on
the podcast and talked a bit about electric vehicles and
self driving cars. JB said, self driving cars are a
long way off in the distance. Claire, you're an expert
in this topic, oh, expert us, it's generous, But about
(43:12):
autonomous vehicles.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
So the thing about autonomous vehicles. Is there's this quote
which is we've been saying they're coming in ten years
for forty years, so completely legitimate from our listeners. That's true.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
A lot of technology, that's right.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
It was coming in the next five years, for fifteen years,
and now hey what guess what it's here. It's happening
fast autonous vehicles, same thing. You know. It's interesting to
me to get the chance to work on this again distantly,
but now as a board member is to see the work,
to see humans innovating within machines and computers and light
(43:49):
ar and it's just really inspiring. But I will tell
you it is happening. You know, how does change How
does technological change happen? It's not like we all wake
up and now it's different. It's rolling out and there
are you know, it's not all going well. You know
this there's San Francisco has a few companies that have
got autonomous vehicles on the road picking people up, driving
(44:11):
them around Waymo Cruise. Cruise has had some challenges recently.
Aurora of the company I'm involved in, has autonomous trucks
on some trucking routes. They're not anywhere near where you
and I live so we don't see them. They currently
have the safety driver in the vehicle. But but the
goal is to pull that driver next year, and we're
on the road map.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
That's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
It's and they've announced that to investors. I'm not sharing
any news here, but you've got to be pretty confident
in your technology if you're saying we're getting towards pulling
the driver the safety.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Tey, especially because you're not doing it with a moment you.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Know, yeah, yeah, you're doing that with a very serious,
uh serious vehicle. I have actually been inside some of
these trucks.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Now they are so sick, so cool, what it's time
to be alive. So it's so it's right around it.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I think, uh yeah, I think that the expression it's
going to happen in the next ten years is now
actually it's now accurate.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
I would say maybe five Claire, this was amazing. What
a pleasure it was ketch up with you on all
these topics. And I enjoyed your book so much. I'd
enjoyed talking about about it with you, and I'd encourage
all of our listeners, especially now that you know that
I get a reference in the book.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Yah Scaling Your and Mike stive Band find it.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Scaling People by Claire Hughes Johnson. Check it out. It's
amazing and Claire, thank.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
You, Thank you great to be here.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Well, friends, I really enjoyed that. I hope you enjoyed
it too. Claire's fantastic and the conversation with h With
Claire both reading her book and spending time with her
in person, it reminds me of this James Clear quote
that we don't rise to the level of our goals,
but we fall to the level of our systems. And
a lot of what you heard here today were systems
for better understanding yourself as a leader, systems for managed
(45:54):
building teams and managing people, for managing budgets and so on.
And I guess to sort of as you as you
go about the rest of your week, I'd encourage everybody
to think about where in your work and where in
your life personally, do you find that you sometimes struggle
to achieve your goals, especially when things get hard, and
where might a system help, Whether it's a system to
eat write, or system to go to the gym every day,
(46:17):
or a system to get your team together for better
communications at work, system to track KPIs, and we talked
about how more systems is not necessarily better, but the
minimally of necessary set of systems to help you achieve
what you need is something that you might find as
an addition you want to make this week to your
work and your life. So with that, I thank Claire
and I also want, of course thank Jen Jada and
(46:40):
the team at Blue Duck Media for pulling this all together.
I think Baheed who does all the magic in the studio, Dylan, Sasha, Gay,
Nathan and Christine at iHeart Ben In the team at
William Morris Endeavor for all their support. And I'll remind
you that Office Hours is a production of Blue Duck
Media and distributed by iHeartRadio. I'll see you next week. Everybody,
stay on your gard where
Host
Mike Steib
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