Author, professor, and organizational psychologist David Burkus shares insights from his book “Under New Management”, including why salary transparency shouldn’t be scary, tips on setting email limits, being in the business of elimination, and why great leaders don’t innovate the product, they innovate the factory.
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Host (00:25):
David Burkus is the author of Under New Management. His
work is basically talking aboutwhy so many of the common day
business management principleshave become outdated and they
just, they just don't workanymore. And anyways, David,
welcome to the show.
David Burkus (00:41):
Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Host (00:43):
So the whole under new management thing, like, where
did that come from? Like, why?Why? Why this book? Why now?
David Burkus (00:51):
Yeah, I was an undergrad English major, of all
things. But in college, I fellin love with social science and
thought, like, okay, there's gotto be a way to put these
together, popularized insightsfrom social science with good
storytelling. And one of thephenomenon I found actually was
was in the process of promotingmy first book, The miss of
creativity. You can't, you can'twrite a book about creativity
innovation, and not be talkingabout your Googles and your
(01:12):
three M's and all of thesecompanies that have, you know, a
little bit different workplacepractices, a little bit
different management practices.And those get a lot of questions
from people. Well, should we dothat? Should we do 20% time, or
should we give everyone freefood, or that kind of thing? And
this is where the idea for undernew management came from. Is
okay, let's tackle those. Let'sactually look at what are the
things that a lot of newercompanies and even older
(01:33):
companies that are trying to bemore creative or innovative,
what are the things that they'redoing that's different from
business as usual? And is therean explanation for why it works?
And so we started with probably20 or 25 different leadership
and management practices, andthen narrowed it down to Okay,
these are the ones that we cansee through the lens of social
science. Are actually a reallygood idea, and also maybe some
(01:56):
ways that you can be in thespirit of those ideas without
going full on Google and givingeverybody 20% time and free
food, right? You might actuallybe able to kind of tap into it
without going the full way.
Host (02:06):
Can you explain? I don't think everybody knows what 20%
time is.
David Burkus (02:10):
Oh I'm so sorry. So 20 Google, it actually
started with 3m But Google kindof made it more famous. So it
actually came from the seniorleadership of 3m realizing that
they were terrible at judgingwhat ideas were going to be
amazing products and which onesweren't. And so one of the
things they said is, if you'rean engineer with us and you're
doing research and development,you can have 15% of your
calendar every week to work onwhatever project you want. If
(02:32):
you think it's got potential,and we don't agree, you still
have this protected space towork on those ideas. And Google
picked it up when they startedworking, they actually increased
it to 20% so now you could haveessentially one day out of every
week. Of course, some of theover tax engineers joke that it
actually should be called 120%time, because it's sort of like
(02:52):
you can do it, but you got toget everything else done. But
the idea comes from exactlythis, this realization that in
senior leadership and inmanagement, we might not have
all of the information anymore,and it may be a better idea to
give them some room to makedecisions themselves, because
they might have a better idea ofwhat's going to work than we can
tell from our Excel spreadsheetin the conference room, right?
Host (03:13):
So give me the goods. Like, what is the thing that
like blew your mind that yousaid, Oh my gosh, I can't
believe people are doing thisand it actually works. Or what
are some of those practices thatare really radical?
David Burkus (03:22):
So I mean, I'll tell you two. I'll tell you the
easier one that everybody says,like, I can't believe that that
works well. And then I'll tellyou the hill that I didn't think
I was gonna die on, but I did,which is a big setup. I hope I
can deliver on that. But one ofthe ones that immediately
everybody started asking meabout is, what about these
companies that have unlimitedvacation, right? What about
these companies that just say,ah, you know, you can take off
whenever you want. You know yourwork, etc. It seems like sort of
(03:44):
a management nightmare, becauseyou never know who's going to be
at work when. But when we livein an age where most people are
doing incredibly creative workor problem solving work, even
you know everybody butaccounting these days in a
company is charged with doingcreative work or solving
problems or something like that.We still don't really like
creative accounting, so that's,you know, that's okay, but so
(04:05):
when we're doing that, what weneed is a little bit more
autonomy, a little bit morecontrol. And what was happening
at Netflix is probably the onethat popularized us the most,
because there was a feeling thatyou're not controlling what when
I'm working and where I'mworking when I'm on days, on why
do you need to know and sort ofnickel and dime and keep track
of all of my days off. And thethe senior leaders of Netflix
(04:25):
said, you know, you're, you'reexactly right, and that's they,
they picked up on the fact thatit was communicating sort of a
distrust for employees that theywouldn't act in Netflix's best
interest. So they said, sowe'll, we'll just get rid of it.
And you know how much time youneed this year. You know your
family life and your home life.You know your objectives for the
company get those done. Andthey're very, very true on that.
But what I found mostinteresting is you dig into it,
(04:46):
and one of the biggestcomplaints is everyone's either
going to take too much vacationor they're going to take not
enough. And when you look at thedata on how many vacation days
companies that switch to thistake, it's actually about the
same as before. The differenceis that the trust. Piece. The
difference is the company sayingto its employees, we trust you
to act in our best interest withall this stuff, and we're going
to put the ball in your court.And the power of sort of
(05:08):
autonomy and responsibility thatbrings makes a much more
motivating workplace. So it'snot actually about the vacation
days at all. It's about trust.
Host (05:16):
Amen, that one's really cool. Tell me about the other
one.
David Burkus (05:18):
The hill I didn't expect to die on? Salary
transparency, letting everybodyknow in the company what
everybody else gets paid. I getit. I get people's fears at it.
Because when I first startedlooking at this, I was sort of
like, yeah, that makes meuncomfortable. I don't want
people to know what I get paid,etc. But the truth is, I believe
I'm an optimist. I believe thatmost companies are trying to
find a way to pay all theirpeople fairly and equitably and
(05:40):
in relation to how much effortand value they're creating for
the company. And if that's thecase, then there's not much to
lose by sharing it. The fear is,if we share it, everybody's
gonna get all crazy. Well, thetruth is, everybody's crazy when
it's secret, because we'reterrible judges of what each
other get paid, right? We make,we make all these assumptions
based on what car they drive.Well, they might, you know, have
a really well earning spouse,and they don't make a lot of
(06:02):
money, right? So we can't judgeit by that or clothes or things
like that. We're we're terriblewhen it's a secret at judging
what people get paid, and as aresult, we're more miserable,
because we're more likely toassume that somebody is overpaid
or somebody else is underpaid,etc. But when you can point to
the system and go, here's how wedetermine everybody's salary,
and you know, it's fair, and nowyou can trust us, there's
actually a huge increase thathappens in morale, because
(06:24):
people believe that if they workhard and provide value, they'll
get some of that value inreturn. Now they're directed at
the formula or the algorithmwe're using to determine pay,
and not Larry, who's been here10 years, but doesn't work as
hard as I think I work, youknow, on day one, etc. So now we
can have a much more realisticconversation about, okay, well,
we weighted experience at, let'ssay, 30% of the formula, and you
(06:44):
think it should be weightedless, because you think if you
bring them more, that's this isa conversation we can have now
in a secrecy condition. You haveno recourse. You might know that
Larry gets paid more becausehe's been around 10 years, but
you can't bring that up withanybody because you're not
supposed to talk about it. So itmight not make everybody happy,
but at least we can have an openconversation, and we can make
refinements to the system whenthere's a kind of a consensus
(07:04):
that you're right. Weoverweighted something or
underweighted something in ourformula.
Host (07:07):
Do you put executives in the same category?
David Burkus (07:11):
So some of it is public. What's interesting is,
with stock options and thingslike that, it actually is a
little more murky than it thanit should be. And I think you
know, the best way to answerthat question is to say that I
don't actually advocate thatcompanies go from zero to full
transparency right away. There'ssort of a sliding scale, right?
And so you might be in in totalsecrecy. And if you can take the
step to going, well, here's howwe determine how everyone gets
(07:31):
paid, and we'll share theformula. And I mean, if you
wanted to plug in the numbersand do the math, you could, but
at least you know there is auniform system. That's a pretty
big improvement. And that'sthat's a lot to ask of people to
adjust to in the course of ayear or two years. So just take
that first step, and then if youfeel like you need more, take
the next step very I don't thinka lot of companies can manage
the transition to sort of fullon transparency, especially for
(07:53):
that reason, but I thinkeverybody can take a step
towards it and benefit from it.The culture of sales is actually
a really good example. There'ssort of that friendly rivalry
that goes on. You know that soand so got paid more than you,
but you also know that you canpoint to what they're getting
commissioned on and that theyproduced more, and it creates
kind of a friendly rivalry thatI think is good. I think when
it's not a friendly a rivalry isdefinitely a bad thing. But
(08:13):
sales is a great example of itsort of working pretty well.
Host (08:17):
Are you finding that most companies are resistant to this
stuff?
David Burkus (08:20):
So there's 13 practices in the book, lucky
number 13, which really cameabout from the process of
elimination. That was definitelynot a goal. And I've yet to find
a company that does all 13, someall out of New York City. Dane
Atkinson is their founder andCEO. They do I think eight of
the 13 practices. And reallythat's because there's no I
(08:42):
would love to be that consultantthat's got kind of the four box
model and the slide deck, and Ican travel around and be like,
this is perfect. Every companyis a little bit different,
right? So you've got to kind oftailor it. So, you know, I don't
say everybody should do all ofthese. The goal is to kind of
show, here's why it works in avery public, sort of famous
example, like in Netflix. Here'sthe science behind it. Here's a
couple other smaller examples ofcompanies that are in line with
(09:04):
it. And if you feel like it'sright for you, this would give
you a place to sort of try it.The one thing I advocate almost
every company begin to adopt isset limits on their email right
there. We're in this 24/7 world,and I think it's killing us, so
I think we need to either setlimits on evenings and weekends,
giving those back to people, oreven setting hours in the day,
(09:25):
like from 10 to two, we don't dointernal email because that's
when our people are focusing inon the work. I think that's one
that almost any company shouldshould really think about, is,
are we overloading our peoplewith too much communication
because of email? So a lot of ithas to do with settings, right?
And one of the things I actuallylove about Slack is the very
first time I ever used it, abouttwo or three days in, it
(09:45):
actually said you're getting toomany notifications. So we're
gonna scale it down a bit, whichI love, right? Because it's,
it's the anti email, right? Andthat's really, that's really the
issue is, what are we gonna doto our settings? We switch it
over to slack. That's great. Wecould keep it as email the
different. Says we've got to, asa company and as a culture, kind
of say, what are ourcommunication times, and what
are the times where we have offto focus on the, you know, as
(10:07):
Cal Newport would say deep work,or what are the times we have to
focus on friends and family, etcetera? So that's the biggest
thing is, is making it a choicewhen people go to the well to
drink and to communicate, butalso setting limits on when, as
a whole company, we decide theseare off limits times.
Host (10:23):
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's pretty out there. So you
mentioned there is a line, it'sabout the reinvention.
David Burkus (10:28):
Yeah, great, great leaders don't innovate the
product, they innovate thefactory.
Host (10:32):
Yes. So say the line again and then tell us what it means.
David Burkus (10:36):
So great, great leaders don't innovate the
product, they innovate thefactory. And yes, obviously
great companies are built oninnovative products and
services, but those are theresult of great leaders looking
at, what are the ways that we'restructuring our company, what
are the ways that we're leadingand managing our people? Our
people are going to create theinnovations. And so what we as
leaders need to do is innovatethe way that we're letting them
(10:58):
work. You know, I opened thebook, I opened under management,
with the story of FrederickTaylor, who sort of invented the
first management Bible, if youwill. And really was that
epitome of, kind of the micromanaging manager got a lot of
efficiency done, but kind ofdrained the soul of it. And ever
since then, the great leadershave been finding ways to
reinvent sort of his work fortheir specific company. And as
(11:18):
we get to doing more creativityand innovative work. We need
more and more people looking atwhat works and what doesn't work
for management literature, andbeing willing to innovate their
practices so that their peoplecan be innovative. Okay, how do
I innovate the factory? How do Iknow which one to tackle? I
think leaders should beespecially for large
organizations and bigbureaucratic organizations, but
(11:38):
also entrepreneurs who are kindof using their old companies as
a model for how to run their newcompany. Should be in the
business of elimination. Inother words, like the number one
piece of advice I give toleaders and the managers is
figure out what are the thingsthat are blocking your people
from doing best, their bestwork. It might be the vacation
policy, it might be email, itmight actually be the secrecy
culture, whatever it is, andeliminate that. And so that's
(12:01):
one of the reasons I say that itdoesn't, not all of it works for
everybody, because somecompanies didn't need to
eliminate it in the first place.But that's really what I think
leaders should be about, iswhat's keeping my people from
doing their best work, and thenhow do I eliminate it or negate
it?
Host (12:13):
I think one thing that every leader who's listening has
to ask themselves is, what isleadership going to look like in
the future? What do you thinkare some of the next big
changes, and what would you tellleaders in terms of what they
can be doing to prepare forwhat's coming? Because things
are changing so so freakingfast?
David Burkus (12:31):
So there's a couple things to unpack there.
So to kind of answer the secondpart of the question. First one
of the things I wish I wrote, Iwish great leaders don't
innovate the product theyinnovate the factory was my
idea, but it stains so stains.But one of the things I wish I'd
thought of before the book waspublished is someone said it to
me this way, that the future isalready here. It's just not
evenly dispersed. And that'sreally what a lot of these
(12:53):
practices are. They are glimpsesat this is where the future of
work is headed, because it'sbeing demonstrated by those
companies. And so take a look atthem, and you might want to sort
of turn your nose and go, thatwould never work here. Well, it
might, but no one may end upworking here if we don't make
some of these changes. The otherquestion really speaks to clay
Christensen's work on theinnovators dilemma, the idea
(13:14):
that companies like Netflix getbig because they noticed a small
part of the market that biggercompany said, and it's not worth
it, right? Netflix actuallyattempted to get bought by
blockbuster, right? Attempted tosay, like, We'll handle all of
your what will be your onlinedemand for movies and
blockbusters like, that's notworth it, right? Now, we're
making way too much money inthese retail stores, so it
(13:35):
wasn't worth them investing in.But to a small company, that
little niche of the market isenough to sustain themselves,
and then they use that niche toscale up and to and to move up
market, as Clay Christensenwould say. And so that's the
biggest piece of advice forleaders in big established
companies, is don't neglectthose small things that might
might look like they have ajustifiable ROI if you can kind
(13:57):
of break even on it, but stillestablish a foothold, you'll
have a better sense of where themarket is going, and you'll be
able to sort of adjust with it.It's the companies that do that
that's that have sort of Netflixinsurance, right? Because they
already do have a foothold inthat area. So when the market
shifts that way, they can makethe pivot way easier than a
company like Blockbuster that'sjust been ignoring it for
decades.
Host (14:16):
So if there's one thing people could take action on,
right? Action catalyst podcastis like, what is something that
we can do now to prepareourselves or to better ourselves
as leaders? If there was, like,an idea or a practice or
principle that we could we coulddo today to prepare for, you
know, what may be a completelynew set of management
(14:37):
philosophies and beliefs comingout in the next few years, what
would that be?
David Burkus (14:41):
So I'll give you a small scale one. I mean, the big
one is great leaders don'tinnovate the product, they
innovate the factory. But thesmall scale one that really sort
of changed my life as we weretalking about email and not
being on all the time. And oneof the things that I did was I
developed a two device strategy,so I have an iPhone and I have
an iPad Mini, and when I gethome from work. I switched them
out. And the difference is, theiPad Mini is just entertainment
(15:04):
and friends social media. It'snothing work related. And it's
been amazing. Just that ability,that physical routine of
switching them out and tellingmyself I'm officially off for
the next few hours and it's timewith friends and family has been
huge for resting and reenergizing, so that the next
day, when I wake up and I takemy work one I'm far more focused
and more able to get everythingdone which is, which is awesome.
(15:26):
Been a huge decrease in stress,increase in productivity. And
it's weird because it's sort ofthe anti tech solution. But I
think the future of work isreally having to figure that
out. How do we not be always onso we can do that deep work that
creates value?
Host (15:38):
Very cool. DavidBurkus.com, and David, we
appreciate you pushing theenvelope here.
David Burkus (15:44):
Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for having me.
David Burkus is the author of Under New Management. His
work is basically talking aboutwhy so many of the common day
business management principleshave become outdated and they
just, they just don't workanymore. And anyways, David,
welcome to the show.
David Burkus (00:41):
Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Host (00:43):
So the whole under new management thing, like, where
did that come from? Like, why?Why? Why this book? Why now?
David Burkus (00:51):
Yeah, I was an undergrad English major, of all
things. But in college, I fellin love with social science and
thought, like, okay, there's gotto be a way to put these
together, popularized insightsfrom social science with good
storytelling. And one of thephenomenon I found actually was
was in the process of promotingmy first book, The miss of
creativity. You can't, you can'twrite a book about creativity
innovation, and not be talkingabout your Googles and your
(01:12):
three M's and all of thesecompanies that have, you know, a
little bit different workplacepractices, a little bit
different management practices.And those get a lot of questions
from people. Well, should we dothat? Should we do 20% time, or
should we give everyone freefood, or that kind of thing? And
this is where the idea for undernew management came from. Is
okay, let's tackle those. Let'sactually look at what are the
things that a lot of newercompanies and even older
(01:33):
companies that are trying to bemore creative or innovative,
what are the things that they'redoing that's different from
business as usual? And is therean explanation for why it works?
And so we started with probably20 or 25 different leadership
and management practices, andthen narrowed it down to Okay,
these are the ones that we cansee through the lens of social
science. Are actually a reallygood idea, and also maybe some
(01:56):
ways that you can be in thespirit of those ideas without
going full on Google and givingeverybody 20% time and free
food, right? You might actuallybe able to kind of tap into it
without going the full way.
Host (02:06):
Can you explain? I don't think everybody knows what 20%
time is.
David Burkus (02:10):
Oh I'm so sorry. So 20 Google, it actually
started with 3m But Google kindof made it more famous. So it
actually came from the seniorleadership of 3m realizing that
they were terrible at judgingwhat ideas were going to be
amazing products and which onesweren't. And so one of the
things they said is, if you'rean engineer with us and you're
doing research and development,you can have 15% of your
calendar every week to work onwhatever project you want. If
(02:32):
you think it's got potential,and we don't agree, you still
have this protected space towork on those ideas. And Google
picked it up when they startedworking, they actually increased
it to 20% so now you could haveessentially one day out of every
week. Of course, some of theover tax engineers joke that it
actually should be called 120%time, because it's sort of like
(02:52):
you can do it, but you got toget everything else done. But
the idea comes from exactlythis, this realization that in
senior leadership and inmanagement, we might not have
all of the information anymore,and it may be a better idea to
give them some room to makedecisions themselves, because
they might have a better idea ofwhat's going to work than we can
tell from our Excel spreadsheetin the conference room, right?
Host (03:13):
So give me the goods. Like, what is the thing that
like blew your mind that yousaid, Oh my gosh, I can't
believe people are doing thisand it actually works. Or what
are some of those practices thatare really radical?
David Burkus (03:22):
So I mean, I'll tell you two. I'll tell you the
easier one that everybody says,like, I can't believe that that
works well. And then I'll tellyou the hill that I didn't think
I was gonna die on, but I did,which is a big setup. I hope I
can deliver on that. But one ofthe ones that immediately
everybody started asking meabout is, what about these
companies that have unlimitedvacation, right? What about
these companies that just say,ah, you know, you can take off
whenever you want. You know yourwork, etc. It seems like sort of
(03:44):
a management nightmare, becauseyou never know who's going to be
at work when. But when we livein an age where most people are
doing incredibly creative workor problem solving work, even
you know everybody butaccounting these days in a
company is charged with doingcreative work or solving
problems or something like that.We still don't really like
creative accounting, so that's,you know, that's okay, but so
(04:05):
when we're doing that, what weneed is a little bit more
autonomy, a little bit morecontrol. And what was happening
at Netflix is probably the onethat popularized us the most,
because there was a feeling thatyou're not controlling what when
I'm working and where I'mworking when I'm on days, on why
do you need to know and sort ofnickel and dime and keep track
of all of my days off. And thethe senior leaders of Netflix
(04:25):
said, you know, you're, you'reexactly right, and that's they,
they picked up on the fact thatit was communicating sort of a
distrust for employees that theywouldn't act in Netflix's best
interest. So they said, sowe'll, we'll just get rid of it.
And you know how much time youneed this year. You know your
family life and your home life.You know your objectives for the
company get those done. Andthey're very, very true on that.
But what I found mostinteresting is you dig into it,
(04:46):
and one of the biggestcomplaints is everyone's either
going to take too much vacationor they're going to take not
enough. And when you look at thedata on how many vacation days
companies that switch to thistake, it's actually about the
same as before. The differenceis that the trust. Piece. The
difference is the company sayingto its employees, we trust you
to act in our best interest withall this stuff, and we're going
to put the ball in your court.And the power of sort of
(05:08):
autonomy and responsibility thatbrings makes a much more
motivating workplace. So it'snot actually about the vacation
days at all. It's about trust.
Host (05:16):
Amen, that one's really cool. Tell me about the other
one.
David Burkus (05:18):
The hill I didn't expect to die on? Salary
transparency, letting everybodyknow in the company what
everybody else gets paid. I getit. I get people's fears at it.
Because when I first startedlooking at this, I was sort of
like, yeah, that makes meuncomfortable. I don't want
people to know what I get paid,etc. But the truth is, I believe
I'm an optimist. I believe thatmost companies are trying to
find a way to pay all theirpeople fairly and equitably and
(05:40):
in relation to how much effortand value they're creating for
the company. And if that's thecase, then there's not much to
lose by sharing it. The fear is,if we share it, everybody's
gonna get all crazy. Well, thetruth is, everybody's crazy when
it's secret, because we'reterrible judges of what each
other get paid, right? We make,we make all these assumptions
based on what car they drive.Well, they might, you know, have
a really well earning spouse,and they don't make a lot of
(06:02):
money, right? So we can't judgeit by that or clothes or things
like that. We're we're terriblewhen it's a secret at judging
what people get paid, and as aresult, we're more miserable,
because we're more likely toassume that somebody is overpaid
or somebody else is underpaid,etc. But when you can point to
the system and go, here's how wedetermine everybody's salary,
and you know, it's fair, and nowyou can trust us, there's
actually a huge increase thathappens in morale, because
(06:24):
people believe that if they workhard and provide value, they'll
get some of that value inreturn. Now they're directed at
the formula or the algorithmwe're using to determine pay,
and not Larry, who's been here10 years, but doesn't work as
hard as I think I work, youknow, on day one, etc. So now we
can have a much more realisticconversation about, okay, well,
we weighted experience at, let'ssay, 30% of the formula, and you
(06:44):
think it should be weightedless, because you think if you
bring them more, that's this isa conversation we can have now
in a secrecy condition. You haveno recourse. You might know that
Larry gets paid more becausehe's been around 10 years, but
you can't bring that up withanybody because you're not
supposed to talk about it. So itmight not make everybody happy,
but at least we can have an openconversation, and we can make
refinements to the system whenthere's a kind of a consensus
(07:04):
that you're right. Weoverweighted something or
underweighted something in ourformula.
Host (07:07):
Do you put executives in the same category?
David Burkus (07:11):
So some of it is public. What's interesting is,
with stock options and thingslike that, it actually is a
little more murky than it thanit should be. And I think you
know, the best way to answerthat question is to say that I
don't actually advocate thatcompanies go from zero to full
transparency right away. There'ssort of a sliding scale, right?
And so you might be in in totalsecrecy. And if you can take the
step to going, well, here's howwe determine how everyone gets
(07:31):
paid, and we'll share theformula. And I mean, if you
wanted to plug in the numbersand do the math, you could, but
at least you know there is auniform system. That's a pretty
big improvement. And that'sthat's a lot to ask of people to
adjust to in the course of ayear or two years. So just take
that first step, and then if youfeel like you need more, take
the next step very I don't thinka lot of companies can manage
the transition to sort of fullon transparency, especially for
(07:53):
that reason, but I thinkeverybody can take a step
towards it and benefit from it.The culture of sales is actually
a really good example. There'ssort of that friendly rivalry
that goes on. You know that soand so got paid more than you,
but you also know that you canpoint to what they're getting
commissioned on and that theyproduced more, and it creates
kind of a friendly rivalry thatI think is good. I think when
it's not a friendly a rivalry isdefinitely a bad thing. But
(08:13):
sales is a great example of itsort of working pretty well.
Host (08:17):
Are you finding that most companies are resistant to this
stuff?
David Burkus (08:20):
So there's 13 practices in the book, lucky
number 13, which really cameabout from the process of
elimination. That was definitelynot a goal. And I've yet to find
a company that does all 13, someall out of New York City. Dane
Atkinson is their founder andCEO. They do I think eight of
the 13 practices. And reallythat's because there's no I
(08:42):
would love to be that consultantthat's got kind of the four box
model and the slide deck, and Ican travel around and be like,
this is perfect. Every companyis a little bit different,
right? So you've got to kind oftailor it. So, you know, I don't
say everybody should do all ofthese. The goal is to kind of
show, here's why it works in avery public, sort of famous
example, like in Netflix. Here'sthe science behind it. Here's a
couple other smaller examples ofcompanies that are in line with
(09:04):
it. And if you feel like it'sright for you, this would give
you a place to sort of try it.The one thing I advocate almost
every company begin to adopt isset limits on their email right
there. We're in this 24/7 world,and I think it's killing us, so
I think we need to either setlimits on evenings and weekends,
giving those back to people, oreven setting hours in the day,
(09:25):
like from 10 to two, we don't dointernal email because that's
when our people are focusing inon the work. I think that's one
that almost any company shouldshould really think about, is,
are we overloading our peoplewith too much communication
because of email? So a lot of ithas to do with settings, right?
And one of the things I actuallylove about Slack is the very
first time I ever used it, abouttwo or three days in, it
(09:45):
actually said you're getting toomany notifications. So we're
gonna scale it down a bit, whichI love, right? Because it's,
it's the anti email, right? Andthat's really, that's really the
issue is, what are we gonna doto our settings? We switch it
over to slack. That's great. Wecould keep it as email the
different. Says we've got to, asa company and as a culture, kind
of say, what are ourcommunication times, and what
are the times where we have offto focus on the, you know, as
(10:07):
Cal Newport would say deep work,or what are the times we have to
focus on friends and family, etcetera? So that's the biggest
thing is, is making it a choicewhen people go to the well to
drink and to communicate, butalso setting limits on when, as
a whole company, we decide theseare off limits times.
Host (10:23):
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's pretty out there. So you
mentioned there is a line, it'sabout the reinvention.
David Burkus (10:28):
Yeah, great, great leaders don't innovate the
product, they innovate thefactory.
Host (10:32):
Yes. So say the line again and then tell us what it means.
David Burkus (10:36):
So great, great leaders don't innovate the
product, they innovate thefactory. And yes, obviously
great companies are built oninnovative products and
services, but those are theresult of great leaders looking
at, what are the ways that we'restructuring our company, what
are the ways that we're leadingand managing our people? Our
people are going to create theinnovations. And so what we as
leaders need to do is innovatethe way that we're letting them
(10:58):
work. You know, I opened thebook, I opened under management,
with the story of FrederickTaylor, who sort of invented the
first management Bible, if youwill. And really was that
epitome of, kind of the micromanaging manager got a lot of
efficiency done, but kind ofdrained the soul of it. And ever
since then, the great leadershave been finding ways to
reinvent sort of his work fortheir specific company. And as
(11:18):
we get to doing more creativityand innovative work. We need
more and more people looking atwhat works and what doesn't work
for management literature, andbeing willing to innovate their
practices so that their peoplecan be innovative. Okay, how do
I innovate the factory? How do Iknow which one to tackle? I
think leaders should beespecially for large
organizations and bigbureaucratic organizations, but
(11:38):
also entrepreneurs who are kindof using their old companies as
a model for how to run their newcompany. Should be in the
business of elimination. Inother words, like the number one
piece of advice I give toleaders and the managers is
figure out what are the thingsthat are blocking your people
from doing best, their bestwork. It might be the vacation
policy, it might be email, itmight actually be the secrecy
culture, whatever it is, andeliminate that. And so that's
(12:01):
one of the reasons I say that itdoesn't, not all of it works for
everybody, because somecompanies didn't need to
eliminate it in the first place.But that's really what I think
leaders should be about, iswhat's keeping my people from
doing their best work, and thenhow do I eliminate it or negate
it?
Host (12:13):
I think one thing that every leader who's listening has
to ask themselves is, what isleadership going to look like in
the future? What do you thinkare some of the next big
changes, and what would you tellleaders in terms of what they
can be doing to prepare forwhat's coming? Because things
are changing so so freakingfast?
David Burkus (12:31):
So there's a couple things to unpack there.
So to kind of answer the secondpart of the question. First one
of the things I wish I wrote, Iwish great leaders don't
innovate the product theyinnovate the factory was my
idea, but it stains so stains.But one of the things I wish I'd
thought of before the book waspublished is someone said it to
me this way, that the future isalready here. It's just not
evenly dispersed. And that'sreally what a lot of these
(12:53):
practices are. They are glimpsesat this is where the future of
work is headed, because it'sbeing demonstrated by those
companies. And so take a look atthem, and you might want to sort
of turn your nose and go, thatwould never work here. Well, it
might, but no one may end upworking here if we don't make
some of these changes. The otherquestion really speaks to clay
Christensen's work on theinnovators dilemma, the idea
(13:14):
that companies like Netflix getbig because they noticed a small
part of the market that biggercompany said, and it's not worth
it, right? Netflix actuallyattempted to get bought by
blockbuster, right? Attempted tosay, like, We'll handle all of
your what will be your onlinedemand for movies and
blockbusters like, that's notworth it, right? Now, we're
making way too much money inthese retail stores, so it
(13:35):
wasn't worth them investing in.But to a small company, that
little niche of the market isenough to sustain themselves,
and then they use that niche toscale up and to and to move up
market, as Clay Christensenwould say. And so that's the
biggest piece of advice forleaders in big established
companies, is don't neglectthose small things that might
might look like they have ajustifiable ROI if you can kind
(13:57):
of break even on it, but stillestablish a foothold, you'll
have a better sense of where themarket is going, and you'll be
able to sort of adjust with it.It's the companies that do that
that's that have sort of Netflixinsurance, right? Because they
already do have a foothold inthat area. So when the market
shifts that way, they can makethe pivot way easier than a
company like Blockbuster that'sjust been ignoring it for
decades.
Host (14:16):
So if there's one thing people could take action on,
right? Action catalyst podcastis like, what is something that
we can do now to prepareourselves or to better ourselves
as leaders? If there was, like,an idea or a practice or
principle that we could we coulddo today to prepare for, you
know, what may be a completelynew set of management
(14:37):
philosophies and beliefs comingout in the next few years, what
would that be?
David Burkus (14:41):
So I'll give you a small scale one. I mean, the big
one is great leaders don'tinnovate the product, they
innovate the factory. But thesmall scale one that really sort
of changed my life as we weretalking about email and not
being on all the time. And oneof the things that I did was I
developed a two device strategy,so I have an iPhone and I have
an iPad Mini, and when I gethome from work. I switched them
out. And the difference is, theiPad Mini is just entertainment
(15:04):
and friends social media. It'snothing work related. And it's
been amazing. Just that ability,that physical routine of
switching them out and tellingmyself I'm officially off for
the next few hours and it's timewith friends and family has been
huge for resting and reenergizing, so that the next
day, when I wake up and I takemy work one I'm far more focused
and more able to get everythingdone which is, which is awesome.
(15:26):
Been a huge decrease in stress,increase in productivity. And
it's weird because it's sort ofthe anti tech solution. But I
think the future of work isreally having to figure that
out. How do we not be always onso we can do that deep work that
creates value?
Host (15:38):
Very cool. DavidBurkus.com, and David, we
appreciate you pushing theenvelope here.
David Burkus (15:44):
Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for having me.
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